SACRIFICES ACCEPTABLE UNTO GOD (Bartley)

2-15a Article One

 

Article One

 

The sacrifices which are acceptable unto God is a subject worthy of the earnest attention of the true worshippers; therefore, I submit some thoughts upon it, trusting you will find them according to the testimony of the Lord.

 

The Bible is a wonderful Book in the history it gives of its sacrifices. This is, indeed, one of its most prominent features. Both in the Old and New Testaments divine sacrifices stand out in bold relief, and enter very largely into the worship of God. Take them away, and the worshippers could have no access to Him. Yet how casually and lightly the general readers of the Bible pass over its sacrifices, as of minor importance and little interest.

What a misapprehension! For sacrifices are the only way of approach unto God, and they underlie and support all worship, giving its acceptance and virtue. We cannot, therefore, too well understand their nature, design, and meaning.

 

In the infancy of our race sacrifices began, yet not until man had sinned.

This is significant, and is an index to the need and design of sacrifices. They are needed because man is a sinner, and they are offered for his sins.

If God accepts the sacrifice, He also accepts the worshipper who makes the offering. This indicates that the sacrifice bears the sin and takes it away, and through it the sinner who brings the offering is justified and accepted with God as righteous. This is awe-inspiring and wonderful, and it is the only way of a sinner’s approach unto God. Thus is it seen how supremely important it is that we come to Him with an acceptable sacrifice with which He is well pleased.

 

The sacrifice that takes away and covers sin must be sinless, (without blemish) and must give its blood and life for the sinner. This done, it becomes a covering and robe of righteousness to the sinner. It has made him free from sin and death; therefore, he lives a new life in righteousness, and thus worships God in holiness. In no other way can God be worshipped. Sacrifices for sin mean all this, and every true worshipper must approach unto God with a sacrifice that possesses all this infinite merit and efficacy in His sight.

 

From this we understand that every acceptable sacrifice must be of God’s own appointing, that He has ordained and sanctified. All other sacrifices will be rejected, as Cain’s, as unholy and unfit. This was the fatal error of Cain, the first-born, and the first to make a sacrifice unto God for his sins. He offered of the fruit of the ground, which was cursed for man’s sake after he sinned; it was of his own works, for he was a husbandman. His sacrifice carried in it no confession of sin and merited death, thus lacking the elements and nature of atonement or reconciliation for sin, and thereby denying the justice of God in requiring such a sacrifice and atonement to redeem him from sin and death. But his brother Abel offered in sacrifice the firstling of his flock, a far more excellent sacrifice than Cain’s, which God accepted – both it and Abel – because it was a lively symbol of a full and perfect atonement for his sin, removing sin and death from him; and by it he obtained witness that he was righteous. His lamb of sacrifice represented his earnest desire to be sinless, and was a touching confession of his merited death as a sinner, and expression of his faith in God’s mercy in ordaining for him a sacrifice to take away his sin.

 

The offerings of Cain and Abel fitly represent the opposite principles of all later sacrifices, by which the children of men seek to obtain the favor and blessing of God and be saved. Both admit the need of a sacrifice, while they differ as to what God righteously requires of those who approach unto Him, as sufficient unto their salvation in His holy presence. It behooves us, then, to carefully investigate our way of approach unto God as His worshippers, and know whether we bring the offering of Cain only, or the more excellent sacrifice of Abel, remembering that, while Abel and his offering were accepted, Cain and his were rejected. This should be of the greatest concern to each of us, and we should not be deceived or rest in an uncertainty, but examine and prove our own selves, whether we be in the faith with Abel, or reprobates with Cain. In the holy Scriptures we have the more sure word of prophecy, and they are a lamp to our feet and a light to our path.

 

It is both instructive and wonderful, that the first sacrifice of innocent life for sinful man God Himself made! He thus clothed our sinful parents by the death of the innocent for them. And this was because of their sin and shame. Must He not as well clothe us, their sinful children? Will any sacrifice less than that, that He provides for an offering for our sin, take away our guilty stains and clothe us in the garments of salvation? The strong faith of Abraham assured his questioning son that “God would provide Himself with a lamb for an offering – and it was so. No other offering will God accept at the hand of any, whoever may bring it. Though it were the consecrated priests of God, the sons of the favored high priest, yet they and their offering were rejected and they died before the Lord, because God had not appointed and sanctified it.

 

But because God provided the believing and trusting Abraham with a lamb for a burnt-offering, his son Isaac lived, as one received back from the dead. So it was, too, with the children of Abraham, as the stars for multitude, when they offered the lamb which the Lord provided in Egypt , and God accepted and saved them. In themselves they were sinners, as others; but they believed God and His servant Moses, and sacrificed the “lamb without blemish,” sanctified of God and He accepted and saved them.

 

The offering to God, in worship, of this Sacrificial Lamb was perpetuated and observed by this people of the covenant, as He ordained, until the awful night of its final fulfillment, when Jesus ate the last Passover with His disciples, and was then led away as a lamb to the slaughter to be crucified, and the next day “Christ our Passover is sacrificed for us.”

 

All other divine sacrifices but pointed to Him, and in Him they were all forever perfected and ended. Pointing to Him, John said, “Behold the lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world!” This is the Lamb that God provided for an offering, who gave Himself for our sins as a sacrifice and sweet smelling savor unto God. His death put away sins, as a debt which is paid and covered, and His bodily resurrection abolished death for all whose sins He atoned for. This is the one and only Sacrifice for our sins that God will accept, and every true worshipper must approach unto Him in the name and faith of Jesus the Crucified, and find pardon and salvation and life through Him and by His death.

 

Abel’s lamb represented his faith in the holy Lamb of God. And so did Abraham rejoice to see the day of God’s Anointed Son, when his own son was saved from death, and the ram which God provided was sacrificed instead of Isaac: It was so in all the offerings of all who sacrificed in faith in God – they all pointed and looked away to the One Sacrifice for sin, when our glorious High Priest should offer Himself without spot unto God, for all who shall ever come unto God by Him – Himself our righteousness, our salvation, our Life. God accepted us IN His Son. Blessed God!