Sacrifice has not ended. Certain types of sacrifices have ceased, but the way of sacrifice as the worship of the one, true, and living God has not ended. We are exhorted by command and example throughout the New Testament to offer ourselves and what we do to God as sacrifices to God. The fruit of our lips is a sacrifice of praise (Heb 13.15). Our good works and sharing with one another are sacrifices with which God is pleased (Heb 13.16). The gift the Philippian church sent to Paul was an acceptable sacrifice, well-pleasing to God (Phil 4.18). Our love for one another is to imitate Christ’s love for us, which was an offering and a sacrifice to God, a sweet-smelling aroma (Eph 5.2). The sacrifice of our lives gives off an odor to the world of life and death (2Cor 2.15-16). We are made a holy priesthood in order to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1Pet 2.5). Christian worship is sacrificial.
If we have a hang-up with understanding our worship in Christ as sacrifice, it is most likely because we think of sacrifice only in terms of atoning for sins. Since Christ has died, there is no other sacrifice for sin to be made. Therefore, sacrifice has ended.
If sacrifice was only for the purpose of atoning for sin, this would certainly be true. But sacrifice has a broader purpose. The worshiper approaches God through the way of sacrifice in order to participate in the life of God himself; to commune with God, to share his joys, his ways of thinking, his love, and his hate. The way of sacrifice has always been about full participation in culture of God. This is why God has always been abhorred by worshipers before Christ who offered perfectly good animals, observed the worship rituals meticulously, but failed to live consistently with God’s character. The sacrifice was hypocrisy (cf. e.g., Isa 1.10-20).
Worship-as-sacrifice has always been about sharing full life with God. Now that our sins have been atoned in Christ’s death, we are able to offer ourselves in him as proper sacrifices. This is precisely what Paul exhorts us to do in Romans 12.1: “I strongly urge you, brothers, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy, well-pleasing to God, which is your rational priestly service.” Earlier in his letter Paul uses this same language when he speaks of the way we ought to be living because we have died and risen with Christ in baptism. We are to present our bodily members as instruments of righteousness as those who are alive from the dead (Rom 6.13). The totality of our lives lived in the body (which is the totality of our lives)–our thoughts, our affections, our actions, our wills–are to be always lived in full communion with God. We are to reflect his character. It is to be evident that we share the culture of the divine family.
This life runs deeper than changing a few moral actions here and there. It is not ticking activities off of an ethical check-list. Being a living sacrifice means that the way we think and our affections change. We are not conformed to the old age in Adam, but we are being transformed by the renewing of our minds (that is, our way of thinking). We don’t see God, ourselves, and the world around us in the same way as those in Adam see. Throwing off sexual restraints doesn’t make sense to us (Rom 13.13). Living with one another in terms of jealousy and rivalries is inconsistent with our divine culture (Rom 13.13). The non-sinful differences of others aren’t threats to us but graces given to others to be celebrated. Above all things, our lives find their purpose in our kingdom mission. Everything in life, our friendships, our marriages, our jobs, our parenting, our eating, our drinking, and whatever else, they all serve the purposes of the kingdom. This is the way we see the world because we are living sacrifices.
