It is a natural transition of thought from the dove and olive to the Altar—the advent and action of the Holy Ghost leads to worship.
The altar was a type of the basis of worship; and, being so, of course the only antitype is Christ. It has three aspects: the stone altar, which is typical in a general way of the basis of reverential approach to God; the brazen altar in the court of the tabernacle—the basis of the sinner's approach and forgiveness; and the golden altar within the veil, the basis of adoration. In the second case, the brass over the wood expresses the power of Christ to sustain judgment, sin being in question. In the third case we see expressed, in His humanity (the wood) and His divine righteousness (the gold,) that which shall form the only and sufficient foundation of eternal praise to God; and in the first case here referred to, Gen. 8:29, we see a type of what is more general and comprehensive, the fulfillment of which shall be seen in the general approach to, and acknowledgment of, God in the millennial age, whereof we read, “In that day there shall be an altar to the Lord in the midst of the land of Egypt...The Lord of hosts shall bless, saying, Blessed be Egypt my people, and Assyria the work of my hands, and Israel, mine inheritance.” The other special typical features of the stone altar seem to be its ready accessibility, its stability, and the order (Ex. 20) that no human elaborations be permitted on it.
It is important to see that the (material) altar is only a type. To retain it in use now, since the Anti-type has come, is to prefer the shadow to the substance. “We have an altar whereof they have no right to eat which [clinging to the old forms and external symbols] serve the tabernacle." Happily however God gives people more than their rights and it is not to be doubted that many who cleave to ancient types and symbols, do nevertheless participate in Christ. But, the apostle reasons, they have no right so. Now that the advent of the Son of God has brought the dispensations to maturity, the effort to drag into the present one the types belonging to the past is an incongruity of the same nature as though a child, grown to manhood, should carry about with him the toy symbols with which he first learned the rudiments of knowledge in the Kindergarten. Such an one would forfeit the “right” to be regarded as a man; though grace or courtesy would perhaps grant him a compassionate recognition.
Upon the altar are offered sacrifices mainly of five distinct characters: the burnt, meat, peace, sin and trespass offerings. The cleansed and renewed world approaches God with the burnt-offering. There is no sin-offering, for the question of sin had been settled by judgment. The five offerings are different aspects of the sacrificial work of our Lord. The salient points of the burnt-offering are its being a voluntary sacrifice and its being wholly dedicated to Jehovah. “The priest shall burn all on the altar.” This is not so with the other sacrifices. It is the expression of a voluntary dedication of the whole being to God—through fires of death and all-searching judgment; fit way to begin a new dispensation.
NOTE. The Deluge was a miracle, which leads me to say that it is very strange that in the many definitions and illustrations of miracles, to be found in theological works, no one seems to have defined it as the Dispensing Power, for this is a precise and complete parallel.
Sovereigns have always claimed to have a power to act, apart from the law, in special circumstances; and, by virtue of their own authority entirely, to dispense certain fiats; this was called the dispensing power, and a remnant of it exists to this day, in the power of a sovereign to pardon a criminal, convicted by the law. (The symbol of this faculty is the curtana, a golden “sword of mercy” without point or edge.) This dispensing power in the hands of a wise ruler, and used sparingly on urgent occasions, would be a beneficial thing; but anyone can see that it was peculiarly liable to abuse. Augustus claimed to be above the law altogether. The Roman pontiffs used the power with prodigality; and in England the Stuart dynasty used it so freely that it produced the Revolution of 1688; and finally the nation greatly limited this power, so that at present there is hardly any of it left. Now if it be such a general thing for a human sovereign to be able to act by the exercise of direct fiat, without the operation of the laws; and if such a power were felt to be so natural a thing that even in the reaction of 1689 some remnant of it was left, surely the sovereign of the universe must be allowed to have and exercise power of the same nature. The dispensing power is beneficial, when used with wisdom, sparingly for special purposes, and so with miracles; but if miracles were frequent or continuous, then the exercise of the power would defeat its own object, and the ordinary processes of natural laws would be disorganized.
The sign of the covenant made between God and men, based upon the work of the altar, is the rainbow. I have referred somewhat to it in Paper II. The Newtonian theory of light and color has been opposed by some notable men such as Hegel and Goethe; brit any child can prove for himself, by a glass prism and a disc, that the colors of this beautiful symbol of hope are composed by the rain clouds dissolving light into its different elements. God is light, and when God is manifested in the flesh, and comes in contact with the clouds of earthly sorrows, His nature is revealed in a beauty and grace never before known.
The millennial age whether in type or antitype ends with sin and judgment; and the dispensational part here closes with Noah's solemn prophecy. It is figuratively spoken—being that kind of figure called a “metonymy of the cause” —and therefore it is considered here. We see the fulfilling of the prophecy in these times in a remarkable manner. Shem was to have the highest blessing, and so the Savior of the world comes by that line, which occupies Asia Japheth would enlarge and dwell in the tents of Shem. It was two thousand years before the first signs of such a thing occurred, when Alexander, from Europe (Japheth's abode), invaded the Asiatic countries; and to-day we see England and France steadily invading Asia from the south and east, and Russia coming down from the north and west. Diplomatists may plot and politicians wrangle about it, but they can no more hinder it than they can hinder the sunset. Four thousand years ago an old man said it would be, and it must be. Ham, of course, is Africa (except Canaan, who perished by Joshua); and though there have been, at times, such sons and daughters of Ham as Hannibal and Cleopatra, whose power and ambition threatened Europe, it was not to be. Africa has been the cradle of slavery. This curse, like all others, Christianity ameliorates and (ultimately) Christ annuls.
Time and speech are divine gifts; wherefore diffuse language, in wasting both, is a double offense, and conciseness is a double virtue. In two or three sentences Noah condenses a graphic and comprehensive epitome of the histories of all nations! The three words of Caesar—whose language is customarily so condensed as to take three times the number of words to translate it—compared with this is prolix verbosity. In all the records of human speech there is probably no parallel to the declamation of Noah for brevity of word and vastness of thought—save in the utterances of One who in His dying hour proclaimed in the one word, τετέλεσται, the overthrow of the power of hell, and the redemption of mankind.