Exodus 20:22-26--Laws About Altars

Laws About Altars
22 And the Lord said to Moses, “Thus you shall say to the people of Israel: ‘You have seen for yourselves that I have talked with you from heaven. 23 You shall not make gods of silver to be with me, nor shall you make for yourselves gods of gold. 24 An altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings, your sheep and your oxen. In every place where I cause my name to be remembered I will come to you and bless you. 25 If you make me an altar of stone, you shall not build it of hewn stones, for if you wield your tool on it you profane it. 26 And you shall not go up by steps to my altar, that your nakedness be not exposed on it.’

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I know this is much shorter than the usual passage I cover, but it's the beginning of a new section separate from the Ten Commandments that we studied yesterday.  In this section starting in Exodus 20:22, God is going to give Moses specific instructions on exactly what it looks like to follow the Ten Commandments.  For instance, it's clear from the Ten Commandments that the people are supposed to worship God and God alone, but is there a specific was that are to worship God any approach Him?  Is any worship acceptable to God, or does God require us to worship Him in a prescribed way?  Why is that way different than the method that seems to be prescribed by all of their pagan neighbors (especially the Canaanites dwelling in the land that God has promised to them)?

We start here with the building of altars for bunt offerings.  We've seen such altars built throughout the book of Genesis, and no one had to tell the people there how to build an altar to the LORD, but now it seems that the children of Israel have either forgotten or God simply wants to make this one of the unique things about their worship so that no one looks at them and is confused about who they are worshiping.

The LORD repeats the command to never make for themselves false gods that are idols of silver or gold (the irony of all this is that we'll see that while Moses is receiving these commandments from the LORD, the people at the base of the mountain are breaking every single one of them, even though they just swore to keep all the commands of the LORD).  God says that the altars that they build must be made of earth--usually uncut stone that no tool had touched, for it is not by man's work that we make something that is pleasing to God, nor do we make a god in our own image that we feel is worthy of our worship or acceptable to us.  While we may not make idols of gold, silver, wood or stone in most of the world today (some cultures still do), our hearts are still idol factories and we continue to try to make God in our image instead of us being made in the image of God.  We create in our minds and our hearts a false god that is acceptable to us--a god that loves the things we love, hates the things we hate, and is okay with our shortcomings and sins and would never judge us (though maybe he would judge other people).  We may even choose to make ourselves a god (just like Adam and Eve did in the Garden) by claiming we believe in no god (Atheism) or that we don't know or can't know which god is the right one (agnosticism which is usually just a weak form of Atheism).  In both cases there is one authority left for that person's life--himself or herself.  This has been the problem ever since the Garden, but we see it most clearly in the descendants of Ham and specifically the descendants of Canaan in the ancient world where people such as the Babylonians and Assyrians and Canaanites made gods for themselves that loved their sexual perversion and brutality, and lust for power and wealth, and we are told in the New Testament that these cultures were worshiping demons.  The people of God were to have nothing to do with such pagan rituals or practices.

Next comes the types of sacrifices that were acceptable to make on such an altar.  The LORD lists here burnt offerings (those will be broken down into several other categories later) and peace offerings, and the prescribed animals to be used in such offerings are sheep and oxen (rams and bulls usually).  Then an interesting statement by God that many miss--these altars are to be built everywhere where God causes His name to be remembered.  That's exactly that pattering that we've seen so far in the book of Genesis and Exodus.  People didn't just go around building altars anywhere and everywhere.  Nor did they build them in places where they thoughts they could get close to their gods (the "high places" that the Canaanites would worship in).  Instead the altar was a memorial of an event in history where God revealed Himself to His people--usually resulting in Him having a new name--and the altar was built as a reminder to that generation and all future generations of who the LORD is and what He had done so that as children saw an altar they knew there was a story behind it and they would ask their parents, "What did God do there?  I'm not sure I know the story about that altar!"  Every place where God would be worshiped had meaning and significance to His name and His character--it's not the place that was special, but the God that did something special in that place.  What if we still had such practices today and the monuments we built were designed to tell the story of who God is and what He has done instead of telling the story of men and worshiping them.  Do you think that building statues of men (even men of history) is a violation of the second commandment?  Are we trying to remember the men of history without remembering the God that orchestrated the events and should be the one that gets that glory?  A God that is spirit and had no form to be made into a graven image?  Yet we will be told that Jesus would the exact image of the invisible God when He experienced His incarnation--I find that remarkable.

As I mentioned earlier, any altar made of stone should not have any hewn stone (stone that has been worked on by stone-cutters and masons).  Why?  Because then it's something we built and we'd admire and worship our work and our creation.  When the people used the earth and the rocks that were right there and were only able to use the raw materials present in that place, they remember that God was the Creator of all of it, and without His work, they would have no means by which to build such an altar.  Even or places of worship that we construct can become idols to us.  Just look at the cathedrals where people go to admire the designers and artisans involved, but fail to worship the God that they meant to point people to.  While God is worthy of something big and bold and beautiful, we'll see that God actually never wanted a temple built for Himself--He permitted it, but He ordained that people come to the Tabernacle to worship Him because it would help them remember how He had been with them every step of the way through the Exodus and would not give them the idea that He was tied to some physical location or building but that "The LORD your God will be with you wherever you go."  (Genesis 28:15, Joshua 1:9, I Chronicles 17:8)

Last, but not least, the altars were not to be put up on a pedestal so that people had to go up steps to get up to it (like the pagans that made their sacrifices on "high places" and ziggurats, because it would expose their physical nakedness under their robes and that was never supposed to be associated with their worship of God--though plenty of times we see the pagans strip naked in their worship of their false gods and we're about to see the Israelites do the same thing before their worship of the golden calf where they will "play" (a reference to an orgy).

The people were supposed to be sober-minded and worship and nothing about their worship was to be carnal, yet we are going to see the exact opposite of that where the people will fashion a golden calf and say "this is the LORD who brought you up out of Egypt."  To say God's anger burned against the people is and understatement as did the anger of Moses--but the whole time that Moses is up on the mountain with the LORD (though we'll only see it as a few chapters here) is 40 days for the people.  Imagine having to stay camped out at the base of the mountain for 40 days without word from the LORD or Moses.  There would be a huge power-vacuum and someone who just wanted to do SOMETHING would step forward with a plan and say "I have an idea," and everyone would say "That sounds better than just sitting around here doing nothing."  But sometimes waiting--and waiting for a LONG time--is exactly what God calls us to do.  We've seen that already with Abraham and the birth of Isaac and we're seeing it in play here with the people waiting for the promise of the Land, but we're also seeing it play out from Genesis 3 as all of humanity is waiting for the Messiah.  God works in His ways and in His time.

Our next section will be very timely for what's going on in the United States and the world today.  God will give instructions regarding slaves, restitution, and social justice (Exodus 21:1-23:9).  As a reference point, the part I mentioned about Israel making the golden calf won't come until chapter 32, so we've got quite a bit more of the Law of the LORD to go through before we get there.

What do you think?  Are these commands that we studied today only for those people in that time?  Are these commands timeless like the Ten Commandments?  Do they apply to all people in all places?  Is there something for Christians to learn from them today?  If so, how does this change the way that you will approach God in your worship?  Have you created a god in your own image that you find acceptable and worthy of your worship instead of being made in the image of God and approaching Him in the way that He has prescribed?  I'd be interested to hear from you in the comments area of my Facebook post or in my Discord server.