What was the significance of the altar King Ahaz built?

The erection of a new altar in the Temple by Ahaz according to the pattern of the idol-altar, opened the door wide for the unlawful worship in the Temple of God. He found a willing helper in Urijah (the LORD is light), who conducted the worship "according to all that King Ahaz commanded." And greater profanation followed. He even shut up the doors of the house of the Lord (2 Chron. 28:24), which probably meant a complete cessation of the services in the Holy Place. The gods of Damascus were worshipped by him in connection with this altar (2 Chron. 28:23). And in Christendom an even greater profanation of worship has come to pass. True Christian worship is in spirit and in truth. Roman Catholicism has erected altars patterned more or less after the ancient Babylonish worship.

AHAZ ATTRACTED BY A SYRIAN ALTAR (vv.10-20)

Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath Pileser, likely to congratulate him for his victory. But while there Ahaz saw a Syrian altar that he evidently liked better than the altar of the Lord. He therefore sent the pattern of the altar to Urijah the priest at Jerusalem, instructing him to build one like it for the worship of Judah (v.10). Ahaz was therefore a religious man, but choosing wicked religion above the true worship of the Lord. Christendom has been guilty of the same evil in imitating the false worship of unbelievers. But why did Urijah not have the spiritual strength to resist this evil of the king? Instead of resisting, he fully concurred with this false worship and had built the altar by the time Ahaz returned (v.11).

Ahaz then, ignoring the altar of God, offered burnt offerings, meal offerings and drink offerings on the altar he liked, sprinkling the blood also on the altar (v.13). We are not told whether the priest was the intermediary for this or not, but Ahaz could boast of having some details correct, while being basically rebellious against God. The Lord Jesus spoke of the scribes and Pharisees teaching, "Whoever swears by the altar, it is nothing; but whoever swears by the gift that is on it, he is obliged to perform it" (Mt.23:18). But the Lord called these teachers "Fools and blind! For which is greater, the gift or the altar that sanctifies the gift?" (v.19). The gift speaks of Christ's sacrifice, but the altar pictures Christ Himself the basis of the value of the sacrifice. Therefore, the altar of Ahaz signifies his introducing a false Christ. How dreadful is such an evil as this!

Not only did Ahaz introduce an idolatrous altar into the temple worship, but he displaced the copper altar that was in front of the temple and put it on the north side of his new altar (v.14). The Lord had the copper altar placed in front of the temple because it speaks of the only way of approach to God, which is Christ as the One whose sacrifice is indispensable, But how many today are like Ahaz, pushing Christ out of the way and despising the value of His perfect sacrifice.

Ahaz then gave orders to Urijah totally contrary to God's Word, and the weak priest was ready to disobey God. All of the offerings were offered on the new altar of Ahaz. Ahaz knew something of the offerings and he wanted to keep up a show of religious zeal while refusing the very basis of all true worship, the person of the Lord Jesus Christ. In fact, while he put the copper altar out of the way, he told Urijah it could be used as a charm for him "to enquire by" (v.15). If there were hard problems or danger threatening, he could use the copper altar, just as men today consider Christ as One to be consulted if they are in trouble, but this only amounts to superstition with no faith whatever in Christ Himself. Thus they want Christ to be merely their servant, not their Lord.

Ahaz prefers to confide in the king of Assyria against Pekah and Rezin than to confide in the Lord and to obey Him. This explains his answer to Isaiah. He had "sent messengers to Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria, saying: "I am thy servant and they son: come up, and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria, and out of the hand of the king of Israel, who have risen up against me. And Ahaz took the silver and the gold that was found in the house of Jehovah, and in the treasures of the king's house, and sent it as a present to the king of Assyria. And the king of Assyria hearkened to him; and the king of Assyria went up against Damascus, and took it, and carried it captive to Kir, and put Rezin to death" (2 Kings 16:7-9). Also God declares to Him: "Jehovah will bring upon thee, and upon thy people, and upon thy father's house, days which have not come since the day when Ephraim turned away from Judah — even the king of Assyria" (Isa. 7:17); and against Israel and Syria: "The riches of Damascus and the spoil of Samaria shall be taken away before the king of Assyria" (Isa. 8:4). Thus, that which the Lord had pronounced against Israel which had sought the support of Assyria (Hosea 5:13-14), He now pronounces against Judah, who sought this same alliance. The first result of this trust in Assyria seemed to be favorable for Judah. Tiglath-pileser seized Damascus, carried away its inhabitants, and slew Rezin. The prophecy pronounced long before by Amos (Amos 1:3-5) is now fulfilled.

Ahaz is not at the end of his transgressions. Isaiah's prophecy had no effect upon his conscience. He went to Damascus to meet the king of Assyria, whom he congratulated for his help and for his success. Having seen Rezin's idolatrous altar, he sends its pattern to Jerusalem and has it erected in the court of the temple. He finds a high priest to accomplish this act of sacrilege. 2 Chronicles 28:22 tells us that Ahaz sacrificed to the gods of Damascus, for to burn a sacrifice upon an altar other than the brazen altar was to sacrifice to false gods.

Do we not find something similar in today's religions when men professing to be Christians think that they are able to approach God by another altar than that of expiation, in which they do not believe? Like Rezin's altar, theirs is much broader, has a much more beautiful appearance than that of God. The old-fashioned religious narrowness has given place to broader views, they say. It is no longer the blood of the cross that justifies and redeems the sinner. They have another Christ than that One, a Christ who by His life has renewed humanity's ties with God, His cross being nothing more than the crowning act of a life of devotion. The new altar has no point of contact with the old. Its form and its beauty render it infinitely more desirable to the world than the brazen altar, so the latter is removed from its place, set aside (v. 14); it is no longer the indispensable way of approach when presenting oneself before God in His sanctuary. In sum, there is a new way of approach; a new religion is set up, and the first is relegated to a corner. At most, the brazen altar may serve to "inquire by" (v. 15), not, as one has said, that one might think of what one must make of it, but in order to use it for superstitious practices. It is thus that in one whole part of Christendom the use of the cross is misdirected and employed for grossly superstitious practices. Ahaz's religion, when it is a matter of so-called worship of the Lord, on the one hand ends in unbelief regarding the very foundation of the faith, the cross of Christ, and on the other hand, ends in superstition when it is a matter of this same foundation.

Oh, the blind delusion of demon-worship! — "He sacrificed unto the gods of Damascus, which smote him : and he said, Because the gods of the kings of Syria help them, therefore will I sacrifice to them, that they may help me. But they were the ruin of him, and of all Israel." He says, in effect, "Jehovah does not help me as the deities of the Syrian kings help them; so it is better for me to forsake Him and worship gods that will do me some good." So he "gathered together the vessels of the house of God, and cut in pieces the vessels of the house of God, and shut up the doors of the house of the Lord." His apostasy was now complete. "And he made him altars [for false gods] in every corner of Jerusalem. And in every several city of Judah he made high places to burn incense unto other gods, and provoked to anger the Lord God of his fathers." How far can they fall who, instead of being obedient to the word of God, are moved and governed by everything which has some present, apparent success!

How shameful is his obsequious appeal to the king of Assyria — "I am thy servant and thy son: come up, and save me out of the hand of the king of Syria" — and that greedy monarch, for the silver and gold sent him, went to Damascus and slew Rezin, its king. "And king Ahaz went to Damascus to meet Tiglath-pileser king of Assyria" — at his command perhaps, to do him honor personally — "and saw an altar that was at Damascus: and king Ahaz sent to Urijah the priest the fashion of the altar, and the pattern of it, according to all the workmanship thereof. And Urijah the priest built an altar according to all that king Ahaz had sent from Damascus: so Urijah the priest made it against king Ahaz came from Damascus. And when the king was come from Damascus, the king saw the altar: and the king approached to the altar, and offered thereon. And he burnt his burnt-offering and his meat-offering, and poured his drink-offering, and sprinkled the blood of his peace-offerings, upon the altar." The pattern of the altar caught his ritualistic eye, and he must needs imitate it — not unlike a class to-day who go to Rome for novelties, and then set up at home cheap imitations in churches that were once called Protestant. The real Rome awes men (for Babylon is "the GREAT"), but her little imitators move us only to pity. King Ahaz finds in Urijah the high priest a willing tool to his idolatrous designs. Untrue to his name (light of Jehovah), he yields unscrupulous obedience to his sovereign's orders, instead of rebuking him for his abominable act. For his degrading subserviency, probably, his name is omitted from the sacerdotal list in 1 Chron. 6:4-15, Better have lost life than honor — when it is that true and eternal honor "which comes from God."

On this altar of new design Ahaz offers every kind of offering excepting that which he needed most for himself — the sin-offering. The plain brazen altar ("which was before the house of the Lord") seems to have offended his esthetic eye; so it was relegated to a place of comparative obscurity on the north side of his own foreign substitute. He arrogantly commanded the high priest as to what, and how, and when, to offer on his altar. And the unworthy successor of Jehoiada and Zechariah slavishly obeyed to the letter. "Thus did Urijah the priest, according to all that king Ahaz commanded." He reversed the apostles' maxim, that we "ought to obey God rather than men." He was of another mind: his eye was on the honor that comes from man; theirs was on that which comes from God.

"And king Ahaz cut off the borders [Heb., panels] of the bases, and removed the laver from off them; and took down the sea from off the brazen oxen that were under it, and put it upon a pavement of stones." Probably to obtain the precious metals of which they were made, these sacrilegious innovations were introduced. "And the covert for the sabbath" — (covered way) to be used on the sabbath by the royal worshipers — "that they had built in the house [of God], and the king's entry without, turned he from the house of the Lord for the king of Assyria." It was the high-gate that his father Jotham had so significantly rebuilt. Ahaz appears to have profaned it to the use of Tiglath-pileser when worshiping his false gods (at Ahaz' altar perhaps) on his visit to Jerusalem. "And the brazen altar," he said, "shall be for me to inquire by," or "consider." He either meant that he should use it for purposes of divination, — linking Jehovah's great name with his base idolatries, — or he would "consider" what should ultimately be done with it. And we Christians "have an altar," even Christ, our Creator-Redeemer, whom profane unitarian Higher Critics and others dare to debase and degrade before their deceived disciples, removing Him from His place of absolute preeminence, (like Ahaz with God's altar,) putting Him beside others, like Zoroaster and Confucius, for "odious" comparison! And already they "consider" what they shall finally do with Him — relegate Him to a place even of inferiority to some of their heathen Asiatic reformers! And what shall the end be? We know: "Another shall come in his own name," and him they "will receive" (John 5:43). The "man of sin — the son of perdition" — is to arise; and "because they received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved, … God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie," etc. (2 Thess. 2 10, 11.)

Concerning Ahaz we need not say much. He was an open opposer of God and His truth. He neglected the temple — shut up the doors — put out the lamps — cut up the vessels, and erected idolatrous altars in every corner of Jerusalem. Moreover, he went to Damascus to meet the king of Assyria, and there he saw an altar of which he sent a pattern to Urijah, the priest, who made one like to it at Jerusalem; thus he put the true altar out of its place, and in a word, subverted the whole order of worship. "This is that king Ahaz."

There is one circumstance more, which shews God's attitude toward Ahaz and Hezekiah. Ahaz took away the altar which was before Jehovah and put in its place a pagan one. At that time the house of David being the last support, its fall dragged with it and displays the end of Israel; while Hezekiah who succeeded is like the resurrection for Israel, and displays the coming blessing for the remnant when Christ shall appear in His glory.

The voluntary action of Ahaz put him and Judah in touch with the king of Assyria, put them under servitude to Assyria, and brought them into idolatry through Ahaz going to meet the king of Assyria at Damascus, and constructing an idolatrous altar on the pattern of the one he saw at Damascus. It was not only a humiliating position for God’s people, it was the introduction into the service of God of what God had expressly forbidden, the expression of self-will, the corruption of divine worship, and the setting aside of the will of the living God. Israel’s God could not be insensible to the departure of His people from fidelity to Him, and to the challenge of idolatry that Ahaz had given.

Lastly, Ahaz changes the entry of the house of Jehovah (v. 18) which was prohibited to others besides the king. He does so "on account of the king of Assyria." He disowns his own privileges as head of the people of God, and also the "covered way of the sabbath," the privilege of the people themselves — all this in order to avoid offending the world whom he is serving. Now the king of Assyria may declare himself satisfied! The very foundations of Israel's religion, by which the people were sanctified for God, have disappeared. Why should not the world henceforth enter into relationship with the God of Israel by means of the altar of Damascus? This religion, modified and stripped of its power and of its privileges, suits it perfectly!

Ahaz, king of Judah, came to the throne at a remarkable time in the history of God's earthly people. The three previous kings, Jotham, Azariah and Amaziah, whose reigns covered a period of some 130 years, had all "done what was right in the sight of the Lord." All this was surely known to Ahaz, who would thus have an understanding of kingly standards according to the mind of God. Commencing his reign at 20 years of age it is sadly recorded that he "did NOT that which was right in the sight of the Lord" but he acted "according to the abominations of the heathen." 2 Kings 16, enumerates the several things he did which were inconsistent with the instructions given by God to those who ruled over His people; in this paper we are concerned with his actions as given in verses 17 and 18. With startling impiety he had placed his Assyrian altar alongside the altar of Jehovah, and had made it the centre of sacrifice. He then proceeded to remove the bases of the lavers, taking down the sea from its elevated position and placing it on a pavement of stones. Similarly he altered the way of the king in order to meet the caprices of the king of Assyria. Thus the divinely appointed standards of worship, of approach to the House of God, and of purity in so approaching were lowered to accommodate the thoughts and desires of men! In minute detail God had made known His commands to Moses, and meticulously Moses had carried them out — the divine standard was apparent! Ahaz, as king, should himself have written out a copy of God's commandments (Deuteronomy 17:18), reading therein all the days of his life, and not turning from God's standards either "to the right hand, or to the left."