If you were to stay with me for a period of several days, you would learn that I am a person who much of the time is not happy. The situation of today’s Christians makes me very sad. Consider the people around you and what they are doing. What do they know concerning God’s economy? How pitiful is the situation! The Lord Jesus has delayed His coming back for nearly two thousand years. Of course, to Him two thousand years are as two days. What is a long time to us is a short time to Him. From the Lord’s point of view, two hundred fifty years is like six hours, one-fourth of a day. It is Peter who says that with the Lord a thousand years are as one day (2 Pet. 3:8). In the same chapter Peter passes over the millennium and speaks directly concerning the new heavens and the new earth in eternity (2 Pet. 3:13). This indicates that even a thousand years is not long to the Lord. But as far as I am concerned, the Lord has delayed His coming a long time.
Who today is praying that God would dispense His grace into people? Who is praying in such a way as to motivate God’s throne of authority to judge this age? Christ has a great deal of incense, but where are the prayers that are qualified to receive the incense of Christ? Is Christ able to add His incense to your prayers? I am afraid that too few of our prayers are qualified to have Christ’s incense added to them. Therefore, it is very important for us to see that concerning our prayer life, Christ is the tabernacle, Christ is the food offered, and Christ is also the incense.
According to the Bible, the two altars are linked. Exodus 30:27 and 28 say that both the altar of incense and the altar of burnt offering were anointed with the holy anointing oil. After the tabernacle and its utensils were anointed, the two altars were anointed. Exodus 30:26-28 says, “And you shall anoint with it the tent of meeting, and the ark of the testimony, and the table and all its utensils, and the lampstand and its utensils, and the altar of incense, and the altar of burnt offering and all its utensils, and the laver and its base.” Notice that the sequence in these verses is the tabernacle, the ark, the table, the lampstand, the altar of incense, and the altar of burnt offering. Thus, the anointing connects the two altars.
The anointing signifies God’s move. According to God’s move, therefore, the incense altar and the altar of burnt offering are connected. The anointing is the connecting element.
The altars were also connected by the blood of the sin offering offered for propitiation, or atonement, on the day of Atonement. The day of Atonement, or as we would prefer to translate it, the day of propitiation, occurred once a year. On that day the most important sin offering was offered. After the blood of this offering was shed, it was brought from the altar into the Holy Place and applied to the four corners of the incense altar. A portion of the blood was also brought into the Holy of Holies, and the remainder was poured out around the altar in the outer court. This propitiating blood also connected the two altars.
Furthermore, the two altars were connected by the fire that burned on the altar in the outer court. If we read the Old Testament carefully, we shall see that no strange fire was allowed to be on the incense altar for the burning of the incense. Rather, the only fire that could be used to burn the incense was the fire from the altar of burnt offering, the fire which had come down from the heavens. That fire was not strange. Any other kind of fire, however, would have been strange. The heavenly fire, the fire that came from God, that was used to burn the offerings on the altar of burnt offering was also used to burn the incense on the incense altar. By this we see that the fire that burned the offerings was also an element that linked these two altars.
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 offering altar 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 offering altar was a burning of judgment, but the burning on the incense altar was a burning of acceptance.
These two kinds of burning and ascending 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 ascending 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 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. By these three elements—the anointing, the blood, and the fire—the two altars are connected.