CRITICAL NOTES.—
Exodus 27:1. An altar of shittim wood.] It was known also by two other names: 1st, as “the brass altar,” so called since it was overlaid with brass; 2d, the “outer altar,” because of its position without the tabernacle in the court, to which all the members of the house of Israel had free access. To this altar great importance and high honour was attached, as being the meeting-place between God and the worshipper.
2. Its horns.] Karnoth = symbolical of power, protection, and help, as well as of glory and salvation, and designed to emphatically signify the whole purpose of the sacrificers.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Exodus 27:1-8
THE ALTAR OF BURNT-OFFERING
I. The situation of this altar reminds us of the spirit in which guilty man should draw nigh to God. This altar of burnt-offering was placed in the court of the Tabernacle intimating the circumspection with which man should draw nigh unto God. Before he must venture into the Tabernacle he must recognise the holiness of God, and his own sinfulness, and purify himself from guilt and sin. Lamb, or ram, or goat, or bullock, must be sacrificed and consumed. In our day some presume to worship God, to serve God, without any deep recognition of sin, or any deep sorrow on its account. Let us come before God with a living sorrow for sin, and a burning desire for purity. Before we bring thank-offerings or sacrifices of praise, or dare to mix in the fellowship of saints, let us bring the sin-offering and the burnt-offering. Let us penitently trust in Christ the Lamb of God. “Draw nigh to God, and He will draw nigh to you. Cleanse your hands, ye sinners; and purify your hearts, ye double minded” (James 4:8).
II. The material of this altar reminds us of the fact that sin debases everything, and that as we leave sin behind the glory of life increases. The altar was overlaid with brass, and all the vessels were of brass. The precious metals so freely used elsewhere are wanting here. This altar recognising sin, recognises also the debasing dishonouring power of sin: yes, sin makes whatever it touches common and unclean. It debases our nature, our relationships, our work, our pleasures. As we pass, through the grace of Jesus, into the enjoyment of God’s fellowship and presence, everything grows more precious and beautiful. At the door of the Tabernacle is silver and embroidery, and within the shrine the drapery is more costly still, and all the vessels pure gold. As Christ frees us from sin, all becomes fairer and rarer. “For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron” (Isaiah 60:17). With perfect purity we find ourselves in the city which is “pure gold like unto transparent glass.”
III. The uses of this altar reminds us of the thoroughness with which we ought to dedicate ourselves to God. The burnt-offering symbolised the fact that its offerer thus yielded his life unto God. Thus must we die unto the world and to sin, that we may live unto God.
IV. The ornaments of this altar remind us of the perfect security of those who have repented and believed. There was a horn at each corner of the altar. “The horns are a symbol of power, of protection and help; and at the same time of glory and salvation.”—Kalisch. Let us fly to take hold of the horns of the altar.
SUGGESTIVE COMMENTS ON THE VERSES
We observe, 1st. The incorruptibility of our Saviour’s human nature being seen in the shittim-wood, the omnipotence of the divine nature is apparent in the brass of the altar. Its characteristic is endurance. The fire of a justice infinitely pure in itself, and altogether uncompromising in its requirements, must not consume it.
For, 2dly. The altar of burnt-offering being four-square, and having projections or pinnacles at every corner, it is implied thereby that the mediatorial work of Jesus Christ shall one day be efficacious and applicable to the whole world.
3dly. Did the altar of burnt-offering, under the seven-fold sprinkling of the oil of dedication, become the Holiness of holinesses to Jehovah? the most sacred of all the furniture that graced the Tabernacle or stood before the seat of mercy?—See from this particular the pertinency of our Saviour’s question to the blinded and ignorant teachers of His day. “Whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?” (Matthew 23:19). They had perverted the original intention.
Hence, 4thly. The sacrifices of the altar, whether daily, weekly, monthly, or annually offered, pointed the nation of Israel to one greater sacrifice, in which all the mystic ordinances of the Tabernacle should finally be concentrated and embodied.
The altar was a very conspicuous object in the court. It stood in the centre, and on entering, was right before the worshipper, who could not fail to be impressed with its square and massive form, its bright and bloodstained exterior, its blazing and smoking fire, and its white-robed and ministering priests. If the type of the crucifixion was so very conspicuous in the court, how much more so should the crucified Christ Himself be in the New Testament Church. As the pious Hebrew on entering the gate leading to the sacred precincts could not miss seeing the brazen altar, so believers when visiting the house of God, should ever behold Jesus as its greatest attraction. The minister who does not make the Cross the grand theme of his preaching, need not expect to lead sinners to the Saviour. As the altar was the most prominent of the holy vessels in the Tabernacle court, and as the Cross is the principal object held up by faithful servants of God in the Christian sanctuary, and around which the thoughts and affections of His people cluster, so Christ will be the chief attraction of the New Jerusalem; and if we are among the number of His saints, its gates will open to admit us when we die, and as we enter, we will behold right before us, and in the very midst, heaven’s greatest and grandest sight, for the first scene that will burst upon our wondering and admiring gaze will be “the Lamb that once was slain;” and the first wave of celestial melody that will greet our ears and transport our hearts, will be that of praises to Him who loved us, and washed us from our sins in His own blood.
—W. Brown.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WILLIAM ADAMSON
Mosaic-Ritual! Exodus 27:1-21.
(1.) Beautiful and rich as were the materials employed, there was a remarkable simplicity about the tabernacle and its adjuncts. And why? Glance at the books designed for the instruction of children. They may be rich in design and ornate in execution, but how mono-syllabic they are! What pictures of simplicity they contain! When the child develops in body and mind, the thoughts and words are also proportionately developed. We do not dream of instructing the babe-mind in the mysteries of algebra, or the intricacies of science.
(2.) God speaks, by the mouth of a later prophet, as of Israel as His child at this time. As a child, Israel’s host could but receive milk of truth—the elementary truths of Divine wisdom. Pictures interleave the Divine manual of saving instruction—pictures such as the tabernacle, the altar of burnt-offering, the outer court with its brazen laver, and encircling curtains, and solitary gateway.
(3.) And as Israel grew, so the instruction was raised. The theocratic nation was schooled in the deep things of God, while its saints and seers were permitted to drink deeply at the Fount of Divine Wisdom, searching diligently into the mystery of redemption, until the Teacher Himself became Incarnate. Thus the Law was alike the pedagogue leading to, and the schoolmaster instructing as to, Christ—the End of the law for righteousness to every one that believeth.
“And when the last trumpet shall sound through the skies,
When the dead from the dust of the earth shall arise,
With bright millions I’ll rise far above yonder sky,
To wear Christ’s Righteousness for ever on high.”
Altars! Exodus 27:1.
(1.) Appealing to the senses of a people whose spiritual discernment was undeveloped, Jehovah, on the very night in which they began their march from Egypt, went before them in the Shekinah, or pillar of fire by night and of a cloud by day, the advance or halt of which was the signal for their march or rest. SACRIFICE was contemplated as the very object of their journey; and we read of its being offered by Jethro and Aaron before Sinai. But of its place we have no other notice than the command given in the first series of precepts, to make an altar of earth, or unhewn stone. Subsequently came this ordinance of the Altar of Burnt-offering.
(2.) It was known as the brazen altar, and was so arranged in front of the single, gateway, that every worshipper as he approached the hallowed tabernacle would be reminded of his need of sacrifice. All heaven-taught souls recognise in this arrangement a type of man’s need of the propitiatory of Jesus Christ. Its twofold substance of wood and brass signifies the complex character of Christ—His human nature overlaid with Divine strength.
“The outward form is not the whole,
But every part is moulded
To image forth an inward soul
That dimly is unfolded.”
Exodus-Christology! Exodus 27:2.
(1.) It has been said that Christ is everywhere in the Bible, as oxygen is everywhere in the atmosphere, its all and in all of vitality. So of its individual parts, and none the less of these apparently dry details and reiterations of Exodus. These make Him, as do all other portions of Scripture, their grand central Sun; while all the ritual observances and Levitical requirements are so many pointers calling attention to His glory—so many satellites revolving round Him in harmonious moral rhythm—so many beams or shafts of light culminating in Him. He gives the meaning to this Exodus ceremonialism, the direction to all this Exodus worship, the warmth to all this Exodus ordinance.
(2.) There is, therefore, no typical overstrain when we represent the four-square altar as indicating the perfect stability of Christ’s atonement, or the horns as symbolising His all-subduing might, to which despairing sinners may fearlessly cling. It is the horn of Jesus which prevails, says Law. Nay, more, the horns of salvation are the realities of refuge; so that, adhering to Christ, holding fast by Jehovah’s strength, there is no need to fear.
“Man’s wisdom is to seek
His strength in God alone;
And e’en an angel would be weak
Who trusted in his own.”
—Cowper.
Atonement! Exodus 27:3. The main design of the altar was to receive burnt-offerings. At early morn, throughout the day, and at earth’s eventide, the flames were bright of sacrifice. Each fire-made offering, says Law, typified Christ’s death. The recurrence of this idea of Messianic atonement everywhere in the Pentateuch shows its paramount importance to man. If frequent types set forth this truth, it is that man’s thoughts may cluster round it more constantly. If this sweet passion-flower blooms and floats its heavenly fragrance over every part of the Mosaic meadows and mountains, it is that human hearts may exult, in its everlasting beauty. On the accursed tree we have the sacrifice of Christ, not only fulfilling all the analogies of nature, but concentrating all the typal beams of the Law in one glorious, ruddy orb of atonement.
“Whoever yearns to see aright,
Because his heart is tender,
Shall catch this Truth of Heavenly Light
In every typal splendour.”
Divine Order! Exodus 27:5.
(1.) These commands may seem puerile, but they are not so. Ruskin rightly says that “Whatever may be the means, or whatever the more immediate end of any kind of art, all of it that is good agrees in this, that it is the expression of one soul talking to another.” And it is precious according to the greatness of the soul that utters it.
(2.) If such be true where man is concerned, how much more when God is the speaker! How precious should be the art-words of God in this chapter! How beautiful the designs and arrangements! What lessons must be hidden underneath; lessons, too, which have undying issues in their bosom! These Exodus Chapter s are—
“The modifying medium through which
Grace-glories are exhibited to man—
The grand repository where God hides
His mighty thoughts, to be dug out like diamonds.”
Order-Importance! Exodus 27:8. Guthrie says that the most important results may depend on the right place and position of things. No wonder, then, that God lays so much and impressive stress upon the Mosaic conformity to the Sinaitic model. God teaches us this in every-day life and experience.
(1.) If things are out of place in Nature, what serious issues are at stake! Who does not know that the fruitfulness and beauty, yea, the very life of a tree depends not only on its having both root and branches, but on these members being placed in their natural order?
(2.) In art the same law holds good. The builder must not only erect the stately fabric, but he must so construct it with the proper base to rest on, lest the agitation of some earthquake or the aggression of some, stormy wind should overturn it.
(3.) So with the tabernacle arrangements; order of arrangement was of the most vital importance, seeing all, in whole and in each individual part, was designed to typify things under the Gospel Economy. Thus was it in the Mosaic Dispensation as in Nature.
Each moss—
“Each shell, each crawling insect, holds a rank
Important in the plan of Him who framed
This scale of beings; holds a rank which, lost,
Would break the chain, and leave behind a gap
Which Nature’s self would rue.”
—Thomson.