Does not the text, "But go and learn what that means, I will have mercy and not sacrifice" (Matthew 9:13), teach that the love and mercy of God are free gifts-that salvation is by the grace of God alone, without the deeds of the law, and is it not therefore a repudiation of the popular doctrine that God requires a sacrifice before He can forgive sin?
The above passage, and many others, seem to me subversive of the teaching which blends righteousness by law with free grace. In the Psalms and the Prophets we learn that God never required or desired sacrifices. I am anxious to know how such passages may be harmonized with the precepts of the Mosaic law concerning sacrifices.
Here as elsewhere we have our difficulty half settled if we hold fast the truth that God cannot lie, (Titus 1:2) and cannot deny himself, (2 Timothy 2:13) and that therefore there cannot possibly be any contradiction or lack of harmony in the Scriptures which He has given by His Spirit.
You are on the right track, and we have only to follow up the thought that you have already suggested. Suppose we first collate a number of passages that speak of sacrifices. To begin with we will take the original of the text which you quoted: "I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than a burnt-offerings." (Hosea 6:6)
When Saul thought to atone for direct transgression by making a great sacrifice to God, the prophet Samuel said to him: "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt-offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the voice of the Lord? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and hearken than the fat of rams." (1 Samuel 15:22) "I spoke not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices: But this thing I commanded them, saying, Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people; and walk in all the ways that I have commanded you, that it may be well with you." (Jeremiah 7:22-23)
Nothing could be more plain and striking than this: "Wherewith shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before the high God? shall I come before Him with burnt offerings, with calves of a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, or with ten thousands of rivers of oil? shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? He has showed you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with your God?" (Micah 6:6-8)
The following text makes the contrast between the form and the reality still more apparent, and shows that sacrifices without righteousness were an abomination to God, while righteousness was always acceptable, even if there were no sacrifice. Addressing those who had gone into idolatry, combining corrupt heathen practices, and God said: "I hate, I despise your feasts, and I will take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Yea, though you offer me your burnt offerings and meat offerings, I will not except them; neither will I regard the peace offerings of your fat beasts. Take away from me the noise of your songs; for I will not hear the melody of your viols. But let judgment rolled down as waters, and righteousness as a mighty stream." (Amos 5:21-24)
There is only one sacrifice, and that is the one which God has provided--Jesus Christ. God does not require a sacrifice from men, but makes one for him. The idea that man can make a sacrifice that will atone for any sin is the very essence of heathenism. It comes from the assumption that man is capable of saving himself; for if man could make a sacrifice, that would atone for his sin, he would be his own saviour; and if man were capable of saving himself he would be a god himself, owing no allegiance to any other.
The folly of the idea that men can do anything whatever to atone for sin is set forth in Micah 6:6-7, already quoted. I have sinned; shall I now offer a thousand sheep for my sin? That would do no good, for the sin is in me, and the death of all the sheep in the world cannot remove it. Even if we should go on the supposition that sin can be atoned for by payment, I am no better off, for all the sheep that ever lived are not worth as much as one human being.
Shall I then give my firstborn for my transgression-the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul? If I did this, I should be ordering something fully as valuable as myself, and which I value more highly than my own life; but still my sin would remain, because it is I who have committed it, and it is my own soul that is defiled. A sacrifice, to be of any service, must be one that will remove my sin, yea, more, remove my sinful life, and put a righteous life in its place. In short, since I have sinned, I myself must die.
But while my death in sin would blot out the sins, it would also blot me out of existence. God knows this, so He gives himself. "The Word was God, ... [And] in Him was life, and the life was the light of men, ... the true Light, which lights every man that comes into the world." (John 1:1,4,9)
This Light is unquenchable,--the Life is eternal. (John 10:28) It is the life of God who fills all things, that is offered in the sinner, and when that sacrifice is accepted the sinner ceases to live his own life, and has the new, resurrection life of Jesus instead. So he gives himself to God, in Christ, and the offering is acceptable because it is sufficient.
It is self-evident that a sacrifice offered by a sinner is only mockery. It is really an insult to God, since it is an assumption that the sinner is independent of God, and able to save himself. Only the sacrifices of righteousness can be acceptable. Thus we read: "Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord." (Psalm 4:5)
And again: "You desire not sacrifice, else would I give it: You delight not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise. Do good in your good pleasure unto Zion: build the walls of Jerusalem. Then shall You be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness." (Psalm 51:16-19) "By faith Abel offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts." (Hebrews 11:4)
Abel's offering was brought in faith; but that means that it was brought in righteousness, for faith makes men righteous. The moment a man has faith he becomes righteous, and then everything he does, provided he keeps the faith, must be acceptable. The question then arises, "What is the use of offering a sacrifice, if one is already righteous?"
This is really the question that you ask. Well, it is doubtful if anybody fully grasps the significance of the sacrifices; but one thing we may know, and that is that the offering, if it was a real offering to God, was a token of the man's acceptance of the offering that God had made. It was a confession of faith.
There were many things in the ancient Jewish worship, which would never have been given them, but for their unbelief, but we may be sure that no service was ever asked of them with the expectation that it had any virtue in itself.
When Abraham was going up the mountain to offer the sacrifice that God had appointed, Isaac said to him, "Behold the fire and the wood; but where is the lamb for a burnt offering?" (Genesis 22:7)
And Abraham replied, "My son, God will provide himself a lamb for a burnt offering." (Genesis 22:8)
That is what God has always done. "He gives to all life, and breath, and all things." (Acts 17:25) "The earth is His, and the fullness thereof," (Psalm 24:1) "and the cattle upon a thousand hills." (Psalm 50:10)
We also are His, for He has made us. (Psalm 100:3) Every true sacrifice is a recognition and acknowledgment of this. When we offer to God not only all that we have, but ourselves, we confess that all things come from Him, (1 Chronicles 29:14) and that it is only by virtue of His sacrifice that we live.
In Him alone we have righteousness and strength; for He is our life and our strength (Psalm 27:1; Habakkuk 3:19); and though we have nothing, and are nothing, (Romans 5:6) yet, having Him, we have all things, and are meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light. (Colossians 1:12)--Present Truth, December 5, 1901.