In Revelation 8:3-5 Christ is presented as another Angel to execute God’s administration over the earth in the way of ministering to God as the High Priest with the prayers of His saints. Here Christ is revealed as another Angel who presents the prayers of the church to God and carries out the answers to these prayers. The church’s function is mainly to pray, call on the Lord’s name, and cry out to the throne; Christ as another Angel offers all of the church’s prayers to God and brings down the answer to these prayers. His way to bring down the answer is to scatter the answer upon the earth. Christ offers the saints’ prayers to God, adds Himself as the incense to the prayers, receives the answer from God, and pours the answer out upon the earth. This is Christ’s bringing God’s answer back to earth. When He pours out God’s answer to the saints’ prayers, the earth comes under God’s judgment. Today the entire earth is under the answers of the saints’ prayers. In the administration of God’s judgment upon the earth, Christ is the Angel standing in the position of One who has been sent by God.
Revelation 8:3 says, “Another Angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer, and much incense was given to Him to offer with the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne.” There were two altars in the tabernacle: the bronze altar, which is the altar of burnt offering in the outer court, and the golden altar, which is the altar of incense in the Holy Place. The first altar in Revelation 8:3 refers to the altar of burnt offering (cf. Exo. 27:1-8), and the golden altar before the throne refers to the incense altar (cf. 30:1-9). Here Christ is serving and working as another Angel to take incense from the golden incense altar and to add that incense to the prayers of the saints. The golden censer signifies the prayers of the saints, which are brought to God by Christ as another Angel. Incense signifies Christ Himself with all His merit to be added to the prayers of the saints that the saints’ prayers offered upon the golden altar might be acceptable to God. This indicates that our prayers must be accompanied by Christ as incense. In themselves our prayers contain no incense; therefore, Christ as incense must be added to our prayers. Christ is the incense by which our prayers can be accepted, heard, and fulfilled.
This corresponds to Revelation 5:8, which says, “When He took the scroll, the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell before the Lamb, each having a harp and golden bowls full of incense, which bowls are the prayers of the saints.” The bowls are the prayers of the saints, and within the bowls is the incense. Our prayers are the containers, the golden bowls, to be filled with incense. This means that something as the incense, so sweet to God, is in the prayers of the saints. The prayers of the saints are the containers, and the incense is the content. Our prayers are the bowls, and the incense is the content. Many times we have merely the bowls with no content; we have only the prayers without the incense. We need to offer prayers to which the Lord can add Himself as incense.
In Revelation 8 we see Christ as the Priest burning the incense with the fire from the altar of burnt offering (vv. 3-5). Christ came and stood at the altar of burnt offering (cf. Exo. 27:1-8) to get the fire. Then He burned the incense and offered it at the incense altar. These two altars are consummations. We must see that these are not the altars in type but the real altars. The incense altar is in the heavenly tabernacle. But the altar of burnt offering surely cannot be in the heavens; instead, it must be something on this earth. Also, Christ stands by this altar. The earthly altar is a sign of the cross. The cross was not something accomplished in the heavens but on earth. Therefore, Christ standing by the altar of the burnt offering indicates that Christ stands by His cross to get the fire from the cross to burn the incense to offer to God on the incense altar in the heavens.
Of the two altars in the tabernacle, one is outside the tabernacle, and the other is inside the tabernacle. The burnt offering altar is for the incense altar. We can prove this in two ways. First, in the Old Testament the fire used to burn the incense came from the altar of burnt offering. The only fire that could be used to burn the incense was the fire from the altar of burnt offering, the heavenly fire that came from God (Lev. 9:24). Any other kind of fire would have been “strange fire,” like that which the two sons of Aaron offered (10:1). This means that we need to pray based on the redemption of the cross. Redemption at the burnt offering altar is for fellowship at the incense altar. At the altar of burnt offering there is the cleansing of the blood for fellowship. First John 1:7 tells us that in order to maintain the fellowship, we need the cleansing of the blood. Without the altar of burnt offering we do not have the ground to burn the incense, that is, to fellowship with God. Redemption is for fellowship; it brings us back into the fellowship with God. Second, the blood shed upon the offering altar is brought into the Holy Place to be sprinkled upon the four corners of the incense altar (Lev. 4:7a). This again proves that the altar outside the tabernacle is for the one inside the Holy Place.
This indicates that what connects the altar in the outer court and the altar in the tabernacle is the redeeming blood and the burning fire. First, the blood shed on the outer altar had to be brought into the tabernacle to be put on the inner altar. This means that before we spend time in the presence of God to burn the incense, we must always apply the blood. We can never burn the incense without the blood. We must always apply the blood in our fellowship with God.
Second, the fire which came down from heaven to burn the offerings on the altar in the outer court had to be the fire that burned the incense on the altar in the tabernacle. Both Exodus and Leviticus show us that no one could enter into the tabernacle to burn incense before God and draw near to God except by passing through the altar of burnt offering. The altar is the cross. This means that without passing through the cross, no one can be before God and have prayer which is a fragrant incense that is acceptable to God.
This implies that we can never spend time in the presence of God if we come with strange fire. Strange fire is our natural emotion, our natural enthusiasm, our natural energy, or our natural effort in prayer. We must never be on fire with anything natural; instead, we must be burned by the heavenly fire. We must be on fire and fervent in our spirit but not by anything natural (Rom. 12:11). Our natural effort and energy must be consumed by the heavenly fire. We must be in our spirit by the burning of the heavenly fire, not by our emotions or our enthusiasm. All that is natural must be burned away so that only the heavenly fire remains.
Sometimes we may sense that we are so much on fire for the Lord, but if we check ourselves, we see that we are not burning with heavenly fire but with strange fire. We may have enthusiasm, but it is not heavenly; rather, it is natural. We are fervent within, but we are fervent naturally, not spiritually. We are fervent in an earthly way, not in a heavenly way. The more we are fervent naturally, the more we are dead in the spirit. Natural fervency brings in spiritual death. However, the more we are fervent with the heavenly fire, the more we are living in our spirit.
The burning fire indicates that whatever we are needs to be reduced to ashes. We need to be burned so that we become ashes. Whatever we pray at the golden altar of incense will be an intercession. At the incense altar we do not pray much for ourselves. Instead, we pray for God’s economy, His dispensing, His move, His recovery, the churches, and the saints. We intercede in this way spontaneously.
When we pray at the incense altar, it is very difficult to be occupied with ourselves. The reason self is not involved with the prayers offered at the incense altar is that in order to pray at this altar, we must first become ashes; that is, we must become nothing. To intercede at the second altar requires that we first be reduced to nothing. If we have become ashes, we will not have our natural conduct, our natural sight, or our natural virtue. We will not have natural conduct replacing Christ as our life supply, we will not have natural sight replacing Christ as our light, and we will not have natural virtues replacing Christ as our incense. This means that we will no longer be natural. Therefore, with us there will be no veil. In place of the veil, we will have the Ark, Christ as God’s testimony. As a result, we will be qualified to intercede at the incense altar. When we come to this altar, our unique taste, our only interest, is to pray.
From the altar of burnt offering a sweet savor ascended to God. A sweet savor also ascended to Him from the incense altar. Hence, from both the burning on the altar of burnt offering and from the burning on the incense altar a sweet savor ascended to God for His satisfaction. There was a difference, however, between these two kinds of burnings. The burning on the burnt offering altar was a burning of judgment, but the burning on the incense altar was a burning of acceptance.
The burning at the outer altar and the ascending at the second altar reflect each other. In particular, the first kind of sweet savor, that from the altar of burnt offering, is reflected in the second, that from the incense altar. The sweet savor that ascended to God from the altar of burnt offering is reflected in the savor that ascended to Him from the incense altar. Here, in these two kinds of sweet savor, we have the sweetness of Christ in His death at the burnt offering altar and the sweetness of Christ in His resurrection and ascension at the incense altar. The fragrance of Christ in His resurrection and ascension is for our acceptance.
At the outer altar Christ, as the reality of all the offerings, satisfies all the requirements of God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory. As such, Christ also satisfies the hunger of the priests. The offerings satisfy both God and the priests. Then the satisfied priests go into the tabernacle with the blood to offer the incense. At the inner altar the incense offered is Christ mingled with the priests. This incense, spiritually speaking, is the prayer from within us as the sweetness of Christ. Our prayer must be the expression of the sweetness of Christ. It must be Christ uttered and expressed in a fine and sweet way.