Summary: In the bible, there are verses claiming that animal sacrifice is a food offering for God's consumption, "an aroma pleasing to the Lord" (e.g. Leviticus 1:9 NIV, Exodus 29:18 NIV). In reality, God never delights in animal sacrifice (Psalm 51:16-17); He is fed up with it (Isaiah 1:11-12); He prefers thanksgiving to it (Psalm 50:7-14, 23). Leviticus 16 claims that animal sacrifice can take away human sins, but Hebrews 10:4-10 stresses that this is impossible.
Both God and Jesus Christ have explicitly said, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice" (Hosea 6:6 NIV, Matthew 9:13 NIV, Hebrews 10:8). In expelling from the Holy Temple vendors who sold innocent animals to be slaughtered and sacrificed there, Jesus offended the Pharisees and scribes, who then plotted to have him killed (Mark 11:18).
True Prophets protested against the sacrificial cult and offered to God bread instead of burnt animal flesh [Leviticus 21:6, 21-22]. The animal sacrifice ritual must be an evil cult concocted by the "lying pen of the scribes" (Jeremiah 8:8 NIV). Otherwise, how would God, who is LOVE (1 John 4:16), delight to see innocent creatures slaughtered and bled to death, and go on to consume them as His favorite dish?
Eating animals is animal sacrifice detested by God. For eating animal flesh means sacrificing innocent animals' lives, a sacrifice to the idol god of the belly (Philippians 3:19), and a sacrifice to gluttony (Proverbs 23:20-21) (cf. Hicks 2018). Thus, go VEGAN!
Full Text Link: https://www.hkbnews.net/post/meatism-is-animal-sacrifice-detested-by-god-by-chapman-chen-hkbnews Amen!
1. An Aroma Pleasing to God??
On the one hand, certain bible verses claims that animal sacrifice emits an aroma pleasing to God:-
"Then burn the entire ram on the altar. It is a burnt offering to the LORD, a pleasing aroma, a food offering presented to the LORD." (Exodus 29:18 NIV)
"You are to wash the internal organs and the legs with water, and the priest is to burn all of it on the altar. It is a burnt offering, a food offering, an aroma pleasing to the Lord." (Leviticus 1:9, 13 NIV)
On the other hand, In Isaiah 1, God explicitly states that fat of the sacrifice does not please Him, that He DOES NOT DELIGHT in it:
“Of what value to me is the abundance of your sacrifices? saith the Lord: I am FULL of whole-burnt-offerings of rams; and I DELIGHT NOT in the fat of lambs, and the blood of bulls and goats: neither shall ye come with these to appear before me; for WHO HAS REQUIRED these things at your hands?” (Isaiah 1:11-12, Greek Septuagint Bible).
In Amos, God even bluntly reveals that He loathes the cult of animal sacrifice:-
“I hate, I despise your religious festivals; your assemblies are a stench to me. Even though you bring me burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them. Though you bring choice fellowship offerings, I will have no regard for them. (Amos 5:21-4 NIV)
Similarly, in Psalm 51:16-17 the psalmist says to God in prayer:
"You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. My sacrifice, O God, is a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart you, God, will not despise." (Psalm 51:16-17 NIV)
"Can you really think that God...who is absolutely perfect Being can be actually a subject to temporal pleasure and sensual enjoyment? Can He really be soothed and made gentle by a scent which is soon passing away?" questions Vujicic (2009).
2. God's Food?
In Ezekiel 44:7 it is explicitly stated that God’s bread [food] was fat and blood:
“In that ye have brought into my sanctuary strangers, uncircumcised in heart, and uncircumcised in flesh, to be in my sanctuary, to pollute it, even my house, when ye offer MY BREAD, the FAT AND THE BLOOD.” Ezekiel 44:7 KJV
And in Leviticus 3, we witness the following command:
“you are to present this food offering to the Lord: the internal organs and all the fat that is connected to them... burn them on the altar as a food offering...All the fat is the Lord’s." (Leviticus 3:12-16 NIV)
In Numbers 28, God actually command the Israelites through Moses to feed HIM with burnt animal flesh on a daily basis!
“Give this command to the Israelites and say to them: ‘Make sure that you present to me at the appointed time my food offerings, as an aroma pleasing to me.’ 3 Say to them: ‘This is the food offering you are to present to the Lord: two lambs a year old without defect, as a regular burnt offering each day" (Numbers 28: 2-6 NIV)
However, in Psalm 50 God emphasizes that He does not wish for the burnt animal flesh which the Israelites offered every day as His food. The Lord downright points out that He does not consume meat and that He does not imbibe blood but that He desires only spiritual offerings –thanksgiving and praise.
“Hear, O my people... I will testify against you; I am...your God! I will not reprove you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings, which are continually before me. I will not take a bull from your house, no goats out of your folds. For every beast of the forest is mine... Will I eat the flesh of bulls, or drink the blood of goats? Offer to God thanksgiving, and pay your vows to the Most High…Whoever offers praise glorifies me” [Psalm 50:7-14, 23 NKJV].
Understanding the statement to be in the negative, most translators render it as: “I will not reprove you.” The Hebrew text, nonetheless, could be also translated “Will I not reprove you?” " תָמִֽיד׃ לְנֶגְדִּ֣י וְעוֹלֹתֶ֖יךָ אוֹכִיחֶ֑ךָ עַל־זְ֭בָחֶיךָ לֹ֣א (JPS, 1985)" (cf. Vujicic 2009).
The milieu of the passage calls for the interrogative statement: “Will I not reprove you?” For if the Lord had no trouble with their animal sacrifice, why then did He begin the passage by announcing that He testify against them? If this is nevertheless rejected then the single other feasible approach to comprehend the text is:
"It is not concerning [A LACK OF] your sacrifices [that] I rebuke you, and your burnt offerings [are] before me continually." (Psalm 50:8, Lexham English Bible)
Similarly in Isaiah 43:23 Brenton Septuagint Translation, God says, "I have not caused thee to serve with sacrifices".
3. Can Animal Sacrifice Atone for Human Sins?
Leviticus 16 claims that animal sacrifice can take away human sins, but Hebrews 10:4-10 stresses that this is impossible:-
"He shall then slaughter the goat for the sin offering for the people and take its blood behind the curtain and do with it as he did with the bull's blood...In this way he will make atonement for...uncleanness and rebellion of the Israelites, whatever their sins have been... (Leviticus 16: 15-16, 24 NIV); "he shall come out and sacrifice the burnt offering for himself and the burnt offering for the people, to make atonement for himself and for the people" (Leviticus 16: 24 NIV).
"It is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins." (Hebrews 10:4-10 NIV)
4. "I Desire mercy, NOT Sacrifice"!
Both God and Jesus Christ have explicitly said, "I desire mercy, not sacrifice".
In Hosea, God unequivocally announces, "For I desire mercy, not sacrifice, and acknowledgment of God rather than burnt offerings." (Hosea 6:6 NIV)
Jesus Christ himself pointed out on several occasions that God desires mercy and not sacrifice:-
"But go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’" Jesus admonished the Pharisees (Matthew 9:13 NIV).
"Therefore, when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire...with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased...Day after day every priest stands and performs his religious duties; again and again he offers the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins... by one sacrifice he has made perfect forever those who are being made holy. (Hebrews 10:5-11 NIV)
Jesus even died for animal liberation. In kicking out from the Holy Temple vendors who sold innocent animals to be slaughtered and sacrificed there, Jesus offended the big bosses behind them -- the Pharisees and scribes, who then delivered Him to the Romans for crucifixion in revenge (cf. Akers 2000; Chen 2022):-
"And the Jews' passover was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And found in the temple those that sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the changers of money sitting: And when he had made a scourge of small cords, he drove them all out of the temple, and the sheep, and the oxen; and poured out the changers' money, and overthrew the tables; And said unto them that sold doves, Take these things hence; make not my Father's house an house of merchandise." (John 2:13-16 KJV)
"When the chief priests and scribes heard this, they looked for a way to kill Him." (Mark 11:18 Berean Study Bible)
5. True Prophets Protested against the Sacrificial Cult
The true priests who disapproved of animal sacrifice most certainly did not think that fat and blood were to be offered to Jehovah as His provisions. That righteous prophets offered bread to God can be confirmed from the following passage:
“They [priests] shall be holy unto their God, and not profane the name of their God: for the offerings of the LORD made by fire, and the BREAD of their God, they do offer: therefore they shall be holy...No man that hath a blemish of the seed of Aaron the priest shall come nigh to offer the offerings of the LORD made by fire: he hath a blemish; he shall not come nigh to offer the BREAD of his God. He shall eat the bread of his God, both of the most holy and, the holy” [Leviticus 21:6, 21-22 KJV].
6. Animal Sacrifice as an Evil Cult
Look at the two following passages. Note words like "hands on its head", "Cut... into pieces", "blood... to be splashed against the sides of the altar", "internal organs", "the head and the other pieces", ""both kidneys", "liver", "All its fat shall be offered". Doesn't the whole sound like an evil cult dedicated to Satan?
“Take one of the rams, and Aaron and his sons shall lay their hands on its head. Slaughter it and take the blood and splash it against the sides of the altar. Cut the ram into pieces and wash the internal organs and the legs, putting them with the head and the other pieces. Then burn the entire ram on the altar. It is a burnt offering to the Lord, a pleasing aroma, a food offering presented to the Lord." (Exodus 29:15-18 NIV)
"These are the regulations for the guilt offering... The guilt offering is to be slaughtered in the place where the burnt offering is slaughtered, and its blood is to be splashed against the sides of the altar. All its fat shall be offered: the fat tail and the fat that covers the internal organs, both kidneys with the fat on them near the loins, and the long lobe of the liver, which is to be removed with the kidneys. The priest shall burn them on the altar as a food offering presented to the Lord. It is a guilt offering. Any male in a priest’s family may eat it... (Leviticus 7:1-6 NIV)
On the other hand, we have already seen how God in Psalm 50:7-14, 23 condemns the sacrificial cult and that the only sacrifice He wants is actually the sacrifice of “thanksgiving” and “praise.”
There are many other passages in the Old Testament which undoubtedly illustrate that the bloodthirsty sacrificial cult was never introduced or authorized by God.
For instance, God says, "whoever sacrifices a bull is like one who kills a person, and whoever offers a lamb is like one who breaks a dog’s neck... burns memorial incense is like one who worships an idol. They have chosen their own ways, and they delight in their abominations (Isaiah 66:3 NIV).
God's sanctified prophets also energetically renounced the cult and confirmed that it was of Satanic origin. In Jeremiah 7:21-23 we read:
Thus says the LORD of hosts, the God of Israel: Add your burnt offerings to your sacrifices and eat meat which I did not command your fathers to eat. (Jeremiah 7:21 Lamsa Bible)
7. The Lying Pen of the Scribes
Now God has two opposing voices in the Bible:- one is pro-animal sacrifice and the other anti-animal sacrifice. One of them must be fake; there's no way both are real. The sacrificial-cult passages are probably interpolations added by "the lying pen of the scribes" -- "How can you say, 'We are wise, for we have the law of the Lord,' when actually the lying pen of the scribes has handled it falsely?" (Jeremiah 8:8 NIV).
Indeed, St. Jerome, who under duress edited the New Testament, spoke defiantly against the many inaccuracies and interpolations of the Old Testament, and argues that much did not belong and much was left out that did belong (cf. Jerome and Augustine 390).
How to decide which is real? Well, there is a litmus test which we may apply here (Chen 2021a).
According to Don Gwillim (2009), the prime directive to help us tell "divine inspiration" from "human manipulation", as far as individual bible verses are concerned, is the two commandments given by Jesus Christ -- "Love the Lord your God..... and Love your neighbor as yourself" (Matthew 22:37-40). As God has everything and does not need anything from us, the only way we can love God is to love His creation. And by reason of the commonality of possessing a living soul the animals are also our brothers and sisters to be loved by us (Farians 2009). (Genesis 1:30 KJV reads, "And to every beast of the earth, and to every fowl of the air, and to every thing that creepeth upon the earth, wherein there is life, I have given every green herb for meat: and it was so". Hebrew for the phrase "life" therein is "nephesh chayyah [living soul]", which is mistranslated as "life" in most English versions of the Bible.)
In my interpretation, this prime directive or litmus test can be further summarized as "God is LOVE" (1 John 4:7-21 ESV).
When God is love, how could he "possibly delight and take pleasure in burnt offerings or other kinds of sacrifice", and in seeing "an innocent creature slaughtered and bled to death?" as questioned by Vujicic (2009).
8. Eating Animals is Blasphemous Animal Sacrifice!
Eating animals is a kind of animal sacrifice, which, as aforementioned, is detested by God. "What else could the killing of an animal for the taste of its flesh be besides a sacrifice of the animal?" as questioned by Vujicic (2009).
According to Philippians 3 and Proverbs 23, meat-eating is a sacrifice to the idol god of the belly, or a sacrifice to gluttony (cf. Vujicic 2009):-
"Their end is destruction, their god is their belly, and their glory is in their shame. Their minds are set on earthly things." (Philippians 3:19 Berean Study Bible)
"Do not mix with winebibbers, Or with gluttonous eaters of meat; For the drunkard and the glutton will come to poverty, And drowsiness will clothe a man with rags". (Proverbs 23:20-21 NKJV)
In conclusion, Christians are supposed to repudiate not only animal sacrifice but also meat-eating. Go vegan if you are a real Christian or a loving person for God is LOVE. Amen.
References
Chen, Chapman (2022). "Jesus did NOT Eat Meat. Go VEGAN!" April 17, TOHKNEWS (https://tohknews.ca/jesus-did-not-eat-meat-go-vegan-by-chapman-chen/)
Chen, Chapman (2021a). "Which One was Vegan? Cain or Abel?" July 27, HKBNews (https://www.hkbnews.net/post/which-one-was-vegan-cain-or-abel-by-chapman-chen-hkbnews)
Chen, Chapman (2021b). "Follow Christ's Words n Love your Neighbors, includ. Animals." June 15, HKBNews. (https://www.hkbnews.net/post/follow-christ-s-words-n-love-your-neighbors-includ-animals-go-vegan-by-chapman-chen-hkbnews )
Chen, Chapman (2020). "Proofs that Jesus was Vegan." Dec. 28, HKBNews. (https://www.hkbnews.net/post/proofs-that-jesus-was-vegan-%E6%85%88%E6%84%9B%E8%80%B6%E7%A9%8C%E9%A3%9F%E5%85%A8%E7%B4%A0-by-chapman-chen-hkbnews )
Clement of Rome (n.d.). The Clementine Homilies: Epistle of Peter to James; Epistle of Clement to James; Homilies I-V. Trans. Rev. Thomas Smith, D.D. (1885) (https://www.ewtn.com/catholicism/library/pseudo-clementina-clementine-homilies-iv-11501) (https://www.newadvent.org/fathers/080803.htm)
Gwillim, Don (2009). "Is a Vegan Lifestyle God's Will for Humankind?", Talk given at the London Vegan Fair 2009. (https://www.all-creatures.org/living/isa.html)
Hicks, Ryan (2018). Why Every Christian Should Be A Vegan. Dallas: Taughttoprofit.
Jerome and Augustine (390). Correspondence of Augustine and Jerome concerning the Latin Translation of the Bible. (http://www.bible-researcher.com/vulgate2.html)
Vujicic, John (2009). "Did Abel or Cain Offer a Lamb in Sacrifice to God?" (https://www.all-creatures.org/discuss/didabel.html)