Many of the other major and minor prophets in the Old Testament agreed with admonishment of Amos that we noted in the last blog: God is not interested in sacrifices but “let justice roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream.”
1 Samuel 15:22, Proverbs 21:3, Jeremiah 6:19-20, Jeremiah 7:21-26, Jeremiah 14:11-12, Hosea 6:6, Micah 6:6-8, and Malachi 2:11-14 all state that God prefers obedience to sacrifices. These passages leave no misunderstanding of what is important to God: right actions. Right actions were more important to God than the sacrifices which were established by God for the forgiveness of sins and which Christians teach foreshadowed Christ’s death and shedding of his blood for our sins. [1]
Micah amplifies this concept when he tells us no matter how much we sacrifice to God, no matter what the value is of the sacrifice we offer, sacrifice is not what God wants.
“With what shall I come before the Lord, and bow myself before God on high?
Shall I come before him with burnt offerings, with calves a year old?
Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil?
Shall I give my firstborn for my transgression, the fruit of my body for the sin of my soul?”
He has told you, O man, what is good; and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice, and to love kindness, and to walk humbly with your God?” (Micah 6:6-8 ESV)
So why do our doctrinal statements only include belief in Jesus and the death for our sins as the only way of salvation and not address our actions. Does not James say: “So also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead.” (James 2:17 ESV)
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[1] See my book: The Renovation of Our Soul, pp. 66-67.
