'There are priests that offer gifts according to the law: who serve unto the example and

shadow of heavenly things.'--Hebrews 8:4, 5

It is a curious fact, but sadly significant, that modern Judaism should declare neither

sacrifices nor a Levitical priesthood to belong to the essence of the Old Testament; that,

in fact, they had been foreign elements imported into it --tolerated, indeed, by Moses,

but against which the prophets earnestly protested and incessantly laboured. The only

arguments by which this strange statement is supported are, that the Book of

Deuteronomy contains merely a brief summary, not a detailed repetition, of sacrificial

ordinances, and that such passages as Isaiah 1:11, etc., Micah 6:6, etc., inveigh against

sacrifices offered without real repentance or change of mind. Yet this anti-sacrificial, or,

as we may call it, anti-spiritual, tendency is really of much earlier date. For the sacrifices

of the Old Testament were not merely outward observances --a sort of work-

righteousness which justified the offerer by the mere fact of his obedience--since 'it is

not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins' (Heb 10:4).

The sacrifices of the Old Testament were symbolical and typical. An outward

observance without any real inward meaning is only a ceremony. But a rite which has a

present spiritual meaning is a symbol; and if, besides, it also points to a future reality,

conveying at the same time, by anticipation, the blessing that is yet to appear, it is a

type. Thus the Old Testament sacrifices were not only symbols, nor yet merely

predictions by fact (as prophecy is a prediction by word), but they already conveyed to

the believing Israelite the blessing that was to flow from the future reality to which they

pointed. Hence the service of the letter and the work-righteousness of the Scribes and

Pharisees ran directly contrary to this hope of faith and spiritual view of sacrifices,

which placed all on the level of sinners to be saved by the substitution of another, to

whom they pointed. Afterwards, when the destruction of the Temple rendered its

services impossible, another and most cogent reason was added for trying to substitute

other things, such as prayers, fasts, etc., in room of the sacrifices. Therefore, although

none of the older Rabbis has ventured on such an assertion as that of modern Judaism,

the tendency must have been increasingly in that direction. In fact, it had become a

necessity--since to declare sacrifices of the essence of Judaism would have been to

pronounce modern Judaism an impossibility. But thereby also the synagogue has given

sentence against itself, and by disowning sacrifices has placed itself outside the pale of

the Old Testament.

Every unprejudiced reader of the Bible must feel that sacrifices constitute the centre of

the Old Testament. Indeed, were this the place, we might argue from their universality

that, along with the acknowledgment of a Divine power, the dim remembrance of a

happy past, and the hope of a happier future, sacrifices belonged to the primeval

traditions which mankind inherited from Paradise. To sacrifice seems as 'natural' to man

as to pray; the one indicates what he feels about himself, the other what he feels about

God. The one means a felt need of propitiation; the other a felt sense of dependence.