Ray and Steve on the “Beyond the Box” podcast suggest that MAYBE God never required the sacrificial system or wanted it at all and that MAYBE Moses assumed these things since all nations practiced sacrifices to deities. It may be possible that God never ultimately wanted animal sacrifice and took no delight in them.
I can’t buy that Moses did this on his own, however. Numbers 29:40 “Moses told the Israelites all that the Lord commanded him.” Moses talked openly with God and obeyed him. the time he misrepresented God’s instruction lead to strong repercussions. I can’t believe he acted on his own with the Levitical laws.
It may be that God installed the animal sacrifice as a transition from the violence of the nations that practiced human sacrifice because the people wouldn’t understand wholly eradicating any form of blood sacrifice. This might be evidence of God’s patient process with mankind meeting them where they are and working with the language they understand, ultimately leading them to Christ as a complete or full revelation of his will and nature. Whatever the motive or reason behind the sacrificial system, it was filled with symbolism that pointed to Christ and that both Christ and the early apostles appropriated language from. All the events leading to the cross and resurrection were perfectly timed and mirrored in the feast celebrations of Israel, something Ray Vanderlaan first drew my attention to.
Something Ray also pointed out was that Jewish theology didn’t see the sacrifices as something that took their sins away or made them pure before God. Rather they saw it as a reminder that God promised to make a way for them and to take care of the problem of their sin. This went right back to the covenant between Abraham and God. This seems to be supported perfectly by Paul’s writing in Hebrews 10 “…it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. if it could, would they not have stopped being offered?…Bot those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.”
Heb 10:5 Therefore when Christ came into the world, he said: “Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, ‘Here I am-it is written about me in the scroll- I have come to do your will, O God.” (quoted from Ps. 40:6-8)