Israel: Samaritans Perform Passover Sacrifices

Israel National News is reporting that a small group of Samaritans performed the Old Testament Biblical Passover sacrifice by slaughtering 35 sheep that were offered in a way very similar to that prescribed in the Torah, for sacrifices at the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. Read full article at link.

Remember, in Jesus' time, while animal sacrifices were carried out in the Temple in Jerusalem, the Jewish religion, and the Law of Moses was not based upon what we know as the Old Testament, or Old Covenant, or even what the Jewish people refer to as Torah; but on the tradition of the Pharisees and what was written in the oral law, known as the Talmud today. This is the reason Jesus was constantly at odds with the Jewish Pharisees, or teachers of "the law" and rebuking them harshly. They weren't following the Laws of Moses, but traditions of men.

In Judaism, Rabbis will tell you that they follow the teachings of Moses, or "the Law" but according to the Books of Moses, God required the blood of animals to atone for sin. Without blood, there is no atonement. Leviticus 17:11 says “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make an atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.”

So, the question that needs to be asked is what have the Rabbis been doing for the last 2,000 or so years to atone for the souls of the Jewish people since the Temple was destroyed in 70AD shortly after the death, and resurrection of our Lord Jesus Christ, who prophesied that the Jewish Temple would be destroyed, and with its destruction, the sacrificial system ended once and for all?

Truth is, Hebrews Chapter 10:11 tells us that the blood of bulls and goats and animals could never atone or take away sin permanently and that is the reason God sent His Son Jesus to atone for the sins of all once and for all.

“And every priest standeth daily ministering and offering oftentimes the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins:

But this man (Jesus Christ), after he had offered one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down on the right hand of God.” Hebrews 10:11,12

Israel was given the blood of Jesus Christ to atone for its sins and that is why the Jewish Temple was destroyed. The slaughtering of the Old Testament animals was a foreshadow of the work that Jesus Christ did at Calvary and He is our Passover Lamb. Jesus, or Yeshua is the New Covenant that the Hebrew prophet speaks of in Jeremiah 31:31-34:

Jeremiah 31:31 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will make a NEW covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah:

Jeremiah 31:32 NOT according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt; which my covenant they brake, although I was an husband unto them, saith the LORD:

Jeremiah 31:33 But this shall be the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel; After those days, saith the LORD, I will put my law in their inward parts, and write it in their hearts; and will be their God, and they shall be my people.

Jeremiah 31:34 And they shall teach no more every man his neighbour, and every man his brother, saying, Know the LORD: for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the LORD: for I will forgive their iniquity, and I will remember their sin no more.

The Old Covenent with animal sacrifices to atone for sin is now obsolete and unacceptable to God.

Hebrews 8:13 tells us “A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away.” Jesus is the mediator of a better covenant, which was established upon better promises. Hebrews 8:6

It is finished.