Sacrifice of Love

Sacrifice of Love

For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings (Hosa 6:6).

I will rejoice greatly in the Lord,

My soul will exult in my God;

For He has clothed me with garments of salvation,

He has wrapped me with a robe of righteousness,

As a bridegroom decks himself with a garland,

And as a bride adorns herself with her jewels—Isaiah 61-10

It is my opinion that sacrifice beginning with the death of an animal can be traced in the clothing God made for Adam and Eve following their awareness of the “knowledge of good and evil.” The clothing represents God’s “covering” over “the knowledge of good and evil” where an animal had to be sacrificed for the remission of sin. This is called atonement. God always does something first to teach us. In this way, God performed the first sacrifice of atonement to cloth Adam and Eve in a “shadow” of righteousness. Furthermore, this was a shadow of the blood of Christ who covers us with a “white garment.” Thus shall he who conquers (is victorious) be clad in white garments, and I will not erase or blot out his name from the Book of Life; I will acknowledge him [as Mine] and I will confess his name openly before My Father and before His angels (Revelation 3). Additionally, hidden in this idea is the “knowledge of God” that the Holy Spirit teaches us because we wear the white garment of LIFE. The prophet Isaiah describes this symbolism of “clothing” in terms of righteousness in Isaiah 61:10 “garments of salvation.” I believe the idea of salvation begins the moment God clothes Adam and Eve because it is only salvation that will redeem the repercussions of death resulting from the Tree they chose to eat from. They broke their relationship with God by eating from the tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. God sacrificed an animal to cloth the nakedness of Adam and Eve who now knew sin. This covering was the first animal sacrifice by God Himself.

Steadfast Love

Steadfast love: as Abel offers the sacrifice of the first and the best, the first illustration of sacrifice because of love towards God is manifested. This sacrifice is in gratitude, which is a response of sincere love from the heart without expectation and is, therefore, a better sacrifice and reflects a love offering to God. God accepted Abel’s sacrifice and in so doing, “covered” Able with His blessing.

For you have not come to the mountain that may be touched and that burned with fire, and to blackness and darkness and tempest, and the sound of a trumpet and the voice of words, so that those who heard it begged that the word should not be spoken to them anymore. (For they could not endure what was commanded: “And if so much as a beast touches the mountain, it shall be stoned or shot with an arrow.” And so terrifying was the sight that Moses said, “I am exceedingly afraid and trembling.”) But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, to an innumerable company of angels, to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are registered in heaven, to God the Judge of all, to the spirits of just men made perfect, to Jesus the Mediator of the new covenant, and to the blood of sprinkling that speaks better things than that of Abel (Hebrews 12:18-24).

The reference here embraces a progression of sacrifice that supersedes the love that Abel illustrates–the love of a God through the New Covenant of Love in Jesus Christ in the sacrifice of Himself for our lives. What this means is that we have access to the heavenly realms of reality. The reality is angels come into our circumstances sent by God to effect change and transformation. The heavenly reality from the throne of God gives us solutions in the midst of confusion, pain, and failure. Moses was terrified in the presence of God but we have been invited into the Holy of Holies–the New Jerusalem–the place of peace in an eternal inheritance right here and now. God continues to give us a type and shadow of the better things to come in the testimony of Abraham and Isaac.

When we see sacrifice with Abraham and Isaac, the sacrificial act transforms into an act of faithfulness that connotes righteousness. This sacrifice was also out of a heart of love. The blessing which comes from this propels the Will of God into the future of all nations to become citizens of the Kingdom of God. In blessing, I will bless you and in multiplying I will multiply your descendants like the stars of the heavens and like the sand on the seashore. And your Seed (Heir) will possess the gate of His enemies (Genesis 22).

Ultimately, the original motivation in obedience to God brings transformation as the act of sacrifice becomes an act of faith. Jesus becomes the ultimate sacrifice in terms of faith towards God thereby “transforming” the entire dictate of the World under the system of conscious and Law to a system under the Tree of Life. The Tree of Life offers us a relationship with the living God who is all about transforming us from the inside out–from the vantage point of a Kingdom within, a source of Living Water. No matter the vantage point, it is always pointing to Jesus–the author and finisher of our faith–the author and finisher of our abundant Life of righteousness, joy, and peace. Our offering our bodies as a living sacrifice allows us to be active Spirit-filled members of the Body of Christ. We see the willingness of God’s people to sacrifice their own agenda for an agenda motivated by faith in God in terms of His will.

The shame-based vantage point of control and ultimately a perspective of an abusive God dictate the religion of performance in terms of good and evil. The idea of right translates into the motivation to “get it right.” Getting it right means we will never get there–we will never be good enough–right enough until we get to heaven. Getting it wrong means we are under shame and condemnation and ultimately spend our days on an obsessive treadmill of shame and confusion which perpetuates the acts of sinning once again. However, sacrifices were necessary because they were a shadow of the better sacrifice of Jesus Christ. Ultimately, Jesus put the Law of sin and death under His blood forever–as an irrevocable act of Love. Yet He also writes the Law on our hearts so that we will not forget the ancient ways that led to our reconciliation to God. The mystery is in the fact that Jesus obeyed ever jot and title of the Law in His sinless life so that we could be submerged into His sinless life–He became sin for us so that we would be under grace not Law. The ultimate sacrifice at Yom Kippur represents the final atonement of the “Azazel” is the scapegoat who takes away the shame and guilt of the people of Israel into the dessert–another goat is killed and the blood sprinkled on the Holy of Holies mercy seat and other implements for the blood atonement of sin, known and unknown–the penalty of death is satisfied by the blood of the goat.

King Solomon offered a sacrifice of 22,000 oxen and 120,000 sheep. Thus the king and all the people dedicated the house of God (2 chronicles 7:5). In my opinion, this over-the-top illustration of sacrifice underscores the fact that the Law was never enough, and no one could do enough to be forgiven or perform the acts of rightousness. Period. Until “it was finished” on the cross. The sacrificial system also reflects a foundational motivation of a religion based in Law or legalism. From a religious mindset, the idea of doing for God, sacrificing out of a sense of “buying ones way into heaven,” no matter what that looks like is missing the mark; it will never be enough because we will never be enough to stop sinning. We never could follow the Law which was a response to do right under the system of the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil. Only the blood of Jesus is enough to cover the multitude of sins through His love. Only the blood of Jesus Christ can for all eternity cover what happened in the earth because of eating one little apple. We are now engrafted into the Tree of Life: the sap of the tree is the blood of Jesus Christ which we are invited to drink, the essence of the tree is His body broken for us to eat and be absorbed into His Life, seated in Heavenly realms.

The Precious Blood

The obscure idea that God cloths us to cover our knowledge of good and evil with garments of salvation (Isaiah 61) is a shadow of the ultimate covering of the blood of Christ who is our salvation. Clearly, The blood of Christ is our “robe of righteousness.” Once more, the blood of Christ reflects the royal garments of a wedding in celebration of our partaking of the Tree of Life. The garland of the Holy Spirit in our spirit brings us into the Holy of Holies, the Royal Chamber of the Thrown Room of the Living God where the jewels of the bride are the treasure we lay up in Heaven which is our generational and spiritual family past, present, and future. The Spirit of understanding reflects a “perfection” in our being of our Living sacrifice in this life in submersion of all that is God. It impacts our generational family in addition to the Body of Christ on this earth as well as in heavenly realms.

Sacrifice of Love

Prophetically, our actions of sacrifice bring the Kingdom into this realm. The Spirit of Understanding embraces the mandate of a Royal Priesthood and a Holy Nation in that it was only the Levitical Priests who had the honor of going into the Holy Place in the Temple. We give our tithe as unto the King of Righteousness, Melchezedik because He gives us the Bread of Life in the Word and the wine in the Holy Spirit, which allows us access into the Holy of Holies to operate from the throne-room of God. Melchezedik carries the message of what the Bread and Wine means–our life is in the fulness of Christ who is the Bread of Life–our life is inspired and transformed in the Spirit–the New Wine.

God’s use of the skins in the garden to cloth Adam and Eve is from the Hebrew words for ‘garments’ kĕthonethand ‘clothed’ labashwhich are later used in the Torah’s description of priestly garments (Exodus 28:4, 39-40; 28:41; 29:8). The Jewish priest had to be properly clothed before God in his service (Exodus 20:26; 28:42). But God makes Adam and Eve’s garment out of skin, owr. This Hebrew word translates out to mean: a primitive root; to be (causative, make) luminous (literally and metaphorically):–X break of day, glorious, kindle, (be, en-, give, show) light (-en, -ened), set on fire, shine. The skins therefore are a shadow of the Light of Christ that the believer reflects as we change from glory to glory. The very essence of the truth is hidden in the animal skins in the very moment that Adam and Eve choose “death and darkness” over “life and light.”

Recognizing the synthesis of sacrifice through the Old and New Testament embraces the original covering of salvation in the Garden, through the continued sacrifice of Able in one form or another. However, the act of sacrifice of Able was one motivated by steadfast love. At last, the sacrificial ordinance of man sacrificing to God comes full circle from the Garden where God clothed Adam and Eve with garments of animal skins. This type evolves into God sacrificing to humankind His only begotten son unto repentance into a Kingdom Life. Our faith initiates our “submersion” into the nature, way, and character of God and family of God (Body of Christ) by obeying the doctrine of Baptism. Finally, we offer our own bodies as a sacrifice to live in dependency and desperation upon God as we bring the Kingdom to earth living out His purpose. Our tithe is our sacrifice of Praise for the new wine and bread of life, which is now the foundation of our identity.

New and Living Way

Hosa 6:6 boils down the essence of the heart of God in terms of His desire for a relationship of love. It is in “clothing us with robes of righteousness” that allows us to come to the Tree of Life with the exultation and celebration of our wedding day to the King. We are adorned with Royal jewels of The Kingdom of Heaven reflecting the Light and the Garland of the Holy Spirit wrapped around our new mind of Christ who gives us the Spirit of Understanding in revelation and truth. It is my opinion that Isaiah 61 is not only a prophecy that reflects the “prophetic synthesis” of the meaning of sacrifice in terms of the aspect of “covering” our transgression, inequity, and sin through various types of sacrifice throughout scripture; our sacrifice of Praise (garments of Praise) are “living works” motivated by steadfast love for God and one another. The presence of God dwells in the Holy Place within where the Holy Spirit dwells in us. The shadow of the highest form of sacrifice is found in Hosa 6 in illustrations of steadfast love as we are clothed (Isaiah 61) in all the garments of a new and living way of love in Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior.

The Tithe

The gift, which the Priest Melchizedek gives and Abraham gives as well to Melchizedek relates to our tithe in terms of our personal sacrifice of 10% in that we are giving it to Jesus. The tithe is a Holy act of giving in gratitude for our new and living way of life. It is motivated by our “steadfast love.” Abraham gives Melchizedek 10% in a love offering as a response to the bread and wine offered to Him–the offering of a life in relationship with the living God. This is a shadow of the New Covenant in Jesus Christ–Melchizedek was a manifestation of the King of Righteousness and the King of Peace at the hour of God’s promise of a Holy Nation through the line of Abraham. The covenant with Abraham and God clearly reveals the prophetic covenant of grace to all nations on the earth since the time of Abraham. God’s love is with us from the very beginning to save us from the curse of futility and death. Because God “so loved the world that He gave His only begotten son, we see that God’s love cannot be outdone by our love—However, it falls into the same category of “steadfast love” (Hosa 6). “Greater love has not man than to lay His life down for a friend.” Jesus laid down His life for us—God shed His own blood once and for all doing away with sacrifice of blood of an animal and sat down at the right hand of God finishing and ending the sacrificial system.

We illustrate our act of sacrifice in taking up our cross and following Jesus. This means we “lay down our lives for our friends” in love. We illustrate the fruits of the Spirit in terms of how we deal with others. Where there is offense, we take no offense. Our response is always love and forgiveness even when it is not okay or “just wrong.” Life is not fair but we don’t live in the common use of the word, “life.” We are flesh-spirit beings who dwell in the house of God on His Holy Mountain in His Holy City, which resides within our being. From this temple within, we respond to Life with Life rather than reacting to futility and thorns. We are human beings who walk, talk, and dance life bringing the Kingdom of Heaven more and more dispelling thorns and thistles of a desert of confusion and futility with a garden of love, gentleness, goodness, self-control, meekness, long-suffering, faithfulness, grace, love, beauty, peace, whatever is lovely and above all LIFE-giving transforming this dark realm with light and liberty. We are children of the day who walk in faith rather than natural sight. This is following after righteousness.

The Faith of Abraham

Listen to me, you that follow after righteousness, you that seek the LORD: look to the rock from where you are hewn, and to the hole of the pit from where you are dig. Look to Abraham your father, and to Sarah that bore you: for I called him alone, and blessed him, and increased him” (Isaiah 51:1-2).

For what said the scripture? Abraham believed God, and it was counted to him for righteousness” (Romans 4:3).

Even as Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness. Know you therefore that they which are of faith, the same are the children of Abraham” (Galatians 3:6-7).

And the scripture was fulfilled which said, Abraham believed God, and it was imputed to him for righteousness: and he was called the Friend of God” (James 2:23).

And, behold, the word of the LORD came to him, saying, This shall not be your heir; but he that shall come forth out of your own bowels shall be your heir. And he brought him forth abroad, and said, Look now toward heaven, and tell the stars, if you be able to number them: and he said to him, So shall your seed be. And he believed in the LORD; and he counted it to him for righteousness” (Genesis 15:4-6).



As God counted Abraham’s faith in God’s word as righteousness, so will God count it as righteousness to us if we believe His word, the Bible, more than our traditions, our opinions, our churches, and our ministries.