(Gen 22:10-12 KJV) And Abraham stretched forth his hand, and took the knife to slay his son. And the angel of the LORD called unto him out of heaven, and said, Abraham, Abraham: and he said, Here am I. And he said, Lay not thine hand upon the lad, neither do thou any thing unto him: for now I know that thou fearest God, seeing thou hast not withheld thy son, thine only son from me.
Though love involves sacrifice, sacrifice does not necessarily involve love. In the passage above, Abraham clearly loved his son, but he was willing to give him up as a sign of his allegiance to God. It was a test of Abrahams love. Without love, all sacrifice is unequivocally… cruel.
The Old Testament is full of sacrifice, much of it cruel, conducted by men in an attempt to show their allegiance to God. Noah started it, Abraham added circumcision, Moses turned it into an art form….. and thankfully Jesus finished it.
As a child I remember reading the Old Testament and being totally nauseated by the mass slaughter of creatures in the appeasement and worship of some ‘unknown’ God, so much so, that the ‘insanity’ of it, turned me away from the Bible and ‘God’ for many years. What I didn’t realize then, is that the documented history in the bible tests the human heart. Integrity and faith are what is required to connect the inner spirit to the outward word or act, if this relationship is absent, sacrifice is needlessly cruel.
(1 Chr 29:21 KJV) And they sacrificed sacrifices unto the LORD, and offered burnt offerings unto the LORD, on the morrow after that day, even a thousand bullocks, a thousand rams, and a thousand lambs, with their drink offerings, and sacrifices in abundance for all Israel: And did eat and drink before the LORD on that day with great gladness.
Blind obedience is dangerous, anyone without a heart or faith has nothing alive, to offer. If the ‘right’ heart/spirit is not involved in sacrifice, we are left we nothing but tradition and a set of man made laws to follow. One cannot pass legislation to make people love… love requires the revelation that we are all brothers and sisters under Heaven, anything less is unsustainable and unenforceable. Love must come from within, it cannot come from without. A heartless world is a cruel and corrupt world and the very reason it needs to be ‘saved’.
(Isa 1:11 NIV) "The multitude of your sacrifices-- what are they to me?" says the LORD. "I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats.”
Sacrifice is a gift, a token of love and affection, but without a ‘righteous’ offering and a ‘righteous’ recipient - such a ‘gift’ is simply a painful waste. People were requested to sacrifice their ‘best’ because, to withhold the ‘best’ is indicative of pride. One of the key purposes of sacrifice was to bring humility into the hearts of men, not to appease an invisible God.
Jesus did his best to over-turn traditional cruelty with love, and in the greatest irony of all, he became the greatest ‘living’ sacrifice as the traditional fathers and Romans crucified an ‘innocent son’, not out of love like Abraham - but out of fear and hate, thus exemplifying the fallen state of this world.
(John 15:12-14 KJV) This is my commandment, That ye love one another, as I have loved you. Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. Ye are my friends, if ye do whatsoever I command you.
SACRIFICE