Red Heifer Delusion
It is true that red heifers have been delivered to Israel from Texas. As reported by The Jerusalem Post on September 20, 2022, “Five perfectly red heifers required for the ritual purification of those who have touched a dead body, arrived in Israel from a ranch in Texas on Thursday, as the Temple Institute continues preparations to lay the ground for the construction of the Third Temple in Jerusalem.”
As someone who has been teaching the books of Daniel and Revelation for years, I have boldly declared the biblical truth that a temple in Jerusalem will be rebuilt in preparation for the coming Antichrist to declare a peace treaty with Israel that allows Jews to reinstitute the sacrificial system. Antichrist will break the treaty midway through the tribulation and stop the sacrifices in the temple, as the beast himself will then demand worship from the world. This I wholeheartedly believe, for Daniel 9:27, Matthew 24:15, 2 Thessalonians 2:3-4, and Revelation 13:15 are just some of the Scriptures proclaiming the coming event.
Many Jews and people associated with the Temple Institute are working to prepare for the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem on the Temple Mount. They do so, however, with an intention that is antithetical to biblical Christianity and our trust in Jesus Christ as Savior. Strangely, their wrong motives are being used by God Almighty to accomplish His plan for end-time events. The very people, the Jews, are the ones who the Lord will focus on saving during the tribulation period. God is using every circumstance to bring about His intended end.
The current goal of the rebuilding of the temple has nothing to do with Jesus Christ. In fact, the website of the Temple Institute clearly says, “This is the role of the Holy Temple in the life of man: to enable one to realign himself, to dedicate one’s whole self to G-d, to elevate every aspect of the human experience to holiness and return the energy which He gives us to His service.” As biblical Christians, we understand the pivotal truth that nothing can make a person right with God except for Jesus Christ. We depend on His death and resurrection as the sacrifice for our sin. Sin is not mentioned as a problem for the people who are seeking to rebuild the temple, nor is the name of Jesus mentioned in any context. Clearly, the efforts behind the rebuilding of the temple in Jerusalem are religious in nature. In other words, humans are attempting to reach God without the only Mediator, Jesus Christ.
Priestly garments and vessels for the temple are being prepared. And the long-awaited red heifers have arrived. Why does it matter that these red heifers have been delivered to the land? I quote here from the Temple Institute’s website, “Perhaps it would be difficult for some to believe that a cow could be so important. But in truth, the fate of the entire world depends on the red heifer. For G-d has ordained that its ashes alone are the single missing ingredient for the reinstatement of Biblical purity – and thereafter, the rebuilding of the Holy Temple.”
I must be unequivocally clear on this: no one, not me, or you, or anyone, can have sin forgiven and spirit renewed and relationship with God restored without the blood of Jesus Christ. His blood – and His blood alone – is the only substance that brings “purity.” While it is true that under the old covenant of law, the Lord required “a red heifer without defect, in which there is not blemish, and on which a yoke has never come” (Numbers 19:2) for purification for temple service, that requirement has been completely absorbed by the work of Jesus Christ on the cross.
Read carefully the following pivotal passage from Hebrews 10:11-13:
“And every priest stands daily at his service, offering repeatedly the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. But when Christ had offered for all time a single sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God, waiting from that time until his enemies should be made a footstool for his feet.”
Jesus paid the price for all sin at one time. There is no other offering that can be given. There is no other blood that could be shed. There is no other death that could be effective for forgiveness and restoration with God Almighty. Jesus did it all.
Speaking of those who had once followed the law but now trust in the work of Jesus, the writer of Hebrew then adds in verses 15-18 of chapter ten:
“And the Holy Spirit also bears witness to us; for after saying, ‘This is the covenant that I will make with them after those days, declares the Lord: I will put my laws on their hearts, and write them on their minds,’ then he adds, ‘I will remember their sins and their lawless deeds no more.’ Where there is forgiveness of these, there is no longer any offering for sin.”
The red heifers are part of a greater plan of religion that looks to laws of purity and sacrifice to attempt to walk with the Lord. However, no work of man can produce this outcome. Every sacrifice of the Old Testament times was a foreshadowing of the ultimate and only sacrifice that can save us – Jesus Christ’s death and resurrection.
In fact, those who seek to rebuild the temple and employ sacrifices once again, are clearly looking to the physical temple in Jerusalem as their source of relationship with God. The Temple Institute website declares that the Holy Temple “was the world’s true spiritual center, and the medium for that unfolding relationship.” Then, “It is the reality of the living memory of that relationship as it once was, and the dream of its renewal, that keeps the fires of the Temple altar burning within the collective heart of the nation of Israel, and the hearts of all those who cherish her G-d and His message for humanity.”
My friends, the physical temple and the animal sacrifices are not the greatest reality. These things only pointed to the greatest reality. Speaking of the priests and sacrifices of the old covenant, Hebrews 8:5-6 proclaims, “They serve a copy and shadow of the heavenly things … But as it is, Christ has obtained a ministry that is as much more excellent than the old as the covenant he mediates is better, since it is enacted on better promises.”
The red heifers are part of the old system whose purpose was to point to the devastating sinfulness and impurity of mankind without Jesus Christ. Every drop of blood and every burnt offering pointed to the offering of Christ on the cross. To those who believe in Him, they are restored to relationship with the Father. (John 1:12) The red heifers (whether these ones or others to come) are part of the human effort to bring about a “God consciousness” that is not substantive. It is a diversion from the only Way, the only Truth, and the only Life – Jesus Christ. (John 14:6).
Nonetheless, these things must take place, according to biblical prophecy, for this temple that will soon be built in Jerusalem will eventually become the temple of Antichrist. This makes complete sense, for everyone who denies that Jesus is God in the flesh, is already operating by the spirit of the antichrist. (1 John 4:2-3) Know this, when people believe that in any final sense a human work of sacrifice can placate the wrath of God and please the Creator’s heart, they are of the antichrist spirit of this world system.
As a matter of fact, so central is the work of Christ on the cross as our ultimate sacrifice, that He is referred to as “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world”! (John 1:29) And when we who trust in Jesus finally see “the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God” (Revelation 21:2) the Apostle John proclaims, “I saw no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb.” (Revelation 21:22) Did you hear that? The heavenly Jerusalem of the New Heaven and New Earth will have no temple! None is necessary! For Jesus is the temple of God. The Lamb has fulfilled all the requirements of the temple.
For now, we watch prophetic events unfold, but we must do so with an eye toward Jesus always. Do not get caught up in the “hype” of events, without pointing people to our only salvation. Because – after all- the God who superintends all end-time events is the God who sent His Son to save the world.
– Shelli Prindle of Hope & Passion Ministries, Inc.