SHEMOT 37

25 And he made the incense altar of shittim wood: the length of it was a cubit, and the breadth of it a cubit; it was foursquare; and two cubits was the height of it; the horns thereof were of the same.

The next object catching the eye was an altar, standing in front before the veil of the most holy --not an altar for offering sacrifice but an altar for offering incense. The altar for offering sacrifice--a much larger altar--was outside the tabernacle.

The interior of the holy place would not have been a fitting place for this altar when the significance of things is considered. The holy place typified the holy state arising out of the divine appointments for the purpose, chief among which is the sacrifice of the holy one. It would not have been appropriate to give a place to this sacrifice in the place signifying the state arising our of it.

It was more in harmony with the relation of things that the altar of burnt offerings should be outside the tabernacle, though in the holy court. But though there is no altar of sacrifice in the holy place, there is the altar of incense on which morning and evening it was the high priest's part to offer incense with fire taken off the altar of sacrifice.

The incense altar was of wood covered with gold, and resembled the ark in being finished on the top with a royal crown, and having gold-covered staves always in the rings ready for use. All these features would have the meanings we identified in connection with the ark in the last chapter. They represented the same community but in a different state and time--namely, now instead of then; in the mortal instead of the immortal. Incense we saw to symbolize acceptable prayer.

The altar of incense represents the sacrifice of prayer offered with Christ-fire on the gold-plate foundation of faith, without which it is impossible to please God (Heb. 11:6). The presence of this altar in the Mosaic Holy and the daily consumption of incense upon it is a powerful inculcation of this truth from God, which is otherwise so often declared in the Scriptures, that men are not acceptable to Him who do not "pray without ceasing", and in "everything give thanks", offering "the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips giving thanks to his name" (Heb. 13:15)-

-"a perpetual incense before the Lord throughout your generations".

No strange incense was to be used. Only God's own promises and God's own commandments must be breathed in prayer. God's own truth is the only acceptable basis of approach.

Law of Moses Ch 14

29 And he made the holy anointing oil, and the pure incense of sweet spices, according to the work of the apothecary.

Six things are abolished from the future temple

which were indispensable to those under the law—these are the Laver, the Branching Light-bearer, the Ark of the Covenant, the Cherubim, the Veil, and Golden Altar of Incense.

These are all unnecessary to a service performed by Jesus and his brethren, the sons of Zadok.

Having been washed in baptism before their resurrection, they have no use for the Laver like the sons of Aaron under the law.

The light bearer of seven branches is superseded by their own anointing. They shine like the sun by the Spirit glory with which they are invested. They are the many light-bearing branches of the Holy Places, which need no artificial illumination in their presence.

The Melchisedec high priest is himself the Ark of the New Covenant, and with his brethren, the Cherubim of glory. He is the Mercy Seat, sprinkled with the blood of the New Covenant, which is his own.

The law, the manna, and the almond rod is He, the way, the truth, the bread of heaven, the resurrection, and the life. What need has the Most Holy Place of a temple of the Mosaic ark and its contents, with winged Cherubim, in the presence of a personage so august as He, the very substance of those shadowy things!

The Veil was rent when his body was broken on the tree. The future temple is neither historical nor typical. It foreshadows no details; but by the building, and "the separate place," both west of the Most Holy Place, indicates that there is a state beyond the thousand years into which they shall be received, who may be accounted worthy of eternal life when sin and death, and every curse, shall be abolished from the earth.

Being no monument of the past, the rent-Veil repaired is seen only in the scarred substance of the Prince of Israel, which it prefigured. He being the antitype of the Veil, the type is excluded from the future temple, which will be illustrated by the presence of his glorious body which can be rent no more.

"In every place, from the rising to the setting sun, incense shall be offered to the name of Yahweh, even a pure offering."—Mal. 1:11.

The burning of incense, therefore, will not be restricted to the temple, as in the days of old. Prayer is the voice of supplication seeking assistance in times of need. It ascends as incense before the Lord, burned by the necessitous.

Prayer will be made for Israel's king continually, and will ascend as incense in every place. But Christ and his Saints will not be necessitous. They will have no wants unsupplied; for they will possess all things. Praise, not prayer, will ascend from the Holy Place; therefore there will be no golden altar there on which to burn incense before the Lord.

Herald of the Kingdom and Age to Come, Sept 1851