Christ Sacifice Saves Us From Sin and Death.

Noah and the patriarchs: Abraham, Isaac and Jacob—offered sacrifices to God. God asked Abraham, the father of the faithful, to sacrifice his son Isaac as a test of faith and obedience. Though God intervened to stop Abraham from actually going through with it, Abraham’s willingness to give up his son foreshadowed the role of God the Father, who “so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son” as a sacrifice for our sins (John 3:16). Isaac, in offering no resistance, was a forerunner of Jesus, who willingly and obediently offered His life’s blood for the sins of the world.

Hundreds of years before Jesus’ birth, God revealed through His faithful servant Moses a religious system that included animal sacrifices and offerings. “… Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show you, that is, the pattern of the tabernacle … so you shall make it” (Exodus 25:8-9).

God instructed His people during this time to set up in the wilderness the tabernacle, the tent that was the forerunner of the temple. God filled the tabernacle with His glory (Exodus 40:34-35). God’s Spirit in this earthly tent pointed forward to the indwelling of the Holy Spirit in the minds and hearts of Christians.

Why did the need for a perfect sacrifice mean that Jesus had to be born? It was because the earlier, physical sacrifices were imperfect. They could not take away the penalty for sin (Hebrews 10:4).

God instructed the Israelites in the need for sacrifice, but they had access only to physical forerunners of the ultimate sacrifice, which would come later in the form of Christ Himself. God instructed His people to participate in the physical rituals of animal sacrifices not because they were sufficient to remove people’s sins, but because of the lessons they taught—that sacrifices were necessary because of mankind’s sins.

Jesus had to be born because, without the true sacrifice, humanity was doomed. All would die, with no hope beyond the grave.