The altar in the Old Testament is marked by four horns, extending outward in each direction. These are not incidental features, but integral to its design and use, associated with sacrifice, atonement, and refuge.
In the crucifixion, the cross stands at the center of the Gospel, extending outward in its own way to the ends of the earth. The correspondence between these two forms is not mechanical, but it is suggestive.
This essay explores how the structure of the altar may be read as a pattern that points toward the cross at Golgotha.
“You shall make the altar of acacia wood, five cubits long and five cubits broad. The altar shall be square, and its height shall be three cubits. And you shall make horns for it on its four corners; its horns shall be of one piece with it, and you shall overlay it with bronze.” (Exodus 27:1–2)
“they brought him to the place called Golgotha (which means Place of the Skull). And they offered him wine mixed with myrrh, but he did not take it. And they crucified him.” (Mark 15:22–24, NIV)
The bronze altar, initially used in the wilderness tabernacle and later in the temple, is the central piece of furniture in terms God’s message to the world. Innumerable animals are sacrificed on it–1246 per year is an estimated mandatory minimum to satisfy Mosaic law. Yet, all the blood that flowed from the altar could not pay the debt owed for our sins, “For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). They all point to Jesus, who “by a single offering, perfected for all time those who are being sanctified” (Hebrews 10:14).
The details of the altar point to the fullness of this sacrifice and foreshadows Golgotha. To construct this altar, along with the other articles in the tabernacle, God told Moses, “I have called by name Bezalel…of the tribe of Judah, and I have filled him with the Spirit of God” for this work (Exodus 31:2-3). Jesus, from the same tribe and filled with the Holy Spirit, is the architect of the true temple. As both high priest and sacrifice, Jesus says of his life, “No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:18). Later, it is said,
“But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things that have come, then through the greater and more perfect tent (not made with hands, that is, not of this creation) he entered once for all into the holy places, not by means of the blood of goats and calves but by means of his own blood, thus securing an eternal redemption.” (Hebrews 9:11-12)
Acacia Wood
The Jewish Encyclopedia describes acacia as a “hard and durable but light wood; at first yellowish, but gradually turning very dark, like ebony, a large, spreading, thorny tree with many branches.” Acacia is one of the few trees that grew near the Israelites, and serendipitously, it is ideally suited for their purpose. Harder than oak and maple, its density makes it solid and durable, yet it is light enough to handle and easily shape into items for the tabernacle. The use of wood in the structure of the altar points us both to the humanity of Jesus’ life as a carpenter before he began his ministry and the way he chose to die for us: “Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law by becoming a curse for us–for it is written, Cursed is everyone who is hanged on a tree” (Galatians 3:13).
The symbolism of acacia wood is equal to its practicality. One man, a passerby from Cyrene named Simon, could bear its weight but maintain the weight of another man, the sinless Son of God. It begins with a beautiful color but turns very dark, like ebony, like the blood our Savior shed for us on that wood. On it, we see our death to sin, “crucified with Christ” (Galatians 2:20), but then under it, the home we gain is “like a grain of mustard seed, [which] becomes larger than all the garden plants and puts out branches, so that the birds of the air can make nests in its shade” (Mark 4:30-32).
Five Cubits
The number five is significance in the Bible. It indicates God’s unmerited grace toward us and his generosity in dealing with his fallen creation. The Pentateuch comprises five books that contain the patriarchs of our faith, the preservation of Israel through the famine, and the Israelites’ freedom from slavery up to the edge of the Promised Land. Hiram made “ten basins in which to wash, and set five on the south side, and five on the north side. In these they were to rinse off what was used for the burnt offering, and the sea was for the priests to wash in” (2 Chronicles 4:6). The incarnate Jesus appears in five books: the four gospels and the Book of Acts. Between the historical books and prophetic books of the Old Testament are five poetic books (Job Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, and the Song of Solomon); Psalms has five sections, each tablet has five commandments.
But the Koren Talmud virtually surrounds the altar with the number five. Five handbreadths equal a cubit, and “The altar had five cubits of five handbreadths: The cubit of the height of the base, the cubit of the width of the foundation, the cubit of the width of the surrounding ledge, the cubit of the height of the horns, and the cubit of the width of the horns.”
However, the most precious indication of God’s grace is the five types of sacrifices that open the Book of Leviticus, indicating various aspects of Jesus’ work. Pastor J. Sidlow Baxter (1903–1999) describes the offerings this way (my summary):
Burnt. Christ offered Himself without spot to God. His divinity on the cross, not so much bearing sin as accomplishing the Father’s will.
Meal. The perfect humanity of Christ. The emphasis is on the life offered and states the perfection of his character, which gives the offering its unspeakable value.
Peace. Restored communion from the perfect satisfaction rendered in Christ. God is appeased. Man is reconciled. There is peace.
Sin. Our Sin nature. “For our sake he made him to be sin who knew no sin” (2 Corinthians 5:21).
Trespass. For our sins. Christ as Expiator, making restitution for the injury caused by our wrongdoing.
God’s priestly representative carries out all five sacrifices, indicating we cannot approach God alone. Devotionally, Charles Spurgeon sees “five steps to the mercy-seat” in Psalm 102, and English clergyman William Greenhill (1591–1671) notes Ezekiel’s “five steps of mercy” into the presence of God. But the Encyclopaedia Biblica and others/ point out there were literally “five steps to the gate of the inner court.” But these are stairs we cannot climb to reach God’s glory but are stairs that only Jesus could descend to save us. “He who descended is the one who also ascended far above all the heavens, that he might fill all things” (Ephesians 4:10). And, at the very to the entrance of the inner sanctuary, “the doorposts were five-sided” (1 Kings 6:31), or “five-tiered” forming “interlocking frames,” as described in Where Heaven and Earth Meet: Jerusalem’s Sacred Esplanade.
Four Sides
While the shape of the altar may not contain intentionality in pointing to God’s plan of salvation for his creation, it can certainly be used as a kind of mnemonic device for a meditation on he “who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:3-4).
The square shape of the altar, with four sides of equal length, speaks of grace that applies equally to all the Israelites who come to it. The term four winds can indicate from everywhere, as when Jesus said, “he will send out the angels and gather his elect from the four winds, from the ends of the earth to the ends of heaven (Mark 13:17). Eden had four rivers flowing out to nourish the world. Numbers 2 describes how the tribes of Israel were assigned in four groups around the tabernacle in the four cardinal points of the compass.
In Numbers 7, the twelve tribes bring sacrifices for the initial consecration of the tabernacle. Seventy-one verses describe how each tribe brings its offerings. Notably, each tribe brings the same offering, and–as if to make it abundantly clear–each tribe’s offering, though the same, is written twelve times, like an early version of the copy-and-paste function in word processing. One by one, each tribe comes forward with precisely the same offerings for twelve days.
Yet, though they all sacrifice equally, God would apportion the land differently according to the tribe’s size. “To a large tribe you shall give a large inheritance, and to a small tribe you shall give a small inheritance” (Numbers 26:54). Numbers 2 not only describes the camping assignments of the twelve tribes but also provides a census of their numbers. The tribes vary significantly in size, from a high of 74,600 (Judah) to a low of 32,200 (Manasseh). Yet, none can come before the Holy Place except by the precise kind and amount of sacrifice prescribed by God, equal and identical for all the tribes regardless of size or placement. The tribe of Manasseh could ask, “Why should we be required to give the same amount as Judah when we are less than half the size of Judah?” The tribe of Judah could ask, “Why should Manasseh get equal access to God’s glory and protection when they are only half our size?”
The master of the house who hired laborers throughout the day was criticized at the end of the day for paying them all the same but said, “Am I not allowed to do what I choose with what belongs to me?” (Matthew 20:1, 15). God “pays” us eternal life, no matter when we come to him. He chooses mercy for all and exacts the same price for that mercy, his Son. No more need we claim; no less can he accept. The identical sacrifices given by all twelve tribes reflect this mercy. The Psalmist says, “he has redeemed from trouble and gathered in from the lands, from the east and from the west, from the north and from the south” (Psalms 107:2-3). God offers redemption to all, his redeemed come from all over the world, and all are redeemed at the same cost.
Such is the picture of our position before God: he is not a respecter of our status, power, wealth, or anything we have to offer. By Jesus alone, we “draw near to the throne of grace” (Hebrews 4:16). Even though “all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” (Isaiah 64:6), God says, “I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with pure vestments” (Zechariah 3:4). His clothes, his choice. The sinless life, then death and resurrection of his Son, is the required offering and the only offering that suffices. “What shall a man give in return for his soul?” (Matthew 16:26). Nothing we have. Jesus “has appeared once for all at the end of the ages to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself” (Hebrews 9:26). We all have the same inheritance–eternal fellowship with him and the saints through him.
Four Corners
As the four sides of the altar face all the Israelites aligned on those sides, the four corners point through the gaps between them, past the Israelites, to the rest of the world. Peter “saw the heavens opened and something like a great sheet descending, being let down by its four corners upon the earth” and realizes that “everyone who believes in him receives forgiveness of sins” (Acts 10:10, 43). Just as God saved the Israelite nation, he now saves all who come to him by faith. “I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth. After this I looked, and behold, a great multitude that no one could number, from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb” (Revelation 7:1, 9).
The altar invites people from the earth’s four corners to accept God’s gift. God sent his Son “in order that the world might be saved through him” (John 3:17). Also, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Galatians 3:28). English chaplain Nathaniel Hardy (1618–1670) says, “Indeed, what part of the world is it that Christ’s propitiation reacheth not to? St. Basil, putting the question why the world was redeemed by a cross, maketh this answer, that a cross hath four distinct parts, which represent the four parts of the world, to all which the efficacy of the cross reacheth.”
The four sides and four corners are eight directions now as the gospel reaches Jews and Gentiles. All the world’s people going forward came from the eight people saved in Noah’s Ark. The Feast of the Tabernacles lasts eight days and memorializes God’s redemption of his people from slavery in Egypt. Jesus conquers our slavery to death on the eighth day of the week, in a manner, as Augustine calls, “the day upon which He rose, the eighth namely.”
Jesus conquering death on the eighth day of the week changed the concept of the day of rest. Whereas before it came at the end of the week–salvation’s rest after our works to gain that rest–it now comes at the beginning of the week–salvation’s rest followed by our works of gratitude and service. God’s grace through Jesus is everywhere, all the time. “The heavens declare the glory of God,” and his “voice goes through all the earth, to the end of the world” (Psalms 19:1, 4) so that “people will come from east and west, and from north and south, and recline at the table in the kingdom of God” (Luke 13:29), a God “who desires all people to be saved” (1 Timothy 2:2).
Horns
Horns symbolize strength and victory in battles, physical and spiritual. For the Israelites, in their most commemorated historical moment, “God brings them out of Egypt and is for them like the horns of the wild ox” (Numbers 23:22). So it is for us when God “has visited and redeemed his people and has raised up a horn of salvation for us in the house of his servant David” (Luke 1:69, 2 Samuel 22:3, Psalms 18:2) through the cross of Jesus Christ.
“Bind the festal sacrifice with cords, up to the horns of the altar!” (Psalms 118:27). These bindings and the horns used to restrain the animal are a picture of Jesus being bound to the four ends of the cross. But while a sacrificial animal must be tied up to keep it from escaping, Jesus allows himself to be restrained on our behalf: “I lay down my life that I may take it up again. No one takes it from me, but I lay it down of my own accord” (John 10:17-18). He can call up “twelve legions of angels” (Matthew 26:53) but does not because he chooses to be “obedient to the point of death” (Philippians 2:8). Jesus is bound to the cross by men, but it is his choice and the Father’s will for it to happen.
After killing the animal, the priest is to take “part of the blood of the bull and put it on the horns of the altar with your finger” (Exodus 29:12). In a horrible intimacy, the priest bloodies the four horns as God’s faithful and final High Priest bloodies the four ends of the cross with his thorn-crowned head, and wounded hands and feet. As the angel tells Abraham, “God will provide for himself the lamb for a burnt offering, my son” (Genesis 22:8). He not only provides it himself, but he himself is the lamb.
Over this altar, the priest makes many sacrifices, some as wave offerings and others as heave offerings. Each speaks to an aspect of Jesus’ work on the cross. The Jewish Encyclopedia describes the wave offering as “waved backward and forward in line with the altar, a symbolical expression of the reciprocity of the giving and receiving on the part of God and the sacrifice. They were waved toward the four sides of the world.” This speaks of Jesus’ sacrifice for all, his hands outstretched to the world. The wave offering is part of the third offering in Leviticus, the peace offering, which is symbolic of bringing peace to the world. It is the only offering of the five in which the offeror may consume what is offered, as though breaking bread in peace with the Lord himself, reminiscent of the Last Supper.
The heave offering in Numbers 18 is called a covenant of salt, preserving the promise God made to David, fulfilled in his offspring: “All the heave offerings of the holy things is a covenant of salt forever before the Lord with you and your descendants with you” (Numbers 18:19, NKJV) and “the Lord God of Israel gave the kingship over Israel forever to David and his sons by a covenant of salt” (2 Chronicles 13:5). To fulfill this covenant, God “will cause a righteous Branch to spring up for David, this is the name by which it will be called: The Lord is our righteousness” (Jeremiah 33:15-16). However, the priest takes this heave offering from what has already been tithed by the individual worshippers, so it is the priest’s offering: “When you take the tithes, offer up a heave offering, a tenth of the tithe” (Numbers 18:26, NKJV).
This heave offering is a sacrifice from the priest alone. During the ritual, Easton’s Bible Dictionary describes the priest’s actions as “presenting the offering by a motion up and down, a heave offering to the Lord as ruler of heaven.” In this respect, the heave offering is to exalt God alone, just as a tithe does: “Every tithe of the land is the Lord’s; it is holy to the Lord” (Leviticus 27:30). Offered only by the priest, it carries a particular meaning of Jesus as our high priest. The heave offering is mentioned over 800 times in the Mishnah, a book of 874 pages, indicating the emphasis in Jewish worship on glorifying God and God alone. Jesus says, “Father, glorify your name,” to which the Father responds, “I have glorified it, and I will glorify it again” (John 12:28). The cross fully reveals that glorification.
One of the cruelties of crucifixion is that the person usually dies not from bodily injury or blood loss but from asphyxiation. Reverend Fleming Rutledge describes the impossibility of “passive exhalation” for the crucified because “each exhaled breath could only be achieved by tremendous effort as they must repeatedly push themselves up with their legs to catch each breath until their strength gives out from exhaustion and they suffocate.” For three hours, Jesus repeatedly struggles up and collapses down “gasping and heaving,” as Rutledge says until he can push himself up no longer. He is this heave offering.
Rutledge further notes it would be “difficult to say anything because speech is only possible during exhalation.” So Jesus, in his final heave, inhales one last time and “calling out with a loud voice, said, ‘Father, into your hands I commit my spirit!’ And having said this he breathed his last” (Luke 23:46). He alone is the adequate heave offering and the last one this world will ever need. Jesus’ sacrifice, like the priest’s tenth, while voluntary, was also obligatory and required by God to save us.
And as is appropriate for this offering, he exalts God to the end: “I glorified you on earth, having accomplished the work that you gave me to do. And now, Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed” (John 17:4). As English clergyman Nicholas Byfield (1579–1622) put it, “It was needful our Saviour should be upon the cross, that so he might be the accomplishment of what was signified by the heave offering and the brazen serpent, and that so he might bear the special curse of the law for us; of all deaths, to death on the tree being, by a special law of God, made accursed.”
Some translations add shoulder to the word heave, calling this offering the “heave shoulder” (Leviticus 7:34, Numbers 6:20, KJV). Easton’s Bible Dictionary narrows it to “the right shoulder, which fell to the priest in presenting thank offerings called the heave shoulder.” Isaiah adds further insight into the burden Jesus bears for us: “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isaiah 9:6). By his sacrifice on the cross, Jesus conquers death and is King.
Bronze
The altar is overlaid with bronze, a metal harder than silver or gold and able to withstand constant use. As such, bronze represents the hard judgment Jesus suffers because of our sins. The Israelites complained about leaving Egypt ten times, but two are significant regarding the altar.
In Korah’s rebellion, 250 Israelites decide to usurp Aaron’s priestly role and burn incense in censors before the Lord. It did not turn out well: “And the earth opened its mouth and swallowed them up, with their households and all the people who belonged to Korah and all their goods” (Numbers 16:32). Significantly, at God’s direction, the authorized priests then “took the bronze censers, which those who were burned had offered, and they were hammered out as a covering for the altar, to be a reminder to the people of Israel, so that no outsider, who is not of the descendants of Aaron, should draw near to burn incense before the LORD” (Numbers 16:39-40).
Later, as the Israelites continued to complain about leaving Egypt, “the Lord sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died” (Numbers 21:6). But again, at God’s direction, “Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live” (Numbers 21:8).
In the first instance, bronze is embedded into the very structure of the altar, on the very top itself, on which blood flows continually over a holy object that had been used for a sinful purpose. This hearkens to Eden and reminds us of our constant need for redemption, which can only come from a perfect priest handling the sacrifice perfectly.
In the other instance, the bronze snake is a picture of judgment for our sins on the pole and, by faith in God’s command to look on it, be saved by it. As a symbol of the cross, it both judges and saves from sin. This wood altar, covered with bronze, has the same message. When we look to the altar of burnt sacrifice, we see the cross with Jesus judged on it, and with our sins judged in him, we are forgiven through him.
Four Horns
The altar’s four horns represent two animals because those horns represent the two sacrificial animals required on many occasions. For example, the Feast of Booths commemorates their exodus from Egypt just as the cross and resurrection commemorate our delivery from sin. Each of the seven days includes sacrifices, including two rams each day. There are other notable examples.
Leviticus 16 describes the unique offerings on the Day of Atonement, including two goats. While one is sacrificed “to make atonement for the holy place for the uncleanness of the people,” the other, the scapegoat, is sent into the wilderness after Aaron had puts “both his hands on the head of the live goat and confess[es] over it all the iniquities of the people of Israel, and all their transgressions, all their sins” (Leviticus 16:21-22).
While it would be a great comfort for them to know that their sins are carried away to a remote area in the wilderness, it is but a temporary comfort as this ritual must be repeated each year. Imagine the worshipper who understands this and considers how compassionate God is in providing continuing relief from their burden. Soon, God will provide another, lasting sacrifice for sin.
In Jesus, our sins are finally removed “as far the east is from the west” (Psalms 103:12). Jesus represents the atonement goat and the scapegoat in that he forgives and cleanses since, as “we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:9). This is “once for all” because Jesus does not go into this wilderness to die only, but to die and be raised to life and “now appears[s] in the presence of God on our behalf” forever (Hebrews 9:26, 24).
When Abraham ascends Mount Moriah to sacrifice Isaac, two sacrifices are described, one given and one promised. When Isaac asks, “Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?” Abraham responds, “God will provide for himself the lamb for the burnt offering” (Genesis 22:7-8). When God sees that Abraham would obey and sacrifice his son, an angel intervenes and provides a “ram, caught in a thicket by his horns,” which Abraham sacrifices instead of his son.
But a ram is not a lamb. Instead, this promised lamb appears fifteen centuries later when John the Baptist proclaims, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29). In these two sacrifices, we see the beginning and the end of God’s redemptive plan. Abraham had “not withheld his son, his only son,” and so “in your offspring shall all the nations of the earth be blessed, because you have obeyed my voice” (Genesis 22:18). So, too, Jesus obeys his Father, is obedient to death on a cross, and becomes the spiritual “firstborn among many brothers” (Romans 8:29).
One Piece
The four horns are formed seamlessly into the altar. For emphasis, the phrase one piece is repeated three times (Exodus 27:2, 30:2, 38:2). Horns are the continuation of the bone of the skull, covered with keratin, skin, and hair. As such, the horns are one piece with the skull in that the vascular system in the skull extends into the core of this bony structure and is inseparable from it. With horns at the four corners, sacrifices are made between them in the place where the skulls of the animals would be. In effect, this place is the place of the skull between the horns. Golgotha is the eventual Place of a Skull in which we see the four points of the cross instead of the four horns of the altar.
On Good Friday, Golgotha lacked the horns until the cross was placed there and lacked the sacrifice until Jesus was crucified there, completing the illustration the altar provides. Isaiah 11 says,
“There shall come forth a shoot from the stump of Jesse, and a branch from his roots shall bear fruit. The wolf shall dwell with the lamb. In that day the Lord will extend his hand yet a second time to recover the remnant that remains of his people.” (Isaiah 11:1)
On the cross, justice and mercy unite like the wolf and the lamb. Justice requires us to perish for our sins, while mercy relieves us of this outcome. But for God to be just, we would receive no mercy; for us to receive mercy, God would not be just. Jesus is sinless yet bore our sins on the cross, so he undeservedly took the wrath that was ours while we received mercy. The atonement goat and scapegoat symbolize justice and mercy, representing the dual accomplishments of the cross.
A Heavenly Altar
Jesus’ sacrifice is superior: “For I desire steadfast love and not sacrifice, the knowledge of God rather than burnt offerings” (Hosea 6:6). The blood flowing onto that cross and from Jesus’ side redeems our souls, even as we await the “redemption of our bodies” (Romans 8:23). Faith in God’s means of provision knows no temporal limit. Although the blood on the bronze altar did not take away sins, faith in its anticipated future and perfect sacrifice did. Far from being wasted, this regular shedding of blood is an ongoing opportunity for the worshipper to find true faith in God at any time in history. Thomas Goodwin wrote,
“It is highly observable, that the gate through which he was led to be crucified was termed the sheep-gate, for the sheep that were to be sacrificed were kept in meadows without that gate, and so were led, as he was, to be sacrificed, but they in the temple; all which sheep and sacrifices and temple were types of him and his sacrifice, as in…Isaiah 53:10. Christ suffered without the gate, in mount Golgotha, unto which he was led, as the other sheep were through that gate to the slaughter. He was led as a sheep to the slaughter; and like a lamb dumb before the shearer, so opened he not his mouth. It is also by Peter applied to him; having termed him, the Lamb without spot, by whose blood we are redeemed.”
This essay is part of Shadows of Christ: Twelve Essays.
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