Sacrifice was a ritual through which the Hebrew people offered the blood or flesh of an animal to
God in payment for their sins. Sacrifice originated in the Garden of Eden, when God killed animals and made tunics for Adam
and Eve (Gen. 3:21). God's provision of this covering symbolized that sinful man could come before
God without fear of death.
When Noah left the ark, his first act was to build an altar and sacrifice animals to God
(Gen. 8:20). Abraham regularly worshiped God by offering sacrifices to Him (Gen. 12:7).
In the Mosaic Law, sacrifice had three central ideas: consecration, expiation (covering of sin), and
propitiation (satisfaction of divine anger). Sacrifice as worship required man to give back to God what God had given to him.
Some specific sacrificial offerings called for in the Mosaic Law included the burnt offering, which
pointed to Christ's atoning death for sinners (2Cor. 5:21) and His total consecration to God (Luke 2:49); the meal offering, which symbolically presented the best fruits of human living to God (Heb. 10: 5-10); the peace offering, which celebrated the covering of sin, forgiveness by God, and the
restoration of a right relationship with God (Judg. 20:26); and the sin offering, in which guilt
for the worshiper's sin was transferred symbolically to the animal through the laying on of the offerer's hands (Lev.
16:8-10).
Both Old and New Testaments confirm that sacrifices were symbolic. Because of their sins, the Hebrews
presented offerings by which they gave another life in place of their own. These substitutes pointed forward to the ultimate
sacrifice, Jesus Christ (Heb. 10:1-18), who laid down His life for the sins of all people.
