Understanding Of The Concept Of Sacrifices From Religious Perspective
Sacrifices are present from the very beginning and then throughout the Old Testament story — starting with Cain and Abel’s famous encounter in Genesis 4. However, we find very little overt reflection on what sacrifice meant and what it hoped to accomplish. It seems likely that the Hebrews borrowed their practice of sacrifice from surrounding cultures. However, the meaning of sacrifice among the Hebrews must be seen as ultimately following from their view of their own peculiar God and from their understanding of the nature of their covenant with Yahweh.
Sacrifices are not theologically central to Old Testament salvation, though they are commonly practiced. In numerous instances forgiveness and, even more, deliverance, do not depend upon sacrifices. The basic dynamic, on Yahweh’s side, is the decision to save simply because that is the kind of god Yahweh is. The basic dynamic, on the human side, is repentance and trust. The sacrifices then follow, as the means to concretize the reception of the gift.
The first step in God’s devine work is deliverance according to God’s word. To free their descendents, Abraham and Sarah displayed God’s acts and freed them from slavery. In Gen 12:1-3 it tells how they were freed to follow from God’s free will to bring healing to the Hebrews and to all the families of the earth. The second step, arrived when God obtained the gift of Torah to show the way for the ordering of common life as God’s people. Faithfulness to the covenant relationship with God doesn’t affect salvation, it is because of the gift of salvation that the Hebrews were able to change their lives to follow the teachings in the Torah. The third step, sacrifices, are in the teachings of the Torah. They are taught to be a joyful experience to promote the healing, transforming, and initiative of Yahweh or God. The sacrifices are something that come from God to benefit the Hebrews in their common life. In relation to life sacrifices are not meant to establish a relationship with God.
They are meant to sustain and build a healthy and faithful relationship with God. Yahweh’s purely gracious work of deliverance and sustenance is meant to be a happy and inviting experience to draw one closer to God. God is merciful, and sacrifices are not meant to make God happy instead they are meant to show God that we are willing to work to sustain the relationship that has been put in place already. The Old Testament teaches mercy in the sacrifice theology. Leviticus reports the Hebrew’s approach to sacrifice in its first seven chapters. They follow after the act of rebellion of Exodus.
The people blatantly disobeyed Yahweh’s orders to not worship false idols. Moses persuaded Yahweh to give the Hebrews a chance to build a relationship with him. The golden calf was a false idol that Yahweh wanted to be destroyed forever to not return. Instead sacrificial offerings were offered by the community to Yahweh to show their loyalty and gratitude to Yahweh. They did this to seal the covenant or their relationship with Yahweh.
Yahweh gives everyone a chance to choose the correct path, to live a life full of justice and blessings. Offerings are a way to cement this basic dynamic of love and faith for God. By doing this salvation is won and deliverance is gained to provide guidance to one’s life. God is merciful, and the offerings of thanksgiving and commitment showed his merciful ways by bringing peace to the people. God is full of wisdom and he maintains rituals for the people, so they are made aware of God’s merciful and genuine ways.
The second type of offering are more arguable in whole due to the nature of it’s title, “sin offerings. ” These types of offerings are meant to be expressions of repentance to show a person regret for a wrongdoing. By showing regret and committing to resolve a return to a viable relationship with God. It was appropriate for one to offer a sin offering if they had violated a rule in the bible. Most of the time the reason for the sin offering was out of the persons control. They would take natural occurrences to one’s body and turn it into a “sin offering” just to provide concrete evidence of a recommitment to the covenant. These expressions show how important the people thought their relationship to God really was. God allowed these relationships to blossom with him and he nourished them and sustained them by bestowing his merciful initiative.
When someone would violate a teaching of the Torah, sin offerings were provided after the offender had made restitution with the community. The act of restitution would serve as a reminder of the repentance that restored the offender’s relationship with God. It would also serve as a show of the offender’s commitment to the covenant. These sacrifices were not meant to begin a new relationship, but it was meant to represent the re-commitment to God and to his covenant. The role of sacrifice evolved in the Old Testament. Kingship and the centralized Temple correspond with the social evolution of the Hebrews common life. Sacrifices would continue in the Hebrews’ social and religious life but the health of the community deteriorated. As a result, there were many social issues that arose during the kingship era. Prophets began to raise question and challenge the authority and validity of the Torah. They had no problems writing their perspective down and promoting their own agendas. Even though these Prophets didn’t completely reject the teachings of the Torah they raised enough doubt there began to displays of hostility regarding sacrifices.
Sacrifices were supposed to be an expression of one’s commitment to Yahweh. They were supposed to cultivate justice in the community and provide all members of the community life and health. Sacrifice in an unjust community is worse than worthless and that while oppression reigns the offering of sacrifices were considered to be sinful in themselves. The means of dealing with sin had become sinful.
Sacrifices were supposed to show the communities commitment to Yahweh as the one and only true God. Instead they were becoming less symbolic and more pagan. Levitical legislation was trying to prevent this from happening. They didn’t want the pagan idols such as the golden calf to begin reappearing for the community to fall back into their old ways of idol worship. Faithfulness to Torah was becoming even harder for the Hebrews to maintain. By the eighth century, faithfulness had been all but forgotten and the sacrifices had become so empty they had nothing to do with the Torah anymore. The underlying reasoning for the sacrifices in their expression was God’s love and the call for the Hebrews to love one another and to love God. The reason for this was because there was felt to be a lack of love among the prophets. The lack of love and respect for Yahweh and each other was abundant and it was running rampant for the leading injustices of the community. Prophets such as Amos, Hosea, and Micah were very confident in their assertion that sacrifices can be part of the problem. By offering sacrifices outside of the context of fostering justice, commitment, and love for God and for everyone in the community.
Making valid and concrete sacrifices shows one’s commitment to God’s work and it restores the spiritual confidence of the individual and community to lie and breeds a healthy relationship with God and with one another. One needs to believe in the idea and essence of God and know that God is the one that can save and restore an individual/community to life and guide one in a healthy relationship with God and one another.
