A God of Sacrifice

When I was reading through Leviticus awhile ago, I came across some gruesome commandments about sacrifice. Here’s an example:

If he brings a lamb as his sin offering, he is to bring a female without defect. He is to lay his hand on its head and slaughter it for a sin offering at the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered. Then the priest shall take some of the blood of the sin offering with his finger and put it on the horns of the altar of burnt offering and pour out the rest of the blood at the base of the altar. He shall remove all the fat, just as the fat is removed from the lamb of the fellowship offering, and the priest shall burn it on the altar on top of the offerings made to the LORD by fire. In this way the priest will make atonement for him for the sin he has committed, and he will be forgiven (Leviticus 4:32-5).

As I read passage after passage of God commanding the Israelites to sacrifice animals, I started to feel uncomfortable.

My world view was being tested.

I’ve always been an animal lover. I suppose it’s in my genes. Everyone in my family is a sucker for cute, cuddly pets who need a home.

And here I was reading (and actually taking it in, instead of glossing it over as I had done so many times before when reading the Old Testament sacrifice passages) that God – my gracious, loving, wonderful God – required the death of cute, cuddly animals to atone for sin.

In my discomfort, I was tempted to gloss it over once again. On the surface, I just don’t know how to reconcile these two things. A tender, loving God with a God who demands bloody death and sacrifice. But this time, instead of moving on, I asked God about it.

“Father, is this really who You are? How can this be? How can the God I know and love so intimately be this same God who requires blood and death?”

Immediately, I felt the Holy Spirit respond. “Yes, it is who I am. It is very much part of who I am. And this isn’t as incompatible with your view of Me as you think. Death in Me is life. You can’t have the one without the other. You can’t be alive in Me until you’ve died to yourself – a horrible, bloody, gruesome death. It doesn’t come easily. It feels uncomfortable, even painful. It doesn’t feel fair. But after you’ve done it, true life can begin. My life in you.”

Once more, I repented of holding on to my own idea of how life should be lived. I repented of needing to feel in control of my life. I surrendered to Him again, laying myself on His altar, believing that something much better was waiting on the other side.

“The LORD gave and the LORD has taken away;  may the name of the LORD be praised” (Job 1:20).

I APPEAL to you therefore, brethren, and beg of you in view of [all] the mercies of God, to make a decisive dedication of your bodies [presenting all your members and faculties] as a living sacrifice, holy (devoted, consecrated) and well pleasing to God, which is your reasonable (rational, intelligent) service and spiritual worship.

Do not be conformed to this world (this age), [fashioned after and adapted to its external, superficial customs], but be transformed (changed) by the [entire] renewal of your mind [by its new ideals and its new attitude], so that you may prove [for yourselves] what is the good and acceptable and perfect will of God, even the thing which is good and acceptable and perfect [in His sight for you] (Romans 12:1-2 AMP).

Have you ever wrestled with incompatible views of God? What happened? Have you faced questions from others about how a loving God can ask for painful sacrifices? What did you tell them?