New and Living Way

Many Old Testament prophecies depicted Israel and the nations offering incense, blood sacrifices, burnt offerings, pilgrimages to Jerusalem, to the altar, to the Temple, to the Levite priests, keeping the set feasts, observing new moons, etc.

I'm saying the direct, literal fulfilment of all such prophecies MUST have been in Old Covenant times - because those things were a shadow, and God isn't into returning to a shadow. Those things are not the New Covenant way of worship.

The New Testament teaches that Christ was sacrificed once-for-all. He is not sacrificed many times. By one offering He sanctified us forever. The Lord's Table is not a re-sacrifice of Christ - it is a remembrance and declaration of His once-for-all sacrifice. And once He comes, we will no longer need a remembrance - because then we shall be with Him and we shall see Him as He is.

The New Testament teaches that Christ's once-for-all offering did away with all previous offerings. The role of Jesus did away with the old Levitical order. Now the true worshipers worship not in Jerusalem but in spirit and in truth. We offer the sacrifices of praise, thanksgiving, prayers, lifting up hands, heart-worship, faith, we offer our bodies, and renew our minds and conduct, forgiving others, and serving others in the Gospel, by pureness, we patiently endure persecution. With such sacrifices God is well pleased.

The Book of Revelation does mention incense, seven candles, an altar, a Temple, courts, chalices, trumpets and a slain Lamb - but more as symbols than as literal things.

The candles we are told represented churches. The incense represented prayers. The slain Lamb represented Christ's sacrifice. The souls of saints aren't literally stored under an altar in heaven: the symbol simply acknowledged their martyrdom as a pleasing sacrifice. None of it meant pre-New Testament type offerings were to be repeated. And none of it meant Christ should be repeatedly sacrificed. In Revelation such symbols were depicted for John in visions mostly to represent realities, usually spiritual realities - the symbols John saw weren't usually the reality itself.

So all this makes the point that no Old Testament prophecy about pre New Covenant style worship and offerings can have an appropriate, direct, literal fulfilment in future. Or else we make the cross of Christ of no effect.