Meanwhile the true idea of sacrifice found not infrequent expression:
e.g., Porphyr. 2.34, 46. Nowhere, as far as I know, is the ethnic conception of sacrifice, as the means of a fellowship of men with spirits, and of the one representative of the nationthe Emperorwith GOD, given more fully or impressively than in the Sacred Books of China. See
Li Ki
(
Sacred Books of the East
, xxvii, xxviii.) Books xx, xxi. Comp. Book vii. § 4.
II. BIBLICAL TEACHING.
1.
Prae-Mosaic Sacrifices.
Prae-Mosaic sacrifice is presented to us in two forms:
(1) Primitive. (
a
) Gen. 4:4 (Cain and Abel) (i).
Both offerings are called hj;nmi , H4966 ( gift: comp. Gen. 32:14;
43:11; Num. 16:15; 1 Sam. 2:17; 26:19).
No altar is mentioned.
The narrative implies that ( a ) The material is indifferent.
( b ) The spirit of the offerer is that to which God looks ( Abel and his offering, Cain and his...).
Comp. Heb. 11:4.
( b ) Gen. 8:20 (Noah) (ii).
An Altar is now first mentioned. The offerings are of every clean beast and every clean fowl. Thus we have the widest offering: a universal consecration in worship of all that is for man's support.
(2) Patriarchal Sacrifice. ( a ) Abraham.
Gen. 12:6, 7, 8 (iii); 13:4 (iv). An altar at Shechem: Josh. 24:1, 26.
Gen. 13:18 (v). An altar at Hebron: 2 Sam. 15:7.
Gen. 15:9 ff. (vi). The Covenant offerings. Animals allowed by the Levitical Law. For the birds see Lev. 1:14-17.
Gen. 22:1 ff. (vii). At Moriah. The practice of sacrifice familiar (Heb. 9:7). The offering of Isaac is a critical point in the history of the Biblical teaching on Sacrifice. It is shewn that the most absolute faith and devotion exists without the material exhibition of it. The human sacrifices of Canaan were most effectively condemned by the clear proof that the element of good to which they witnessed was wholly independent of their horrors.
It was plainly declared what God would and what He would not have. Isaac, the child of promise, was a second time given to faith. Faith received him at his birth, as a divine gift, and again from death. He became the sign of the power of God and of human self-surrender: Heb. 11:19.
Under the Law the first-born were given representatively: Ex. 22:29. Comp. Euseb. Praep. Ev. 1.10, p. 37.
( b ) Isaac.