Gratitude vs. Sacrifice: A Response

Ms. Voegtle over at The Haven of Expression wrote this piece on Psalm 50 last month. This is a response.

The God Who Does Not Need

I won't try to summarize her arguments--go read them for yourself--but for the purpose of contextualizing this response, this is her question, and these are her answers:

Why does God prefer an offering of thanksgiving rather than the practice of sacrifices?

• The act of sacrifice was an overt action that expressed a covert attitude.
• No one would claim something that could cost a life if that thing weren't worth the price dearly paid.
• The act of sacrificial gratitude out of one's own free will expresses a thanksgiving that truly honors the Lord.

She derived her arguments from Psalm 50, but sacrificial giving is an ongoing idea present in the New Testament as well. Read Jesus' remarks to his disciples about the widow in Mark 12:41-44:

And he sat down opposite the treasury and watched the people putting money into the offering box. Many rich people put in large sums. And a poor widow came and put in two small copper coins, which make a penny. And he called his disciples to him and said to them, "Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the offering box. For they all contributed out of their abundance, but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, all she had to live on."

High words of praise from the mouth of God himself bestowed upon none other than one of Israel's lowest and poorest! Why? Because she did as Paul would later command the church at Corinth to do in II Corinthians 9:7, "Each one must give as he has decided in his heart, not reluctantly or under compulsion, for God loves a cheerful giver."

Verse 12 of that same passage highlights a key component about giving: "For the ministry of this service is not only supplying the needs of the saints, but is also overflowing in many thanksgivings to God."

The two purposes of offerings detailed in this verse are the sustenance of the saints, who very definitely need the material provisions of food, water, shelter, and clothing in order to live, and thanksgiving to God. This verse explains the importance of giving cheerfully emphasized earlier. If the gift is not bequeathed with a willing and glad heart, it may fulfill the first purpose, but it will surely fail to meet the second.

At this point it is interesting to note that the polytheistic Greeks and Romans believed that the gods needed them. Not because the gods needed the food of mortals, but because they needed their honor. A god was not a god if nobody worshipped him. The Greek word for this is κλεος (kleos). It is not just honor, but social honor; the reputation one or more of them held among their peers.  So sacrifices for those gods were very necessary—not for sustenance in basic existence, but for sustenance in their status as god.

In contrast to that, the God of the Bible doesn’t need our honor. C.S. Lewis expressed the human effect on the Divine perfectly when he said, "A man can no more diminish God's glory by refusing to worship him than a lunatic can put out the sun by scribbling the word 'darkness' on the walls of his cell." By definition, a "perfect being" is complete in himself. God does not need us.

For that matter, corrupted beings such as we cannot even manage to do good on own own. In Isaiah 64:6, the prophet's supplication for mercy, he described the human condition: "We have all become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment." 

So why this call for sacrificial thanksgiving iterated in Psalm 50? What good is the honor of a race whose best act is comparable to filthy rags? What good is our existence and offering to a God who is Perfect in all He does? Why do we still live?

We live because He wants us to live, and as Ms. Voegtle wrote, He wants us to live with thanksgiving. An outward display of faith that costs us something (i.e. sacrifice) shows that we value it enough to risk whatever it is that we are staking. It teaches us to demonstrate in a visible way that God is well worth whatever we could possibly have to give. Unlike the pagan ancients, God required sacrifices of His people for their benefit, not His. Both then and now He asks that we offer thanksgiving--our inadequate gratitude--sacrificially to Him. It is only fitting, it is only natural that the position of highest honor for any man is upon his knees, giving glory to his king. What an honor for us, to be able to honor Him!

Enter his gates with thanksgiving, 

and his courts with praise!

Give thanks to him; bless his name! 

For the Lord is good; 

his steadfast love endures forever, 

and his faithfulness to the generations.

Psalm 100:4-5

Best wishes,
Nicole