To understand the theological concept of sacrifice we need to learn the connections between all the various parts of the theology of the Old Testament. The election of this people, the covenant, and the whole life of this people in obedience, and disobedience to God, is the key to sacrifice. This is what I wanted to explain in The Eschatological Economy.
Christian theology must proclaim clearly that God calls and forms his people, bring them up as a parent brings up a child, and that God makes his people holy. But when the narrative of God nurturing and forming his people is lost the meaning of sacrifice was lost. When this narrative is lost, so is the point of what Israel did in the temple at Jerusalem. There God’s elect people, publicly, before the watching world showed (and of course said and sung in worship) that Israel’s holy God provides for his people, is creator of all the earth and that all the gentile nations are wrong to believe that they have to please and provide for their various divinities. The Israel’s temple practices were publicly demythologising the violent cosmologies of the nations around. Israel is critic of the world of the pagans, and witness to the true God, who provides for and hears all who pray to him. Israel not only says this, but acts it out in the drama and ritual, that we call ‘sacrifice’ in the temple at Jerusalem.
You can find out more about The Eschatological Economy at Amazon.com or at Amazon.co.uk or at Eerdmans
