Paul the Poke

Isaiah 1:11 “Of what importance to me are your many sacrifices?”says the Lord. “I am stuffed withburnt sacrifices of rams and the fat from steers. The blood of bulls, lambs, and goats I do not want.

The idea God is expressingis that he is full and stuffed with the sacrifices. I am sure the Jewish people are thinking, “Well this is what we are supposed to do. We are doing what You told us to do.” The bottom line is that God rejects their sacrifice because of their continued sin. In fact, God rejects their offerings every time in verses 11-15. Enough with the religious performance, God rejects it absolutely.

The Jews are sparing no expense during these sacrifices. They are offering up the “fat”. In the Hebrew, this is the choicest parts, the best, the most abundant. This same concept is in the phrase “your many sacrifices”. The idea is abundance.

The protocol of a burnt offering calls for a person to bring a young bull, lamb, goat, dove, or pigeon. The person doing the sacrifice was to personally lay their hand on the animal and kill the animal. The specific details of the sacrificial system are noted in Leviticus 1-7.

The point of the sacrificial system is to remind the Jewish people of their sin. People can not atone or pay for sin on their terms. The blood of the innocent must be shed on behalf of the guilty. God defines the terms. This concept starts in the Garden of Eden with the Fall of Man.  Adam and Eve’s solution was to sew fig leaves together in Genesis 3:7. God rejected their effort. God replaced the fig leaves with garments of skin in Genesis 3:21. An innocent animal was sacrificed and blood was shed to cover the sin of Adam and Eve. Sin is dealt with on God’s terms, not man’s. Despite the best of intentions, man’s efforts will never be good enough to pay for sin even if that sin is accidental.

These sacrifices were a shadow of things to come when one man would be sacrificed once and for all for sin. Jesus was the sacrifice when He paid the price for sin on the cross (Hebrews 7:27, 9:28, 10:10; 1 Peter 3:18).

This entry was posted on October 10, 2010 at 8:34 PM and is filed under Isaiah with tags burnt offering, Isaiah, Israel, sacrifical system. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.