The Way of Sacrifice
Genesis 8:18–22
Then Noah built an altar to the Lord. Genesis 8:20

Noah’s offering was both a thank offering for the deliverance he and his family had received and a sin offering by which Noah confessed need of atonement for his and his family’s transgressions. If life was to begin anew, it was to begin with a proper and thankful approach to God—at least so far as Noah had anything to do with it.

Noah’s action provides a pattern for what sinful human beings must do to find God’s favor. In a sense, we can do nothing; God has done everything. But we can at least come to God in the way God himself has appointed and be assured as we come that he will receive us and will remain faithful to us within the covenant of salvation.

As sinners we appear before God as Noah did emerging from the ark. We have been recipients of his common grace. If God had not been favorable to us, we would have perished long before now. Yet we are sinners. We merit God’s judgment, just as others do. Left to ourselves the sin within will undoubtedly bring us to perdition. We will perish utterly. What are we to do? We know not what to do. But God has set a way before us: the way of sacrifice. He has shown from the earliest days of the race, going back to Eden, that, although sinners merit death for their transgressions, it is nevertheless possible for a substitute to take the sinner’s place. An innocent may die. God himself showed this when he killed the animals and then clothed Adam and Eve in the animals’ skins. This is the way Noah came to God after he exited from the ark. It is the way you and I must come today, though we do not actually offer sacrifices but rather look back in faith to the perfect sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Christ offered in our place. He is the lamb “slain from the creation of the world” (Rev. 13:8 NIV). He is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29).

What happens as we come to God through faith in the perfect and finished work of Jesus? We find that God is pleased, and we hear him promise that we are now his and that we shall never perish—not for this life, not for eternity. Our relationship with him “shall not cease” (Gen. 8:22).

Taken from Come to the Waters by James Boice ISBN 9798887790954 used with permission from P&R Publishing, Phillipsburg NJ 08865

Scripture quotations are from the ESV (the Holy Bible English Standard Version) copyright 2001 by Crossway a publishing ministry of Good News Publishers. All rights reserved.