AltarFire

   

      The title of this week's Sabbath reading portion is titled Tzav, meaning "Command", and comes from Leviticus 6 which says: "Then the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, 'Command Aaron and his sons, saying, 'This is the law of the burnt offering: The burnt offering shall be on the hearth upon the altar all night until morning, and the fire of the altar shall be kept burning on it...And the fire on the altar shall be kept burning on it; it shall not be put out...A fire shall always be burning on the altar; it shall never go out." (Lev. 6:8-13, excerpt).

     The word Tzav צָוָ  is made up of two Hebrew letters: Tsadde and Vaw. These two letters when joined together could have the pictographic meaning: "Joined together to the journey pulling toward a righteous harvest." The commands of the LORD always pull us toward and join us to the way of His righteousness, and to the One who fulfills the Law for us. The way of righteousness is not made up of our own failing attempts, but the commands of God pull us toward the Gift of Righteousness, God's own Son, Jesus Christ: "For Christ is the end (telos - termination, the last, purpose, the end to which all things relate, to set out for a definite point or goal) of the law for righteousness to everyone who believes." (Rom. 10:4. See also Rom. 3:21-23, 2 Cor. 5:21, 1 Cor. 1:30-31, Rom. 5:17). Jesus said that He came to fulfill the law and the prophets. (Mt. 5:17-18).

     Some of the Jewish interpretations of the always burning altar are that God desires to accept what is offered to Him as He desires to accept us. His arms are always open and awaiting us when we come to Him. This truth was also taught by Jesus in the Parable of the Prodigal Son. The younger son took his inheritance and left his father's house, eventually falling into dishonorable ways and hard times. When the son remembered his father's house, he returned home to find that his father had been watching for him and saw him coming from a great way off and received him with a feast and great joy, as if he had received his son back to him from the dead. (see Lk. 15:11-32). In another part of scripture, the LORD also said: "I have stretched out My hands all day long to a rebellious people, who walk in a way that is not good." (Isa. 65:2, Rom. 10:20-21). It is not surprising to know that Jesus died on the cross in a position of outstretched arms and hands. The Lord was and is still ready to receive any and all who would come to Him.

     Another thought from Judaism is that the eternally burning altar is a symbol of the ongoing purification, transformation, refining and elevating that God's people find at His altar. From another reading portion of this Tzav Sabbath, the LORD promises to send His Messenger of the covenant who will suddenly come: "But who can endure the day of His coming? And who can stand when He appears? For He is like a refiner's fire and like launderers' soap. He will sit as a refiner and a purifier of silver; He will purify the sons of Levi, and purge them as gold and silver, that they may offer to the LORD an offering in righteousness." (Mal. 3:2-3, see also Lk. 21:34-36 of Jesus prophesying His return, also Rev. 3:18-20). The LORD also said from our Sabbath reading: "...It shall be a statute forever in your generations concerning the offerings made by fire to the LORD. Everyone who touches them must be holy." (Lev. 6:18).

     To me, there is also a duality of meaning to the eternally burning fire of the altar.  Jesus quoted Isaiah when He spoke about the worm that doesn't die and the fire that is not quenched, describing Hell (Isa. 66:24, Mk. 9:42-49). This eternally burning fire is fed by sin until, eventually, the whole earth will be consumed in fire, to be replaced by new heavens and a new earth. (2 Pet. 3:7, 10-13). This is terrible to think about, but the good news is that there is an eternal sacrifice that was made on that burning altar of fire, of much greater power than the sacrifice of animals. This sacrifice given for all of us is the eternal nature of Messiah/Christ's offering of Himself. His sacrifice was made once for all time and that sacrifice will be our righteousness into eternity: "For by one offering He (Christ) has perfected forever those who are being sanctified." (Heb. 10:1-4, 10, 14). Simply by walking into His outstretched arms, we will never have to face the "second death" (Rev. 21:6-8) and the fire that is never quenched, because we have received "the fountain of the water of life." In the same way, the blood of the Passover lamb applied to the doorposts and lintels of the households of the Israelites, spared them from the Angel of Death that struck Egypt. (Ex. 12:21-25). We will see below how the foundational truth upon which the sacrifice that appeases God was revealed.

     The first time the word "altar" is used in scripture was in the account of Noah in Gen. 8. After the flood waters had subsided, Noah, his family and the living creatures left the ark: "So Noah went out, and his sons and his wife and his sons' wives with him. Every animal, every creeping thing, every bird, and whatever creeps on the earth, according to their families, went out of the ark. Then Noah built an altar to the LORD, and took of every clean animal and of every clean bird, and offered burnt offerings on the altar. And the LORD smelled a soothing (nihoah/nuah - satisfaction, soothing, quieting, pleasant, restful/to rest, ceased, give comfort, give rest, quiet) (*aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega) aroma. Then the LORD said in His heart, 'I will never again curse (*aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega) the ground for man's sake, although the imagination of man's heart is evil from his youth; nor will I again destroy every (*aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega) living thing as I have done. While the earth remains, seedtime and harvest, cold and heat, winter and summer, and day and night shall not cease." (Gen. 8:18-22).

     The sacrifice burned upon the altar that Noah built brought a certain fragrance up to God. Because of the fragrance of the sacrifice, the LORD was appeased and promised never to utterly destroy the living things of the earth, or the cyclical climate courses of the earth again. The aroma that the LORD smelled is noted in written Hebrew as being associated with Christ, (and with His believers) by the presence of the *aleph-tav/Alpha and Omega (see note below). According to the meaning of the Hebrew words above, the aroma causes the LORD to enter into a kind of Sabbath rest.

     We see this connection between the aroma of sacrifice and Messiah/Christ revealed in the New Testament: "Now thanks be to God who always leads us in triumph in Christ, and through us diffuses the fragrance of His knowledge in every place. For we are to God the fragrance of Christ among those who are being saved and among those who are perishing. To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things? (2 Cor. 2:14-16).

     How do we become this fragrance of Christ? Paul wrote in Romans: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice (thysia/thyo - slay and immolate as of the paschal (Passover) lamb, blow, smoke), holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God." (Rom. 12:1-2). Paul is not recommending that we physically die as a sacrifice, although many believers have been and continue to be martyred. Living our lives in a manner that is dedicated to God creates the sacrificial fragrance of Christ as He came in the form of the Passover Lamb of God. Not only is it soothing to God and testifies of God's good and perfect will for mankind, but we are changed or transformed as well. The LORD has allowed us to become this sacrifice and aroma through Messiah/Christ that soothes Him while we are still alive.

     According to another reading portion from this Tzav Sabbath, one fragrance that did not please the LORD at all, but broke His heart, was when the Israelites sacrificed their own sons and daughters on the fires of demon gods. (Jer. 7:30-31). They sowed abomination and they reaped slaughter to themselves. (v. 32-34). 

     This Sabbath is also HaGadol Sabbath, meaning that it is a Great Sabbath. This Sabbath receives this designation because it is the sabbath before Passover. Scripture calls Jesus our Passover Lamb, and the Lord's Table, or Communion, was taken by Jesus from the elements of the Passover meal He shared with His disciples, specifically the bread and the wine, as we will see. The reading portion that is used during this HaGadol Great Sabbath is from Malachi 3, part of which we read above.

     After the refining, purging and purifying of the priesthood so they might "offer to the LORD an offering in righteousness," in Mal. 3, the LORD made this prophetic promise: "Then those who feared the LORD spoke (dabar - commune, pronounce, utter, tell, declare, be spokesman, teach, tell) to one another, and the LORD listened and heard them; So a book of remembrance (zikaron/zakar - reminder, memorial, remembrance/remember, remembrance, mention, record) was written before Him for those who fear the LORD and who meditate on His name. 'They shall be Mine,' says the LORD of hosts, 'On the day that I make them My jewels (segulla - possession, peculiar treasure, valued property, closely shut up), and I will spare them as a man spares his own son who serves him." (Mal. 3:16-17).

     Immediately before His death, our Passover Lamb, Jesus, told His disciples at the Passover dinner to take the bread and the wine in what we recognize as Communion (see spoke:dabar, above). He also said, "...do this in remembrance of Me." (Lk. 22:14-20, and 1 Cor. 11:23-26). Our Communion is a living Book of Remembrance before the LORD, as prophesied in Mal. 3.

     The LORD desires to give us the saving gift of His own righteousness, a gift that we cannot buy nor earn, through His Son, Jesus.

     If you would like to know more about the open arms of God, you can pray with me: "Father and God of all, You provided a way for me to be spared from the consequences of the sin in my life. Your Son, Jesus, died for me even while I was still in my sins. Help me, by Your Holy Spirit, to be a living sacrifice, the fragrance of Christ, the sacrifice that appeases Your holiness. I thank You that You have made a way for us to run into Your outstretched arms of forgiveness and acceptance. This is Your desire for all mankind. As we remember Your great deliverance and salvation this Passover, and remember Your Son's sacrifice and victory over death on this coming Resurrection Sunday, write our names in Your Book of Remembrance as those who think upon Your holy name with heart-felt thanks and praise. I ask this in Jesus' Name. AMEN."

*NOTE: aleph-tav written in Hebrew as אֶת, are the first and last letters of the Hebrew alphabet. The meaning of the two pictographic Hebrew letters can also be interpreted "Adonai (Lord) of the Cross/Covenant". In the New Testament, these letters are translated as Alpha and Omega written as ΑΩ , the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet. These letters are those by which Jesus Christ identifies Himself in the Book of Revelation: see Rev. 1:8, Rev. 21:6, Rev. 22:13.