The Altar and the The Cross

Staves, Linen, Horns and Sundry things of an Altar

Arriving in almost any church in the world, we find a very similar structure to the sanctuary: semi-circular or rectangular rows of pews, with an 'altar' up in the front. On the altar is a podium, some banners and chairs, flowers or plants, and perhaps a mural, cross or dove behind. While colors and architectural features may change they vary little. The 'altar' in Christianity, ranging from Catholic to High Protestant to Baptist Churches, even Pentecostal or Charismatic churches is separated from the rest of the congregation, often by stairs and sometimes by a rail, and is the domain of the 'elite' of the church  , apart from the plebian mass of listeners. The choir sings here, and the preachers preach, a few deacons sit nodding and a few lucky congregates read announcements perhaps or sing a solo. An altar call, whatever that is (you will not find it in Scripture) is the culmination of a service in some services, forpeople to come forth and repent and receive Christ, although the early church assumed that church members were already born again (evangelism took place outside). In any event, the prototype of 'stage-altar' and 'audience-congregates' attends most 'Churches' or congregations but our understanding of the altar is very far from Scriptural.

In the past 'Passover Blogs' we have looked at various aspects of Pesach, from both before the crossing  of the Kidron into Gethsemane, to the resurrection, but we will turn for the next few entries to the concept of the altar from Bethel to the Cross, and why we have in modern times completely missed the whole concept. The foreshadowing of the Cross in the early altar, is not to be missed for a true understanding of surrender to Messiah, and the essence of what it means to 'lay down your life', and 'die to self'.

The Altar at Bethel

The earliest mention of an altar is even before Bethel, when Abel and Cain offered a sacrifice to God, Abel (considered in the New Testament a prophet), a righteous sacrifice of the first of the flock, and Cain, an offering according to his own wisdom of the fruit of the field. The altar appears also in the history of Noah, in thanksgiving when Noah and his family are saved alive :
Gen 8:20 And Noah builded an altar unto the LORD; and took of every clean beast, and every
clean fowl, and offered burnt offerings on the altar.


The next verse notes that God accepts the 'sweet savor' of the sacrifice and covenants with Noah not to again curse the ground anymore for man's sake. (Gen 8:21) Even in these early altars, before Abraham establishes the altar at Bethel, we see the rudiments of what an altar is. It involves:

1. An offering of value to God
2. An 'ascending' offering in the smoke of the burnt offering ('olah')
3. An offering acceptable to God, implying that some are not.
4. The offerings are made by men to God, and
5. A covenant of God follows the Noahic sacrifice, while
 the rebuke/wrath of God follows Cain's sacrifice.

Surely these are not the only foundation: implicit are the fire and wood of the offering, on a stone altar. By the time of Bethel, the critical nature of the altar begins to unfold.

The altar at Bethel

At Beth-El, as Abram [Abraham] is called out from Haran and arrives in Canaan, one of his first acts is the construction of an altar and the offering of a sacrifice. The first altar, near Luz (it means 'almond tree'*)

Gen 12:8 And he removed from thence unto a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, [having] Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the LORD,  and called upon the name of the LORD.

The altar Abram builds is built as we have noted in other studies between Moreh, (the hill of the rabbi or teacher, literally 'vision') and Sichem, or 'Shechem' referring to the shoulder, or place of authority. Both the head and should in ancient thinking referred to leadership and sovereignty. Most of my dear rabbinical type allies in Messianic circles can certainly attest to the allusion of an altar built between the hill of the rabbi, and the place where sovereignty is lain. Bethel , formerly called Luz, for the almond tree which buds first in the spring, and attends the rod of Aaron in new life.
Num 17:8 And it came to pass, that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle of witness; and, behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi was budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds.

Replete with the altars of Moses and Abraham (as well as Jacob and Isaac), are:

1. An unhewn rock platform (made by God-see "An Altar Unhewn"
2. Pillars (12)
3. The wood for an offering
4. Fire /smoke 
5. A knife or sharp instrument for sacrifice (also staves) 
6. A sheep, or other beast for sacrifice
7. The blood of sacrifice 
8. A priest offering the sacrifice 
9. The garment of a priest offering the sacrifice

Now the concept, the biblical concept of an altar is very foreign to the modern mind that thinks it is a stage with steps or a rail. In Exodus Moses is actually commanded by God not to have steps up to an altar: it defies the humble spirit of an offering. Others characterize the idea of a blood sacrifice as archaic, ugly, and violent: a slaughterhouse and deride the Old Testament because of it.

To understand the idea of an altar and sacrifice in the Old Testament, one needs to clarify, that all that God did or commanded in the Old Testament did not make him a different God than in the New (the heresy of Marcionism), but that many of His commandments fit within sinful human practices. For example, God does not condone slavery, even the very nature of God testifies to that, than one creation cannot 'own' another, since they are his: yet many commandments in the Pentateuch attest to the fair treatment of slaves, and the means by which they may gain liberty. I suppose God could just have commanded 'no slaves', but the ancient mind would not have conceived of it. Further, much of the slavery in Israel, except for captives in war, was semi-voluntary: Israelites occasionally put themselves in voluntary servitude to pay off a debt, and the Lord gives commandments to Israel within the society. When we become 'chronocentric' and think that they were archaic back then, we have only to look at modern day slavery which is rampant, or even the wage-labor economic system where we work to pay debts, and which we cannot conceive of dismissing.

How does this apply to the idea of an altar or blood sacrifice? Bloodletting of animals have occurred every year the world has existed as we obtain them for our food: in the wild, animals kill and eat other animals: the violence and ripping of flesh is I believe a part of the curse of the Fall: as long as the world exists, slaughter for food will exist. In the system of sacrifice in the Old Testament, God did not do less than man: he asked for the best of their cattle to be dedicated or offered to God, not for food but for the pointing to a very important sacrifice which he would one day have to make. The animals would have been sacrificed nonetheless for food had they not been offered on an altar. "The life is in the blood" we are taught in Scripture, and God was teaching the brutal and deadly cost of buying back those he loved from a divine battle that was unseen and often forgotten.

The altar therefore, was first and most significantly, a place of 'setting aside' or sanctification particularly of self desire and worship, a place of sacrifice or offering of the best for God, a place of worship and praise and a place of dying to self: the most eminent function of the altar was the atonement, or offering of blood to atone for, to cover, the price of sin, with a precious offering pointing to the forthcoming Golgotha.

The Offerings

The offerings were the burnt offering (olah) which referred to rising smoke but also an 'ascent', the peace offering, the sin offering, the heave offering, the meat offering, and others, each pointing to a different aspect of the coming Messiah and the Kingdom of God. The Olah, or burnt offering shows the rising ascent of a precious sacrifice to God for the covering of sin, as does the sin offering. The 'rising cloud' of smoke is reflected in a major aspect of how God appears to man in the Sinai desert, in Babylonian captivity and later on the mount of Transfiguration. The heave and wave offerings are evidence of praise and giving, there is also an offering for thanksgiving. All are reflected on the Cross where we see the wood for a burnt offering

Gen 22:6 And Abraham took the wood of the burnt offering, and laid [it] upon Isaac his son; and he took the fire in his hand, and a knife; and they went both of them together.
Exd 29:18 And thou shalt burn the whole ram upon the altar: it [is] a burnt offering unto the LORD: it [is] a sweet savour, an offering made by fire unto the LORD.

Notice that in the akedah of Isaac, there is the wood of the cross, the knife which on Golgotha becomes a spear, or the nails, and the altar of unhewn rock. The blood of the sacrifice in the Tabernacle, also was applied to the horns of the altar: the horns, or qeren, represented the four corners or completeness of the sacrifice, and power. The blood anointing on the horns of the altar is similar to the blood on the door of the Passover,

Exd 12:22 And ye shall take a bunch of hyssop, and dip [it] in the blood that [is] in the bason, and strike the lintel and the two side posts with the blood that [is] in the bason; and none of you shall go out at the door of his house until the morning.

and the blood anointing of the High priests entering into the Holy of Holies, anointed with the blood of the sacrifice on the thumb and head:

Exd 29:20 Then shalt thou kill the ram, and take of his blood, and put [it] upon the tip of the right ear of Aaron, and upon the tip of the right ear of his sons, and upon the thumb of their right hand, and upon the great toe of their right foot, and sprinkle the blood upon the altar round about.
Lev 8:23 And he slew [it]; and Moses took of the blood of it, and put [it] upon the tip of Aaron's right ear, and upon the thumb of his right hand, and upon the great toe of his right foot

The anointing of blood on the thumb, and toe and head are seen in the crucifixion or passover sacrifice: the bloody crown of thorns in Matthew 27:29, the nails in his hands, and the blood running down his feet (all crucifixion accounts) point to both the blood on the door (wood) in Exodus and to the High priest's anointing in Leviticus.

More than that though, it is this anointing of blood that Christ carries into heaven, to anoint the tabernacle there. Donald Barnhouse noted that when Christ appears to Mary Magdalen in the Garden outside the tomb, she is cautioned not to touch him because he " has not yet ascended to his Father". A short time later, Jesus commands his disciple Thomas to touch his wounds that he be not unbelieving:

Jhn 20:17 Jesus saith unto her, Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father: but go to my brethren, and say unto them, I ascend unto my Father, and your Father; and [to] my God, and your God.
Jhn 20:27 Then saith he to Thomas, Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust [it] into my side: and be not faithless, but believing.

The apex of faith, and what Barnhouse proposed, and I believe, is that the time between is when Jesus as the High Priest of Heaven ascends to anoint the Tabernacle which is in heaven with the blood of the covenant:

Rev 15:5 And after that I looked, and, behold, the temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was opened:

and in Revelation 21:3 when Jesus himself is declared the Tabernacle in heaven.

Jesus, risen from the dead, could not be touched as a high priest entering into the holy of holies for it would make him unclean: more than that, one may at least wonder at the 8 day wait to let Thomas touch the wounds, but he had in essence 'touched death',and while God is never unholy, he perfunctorily fulfilled the duties of a high priest in waiting the seven days to be in the office of cleanness, even though he himself did not need it

He that toucheth the dead body of any man shall be unclean seven days Number :19:11

Jesus did this with his baptism also, hardly needing a water baptism performed by a man, even a prophet, but still attending to the perfection of the commands of God.That of course remains speculation for it does not say exactly, but would make alot of sense.

Staves

In the altar in the Tabernacle, were rings for 'staves' which would be inserted into the rings on the side for moving the altar when Israel moved. It is easy to see the the symbolic meaning in the other aspects of the altar, but I wondered somewhat at the staves. The answer is in their composite: they are made of shittim wood, the wood of the tabernacle, even for other brass covered items. "Shittim" wood is from the shittah tree, a tree that grows out in the most arid of deserts: we call it the Acacia tree. The tree one immediately associates with the wood of the cross, but note the staves are just at the level or below of the crown of the altar and of the ark of the covenant: they are shittah wood overlaid with gold:

Exd 25:13 And thou shalt make staves [of] shittim wood, and overlay them with gold

.

The Acacia or shittah tree with age turns dark black, often mistaken for ebony. Further, it is found in the wilderness, and bears long sharp thorns. Surely the gold overlay refers to the precious nature of those sharp thorns which attend the sacrifice of God: they are also found in the Ram in the bushes in the akedah of Isaac:

Gen 22:13 And Abraham lifted up his eyes, and looked, and behold behind [him] a ram caught in a thicket by his horns: and Abraham went and took the ram, and offered him up for a burnt offering in the stead of his son.

More could be said about the other altars of the wood, but the gold covered thorn wood surrounding the altar are not an obscure reflection.

The Linen

Jesus wore a seamless linen garment to the cross, though before, they clothed him with a royal robe, and crown of thorns, mocking his Kingship. The linen in the Tabernacle represented the 'fuller's white' shining righteousness of the saints in the curtains surrounding the holy place, indwelt by the presence of God in the shekinah glory. Consider the following:

Exd 26:1 Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle [with] ten curtains [of] fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: [with] cherubims of cunning work shalt thou make them.
Jhn 19:23 Then the soldiers, when they had crucified Jesus, took his garments, and made four parts, to every soldier a part; and also [his] coat: now the coat was without seam, woven from the top throughout

A coat like that is an expensive one from the day when Jesus lived: it would no doubt have been made of the finest linen, 'woven from the top'. The seamless righteousness of the Lord and Savior was bartered for by men of no understanding at all.

While it is a mild conjecture, the perfect imputed righteousness of Christ represented by the white linen covering, is probably also indicative of the shining apparel of heaven: it is seen worn by angels and in the descriptions of the Transfiguration and Paul's encounter with Christ on the road to Damascus:

             Mar 9:3 And his raiment became shining, exceeding white as snow; so as no fuller on earth can white them.
Luk 11:36 If thy whole body therefore [be] full of light, having no part dark, the whole shall be full of light, as when the bright shining of a candle doth give thee light.Luk 24:4 And it came to pass, as they were much perplexed thereabout, behold, two men stood by them in shining garments:
Jhn 5:35 He was a burning and a shining light: and ye were willing for a season to rejoice in his light.
 Act 26:13 At midday, O king, I saw in the way a light from heaven, above the brightness of the sun, shining round about me and them which journeyed with me.

The 'brightness of his glory' is such that none can withstand it: even Moses's face 'shone' coming down the Mountain from his encounter with God. Some rabbinical traditions posit that in the Garden of Eden, before the Fall, Adam and even were clothed with that 'shining glory' , the righteousness of God, and that sin, missing the mark, deprived them of heaven's clothing and they found themselves naked. It is in the garden that an animal is sacrificed for the first time by God and given to Adam and Eve to wear, to 'cover' their nakedness in the first blood atonement for sin.

Summary

The beauty of the altar and the severity of God's mercy is seen throughout the Old and New Testament in every altar of God pointing the way to the altar at Golgotha: it is on a tree on unhewn rock, as at Beth El, it has wood that the sacrifice is laid upon, in a burnt offering (literally 'ascent') of a sweet savor rising to God. The thorns of the Crown are their surrounding the sacrifice as the seamless linen robe encircled it, leading to the one perfect sacrifice, a blood covenant for all time to bring back the great garden of communion with God. The Altar of the Cross saw the Lamb of God, the Lamb of centuries, the male lamb caught in the thicket of thorns, shedding his blood for our sins, lifting the curse of the 'first Adam' in whom all died. Thank God for the second Adam, in whom all are made alive.

Till next time, ekbest
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REFERENCES & NOTES
* Luz:
Num 17:8 And it came to pass, that on the morrow Moses went into the tabernacle of witness; and, behold, the rod of Aaron for the house of Levi was budded, and brought forth buds, and bloomed blossoms, and yielded almonds.
Ecc 12:5 Also [when] they shall be afraid of [that which is] high, and fears [shall be] in the way, and the almond tree shall flourish, and the grasshopper shall be a burden, and desire shall fail: because man goeth to his long home, and the mourners go about the streets:
Jer 1:11 Moreover the word of the LORD came unto me, saying, Jeremiah, what seest thou? And I said, I see a rod of an almond tree.
Posted by Elizabeth Kirkley Best at 1:09 PM