Page "Sacrifice" Paragraph 29

In trinitarian Christian teaching, God became incarnate in Jesus Christ, sacrificing his first-born son to accomplish the reconciliation of God and humanity, which had separated itself from God through sin ( see the concept of original sin ).

According to a view that has featured prominently in Western theology since early in the 2nd millennium, God's justice required an atonement for sin from humanity if human beings were to be restored to their place in creation and saved from damnation.

However, God knew limited human beings could not make sufficient atonement, for humanity's offense to God was infinite, so God created a covenant with Abraham, which he fulfilled when he sent his only Son to become the sacrifice for the broken covenant.

In Christian theology, this sacrifice replaced the insufficient animal sacrifice of the Old Covenant ; Christ the " Lamb of God " replaced the lambs ' sacrifice of the ancient Korban Todah ( the Rite of Thanksgiving ), chief of which is the Passover in the Mosaic law.