The tabernacle and Christ

The Bronze Altar

In the tabernacle of Moses · Exodus 25 to 40 · Sacrifice

The bronze altar stood just inside the gate, the first thing a worshiper met, a hollow wooden altar overlaid with bronze where the sacrifices were killed and burned. Nothing came nearer to God without first passing this place of death. The New Testament teaches that all those sacrifices pointed to the one sacrifice of Christ, who by his own blood obtained eternal redemption, so that the altar of the court finds its meaning at the cross.

And thou shalt make an altar of shittim wood, five cubits long, and five cubits broad; the altar shall be foursquare: and the height thereof shall be three cubits.Exodus 27:1 (KJV)

What the altar was

Thou shalt make an altar of shittim wood, five cubits long, and five cubits broad; the altar shall be foursquare: and the height thereof shall be three cubits. It was a hollow box of acacia wood overlaid with bronze, about seven and a half feet square and four and a half feet high, with a horn projecting at each of its four corners and a bronze grating within to hold the fire. Bronze rings and staves let the Levites carry it, for like all the furniture it travelled with the people.

This was the great altar of burnt offering, and it was busy. Here the morning and evening lambs were offered for the whole nation, and here the individual Israelite brought his own offering, laying his hand on the animal's head to identify himself with it before it was killed. The blood was dashed against the altar, and the offering was consumed by fire. It was a place of death, of smoke and blood and fire, standing first and largest in the court, because that is where every approach to God had to begin.

What it meant for Israel

The altar preached a hard and merciful truth: the wages of sin is death, and God in mercy will accept a substitute. When a worshiper pressed his hand on the head of the lamb, he was confessing that he deserved to die, and that this innocent victim would die in his place. The life is in the blood, God had said, and it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul. Without the altar there was no drawing near; the linen court had only one gate, and just inside it stood the place of sacrifice.

Yet the very repetition of these offerings, morning and evening, day after day, year after year, testified that no animal could finally settle the matter. The book of Hebrews puts it sharply: it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins. The altar met the need for the moment and pointed beyond itself to a sacrifice that could take sin away forever.

How it is fulfilled in Christ

This is one of the connections the New Testament draws most plainly. Hebrews sets the endless animal sacrifices against the single sacrifice of Jesus: Christ was once offered to bear the sins of many, and by one offering he hath perfected for ever them that are sanctified. Where the bronze altar received the blood of countless lambs, the cross received the blood of the Lamb of God, of whom John the Baptist said, Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world.

Everything the altar pictured comes true in him. The worshiper's hand on the victim's head becomes faith laying hold of Christ, so that his death counts as ours. The fire that consumed the offering becomes the judgment he bore in our place. And because his was a perfect and willing sacrifice, it never needs repeating. He entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. The altar stood first in the court because there is no other way to God; the cross stands first in the gospel for the same reason.

Hebrews even makes the link to the altar directly, saying, We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle, and pointing to Jesus, who suffered without the gate, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood. The bronze altar was never the destination. It was the sign, set at the entrance of all worship, that pointed to the hill outside Jerusalem where the true sacrifice was made once for all.

Why the altar still stands first

The order of the tabernacle is the order of the gospel, and it has never changed. The very first thing a worshiper met inside the gate was the altar, the place of death. Before the light, before the bread, before the incense, before the mercy seat, there was blood. This is not because God delights in death, but because sin is real and costly and must be dealt with before anything else can follow. Every attempt to reach God that skips the altar skips the one thing needful.

This is why the cross stands at the center of the Christian faith and not at its edge. People often wish to come to God by the lampstand, drawn to his light, or by the table, hungry for his provision, or by the incense, longing to pray, without first coming by the altar, without reckoning with their sin and the sacrifice that answers it. But the tabernacle allows no such shortcut. The road runs through the altar, and for us the road runs through the cross.

There is deep comfort in this as well as solemnity. The altar was the largest object in the court and the busiest, made to receive an endless stream of sinners and their offerings, and it was set at the very entrance so that no one who came would have far to go to find it. So it is with the cross. It stands at the threshold of the whole Christian life, near to everyone who will come, and its arms are wide enough for all. The first thing the gospel shows a sinner is not a demand but a Lamb already slain.

Behold the Lamb of God, said John the Baptist, which taketh away the sin of the world. The altar could only point; the cross has done it. And having come once to that place of blood, the believer never leaves it behind, for the whole life of worship that follows, the light, the bread, the prayer, the drawing near, is built upon it and flows from it.

This link is explicit in the New Testament: Hebrews 9 and 10 and 13 directly contrast the tabernacle's animal sacrifices with the once-for-all sacrifice of Christ, and John 1:29 names Jesus the Lamb of God. Reading the bronze altar as a shadow of the cross is what Scripture itself teaches, not a private reflection.

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