How came this custom into existence?
It did not originate with men—certainly not with good men. Apart from divine suggestion, they could not have supposed that the slaughter of an innocent animal would be pleasing to God. The presumption would be utterly against this. They could not have thought out the divine idea of atonement for sin by the death of Christ, God’s own incarnate Son: the very supposition is absurd, for it supposes that men were able to sound the infinite depths of God’s wisdom and of his love, and to grasp the relations and bearings of his vast moral government with a reach of thought, not human but divine. Yet further; it is not supposable that, having excogitated and discovered the grand idea of atonement, they could have devised the plan of prefiguring this atonement by the bloody sacrifice of the most innocent, harmless and lovely of the animal races.——And further, if they could have thought out this miracle of God’s wisdom and love—both the divine idea of atonement, and the expediency of illustrating it for ages by a foreshadowing system of bloody sacrifices—it would still have been the height of presumption in them to have started this system of sacrifices without God’s special and sanctioning appointment.
We are therefore shut up to this alternative: Either the whole system of altars and bloody sacrifices, as practiced by Abel, Noah, Abraham and Isaac, was an unmeaning farce—a thing of no significance, a mere amusement or fancy, meaning nothing and good for nothing; or, God himself originated the system and enjoined it, and these good men were observing it in obedience to special revelation from God.——Here it will be readily seen that the first side of this alternative is perfectly precluded by the fact that God approved theirsacrifices. God “had respect to the offering of Abel.” He “smelled a sweet savor” in the sacrifices offered by Noah (Gen. 8: 20, 21.) The other alternative therefore, viz. that bloody sacrifices originated in a direct revelation from God—is the only supposition left us. We must adopt it.
It can not be necessary to draw out an argument to prove that in instituting this system of bloody sacrifices God gave his people some notion of its significance. The whole record shows that he was on most familiar terms with them and therefore can not be supposed to have left a point of so much importance utterly blank. It is not too much to say that unless some light were thrown by the Lord himself upon the meaning and purpose of these bloody offerings, the command to make them would require some apology; for apart from their expiatory significance, they are most revolting to even human benevolence—most foreign to all just notions of what is due treatment of innocent lambs, bullocks and doves from our hand. It should also be considered that their moral value depends on their significance. All these bloody sacrifices must have been practically valueless unless their expiatory significance was in some good degree understood. That God ordained them for the sake of their moral value, who can for a moment doubt?——The conclusion, therefore, seems inevitable that God not only enjoined these bloody sacrifices, but gave his people to understand in general their significance to the extent of fulfilling that unconscious prophecy of Abraham (Gen. 22: 8): “My son, God will provide for himself a lamb for a burnt-offering.”
These views, if just, are of vast historic value as showing how much God taught his people at that earliest day, pertaining to his great thoughts of redemption for a lost race.
3. The great moral lessons of the antediluvian age.
(1.) It may be regarded as God’s experiment of a very long life-probation for man. Of course this experiment is not to be thought of as made to satisfy himself as to its wisdom, but to satisfy created finite minds in this and in every other world. In a case where issues so momentous were pending on the results, it must be vital to the honor of Jehovah before all created mindsthat he should fix the average period of human probation in this earthly life at the best possible point. If he had begun with the same average limit which has obtained since the days of Moses (three-score years and ten), he must have anticipated the general impression that this is much too short for the decision of destinies so vast as the welfare of an immortal existence. It was therefore eminently wise that God should begin (as we see that he did) with a much longer, even a tenfold longer average life-period.——This very long life, moreover, carried with it an extraordinary physical vigor, apparently a very great exemption from sickness, frailty, suffering, save as induced by the violent and murderous passions of man toward his fellows. The discipline of suffering seems to have been at its minimum for all human history. The experiment of almost unimpaired physical well-being was afforded the freest scope for its manifestation.
What was the result? The words of Solomon express it well: “Because vengeance against an evil work is not executed speedily, therefore the heart of the sons of men is fully set in them to do evil” (Eccl. 8: 11). The mass of those generations sunk down morally to the lowest point possible, short of a general and promiscuous destruction. “All flesh had corrupted its way.” “Every imagination of the thought of man’s heart was only evil continually.” “The earth was filled with violence.” Human life had no sacredness; society, no safeguard; murderous passions, no restraint. The race were fast becoming too corrupt to live. If the Lord had not swept them by a flood, the earth would fain have opened her jaws to swallow them from the face of the sun.