THERE is no cause in God's creation for sacrifice. There is no impediment when we desire to give to our creator the reverence and obedience due unto Him; for near the close of the first chapter of Genesis, which contains no mention of sacrifice, is this pronouncement: "God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good." The second chapter of Genesis records a misconception of God and man, namely, that there is a power other than God, named evil, and that man can know and practice both good and evil. A misconception may seem to bear fruit after its kind until destroyed by Truth; consequently, there arose the belief among men that wrong may be committed, and that the offender may afterwards be forgiven by offering a sacrifice to God.
Among the ancient Hebrews, the burnt offering was an acknowledgment of guilt, whereby the offender signified his repentance and the devotion of himself and his substance to God; the burnt offering symbolized expiation for sin. Although the forms of sacrifice varied, they were all the outcome of the belief that man can know evil and can sin; that God, good, can be displeased, wrathful, and revengeful; and that His forgiveness may be obtained by a sacrifice. Paul, in his epistle to the Galatians, speaks of such ceremonies as "weak and beggarly elements;" yet such sacrifices expressed the human desire to reach out to God for His love and forgiveness in the only way which men then knew; likewise, divinity expressed itself to humanity in the only way in which the latter could then understand.
The first sacrifices were material —often a lamb; but as human desires progressed, the idea of sacrifice became more spiritual. Samuel discerned the truth that "to obey is better than sacrifice." To David, in his spiritually enlightened moments, God was a tender, careful Shepherd, who neither desired nor required material sacrifice. Habakkuk grasped the divine attitude towards sin; for he wrote of God, "Thou art of purer eyes than to behold evil, and canst not look on iniquity." Thus humanity gradually became ready for the highest form of sacrifice, the culmination being the life-work of Christ Jesus, of whom John the Baptist spoke as "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world."
