For four thousand years sacrifices, setting out man’s condition
as a sinner, were
offered up and accepted by God; for two thousand years God has
desired no sacrifices from His people except those
suited for saints. Taught
of God, men previously brought the former; having received fresh
revelation since the death of Christ, God’s children must now
present the latter.
When the truth of man’s fallen condition is
realised—that he is dead in trespasses and sins—the folly of his
doing anything to commend himself to God is evident. The sinner must
be born of God before he can please God. This lesson is one which
man is slow to learn—many an unsaved soul labours under the delusion
that he can bring something to God to merit His favour. Sadly,
Christendom perpetuates this myth, encouraging the unsaved to
worship when they should repent, and teaching unbelievers to live by
God’s law instead of preaching the Gospel to them. The sinner must
receive from God first, then, as a believer, he can bring his
offering to God. God has both provided and accepted the sacrifice
for the sinner; from the saint He is now willing to receive one.
In the OT, the sanctuary was the appointed place for the worshipper
to draw near, but believers must now be “without the camp” (Heb. 13:
13), bearing the reproach of Christ. The allusion is to Exodus 33
when Israel had departed openly from God in making the golden calf.
It was then that all who remained true–hearted went outside the camp
to the tent of meeting (see v7). So again, when the Hebrews in the
Apostle’s day were obedient to the call of God amidst the general
apostasy, they had to learn that their proper place, like that of
their crucified Master, was outside the camp of Judaism. Obedience
to God’s word forced them into this new and difficult position
bearing the reproach of the Saviour who had suffered “without the
gate” of Jerusalem (Heb. 13: 12). All the promises of earthly glory
in connection with the Messiah they gave up, and the land, in which
they had lived by divine favour, was no longer their home. As
“strangers and sojourners” (Heb. 11: 13), they journeyed forth
afresh with a home in prospect but of which, though tasting the
fruits by the Spirit (see Eph. 1: 14), they had not yet got the full
enjoyment. They had on earth no “abiding city” (Heb. 13: 14), but
sought one to come. What a change all this was for them! The eye of
the faithful among the Jewish dispersion was to be redirected from
earthly hopes to the “living hope” of “an incorruptible and
undefiled and unfading inheritance, reserved in [the] heavens” (1
Pet. 1: 3, 4).
Yet in abandoning the temple ritual, surely the Hebrew Christians
were also forsaking the only true avenue through which an offering
to God could be made? How they would be scorned by their earthly
brethren who remained within the camp! Was not Jerusalem the place
where Jehovah had put His name? Indeed it was, but the death of
Christ had changed everything. From now on, all the Mosaic offerings
could be dismissed as “dead works” (Heb. 9: 14), while those who
trusted in Jesus could rightly boast of offering a “sacrifice of
praise continually to God, that is, [the] fruit of [the] lips
confessing his name” (Heb. 13: 15). For generations, the temple
courts had resounded with the service of praise from the sons of
Korah—but the sacrifice of praise which God would now accept would
be offered up elsewhere. From now on, no time would be unseasonable
and no place unsuited, where a heart, conscious of God’s grace,
could be responsive to His love and goodness. Even in the inner
prison of Gentile Philippi, and at the unusual hour of midnight,
this superior sacrifice was offered to God and accepted (see Acts
16: 25). One condition was, however, indispensable: the sacrifice of
praise could only be “By him” (Heb. 13: 15). Where Christ is not the
object of faith and his finished work at the cross unknown, then no
such sacrifice will be accepted by God. As Peter says elsewhere,
“spiritual sacrifices”, if they really are so, are “acceptable to
God by Jesus Christ” (1 Pet 2:
5, my emphasis).
Nor is this the only sacrifice that the redeemed can offer. In Rom.
12, Paul beseeches the saints by the compassions of God to present
their bodies “a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God” (v1). The
apostle knew something of this himself as his statement “for me to
live [is] Christ” (Phil. 1: 21) bears witness. As Christians, we
“have been bought with a price” (1 Cor. 6: 20), and are thus to
glorify God in our bodies, yielding ourselves to God “as alive from
among [the] dead” and our “members instruments of righteousness to
God” (Rom. 6: 13).
Still this is not all. The writer of Hebrews tells the
saints that “of doing good and communicating [of your substance] be
not forgetful, for with such sacrifices God is well pleased” (Heb.
13: 16). The philanthropy of the unbelieving is not here in view.
Only the saint can approach God with such a sacrifice. As conscious
recipients of divine grace, such have become partakers of the divine
nature, and so are characterised by love to others (see Eph. 2: 10).
On earth the Lord Jesus went about doing good (see Acts 10: 38) and
in this we must surely imitate Him.
Many and varied then, are the sacrifices that can now be
offered—but not apart from a living knowledge of Christ and His
death. Any sacrifice offered on other grounds or apart from Him in
whom we have access by one Spirit to the Father, will be rejected.
It must ever be remembered that what God can receive from His
children He will reject when offered by an unsaved soul. Like
Israel, His people can bring the first–fruits (see Exod. 23:
19)—which from Cain He would not accept (see Gen. 4: 3). All,
whether for sinners or saints is ordered. The former must believe
God in what He has said about the sacrifice of Christ; the latter,
as standing on it for acceptance, are privileged to render the
service appropriate to believers.
