I'm currently reading through the bible and I'm confused about all of the animal sacrifices and burnt offerings in Leviticus. I haven't finished reading the bible yet so I was wondering what you guys can tell me about why that stopped. Is there any part of the bible that explains why many of the old testament commands are not followed anymore?
Well the Jews don't sacrifice animals anymore because there hasn't been a Temple in nearly two thousand years, currently the Dome of the Rock sits atop the Temple Mount in Jerusalem. No Temple, no sacrifices.
From the Christian perspective:
The Torah (the instructions given to Israel on Mt. Horeb in Sinai) was given exclusively to the Children of Israel (the Jewish people) as part of a covenant God made with them. It was a specific covenant that said specific things and was for a specific people. That means non-Jews have never been part of that covenant, or under any obligation to observe the commandments of Torah. Consider Deuteronomy 5:1-3 and Psalm 147:19-20.
With the coming of the Messiah (Jesus) God brought all His previous promises to fullness, Jesus says, "I did not come to destroy the Law and the Prophets, but to make them full". Jesus is God's ultimate "Yes" to all which He promised and said before--to Abraham, to Israel, to David, etc. At the Last Supper Jesus refers to the cup as being the "cup of the new covenant in My blood". Thus all the previous covenants ultimately point to Jesus, and His new covenant.
In the Acts of the Apostles St. Peter receives a vision while in prayer, telling him that there is no longer any unclean food, immediately he receives word of a Roman centurion asking for him. Peter visits the centurion's house and preaches the Gospel, and the entire household receives the message, is baptized and converted. This raised a major question in the early Church: What to do with non-Jewish converts? The question reaches its climax in Acts ch. 15, where a council is held in Jerusalem among the early leaders of the Church, which concludes that Gentiles are under no obligation to become Jewish and observe the Torah. And throughout the writings of St. Paul we consistently see him talk about how both Jew and Gentile, together, are a new people in Jesus. Paul writes, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, male nor female, slave nor free, for you are all one in Christ Jesus."
Christians are therefore not under the old covenant of Moses, but the new covenant of Jesus Christ. The former things point, ultimately, to Jesus. We don't sacrifice lambs and bulls, because we believe the sacrificial system was itself a shadow which points to Christ's own self-offering of Himself in His death on the cross; thus for us the only sacrifice that matters is the sacrifice of Christ's own life poured out for us in His crucifixion. St. John the Baptist, for example, calls Him "the Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world". St. Paul in Colossians puts this most clearly when he writes, "Therefore do not let anyone condemn you in matters of food and drink or of observing festivals, new moons, or sabbaths. These are only a shadow of what is to come, but the substance belongs to Christ."
-CryptoLutheran
