God is Not Appeased by Our Sacrifices

There is no sacrifice you can make that will appease God. Fortunately, unlike the Greek gods, that’s not what God wants. The Bible has a much more surprising view of sacrifice. Will you join in, unite with God, and be a member of his team?

Image by Berte Citak, provided by Unsplash via Wix. Cropped.

Humans have misunderstood sacrifice from the beginning.  For most of human history, sacrifice has been a tool used to placate the gods.  Since humans did not understand God, they could not understand how sacrifice might fit into their relationship with God.

The Greeks offered sacrifices to convince the gods to come to their side

The ancient Greeks were one of many cultures that used sacrifices to appease the gods they thought existed around them.  Here is an example from Greek mythology.

King Agamemnon wanted to launch a war against Troy, but he angered the god Artemis, so Artemis denied him the favorable winds he needs to set sail.  To placate Artemis and achieve his goal, the king sacrificed his daughter Iphigenia – that is, he murdered her.

When this story is told in Christopher Nolan’s film The Odyssey, Odysseus is asked why a man would sacrifice his own daughter.  Odysseus replies, “The power of the sacrifice is the cost to the person making it.”  In other words, the degree to which a sacrifice is effective depends on how much the person offering the sacrifice is willing give up.

Agamemnon was so desperate to achieve his goal that he was willing to kill his own child.  And it had the intended effect: Artemis relented and Agamemnon received the favorable winds he desired.  (And his wife, the mother of Iphigenia, eventually killed him for it.)

A costly sacrifice gained the desired outcome.  In many cultures, that is what sacrifice is all about.

We maintain some of the sacrifice mentality in our everyday lives

We have moved away from the misanthropic “theology” behind Greek mythology, but we do

Tend to retain one piece of the logic of sacrifice today.  We sometimes judge how serious a person is by how much they are willing to give up.  Some people call it “skin in the game” or “putting your money where your mouth is” or “walking the walk,” and they have a point.  We can learn something from how much a person is willing to give up.

Similarly, we applaud people who make great physical sacrifices and subject their bodies to years of abuse in order to pursue a championship, a title, or a gold medal.

But they aren’t sacrificing to appease any gods (unless those of their own making).

A great sacrifice does not mean a worthy goal

When we bring the sacrifice mentality into the spiritual and moral realms, we immediately run into problems.  Just because you are willing to make a huge sacrifice does not mean that your cause is just.  Your zeal does not mean that God should necessarily help you achieve your goal.  Nazi soldiers were willing to make great sacrifices for the Third Reich.  Terrorists risk everything they have for their cause.

In less extreme circumstances, people sometimes sacrifice their integrity, ignore family obligations, and put other people at great risk, for causes that God might not endorse or might not want people to go to such extremes for.

The willingness to make great sacrifices does not absolve you from the obligation to avoid evil.  It does not allow you to ignore right and wrong.  It does not relieve you of your commitments to others.

So where do people go wrong?  They misunderstood what God is actually interested in.  They put too much focus on the sacrifice and too little emphasis on whether God desires the goal they seek and approves of the methods they are using to attain it.  They act like God is one of the mercurial gods of mythology, wafted here and there by whims and caprices and swayed by slavish gestures.

The one true God cares far more about what is right and good and true and loving than about how dramatic a person’s sacrifice is, because even a great sacrifice does not establish the rightness of one’s cause.

The Bible tell us that sacrifices are not God’s top priority

Although under the Law of Moses the Israelites implemented an elaborate system of sacrifices, the book of Isaiah has a surprising message from God: “What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings....  When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you? . . .  Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me . . .” (Is. 1:11-13).

What does God want instead?  He tells them to “remove your evil deeds from my sight; cease doing evil; learn to do good.  Seek justice, relieve the oppressed, defend the orphan, plead for the widow” (Is. 1:16-17).

Isaiah does not totally reject the sacrificial system (Isaiah 56:7 envisions a later time of restoration when God will welcome foreigners who come to offer sacrifices to God), but it is clear that sacrifices are not God’s top priority.

Fasting often accompanied sacrifices, but in chapter 58 God says that the fast he wants is for his people to set the oppressed free, to share their bread with the hungry, to bring the homeless into their house, to clothe the naked, to put an end to the pointing of the finger and malicious speech (Is. 58:6-10).

Isaiah is not the first to say these things.  Centuries earlier, the prophet Samuel says to King Saul: “Has the LORD as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obeying the voice of the LORD?  Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice” (1 Sam. 15:22).

God doesn’t want our sacrifices; he wants our whole selves.  He doesn’t want us to try to appease him so that we can do what we want; he wants us to obey him by doing what he has told us to do.

That is why David prays, “You do not delight in sacrifice or I would give it....  The sacrifice acceptable to God is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise” (Ps. 51:16-17; 51:18-19 in the NABRE).

What does Jesus say about sacrifice?

Jesus only uses the word “sacrifice” twice in the Gospels, both times to quote God ,from the Old Testament book of Hosea, saying, “I desire mercy, not sacrifice” (Matt. 9:13 and Matt. 12:7).

The only time Jesus ever tells anyone to offer a ritual sacrifice is when he heals a leper and tells the man to show himself to the priests and offer the gift that Moses prescribed (Matt. 8:4).  Jesus is not endorsing the system of sacrifice for its own sake.  The man needs to offer that sacrifice so that he will be allowed to return to living among the people in the community (Lev. 14:1-32).

While Jesus does not tell us to offer sacrifices to appease or placate God, that does not mean there is no sacrifice in the Christian life.  Instead, Jesus tells us to sacrifice ourselves.  And he tells us to do so not to make God happy but for the sake of our own lives:

• “If anyone desires to come after me, let him deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me” (Matt. 16:24; see also Mark 8:34, and Luke 9:23, which adds the word “daily”).

• “Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it” (Matt. 10:39; see also Mark 8:35 and Luke 9:24).

• “If I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash each other’s feet.  I have given you an example, that you also should do as I have done to you” (John 13:14-15).

• “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls (Matt. 11:29).

The clear message is that God does not want any thing that you can give him; he wants you.  He is inviting each of us to offer ourselves in service to him and others.

Jesus asks us to join his team

But Jesus does not ask us to do this alone.  The “yoke” in Matthew 11:29 is a farm image.  A yoke is a wooden frame that helps a team of animals work together under the direction of the farmer.  Jesus is inviting us to stop trying to live on our own and instead to let him direct us as members of his team.

This means that the Christian idea of sacrifice is almost diametrically opposed to the Greek idea that is found also in other cultures:

• Our sacrifice is not an exterior, ritual sacrifice performed for show; it is a voluntary act of our will that expresses what is inside of us (Matt. 12:35; Luke 6:45).

• Our sacrifice is not driven by a spirit of fear, but by a spirit of worship (Luke 12:28-32; 1 Pet. 2:5; Rom. 12:1).

• We do not select a sacrifice that we think will appease God so that he will give us what we want; we offer ourselves to God in order to unite ourselves with him so that he can produce good fruit in us and through us (John 15:4-5; Rom. 6:5).

What shall I sacrifice to the Lord?  No “thing” will do, because God is not impressed by external sacrifices.  Instead of our trying to appease him, he invites us to join in, unite with him, and become yoked members of his team.

Are you willing to be on his team?  He is eager for your answer.