Sunday School Class • 9:30 am
The Old Testament practice of animal sacrifice was the key means to access, worship, and interact with God, whose name was יְהוָֹה Yhwh (pronounced ‘Yahweh’) or Jehovah and is usually translated into English as ‘the LORD.’ A sacrifice was an offering given to God through a ritual designed to acknowledge belief/faith in God and worship Him with the reverence and devotion that He deserves. Animal sacrifices were commanded by God so that the worshipper could receive forgiveness for their sin; when done in faith, the sacrifice provided a temporary covering of sins. The animal served as a substitute; the animal died in place of the sinner, but because the blood of a mere animal cannot completely pay for a lifetime of sin, the sacrifices needed to be offered over and over.
It is impossible to comprehend the Old Testament without understanding the crucial role of sacrifices. Moreover, attempting to grasp the extraordinary significance and meaning of the New Testament is almost futile without an understanding of the Old Testament sacrifices. Animal sacrifices have ceased because Jesus Christ was the ultimate sacrificial substitute once for all time. Animal sacrifices foreshadowed Christ’s sacrifice on our behalf. The only basis on which a sacrifice could provide complete forgiveness of sins was through the sinless blood of Jesus who sacrificed Himself for our sins, providing the forgiveness that animal sacrifices could only illustrate and foreshadow.