SACRIFICES. Numbers 7:87-88; Hebrews 9.

(Picture generated by Artificial Intelligence.)

Did you know that cultures all over the world use sacrifices? Many feel guilt and think if they sacrifice something they love, “the gods” will forgive. People have sacrificed fruit, grain, animals, even children.

God implemented a sacrificial system in ancient Israel, including sacrifices of grain, oil, doves, sheep, goats, and cattle. When Moses dedicated the tabernacle in Numbers 7, the number of animals slain was incredible. What’s the total?

“All the livestock for the burnt offering totaled 12 bulls, 12 rams, and 12 male lambs a year old, with their grain offerings, and 12 male goats for the sin offering. All the livestock for the fellowship sacrifice totaled 24 bulls, 60 rams, 60 male breeding goats, and 60 male lambs a year old” Numbers 7:87-88.

How many animals is that?

Each one with its throat cut and its blood drained on the steps of the altar?

It is 252 animals.

On the altar’s dedication day, the blood of 252 animals was poured out on the steps. That is A LOT of blood. The blood would have run down the steps and into the streets. Imagine the flies that must have gathered.

Bruce Marchiano explained that the JOHN film he is producing will open with a humming sound. Louder, and louder, and louder. A constant, mysterious hum. Viewers will wonder what they are hearing. Finally the camera reveals Jesus, hanging on the cross, a bleeding mess, and flies all over him. (Bruce got the idea from hanging 14 hours on a cross himself and being unable to brush the flies from his face.) Imagine.

But the blood of 252 animals could never do what the blood of One Perfect Man did. Jesus, the only holy man who ever lived, paid our sin debt with His holy blood. He is the one and only perfect sacrifice that every priest presenting every other sacrifice was looking forward to and hoping for. Jesus was the sacrifice all the others were seeking.

Jesus fulfilled all that was foreshadowed by the Old Testament system. Jesus IS our perfect sacrifice. There will never be another.

“Christ appeared as our Great High Priest, and entered the more perfect tabernacle… not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy place once and for all, having obtained eternal redemption” Hebrews 9:11-12.

He is both the sacrifice-er and the sacrifice.

Read Hebrews 9. It’s deep.

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