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About Jesus - Steve Sweetman Erecting
Altars In response to a
request, I will answer the following two-part question.
What does the Bible say about altars, and, do altars have any
relevance to a New Testament Christian?
There are two types of
altars seen in the Old Testament. Genesis
8:20 pictures one type of altar. It's
an altar where burnt offerings were sacrificed unto the LORD. "Then Noah built an
altar to the LORD and, taking some of all
the clean animals and clean birds, he sacrificed burnt offerings on
it." Genesis 35:3 portrays an
altar erected as a memorial. "Then come, let us
go up to In Matthew, Mark, Luke,
and John, the words "altar" and "altars" refer to Old
Testament altars or the altar in the Jewish Temple.
In Acts 17:23, 1 Corinthians 9:13 and 10:18 we read about pagan
altars. James 2:21 refers to
an altar that Abraham built. All
other references to an altar are seen in Hebrews 7:13, 9:4, 13:10,
Revelation 6:9, 8:3, 8:5, 9:13, 11:1, 14:18, and 16:7, all of which refer
to the heavenly altar, except for Hebrews 9:4 that refers to the Old
Testament altar. In defence of
this heavenly altar, Hebrews 13:10 reads: "We have an altar
from which those who minister at the tabernacle have no right to
eat." Passages like Hebrews
13:10 are important to the New Testament Christian because they show the
one and only, all-important, contemporary altar in heaven.
Why, then, has the church placed such an emphasis on earthly altars
over the centuries when the real altar is in heaven? The
answer is two-fold.
New Testament Christians
consistently misunderstand how they are to relate to the Old Testament and
the Law of Moses. This leads
to misapplying the regulations of the Law, regulations that do not apply
to Christians. Christians
submit to Jesus, not to the Law of Moses.
In fact Jesus has replaced the Law, including its altars, as stated
in verses like Romans 10:4, which reads:
"Christ is the
culmination of the law so that there may be righteousness for everyone who
believes."
The other reason why
altars have been significant throughout church history stems from the
paganization of the church in the fourth century AD.
In order to accommodate pagans and make them feel comfortable in
the church, the church adopted many pagan rituals.
For example, church buildings, including steeples, were constructed
to look like pagan buildings of worship.
This pagan influence led to the dark age of Catholic Christianity,
with its altars and relics that memorialized sacred events and so-called
sacred people they called saints.
The Christian
Reformation of the fifteen hundreds brought some changes to that which was
called church, but in many respects, the old pagan influences remained.
That included altars. The
Evangelical Movement of the seventeen hundreds led in part by John Wesley
and the Methodists used the altar as a place where people could be saved,
and thus the term "altar call."
In the 1970's newly constructed church buildings often replaced the
altar with steps leading to the platform and pulpit.
I agree that many people
have come to Jesus at an altar of prayer in Evangelical church buildings,
but this fact remains. There
is only one altar that counts, and that is in heaven, situated by the
throne where Jesus now offers us salvation.
We know very little about this altar, but this we know.
It has replaced all earthly altars. You might well have been saved as you knelt by an altar in a building we call church, but let it be known, your salvation came directly from the throne of God, not the altar you knelt beside. Let it also be known that there is no need to erect an altar in remembrance of some sacred event in your life. You, in one real sense of the word, are a living altar, a real remembrance of the true altar beside the throne of God where salvation is now being offered. You are that living altar that points all who crosses your path to the altar situated by the throne of grace.
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The
following is an additional comment from my good friend In
Catholic churches one function of the "modern-day' altar is in offering
the "sacrifice" of communion. It is exactly parallel to the Old Testament sacrifices, and it is one reason why in the Catholic churches the
"altar" is still absolutely vital, as is the role of the Priest
who is the only one able to offer the sacrifice. to a Roman Catholic. If
you can't take communion you are going to hell.
A Catholic can't take communion if there is not altar or no priest.
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