As I touched on in another post on this blog, biblical sacrificing is not a means to gain God’s approval. You can’t sin and then slit a goat’s throat to get God to settle down about your sin and be pleased with you. God desires your obedience, absolutely, and also God is also not banishing you to eternal life in a fiery lava pit as a consequence of your sin.
There is a middle ground, which I believe the Bible supports.
God hates sin because sin hurts you and He loves you. Also, God will not banish you to eternal life in a fiery lava pit because that would also hurt you and He loves you. Do you see the common thread? He loves you.
To think that God would punish you with permanent pain, to make right the wrong of your sin, which was only declared wrong because it would cause you harm, would be counter-productive and self-defeating.
So then, what about all of the talk in the Bible about sacrifices? The sacrifice of lambs, or goats, or Jesus Himself? If that doesn’t make God happy with us then why does the Bible seem to support it and even require it?
Hebrews 9:14
14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
That verse seems to tell us that the sacrifices are really for us, not for God. Sacrifices purge our consciences. But how and why?
Go back to Genesis. When Adam and Eve sinned, what was the immediate effect it had on them? It caused them to realize they were naked. In response to that, they tried to cover themselves with fig leaves, which failed to do the job. As a response to that, God provided animal skins for them to cover themselves with.
In other words, God sacrificed one or more animals for them to cover their shame that resulted from sin. God did not reject them, he covered for them. They ran from God but God pursued them and covered their shame.
From then on, the sacrifices that were required were a ritual to remember that God covers our sin and He has not left us nor forsaken us. Animal sacrifice reminded the people of the Old Testament that God forgave Adam and Eve and covered their sin and shame with a sacrifice to acquire the skin. From that I believe that our tendency is to run from God and feel rejection and shame due to our imperfect nature becoming evident next to God’s perfect nature. We need to be constantly reminded of our tendency and God’s acceptance of us.
Every sacrifice was a reminder that God was with them and God accepts them. Soon, the ultimate sacrifice would come as God Himself would inhabit flesh and physically be with us to shed His own blood and communicate to us that He will never leave us or forsake us.
If you accept that then you accept that He accepts you, and like Hebrews 9:14 says, will purge your conscience from dead works. Not because His death changed the Father’s mind about you, but because His death changed your mind about you. Before you believe in Him you believe you are rejected by Him so you run from Him and cling to yourself and all the sin that goes with your life. After you believe in Him you know you are accepted by Him so you run to Him and receive a new mind, relearning morality and doing what is right because you want to.