And he shall take the censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before Jehovah, and both his hands full of fragrant incense beaten small, and bring it inside the veil.
Once a year the high priest could enter the innermost room of the tabernacle, and God fixed the order of what he did there: incense first, blood after. Every detail counts — coals from the altar outside, incense crushed fine, a cloud rising over the place where God appeared.
Aaron stops in the middle of his sacrificial duties to do this. Why does the incense go in before the blood?
It is not sacrifice; it must not be confused with it. It proclaims the value of Christ Himself, before anything testifies to the value of His work with God. Here the fire of God's holiness tests everything — and how it has tested Him! It only brings out the fragrance of "sweet incense." That fragrance covers the mercy seat, so the priest may sprinkle it with the blood of atonement in safety and in peace.
The fire was not the priest's own. It came from the altar where the sacrifice had burned, and that source gives the incense its meaning.
Notice that it was burnt on the altar. Fire was what brought out its sweet fragrance. The fire used for this came from the bronze altar. So the same fire that consumed the sacrifice brought out the fragrance of the incense. This explains its significance. The fire is a type of the searching judgment of God — of His holiness applied in judgment. Our blessed Lord passed through this on the cross. But the only effect of the holy fire upon Him was to bring out a "cloud" of sweet perfume.
A common reading treats incense as a picture of prayer. Kelly tests that against the places where incense appears and finds it will not hold.
This, with a great deal more elsewhere, makes one thing clear. We cannot take the incense to mean only, or entirely, the prayers of the saints. In Revelation 5 the royal priests present the prayers of the saints as incense. In Revelation 8 the angel high priest adds much incense to the prayers of all the saints. No creature could do that — only He Himself. Where would be the sense in adding the prayers of the saints to the prayers of the saints?
The incense was crushed to powder, not carried in as lumps. Mackintosh finds the same idea in the burnt offering, which was cut into pieces.
This action presents a truth much like that taught in the "sweet incense beaten small" (Leviticus 16). The Holy Spirit delights to dwell on the sweetness and fragrance of the sacrifice of Christ. He dwells on it not only as a whole, but also in all its smallest details. Look at the burnt offering as a whole, and you see it without blemish. Look at it in all its parts, and you see it is the same.
The stated purpose is survival — the cloud covers the mercy seat so the priest does not die. Stuart looks at what the incense was made of, and at how the cloud works in both directions.
The sweet incense pictured the sweet fragrance of the merits of Christ. God chose its four ingredients (Exodus 30:34-36), and three of them are named nowhere else — for there was something in the Lord Jesus Christ, we must all admit, that was acceptable to God and belonged to Him alone. With the cloud of incense between Aaron and the mercy seat, he could stand before it… Aaron could see the glory of God shining on the mercy seat through the cloud of incense. And God saw Aaron, the representative of his house and his nation, through that same cloud. Of course, the One Aaron pictured needed no cloud of incense for God to see Him. He is in the presence of God according to the excellence of His Person… But no human being can stand before God apart from the merits of Christ.
Where does real worship come from? Mackintosh answers, and adds a warning about the fire.
Only the power of the Spirit can produce all this. There is no need to work up nature's devotional feelings by the various devices of a religious system. There must be pure fire as well as pure incense. (Compare Leviticus 10:1 with Leviticus 16:12.) All efforts to worship God by nature's unholy powers come under the heading of "strange fire."
- Fire — the coals came from the altar of sacrifice. The judgment that consumed the offering is the same heat that released the perfume.
- Fragrance — that heat raised no smoke of ruin. It raised a cloud of sweetness: the tested perfections of Christ.
- Fineness — "beaten small" means the excellence reaches the smallest detail, not just the whole.
- Cover — the cloud rises first and shields the man, so the priest can sprinkle the blood in peace instead of dying.
- Access — no one stands before God on his own record. Aaron needed the cloud; we need the merits of Christ.
And he shall put the incense upon the fire before Jehovah, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy-seat which is upon the testimony, that he die not.
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