–– Tim Cantrell
The audio version of this article is available here: YouTube, Apple Podcasts, or Spotify.
Traditional leaders and political voices in South Africa keep calling for 8 May to become a public holiday, “Ancestor’s Day”, so as to decolonise the Christian calendar with pagan celebrations. How should the Christian respond to such proposals? Why do many professing Christians in Africa still worship the ancestors in times of trouble or to ward off evil? How do believers handle family pressure to join in blood sacrifices to appease and honour the forefathers? God’s Word offers solid answers to these burning questions.
Christian, could you explain the difference between the blood required by pagan religions compared to Christianity? The Book of Hebrews often tells us how the blood of Christ was “better”, better than the blood of Abel, better than the blood of bulls and goats, better than the old covenant. But how is the blood of Christ also better than African Traditional Religion (ATR) sacrifices?
Here are six ways that the blood of Christ is better than the blood of ATR sacrifices:
- A Better Origin
On what authority are ATR sacrifices offered? Only oral tradition and family pressure, none other. Nothing divinely revealed from heaven; only humanly required by earthly tradition and culture.
Not so for Christianity. God has spoken in His inspired, infallible Word. We have a written, historical, reliable record of which blood sacrifices God requires, and when and why. This biblical explanation is available to all God’s image-bearers, for any humans and every culture that will open His Scriptures and hear His voice (Gal. 1:12; 1 Jn. 1:2; 2 Tim. 3:16; 2 Pet. 1:21).
- A Better Purpose
ATR sacrifices are pragmatic, for the sake of resolving immediate crises, averting evil, avoiding danger, and securing earthly blessings. Not so with the final sacrifice God required at Calvary in the death of His Son. When Jesus died, He didn’t only provide for sin’s symptoms and fruits. His cross was the remedy for the deepest root of our guilt and rebellion against a holy God and His deserved wrath as a result. For every sinner who will ever believe, they can receive eternal redemption, not merely some temporal benefits (Rom. 3:21-26; 2 Cor. 5:21).
God’s Word is clear: “Without the shedding of blood, there was no forgiveness of sins” (Heb. 9:22). “In Him [Christ] we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace” (Eph. 1:7).
- A Better Nature
ATR sacrifices, like a chicken, goat, or cow, have no value in the sight of a holy God. It is just the death of a pet, a wasted sacrifice, blood spilt in vain. Not so with the blood of Christ, a million times no! We are not redeemed “through the blood of goats or calves, but through His own blood” (Heb. 9:12). We were “not redeemed with perishable things, like silver or gold…but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a Lamb unblemished and spotless” (1 Pet. 1:18).
In ATR, there are lots of intermediaries and agents involved – from sangomas, priests, diviners, traditional healers (witchdoctors), etc. But in biblical Christianity, “there is one Mediator between God and man, the man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself as a ransom for all” (1 Tim. 2:7).
- A Better Recipient
ATR sacrifices are offered to a variety of unseen beings in the spirit world, like the ancestors and other deities, because God the Creator is seen as remote, distant, and uninvolved.
Not so in biblical Christianity: Christ’s blood is offered to the one true God, satisfying His justice and fulfilling His Law, atoning for our guilt. We don’t provide the sacrifice or produce the offering; God Himself provided it!
God Himself became the propitiation, sending His very own Son. At the real Mount Moriah in Genesis 22, Abraham told his son, Isaac: “God Himself will provide the sacrifice”. “He who did not spare His own Son, but gave Him up for us all” – this is the heart of our Christian confession of faith (Rom. 8:32).
- A Better Frequency
In ATR, the blood sacrifices are ongoing, repeated for each new need or crisis, offered at every tombstone unveiling and elsewhere. Nothing is finished or final. Unlike our Lord who declared from His cross, “It is finished” (Jn. 19:30). “For Christ entered the holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption…. By a single offering He has perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Heb. 9:12; 10:14). No further blood is needed; the sacrificial system is done, all is fulfilled in Christ for all who believe – gloriously good news!
- A Better Result
ATR sacrifices achieve nothing except appeasing the family, preserving pagan culture and inviting more demonic influence, darkness, superstition and ignorance. Not so with the Jesus once-for-all atoning sacrifice: “the blood of Jesus… cleanses us from all sin” (1 Jn. 1:7). “…having made peace through the blood of His cross” (Col. 1:20). “But now in Christ Jesus you who were far off are brought near by the blood of Christ” (Eph. 2:13).
As Spurgeon declared,
“There is no peace like the peace that comes from the blood of Jesus; it speaks peace to the conscience, peace to the heart, and peace with God forever. …The blood of the Lamb is the hope of the hopeless, the strength of the weak, and the victory of the defeated; by it we overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil.”
Conclusion
No Christian has any business going near the worship or appeasement of dead ancestors. “Should they inquire of the dead on behalf of the living? [We are to go] To the Law and the Testimony!” (Isa. 8:19-20). Only God’s Word can light the way out of such darkness.
We’ve seen six ways the blood of Christ is better than the blood of ATR—in its origin, purpose, nature, recipient, frequency and results. As saintly Samuel Rutherford once wrote, “I have cast my soul’s anchor in the wounds of my Saviour, and there I find the blood that washes me whiter than the driven snow.”
The timeless hymn captures it best:
What can wash away my sin? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. What can make me whole again? Nothing but the blood of Jesus. Oh, precious is the flow, that makes me white as snow. No other fount I know, nothing but the blood of Jesus!