Today's passage further contrasts the sacrifice of Jesus to the traditional sacrifice based on the law. The traditional sacrifice was ineffective because the blood of goats and bulls could not take away sins (4). Rather than setting the worshipers free from their guilt, the annual sacrifice served a purpose to remind the worshipers of their sins before God. The law was God's promise of salvation, not the reality of salvation itself (1).

God did not find pleasure in receiving burnt offering (6). Still, the Israelites needed to offer sacrifices to understand the extent of their sins and long for the time when the Messiah would come to fulfill the promise of God. In contrast to the priests who sacrificed the sin offering every year, Jesus as a priest offered the ultimate sacrifice prepared by God that took away sins once for all and entered the presence of God (12).

As it has been prophesied in Jeremiah 31:33-34, Jesus' sacrifice was the fulfillment of the promise that we will be made holy from within us with the law of God planted in our hearts and minds. God would forgive all of our sins.


Application: Father, thank you for forgiving my sins. Thank you for Jesus, who makes me holy through his sacrifice. I worship and praise you for the freedom from sin I receive in you.
One Word: Jesus brings salvation to me