What Is Sacrifice?
Sacrifice is the Bible's general term for the gifts and offerings presented to God. In the Old Testament the book of Leviticus defines a detailed order of offerings: burnt offering, grain offering, fellowship offering, sin offering and guilt offering. These expressed thanksgiving, dedication, fellowship and cleansing from sin, and the sacrificial order made visible that sin costs life and forgiveness is not free. The prophets and psalmists stress that ritual without the heart becomes worthless: 'The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit.' The New Testament, above all the letter to the Hebrews, reads this order in the light of Jesus' death on the cross, announcing that the cleansing the repeated offerings pointed to was provided by him once for all. For this reason Christian worship has no animal sacrifice; instead believers are called to offer themselves as 'a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God', devoting their lives to God.