Dead Smoking Carcass

In the Old Testament God did not want a dead smoking carcass of an animal or its blood, he wanted what the ashes, body or blood represented. The abject humility and acknowledgement that you are a sinner and seek repentance for your unholiness from the Holy God. It was the heart intent behind the act, symbolic. As Christians we now offer ourselves as the living sacrifice and our souls as eternal living sacrifice. We submit this while we are still alive. It is not the sacrifice of the animal itself that saved any more than it is/was the circumcision or baptism that saved someone. They are all outward symbols of inward grace. The same goes for believers now. God does not want us to literally crucify ourselves and die but He wants is to symbolically and figuratively kill our old selves so that He may reign in us. He already offered the once-and-for-all sacrifice in His son Jesus Christ so we wouldn't have to. Besides, nothing we could do would've bought us one second of salvation anyway. If you just perform the outward and showy ritual and it means nothing to you, why would you have done it to begin with?