The offering of something of value — particularly life — to God, either as worship, as expiation for sin, or as dedication of oneself. In the Old Covenant, sacrifice was the ordained means by which Israel approached a holy God, the blood of animals serving as a temporary covering for sin that pointed forward to the perfect sacrifice. All Old Testament sacrifice finds its fulfillment in Christ's once-for-all offering of Himself — the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. The New Covenant believer offers "living sacrifice" — not blood, but the totality of life presented to God in worship and obedience.
SAC'RIFICE, n. An offering made to God by killing and burning some animal upon an altar, as an acknowledgment of God's power and providence, or to make atonement for sin, appease God's wrath, or procure his favor. Hence, in a general sense, any thing offered to God, or dedicated to his service. Destruction or surrender of any thing for the sake of something else. Loss sustained without equivalent gain.
Secular culture has sentimentalized sacrifice as mere self-denial for the greater good — noble but ultimately random (parents "sacrifice" for careers; soldiers "sacrifice" for country). This strips sacrifice of its vertical, God-ward dimension. Liberal Christianity has rejected the sacrificial nature of the atonement as primitive or violent, preferring a cross that demonstrates love without satisfying justice. The result is a gospel with no mechanism for actually removing guilt and a church that cannot explain why Jesus had to die rather than merely teach.
• Hebrews 10:10–14 — "...we have been made holy through the sacrifice of the body of Jesus Christ once for all... by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy."
• Romans 12:1 — "...offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God — this is your true and proper worship."
• John 1:29 — "Look, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!"
• Ephesians 5:2 — "Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God."
• Psalm 51:17 — "My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise."
H2077 — zebach (זֶבַח): sacrifice, slaughtered offering; the most common term for animal sacrifice in the OT, encompassing peace offerings, burnt offerings, and fellowship offerings.
G2378 — thysia (θυσία): sacrifice, offering; used in Hebrews 10 to contrast the repeated Levitical sacrifices with Christ's once-for-all offering.
G2380 — thyō (θύω): to sacrifice, slay; used in 1 Corinthians 5:7: "Christ, our Passover lamb, has been sacrificed."
• "The entire sacrificial system of Israel was not primitive religion but divine pedagogy — God teaching in flesh and blood what the cross would accomplish."
• "When Paul calls believers to be 'living sacrifices,' he is calling for the same total consecration that a burnt offering represented — everything, held back nothing."
• "The cross is not God finding a way around justice — it is God satisfying justice Himself, in Himself, so that mercy could flow freely."