What About Animal Sacrifices?

When people find out that I follow Torah one of the first questions to follow is, “do you sacrifice animals?” Then the following discussion follows:

Me: No I don’t sacrifice animals.

Them: Then how can you be keeping Torah? It is full of commandments to sacrifice animals.

Me: Yes it is, but we have no Temple. The Torah commands that the sacrifices can only be done in the Temple in Jerusalem.

Them: So you will sacrifice animals when the Temple is rebuilt.

Me: Well, I will have sacrifices done on my behalf as proscribed in Torah.

Them: But that negates the cross and the sacrifice that Jesus made for us. He was the final sacrifice and is now our High Priest. Haven’t you read the book of Hebrews?

So here is my response to this claim that the book of Hebrews teaches that the sacrifices are done away with and that Yeshua (Jesus) took the place of the Levitical High Priest.

Yeshua isn't a priest on earth at all:

Hbr 8:4 KJV - For if he were on earth, he should not be a priest, seeing that there are priests that offer gifts according to the law:

We know that the sacrifices will resume in the millennial Kingdom (Ezekiel 40-48) Here are a few excerpts:

Eze 43:19 NASB - 'You shall give to the Levitical priests who are from the offspring of Zadok, who draw near to Me to minister to Me,' declares the Lord GOD, 'a young bull for a sin offering.

Eze 43:21 NASB - 'You shall also take the bull for the sin offering, and it shall be burned in the appointed place of the house, outside the sanctuary.

Eze 44:15 NASB - "But the Levitical priests, the sons of Zadok, who kept charge of My sanctuary when the sons of Israel went astray from Me, shall come near to Me to minister to Me; and they shall stand before Me to offer Me the fat and the blood," declares the Lord GOD.

Eze 44:16 NASB - "They shall enter My sanctuary; they shall come near to My table to minister to Me and keep My charge.

We have to stop looking at things in a westernized way. Hebrews is speaking of two simultaneous systems. We have an earthly system and we have a heavenly system. One does not do away with the other, they serve different purposes. Moses patterned the Tabernacle after what he saw on the mountain.

Exd 25:9 NASB - "According to all that I am going to show you, as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture, just so you shall construct it.

Exd 25:40 NASB - "See that you make them after the pattern for them, which was shown to you on the mountain.

Act 7:44 NASB - "Our fathers had the tabernacle of testimony in the wilderness, just as He who spoke to Moses directed him to make it according to the pattern which he had seen.

Hbr 8:5 NASB - who serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things, just as Moses was warned by God when he was about to erect the tabernacle; for, "SEE," He says, "THAT YOU MAKE all things ACCORDING TO THE PATTERN WHICH WAS SHOWN YOU ON THE MOUNTAIN."

What was this pattern? I think it was the heavenly Tabernacle. This is the Tabernacle that Yeshua atoned in, not the earthly.

Hbr 8:1 NASB - Now the main point in what has been said is this: we have such a high priest, who has taken His seat at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens,

Hbr 8:2 NASB - a minister in the sanctuary and in the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, not man.

See the sacrifices were always symbolic of the heart. That is why we read things like the following in the TNK:

Hsa 6:6 NASB - For I delight in loyalty rather than sacrifice, And in the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings.

God has always wanted our heart. The sacrifices were simply a picture (aka a shadow) of what was being done in the heavenly. They will still be this picture if resumed. This does not negate what Yeshua did, it points to it as a reminder as it always has.

The atoning factor of the sacrifices is only an outward fleshly cleansing, while the atonement in the heavenly Tabernacle is an inward heart cleansing. Both are necessary but one will eventually fade away.

Hbr 8:13 NASB - When He said, "A new covenant," He has made the first obsolete. But whatever is becoming obsolete and growing old is ready to disappear.

But the earthly cannot fade away as long as we remain in this earthly flesh because our flesh needs cleansing. Notice the future tense of the above verse. This has not happened yet!

However, there will come a day when we will be made new. We will receive glorified bodies that do not need that fleshly cleansing. At this point heaven and earth will have passed away and we will be entering the new heaven and the new earth. What is so amazing is that this is exactly when Yeshua said that some of the law could pass away. It passes away because it is no longer necessary. There is no need to cleanse perfect flesh. There is no need to punish sins that don't exist.

Mat 5:17 NASB - "Do not think that I came to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I did not come to abolish but to fulfill.

Mat 5:18 NASB - "For truly I say to you, until heaven and earth pass away, not the smallest letter or stroke shall pass from the Law until all is accomplished.

Mat 5:19 NASB - "Whoever then annuls one of the least of these commandments, and teaches others to do the same, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven; but whoever keeps and teaches them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven.

So there you have it. Yes I will allow animal sacrifices to be brought on my behalf when the Temple is rebuilt and it does not in any way take away from what Yeshua did for me on the cross.

Shalom!