THE ALTAR
[p. 468] THE ALTAR
Genesis 8: 20, 21; Genesis 12: 7; Genesis 35: 7; Exodus 20: 24 - 26
JT We should bear in mind the reference to the altar in Hebrews, “We have an altar”, Hebrews 13: 10. The altar we have must include the ideas appearing in the thought of altar from the beginning. We can see in Genesis that the thought arose in the hearts of men of faith. God leaving it with them, not asking for it nor prescribing what it was to be made of. When we come to Exodus, where we are on the ground of redemption and with God in the wilderness, then He tells us what material to use; and later on He gives the dimensions of it. Maybe if we looked at these features, the Lord would help us as to how to worship God, for that is what is in mind in the thought of an altar. The first thought that appears in the scriptures alluded to, including Hebrews, is that it carries an exclusive idea, and persons who are ministering in the current religions of the world have no part in it.
FWW Has the eating at the altar any reference to the priestly portion of the sacrifices?
JT Yes, that is what is alluded to: it is only as we are priests that we live of the altar. Does it not say in 1 Corinthians 10: 18: “are not they which eat of the sacrifices partakers of the altar?” The sacrifices of the Lord were their portion.
Ques How does this work out today?
JT In Noah’s altar you have the thought of unselfishness, which is, I think, a great principle in drawing near to God. He offered of “every clean animal, and of all clean fowl”. Only a certain number of those were carried over, and, had he been governed by selfish thoughts, he would have perhaps spared some of them, lest there might be a shortage or they might become extinct. The book of Malachi shows that Israel was [p. 469] offering the mean things to God — they were selfish. I think one feature of Noah’s altar is whole-heartedness in drawing near to God, for God looks at our hearts; and as we draw near, He reckons by what is in our hearts.
Ques What is the distinction between the altar in Hebrews and this altar? In Hebrews it is, “We have an altar”, but this is a question of building an altar.
JT A principle throughout Genesis is that God allowed the men of faith to worship Him as they apprehended Him. Modern people claim the right to worship God according to the dictates of their own conscience, but that will not do after God has prescribed what the altar is to be built of, and what its dimensions are to be. So that in the altar in Hebrews the allusion would be to the christian mode of worship, which is outlined in the epistles, the Acts, and the gospels. The use of the word “altar” in Hebrews is because the writer is dealing with Hebrew christians; we have to understand what is meant, how we draw near to God; “we are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God, and boast in Christ Jesus, and do not trust in flesh”, Philippians 3: 3.
OG The making of the altars referred to in Genesis follows upon communications from God and the reception of light; so in that way would you think they were in accord with what God had made known?
JT Well, God did not prescribe anything. What you say is true, I am sure, for in the next altar made we have the appearing to Abraham — the altar is built to the God who appeared. Noah did not have an appearing; Abraham was the first to have an appearing by God, but Noah had communications from God, and specifications, too, in regard to the ark. God made no requirements as to an altar, or as to worship. It is a tribute to Noah’s knowledge of God that he did make an altar and that he offered upon it in this unselfish way; and God honoured him in speaking in His heart as a [p. 470] consequence. After He smelled a sweet savour of Noah’s offering, we read, “Jehovah said in his heart ...”
OG It said that Cain and Abel brought an offering to the Lord, but there is no mention of an altar, and we do not get any record of God communicating with them. I wondered whether the altar represents what took definite shape in response to light.
JT Yes, I think Noah represents cumulative knowledge of God; his is the first altar mentioned.
FGW Does, then, the altar indicate the state of the builder, and reflect the knowledge that the offerer has of God? Is there increase as you go on in that way?
JT That is what I thought. Noah indicates an increase in the knowledge of God. Abel gives the thought of offering, indicating that he had some knowledge of God; he had faith which always implies a knowledge of God, and he offered the kind of offering that was acceptable; but it does not say he built an altar.
FGW Would you say a word as to what is the distinctive feature of these various offerings — Noah’s, Abraham’s, Jacob’s, etc.
JT I think Noah’s is unselfishness: his approach to God was marked by a knowledge of God; that he built an altar indicates this. But the fact that he offered of every clean animal and of all clean fowl would show he was unselfish, he was not keeping back anything.
EJMcB So God seems to honour that by giving seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, etc.
JT Yes, “Jehovah smelled the sweet odour”, which has allusion to Noah’s name — his name means ‘Rest’. God, I think, honours him in that it says. He smelled a sweet odour, or “an odour of rest” (as it may be translated). That is, you are thinking of God, and God says, Well, I am thinking of you, of your name, you are pleasing to Me, “Henceforth, all the days of the earth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat,
[p. 471] and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease”. That is, the creational position that we are in now is founded on sacrifice, it is a question of man — Noah — securing divine favour. The next chapter shows that God blessed him on that ground. God blessed Noah and his sons and made a covenant with him, so that the feature of Noah’s altar is very extended and reminds us that, as we think for God wholeheartedly, He thinks for us and blesses us. Current religion is selfish. Jacob gives a clue to the current religion of our times: he built an altar at Shechem and called it El-Elohe-Israel, that is, he connected God with himself; that is like the Church of England, which is connected with this country, and like other churches which are national; but that denies the true idea of God. God must be universal; He is God; and Noah’s offering lays the basis for God’s universal relations. We should not be any narrower than that, we are enjoying its blessing today, “Henceforth, all the days of the earth, seed-time and harvest, and cold and heat, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease”. The fruitfulness of the land is all based on this altar of Noah’s.
FGW This altar would look forward to what is millennial and eternal. I wondered whether the other would be educational as leading up to it.
JT We get the great general thought of God saying things in His heart, which is a very remarkable thing. We are told what He was saying, but He said it in His heart, showing that He was thoroughly affected. Then He spoke of what is in man, the state of man was only evil from his youth; in spite of that, God blesses. It is very like christianity; God blesses in spite of man’s opposition to Him. This fixed state of things arising out of it, seed-time and harvest, gives courage to go on in our toil, our labour is not in vain, because seed-time would be of no value if there were not harvest — seed-time and harvest. That would mean that, in the right [p. 472] apprehension of God, in worshipping Him unselfishly, He acts towards us, fixes an order of things that makes our labour not in vain, but fruitful — there is a harvest. Then the things that follow that, the cold and heat, summer and winter, and day and night, are modifying things, they are necessary for experience with God.
Ques Would it be right to infer that God can go on with man on these terms, consequent on the death of Christ?
JT That is right, that is how the matter stands now.
Ques Would we provide the altar as Christ gains a place in our affections in this way?
JT Worshipping God is a question of what place God has in our hearts. These early altars are to bring out that side — what are the movements of your heart? For without the Genesis side the Exodus side would be valueless. God tells us what kind of altar to build, but unless we wish to build it for worship, the prescription would be valueless; it must be based on our desire to draw near to God. Genesis is the spontaneous side, but, redemption accomplished and known, God has rights. He would say to you, I am ready for you to build Me an altar, but you must build it after My pattern. If we build, it must be on God’s terms, for it is a question of His territory, of His house. The idea comes out in Jacob, for he began the idea of connecting God with himself, but that will not do. The opposite to that came out in Noah; so God prescribed where he was to build an altar, it was to be built in Bethel; that is the first time you get directions as to the altar, and that of course must enter into Exodus.
Ques How did Noah know the clean beasts?
JT These unwritten things are to bring out the spiritual side, as we were saying yesterday. There are things that are not said to have been required, like Israel going out of Egypt in fives, and the ark moving without any direction beforehand: all these things are to bring [p. 473] out the work of God in His people; He is working in men of faith. We are not told how Noah was to discern between the clean and the unclean, but in building the ark for those hundred and twenty years, the principle of discrimination would arise in his mind; the idea that God was about to purify the world had already been announced. There would be a difference between those entering the ark and those who did not. The building of the ark would test all, whether anybody wanted to be saved in purity. Thus they would be marked off from those who corrupted themselves. Peter says, “eight souls were saved through water” (1 Peter 3: 20), through purification. Peter also speaks of those who had purified “their hearts by faith” (Acts 15: 9) — the clean animals represent those that purify their hearts. I think it is a credit to Noah that he knew the clean animals; he learnt it from God in some sense.
FWW There was spiritual discernment with him.
JT Yes; it means that God had wrought and brought Noah into accord with Himself in this respect.
Rem There is no recorded instruction as to sacrifice before the time, yet both Abel and Noah could offer sacrifices.
JT That is another illustration, things are done by faith. In Exodus, God does not leave it to Israel to determine the clean and unclean animals — He tells them. When you come on to His territory. He asserts that He must determine things. He must be the arbiter of everything on His own territory.
Ques Was this seen in the New Testament in the case of the centurion to whom Peter was sent? (Acts 10.) There was a work of God although it was not on the current ecclesiastical line.
JT That is a good illustration of it, for what was in the sheet alluded to Cornelius, he was potentially cleansed; what he was doing, giving alms, etc., was the outcome of God’s work, he was one of the clean ones — “What God has cleansed”.
[p. 474] Ques Would these clean beasts refer to a definite appreciation of the death of Christ?
JT I think so. We must trace this thought to Noah’s relation with God, the making of the ark particularly. The making of the ark made a difference — what would people think of it? Only a few thought rightly of it; the mass, no doubt, ridiculed it; they were unclean and were destroyed in the flood. I think we have to understand how things came to light in Noah’s relations with God; and the ark was a test. People would be shown in their true light in the way they spoke of it. So today, if you present the truth to people and there is no response, what can you think? They are unclean. Peter says, “Having purified your souls by obedience to the truth to unfeigned brotherly love”. A purified soul will love the brethren, he will take sides with the clean people. If the truth is presented to you and you do not take sides with those who wash their robes, then you are in question.
Rem So in principle it is the whole man that is offered, I was thinking of the clean beast here as representing the purified one, the one that has judged himself. When we make an offering to God, do we really offer ourselves?
JT That is the thought. Christ is your offering before God, and the Holy Spirit makes you correspond to Him. Romans 8 shows how you are brought into accord with Christ. In Romans 12 you present your body, holy and acceptable — not in a substitutionary sense, of course, but as what God can use.
Rem It seems the centurion was brought into accord with that, for he says, “we are all present before God, to hear all things that are commanded thee of God”.
JT Yes. Paul speaks of terrible things that had marked the Corinthians, “but”, he says, “ye are washed”. Saints are brought into accord with the offering on the altar, and if people do not wash in that way, if they disallow the washing, then they have no [p. 475] right to enter by the gate: but if they do wash — “Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may have right to the tree of life, and that they should go in by the gates into the city”. There is no doubt as to the right of such to the Lord’s supper — they wash.
The next altar helps us to see what God is. It is the first appearing to Abraham we get, as called out, “Jehovah appeared to Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land. And there he built an altar to Jehovah who had appeared to him”, Genesis 12: 7. God now is known in some way; an appearing means He is seen in a certain way; it is in relation to giving. Jehovah said, “Unto thy seed will I give this land”. That is a distinct movement forward. The altar here is a public testimony to the man of faith being a worshipper, “to Jehovah who had appeared to him”. No doubt there were offerings, but the altar is the public testimony. It is worship to the God who appeared to him, that is, to the known God. There is no idea of an altar to the unknown God, as the Greeks had, but it is to a known God, a giving God.
Rem This altar is not, it appears, at Bethel, but has Bethel in view.
FGW Is it the personal side; and, when you come to Bethel, does the collective side come into view? I need the personal knowledge of God as Abraham had it, before I can take up the thought of the house of God.
JT That is right. There may be a person who has believed the gospel but has not come to the collective side yet. But Abraham is ready for further light; he is near Bethel. The truth of the house came out in Jacob. If I worship God, normally I shall go on to the full thought; I shall worship Him among His people. The Lord says, “they who worship him”, John 4: 24.
FGW Jacob does not arrive at that all at once, as you were remarking, he connects God with himself, like many believers who worship God in connection with the blessings they have received. He does not get [p. 476] to El-Bethel, until he has passed El-Elohe-Israel. Do we not all have to more or less pass that road?
JT Yes. When you come to Jacob you have experience that most believers have to go through. Abraham brings in the principle of worshipping a known God, I am not a heathen, but I am worshipping a God who is living and who appears to me.
The next altar is Isaac’s, which is at Beer-sheba, meaning that the God I am worshipping is faithful: He appeared to him, too, but He appeared to him in that relation. Beer-sheba is the well of the oath. The God of Abram is not unknown, but known, and He gives; but the God of Isaac is marked by faithfulness, as God says later, “I am God, the God of thy father” (Genesis 46: 3), that is Isaac — Christ risen from the dead, every promise made yea and amen — that gives me assurance. But with Jacob it is more than that. God would say, I have others besides you. Although the thought of the house in Genesis is abstract, we must carry it forward for it involves the brethren. The saints are God’s house; so that I have to see that, if I worship God, it is in relation to His people and with His people.
FGW Would you connect Isaac’s altar with that scripture in Corinthians, “God is faithful, by whom ye were called unto the fellowship of his Son”, 1 Corinthians 1: 9? Would that indicate a soul coming into the consciousness of what it has been brought into in the faithfulness of God?
JT Yes. The apostle mentions it three times in Corinthians. In that verse; then in chapter 10: 13, “God is faithful, who will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able; but will with the temptation also make a way to escape”, which is a comforting thing; then, “God is faithful” in that the Son of God, Paul said, “who has been preached by us among you (by me and Silvanus and Timotheus), did not become yea and nay, but yea is in him. For whatever promises [p. 477] of God there are, in him is the yea, and in him the amen”. Then, “he that establishes us with you in Christ, and has anointed us, is God, who also has sealed us, and given the earnest of the Spirit in our hearts” (2 Corinthians 1: 18 - 22); that is the God of Isaac.
FGW Then would Jacob’s history indicate soul experience in bringing us to the reality of these things, so that they become intensely real and practical?
JT That is what I thought: as represented in Jacob I am selfish — it is just what I am. He would have the sheep and oxen and camels; he stayed in Padan-Aram to get his hire. Many defer coming into fellowship and worshipping God according to His thoughts, because of selfish considerations. Then finally, you connect God with you in your own settings, whereas God says to Jacob, “Arise, go up to Bethel, and dwell there, and make there an altar”. That is what God would say today to all His people — Go up to Bethel and build an altar there.
Ques Do you mean the house of God should command us?
JT Yes, that is the chief interest of God on earth. That brings us to Exodus where it is no longer an abstract thing, but concrete. The building there typically is the saints, so that you get in Exodus, “where I record my name”; it comes in in the twentieth chapter, where He asserts His rights over us — “where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee”.
FGW Would the buying of the piece of ground as Jacob did, where he built a house and set up El-Elohe-Israel, and then the sin of Dinah, indicate the governmental consequences of the soul not going on — which, alas, happens to many — households are broken in upon, they are not going on with the divine thought.
JT That is right. As soon as God is connected with a person or a nation exclusively, then God is not there, and the door is open for the enemy, so that you [p. 478] have all kinds of evil in the so-called denominations; there is no protection against the evil.
FGW In going on to the divine thought you get the “opened door” into privilege instead of an open door for the enemy. That would be a preservative, not only for the soul, but for the household.
JT Just so. We must not ignore the covenant made with Noah, which is universal, but when we come to Jacob we have the thought of the house of God, God known in that setting, which is an exclusive thought — “we have an altar”. We do not deny that God has a right to every man, He is the preserver of all men, but He has a peculiar relation with certain people. We want to be in His house where He is revealed; the Father is made known there: “no one knows the Son but the Father, nor does any one know the Father, but the Son, and he to whom the Son may be pleased to reveal him”, Matthew 11: 27. That is where the altar is now.
Ques So would it be right to say that the altar of earth suggests His holy humanity, and the altar of stone, His death and resurrection?
JT Yes. Applying that to our assembly gatherings, the first thing is, we have a footing with God on the ground of the Lord becoming Man; He took our state, sin apart, and made in the likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, He dealt with sin. We worship God on that ground as redeemed, forgiven, and having the Spirit of God; recognising it, He comes and blesses us wherever He records His name. That is a safeguard, it is not building an altar of earth anywhere, but where He records His name. Then He says, “If thou make me an altar of stone”. The word “if” there, suggests, if you have spiritual power for it, you can get further than the altar of earth. We may not go that way, and God owns us even if we do not, but if we do, we are on the ground of permanency, it is Christ in resurrection; and there is nothing of man’s work at all.
[p. 479] Rem If you lift up a sharp tool on it you have profaned it; so our worship must be altogether apart from human device as God wishes it. With the altar of earth, there is no confidence in the flesh, and with the altar of stone, you are rejoicing in Christ Jesus, and in that light you worship God — “We are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God”.
JT Yes, we are on solid footing there. We do not often come on to that ground, but if you do, see to it that there is nothing added, nothing of man at all.
FGW El-Elohe-Israel would be more like the concision.
JT It would; not going all the way.
Ques May we have a little as to the steps?
JT That is the thought of exposing ourselves.
Ques Going beyond our measure? The thought of the exaltation of man?
JT Just so. You may make it like the “great altar to see to” (Joshua 22: 10) — something that is big and showy which you have to reach by a device; going up by steps is not worshipping in the power of the Spirit of God. “We are the circumcision, who worship by the Spirit of God ...” Philippians 3: 3 — that is not going up by steps; worshipping by the Spirit of God means the flesh is judged, there is no confidence in the flesh.
FGW It is easier to give out a hymn than to say five words from your heart: the hymn might be steps; the five words, worshipping in the power of the Spirit of God.
JT Exactly. But you would of course say that the hymn does not denote steps if it is used in the power of the Spirit.
FGW Yes, but it might be like Saul’s armour.
JT The hymn-book may be that, so that the “if” is whether you can do it, whether you have power to do it. Human thought and device are shut out.
[p. 480] Ques Would the altar of earth be more temporary, like the altar of earth in Naaman’s day?
JT Naaman had evidently some thought of worshipping, but it would be a mixed matter. He would not give up the thought of lending himself to the king of Syria in his worship. It would ease his conscience that he had two mules’ burdens of earth, but it would be a mixed thing, taking what is of God into another realm: for all the so-called churches have taken something of God — there are real christians in them — but that does not go very far. I think the altar of earth here is inclusive of all christians: God accepts us even if we do not apprehend the divine side of things. God honours the first part of our meeting, but we may not enter into the heavenly side involving the altar of stone. Christ is “declared to be the Son of God with power, ... by the resurrection from the dead”, so the sense of Christ risen involves sonship.
FWW “Thou art the Christ, the Son of the living God”, and “upon this rock I will build my church”, Matthew 16: 16, 18.
JT That is it. Then when we come to the brazen altar, we have God’s requirements — it must be so high and so broad, and made of brass. And it was anointed seven times. The full measure really is Christ, drawing near to God we come to the divine measure. Christ “has been crucified in weakness, yet he lives by God’s power” (2 Corinthians 13: 4) — that is the brazen altar.
FWW I was struck, in reading the directions for the brazen altar, by the fact that in the New Translation it says, “thou shalt make its pots to cleanse it of the fat”. I wondered if it did not suggest that each time we approach God we are to come in a new way. You do not get that thought in the Authorised Version, where it says, “thou shalt make his pans to receive his ashes”, Exodus 27: [p. 481] 3.
JT That is very suggestive, for we are apt to bring forward previous meetings. All the fat was to be burnt at any given time: some was apt to be left on the altar, you mean?
FWW Yes, and there were special vessels for dealing with that, so that God should be approached in a wholly fresh way each time.