#9. (10)  “Go ye and learn what that meaneth,
I will have mercy and not sacrifice” (Matt. ix. 13).


Is there a danger in stressing the believer’s full acceptance in the sacrifice of Christ? Is there a danger in emphasizing that salvation is “not of works”? There is, if truth be not presented in all its fullness. We must, however, refrain from putting out our hand to stay the ark of God. We must not minimize by one iota either the completeness of redemption or the believer’s inability to provide the least contribution towards his acceptance. Moreover, if we see a believer taking an advantage of grace in that he assumes that one’s “manner of life” is of no importance, we must yet be watchful that, in stressing his responsibility, we neither reintroduce the fetters that redemption has for ever broken, nor preach the once-offered Sacrifice with any reservations.

It is evident from the objection raised in Rom. vi. 1 that the Apostle had so preached “grace without works” as to make it possible for the objection to be laid, “Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?” but we do not find in that chapter any attempt on the part of the Apostle to minimize the completeness of the offering of Christ. First, he meets the objection with a vigorous, “God forbid!” and then proceeds to show that every one that has accepted Christ as Sacrifice and Saviour, does so not only as if Christ had accomplished an objective work done on his behalf, but as if it is a work with which he must be identified, his language being, “How shall I that am dead to sin, live any longer therein?” (Rom. vi. 2). In the subsequent argument of the chapter, it is clearly stated that “His servants ye are to whom ye obey”, and that those who have been made “free from sin”, instead of receiving license to spend their blood-bought liberty in the pleasing of self, are free so that they may become “the servants of righteousness”. It is therefore untrue to assume that he who preaches the basic doctrine of the One Sacrifice for sin is not alive to the moral issues that must arise therefrom.

Our thoughts have been directed to this aspect of truth by having to deal with the problems relative to the Mosaic law of Sacrifice and Offering which certain passages in the Psalms and the Prophets create. It is easy to lift out and regard as sweeping statements such words as “Sacrifice and offering Thou wouldst not”, or “Incense is an abomination” and so conclude that the whole system of sacrifice was thereby set aside, and that nothing more was demanded of any man than that he “walk humbly” with His God. But such an attitude of mind is, to say the least, illogical, for it not only sets aside the Mosaic law of Sacrifice, but also the bulk of the teaching of the N.T., completely emptying Paul’s epistles of any meaning.

No one acquainted with the teaching of the Lord in the Gospels, or of Paul, Peter and John in their Epistles, could hesitate to admit that the Sacrifice of Christ was held to be fundamental to salvation, and that this One Offering did most truly endorse and fulfil all that had been foreshadowed in the ritual sacrifices of the Old Covenant. In view of the reiterated statement that Christ came to fulfil the Law and the Prophets, it is not possible to believe that those self-same prophets did indeed set aside the supreme purpose for which “a body” had been “prepared” for Him.

This being so, it is highly probable that those who see any divergence between the Law and the Prophets in this matter of sacrifice for sin, have not only misunderstood the meaning of the prophet, but have equally misunderstood the law of sacrifice itself. If it be conceived that a sinner under the law could, as it were, obtain an indulgence for any sin and get off scot free by hiding behind a mere ceremonial, then Luther’s burning indignation against the notorious licences of Tetzel should have been directed to the more fatal licence inculcated by Moses! Such a conclusion carries with it its own refutation, but though writer and reader be at one over the matter, the subject is of such importance that an examination of the passages found in the Psalms and in the Prophets that appear to militate against the law of sacrifice seems desirable, and to this we now apply ourselves.

When David was convicted of sin and realized that no sacrifice provided by the law could give him peace, he exclaimed:

“Thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it. Thou delightest not in burnt offering. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise” (Psa. li. 16, 17).

Nevertheless, so far removed from David’s thoughts was it that the Mosaic sacrifices were rendered null and void, that he goes on to say that when Israel are restored; when the walls of Jerusalem are rebuilt; “Then shalt Thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering and whole burnt offering; then shall they offer bullocks upon Thine altar” (Psa. li. 18, 19).

Again, a superficial reading of Psa. xl. 6, “Sacrifice and offering Thou didst not desire”, might lead to the supposition that the law of sacrifice was set aside, but a reading of the context, and particularly the remote context of Heb. x., reveals that, instead of setting aside the law of sacrifice, this passage but demands its fuller and higher recognition. Commenting on this passage, Perowne says:

“We may perhaps paraphrase verses 5-8 as follows: My heart is full to overflowing with the thought of Thy goodness. How can I express, how can I acknowledge it? Once I should have thought sacrifices and offerings a proper and sufficient acknowledgment. Now, I feel how inadequate these are; for Thou hast taught me the truth; my deaf unwilling ears didst Thou open, that I might understand that a willing heart was the best offering that I could render. Then, being taught of Thee, I said, Lo, I come, presenting myself before Thee, not with a dead and formal service, but with myself as a living sacrifice.”

The tenth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews establishes two great truths regarding the doctrine of sacrifice.

(1) That the sacrifices offered under the law, together with its promises, were “shadows” of good things to come: and
(2) That these “shadows” find their substance and fulfillment, not in the repentance of the sinner, but in “the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all” (Heb. x. 10).

Yet once more, Psa. l. 8 has been similarly misconstrued:

“I will not reprove thee for thy sacrifices or thy burnt offerings, to have been continually before Me.”

In these words God was not repudiating the Mosaic system but, as Perowne comments:

“The reason for this act of judgment is given first negatively. It is not because the people neglected the externals of the law, or had forgotten to offer the sacrifices appointed by the law. They had brought them; but they had brought them as if the act were everything, and as if the meaning of the act, and the spirit in which it was done, were nothing. But God demands no service for its own sake (the cattle upon a thousand hills were His), but as an expression of an obedient will. A thankful heart is more than all burnt offerings.”

It is in the light of such passages that we must read:

“To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto Me? . . . . . I am full of the burnt offerings of rams . . . . . Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto Me” (Isa. i. 11-13).

These words were spoken to a people who could be likened to Sodom and Gomorrha, whose prayers were rejected because the hands that were spread out to God were “full of blood”. Such were enjoined to wash and make themselves clean; to put away the evil of their doings; to cease to do evil; to learn to do well. If the sacrificial system had been devised to make “the mere ceremonial act an easy means of blotting out the moral offence, iniquity would have been established by the law. The moral sense of the nation would have been enfeebled” (Patrick Fairbairn, D.D.).

Similarly, we must read another such passage in Jeremiah:

“I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices” (Jer. vii. 22).

A superficial reading of such a passage creates a contradiction; it sets the Prophets over against the Law. But, while it is true that when the Lord brought Israel out of Egypt nothing was indeed said of burnt offering and sacrifice, the system was introduced later when Israel made it clear by their worship of the golden calf that they would never attain to righteousness by the keeping of the law of Sinai.

Earlier in Jer. vii. we have the ominous repetition “The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord, The temple of the Lord” (Jer. vii. 4), reiteration that savours more of the idolatrous repetition of the worshippers of Diana at Ephesus than of worship of the true God. In this connection it is noteworthy that the structure of Acts xix. 21 - xxi. 39, given in Volume XXX, page 98, places the “uproar” at the temple of Diana in correspondence with the “tumult” at the temple of Jerusalem, reducing the temple at Jerusalem to the level of that of Ephesus, and showing the force of the Lord’s words when He said “Your” house is left unto you desolate.

It was to those who used mere ceremonial as a screen for iniquity that the prophets so spoke. It is in the light of such moral necessity that we must interpret the words of Hosea: “I desired mercy, and not sacrifice; and the knowledge of God more than burnt offerings” (Hosea vi. 6).

On two occasions the Saviour used these words to correct a ceremonial and mechanical use of the law of sacrifice:

“But go ye and learn what that meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice: for I am come not to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance” (Matt. ix. 13).
“But if ye had known what this meaneth, I will have mercy, and not sacrifice, ye would not have condemned the guiltless” (Matt. xii. 7).

It is only by the context that we can gather what this text “means”. It is in contrast with the narrow self-righteousness that would rather elevate and enlarge the law that prohibited certain occasions of fellowship with Gentiles, than see a poor outcast gathered into the fold of salvation. It was quoted in direct opposition to that narrow scrupulosity that condemned the disciples for plucking ears of corn on the Sabbath and elevated the unfeeling tradition of the Elders above the spirit of mercy resident in the law.

We, too, must learn what this twice-quoted passage from Hosea “meaneth”. We must not read it, “I will have mercy, and not sacrifice”, as though sacrifice was repudiated. The words kai ou, “and not”, denote a “comparative negative”, as for example, “Rend your hearts, and not your garments”, or as the parallelism of Prov. viii. 10 makes clear: “Receive my instruction, and not silver; and knowledge rather than choice gold”, for the Lord did not say that the Pharisees should not tithe “mint and anise and cumin”; these He said should not be left undone, but to omit the weightier matters of the law, such as “judgment, mercy, and faith” was to empty the law of its true “meaning” (Matt. xxiii. 23).

With such correctives ministered by the Psalmist, the Prophets and the Saviour, we can and should realize that the Mosaic sacrificial system was a divinely given, typical foreshadowing of the one great Sacrifice offered by the Lord, which indeed was no mere ceremonial, but involved the identification of the believer both with his Substitute’s death to sin, and in newness of life to God. The sacrifices of the law never touched the conscience; they were but shadows, but on the other hand they gave no premium to sin, and were only truly offered when the offerer was conscious of his guilt and felt a need both of a Deliverer and the moral necessity of repentance; a repentance that not only turned from the sin committed, but turn the heart toward the God Who had been so grievously offended.

A fitting conclusion would be a prayerful reading of Psalm li. in its entirety, observing the Psalmist’s consciousness of sin, his inability to provide any sacrifice that could meet his dire need, the desire for cleansing within, the desire for restoration and usefulness, and the complete endorsement, after all has been said, of the very sacrificial system which at first appears to be refuted and obsolete.

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(From The Berean Expositor, vol. 33, page 133).

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