Exodus 27:1-8: a reflection

1“You shall make the altar of acacia wood, five cubits long, and five cubits wide. The altar shall be square. Its height shall be three cubits. 2You shall make its horns on its four corners. Its horns shall be of one piece with it. You shall overlay it with bronze. 3You shall make its pots to take away its ashes; and its shovels, its basins, its meat hooks, and its fire pans. You shall make all its vessels of bronze. 4You shall make a grating for it of network of bronze. On the net you shall make four bronze rings in its four corners. 5You shall put it under the ledge around the altar beneath, that the net may reach halfway up the altar. 6You shall make poles for the altar, poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with bronze. 7Its poles shall be put into the rings, and the poles shall be on the two sides of the altar when carrying it. 8You shall make it hollow with planks. They shall make it as it has been shown you on the mountain.

Among the tabernacle furnishings is the bronze altar, the altar of burnt offering, and its placement matters: it stood at the entrance, the first thing you came to on the way in. Before you could approach the holy place, before you drew near to God's presence, you passed the altar, where sacrifice was made and blood was shed for sin. The way in began at the altar.

Notice the order that placement teaches. You did not come straight into God's presence as you were; you came first to the altar, to the place of atonement, where sin was dealt with by sacrifice. Approach to God ran through the altar. There was no other way in, no side entrance that bypassed the place where blood was shed.

That is the pattern the whole Bible follows, and it points to Christ. The way to God still runs through an altar, through a sacrifice for sin, but now the sacrifice is Christ himself, offered once for all. We do not approach God on the basis of our own worthiness, slipping past the question of sin; we come through the altar, through what Christ has done. If you would draw near to God, come the way the tabernacle taught: not around the altar, but through it, through the sacrifice of Christ. He is the way in.

Lord, the way into your presence ran first through the altar, the place of atonement, and there was no other way in. Thank you that Christ is now that altar and sacrifice, offered once for all, and that through him I can draw near. Keep me from trying to approach you on my own worthiness; let me come the only way, through the altar of Christ.