Have you ever thought about that? Indeed, what about animal sacrifice? Why don’t we observe it today? Isn’t the God we serve, the God of the Israelites — the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob? Don’t the same things please Him now that pleased Him in the days of the prophets? Yes, we do serve the same God, and He hasn’t changed. So why do we not observe this very central part of Hebrew worship? I can think of at least three reasons.
One reason we don’t observe animal sacrifice is because we don’t have a temple. In fact, there hasn’t been a true temple of worship since A.D. 70. The temple was not only the center of Jewish worship, it was the center of sacrifice as well. We know that as the Israelites strayed from God, they worshiped in ways not pleasing to him. One of those ways was worshiping on the “high places” instead of in the temple (1 Kings 12:25-33; 1 Kings 13:33-34, and others). Animal sacrifice was pleasing to God, but only that form of animal sacrifice which He had commanded. So the first reason we don’t observe animal sacrifice today is because we have no place to observe sacrifice in the way He commanded.
Another reason we don’t sacrifice animals in worship to God is because the only men authorized to do that were descendants of Levi — specifically those descendants of Levi who were priests. Since Jewish genealogical records were destroyed with the temple in A.D. 70, there’s no way to determine which ones of us are authorized by lineage to perform ritual sacrifice. Therefore, we don’t worship this way today.
These are both valid reasons why animal sacrifice is no longer pleasing to God, but these are mere shadows of the true reason — the fact that our Great High Priest, Jesus Christ the Son of God has already made pleasing sacrifice before the Father on our behalf. As the author and perfector of our faith (Hebrews 12:2), and as our Great High Priest (Hebrews 4:14-16), Jesus offered the only sacrifice that could satisfy the Father once for all (Hebrews 10:1-10). Now as priests ourselves (1 Peter 2:9), under the command of our Great High Priest, we are called to make daily sacrifice — to present our very bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to Him (Romans 12:1). This is God’s will — his good, pleasing and perfect will (Romans 12:2).
