5 Powerful Proofs That Jesus Was Our Perfect Sacrifice

There are dozens of prophecies in the Old Testament regarding the Messiah – numbers range from 200 to over 300 according to different sources. They include prophecies about how he would be born, how he would die, and about his resurrection. These prophecies are found as early as Genesis 3:15, and Isaiah is strewn with them. From these prophecies we see that the Messiah would be a servant king, not an impressive-looking army commander.

We read in Isaiah 53:5 that our Savior would be "pierced for our transgressions, [...] crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His stripes we are healed." Isaiah 50:6 gives us this prophecy about the whipping, beating, and humiliation Jesus would endure: “I gave my back to those who strike, and my cheeks to those who pull out the beard; I hid not my face from disgrace and spitting.” A little further on in the same book, we learn that Jesus’ body would be terribly broken, “his appearance was so marred, beyond human semblance, and his form beyond that of the children of mankind” (Isaiah 52:12).

Isaiah wrote “Kings shall shut their mouths because of him, for that which has not been told them they see, and that which they have not heard they understand” (Isaiah 52:15). Jesus did not speak in his defense. He did not destroy his enemies in a flash of power, yet he declared the truth of his sovereignty by doing things which were foretold in the Old Testament. He was born to a virgin (Isaiah 7:14), entered Jerusalem on a colt as per prophecy (Zechariah 9:9), and much more. Jesus fulfilled the Messianic prophecies.

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“For Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Hebrews 9:24). When Moses met with God, he had to do so wearing a veil. Only one priest could enter the tabernacle yearly, and only after making suitable offerings to the Lord. But, as many writers say, the tabernacle helps us to understand who Christ is and why he was the perfect sacrifice.

One scholar writes: “Christ the God-man entered the direct presence of our Maker upon His ascension, being perfectly sinless” as both man and God. Any person who wished to approach the Lord prior to Christ’s resurrection needed an intercessor to do so, a High Priest who was a righteous man of God. Moses was that intercessor for Israel until the priestly system was instituted.

Unlike the high priests of Israel who could never be fully and truly righteous, men who had to make annual sacrifices if they were going to approach God by entering the Most Holy Place on the Day of Atonement, “Jesus had to offer Himself only once to secure access to the heavenly Most Holy Place. This reveals the superiority of Jesus’ work. His death took Him into the heavenly Most Holy Place forever. This was the high point of human history, when Christ inaugurated His kingdom.” The Priestly system and the tabernacle were always pointing to our need for a truly righteous High Priest, and only Jesus satisfied the job description.

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Frequently, the Old Testament describes a priest or prophet whose life was far from joyful. Jonah, for example, rebelled at the idea of obeying God when he thought the work would be uncomfortable and when he could not, in his heart, imagine God forgiving such bad people. Of course, one of the fundamental problems with Jonah was his pride: he thought himself better than the Ninevites because he was a priest of the Lord, and yet this man was not right with God himself.

One writer observed: “Despite the successful outcome of his mission, Jonah becomes exceedingly displeased and angry.” After the success of his mission, unsatisfied with the result, Jonah cried “O LORD, please take my life from me, for it is better for me to die than to live” (Jonah 4:3). But he did not want to give his life as a sacrifice; he wanted to avoid the destination and work God had chosen for him. It was not his joy to be used as a means by which to rescue Nineveh and his biggest complaint is that they will, indeed, be rescued from destruction in spite of their infamy.

Hebrews 12:2 points to Jesus “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is seated at the right hand of the throne of God.” The Christian faith, as the writer explains, is founded on this reality. The Son, who is One with the Father, redeemed every person who will confess that he is Lord and Savior. When we realize that Jesus wants us to be his brothers and sisters so badly that he gave his life in this way, that we are deeply loved and wanted by our Savior, this should fill us with joy because we are all counted among those sinners whose trespasses he has paid for.

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Christ offered himself as the perfect sacrifice, the spotless lamb. In his vision – known as the Revelation of John – the Apostle saw and heard “the living creatures and the elders the voice of many angels, numbering myriads of myriads and thousands of thousands, saying with a loud voice, ‘Worthy is the Lamb who was slain to receive power and wealth and wisdom and might and honor and glory and blessing!’” (Revelation 5:11-12).

Jesus sweated blood in the Garden of Gethsemane, awaiting the events which he knew were going to come. He would submit himself to the horrors of imprisonment including all of the physical and mental torture they would put him through. He knew how the guards would beat him, humiliate him, and then the agony of crucifixion. He was a trouble-maker to the Romans and a blasphemer worthy of death as far as the Jews were concerned. Jesus knew he had come to die and now was his time, but Jesus did not waver.

In fact, his entire ministry was bent in this direction. At one point, after Jesus had started to explain that he must die and would also rise from the dead, Peter tried to talk Jesus out of it. “Far be it from you, Lord! This shall never happen to you” (Matthew 16:22). But Peter did not understand, and Jesus rebuked him sternly “Get behind me, Satan! You are a hindrance to me. For you are not setting your mind on the things of God, but on the things of man” (Matthew 16:23). He had to die; this was the direction of his life.

Many will argue angrily that they cannot worship a God who would send his Son to die the way Christ died. But Christ’s love was like this: “The Son of God [...] loved me and gave himself for me” (Galatians 2:20). Only in this Savior can we also die to self and rise from the dead. “I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God” (Galatians 2:20).

We can only do this in confidence if Christ was the perfect sacrifice, acceptable to God. We know he was, because God declared “this is my Son, in whom I am well pleased” (Luke 9:35).

Jesus Is the Fulfillment

As one writer has concluded, “the New Testament presents Jesus Christ as the fulfillment of the Old Testament prophecies and the embodiment of the perfect sacrifice.” John the Baptist knew it (John 1:29), as did Paul (2 Corinthians 12:9, Romans 5:8), and Jesus declared it of himself (John 3:16). He had to be perfect because only perfection would satisfy God and pay for our redemption.

Sources
https://biblehub.com/topical/p/perfect_sacrifice.htm
https://learn.ligonier.org/devotionals/christs-one-sacrifice
https://biblehub.com/topical/j/jonah's_anger_and_god's_question.htm

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