Old Testament Sacrifices

CHAPTER 2

The Special Character of Old Testament Sacrifices

If the difference between sacrifices is determined by the quality of the religion they express, then it is obvious that sacrifice to the True God differs root and branch from the idolatrous sacrifices that express the various forms of pagan piety. The apostle Paul warns his children of them just as he warns them of service to idols. It is as if they exist alongside sacrifices to the True God, in competition with them in their preeminence. This of course does not prevent these sacrifices in and of themselves, along with all pious paganism, from expressing a low level of religious consciousness unenlightened by revelation. As “natural revelation,” which does not oppose true religion yet remains ignorant of it, these pagan sacrifices, as with paganism in general, do seem to possess a certain positive religious value. However, that is abolished when set next to true religion and does stand in opposition to it. One such pagan counterfeit and temptation in religious life is magic, accompanied by the ritual mechanization of sacrifice. It is well known that not only the worship of false gods but also the false worship of the True God is the subject of stern denouncements by the prophets (in Isaiah, Hosea, Amos, Jeremiah, etc.). Against this ritualism and magic the prophets valorize the worship of God in the spirit of truth, the spiritual sacrifice that is a truly human act (Isa. 1:11–17, Jer. 7:20–22, Amos 5:21–22). “. . . For I desire mercy and not sacrifice, and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings” (Hos. 6:6; NKJV). “The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit” (Ps. 50:19 [LXX]). However, these kinds of judgments do

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8 The Eucharistic Sacrifice

not indicate an annulment or even disparagement of the sacrificial law. The whole piety of the chosen people and their rites in connection with sacrifices and priests forms a priestly Typikon, just as the temple itself is above all a place of sacrifice, with the altar at the center.1 The truth of sacrifices to the True God was not destroyed by the sinful limitations and abuses of Old Testament Israel that the prophets railed against. As such, these quotations do not support the idea that they vacillated about the institution of sacrifice itself. Nevertheless, Old Testament sacrifices, precisely by belonging to the Old Covenant, have merely a limited, typological meaning, as expressly laid out in the Epistle to the Hebrews. Above all, this stems from the contingency and insufficiency of the Old Testament priesthood per se. On the one hand, the high priest that is supplied for the worship of God for the offering of gifts and sacrifices for sin “does not presume to take this honor, but takes it only when called by God, just as Aaron was” (Heb. 5:1, 4). However, on the other hand, “The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office” (Heb. 7:23). Besides, “Since the law has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the true form of these realities, it can never, by the same sacrifices that are continually offered year after year, make perfect those who approach. Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, since the worshipers cleansed once and for all would no longer have any consciousness of sin? But in these sacrifices there is a reminder of sin year after year. For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Heb. 10:1–4). “And every priest stands day after day at his service, offering again and again the same sacrifices that can never take away sins” (Heb. 10:11). Herein lies the difference between the true, New Testament, absolute high priesthood of Christ and that of the Old Testament: Christ “had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, He sat down at the right hand of God. . . . For by a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are sanctified” (Heb. 10:12, 14). And in Him we have “a great priest over the house of God” (Heb. 10:21), “who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, (and is) a minister in the sanctuary and the true tent that the Lord, and not any mortal, has set up” (Heb. 8:1–2). In this way, both the priesthood and the law itself in the Old Testament possessed a merely anticipatory significance, “For if that first covenant had been faultless, there would have

The Special Character of Old Testament Sacrifices 9

been no need to look for a second one” (Heb. 8:7), but “the first covenant had regulations for worship and an earthly sanctuary” (Heb. 9:1), and the tabernacle of old “is a symbol of the present time, during which gifts and sacrifices are offered that cannot perfect the conscience of the worshiper . . . but [were] imposed until the time comes to set things right” (Heb. 9:9–10). The Old Testament knew only “the sketches of the heavenly things,” but not “the heavenly things themselves” (Heb. 9:23).

It is clear from the entirety of the New Testament that He [Christ] transcended and abrogated the Old Covenant, as the priesthood “according to the order of Melchizedek” (Ps 109:4 [LXX]) abolishes the Abrahamic priesthood.2 However, this does not mean that one should belittle the great power and genuineness of that priesthood and the sacrificial law in their proper place and for their time. One need only recall the exceptional seriousness with which they were treated when first established. At a peace offering, that Old Testament Eucharist, while reading the book of the Covenant, Moses sprinkled the people with sacrificial blood, saying, “See the blood of the covenant which the Lord has made with you in accordance with all these words” (Exod. 24:7–8); at which point Moses and Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, and seventy elders ascended the mountain and saw the God of Israel, and “under his feet there was something like a pavement of sapphire stone, like the very heaven for clearness” (Exod. 24:9–10). The significance of the sacrifices of the tabernacle and of the Aaronic priesthood is explained thus: “I will dwell among the Israelites, and I will be their God” (Exod. 29:45), while individual sacrifices are defined as “most holy” before the Lord (Exod. 29:29, 37; 31:10, 29; Lev. 2:3, 7:1, etc.).3 The Old Testament people of God were being trained by the law of sacrifices for the coming of the Lord and were being prepared, in the elect among them, to meet Him. Such was the saving power of Old Testament types, even though they were but shadows of the Prototype. There is an inner, ontological necessity for such a path toward the Lord, and therefore the Aaronic order is not so much canceled out as it is absorbed, and also reconstituted anew, in the New Testament priesthood.

The Old Testament, as a law fencing in the Lord’s inheritance and the chosen people amidst the sea of paganism, does not, of course, only disallow a certain, even relative, recognition of the pagan priesthood, but struggles irreconcilably with it. However, we cannot close our eyes to the fact that this betrays an intentional simplification or pedagogical

10 The Eucharistic Sacrifice

stylization particular to the educative approach of the Old Covenant for the sake of the salvation of the people. But this approach already loses its power for New Testament humanity inasmuch as it becomes able to see a natural old testament in paganism also. Here, above all, we are struck by what can be defined as the universal instinct of sacrifice, common throughout the religious world, which prompts us to find in this religious phenomenology an ontological foundation for it too. The basic premonition of salvation and redemption, and the need for it, is common to all humanity, in such a way that this feeling was not clouded or distorted by meager, pagan intimations. One could say that it is inherent to the human being at the core of his humanity, along with reason and conscience—a sort of imprint of the image of God in him. Is it not one of the forms of that expectation of Christ among the nations that was and still is common to humanity? If the Old Testament was itself only a shadow of future blessings, then in paganism we have but a shadow of that shadow, even though it possesses its own messianic content. In this connection, it is telling that Melchizedek, although both king of “(Jeru)-Salem” and “priest of God Most High” (Gen. 14:18), was himself the figure of the eternal High Priest according to the order of Melchizedek. But he himself does not emerge from the Old Covenant, but appears out of the darkness of time and of the nations in order to meet Abraham, and, even then, not in the Holy Land, but somewhere in the Valley of Shaveh, along with the king of Sodom. The borders between the Old Covenant and pagan world fade away at the appearance of the one who bears in himself the image of the Coming High Priest. Such is the “light to bring revelation to the Gentiles, and the glory of your people Israel” (Luke 2:32; NKJV). Melchizedek was a high priest defined not by the order of Aaron, but outside of it, as if from the person of all humanity. This feature is crucial for a full comprehension of this image.