CONTENTS
This chapter is but a continuation of the former. The subject is prosecuted concerning the work and materials of the temple; and here is described, the altar of brass, the molten sea, the lavers, candlesticks, and tables, together with the instruments of gold.
This altar of brass received the gifts and offerings of the people. How lovely a representation of Jesus, in whose hands, as mediator, all the offerings of his people must be placed. None cometh to the Father but by him. Moreover the largeness of it represents the largeness of the heart of Jesus. There is room enough in our Jesus for all his people. Add to this, the height of it pointed to the loftiness of our Great Saviour, who is both the sacrifice, and the sacrificer, and the altar, on whom all sacrifices were offered. And from this elevation of ten cubits high, every Israelite from the courts around might see the sacrifice, and behold the flame ascend before God. Oh! how very precious to see, with the eye of faith, the Lord Jesus going in before the mercy-seat with the offerings of his people.
And Reader! do you not believe that the faithful Israelites then understood all this with a reference to Jesus, and eyed the Lord Jesus in all as the great propitiation? Surely, if the earlier patriarchs offered all their sacrifices by faith in this great atonement, as we are assured they did, in those later ages, when Christ had been more fully and more openly preached in type and figure, we cannot but suppose, that the Holy Ghost had brought the minds of the people, more savingly acquainted with the substance to which the whole shadow ministered. Hebrews 9:28; Hebrews 9:28.