People have offered sacrifices to various gods since the beginning of time. They brought the appropriate animal into the temple and presented it to their god according to the traditions of their people. The Israelites in the Old Testament built altars to present burnt offerings to worship God or gain His favor and forgiveness. The Mayan people sacrificed humans to give their gods the life-giving fluid of blood. This practice was extremely common in ancient times, but today it is rarely practiced anywhere in the world. What major event would deprive us of the need to present sacrifices to God to experience His supernatural grace and forgiveness? The event that ended our need to present sacrifices to God is redemption through the incarnation of His son Jesus. Jesus had to incarnate, possessing both a human and divine nature, to bring redemption to the human race. The incarnation of Jesus was the first step in God's plan to save humanity and restore our relationship with Him. To some this seems completely ridiculous, but it was necessary for Jesus to take on human nature. The Bible presents us with several passages of Scripture that reveal to us the true identity of Jesus as the second person in the Trinity. John 1:1-14 refers to Jesus, the son of God, as “the Word.” Explain that this “Word” was in the beginning, it was God, it became flesh and came to live among us. Another passage found in Philippians 2:1-18 clearly states that Jesus shared the nature of God. When these two passages are considered together, they imply that the “Word,” who is Jesus, became human while maintaining a divine. Jesus had to become a creature so that we could imitate him and follow his example. He ex...... middle of paper ......humans, we are not redeemed and are still living a hopeless life in sin. The Christian tradition as we know it today has been greatly influenced by the incarnation of Jesus and the redemption offered by his death and resurrection. If Jesus had not come down to earth from heaven and taken on human nature, our Bibles would be extremely different and we would still be offering sacrifices in temples to atone for our sins. We could not personally meet God, because the veil would never be torn. The idea that Jesus was both God and a human nature is impossible to fully understand, but it is vital to the validity of the message Jesus preached during his time as a human on earth. Without incarnation and redemption, Christianity is not much different from any other religion whose followers have little hope or security for the future..