Vol.6 No.2

Q. I have a friend who does not see that the Jewish Sanctuary message is important because she believes it was given for the Jews, not for Christians. What should I tell her?

A. After the Fall, before expelling Adam and Eve from the garden, God provided them with more durable clothing, suitable for the hard labor that lay ahead and as protection against the extremes of heat and cold that followed the fall (Genesis 3:21). The skins were also a constant reminder of their lost innocence, of death as the wages of sin, and of the promised Lamb of God, who would by His own vicarious death take away the sins of the world.

The sacrificial system, though not specifically mentioned here, was instituted at this time. The story of Cain's and Abel's sacrifices related in the next chapter shows that the first sons of Adam and Eve were well acquainted with this ritual. If God had not issued definite regulations concerning sacrifices, His approval of Abel's offering and His disapproval of Cain's would have been arbitrary. That Cain did not accuse God of partiality is evidence that he as well as his brother knew what was required.

The universality of animal sacrifices in ancient times points to a common origin of this practice.

Just like in the case of the marriage institution and of the Sabbath of the seventh day, the sacrificial system has been established long before the first Jew existed.  It was a way of

understanding the plan of salvation, a provision God had made for the people in order to make them understand salvation through Christ. While we do not hold that the sacrifices are still needed today, we do affirm that the knowledge of the sacrificial system of the Jews would give the Bible student a totally new and fresh glimpse of God's love for sinful humanity.