Animal Offerings and Jesus

False teachers deny that Christ was made a curse for us, and was judged by God in our place for our sins laid upon Him.

To that end, they attempt to decouple the Lord Jesus from the Old Testament sacrifices, and deny that those animal offerings were a type and picture of what our Savior did for us at Calvary to take away our sin.

Some claim that God's commandments to sacrifice animals were only an accommodation to the people's desire to continue in their comfortable pagan sacrificial rituals. They claim that such offerings were not necessary for the forgiveness of sin.

They claim that God can forgive sin without a sacrifice or satisfaction of the demands of His divine justice.

But the Old Testament texts clearly set forth the requirement for the offerings in order to obtain forgiveness for the sin of the people.

Furthermore, the Scriptures themselves prove that these were not some pagan rituals, since the very first generation of mankind offered them with God's respect. Abel offered an animal sacrifice, and God accepted it, while rejecting Cain's unbloody sacrifice of farm produce.

Abel trusted in God's mercy to accept his bloody sacrifice, and Hebrews declares this was a proof of Abel's faith in God's promises.

Furthermore, Hebrews contrasts the sacrifice of Jesus for His people, as being better than Abel's animal sacrifice.

These false teachers also claim that Jesus is not qualified to fulfill or complete the Old Testament offerings, since He is of the tribe of Judah, and cannot be an Aaronic priest.

This is a laughable objection, that Hebrews addresses in detail. Jesus offered up Himself, and not animals, which could never take away our sin.