Sacrifice is an ancient human expression of worshiping deities. It existed among Jews long before the giving of the Law. It was not instituted by God but by pagan man. However, according to Jesus, what is of man cannot be of God. (Matthew 21:25). Sacrifice has passed away. But what God prescribes does not pass away. (Matthew 24; 35).
As a matter of fact, God denies initiating the elaborate sacrificial system established by Moses: “Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat meat. For I did not speak to your fathers, or command them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices.’” (Jeremiah 7:21-22).
Law of Sacrifices
But why would Moses institute what God did not sanction? He did so for the same reason he established the protocols of divorce, which Jesus says is not of God: “Moses, because of the hardness of your hearts, permitted you to divorce your wives, but from the beginning it was not so.” (Matthew 19:8).
Moses did not believe the Israelites could obey a divine ordinance that proscribed divorce. Therefore, he decided to limit the tendency to divorce by instituting a series of procedures that must be undertaken before divorces could be granted.
Similarly, Moses was convinced the Israelites would not accept the worship of God without sacrifices. They were familiar with the worship of pagan deities who were always approached through sacrifices. Therefore, Moses concluded the best he could do was to carefully circumscribe and limit the sacrificial practice.
According to the Law of Moses, sacrifices were no longer permissible under every green tree but only in the temple and at prescribed times. They could only be performed by Levites and for specific purposes. Only animals and not human beings could be sacrificed. By these limitations, it was expected that the Israelites would be easily differentiated from their idolatrous neighbours, and might eventually be weaned away from sacrificial rites altogether.
Den of Robbers
However, Moses’ regulation of sacrifices was soon subject to abuse. The priesthood passed a law stating that only Jewish money was acceptable for the procurement of animals used for temple sacrifices. Thereby, they set up their own exclusive foreign-exchange bureaus at the entrance of the temple where foreign money had to be exchanged for the so-called “sanctified” currency of Jerusalem for a lucrative fee.
They also controlled the market for the sacrificial animals used in the temple, including the oxen, sheep and doves, and sold them at exorbitant prices to pilgrims. In effect, the sacrificial system soon became very good commercial business for the priests, who literally made a killing out of it. This is why Jesus railed at them: “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations?’ But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’” (Mark 11:17).
Nevertheless, Moses’ regulation, and not the crucifixion of Jesus, as most Christians mistakenly believe, eventually led to the destruction of the sacrificial system. Moses stipulated that sacrifices could only be offered in the temple. (Deuteronomy 12:13-14). But in AD 70, the Romans attacked Jerusalem and completely destroyed the temple. With the temple gone, sacrifices could no longer be offered.
Divine providence also ensured that the temple could not be rebuilt and sacrifices resumed because two Islamic structures, the Al Aqsa Mosque and the Dome of the Rock are now standing where the Jerusalem Temple used to be. Any attempt to damage these Islamic sites, or to rebuild Jewish structures on the Temple Mount, would presage a world war pitching Muslims against Judeo-Christians.
419 Pastors
You might have thought that with the destruction of the temple, the sacrificial system would be dead and buried. Indeed, animal sacrifices ceased among Jews. But the sacrificial system is so profitable that Christian pastors today have simply resurrected it under a different guise.
They now insist that in place of the animals and crops sacrificed in the past, Christians now need to sacrifice their money. This ignores Jesus’ commandment: “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners.” (Matthew 9:13). Thus, an ungodly sacrificial system destroyed by divine providence has been resurrected by covetous pastors, intent on extorting money from naïve and gullible Christians.
Jesus told a “rich young ruler” to go and sell all he has, give the proceeds to the poor and then come and follow him. Pastors now have a modern “new and improved” Christian version. They tell men to go and sell all they have, bring the proceeds to their churches and then come and follow them.
Jesus says: “If you love me, keep my commandments.” (John 14:15). But pastors have replaced this with: “If you love God, give him some money.” “If you love God, give him a tithe of your income.” But God is spirit, so how can we possibly give him carnal things? What is he to do with them?
God himself pours scorn on the entire crooked sacrificial system: “I have no need of a bull from your stall or of goats from your pens, for every animal of the forest is mine, and the cattle on a thousand hills. I know every bird in the mountains, and the creatures of the field are mine. If I were hungry I would not tell you, for the world is mine, and all that is in it. Do I eat the flesh of bulls or drink the blood of goats?” (Psalm 50:9-13).
David’s inspired understanding should be instructive. He says to God: “You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.” (Psalm 51:16-17).
Lovers of Money
So why do pastors still insist we give money to God? They do so because they are thieves and robbers. Jesus says money has nothing to do with God but with Caesar or, in today’s economy, with the government: “Give to Caesar what is Caesar’s, and to God what is God’s.” (Matthew 22:21). Under the law, God did not even accept money as tithe.
Nevertheless, pastors have found an ungodly way out of this cul-de-sac. Since money cannot be given to God, they insist it should be given to pastors who are said to be God’s chief representatives here on earth.
This is deceitful. Contrary to what Christians have been led to believe, the pastor, the bishop, or the priest is not God’s representatives here on earth. God does not take anything done to them as something done to him. He only takes those things we do for the poor, the widows and the orphans personally. (Proverbs 19:17).
Jesus says: “Inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40). Today’s pastor is not the “least” of the kingdom brothers of Jesus, but the most exalted. Therefore, when you give to your pastor you are not honouring God; you are honouring man.
Credit: Femi Aribisala
Dearest “Pastor” F. Aribisala, I wish through this medium to appreciate your efforts at correcting the obviously disturbing trends in the body of Christ, with specific reference to Nigerian congregations. Please do not be offended because I used the title, Pastor against your name, for it is my simple way of saying that you understand the Bible more and better than some of them who call themselves pastors and “men of God” in Nigeria today. I always pause to digest your write-ups each moment I come across them due to their usual critical messages conveyed in de-constructive tones. I do however have some clarifications to make regarding your recent publication above. Your citations snugly fitted in their logic and biases of your narratives, but I believe that if you had read the Epistle to Hebrews Chapter 9, you would have made changes to certain claims in your work. For instance, sacrifice followed human race from the narrative of the Great Fall in Genesis Chapter 3, where the Creator had to use the SKIN of animal to cover the fallen Adam and his wife, Eve. God equally thought Abram (later, Abraham) to eschew human sacrifice practiced in the Land of the Chaldean (presently Northern Syria; a kingdom built by the powerful king Nimrod who was opposed to the worship of the One True God. see Genesis 6-8). Also Abrahamic covenant, where God asked him to sacrifice his only son was symbolic of Christ’s Holistic work of Redemption for the fallen humanity. I do not intend to go deeper into this at this juncture, if you note what the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrew relayed in a clear, logical and Spirit inspired details in the ninth chapter of the Epistle to the Hebrews; then you would be sure that Christ death was once and for all, to get rid of the symbolic ritual of sacrifices. God only used the Roman soldiers in A.D 70 to make manifest what Christ death and Resurrection accomplished spiritually. The message of your write up remains as pellucid as the day. The reason pastors device ways to extort money from the gullible and impressionable lots under their care is the same for which Nigeria as a country is in a mess. Everybody wants to start a church and become a general overseer, but to what end? Can’t you see brother that when the church in Nigeria prayed, the country was in peace? Today oil-rich Islamic states of Arabia and Persia are sponsoring and have succeeded in planting Arabic and other cultural influences into the fabrics of the national education while side-tracking Christian faith. The pastors and so called men of God will wake up one day to discover that while they are wallowing in avaricious pursuits, their congregations are sold out by shrewd political and religious miscreants. Please Read KJV, Excerpt below:
Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.
13 For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh:
14 How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?
15 And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance.
16 For where a testament is, there must also of necessity be the death of the testator.
17 For a testament is of force after men are dead: otherwise it is of no strength at all while the testator liveth.
18 Whereupon neither the first testament was dedicated without blood.
19 For when Moses had spoken every precept to all the people according to the law, he took the blood of calves and of goats, with water, and scarlet wool, and hyssop, and sprinkled both the book, and all the people,
20 Saying, This is the blood of the testament which God hath enjoined unto you.
21 Moreover he sprinkled with blood both the tabernacle, and all the vessels of the ministry.
22 And almost all things are by the law purged with blood; and without shedding of blood is no remission.
23 It was therefore necessary that the patterns of things in the heavens should be purified with these; but the heavenly things themselves with better sacrifices than these.
24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us:
25 Nor yet that he should offer himself often, as the high priest entereth into the holy place every year with blood of others;
26 For then must he often have suffered since the foundation of the world: but now once in the end of the world hath he appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself.
27 And as it is appointed unto men once to die, but after this the judgment:
28 So Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many; and unto them that look for him shall he appear the second time without sin unto salvation
I like this man, Femi Aribisala, he takes his points straight to the temple, to the chagrin of most if not all of the pastors I’ll bet.