Okay, so how do you get into the presence of God? We’ve already seen that the Tabernacle symbolizes two things: God living in our midst, and our inability to draw close to Him. So, how do we get past the curtains of the Tabernacle, the cordon of cherubim which block the way into the throne room of God? How do we gain access to the light and the nourishment that only Christ can bring us?

Well, what did God tell Moses to put right in front of the opening to the Tabernacle? A bronze altar, the altar of the burnt offering (Exodus 40:6). It was on that altar that all the animal sacrifices, so meticulously detailed in the Book of Leviticus, were to be made.

And all those sacrifices made one point, both graphically and unmistakably: the penalty for sin is death. Whenever we sin against God, only shed blood is sufficient to atone for our rebellion. That’s why those who came to worship laid their hands on their offerings before they were killed – they were identifying with the animals who were to die in their place (Leviticus 1:4).

And of course we know that all those sacrifices pointed, in one way or another, to Jesus, the One Whom John the Baptist called “The Lamb of God Who takes away the sin of the world” (John 1:29). For even though the ancient priests had to offer sacrifices every day (Hebrews 10:11), Jesus made the one perfect sacrifice for sin to sanctify all His people for all time (Hebrews 10:14). It is the blood of Christ that therefore makes a way for His people to go through the veil into the presence of the Father (Hebrews 10:19-20).

So that’s the good news of the bronze altar: it’s not the offerings that we bring that allow us into the presence of God, but the perfect sacrifice Christ made on our behalf. At the cross, “God demonstrates His own love toward us, in that while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us” (Romans 5:8). May we cling to Christ our Savior, trusting only in His perfect sacrifice today.

Exodus 27:1-8 (NASB)

“And you shall make the altar of acacia wood, five cubits long and five cubits wide; the altar shall be square, and its height shall be three cubits.
2 “And you shall make its horns on its four corners; its horns shall be of one piece with it, and you shall overlay it with bronze.
3 “And you shall make its pails for removing its ashes, and its shovels and its basins and its forks and its firepans; you shall make all its utensils of bronze.
4 “And you shall make for it a grating of network of bronze, and on the net you shall make four bronze rings at its four corners.
5 “And you shall put it beneath, under the ledge of the altar, that the net may reach halfway up the altar.
6 “And you shall make poles for the altar, poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with bronze.
7 “And its poles shall be inserted into the rings, so that the poles shall be on the two sides of the altar when it is carried.
8 “You shall make it hollow with planks; as it was shown to you in the mountain, so they shall make it.