Salvation and Godly Rule

Sacrifice

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Doctrinal Studies

Lesson: Sacrifice

Genre: Speech

Track: 10

Dictation Name: RR136E10

Location/Venue:

Year: 1960’s-1970’s

Blessed is the man whom thou chooses and calls us to approach unto thee that he may dwell in thy court. We shall be satisfied with the goodness of thy house, even of thy holy temple. O come let us sing unto the Lord, let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation. Let us come before His presence with thanksgiving and make a joyful noise until Him with psalms. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, who of thy grace and mercy hast made us a people unto thee. We thank thee that thou hast promised us such great things in Jesus Christ. We thank thee that, in Him, we are heirs of all things, joint heirs with Christ, called to rule, called to exercise dominion and to subdue the earth. By thy word and by thy spirit, empower us to this thy calling, and prosper us in thy service. In Jesus name. Amen.

Our scripture lesson is Leviticus 1, and our subject: Sacrifice. We begin this week the study of the subject of sacrifice, which we will return to a little later, and this is an introduction to the subject of sacrifice. “And the Lord called unto Moses, and spake unto him out of the tabernacle of the congregation, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, If any man of you bring an offering unto the Lord, ye shall bring your offering of the cattle, even of the herd, and of the flock. If his offering be a burnt sacrifice of the herd, let him offer a male without blemish: he shall offer it of his own voluntary will at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation before the Lord. And he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering; and it shall be accepted for him to make atonement for him. And he shall kill the bullock before the Lord: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall bring the blood, and sprinkle the blood round about upon the altar that is by the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And he shall flay the burnt offering, and cut it into his pieces.

And the sons of Aaron the priest shall put fire upon the altar, and lay the wood in order upon the fire: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall lay the parts, the head, and the fat, in order upon the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar: but his inwards and his legs shall he wash in water: and the priest shall burn all on the altar, to be a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord. And if his offering be of the flocks, namely, of the sheep, or of the goats, for a burnt sacrifice; he shall bring it a male without blemish. And he shall kill it on the side of the altar northward before the Lord: and the priests, Aaron's sons, shall sprinkle his blood round about upon the altar. And he shall cut it into his pieces, with his head and his fat: and the priest shall lay them in order on the wood that is on the fire which is upon the altar: but he shall wash the inwards and the legs with water: and the priest shall bring it all, and burn it upon the altar: it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord. And if the burnt sacrifice for his offering to the Lord be of fowls, then he shall bring his offering of turtledoves, or of young pigeons. And the priest shall bring it unto the altar, and wring off his head, and burn it on the altar; and the blood thereof shall be wrung out at the side of the altar: and he shall pluck away his crop with his feathers, and cast it beside the altar on the east part, by the place of the ashes: and he shall cleave it with the wings thereof, but shall not divide it asunder: and the priest shall burn it upon the altar, upon the wood that is upon the fire: it is a burnt sacrifice, an offering made by fire, of a sweet savour unto the Lord.”

One of our problems in studying the subject of sacrifice is that the English word for sacrifice tends to give us the wrong idea. It comes from the Latin. The Latin word is sacrificium, and it literally means “to make holy.” It’s a very noble word, but unfortunately, it is not the meaning that the Hebrew words for holy and the Greek words in the New Testament convey. The words in the Old and New Testament which are used, and which are translated as sacrifice are literally a slaughter, a killing. This literally is what the word sacrifice means in the Greek and in the Hebrew. The Latin word, sacrifice or sacrificium, gives an exalted idea; to make holy.

The biblical word smacks of blood and of an innocent victim. This is because biblical sacrifice is related to a harsh reality; sin and its consequences, which are death. Sacrifice is in the Bible, intended to be an unpleasant fact, a reminder rather of an unpleasant fact and the answer to it. It is an unhappy reminder to the sinner of the consequences of sin, the fact of judgment.

Hostility to sacrifice arose very early in history. When we go back into ancient times, we find that the knowledge of sacrifice was worldwide. There is no culture anywhere that does not have sacrifice anywhere in its past. God made clear sacrifice and its meaning to Noah, and all the sons of Noah, wherever they scattered, took with them that meaning. They perverted it. They abandoned it, but they never forgot it. One of the most pronounced oppositions to sacrifice arose in Buddhism. Buddha strongly opposed all sacrifice. He saw it as a futile effort. He declared it was cruelty to the animals involved. He declared that it lacked in spirituality. Very soon, under King Asoka, it became a law in all Buddhist realms that no animal may be slaughtered for sacrifice.

The idea that man could gain innocence or holiness by the sacrifice of an animal was ridiculed by the Buddhists. Holiness, they said, was to be gained by man’s work, and that work was of forsaking of the material world, renouncing life and the world as illusions. The holy man said Buddhism was one who killed all passions, who sought to escape from the world and from life itself, to escape from Karma into Nirvana, nothingness. In the twentieth century, the Buddhist view is again prevalent. It involves a denial of the supernatural and sees sacrifice as a surre3nder of certain things by the individuals. It sees it as a human act, rather than a divine act.

As a result, salvation, because for the twentieth century man, after Buddhism and after a degenerate, apostate Christianity means the surrender or sacrifice of certain things for the common good, for the salvation of the individual and everyone, quite naturally believes in confiscatory taxation and anything which makes us surrender things for the common good. Not surprisingly, from the very beginning, the Buddhist program of salvation led to what we today call socialism, or totalitarianism, because if sacrifice means the surrender of certain things for one’s salvation and for the common good, then the simplest way to save everybody is to tell them, “You’re going to sacrifice everything,” and this is exactly what Buddhism did, and what our modern Buddhist, totalitarian states are doing.

This is the common idea of sacrifice, even in the churches, evangelical churches. Sacrifice is giving up something, and it is held that this somehow ennobles you. How often do sermons resound with talk of how much have you sacrificed for the Lord, or what have you given up in Lent, in certain churches, and all this is blasphemy. There is no other word for it. God requires tithes of us. He expects gifts beyond the tithe. He asks us, He commands us to obey His law, to act as though we are giving up something for the Lord is Phariseeism. Our Lord taught us, striking at this pagan idea of sacrifice, “So likewise ye whence ye shall have done all those things which are commanded you, say we are unprofitable servants. We have done that this was our duty to do.” The idea that sacrifice is something that man does, which somehow ennobles him, is Buddhist. The biblical idea is that it is a killing, not a surrender of something, but a killing, and the cause of that killing or execution is sin, and the sentence of God on all sin is death. The death of man, therefore, is a just consequence of the Fall.

Now, biblical sacrifice has reference to killing an unblemished animal, a clean animal, an animal without blemish. Malachi, in his book, speaks of the evil, the blasphemy of blemished offerings. He said also, “Behold, what a weariness is it! and ye have snuffed at it, saith the LORD of hosts; and ye brought that which was torn, and the lame, and the sick; thus ye brought an offering: should I accept this of your hand? saith the LORD. But cursed be the deceiver, which hath in his flock a male, and voweth, and sacrificeth unto the Lord a corrupt thing: for I am a great King, saith the Lord of hosts, and my name is dreadful among the heathen.”

No man could bring a blemished offering because the sacrifice set forth the animal of the sacrifice, Jesus Christ, the unblemished one. It set forth that which God would do for man, and therefore, it could not be imperfect. The sacrifice required the shedding of blood. It required, as our text declares in the fourth verse, “and he shall put his hand upon the head of the burnt offering, and it shall be accepted for him to make an atonement for him.” The believe thus identified himself with the sacrificial animal, which was then killed and its blood shed. According to Leviticus 17:11, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls, for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.

Deuteronomy 12:23 says the blood is the life. Now here is a remarkable fact. Too often, the idea of sacrifice, because it does involve a killing, an execution, is therefore associated with death. That’s the logical inference. It does involve death, but its association, that of the shed blood, is scripture tells us, “with life.” Mikrum{?} has said, with regard to Leviticus 1, “When it is said that we are saved by the blood of Christ, this does not mean by His death so much as by His life. In the old sacrifices, the slaying of the victim was only incidental to the ritual of the blood which was subsequently applied to the altar, and sometimes to the worshiper. For the blood is the life. In the case of the victim, it is the life that is passed through death. The blood of Christ is the life that is passed through death. We are said to be saved then by the life of the crucified, by the life of him who died for us. This is very true. In scripture, blood and life, the two words, are sometimes used interchangeably.

Again, as Ginsburg has commented on this passage, “As the blood of the victim is identical with its life, and represents the soul of the animal, hence God has appointed it as a substitute for the sinner’s life. Thus, the life of the sacrifice atones for the life of the offerer. Hence, the remark of the apostle, ‘without shedding of blood, there is no remission.’” Now, this is a very important point. The sacrifice, instead of resulting in death for us, means life. The sacrificial animals we have seen symbolized Jesus Christ, the sinless one, our substitute. He kept the law perfectly as our representative, and assumed death for us, and His death is our life.

Now, in his death, Christ manifested His office as prophet. St. Paul tells us in 1Timothy 6:13, that Christ before Pontius Pilate, witnessed a good confession. He witnessed to his royal power before Pilate, declaring himself to be the king, whose kingdom was not derived from this world but from God in heaven. He declared the true knowledge of salvation in his life and sacrifice. He set forth the enormity of sin, the necessity of justice, and the magnificence of God’s saving grace. In His sacrifice, our Lord revealed himself as king. He destroyed the power of sin and death. As King Christ subdues us to himself, rules and defends us, restrains and conquers our enemies, and declares himself king of the new creation, alone able to deliver, to defend and to prosper his people.

As priest, He himself, of His own voluntary will, as our representative, according to Leviticus 1, offered up himself in our atonement. The atonement requires death, the destruction of sinful life, the cancer of sin. The blood of the atonement, when the animal was sacrificed, was then placed upon the persons of the priests, according to Exodus 29:19-21. “And thou shalt take the other ram; and Aaron and his sons shall put their hands upon the head of the ram. Then shalt thou kill the ram, and take of his blood, and put it upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot, and sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about. And thou shalt take of the blood that is upon the altar, and of the anointing oil, and sprinkle it upon Aaron, and upon his garments, and upon his sons, and upon the garments of his sons with him: and he shall be hallowed, and his garments, and his sons, and his sons' garments with him.” In other words, the priests, as the representatives of the people had to identify themselves wit the victim. Even so, Christ as our high priest identified himself with us, and as himself the sinless substitute for our offenses, accepted death for us.

Now, with regard to the blood, which was put upon the one who offered up the sacrifice, Rollinson commented long ago, the blood was regarded as the life. The life consecrated to God and accepted by Him was given back by Him to His ministers, that it might consecrate them holy to his service, and so fit them for it. Placed upon the tip of the right ear, it reminded them that their ears were to be ever open and attentive to the whispers of the divine voice. Placed on the thumb of the right hand, it taught them that they should take in hand nothing but what was sanctified. Place upon the great toe of the right foot, it was a warning that they were to talk thenceforth in the paths of holiness. Now that comment is true. It is good as far as it goes, but it is seriously in error because it is a limited perspective. It speaks of a negative sanctification. Taking in hand nothing but what was sanctified, walking only in the paths of holiness, hearing only God’s word, all true, but limited. It speaks of a negative sanctification, and thus it falls into the pitfall of Buddhism.

Now what is the symbol of Buddhist sanctification? You have all seen it. It’s become very common in our culture. Three monkeys with their hands over their eyes, their ears, the mouths; speak, hear, see no evil. Now that’s Buddhist sanctification. For the Buddhist, it was essentially negation. You separated yourself from the world, from life. You looked forward to death so that you might escape the horrible burden of life and go into Nirvana, eternal nothingness. But this is not biblical sanctification.

One of the things also we are told in this same passage in Exodus 29:12, is that the first thing done with the blood of the sacrifice was that it was placed upon the horns of the altar. The horns of the altar symbolizing the virtue, the strength, the majesty and the power of God, indicating that the blood was now power, the power of God unto salvation. Then it was put on the ears, the hands, and the feet of the one who sacrificed, indicating that the blood now had the power of God, and he who was not under the blood of God went forth in the power of God. In other words, those under the blood are out from under the curse, and are now the people of God’s power, of glory, and kingdom. They are out from under the law as a death sentence, and in the law as their way of life. They are now the people of the blood and the law. The people of the blood and the law, and the promise made to redeemed Israel is the promise magnified by the blood of Christ to his covenant race, to the new humanity.

As a result, in Deuteronomy 11:24-25, we read, “Every place whereon the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours: from the wilderness and Lebanon, from the river, the river Euphrates, even unto the uttermost sea shall your coast be. There shall no man be able to stand before you: for the Lord your God shall lay the fear of you and the dread of you upon all the land that ye shall tread upon, as he hath said unto you.” Now this is not a monkey virtue Buddhist fashion. It is a promise of victory. All the earth, the people of God, are summoned to tread upon every place where the soles of your feet shall tread shall be yours. The blood, in other words, signified life and power. The people of God who are the redeemed people are under the blood. They were literally touched with the blood in the Old Testament, to signify that now, the power of the altar, the power of the horns was their power, and they were to go forth and place the sole of their feet upon every area of life and to conquer. This is why, in Romans 16:20 we are told that God shall bruise the head of Satan under your feet.

As we saw last week in Isaiah 60:14, the sons also of them that are put to thee shall come bending unto thee, and all they that despise thee shall bow themselves down at the soles of thy feet, and they shall call them the city of the Lord, the Zion of the holy one of Israel. These passages were very important to the early church, very important to Israel of old. Rome knew about it. They were afraid of the Jews before Christ and the Christians thereafter. These people were programmed to take over. Wherever the sole of their feet were to tread, they were to regard as an area of battle, an area they were going to take over. They were not out to survive. They were out to conquer, and this is why the symbol most common in the early church is that which reads, “By this sign conquer,” the sign of the cross. They were people who were being slaughtered, sent to the arena, beheaded wholesale, but they were programmed for victory, and they got it.

“I have sworn,” says the Lord, “by myself the word is gone out of my mouth in righteousness and shall not return, but unto me every knee shall bow, every tongue shall swear,” and this is what it means to be the people of Christ. This is the significance of the cross, a sign of conquest, a sign that we are under the blood, we are the people of the blood and the law, and therefore, where the soles of our feet shall tread, there we shall do battle and conquer. Every area therefore, is an area of conquest. To assume that only the ministry is a calling is Romanist doctrine. Every area is an area of conquest. Every area is a place of witness, and our witness should be first and last a Christian witness.

I was very much thrilled this week to read such a witness made by one of our number. Works in an area which is a good area of Christians; National Defense, a godly area, and after a required session of sensitivity training, he wrote a report for a commanding officer about it, which gave no offense at any point, which described the sessions fairly, and stated a religious issue. This is humanism, a religious presentation, and my faith is in the living God. It’s no wonder that after Dick Deamer{?} submitted that report, the commanding officer asked someone to look up Calvinism for him. It was the kind of report that made him want to know. Every area is an area of witness and a place of conquest. Sacrifice in the Bible is not a giving up of something. It is not a surrender of something. It is the gift of God unto salvation. It is the fullness of life. It is triumph and victory, and the people of God will again triumph when they see the cross, not as something that tells them they’re to give up some little two-bit thing in their life for the Lord, supposedly, but a sign of conquest. By this sign, conquer. It is time for Christians to stop their blasphemy on the subject and to rejoice in the call and the commission to victory. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, through thy grace and mercy in Jesus Christ has made us the people of the blood and the law, and hast declared that wherever the soles of our feet shall tread, there we shall do battle and manifest thy victory. Give us grace, therefore, to come humbly to thee, confessing our sins and our shortcomings, seeking thy will in the place where thou wouldst have us serve thee, and there to manifest thy victory. We thank thee, our Father, that our calling is so great and glorious a one. We thank thee that thou hast called us. We are unprofitable servants to do all these things and yet has promised us such great rewards. Make us ever mindful, O Lord, of thy grace and of thy mercy, and constant in thy praise. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] {?} he mentioned the {?} bruised the heel {?} my understanding {?}

[Rushdoony] In Genesis 3, it refers to the fact that Jesus Christ will have His heel hurt by Satan, but He shall crush the serpent’s head. Then, St. Paul, in Romans 16, I think verse 20, tells us that we in Christ, are to do the same.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Let me see, yes, 16:20. Romans 16:20. “And the God of peace shall bruise Satan under your feet shortly.” Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, a good question. I touched on it briefly, but too briefly perhaps. It says of his own voluntary will that we are commanded, or rather the Old Testament believer was commanded to do it. Now, it was Christ who fulfilled that requirement of doing it of his own voluntary will, as our representative. Just as we could not provide a fitting sacrifice of ourselves, just as we at no point could keep the law perfectly, He does it for us, and He himself offers himself of His own voluntary will. So that while every Old Testament believer did that because he was commanded, Christ, as his representatives, did it of his own voluntary will. Any other questions? Yes?

[Audience] {?} What would be symbolic of who he is in Christ? {?} what would be the {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, a very good question. The question was we know that the sacrifice set forth Jesus Christ and his atoning work. What did it mean to the Hebrew who came forward and gave his sacrifice, or offered up his sacrificial animal? Now, of course, there’s no doubt that for many, it was just a routine that was prescribed, just as there are many people who go to church and don’t know what it means, but they go every Sunday because it’s a good thing to do, but there’s no question that the Old Testament very specifically indicated what it meant, that it was a sacrifice of atonement. Moreover, that the animal in question was a substitute even as the priest himself was a substitute, that they both typified one who was to come. So, they recognized very definitely that this was a ritual which was setting forth something that was, in time, to be fulfilled, and that God himself would provide the one perfect and unrepeatable sacrifice. It is significant that when Christ came and they rejected Him, they never returned after the Fall of Jerusalem, to the sacrificial system. It was a way of recognizing, without admitting that the sacrificial system had been fulfilled and ended. There has never been any attempt to return to it. Thus, they knew, they knew very definitely its meaning, because every detail of the sacrificial system and its meaning was more important to them. They had to observe these details very strictly, and they had to study their meaning. So, they very definitely knew what it meant.

As a matter of fact, every Passover service was a time of teaching. It began with the cleansing of the house of leaven so that the father would take a candle or a lamp, and go through the house with the children to search out the leaven, and it was an occasion to teach them so must we cleanse our hearts and prepare ourselves for the Passover sacrifice. Then, at the time of the Passover, the youngest male child who was able to speak, asked the question, “What is the meaning of this sacrifice?” and the father was to explain to them that it set forth God’s salvation, that God had delivered His people out of Egypt with a mighty hand, and then to go on and explain the meaning of the Passover lamb. Again, one of the festivals which appears in the New Testament, which is the only one that is not a part of the required law of the Old Testament, in fact it is not mentioned in the Old Testament law, is the Festival of Lights. There’s a very telling one because it set forth, very clearly, the whole meaning of the sacrificial system, and at the Festival of Lights, it was at that time that Jesus went into the temple and declared, “I am the light of the world,” and they knew what He was talking about. That’s why they resented it, but everybody in the city put out their lights, in all of Jerusalem, and round about. Every light was put out, every lamp, every candle, every fireplace, and everyone then lined up and went to the temple to relight their lights from the altar, “In thy light shall we see light” to signify that the light of the world came from the altar, from God’s appointed sacrifice.

Now, that Festival of Lights, which they themselves devised as a teaching instrument, set forth their awareness of what it meant, and this is why our Lord infuriated them. He did make it clear that they knew, and that He was the one that all of this was about. “I am the light of the world.” We cannot underrate their knowledge. They very definitely knew what these things typified. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. The question is when God clothed Adam and Eve in animal skins, was that first sacrifice like these sacrifices? Now, we’re not definitely told that it was so, but theologians through the centuries and from the time of the Hebrews have said that at that time, God set forth to Adam and Eve the meaning of sacrifice and its relationship to salvation, and this is why from there on, we find them sacrificing. So, it’s a very good conclusion that God, at that time, told them exactly what the way of salvation was.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes, and you see, the difference between the sacrifice of Cain and Abel was that all that Cain wanted to offer was a thank offering. He didn’t want a blood offering because he didn’t feel the need of salvation. He was ready to say, “I don’t need anything like that from God. I’ll just thank Him for what I’ve got, so he was trying to approach Him without atonement.”

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Very good point, yes. This has always been the ungodly conception of sacrifice, as giving up something, and no doubt Cain had that in mind as you suggested. That’s a very good point. Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes. The Vatican conclusion that it was the Romans who killed Jesus is technically correct. It was a Roman {?} that only Rome could impose the death penalty. On the other hand, Rome did not impose it until it came up through the Jewish courts, so that Rome did not step in and overrule the lower courts. The lower courts had to ask for it, and the Roman governor then passed on it. So that the death penalty for our Lord was definitely the work of Rome and of the Sanhedrin. They were united in requiring it. Now certainly you would have to say that Pilate was pressured into it, because he was concerned with that which was politically wise rather than what was right or wrong, but it doesn’t take away his responsibility any more than taking away, you can take away the responsibility of the Jews by the fact that Rome passed the sentence. So, they were both very clearly responsible; Jews and Romans, alike for the guilt of our Lord’s death. Now theologically, we must say that everyone who is not a Christian is under the death sentence and in effect is saying, Let Christ perish. It is better for this man to die. His way we reject, and in that respect, the Negro spiritual, “Where You There When They Crucified My Lord,” is right, because men either acknowledge that they deserve to die and Christ died in their stead, or they are saying “Crucify Him, we want no part of this man.” Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] And the consequence, of course, was the destruction of Jerusalem, which our Lord in Matthew 24 declared was the greatest single tragedy in history, or shall be. There shall never be anything equal to that.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] Yes?

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] He saw that it did, but that it was the Hebrew believer found forgiveness of sins through it, but he recognized that this was a type of that which was to come, that in advance of the event, the benefits accrued to him.

[Audience] {?}

[Rushdoony] He was forgiven by Christ’s sacrifice in advance of Christ’s coming. This is a crude illustration, but it has been used, that someone has funds coming to him that shall be available two or three months hence. This fact is known, it is established. In advance of that, he is given credit at the local bank for these funds, because they know it’s in transit. The Hebrew believer did have forgiveness, not because the blood of bulls or goats could forgive, but because Christ was going to die for him and that was imputed to him in advance, that atoning work of Christ. So, he was saved by the blood of Christ in advance of Christ’s coming death. Yes?

[Audience] It was through faith {?} faith.

[Rushdoony] Yes, there’s no difference in the method of salvation in the Old and New Testaments. Dispensationalists sometimes talk about salvation in the Old Testament being by law and in the New Testament by grace, and this is nonsense. It was never by law, never. It was always by the grace of God through Christ and His sacrifice, and the whole of the sacrificial system set this forth, so that there’s been no change in God’s way of salvation nor in God’s program for man. It’s been the same plan of salvation age after age.

Our time now is about up. I’d like to make one announcement. The Chalcedon prayer meeting and Bible study will be held this Saturday, April 29, at 7:30 p.m. at the home of the Hamilton’s. The address is 2169 Mandeville Road, and contact either Flora West {?} for directions. That’s this Saturday night at 7:30 p.m. I believe that’s the last, the only announcement except perhaps one brief word about our Christian school seminar with a faculty of five this summer, will be held July 17 and 18, Monday and Tuesday, at Knott’s Berry Farm. We will have a little note on it at the end of the April report, and we hope in a matter of days to have more material on it from Fairfax to put in the mail to everyone interested. Let us bow our heads now for the benediction.

And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape