Please be careful with God's people; He hasn't thrown them away for keeps! (By the way, they are COMING BACK TO HIM IN DROVES!) Retrobyter  Yes well i do hope that youall are seeing the imprint of Christ existence in your own back yard because it is shouting above the height of your roof tops. And really justification by faith in the coming messiah was as ot as it was nt. It was never in the animal, but it was in the covenant of grace.The animal sacrifices were a temporary appeasement of the wrath of God until the final atonement who was the lamb of God , purposed in eternity in the Trinity, one in essence three in Persons . And if you are trusting in your own righteousness , then your faith is on shaky ground. And your sacrifices are ever before the Lord, but His answer to you I do not rebuke you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings which are ever before me, I have no need bull from your stalls or the goats from your pens for every animal of the forest is mine and the cattle on a thousand hills, I know every bird in the mountains and the beast of the field is mine sacrifice your thank offerings to God , fulfill your vows to the most High, call upon me in the day of trouble and i will deliver you. Yes if there is any thing from the creation of the world that could alter the purposes in God in saving then it would be of our own possession. Wow, Look God is actually sovereign even over those un- caged animals. And since the temple curtain was rent from top to bottom , because the articles in the Holy of holies had long since lost their power seen that Christ was the fulfillment of the ot ceremonial sacrificial system and only because Israel was in the past looking forward to the Messiah and now we who are in Christ are looking back at the fulfillment of the law. Now we know that it is not through our faith that we can approach the throne of heaven, but it is through divine favor offered to His elect, who are ever thanking Him through their own inability , and only in His purposed salvation do we stand. Yes we are made alive and if we mix our own works or our own faith in the absolute sovereign plan of God we will only give what we lack. And so that island of righteousness of the self effort of the animal or the theology of the garden leaves dress will keep us from glorying in the free grace of God. Praise Him that He did it all.