Bible Prophecy Minute: What is the Continual Sacrifice that the Antichrist stops in the last days?

As of late I’ve been studying the continual sacrifice (or daily sacrifice) that Daniel speaks of in several chapters of his prophetic book, as it is a sacrifice that he says the Antichrist will stop in the last days.

Here are the main passages that speaks of this continual sacrifice:

Daniel 8:

11. (And he magnified [himself] even to the prince of the host, and from him the continual [sacrifice] was taken away, and the place of his sanctuary was cast down.

12. And a time of trial was appointed unto the continual [sacrifice] by reason of transgression. And it cast down the truth to the ground; and it practised and prospered.

13. And I heard one saint speaking, and another saint said unto that one who spoke, How long shall be the vision of the continual [sacrifice] and of the transgression that maketh desolate, to give both the sanctuary and the host to be trodden down under foot?

Daniel 11:

31. And forces shall stand on his part, and they shall profane the sanctuary, the fortress, and shall take away the continual [sacrifice], and they shall place the abomination that maketh desolate.

Daniel 12:

11. And from the time that the continual [sacrifice] is taken away, and the abomination that maketh desolate set up, [there shall be] a thousand, two hundred, and ninety days.

Notice how the word sacrifice is put in brackets? That’s because the word sacrifice isn’t in the text, just the word for continual. We’ll come back to that shortly.

It’s also mentioned in Daniel 9 with a little different wording:

27. And he shall confirm a covenant with the many [for] one week; and in the midst of the week he shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease, and because of the protection of abominations [there shall be] a desolator, even until that the consumption and what is determined shall be poured out upon the desolate.

While some of these passages can have a dual meaning, pointing to both the fall of the temple in 70 AD as well the Antichrist stopping the continual sacrifice in the last days, we will only be discussing the latter.

Jesus refers to this as well in Matthew 24 when he says “When therefore ye shall see the abomination of desolation, which is spoken of through Daniel the prophet, standing in [what is a] holy place…”.

So the question I want to answer is what is this continual sacrifice that Daniel speaks of so much?

  1. Many believe this refers to animal sacrifices that will occur in some future Jewish Temple built in Jerusalem. But notice that Jesus refers to this ‘temple’ in Matthew 24 as a ‘holy place’. He’s referring to the end times, so when he says holy place he isn’t referring to a Jewish Temple. Rather he must be referring to a Christian church. Even Jerome concurs that Jesus is referring to the church in his commentary on the book of Matthew, chapter 24:
     
  2. There are no animal sacrifices in the Church, which is the holy place that Jesus refers toBut for those of you who want to insist that it’s a Jewish Temple that will begin sacrificing lambs on the altar anew in some future temple which the Antichrist will stop, then I just have one question for you: Why would God care if animal sacrifices are stopped in the last days in a Jewish Temple where they reject the true sacrifice that was slain for the world? The old and imperfect sacrificial system was replaced by Christ Jesus on the cross and is therefore it is no longer needed or desired by God.
  3.  

  4. But there is one sacrifice that does occur in the church and it occurs on a daily, continual basis. Any guesses as to what that might be? If you said Eucharist, you’d be exactly right. And where does it occur? In the Catholic and Orthodox churches all over the world. Being brought up as a protestant, I never saw this truth because my context was wrong. In the protestant churches, there is no Eucharist, as they do not believe or ask for the Holy Spirit to transform the bread and wine into the actual body of Christ. It’s just bread and wine. But in the Catholic and Orthodox churches they take Christ at his perfect word when he says “This is my body…this is my blood”. Therefore they pray for the Holy Spirit to transform the bread and wine, and it becomes the literal flesh and blood sacrifice!

Now I know some of you are jumping up and down in your seats right now yelling at me. But I can come to no other conclusion based on my study of the scriptures, both in the words of Jesus and in the words of Daniel the prophet (and elsewhere).  See, the sacrificial system never stopped. It just morphed into Christ’s perfect sacrifice, of which the Church communes on a daily basis, just as often as the old sacrifice occurred before Christ came. As Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 10, we now participate in the body and the blood when we eat the bread and drink the wine.

My last point on this will be what I alluded to earlier, noting that the word sacrifice isn’t actually in the Hebrew in Daniel chapters 8, 11, and 12. If you read the Hebrew in Exodus, Leviticus, and other books where it discusses the continual burnt offerings, it uses two words: tamiyd and ‘olah.  The word tamiyd means continual, perpetual, to stretch out. The word ‘olah means a literal burnt offering of an animal.

Why do I point this out? Because in Daniel 8, 11, and 12 where it refers to the continual sacrifice, it only uses the word tamiyd! That’s why the word sacrifice is in brackets in some translations. In other words, Daniel is not referring to animal sacrifices of the old sacrificial system which required a new animal for every sacrifice. No! It is referring to one sacrifice that is perpetual, that is continual and stretched out. And what else could it be other than Christ’s literal sacrifice that is on the altar in every Catholic and Orthodox church around the world – every day even!

I know this will be controversial for some of you, but I can read this no other way and I look forward to discussing this below in the comment section.


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