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This history of the origin and meaning of sacrifice has an obvious affinity with the gift-theory of sacrifice. Both in the gift-theory and the covenant-theory, the terms of the transaction are that so much blessing shall be forthcoming for so much service, or so much sacrifice for so much blessing.
The point of view is commercial; the obligation is legal; if the terms are strictly kept on the one part, then they are strictly binding on the other. The covenant-theory, like the gift-theory, is eventually discovered by spiritual experience, if pushed far enough, to be a false interpretation of the relations existing between god and man.
That is why the covenant-theory of sacrifice gains acceptance: it represents it is an official representation that performance of the sacrificial ceremony is all that is required, by the terms of the agreement, to obtain reconciliation and to effect atonement.
Though this was an interpretation of the meaning of the sacrificial rite which was incompatible with the covenant-theory and which was eventually fatal to it, it was at once a return to the original object of the rite and a disclosure of its meaning.
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