The Way of Sacrifice

...To see Christ as having offered the perfect sacrifice that brings us salvation is not to enter a realm cheap grace.  It does not mean that we offer no sacrifice.  It means that our sacrifice is of a different order.  It is not atoning, but a costly response to a sacrifice that is atoning.

The way of salvation is a way of sacrifice.  That means basically that it is the sacrifice of Christ that takes away sins once and for all.  But it also means that those for whom the sacrifice was offered live sacrificially.  They offer their bodies 'as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God' (Rom 12:1).  Paul speaks of himself as being made a sacrifice in the service of other Christians (Phil 2:17) and he refers to the gifts the Philippian Christians sent him as 'a fragrant offering, an acceptable sacrifice, pleasing to God' (Phil 4:18).  The writer of Hebrews refers to a sacrifice of praise--the fruit of lips that confess his name' and he speaks of doing good and sharing with others as sacrifices with which God is well pleased (Heb 13:15-16).  Peter is another who sees Christians as offering 'spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ' (I Pet 2:5).  Clearly there is an important element of sacrifice in the service that Christians are expected to render to God.

Leon Morris
The Atonement
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