If the Jewish people do not offer animal sacrifices, how do they believe they can receive forgiveness from God?

("Modern Judaism [both rabbinical and rationalistic] is not able to account for the cessation of sacrifices and the Levitical dispensation. The former acknowledges that in the destruction of the temple and the present condition of Israel without high priest and offerings, divine judgment on the nation's sin is expressed: the idea of atonement through a vicarious sacrifice is not quite extinct, as appears in the rite of the cock performed on the eve of the day of atonement, though devoid of all Scriptural authority. Rationalistic Judaism has departed still further from the truth. Rejecting the idea of substitution and expiation in connection with sacrifices, it regards the present condition of Israel as a more spiritual development, misinterpreting the protests of David and the prophets against a mere external view of the ceremonial law (Ps. 40:7; Hos. 6:6; Jer. 7:21-23). The old has indeed vanished; but according to the will of God, because the true light now shineth, because the substance has come in Christ" A. Saphir.)

“In my distress at last, I opened my heart to a learned and venerable Rabbi. He told me that God was angry with His people. Jerusalem was in the hands of the Gentiles, the temple was destroyed and a Mohammedan mosque was reared up in its place. The only spot on earth where we dare shed the blood of the sacrifice in accordance with Deuteronomy 12 and Leviticus 17, was desecrated, and our nation scattered. That was why there was no blood. God had Himself closed the way to carry out the solemn service of the great Day of Atonement. Now we must turn to the Talmud, and rest on its instruction, and trust in the mercy of God and the merits of the fathers.

As to redemptive significance of the Death of Christ, see recent works of the Scottish professors Stalker and Denney; also articles in Hastings' one vol. Bible Dictionary on Atonement, Mediation, Redemption, and Salvation, all by Prof. Orr. The late Dr. N. M. Adler, British Chief Rabbi, stated that "For the modern Jew there is no Atonement. … He believes that he obtains forgiveness simply by repentance"; and he went on to quote Ex. 32:30, maintaining that Jehovah's answer there shows that He did not accept the idea of Atonement.

If indeed you were sinless, one could understand the vaunt, "Judaism is all sufficient for us." But a Jew shows less conscience than the heathen if he conceives that he can have remission of sins without blood of a sacrifice acceptable to God. You know that you have no such sacrifice; you ought to know then that dying in your sins without blood upon the altar, you are lost. The third book of Moses declares that it is the blood that makes an atonement for the soul. (Lev. 17:11) Is not this a truth of your religion? Is it eternal or temporary? If temporary, why do you boast of that which is so transient? If eternal, where and how do you stand before God and His word which you own to your own condemnation? If you disown this cardinal truth of the law, what can save you? Without atoning blood, you are more miserable and more guilty than the most benighted of the Gentiles. Alas! rationalism possesses the Jew even more than Christendom.

In Old Testament times it was different. There were sins for which a sin-offering could be brought. There were those for which no sacrifice under the law was provided, and the penalty for which was death (Num. 15:30-31). God might, of course, act in mercy in such cases, and forgive. At times He did. Under such circumstances no sin-offering could be offered, but the sinner could be assured of forgiveness on the simple authority of God's word.

It must be perfectly clear to the reader that what we have now before us is something as far removed from law-keeping and human righteousness as heaven is above earth. The first verse of our chapter proves, in the clearest possible manner, that the people are viewed as in a condition in which the carrying out of the ordinances of the law is a simple impossibility. But, blessed be God, there is not a spot on the face of the earth, be it ever so remote, from which the heart cannot turn to God. The hands might not be able to present a victim for the altar; the feet might not be able to travel to the appointed place of worship; but the heart could travel to God. Yes; the poor crushed, broken, contrite heart could go directly to God, and God, in the depth of His compassion and tender mercy, could meet that heart, bind it up and fill it to overflowing with the rich comfort and consolation of His love, and the full joy of His salvation.

A way of escape from judgment thus offered to the undeserving, we next read of that which is absolutely needful, if that salvation is to be known — viz. confession of sin after grievous failure (Ps. 51). Of this David is the example. Of murder and adultery had he been guilty — grievous crimes in the eyes of men. What, indeed, were they in the eyes of God? What, then, was his resource? On what could he count? For himself he could say nothing, but acknowledge his guilt and the taint of corruption derived from his progenitor, Adam (2-5). On God's mercy, however, he could cast himself, the unfailing resource for all who in truthfulness of heart resort to it. "Have mercy upon me, O God, according to thy loving-kindness; according to the multitude of Thy tender mercies blot out my transgressions" (1). He could do nothing but this. He could offer nothing to meet his case, for the law did not provide a sacrifice for one who had sinned presumptuously, as he had. Death was its only award (Num. 15:30-31); and the only sacrifice which God could accept, under such circumstances, for David was that of a broken spirit. But a broken and contrite heart God does not, He will not, despise. Further, if He can act in grace toward an individual sinner amongst His people, He will not forget Jerusalem, with whose fortunes and restoration the hopes of His people are inseparably connected. So with this the Psalm ends, "Do good in Thy good pleasure to Zion, build thou the walls of Jerusalem. Then shalt Thou be pleased with the sacrifices of righteousness, with burnt offering, and whole burnt offering: then shall they offer bullocks upon Thine altar" (18, 19). Not till the Lord comes out of heaven will the godly remnant of His people know the forgiveness of their sins. Hence forgiveness to be enjoyed by them is, and must ever be, associated with the commencement of their time of millennial blessedness. One understands, then, why the rebuilding the walls of Jerusalem will be connected in their minds with Jehovah's ways in grace towards them. We need to understand dispensational actings in order to be able to trace the connection of their thoughts. Much there is of deep interest in this Psalm (51), but the limits of our present inquiry forbid us to dwell on it. We must pass on to trace the connection with the Psalms which follow.

Under the law such a favour was unknown, till the Lord Himself came and announced it. Till then God showed Himself to be gracious in according forgiveness for an act of sin, whatever man might have thought of it (Lev. 4, 5), if the appointed sacrifice was brought to His altar, and there dealt with aright. For, apart from sacrifice, none could count on forgiveness being assured to them. Plenary forgiveness of sins with which we are familiar was not in those days dispensed. The revelation made to Israel through the prophet Jeremiah (Jer. 31:31-34; Heb. 8:12; 10:17) did, however, predict it; and the voice of John the Baptist, calling the people to the baptism of repentance for the remission of sins, announced the near approach of that favour. Yet neither Jeremiah nor John were commissioned to preach it. It was a favour still — to be waited for, a favour, too, surely desired, as the multitude, stirred up by the Baptist's heart-searching preaching, were baptised of him in Jordan confessing their sins.

In the sacrifices of the Jewish law, God had indicated His desire to take away sins; but such sacrifices could never take sins away; their blood had no intrinsic value, but they pointed forward to the spotless victim, the Lord Jesus Christ, Whose precious blood can remove our sins. Let no one be deceived, there is no other way of having "no more conscience of sins," but by resting in that one sacrifice, the death of Jesus.

Accordingly, the voice of divine mercy is not delayed: "Jehovah has also put away thy sin: thou shalt not die." For sin such as his, there was in the law no offering or sacrifice: death was the righteous penalty, which only could be remitted directly by the Throne above the throne. And this is the meaning of what he declares in his psalm of penitence: "for Thou desirest not sacrifice; else would I give it: Thou delightest not in burnt-offering"; and then, in contrast with that, he shows what God had accepted as of more value with Him: "The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, Thou wilt not despise." (Ps. 51:16-17.)

This is not, of course, a denial of the worth and need of sacrifice, but only of such as were in his hand to bring, or the law could ordain. The blood of bulls and goats could not take away sin; and for sins like David's these were not spoken of at all. What really availed to prevent the extreme sentence, when nothing else could, was just the broken heart," divinely convicted, which God saw in him. This is no question of atonement: there was no atonement made with God by this conviction; the atonement — for David and for all others — was made on Calvary alone; only through this could the mercy of God prevail against judgment. The contrite heart was only, as a "sacrifice," upon the footing of the legal sacrifices, as having efficacy through the work to which they pointed; — though more efficacious than these because it testified of real faith on the part of him in whom it had produced this, and which linked him with that in which the efficacy truly was.