With all the commotion happening around the red heifers as a massive altar is being constructed for the 10th red heifer sacrifice since Moses’ time, many people may be wondering what is so special about these animals. Here are three things you need to know about the red heifers.
- Christians are not to look to the red heifers as a way for purification.
The red heifers are part of a biblical sacrifice commanded in Numbers. However, sacrificing a red heifer is not what makes us as Christians in right-standing with God. As James Lasher of Charisma Media says in his latest Beyond the Article video, this is not where Christians should believe their sanctification comes from.
“For Christians, believers in Jesus Christ, the significance of the red heifer is not that it is used to ceremonially purify priests outside of the holy of holies,” Lasher says.
We are purified only through the blood of Jesus Christ. There is no other name under heaven by which we might be saved, including that of the red heifers.
- The red heifers are a sign of the end times.
This is where a greater importance of the red heifer comes into play for the Christian believer. These cows, while not the way that our sins are atoned for, are indeed a sign that we are drawing nearer to the return of Jesus Christ. This is because they represent the possibility of a third temple still to be built.
“The belief of many, according to the prophets of the Bible, is that there is still a third temple to be built,” Lasher says. “Most likely on the Temple Mount where the holy of holies is believed to have existed.”
This would pose a significant issue as the Dome of the Rock, one of Islam’s holiest sites currently sits on this location. This would indeed cause war and rumors of war to break out, which Jesus warned about during the end times in Matthew 24.
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Further, for those of the Jewish faith, the rebuilding of this temple is critical, and one of the last pieces the Temple Institute in Jerusalem currently needs to reconstruct this building includes the ashes of a red heifer.
So, the larger meaning of the red heifer for the end times is that they represent the rebuilding of the temple, which could also lead into further wars as told by Jesus Himself.
- The red heifers are a sign for us to dive deeper into the Word of God.
Because so much of the significance of the red heifers relates to biblical prophecy about the rebuilding of the Temple Mount, we should turn toward Scripture to understand what they and end times prophecy means for our lives in this day and age.
“If you truly want to know what is going on in the world today, look at the events such as the red heifers taking place through a biblical lens. Use biblical knowledge and wisdom to discern the signs of the times,” Lasher says.
As we begin to study the Word of God more, we will have the capacity to see the signs of the times around us with greater clarity.
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Abby Trivett is a marketing copywriter and coordinator for Charisma Media.
