And thou shalt make the altar of acacia-wood, five cubits the length, and five cubits the breadth; the altar shall be square; and the height thereof three cubits.
The tabernacle court opens with one large object: a square altar of acacia wood, standing where every visitor saw it first. Commentators read its wood, its size and the metal that covered it — brass in older translations, bronze in the ESV — as a picture of the cross.
The tabernacle had many parts. The order in which a person met them carried meaning.
"You shall make the altar of acacia wood … and you shall overlay it with bronze" (Ex. 27:1-2). There we find an unmistakable figure and type of the cross of Christ, where Christ met all the claims of God. If anybody went towards the tabernacle in that day, what was the first thing that met his eye? The brazen altar and the sin offering on it. I draw near to God through that brazen altar. On the cross Christ has met all the claims of God. Any claim that God could bring against me as a sinner, the Lord Jesus Christ has answered and met.
Inside the tent, gold covered the wood. Out here a different metal covers the same wood, and the change means something.
The ark and the table of showbread were made of acacia wood covered with pure gold. The Brazen Altar was different: acacia wood covered with brass. Brass — copper, to be exact — resists fire better than any other metal… Brass (or copper) shows the fierceness of God's wrath against sin… As another has said, "Gold is the righteousness of God for drawing near where God is; brass, the righteousness of God for dealing with man's evil where man is."
The altar is not the victim. It holds the victim up under the fire, and one writer says the altar too is a picture of Christ.
This altar shows Christ as the way a sinful being can approach the holy sanctuary of God — which seems impossible. It also shows how, as he comes, he can be freed from his defiling guilt and released from sin's terrible curse and penalty — which seems even more impossible… The familiar thought is that the sacrifice on the altar is a picture of Christ offered, suffering and slain as the atoning Victim. But in the altar itself, which holds the sacrifice up, we have to see the same divine Person in another light. Its wood pictures His humanity, and the fire-enduring metal covered that wood. This means our Lord's infinite power to bear and endure the fire of judgment is the ground His sacrifice rests on. Being infinite, His atonement was infinite, because His sufferings were infinite.
Commentators read the numbers themselves as part of the message.
The altar was square, five cubits long and five wide. The number five stresses that Christ has taken, of His own will, the responsibility for solving the great problem of man's sin and of sins before God… The height was three cubits. That adds the wonderful truth of Christ's resurrection. In fact, His resurrection is the proof of the great value of His sacrifice.
The altar's shape matters as much as its size.
The size of the Brazen Altar was striking. It was as if God would make it very plain: no one can come to Him except through an atoning sacrifice. "Without the shedding of blood there is no forgiveness of sins" (Heb. 9:22). The Brazen Altar was also foursquare. That shows the Gospel message is for the whole world — north, south, east and west, for Jew and Gentile… for princes and beggars, for learned and ignorant, for religious and irreligious, for rich and poor, for young and old.
Bringing an animal here said something about the person who brought it, and it did something for him too.
So when an Israelite brought a sacrifice, that act was his own admission. He could not meet God's righteous claims himself. He was a sinner, and as such had forfeited his life. So he brought another life to be offered up in his place. Coming this way, he identified himself with the sacrifice, and he showed it by putting his hand on its head… Two things followed. His sins were put out of God's sight, and he was brought before God in all the acceptance of Christ.
- Place. The altar stood first in the court, so no one reached God without passing the place where God's claims were met.
- Person. Wood covered with brass pictures a real humanity that can stand in the fire. The altar holds the sacrifice up, and its worth gives the offering its worth.
- Price. Its metal speaks of righteousness dealing with man's evil. The worshipper laid his hand on the victim and admitted that his own life was forfeit.
- Proportion. Five cubits square, three cubits high: responsibility met in full, and resurrection proving the value of His sacrifice.
- Proclamation. Foursquare, it faced every direction — an altar that invites the whole world, not a few.
And thou shalt make its horns at the four corners thereof; its horns shall be of itself; and thou shalt overlay it with copper.
The altar of burnt offering stood in the courtyard. A worshipper met it first on entering. Horns rose at its four corners, made of one piece with the altar itself. Two details carry the weight of this verse: the metal that covered it, and the horns that crowned it.
The altar shared the same acacia wood as the ark inside the tent, but not the same covering. One commentator draws the meaning out of that difference, using the older English name for bronze: brass.
Acacia wood appears here just as with the ark, the table, and so on. But it was overlaid with brass instead of gold. Brass, in fact, is its defining feature. Now brass is divine righteousness. The gold symbolises a different kind: righteousness that matches what He is in Himself and suits the divine nature. Brass is righteousness as it tests man in his responsibility. Because of this it always carries a judicial side. Meeting man in his responsibility, it must judge him, because he is a sinner. The altar as a whole, then, is God shown in righteousness. So it became the meeting place between God and the sinner.
The two metals of the tabernacle mark out two different settings.
Gold is the righteousness of God for drawing near where God is; brass is the righteousness of God for dealing with man's evil where man is.
The horn is a picture used across Scripture.
Horns in Scripture symbolize strength: "You have exalted my horn like that of the wild ox" (Ps. 92:10). They were the badge or symbol of power: "My horn is exalted in the Lord" (1 Sam. 2:1). It was also a symbol of Messiah's kingdom: "There I will make a horn to sprout for David" (Ps. 132:17). The horns of the altar suggest that everything the altar stood for came into focus here and grew intense. Here it came to a point.
Certain offerings called for blood on these four points. That turns the altar's strength around.
There were four — one on each corner (v. 2). In certain cases the blood of the sacrifice was sprinkled on these, as for example in the sin offering for the ruler or for one of the common people (Lev. 4:25, 30). The horn is a symbol of strength. The whole strength of the altar had stood against the sinner. Blood sprinkled on the horns turns it around: that strength, displayed in all its completeness, now works for him. So the horns became a place of refuge, a sanctuary no one could violate. They sheltered all who had a right to their protection on the ground of the sprinkled blood.
Two men in Israel's history ran to these horns and grabbed them. They did not both walk away.
We read too of Adonijah, who for fear of judgment went and caught hold of the horns of the altar (1 Kings 1:50) and was spared at the time. Later Joab attempted the same thing, but having proved himself treacherous, was killed (1 Kings 2:13-28). For it was not faith that moved him, but fear.
One commentator states the other side of the case in the strongest terms.
Wherever there is trust in the value of the sacrifice offered to God on the altar, no power in earth or hell can touch the soul that rests under its shelter and protection.
The horns face outward. One writer reads a scope in that.
The altar, as we have seen, was the moral centre of the first of the two squares that made up the court. It was four-square, and it faced the four quarters of the earth. So its symbols of power — the horns on its four corners — looked outward toward the whole circle of the world. Spiritually speaking, the altar was the centre for humanity in approaching God. The altar and its sacrifices are figures of Christ and His offering up of Himself on the cross. He is the centre God has given, the point at which all the world may meet God. "For God so loved the world, that He gave His only Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life" (John 3:16).
The horns were part of the altar itself, and they held the sacrifice in place. One commentator traces that power to the One the altar pictures.
Its "horns" are the symbols of the authority by which it claimed, and the power by which it held, the victim marked out for its terrible purpose. "Bind the festal sacrifice with cords, up to the horns of the altar" (Ps. 118:27). In the One the type points to, He used this power Himself in deliberate self-surrender and solemn self-dedication.
- Bronze claims. Bronze marks God's righteousness as it tests man where man is. So the altar is where God and the sinner meet.
- Horns concentrate. At the four corners, everything the altar stands for comes to a point: strength.
- Blood redirects. With blood on the horns, the strength that stood against the sinner now works for him.
- Horns reach. Facing the four quarters of the earth, they look outward to the whole world, not to a few.
- Grasp by faith. Adonijah was spared and Joab was not; the shelter holds for the one who trusts the sacrifice.