Will there be animal sacrifices during the millennial kingdom?

So much for the past. In the future such offerings will be again called for. (Ezek. 44, 45.) In the past they looked onward to the true sacrifice. In the future they will point back to it. For in themselves there was no inherent efficacy (Heb. 10:4), but of that of which they were types, the efficacy is everlasting. Hence there is no real difficulty in understanding that animal sacrifice will by-and-by form part of the earthly people's ritual of worship, even when the Lord shall be reigning over them in power and blessing. And since that sacrifice is of abiding efficacy, of which they were but types, we can understand Hezekiah's action in offering a sin-offering for all Israel (2 Chron. 29:23-24), though the captivity of part of the nation had already commenced, and that of the remainder of the ten tribes only awaited the fulfilment of the word by Ahijah to Jeroboam's wife. (1 Kings 14:15-16.) Great as had been their sin, the true sin-offering can atone for it. In the same spirit surely it was, that the returned remnant (Ezra 6:17; 8:35) offered twelve he goats as a sin-offering for all Israel. They counted on the efficacy of that sacrifice, then future, to which we look back. And now looking up, as we can, to where He is who offered up Himself, we know of God's acceptance of His sacrifice; and from the truth as to His person, thus manifested, we are assured of its abiding validity for all who believe on Him. C. E. Stuart.

Further, the revival of the Mosaic ritual need not engender any difficulty in the minds of the Scripture student. Sacrifice can be commemorative as well as anticipative. In the blood of bulls and goats there was no intrinsic value. (Heb. 10:4.) Their blood was typical of the blood of Christ. By-and-by, when the blood of the sacrificial animals shall again be shed, it will be in commemoration of the atoning blood of Christ shed once for all on the cross. There is really no more difficulty in the thought of sacrifices in commemoration of what has been offered up, than in sacrifices anticipative of it; and since the normal manner of worship for those whose prospects are bounded by earth is by sacrifices, they will be again resorted to when, the earthly people shall be once more owned as the people of Jehovah. *

(2.) The temple and its services will be revived in surpassing splendour. (Ezek. 40 - 46) Some have felt a difficulty as to sacrifices being restored; but the difficulty vanishes when it is remembered that these sacrifices will be connected with an earthly people, and an earthly temple, and will be commemorative in their character. In the old dispensation they had no efficacy whatever apart from their reference to Christ; for it was not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins (Heb. 10:4); and in the millennium they will look back to that one sacrifice for sin which was offered upon the cross, as those under the Mosaic economy foreshadowed it. They will, therefore, but recall to the grateful, worshipping hearts of God's people, the blood of Jesus Christ His Son which cleanseth from all sin.

(2.) The temple and its services will be revived in surpassing splendour. (Ezek. 40 — 46) Some have felt a difficulty as to sacrifices being restored; but the difficulty vanishes when it is remembered that these sacrifices will be connected with an earthly people, and an earthly temple, and will be commemorative in their character. In the old dispensation they had no efficacy whatever apart from their reference to Christ; for it was not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins (Heb. 10:4); and in the millennium they will look back to that one sacrifice for sin which was offered upon the cross, as those under the Mosaic economy foreshadowed it. They will, therefore, but recall to the grateful, worshipping hearts of God's people, the blood of Jesus Christ His Son which cleanseth from all sin.

Some souls find a difficulty in understanding how animal sacrifices should again be resorted to after the church has been caught up to heaven, imagining that the Jewish ritual has been once and for ever abolished, consequent on the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus on the cross having been offered up. The Mosaic ritual is never said to be abolished. We who believe on the Lord have died to the law, and those called to go with Christ without the camp of necessity turned their backs once and for ever on the temple and its ritual. But the recurrence of sacrifices is so clearly stated in Ezek. 40 - 46, that the fact is settled at once for the soul which bows to the Word. Isa. 66:23, too, intimates it, and Mal. 1:11 likewise. Further, the sons of Zadok will be reinstated in their priestly office and functions, as the holy priesthood, to offer up animal sacrifices (Ezek. 44:15-16); for the covenant of an everlasting priesthood made with Phinehas the Lord will not revoke.

The reading of Ezekiel 42-46 shows that during the millennium there will be all the principal offerings that were introduced in the Levitical system, namely, the burnt offering, the oblation, the peace offering, the sin and trespass offerings, and the drink offering. In the coming day the sacrifices will look back on the life and death of Christ in this world, whereas the sacrifices of the Levitical system looked forward to the coming and sacrificial work of Jesus.

All of these will take place literally. Literal Israel will be brought into its literal land, a literal temple will be built and literal sacrifices offered to God. These sacrifices which the sons of Zadok will present are commemorative. Whilst in the past, Levitical sacrifices pointed forward to the sacrifice of Christ on the cross, the sacrifices brought in the millennium will commemorate the same work of Christ.

(5.) The Temple will be rebuilt, and its services restored with great magnificence. This we get unfolded in Ezekiel, (Ezek. 40 to 46), which I am, from lack of time, unable to touch tonight, and you can peruse at your leisure. You will find this comes out, that Jerusalem is not only the joy of all the earth, but God owns that place as the spot where His temple is, and you have the temple rebuilt, in more than pristine glory, while the sacrifices are renewed, and the veil of the temple again exists in that day. That might seem to some of us a little retrograde, but I think you will find this, that, as the Old Testament sacrifices were anticipatory, the sacrifices of that day will be commemorative, because Israel's salvation, like our own, is based on the blood of the Lord Jesus Christ.

"In every place incense shall be offered to my name, and a pure offering," — in contrast with the polluted one which the priests of Israel presented then. I see no reason to conclude that the sacrificial terms are transferred from their original ceremonial objects and acts to such as are strictly spiritual, as we know now. (Heb. 13, 1 Peter 2) The later chapters of Ezekiel, which clearly bear on the future, not on our time and position, are too explicit to be thus explained away, if indeed we prefer scripture authority to the thoughts and wishes of men. There is the strongest possible proof that the offerings will then be material, though no doubt used with intelligence and as memorials of the great sacrifice, when the blessing of the Gentiles will not be as now a reproach to Israel, but these will be as life from the dead to all the world. We must leave room for both these things, which are distinctly revealed and contrasted by the Holy Ghost in Romans 11. It is not therefore a question merely of interpreting the Old Testament, but of believing the interpretation authoritatively supplied to us by the great apostle of the Gentiles.

This is decisive. Not only do we hear of the priests, but of these as Levites; nor this only, but of the seed of Zadok, intrusted with the duties of the altar. Sin-offerings, burnt-offerings, thank-offerings, all follow in due order. It is the renewal of sacrifice when the earth and Israel come under the reign of Messiah, displayed in glory, and governing in righteousness and peace. It is the apostasy, the Judaizing, of ritualism, which seeks to introduce the sacrificial system now that we are called to act in faith of the one offering of Christ accepted in heaven. But we ought not to close our eyes to the revelation of this future day for the earth, when God sanctions priest and people, sacrifice and altar, for Israel. If we cannot adjust the differences, we are bound at least to submit to the scriptures, which are unanswerably plain in their import, both as to ourselves now, and as to Israel by-and-by. Simplicity of subjection to Christ and His word is the secret of all intelligence that has price in the eyes of God.