Throughout the ages and human history, we see this pattern of God embracing and using human inventions with complete investment, as though they were his own. We see some direct commands of God in the Bible that were not his ideal or his ultimate plan, instead, were his temporary accommodation of human ideals, beliefs, and practices. This explains the idea behind animal sacrifices and other rituals that were commanded or performed in the Bible.
Sacrifices were never intended nor invented by God. Rather, ritual sacrifice is human invention to satisfy an inner yearning to pay the price in some way, of man’s inadequacies in order to appease the Unseen, shield themselves from perceived wrath, and attract favours upon themselves.
God in his mercy intervening in the affairs of men, got involved with humanity, accommodated, and used their practices for a season, progressively pointing man to his purpose. In the fullness of time, he entered the realm of humanity to end those practices and permanently sort out their consciousness of guilt and inadequacies in the person of Jesus Christ.
God was working with men throughout history, using what they were familiar with from their inventions and surrounding cultures to teach them what he would do in Christ.
The principle of accommodation is often applied to communication itself. All verbal and written revelation from God is an example of God accommodating human methods, languages, ideas and concepts to communicate clearly with us.
God meets us where we are at, using language and metaphors and imagery that is drawn from our own experience to communicate truth to us in a way that makes sense in our time and space. The original biblical languages of ancient Hebrew, Greek, and Aramaic are not the languages of heaven. The use of these languages in writing the Bible is an example of God’s accommodation to human ways of communicating.
When Jesus says the kingdom of God is like “a mustard seed, which is the smallest of all seeds on earth” (Mark 4:31), he was not speaking from the standpoint of divine omniscience (since this statement on the surface is not scientifically factual). Rather, the Master was accommodating the knowledge of their day to communicate a certain truth to his audience.
The Bible goes a great deal to record instances of God adopting and using human desires and ideas that he himself finds repulsive, in order to meet us where we are at in communicating important truth.
We see in Matthew 19 where Jesus explained that God accommodated divorce even though it was not his invention from the beginning.
To use the explanation of Jesus in Matthew 19, we can also say that God permitted men to make sacrifices because their hearts were hard. But it was not intended to be that way from the beginning. The plan was for man to believe God’s promise in order to receive salvation, the forgiveness of sins, righteousness by faith, and eternal life.
The prophets of the old had an insight into this truth, thus they repeatedly affirmed that God never took delight in the burnt offerings, even though the people kept bringing sacrifices and offerings every year, hoping to sooth their own consciences.
1 Samuel 15:22 ESV
And Samuel said, “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, and to listen than the fat of rams.
Psalms 40:6-8 NLT
You take no delight in sacrifices or offerings. Now that you have made me listen, I finally understand–you don’t require burnt offerings or sin offerings. Then I said, “Look, I have come. As is written about me in the Scriptures: I take joy in doing your will, my God, for your instructions are written on my heart.”
Psalms 50:8-9 NASB
“I do not reprove you for your sacrifices, And your burnt offerings are continually before Me. “I shall take no young bull out of your house Nor male goats out of your folds.”
Psalms 51:16-17 NASB
For You do not delight in sacrifice, otherwise I would give it; You are not pleased with burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; A broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.
Proverbs 21:3 NASB
To do righteousness and justice Is desired by the LORD more than sacrifice.
Isaiah 1:11-14 NIV
“The multitude of your sacrifices— what are they to me?” says the Lord. “I have more than enough of burnt offerings, of rams and the fat of fattened animals; I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. When you come to appear before me, who has asked this of you, this trampling of my courts? Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. New Moons, Sabbaths and convocations— I cannot bear your worthless assemblies. Your New Moon feasts and your appointed festivals I hate with all my being. They have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them.
Isaiah 43:23 NIV
You have not brought me sheep for burnt offerings, nor honored me with your sacrifices. I have not burdened you with grain offerings nor wearied you with demands for incense.
Isaiah 66:2-3 NASB
“For My hand made all these things, Thus all these things came into being,” declares the LORD. “But to this one I will look, To him who is humble and contrite of spirit, and who trembles at My word. “But he who kills an ox is like one who slays a man; He who sacrifices a lamb is like the one who breaks a dog’s neck; He who offers a grain offering is like one who offers swine’s blood; He who burns incense is like the one who blesses an idol. As they have chosen their own ways, And their soul delights in their abominations,
Hosea 6:6 ESV
For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.
Jeremiah 6:20 NASB
“For what purpose does frankincense come to Me from Sheba And the sweet cane from a distant land? Your burnt offerings are not acceptable And your sacrifices are not pleasing to Me.”
Jeremiah 7:21-23 ESV
Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: “Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices, and eat the flesh. For in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, I did not speak to your fathers or command them concerning burnt offerings and sacrifices. But this command I gave them: ‘Obey my voice, and I will be your God, and you shall be my people. And walk in all the way that I command you, that it may be well with you.
Amos 5:21-24 NASB
“I hate, I reject your festivals, Nor do I delight in your solemn assemblies. “Even though you offer up to Me burnt offerings and your grain offerings, I will not accept them; And I will not even look at the peace offerings of your fatlings. “Take away from Me the noise of your songs; I will not even listen to the sound of your harps. “But let justice roll down like waters And righteousness like an ever-flowing stream.”
Micah 6:6-8 ESV
“With what shall I come before the LORD, and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the LORD be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?” He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the LORD require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?
All God asked was that they put their faith in his promise, the obedience of faith – obeying command to believe the gospel, faith in the gospel, receiving the God’s offer of life apart from works. They were to live by faith not by dead works. Moses gave them symbols as a figure because of the hardness of their heart.
Jesus reiterated this truth:
Matthew 9:13 ESV
Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.’ For I came not to call the righteous, but sinners.”
Matthew 12:7 ESV
And if you had known what this means, ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice,’ you would not have condemned the guiltless.
The Apostles quoting the Old Testament (Psalm 40:6) taught the same:
Hebrews 10:4-6 ESV
For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. Consequently, when Christ came into the world, he said, “Sacrifices and offerings you have not desired, but a body have you prepared for me; in burnt offerings and sin offerings you have taken no pleasure.
Hebrews 10:8-11 ESV
When he said above, “You have neither desired nor taken pleasure in sacrifices and offerings and burnt offerings and sin offerings” (these are offered according to the law), then he added, “Behold, I have come to do your will.” He does away with the first in order to establish the second. And by that will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all. And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins.
This is significant. God was not pleased with the very sacrifices he was said to have commanded in the Law of Moses. It could not be stated any more clearly than as was explained by the writer of the book of Hebrews.
Sin demanded death. The law demanded blood for atonement of sins. The practitioners thought the blood of animals would purge their hearts and soothe their consciences. Yet, none obtained permanent forgiveness under the law on the basis of those sacrifices. The law in this regard, never worked. The sacrificial system never worked. But God would do something about it.
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