Lesson 18 –– Purpose of animal sacrifices
Read Hebrews 10 - www.bible.com/bible/59/heb.10.esv

As we begin chapter 10, we are once again reminded that the Law and the Tabernacle form of worship was a picture, or “a shadow” of things that would be coming in Jesus Christ. So in this chapter we will look at three things about how sacrifices are a picture of Christ.

First, if we are to see how Christ’s sacrifice for our sin could be the perfect sacrifice, we must understand the purpose for the sacrifice. A sacrifice is to somehow pay or pay back for the fact that we have done something wrong. For example, if I take my dad’s car and use it for a while, but in the process I allow it to get damaged through whatever cause, I am obligated to either get it repaired or perhaps even replaced. That damage doesn’t need to be my fault by either my intention or from something I did by accident. It might even be that a storm came through and a tree limb fell on it and broke a window. I must make a sacrifice of a new window to repair my dad’s car so it is in the same condition as when I borrowed it from him.


We do things in our lives that are hurtful to God. Sometimes we choose to do them, sometimes they happen. The biggest difference is that for my dad I could replace the window. I cannot replace anything to God because He says that the price for any sin is death (Romans 6: 23).

So God, in His great mercy to us, said He would allow us to use the death (the blood) of an innocent animal to be used in our place. But the animal who would be our substitute in death could not just be any animal. It had to be the most perfect one, the one with the highest value. King David said it correctly for all of us – I will not sacrifice to the Lord something that has cost me nothing (2 Samuel 24: 24). And remember, the lamb that God said must be killed for the very first Passover celebration ever (Exodus 12) was to come into their home from the 10th until the 14th day of the month. Then it was to be killed and eaten. If you have never worked with lambs, you will take my word for it – a lamb is very easy to learn to love because they become very affectionate with those they know well. This lamb, a perfect and beautiful one, was to become precious to the family, and then it would become their sacrifice so every firstborn of every family could live.

 Then God said an amazing thing – it was not the blood of animals and sacrifices that gave Him pleasure (Psalm 40: 6-8). Jesus, according to verse 5 in our Hebrews chapter 10, knew God felt this way and said, “That’s why you gave me a body, so I could become the perfect sacrifice, and I do that willingly.” When we become like Jesus, we also present our bodies as a living sacrifice to God – see Romans 12:1-2.