Altars to the Lord
“He built and altar to the Lord."
Through Genesis 12-15 Abraham spends a lot of time building altars. (Interesting fact: we see the word altar somewhere around 400 times in the Bible.) In this passage, for some reason the altar building really stuck out to me, something repeatedly done by Abraham. I wanted to understand why Abraham kept building them, and to understand, I needed to look to what they are and what their significance was in Hebrew times.
In their most simple definition, altars, in the earliest times of the Bible were made of earth or stones and served as a table to place the sacrifice upon while catching the blood of the sacrificial victim. God lays out VERY specific plans of how to build an altar in Exodus and it they become an integral part of worshipping God. But constructing an altar also simply served as a sacred reminder of the times and places of our special encounters with God.
In a special encounter in Genesis 12:7, God appeared to Abraham and first promised the land of Canaan to him and his offspring, and there he built an altar. This was at Shechem, located between two mountains, Mount Ebal (meaning: barren) and Mount Gerazim (meaning: fruitful). We can clearly see here, that this altar was an altar of gratitude. Abraham was expressing his incredible gratitude to God for His promise of a family, of a legacy—he wanted to worship.
In another special encounter, God gave Abraham all the land!
“17 Go, walk through the length and breadth of the land, for I am giving it to you.” 18 So Abram moved his tents and went to live near the great trees of Mamre at Hebron, where he built an altar to the LORD.”
Genesis 13:17-18 NIV
Again, out of gratitude Abraham builds an altar. By building it, He is saying to God, "I am not worthy, I am a sinner, but you continue to bless me with abundance and I am grateful."
Altars may be something we overlook when we read the Old Testament, because they just seem like old “rules” that we need pay no attention to, but they are very important to our understanding of what Christ did on the cross for us. In Exodus 29, God was clear that His salvation is for everyone, providing that they approach His way.
A sacrifice on the altar was a substitutionary atonement, the innocent victim would receive the full weight of God's judgment while the guilty person making the sacrifice would receive forgiveness and justification and atonement from God. The sacrifice literally became sin...
Does all of this sound familiar?
Do you recognize the theme of sacrifice on the altar for sins? It is why we sit at the feet of Jesus in gratitude, just as Abraham sat at the altar in gratitude.
We are not worthy, but God loves us and provides anyway.
Gratitude at the altar of sacrifice in the Old Testament set us up to understand the weight of what Christ was going to do.
Realistically, what does this mean for us? Do we need to construct altars to the Lord?
No, but we must be living sacrifices. We should live our lives in gratitude because of God’s grace and Christ’s sacrifice.
We must love others, and bless others because God loved us enough to implant His story of redemption and grace on the pages of the bible and on our hearts.
