Leviticus 1:4 - "He lay his hand on the head of the burnt offering, and it will be accepted on his behalf to make atonement for him."
Hebrews 9:22 - "In fact, the law requires that nearly everything be cleansed with blood, and without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness."
1 John 4:10 - "This is love: not that we loved God, but that he loved us and sent his Son as an atoning sacrifice for our sins."
A sacrifice is a kind of substitution, something given up in order to obtain something else of greater value. In the Old Testament, a sacrifice was an act of worship in which the blood of an animal was shed as a substitute for the punishment people deserved for their sin. It might seem cruel that animals would be sacrificed on an altar, but it would be far, far worse if a person had to die instead.
These days we are desensitised to the seriousness of sin despite sin being just as serious in God's eyes as it has always been. Sin deserves eternal death because it separates us from God. God is holy. We are not. Holiness and sin cannot co-exist. In Old Testament days, God provided a way for the people's sins to be removed so they could be holy in God's eyes. People brought an animal to the altar, and it would become their 'substitute', taking their place on the altar. They symbolically transferred their sins to the animal, allowing them to be pure and holy once again before God. When Jesus died on the cross, he transferred the sins of all humankind onto himself, forever. No more sacrifices need to be made. Jesus was the last sacrifice. All you need to do now is recognise your sin before God and accept his gift of forgiveness.
Anytime you make a sacrifice by giving something up for someone else, you can be reminded, in some small way, of God's sacrifice, the greatest sacrifice of all. Out of gratitude that God sacrificed so much for you, you should be willing to follow his example and find ways to sacrifice for others.
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