"I wanted to analyse the significance of the sacrifice of Jesus Christ and ask what you guys think to the reflection.
Sacrifice of animals was common before the times of Jesus Christ, because as Paul said "The wages of sin are death!" People today value different things, but back then people would have valued animals for their food, clothing and financial security. So someone committing a sin would sacrifice one of their valued animals to God to atone for their sin.
The reason Christians don't sacrifice animals anymore is because of the substitutional sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Both were means to the same end, which was accounting for sin. Here are 5 distinctions between the two forms of sacrifice:
1. The first important distinction is that when an animal is sacrificed it does not come back to life. It is a permanent loss. If among your flock you had an animal that could bring itself back from the dead, how meaningful would it be to sacrifice that particular animal? How would that even be a loss or a sacrifice if the animal just came back to you after you lost it?
2. The second distinction is that animal sacrifice was not retroactive like the sacrifice of Jesus. First came sin and then the sacrifice followed. This is true for everyone before the sacrifice of Jesus Christ but not after. It would be shallow and insincere to kill an animal as an insurance policy just in case you sin in the future, or preemptively performing a sacrifice today so you can sin tomorrow. The sacrifice loses its meaning when you can sin with the knowledge that a sacrifice has already been made on your behalf. With the knowledge of the sacrifice of Jesus people know their sacrifice was already made and this can become a consideration for pretty much any sin.
3. Animals do not choose to be sacrificed is another distinction. They were chosen by their owners. How would the meaning of the sacrifice change if it were the animal that volunteered to be sacrificed? Thusly taking away responsibility from their owners? The focus would shift from it being the owners act to the animals act. This would fundamentally changing the dynamic for atonement, yet this is exactly what can be observed with Christianity. Jesus, unlike the animal, was a willing participant in his own sacrifice.
4. A fourth distinction is that people killed animals they valued, that is why the sacrifice is supposed to have meaning. But the people who killed Jesus did not value him. For whom was Jesus truly sacrificed?
5. Finally, animals were sacrificed to atone for the sin of the person who killed them. A sacrifice must be an intentional act for it to be considered a sacrifice, yet the people who killed Jesus didn't kill him for him to be offered as a sacrifice. When someone offered an animal as a sacrifice they intended that animal to be a sacrifice for their sin, in Christianity however it was God who valued Jesus and God who intentionally offered Jesus as a sacrifice. Given what we know about sacrifice this tells us that the sacrifice of Jesus Christ was because God did something wrong and God offered a valued sacrifice to atone for God's wrongdoing. Because sacrificing Jesus would not be a logical way for humans to atone for their sin, but it would be a logical way for God to atone. Jesus never belonged to us, he belonged to God and therefore wasn't ours to sacrifice.
What if Christianity makes more sense if it is God who is asking humanity for forgiveness? And what if that is why the teachings of Jesus were mostly about the value of forgiveness? Yahweh trying to win over humanity with a sacrifice which loses its meaning when that which he offered as a sacrifice would just come back to him.
The sacrifice of Jesus Christ is the foundational principle on which the entire religion is built. But what do the previous considerations tell us about its true meaning?"
Here are some interesting thoughts on Jesus Christ and the meaning of sacrifice which I addressed in the following thread:
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