Journal: Journal of the Evangelical Theological Society
Volume: JETS 05:3 (Summer 1962)
Article: The Problem Of The Efficacy Of Old Testament Sacrifices
Author: Hobart E. Freeman

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BETS 5:3 (Summer 1962) p. 73

The Problem Of The
Efficacy Of Old Testament Sacrifices

Hobart E. Freeman

It was at one time rather popular among critical scholars to emphasize a strong distinction between the Levitical and prophetic elements in the Old Testament, and either condemning outright the former, or minimizing its spiritual importance. Historically the Levitical element was as essential to the religious life and development of Israel as the prophetic. It formed the framework, as it were, without which the continuity of the religious life of the Jewish nation would have been impossible.

No valid distinction can be made between the Levitical (or ceremonial) and prophetic (or moral) elements of the Old Testament, since each was divinely instituted to serve its proper purpose. Such a separation is unbiblical and foreign to Old Testament thought. Throughout Israel’s history the moral was taught through the ceremonial, the ceremonial being the necessary vehicle for the expression of the moral. The Jewish sacrifices were, by divine intention, to reflect the moral truths of obedience, self-sacrifice, self-dedication, love for and devotion to God, recognition of sin, repentance, and many other spiritual conceptions. Throughout the Old Testament the moral interprets the ritual and the ceremonial gives meaning to the ethical. It is indeed a narrow view of Old Testament sacrifice to fail to see in its institution moral, ethical, and spiritual elements. There was pervading the idea of sacrifice a principle of righteousness. Sacrifice was the divinely appointed means of securing a right standing before God in the Mosaic dispensation, and it is faulty hermeneutics to interpret Old Testament sacrificial concepts in terms of New Testament theology alone. It cannot be overemphasized that the interpreter of Old Testament thought, practices, and theological concepts must constantly remind himself that the Old Testament Hebrew did not have at his disposal the Epistle to the Romans and its revelation of righteousness without the law “even the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ…” (Rom. 3:21-22), nor did he have the Hebrews’ Epistle and its testimony to the nature of Old Testament sacrifice as being typical and a shadow of the good things to come. This of course is not to deny the necessity of faith on the part of the Israelite, but to emphasize the proper importance and place of divinely instituted sacrifice and Mosaic worship in its dispensation.

The interpreter of Old Testament sacrifice should be aware of two things often overlooked. First, to follow to its logical conclusion the idea that the Old Testament Levitical sacrifices were merely typical or efficacious only with respect to ceremonial sins, and had no real importance, results...

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