Why Bloody Sacrifices?

The design which the bloody sacrifices were meant to serve from the first,

and which they never ceased to serve, was to maintain a conviction of man’s guilt, and a dependence on the forgiving grace of God by an atonement. They clearly taught this truth in a symbolic form to the Jewish nation. They showed that reconciliation could be effected in no other way than by a satisfaction to divine justice. They pointed out that the worshippers had in many ways offended God, and were worthy of death; that they were to see in the sacrifices a symbol of the inevitable divine punishment which had been incurred; and that God made the animal victim serve as a pledge that the punishment was borne by a substitute, and that on this ground the offerer could again be taken into favor. The sacrifices were meant to exhibit the indispensable necessity of an atonement by vicarious expiation.

--George Smeaton