"Make an altar of acacia wood for burning incense. It is to be square, a cubit long and a cubit wide, and two cubits high---its horns of one piece with it. Overlay the top and all the sides and the horns with pure gold, and make a gold mounting around it." (Exodus 30:1-3) The description of the altar of incense is very similar to that of the altar for burning sacrifices. These two altars, plus the Ark of the Covenant and the table for the bread, will go well together and will be carried in the same manner. "Make two gold rings for the altar below the molding---two on each of the opposite sides---to hold the poles to carry it. Make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold." (Exodus 30:4-5) Below I'm inserting an artist's drawing of what the altar of incense may have looked like.
The Lord not only directs the making of the tabernacle items but He also directs their placement within the tabernacle. "Put the altar in front of the curtain that shield the ark of the covenant law---before the atonement cover that is over the tablets of the covenant law---where I will meet with you." (Exodus 30:6) The altar of incense is very close to the Most Holy Place. It's the final piece of furniture before reaching the curtain that separates the Most Holy Place from the remainder of the tabernacle.
Aaron (and each high priest who succeeds him) is to offer incense on this altar twice a day. "Aaron must burn fragrant incense on the altar every morning when he tends the lamps. He must burn incense again when he lights the lamps at twilight so incense will burn regularly before the Lord for the generations to come." (Exodus 30:7-8)
The smell of this incense masked any unpleasant smells in the tabernacle or its enclosure that might have arisen from the offerings that were brought. In addition many scholars think the incense symbolized prayer, citing examples from the books of Psalms and Revelation. David said to the Lord, "May my prayer be set before You like incense; may the lifting up of my hands be like the evening sacrifice." (Psalm 141:2) David was not a priest and it would not have been lawful for him to go into the tabernacle and burn incense on the altar or burn the evening or morning sacrifice. But he could symbolically make these offerings to the Lord by going to Him in prayer and by praising and thanking Him with upraised hands. The words of the Apostle John also give us a clue that the Lord regards our prayers as sweet smelling incense. When John was given the visions of Revelation by the Lord Jesus Christ, he saw golden bowls of incense and he was told that this incense was "the prayers of God's people". (Revelation 5:8)
If the incense on the altar in the tabernacle truly does represent prayer, then we can easily see why this altar is the closest object to the curtain behind which resides the atonement cover (also known as the mercy seat). The inner room that contained the mercy seat was considered the closest thing to heaven on earth because the glory of the Lord is going to descend upon it. Though the Lord is everywhere, during the years while the tabernacles stands He is going to be "more present" in the inner room than He is anywhere else on earth. The incense is offered on an altar right outside the curtain to the inner room because the smoke of the incense (like the prayers) is going to enter in behind the curtain into the very presence of God. In this same way, our own prayers enter into the Most Holy Place of heaven where God sits enthroned eternally. Just as no one could ever enter the Most Holy Place on earth except the high priest once a year with a blood offering, no one but the Lord Jesus Christ could enter the Most Holy Place in heaven once and for all with His own blood offering. But because the high priest could enter in, he symbolically took all the people he represented in with him. The prayers the people prayed and the prayers the high priest prayed on their behalf entered in behind the curtain. And when Christ entered the Most Holy Place in heaven, He symbolically took with Him everyone He represents---everyone who will ever place their trust in Him. Christ is now seated at the right hand of God where He continually intercedes for us. (Isaiah 53:9, Romans 8:34, Hebrews 7:25)
Soon in our study of Exodus the Lord will provide the recipe for the specific type of incense that is to be burned on this altar. Other types of incense and other types of offerings will not be acceptable upon this altar. "Do not offer on this altar any other incense or any burnt offering or any grain offering, and do not pour a drink offering on it." (Exodus 30:9) In Leviticus 10 two of Aaron's sons are going to pay with their lives for making the poor decision to bring to the Lord an unacceptable offering of incense and fire. There is no excuse for them doing such a thing. These two priests---who are sons of the high priest---know the correct recipe by heart. They know that the Lord has the right to choose what is acceptable and what is not, yet they will openly defy Him. Their judgment is so harsh, I think, because of the office they hold. Their influence over the people is so great and the example they set is so important that if the Lord allowed them to approach Him by any other means than that which He has carefully described, the people would have begun to treat their relationship with the Lord too casually to have any real relationship with Him at all. It's true that the Lord is our friend, but it's also true that He is holy, and we cannot honestly say we are in a friendship with God unless we respect Him. We respect the feelings and the boundaries of our human friends, don't we? If we don't, they aren't going to want to be our friends for very long. Nobody is going to want to be our friend if we only care about ourselves and are just using them for our own benefit. Have you ever heard the expression, "With friends like that you don't need enemies"? A person with a bad friend is no better off than if he had an enemy. In the same way, we aren't establishing a friendship with God if we don't respect His feelings and boundaries. We might as well call ourselves His enemies because God---like us---doesn't need friends who don't actually care about Him.
We can compare the bringing of this strange and unlawful incense to the modern idea that there are "many paths to God" and that man is to choose his own path and find his own way. There is absolutely nothing in the Holy Bible to back up such a notion. In both the Old Testament and the New Testament we find God clearly laying out the path to Him. If there were "many paths to God" then why was there such a strict, highly detailed religious system in the Old Testament? If there were "many paths to God" then why did Christ sacrifice Himself in the New Testament? What a waste all this would have been if there were many paths to God! But since God is God, and since His word is law, and since He will have the last word on everything, He is the only One who has the right to choose how we are to approach Him. He is the only One who can choose what type of offering is acceptable to Him. He has chosen His Son! It's only by God the Son, who shed His blood for us, that we can approach God's mercy seat. It's only the blood of Christ applied to our hearts that makes us acceptable in the sight of a holy God. It's only our faith in Christ that makes our prayers smell like sweet incense to God and it's only our faith in Christ that makes an offering out of the empty hands we lift heavenwards in praise. Nothing else will do, which is why the Lord Jesus Christ clearly pointed out the one and only path to God: "I am the way and the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me." (John 14:6)
Amen! He couldn't have made it any simpler. We're not left to our own devices to try to figure out the way of salvation. We're not stumbling about blindly in the dark hoping to find a doorway that lets us through to the presence of God. We've been told the one way to God, and that one way is offered to every human being on the face of the earth. No one is excluded or disqualified from coming to God through Christ. No matter who you are, where you've been, or what you've done, you're invited to become a child of God through the one way into His presence and heart.
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