In the Old Testament, there was five kinds of sacrifices:
- The Sin Offering – offered for general sin. This was people acknowledging their were sinners.
- The Trespass Offering – offered for specific sin. When you sinned big, you raced down to the temple and offered this sacrifice.
- The Burnt Offering – offered as a sign of general consecration. This meant you were rededicating your life to God.
- Meal/Grain Offering – offered from the crop they harvested. They would bring grain from their fields and the priests would make bread from it.
- Peace Offering – the ultimate offering. It was a cumulative offer, that took all of the offerings together and made a way for real peace in your life.
This was a complex and taxing system. Jesus took all the offerings and embodied them all. He is the sin offering: he covers all the sins we know about and all the sins we might not realize we committed. He is our trespass offering: nothing is too big for him to absolve and wipe away. He is our burnt, meal/grain and peace offering. He is all of them. He is our righteousness, our savior, our healer, our redeemer, our peace. He’s everything.
There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit. (Romans 8:1-4)
Christ finished the work. He doesn’t have to die again. There doesn’t have to be another round of sacrifices. He poured out his blood on heaven’s mercy seat. That was enough. He paid the full price for our pain and disease. Past, present and future sins were taken care of by his blood.
This has the real power to free our society of most of it’s mental illness. This reality of our past being wiped clean and a future of freedom from regrets and hatred could clear our mental institutions. So much of what plagues our culture today is the lack of real understanding as to the finished work of Jesus Christ.
