Did Jesus Disregard the Sacrificial System?
Chapters
0:03:27 Christ Has in Fact Shed His Own Blood for Sinners
6:31 The Forgiveness That God Pronounced on Faithful Worshipers in the Old Testament Was Not Ultimately Owing to Animal Sacrifices
8:53 Does the Sacrifice of Christ Extend Forward as an Eternal Redemption
9:21 God Put Christ Forward as a Propitiation by His Blood
00:00:00.000 | Well, if you've read and studied the Gospels, you notice that in the life of Christ, there's
00:00:08.160 | not a lot of detail about temple practices, in particular, animal sacrifices.
00:00:14.800 | We know that Jesus, as a small child, was presented at the temple with an offering of
00:00:18.940 | turtle doves or pigeons.
00:00:20.840 | That's told to us in Luke 2 24.
00:00:23.240 | This was the offering of a poor mother in lieu of a lamb sacrifice, as permitted in
00:00:28.280 | Leviticus 12 8.
00:00:30.080 | But this is a pretty rare connection between Christ's life and the temple sacrifices.
00:00:34.320 | In fact, later in his ministry, Jesus will forgive sin all by himself, bypassing the
00:00:39.540 | whole Jewish sacrificial system altogether.
00:00:43.380 | And that leads to a question from Karen, a listener to the podcast who wants to know
00:00:46.400 | why.
00:00:47.400 | Here's her email.
00:00:48.400 | Hello, Pastor John.
00:00:49.400 | My name is Karen and I live in Germany.
00:00:50.400 | Thank you for this podcast.
00:00:52.520 | My question concerns the act of forgiveness mentioned in the Bible.
00:00:56.000 | I have learned that without blood, there is no forgiveness.
00:00:59.240 | Hence, the sacrifices in the Old Testament and the dying of Jesus in the New Testament.
00:01:03.840 | I understand that.
00:01:05.040 | But what I don't understand is the period between the two.
00:01:08.800 | When Jesus walked on earth, he often addressed people simply by telling them that their sins
00:01:12.320 | were forgiven.
00:01:13.320 | He didn't prescribe an offering in the temple and he did not shed his own blood yet.
00:01:18.760 | So how was that possible under the assumption that blood was still needed for forgiveness?
00:01:24.880 | This may sound like a question with limited application or a question of interest to only
00:01:31.680 | a tiny number of Christians, but I want to show that it touches on the issue that is
00:01:39.240 | at the heart of Christianity.
00:01:42.400 | And every Christian needs to be aware of it for our own stability and courage and joy.
00:01:52.320 | So hang on.
00:01:54.200 | The question starts with a biblical assumption from Hebrews 9.22, which says, "Without the
00:02:01.320 | shedding of blood, there is no forgiveness of sins."
00:02:05.920 | That's what it says.
00:02:06.920 | So God instituted in the Old Testament the way, the plan, that there would be animal
00:02:15.700 | sacrifices and that sinners who look to God and by faith identify with this killed animal
00:02:25.480 | would be forgiven for their sins.
00:02:28.320 | The death of the animal would be counted, so to speak, as the punishment for their sin.
00:02:35.960 | For example, in Leviticus 4.15, "If the people as a whole have sinned," it says, "the elders
00:02:43.260 | of the congregation shall lay their hands on the head of the bull before the Lord, and
00:02:49.860 | the bull shall be killed before the Lord."
00:02:53.820 | In verse 20, "The priest shall make atonement for them, and they shall be forgiven."
00:03:01.960 | So that's where Karen's question starts.
00:03:05.620 | God regards sin as so evil and so destructive that in order to set things right, there must
00:03:15.180 | be a death, a bloodshedding, in order for sins not to be counted, that is, to be forgiven.
00:03:24.660 | Then the second premise of Karen's question is that Christ has in fact shed his own blood
00:03:31.960 | for sinners so that if we are united to Christ by faith, our sins are forgiven for his sake.
00:03:41.180 | His bloodshedding counts for ours, for us.
00:03:46.300 | He became a curse for us, Galatians 3.13.
00:03:49.500 | He bore our condemnation in his flesh, Romans 8.3.
00:03:54.460 | This is the center and the glory of the gospel.
00:03:59.260 | So Paul says in Romans 5.9, "We have now been justified by his blood," or Ephesians 1.7,
00:04:07.420 | "In him we have redemption through his blood," or Ephesians 2.13, "You who were far off have
00:04:16.580 | been brought near by the blood of Christ."
00:04:20.300 | So Karen's question is, when Jesus walked the earth, he often addressed people by telling
00:04:27.900 | them that their sins are forgiven, but she says, there was no offering in the temple
00:04:35.380 | and Jesus had not yet died.
00:04:38.100 | How is that possible under the assumption that blood is needed in order for the forgiveness
00:04:43.260 | of God from all the sins that we do, that take place?
00:04:49.300 | Now let's clarify the question, first of all.
00:04:52.420 | Whether or not there were sacrifices being offered in the temple, Jesus pronounced forgiveness
00:05:00.340 | on his own authority without any reference to those sacrifices.
00:05:05.540 | For example, in Mark 2.6 and 7, he said to the paralytic, "Son, your sins are forgiven."
00:05:14.780 | And the scribes say, "Why does this man speak like that?
00:05:19.900 | He's blaspheming.
00:05:21.620 | Who can forgive sins but God alone?"
00:05:24.180 | So Karen wonders about this relationship of forgiveness that Jesus pronounced to the God-appointed
00:05:34.020 | shedding of blood when Jesus hasn't yet shed his blood and he isn't pointing people to
00:05:42.380 | the bloodshedding of the animals.
00:05:45.260 | Here's one of the keys that unlocks this puzzle for Karen.
00:05:50.940 | In Hebrews 10.4 and 11, the writer says, "It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats
00:05:59.900 | to take away sins."
00:06:02.140 | Verse 11, "Every priest standing daily at his service offering repeatedly the same sacrifices,
00:06:10.860 | which can never take away sins."
00:06:15.820 | So now we get the startling revelation that all those animal sacrifices actually in themselves
00:06:23.220 | accomplished nothing.
00:06:24.860 | Oh, like we're not between two really effective seasons here, Old Testament and New Testament.
00:06:32.140 | The forgiveness that God pronounced on faithful worshipers in the Old Testament was not ultimately
00:06:40.460 | owing to animal sacrifices.
00:06:43.300 | The true saints in the Old Testament, they grasped this.
00:06:47.500 | They did at some level.
00:06:49.100 | For example, David said in Psalm 51, "You will not delight in sacrifice or I would give
00:06:55.900 | it.
00:06:56.900 | You will not be pleased with a burnt offering.
00:06:59.340 | The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit, a broken and contrite heart.
00:07:03.700 | Oh God, you will not despise."
00:07:05.820 | And God said in Hosea 6.6, "I desire steadfast love, not sacrifice."
00:07:13.120 | The knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
00:07:16.300 | And Jesus quoted that verse, Hosea 6.6, twice to show how badly some of the Jewish leaders
00:07:22.460 | were misreading the Old Testament in Matthew 9.13 and 12.7.
00:07:27.780 | So now we can see that Karen's question about forgiveness during Jesus' lifetime really
00:07:36.940 | does apply to the entire history of Israel.
00:07:41.440 | The animal sacrifices were not achieving the forgiveness of sins.
00:07:46.860 | Not ever.
00:07:49.220 | So what were they doing?
00:07:52.100 | The answer is, they were pointing to Jesus, God's final, once-for-all, decisive sacrifice
00:07:59.020 | for sins.
00:08:00.020 | They were foreshadowing the bloodshedding of Christ.
00:08:03.820 | So it says in Hebrews 9.12, "Christ entered once for all into the holy places, not by
00:08:11.560 | means of the blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, thus securing an
00:08:18.120 | eternal redemption."
00:08:21.520 | So the reason all bloodshedding has ceased, animal bloodshedding has ceased, Christ's
00:08:27.360 | bloodshedding has ceased once for all, is that Christ's sacrifice was so complete, so
00:08:33.440 | glorious, so full, so decisive, that it secured an eternal redemption.
00:08:40.080 | If you have Christ, you have eternal forgiveness for all sins.
00:08:46.280 | Now I think Karen knows this, but what she may have overlooked, I don't know, but what
00:08:51.380 | she may have overlooked is that not only does the sacrifice of Christ extend forward as
00:08:58.580 | an eternal redemption, but also backward in history as a redemption for all those saints
00:09:06.560 | who put their faith in God for his forgiveness through the foreshadowing of the cross in
00:09:11.320 | the animal sacrifices.
00:09:12.320 | You know, the cross works effectively backward and forward, and that's what Paul makes clear
00:09:19.140 | in Romans 3, 25 and 26.
00:09:22.100 | He says, "God put Christ forward as a propitiation by his blood to be received by faith.
00:09:30.100 | This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over
00:09:38.620 | former sins."
00:09:41.980 | In other words, the reason God was righteous to pass over, that is, forgive, the sins of
00:09:50.300 | all Old Testament saints and the sins that Jesus forgave during his lifetime was that
00:09:59.020 | God was looking to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross.
00:10:04.500 | So just as our sins 2,000 years after Christ are covered by the blood of Christ, so Abraham's
00:10:14.820 | sins were covered by the cross of Christ 2,000 years before Christ existed.
00:10:23.180 | And so it was with all the saints in between.
00:10:27.660 | So Karen's question is not of limited significance.
00:10:33.640 | It takes us to the very center of the gospel, indeed the center of reality, and shows us
00:10:41.560 | that all forgiveness, all of it, and all the benefits that flow from forgiveness through
00:10:48.520 | all time, as far back as you can go, as far forward as you can go, all of it, all that
00:10:55.920 | forgiveness is based on those few hours when the Son of God suffered and bled and died
00:11:05.420 | for sinners.
00:11:06.800 | If we grasp how central, how profound, how glorious was that divine moment, that divine
00:11:16.080 | achievement, our lives will be more stable, more courageous, and more joyful.
00:11:24.680 | So good.
00:11:25.680 | Romans 3 25 is precious.
00:11:27.320 | It reminds me of an APJ we did like eight years ago now.
00:11:31.440 | I remember it, Pastor John, because you said if somebody put a gun to your head and made
00:11:35.220 | you choose the most important verse in the Bible, this is the verse you would choose.
00:11:40.720 | Romans 3 25.
00:11:43.240 | You can hear why in APJ 272 for that.
00:11:46.760 | You can find APJ 272 at desiringgod.org/askpastorjohn.
00:11:51.560 | And of course there you'll find 1,800 or so other episodes to browse, to search.
00:11:56.920 | I am your host, Tony Reinke.
00:11:58.640 | We'll see you back here on Monday.
00:12:00.240 | Have a great weekend.
00:12:01.120 | [END]
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