The Superiority of Jesus' Sacrifice

How was Jesus' sacrifice for sin superior to the sacrifices in the Old Testament?

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Answer

Jesus' sacrifice for sins was superior to those sacrifices of the Old Testament in several very important ways, but let me just name a couple. First of all, in the Old Testament, there was a there was a design of God that would prepare us ultimately for the sacrifice that would take away the sins of the world. We were prepared over and over again with the shedding of blood so that there could be the forgiveness of sins. With the substitutionary sacrifice that was a part of our recognition, our confession, that we had not lived up to Almighty God's demands and expectations in our part of the relationship. And so, therefore, there needed to be an event at which we publicly and personally proclaimed that and did something to repair the damaged part of the relationship. And this was part of the covenant action of God. You know, we're going keep up our relationship because on your part, you will keep coming back through these sacrifices to me, but they all led up to the Lamb of God. You know, in the Old Testament they were supposed to find a sacrifice without blemish, and in the New Testament as Jesus passes John the Baptist, as in the Gospel of John, John the Baptist says, "Behold the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world." Jesus' superiority consisted in two things, really. First of all, Jesus was God's sacrifice. You know, always before it was man's sacrifice to God. Now, in Jesus, it's God's sacrifice on behalf of man. And so, therefore, if it's God's sacrifice, it's perfect. It pays the whole thing. And repetition is not needed because God has satisfied his own mercy and his own holiness. And so, it's a wonderful fulfillment of what he taught us to do for all of those years, but it's his action, and his action is perfect and complete. The second way of its superiority was that it was done out of sacrificial love. You know, the Bible says that "God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son," and then we follow Jesus all through the New Testament, and we see his self-sacrificing love that lays down his life, that empties himself, taking on the form of a servant, and ultimately that obedience is unto death. And so, the quality of that sacrifice is superior because it's a human life, and it's not an animal. It the substitution comes from a "heart," somewhat similar to "life" and not simply what they've given or rendered up in order to escape the just punishment or in order to repair a relationship. And so, that we can't ever miss that, we can't miss the personal side of this and just think of it as a mechanical recompense, you know. We've got to understand that this is about a relationship, and it was about a person who loved us that much.

Answer by Dr. Joel C. Hunter

Dr. Joel C. Hunter is Founder and Chairman of Community Resource Network in Orlando, FL, where he formerly served as Sr. Pastor of Northland, A Church Distributed.