Next we want to look outside the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place at the Altar of Burnt Offering. This is where all the animals were slain in sacrifice according to God's commandments.
Ex 27:1 And thou shalt make an altar of acacia wood, . . . Ex 27:8 HOLLOW with boards shalt thou make it: as it was showed thee in the mount, so shall they make it.
The basic structure of the hollow altar was acacia wood overlaid with bronze and it was in the shape of a box. It had a stave on each of two opposite sides for transporting it, and a grill within.
Rabbi Rashi says of the altar:
Hollow Structure... It was filled with earth when the altar was used: (Exodus 20:24, Mekhilta, Rashi, ad loc.):
And in Exodus chapter 20, we read,
Exo 20:24 An ALTAR OF EARTH thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.
I want to deal with the earth (dirt) in the Bronze Altar as a symbol of Calvary and the earth itself, and the reason why should be clear as I proceed because we are seeking the realities of the shadow put forth by the Tabernacle in the Wilderness.
Ex 27:2 And thou shalt make the horns of it upon the four corners thereof: his horns shall be of the same: and thou shalt overlay it with brass [bronze].
Brass, copper, and bronze are often confused in the Bible by translators, but these metals were always symbolic of judgement when covering over the acacia wood in the Tabernacle. This altar and its horns were covered with bronze, making this an altar of judgement on sin. Holman's Bible Dictionary says of these horns,
"More importantly, the horns of the altar were the place where blood from a sacrificial animal was applied for atonement from sin (for example, Ex. 29:12; Lev. 4:7):
And, again we read in Exodus,
Exo 29:12 And thou shalt take of the blood of the bullock, and put it upon the horns of THE ALTAR [OF BURNT OFFERING] with thy finger, and pour all the blood beside the bottom of the altar.
Holman's goes on to say of these horns,
"The horns were smeared with the blood of the sacrifice, served as binding posts for the sacrifice, and were clung to for safety from punishment (1 Kings 2:28)."
The acacia tree was a thorny tree, and Jesus wore a crown of thorns and was pierced for our sins, symbolized by the acacia wood of the Bronze Altar, meaning flogged and pierced as with thorns. He took our judgement on Himself - for the Jew, for the Gentile, for all men - and this judgement was foreshadowed by the bronze that covered the acacia wood of the altar.
Just as the horns of the Altar held the bound sacrifice ABOVE THE EARTH located in the bottom of the Bronze Altar, so Jesus was held bound ABOVE THE EARTH on the Cross by the nails that pierced His hands and feet. The Jews believed that their sins were written on the horns of both altars and were covered over at the time the priest slew the sacrifice and applied the blood to the horns of this altar. In the same way, when Jesus allowed His hands and feet to be nailed to the horns of His altar, the cross, the blood was applied to the horns (the beams) as the nails pierced His hands and feet. Jesus on the cross was our Passover sacrifice, but He was also our High Priest, applying His blood to the horns of the altar while taking our judgement on Himself.
We have found the reality of Moses' Bronze Altar at Calvary, and this will serve as the starting point to bring forth the realities of the Old Testament shadow. With Calvary pinpointing the Bronze Altar in the "GREATER AND MORE PERFECT TABERNACLE" (Hebrews 9:11), we also find the COURT OF THE GENTILES, or what is called the OUTER COURT, where the Bronze Altar was located: the EARTH itself where all men dwell.
To recap these realities brought about through the sacrifice of Christ to this point, we now have the shadow of the Holy of Holies and the Holy Place moved to the heavenly sanctuary, accessible by faith through belief in Jesus as our sacrifice. But, now we must see the way of entrance a little more clearer.
I do not want to negate the fact that God is going to deal with Israel in the end-times to bring forth a remnant from his nation, but my emphasis here is that God is dealing with the entire world to bring whoever He can into His salvation. The earthly tent has been torn down - the heavenly has been revealed where all men, Jew and Gentile, may now enter through God's now-revealed "bronze altar" of Calvary. The real Bronze Altar was set up outside the gate of the city of Jerusalem, and can only be approached by faith! The question that lies before us is this: if the "bronze altar" is now moved outside the city gate, where is the Tabernacle associated with it?
I want to look again at Jesus as our High Priest in the following verses. Jesus was our sin offering and our High Priest, not in the earthly temple, but OUTSIDE THE GATE OF THE EARTHLY TEMPLE. Moses wrote:
Exo 29:14 But the flesh of the bullock, and his skin, and his dung, shalt thou BURN WITH FIRE WITHOUT THE CAMP: it is a sin offering.
Jesus bore our SIN AND DEATH OUTSIDE THE CAMP, and the writer to Hebrews said,
Heb 13:12 Wherefore Jesus also, that he might sanctify the people with his own blood, SUFFERED WITHOUT THE GATE.
Heb 13:13 Let us go forth therefore unto him WITHOUT THE CAMP, bearing his reproach.
Heb 13:14 For here have we no continuing city, but we seek one to come.
The word "without" is defined by Strong's as:
1854. exo, ex'-o; adv. from G1537; out (-side, of doors), lit. or fig.:--away, forth, (with-) out (of, -ward), strange.
This place outside the gate, away from the temple, away from the Court of the Gentiles in the city of Jerusalem, away from the shadow, is a strange place to seek God, but it is here the Father seeks true worshipers. This is the place Jesus spoke of when He said,
John 4:21 . . . . Woman, believe me, the hour cometh, when ye shall neither in this mountain, NOR YET AT JERUSALEM, worship the Father. . . .
John 4:23 But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him.
John 4:24 God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.
The strong message in these words is that any man in any place could seek the Lord for mercy and salvation as Jesus was unveiling a sanctuary that was the reality of the shadow He had given Moses. Therough jesus as the Lamb abd the High Priest of God, God was establishing a sanctuary for all men of earth to seek Him with all their heart through faith.
Israel sinned greatly in rejecting Jesus, and like Moses, He went outside the camp to establish communion with God, God cutting off access to Himself through the temple service. God had come to them, and they rejected Him at Sinai, and now they would have to come to Him. Where Israel had to go to Moses outside the camp to seek God, to worship God, to commune with God through Moses, now Israel and Gentiles of Jesus' time and our time have to go outside the camp, outside the city, outside the walls of the temple and the walls of earthly Jerusalem to approach God through Him by faith.
The two rooms of the Sanctuary and their furnishings gave way to the heavenly Holy Place and Holy of Holies. But that wasn't all of the shadow that receded. The Bronze Altar of Burnt Offering of the earthly Outer Court gave way to one outside the city on a lonely hill where all could come and find a perpetual sacrifice before the Almighty as they looked to a Sanctuary and a city made without hands. It is here that, hopefully, our eyes begin to open to the depth of God's realities, for there is more to come in Part 3: The High Priest opens the heavenly Sanctuary for all to come by faith through grace.
Contributed by Ed...Continued
