# 10. Sacrifice for Sin
The history of sacrifice is the history of atonement, reconciliation, redemption, and forgiveness of sins. These are not, at least in the Jewish and Christian sense, exactly synonymous terms. Sacrifice atones and reconciles. It appeases God and reconciles man. It is the cause, and these are its effects on heaven and earth, on God and man.
For clarity's sake, and perhaps for the sake of understanding, four questions should be asked and answered right at the start of our inquiry. 1. What is sacrifice? 2. To whom is it to be offered? 3. For whom is it to be offered? 4. By whom is it to be offered? The answers are as prompt and as brief as the questions. 1. In its literal primary meaning, it is "the solemn and religious infliction of death upon an innocent and blameless victim, usually by shedding its blood." Figuratively, it means the offering of anything, living or dead, person or animal, or property, to God. 2. Religious sacrifice is to be offered to God alone. 3. It is to be offered for man. 4. It is to be offered by a priest.
The majority of sacrifices were lambs. Hence Christ is called the Lamb of God, not because of his innocence or patience, but because "he takes away," or bears "the sin of the world." It is rather, then, with a reference to his death than to his life, that he is called the Lamb of God. Neither his example nor his teaching could atone for sin. This required the shedding of blood: for without shedding of blood, there has never been forgiveness of sin.
Priests are mediators in their proper place and meaning. But at first, every man was his own priest. For just as it was once right for a man to marry his sister, because he could find no other person for a wife, so it was lawful and necessary for every man to be his own priest. Thus, Adam, Abel, Noah, etc. were their own priests. In the next stage of time, the eldest sons — then the leaders of tribes — were priests for their respective tribes and people. But finally, God called and appointed such persons as Melchizedek and Aaron to those offices.
Sacrifice, no doubt, is as old as the Fall. The institution of it is not recorded by Moses. But he informs us that God had regard for Abel's offering and accepted from him a slain lamb. Now, had it been a human institution, this could not have been the case, for a divine warrant has always been essential to any acceptable worship. The question, "Who has required this from you?" must always be answered by a "Thus says the Lord," before an offering of mortal man can be acknowledged by the Lawgiver of the universe. "In vain," said the Great Teacher, "do you worship God, teaching as doctrines the commandments of men." God accepted the sacrifices of Noah, Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, etc., and in the Jewish system gave many laws and regulations concerning it.
Now, as sacrifice may be considered in different aspects, in reference to what it is in itself, to whom it is offered, for whom and by whom it is offered; so in each of these relations, it may be represented under different names. Hence, it is a "sin offering," a thank offering, a propitiation, [1] a reconciliation, a redemption. Considered in reference to God, it is a propitiation; in reference to mankind, it is a reconciliation; and in another point of view, it may even be regarded as a redemption or ransom. On each of these it may be helpful to make a few remarks.
Sacrifice, as it relates to God, is a propitiation; as it relates to sinners, it is a reconciliation; as it relates to sin, it is an expiation; as it relates to the saved, it is a redemption. These are aspects of the concept of central importance in understanding the Scriptures. As a propitiation or atonement [2] it is offered to God; not, indeed, to move his kindness or to excite his mercy, but to make him favorable according to law and justice. It sprang from everlasting love and is the effect and not the cause of God's kindness to sinners. But without it God could not be favorable to us. The insult offered to his person, authority, and government by the rebellion of man, as well as the good of all his creatures, made it impossible for him, according to justice, eternal right, and his own kindness, to show mercy without sacrifice. True, indeed, he always prefers mercy to sacrifice, as he prefers the end to the means. But divine mercy forever rests upon the propitiation; upon law and justice. Thus Paul affirms of Jesus, "Whom God has set forth as a propitiation through faith in his blood, for a declaration of his justice — that he might be just, and the justifier of the ungodly, or of him who believes in Jesus." In this sense only, God could not be gracious to man in forgiving him without a propitiation, or something that could justify him both to himself and all creatures. In this meaning of the term atonement, it is found often in the law, not less than twenty-five times in the single book of Leviticus.
As it relates to the sinner, we have said it is a reconciliation. Indeed, the term reconciliation very appropriately applies to sacrifice, since it brings together the offended and the offender. So far as it honors law and justice, it reconciles God to forgive; and so far as it displays to the offender love and mercy, it reconciles him to his offended Sovereign. It is, in this view, a true reconciliation. It appeases God's "anger" (not a turbulent passion, not an implacable wrath); but "that moral sentiment and justice," which demands the punishment of the violated law, is pacified or pleased; and man's hatred and hostility against God is subdued, overcome, and destroyed in and by the same sacrifice. Thus, in fact, it is, in reference to both parties, a reconciliation. Still, however, when we speak according to scriptural usage, and with proper distinction, sacrifice, as it relates to God, is atonement or propitiation, and as it relates to man, it is reconciliation. These are its reasons and its effects. "For this reason," says Paul, "Jesus is the mediator of a new covenant, that by means of death for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, those who have been called might receive the promise of the eternal inheritance." [3] Again, the same writer makes the death of Christ the basis of reconciliation, saying, "Be reconciled to God: for he has made Christ a sin offering for us;" and now "God is in Christ, reconciling the world to himself." [4]
As it relates to sin, it has been observed, sacrifice is an expiation. The terms purification or cleansing are in the common version preferred to expiation. Once, at least (Num 35:33), we need a better word to represent the original than the term cleansing. "There can be no expiation for the land" polluted with blood, "but by the blood of the one who shed it." Still, if anyone prefers purification to expiation, or even cleansing to either, as long as we understand each other, it is indeed a matter of easy tolerance. The main point is that sacrifice cancels sin, atones for sin, and removes it. "He put away sin," says Paul, "by the sacrifice of himself." This is expiation.
"The redemption, then, which is in Christ Jesus," is a moral, and not a commercial consideration. If sin were only a debt, and not a crime, it might be forgiven without atonement. Indeed, if sin were a debt, and sacrifice a payment of that debt, then there could be no forgiveness at all with God! For if the Redeemer or Ransomer of man has paid the debt, justice, and not mercy or forgiveness, commands the release, not the pardon of the debtor. Some, however, from inattention to the sacred style and the meaning of biblical terms, have actually represented the death of Christ more as the payment of an immense debt than as an expiation of sin, or a purification from guilt, and have thus made the pardon of sin completely unintelligible, or rather, indeed, impossible. Everyone feels that when a third person assumes a debt and pays it, the principal must be discharged and cannot be forgiven. But when sin is viewed in the light of a crime, and atonement is offered by a third person, then it is a question of grace whether the pardon or acquittal of the sinner shall be granted by the one against whom the crime has been committed; because, even after an atonement or propitiation is made, the transgressor is still as deserving of punishment as before. There is room, then, for both justice and mercy; for the display of indignation against sin, and the forgiveness of the sinner, in proper views of sin and of the redemption there is in and through the Lord Jesus Christ.
Redemption, however, is the deliverance from sin, rather than the expiation or atonement for it. Thus, Christ is said "by his own blood, to have obtained an eternal redemption for us." [5] Thus pardon, sanctification, and even the resurrection of the bodies of the saints, are each contemplated as parts of our redemption, or deliverance from guilt to sin, from the power of sin, and from the punishment of sin. [6]
There are a number of inconsistencies and inaccuracies in the controversy about the nature and extent of the atonement, which, as the morning mist clears from the hills before the rising sun, disappear from our mental horizon when the light of scriptural definition breaks into our souls. The atonement or propitiation has no "extent," because God alone is its object. It considers sin as a unit in the divine government, and therefore the "Lamb of God bears away the sin of the world," and his death is a "sin offering." As to its value, it is beyond expression. It is indeed commensurate with the sin of the world; for it makes it just on God's part to forgive and save everyone who believes in Jesus. Reconciliation and redemption, however, have a certain limited extent. Reconciliation is not universal, but partial. Not all believe in Jesus, so not all are reconciled to God through him. Redemption, or deliverance from the guilt, pollution, power, and punishment of sin, is only commensurate with the elect of God, i.e., with those who believe in Jesus and obey him. They who affirm that one drop of Christ's blood could atone for the sin of the whole world, teach without realizing it, that Christ has died in vain: for surely, the Messiah could have shed many drops of blood and still lived. They make his death a meaningless excess or redundancy by reasoning this way. They also agree, unintentionally, with those who see sin merely as a debt, not a crime, and therefore say there is no need for sin offerings, sacrifice, or a divine Savior to forgive it.
They, too, seem to misunderstand the matter, and I regret to find such names among them as Butler, Whitby, and Macknight, who, while arguing that the death of Christ was a sacrifice or propitiation for sin, completely reduce its effectiveness to the mere will of God. According to them, God could have saved the whole world without the appearance of his Son: for the merit or power of Christ's death comes not from his personal dignity, but from God's mere appointment or will! Now we cannot believe it was possible for God himself to save sinners in any way other than the one he chose: for paying an excessive price for our redemption suggests extravagance rather than divine wisdom and prudence. And if mere appointment was enough, why not have continued the legal sacrifices and made the blood of bulls and goats effective to take sin away?!
In conclusion, sacrifice is essential to the forgiveness of sins and is therefore as old as the fall of man. But the sacrifices of the patriarchal and Jewish dispensations could not, and did not, take away sin. They were only types of the real sacrifice: as Paul says, "It was not possible that the blood of bulls and goats could take away sin." And again, "If the blood of bulls and goats, with the ashes of a heifer, cleansed the flesh, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?" Christ's death is, therefore, a real and sufficient sacrifice for sin, and stands in the roles of propitiation, reconciliation, expiation, and redemption; from which flow justification, sanctification, adoption, and eternal life.
The sacrifice of Christ, as previously stated, is, with respect to God, a propitiation; with respect to man, a reconciliation; with respect to sin, an expiation; with respect to the penitent, a redemption; but the attributes that apply to it in any of these aspects do not apply to it in the others; and this oversight has, in our opinion, been the fertile source of endless controversies concerning the "atonement," as it is most commonly called. It is indeed infinite in value regarding the expiation of sin, or its propitiatory power; but regarding the actual reconciliation and redemption of sinners, it is limited to those who believe in and obey the Savior. Also, while it is as universal as the sin of the world, only the specific sins of the obedient are expiated by it. Its design, then, is necessarily limited to all who come to God through it; while its value and effectiveness are equal to the salvation of the whole world, provided they place themselves under the covering of its propitiatory power.
The "doctrine of the cross" being the great central doctrine of the Bible, and the very essence of Christianity—which explains all the peculiarities of the Christian system, and of the relationship of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, as far as humans can comprehend them, and as it has been to skeptics and many professors, "a stone of stumbling, and a rock of offense," for the sake of some of the speculative and quibbling, who ask why are these things so, I add an extract from the writings of Mr. Watson on this point, which may suggest to them some useful reflections on this fundamental and all-absorbing subject: —
"How sin may be forgiven,” says Mr. Watson, “without leading to such misconceptions of the divine character as would encourage disobedience, and thereby weaken the influence of the divine government, must be considered a problem of very difficult solution. A government that admitted no forgiveness would sink the guilty in despair; a government that never punishes offense is a contradiction; it cannot exist. Not punishing the guilty is to dissolve authority; punishing without mercy is to destroy, and where all are guilty, to make the destruction universal. That we cannot sin with impunity is a settled matter. The Ruler of the world is not careless of the conduct of his creatures; for the fact that penal consequences are attached to offense is not a subject of argument, but a matter of fact, evident by daily observation of the events and circumstances of present life. It is a principle, therefore, already established, that the authority of God must be preserved; but it should be noted that in that kind of administration which restrains evil by penalty and encourages obedience by favor and hope, we and all moral creatures are the interested parties, not the Divine Governor himself, whom, because of his independent and all-sufficient nature, our transgressions cannot harm. The reasons, therefore, that compel him to maintain his authority do not end in himself. If he treats offenders with severity, it is for our sake, and for the sake of the moral order of the universe, to which sin, if encouraged by negligent administration or by complete and frequent impunity, would be the source of endless disorder and misery; and if the granting of pardon to offense is strongly and even severely guarded, so that no less a satisfaction could be accepted than the death of God's own Son, we are to refer to the moral necessity of the case, arising from the general welfare of accountable creatures, liable to the deep evil of sin, and not to any reluctance on the part of our Maker to forgive, much less to anything vindictive in his nature, charges which have been most inconsiderately and unfairly said to be implied in the doctrine of Christ's sacrificial sufferings. If it is true, then, that the release of offending man from future punishment, and his restoration to divine favor, ought, for the interest of mankind themselves, and for the instruction and caution of other beings, to be so granted that no license is given to offense; that God himself, while showing his compassion, should not appear less just, less holy than he really is; that his authority should be felt to be as compelling, and that disobedience should as truly, though not unconditionally, subject us to the deserved penalty, as though no hope of forgiveness had been shown; — we ask, On what plan, except the one revealed in the New Testament, are those necessary conditions provided for? Necessary they are, unless we argue for a license and impunity that would annul all good government in the universe, a point for which no reasonable person will argue; and if so, then we must admit that there is strong internal evidence of the truth of Scripture’s doctrine when it makes the offer of pardon contingent only upon the securities we have mentioned. If it is said that sin may be pardoned by the exercise of divine prerogative, the reply is that if this prerogative were exercised toward only part of mankind, the passing over of the rest would be difficult to reconcile with the Divine character; and if the benefit were extended to all, government would end. This plan of bringing people under the exercise of a merciful prerogative does not, therefore, meet the obvious difficulty of the case; nor is it improved by limiting the act of grace only to repentant criminals. For if repentance means a "renewal in the spirit of the mind," no criminal would of himself thus repent. But if repentance means merely remorse and terror in immediate view of danger, what offender, surrounded by the wreck of former enjoyments, feeling the emptiness of guilty pleasures now past forever, and seeing the approach of delayed punishment, would not repent? If the principle of granting pardon to repentance were to regulate human governments, every criminal would escape, and judicial procedures would become a subject of ridicule. Nor is it recognized by the Divine Being in his dealings with people in this life, although in this world punishments are not final and absolute. Repentance does not restore health damaged by intemperance; property wasted by extravagance; or character once stained by dishonorable acts. If repentance alone could secure pardon, then all must be pardoned, and government dissolved, as in the case of forgiveness by mere prerogative; but if a merely arbitrary selection is made, then different and conflicting principles of government are introduced into divine administration, which is a degrading assumption.
The question proposed abstractly, How may mercy be extended to offending creatures, subjects of divine government, without encouraging vice by lowering the righteous and holy character of God, and the authority of his government, in the maintenance of which the whole universe of beings is interested? is, therefore, at once one of the most important and one of the most difficult that can occupy the human mind. None of the theories opposed to Christianity provide a satisfactory solution to the problem. They assume principles either destructive of moral government or which cannot, in the circumstances of man, be acted upon. The only answer is found in the holy Scriptures. They alone show, and indeed, they alone claim to show, how God may be "just," and yet the "justifier" of the ungodly. Other schemes show how he may be merciful; but the difficulty does not lie there. The gospel meets it by declaring "the righteousness of God," while at the same time proclaiming his mercy. The voluntary sufferings of the divine Son of God, "for us," "the just for the unjust," magnify the justice of God; display his hatred of sin; proclaim "the exceeding sinfulness" of transgression by the deep and painful way they were inflicted on the Substitute; warn the persistent offender of the terribleness as well as the certainty of his punishment; and open the gates of salvation to every penitent. It is part of the same divine plan, also, to engage the influence of the Holy Spirit, to awaken penitence in people, and to lead the wanderer back to himself; to renew our fallen nature in righteousness at the moment we are justified through faith, and to place us in circumstances where we may henceforth "walk not according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit." All the purposes of government are here fulfilled—no license is given to offense—the moral law is unrepealed—a day of judgment is still appointed—future and eternal judgments still display their awful sanctions—a new and remarkable display of the awful purity of the divine character is provided—yet pardon is offered to all who seek it; and the whole world may be saved. With such evidence of the suitability to the case of humanity, under such elevated views of connection with the principles and purposes of moral government, does the doctrine of the atonement present itself. But other important considerations are not lacking to highlight the combined wisdom and goodness of that method of extending mercy to the guilty, which Christianity teaches us was actually and exclusively adopted. It is made, indeed, "worthy of all acceptance," by the fact that it meets the difficulties we have just discussed — difficulties which otherwise would have inevitably cast a gloomy shadow over every offender awakened to a sense of his spiritual danger; but it must be very carelessly considered if it does not further commend itself to us, not only by removing the fears we might have about the severity of the Divine Lawgiver, but by elevating him in our esteem, as "the righteous Lord, who loves righteousness," who gave up his beloved Son to suffering and death, so that the influence of moral goodness might not be weakened in the hearts of his creatures; and as a God of love, offering in this instance a view of the tenderness and kindness of his nature, infinitely more impressive and moving than any abstract description could convey; or than any act of creating or providential power and grace could display, and therefore most fitting to overcome that hostility which had unnaturally grown in the hearts of his creatures, and which, when corrupt, they so easily transfer from a law that restrains their desires to the Lawgiver himself. If it is important for us to know the extent and reality of our danger, it is shown by the death of Christ, not in words, but in the most powerful action; if it is important that we should have assurance of the divine willingness to forgive us, it here receives a demonstration that cannot be surpassed; if gratitude is the most powerful motive for future obedience, and one that makes command on one side, and active service on the other, "not burdensome, but joyful," the memory of such obligations as those which the "love of Christ" has laid on us is a constant source of this energetic affection, and will be the means of raising it to higher and more delightful activity forever. All that can most powerfully illustrate the combined tenderness and awe-inspiring majesty of God, and the hateful nature of sin; all that can win back the heart of man to his Maker and Lord, and make future obedience a matter of affection and delight, as well as duty; all that can extinguish the angry and hostile passions of man toward man; all that can inspire mutual kindness, and encourage self-denying charity for the benefit of others; all that can awaken hope, or calm by faith, is found in the sacrificial death of Christ, and the principles and purposes for which it was endured."
1: The Hebrew term translated in the Greek Old Testament as ilasmos, and in the common English version as atonement or propitiation, is copher, which means a covering. The verb COPHER "to cover," or "to make atonement" denotes the object of sacrifice; and hence, Jesus is called the ilasmos, the covering, propitiation, or atonement for our sins. 1 John 2:2; 1 John 4:10. It is a curious and remarkable fact that God covered Adam and Eve with the skins of the first victims of death, instead of their fig leaf garments. This may have foreshadowed the fact that while sin was atoned for or expiated before God by the life of the victim, the effect as regards man was a covering for his nakedness and shame, or his sin, which stripped him of his original innocence and beauty, and covered him with disgrace and reproach.
2: Kattallagee, translated once as atonement; Romans 5:11, appears in the New Testament four times. In Romans 5:11, it should have been reconciliation, as in Romans 11:15, 2 Corinthians 5:18-19. It is not ilasmos, atonement, in the Jewish sense, but katallagee, reconciliation. God receives the atonement, and people receive the reconciliation. It is therefore mistaken to speak of the extent of the atonement, but not of the reconciliation.
3: Hebrews 9:15.
4: 2 Corinthians 5:18-21.
5: Hebrews 9:12.
6: See Ephesians 1:7, Colossians 1:14, 1 Peter 3:18, Isaiah 59:20, Romans 8:23, Ephesians 1:14; Ephesians 4:30