Exodus 27:1 “You are to construct the altar of acacia wood. The altar must be square, seven and a half feet long, and seven and a half feet wide; it must be four and a half feet high. 2 Make horns for it on its four corners; the horns are to be of one piece. Overlay it with bronze.  CSB

Whenever the priests came to the Tabernacle area, the first thing they saw was a large bronze altar. Whenever bronze is used in the Bible it speaks of judgment. It was upon this great bronze altar that sacrificial animals were slain and offered up to God.

Those making the offering would place their hands upon the animal’s head in order to identify themselves with the sacrifice. Then the priest would slay the animal and offer it up upon the fire in the altar. As the animal burned, the smoke would rise to heaven as a sweet-smelling aroma before God.

Each and every morning the priests would offer up a sacrifice to God.  The need for a continuous, daily sacrifice was two-fold:

1. Man sins continuously

2. The blood of bulls and goats can never take away our sins

Thousands of animals were sacrificed and burned upon this altar during the 1400 years of its existence. But today there is no bronze altar in Jerusalem. Some might think that is because the Temple was destroyed by the Romans in 70 AD. Yet there is another and more important reason why there is no longer a bronze altar. There is no longer the need for it.

All the animals that were offered upon the bronze altar were only symbolic of what it takes to save us. We read from the book of Hebrews –

Hebrews 10:1 Since the law has [only] a shadow of the good things to come, and not the actual form of those realities, it can never perfect the worshipers by the same sacrifices they continually offer year after year. 2 Otherwise, wouldn’t they have stopped being offered, since the worshipers, once purified, would no longer have any consciousness of sins?

3 But in the sacrifices there is a reminder of sins every year. 4 For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.

5 Therefore, as He was coming into the world, He said: You did not want sacrifice and offering, but You prepared a body for Me. 6 You did not delight in whole burnt offerings and sin offerings. 7 Then I said, “See, I have come- it is written about Me in the volume of the scroll- to do Your will, O God!”

8 After He says above, You did not desire or delight in sacrifices and offerings, whole burnt offerings and sin offerings, (which are offered according to the law), 9 He then says, See, I have come to do Your will. He takes away the first to establish the second. 10 By this will, we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once and for all.

11 Now every priest stands day after day ministering and offering time after time the same sacrifices, which can never take away sins. 12 But this man, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. 13 He is now waiting until His enemies are made His footstool. 14 For by one offering He has perfected forever those who are sanctified. CSB

The great bronze altar and its thousands of sacrifices were only earthly shadows of heaven’s reality. The offering up of the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away our sins. That can only be accomplished by the sacrifice of God’s perfect lamb – the Lord Jesus Christ.

Then I said, “See, I have come- it is written about Me in the volume of the scroll- to do Your will, O God!