In what sense could Old Testament sacrifices forgive if they didn’t take away sins?

Hey, thanks again for sending in questions related to our recent sermons. This last week, as we’ve continued through the book of John, we saw Jesus cleanse the temple and then claim that if they tore down the temple, destroyed it, he would rebuild it in three days, speaking of his body, his resurrection, that he is the true temple, the true temple that unites us back to God, that he is the place where our sin and God’s presence meet, and meet in a way that we can be with God forever. The place where our sin is fully, finally dealt with, so that we are wholly blameless and perfect, as Hebrews would claim that we are.

So, the question this week pulls us into some fairly deep Old Testament theology and how it fits with New Testament theology. On the one hand, the book of Hebrews, in the New Testament, states very clearly the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sins. Hebrews 10. It also says those sacrifices were an annual reminder of sins because they had to keep being offered over and over and over again. People’s sins weren’t taken away. They were reminded they still have a problem that, hopefully, God would fix, is what we assume the author of Hebrews is talking about there. But then we come to the Old Testament, and we see in Leviticus 4, Leviticus 6, and other places, where there were mandates for sin: come and offer a sacrifice to the priest and you will be forgiven. Other places in Leviticus speak of that you will be atoned for because of this animal sacrifice. So, what’s going on here? Hebrews 10 says it’s impossible for bulls and goats to take away sin. Leviticus says offer the bull and goat or other animal and you will be forgiven.

So in what sense were they forgiven, but the sin wasn’t taken away? How do these fit together? What was actually accomplished in the Old Testament that the New Testament fulfills? Well, we have a clue in a passage I referenced briefly on Sunday, Isaiah 1, when God gets angry with the people because they believe that they could just buy God off with these sacrifices, kind of make a payment when they had done something wrong. We can do whatever we want, and then we offer the sacrifice, and God and I are okay again. And God says, no, that’s not how this works at all. The sacrifice is part of it, but you can’t just pay me off. You can’t buy my favor. That’s not the point.

The sacrificial system is always accompanied with true repentance, of knowing that you’ve done wrong, of having remorse over it, confessing it to God. This is built into the act of bringing the animal. And then with the animal, you see that that sacrifice is costly, that we have to make up for what I have done wrong. A penalty has to be paid. If God is just and sin is wrong, and we are participating in wrong, to set things back right, there has to be some kind of penalty somehow. So the sacrifices taught that a penalty must be paid, that the penalty is costly, that I am guilty, that the penalty for my guilt would be this death, that I participated in the death of the world, right? The sacrifice is teaching all of that. But ultimately, what the sacrifice is doing is pointing forward to the sacrifice of Christ, who would actually take the sins away.

In the Old Testament, God, yes, granted forgiveness, not just because of the sacrifice, because we see sometimes he didn’t grant forgiveness, Isaiah 1, when they offered the sacrifice. But he did grant forgiveness when people came with a heart of repentance, understood the severity of what they’ve done. The image of the severity of what they’ve done is the animal. They understand it’s costly. They still present this forward, right? So then God grants forgiveness under those terms. However, that didn’t fully take away their sin, because they had to keep coming and offering over and over and over and over again, as Hebrews explains. It didn’t actually make them holy, blameless, and perfect. It didn’t take away the sin.

They were still burdened with their sin. They still had their guilt. They needed to be reminded of it. What they needed to understand is the sacrifice I’m bringing cannot actually solve my problem, even though it’s part of the forgiveness that God is granting me right now. I need God to provide something to solve my problem. And in that way, the sacrifices pointed forward to Christ, who would come, who is God’s answer for how he will take away our sin. So we hope that’s helpful, and we’ll see you next time.