Ezekiel 43:27

After the completion of this consecration ceremony, from the eighth day onward, the priests were to offer burnt and peace offerings on this altar. The Lord promised to accept the worship of His people if they followed this procedure.

"Although all the offerings of Leviticus are not detailed here, it is considered by some that they are implied, and they may well be. Prospectively they all pointed to Christ, so this would be in keeping with that truth in the retrospective sense." [Note: Feinberg, p. 256.]

Most premillennialists believe that the millennial sacrifices will be memorials of Christ’s sacrifice and will have nothing to do with removing sin. [Note: E.g., Ibid., p. 254; Walvoord, The Millennial . . ., pp. 312-14; and Clive A. Thomson, "The Necessity of Blood Sacrifices in Ezekiel’s Temple," Bibliotheca Sacra 123:491 (July 1966):237-48.] However, some premillennialists argue that since Christ will be personally present on earth during the Millennium, these sacrifices may really purge sins, the sins of believers. [Note: E.g., Charles C. Ryrie, Dispensationalism Today, p. 127; Jerry M. Hullinger, "The Problem of Animal Sacrifices in Ezekiel 40-48," Bibliotheca Sacra 152:607 (July-September 1995):279-89; idem, "The Divine Presence, Uncleanness, and Ezekiel’s Millennial Sacrifices," Bibliotheca Sacra 163:652 (October-December 2006): 405-22; idem, "The Function of the Millennial Sacrifices in Ezekiel’s Temple, Part 1," Bibliotheca Sacra 167:665 (January-March 2010):40-57; idem, "The Function of the Millennial Sacrifices in Ezekiel’s Temple, Part 2," Bibliotheca Sacra 167:666 (April-June 2010):166-79; and T. Allis, Prophecy and the Church, pp. 247-48.] The argument rests on the meaning of "atone." Now Christians confess our sins and receive forgiveness (1 John 1:9), but now Christ is not present on earth. When He is personally present and in closer contact with His people, it may take more than just confession to secure adequate cleansing. This may be a correct explanation for the presence of sacrifices in the Millennium, but it seems impossible to be dogmatic about that now. A third view is that the sacrifices are not literal, but that Ezekiel was describing worship in the future in terms and forms that he and his original hearers knew. [Note: E.g., Ironside, p. 305; and Keil, 2:417.]