If God does not take delight in bloody sacrifice then what was the original use of the altar intended to be? The Mizbeach or altars are said to be of two types.
Exodus 20:24 An altar of earth thou shalt make unto me, and shalt sacrifice thereon thy burnt offerings, and thy peace offerings, thy sheep, and thine oxen: in all places where I record my name I will come unto thee, and I will bless thee.
Moses made an altar of earth. He was told to do so. He was not told to use just any type of earth but particularly the 'red clay'1 which God had made Adam from. This altar was used to receive the sacrifices of the people. The chief characteristic of sacrifice is not so much that something is destroyed by fire but rather that the grantor is willing to truly concede the, "surrender of something for the sake of something else... something given up or lost," such as the parents sacrifice for their children and the children's sacrifice for their parents.
The essential characteristic of a burnt offering is that that to you it is lost forever. If you have any thing more than intangible hope and faith to insure its return then it is not truly given and charity is not truly administered. In the City State there is a contribution for the good of the populous but it is extracted by force upon entering the jurisdiction of the State while at the same time the State guarantees you social security within its walled boundaries.
Abraham and his people and those people that followed his God's Way formed an altar of earth. As he spread his tent, his tabernacle, the way of liberty became strong in the land. When kings like Darius devoured one City State after another it was Abraham and those who believed as he did who were the saviors of the day. This prophetic principle may still hold true in our own time.
There was another altar mentioned by God but not with the terms "thou shalt" but with the terms "if thou wilt make". This altar carried specific restrictions.
Exodus 20:25-26 And if thou wilt make me an altar of stone, thou shalt not build it of hewn stone: for if thou lift up thy tool upon it, thou hast polluted it. Neither shalt thou go up by steps unto mine altar, that thy nakedness be not discovered thereon.
This altar was made of stone but more important it was made of stone not hewn by the hands of men, not touched by tools of iron. You are also warned not to make the altar tiered where you go up to its higher places by steps or degrees. If you do so you will reveal your nakedness and lack of authority.
The Hebrew word rigmah [hmgr] is translated into council but actually means a gathering of stones. It is from the Hebrew word Regem [Mgr] which is translated friend and the same as ragam [Mgr] meaning stone. Both words have as a common origin [bgr] regeb clod (of earth).
God wrote the Ten Commandments upon dead stone. It is not the medium that he preferred but was a secondary choice. The people could not wash themselves clean enough to approach the mountain of God.
Mark 1:8 I indeed have baptized you with water: but he shall baptize you with the Holy Ghost.
No mere baptizing with water could prepare them, change them enough, to receive God's laws.
Hebrews 8:10 For this [is] the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, saith the Lord; I will put my laws into their mind, and write them in their hearts: and I will be to them a God, and they shall be to me a people:
God wishes to write his laws upon lively stones and to construct his temple with those same stones of flesh.
1 Peter 2:5 Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.
It is the family that provided security for men through the blessings of the ways of God the Father. Each family and member of the extended family caring one for the other. In this fragile life families may falter or suffer calamity and suffer destitution. When larger groups came together to secure the whole community they would devise methods by which all could be secure. In the City State security was established by controlling force, regulations of laws made by men. These regulating and controlling forces chiseled men into the shape that other men with power and exercising authority desired. With that force came an added danger of tyranny.
"Protection draws to it subjection; subjection protection"2
These leader were granted the power to enforce the security of the State. Stripped of the presence of God these men revealed their naked assent to the position of god of the city. They were perpetually tempted by that power granted them. From their high positions over other men and their lofty office in the government they exercised authority that became totalitarian and unjust. The temptation to become a beast devouring the people was to great except for men like Moses and Abraham but there was none more divinely suited for the job than Jesus of Nazareth.
The leaders were corrupted by the weakness of the people and the power they received from them. Equally as important in the devolution of mankind is the cultivated apathy of the general populations. People no longer had to choose corporeal sacrifice over self-indulgence in the exercise of true personal hands on charity. No longer was faith in the Creator the essential principles that moved men to action. It was the will of the state and its promise to provide security from acts of God or the tyranny and attacks of other civil powers.
If faith was present it was directed toward the State and its gods. Love of the State was more present that love of neighbor and brother and sister. Children were taught by the State and parents were abandoned to the care of strangers. There was more fear of the ordinances of man than fear of disobeying the Laws of God.
Ezekiel 16:49 Behold, this was the iniquity of thy sister Sodom, pride, fulness of bread, and abundance of idleness was in her and in her daughters, neither did she strengthen the hand of the poor and needy.
Under the perfect law of liberty and at the altars of Abraham and Moses each individual or family exercised faith, hope and charity. While at the altars and temples of the City State obedience and compliance were the ruling spirit and force became a virtue. You could apply or pray at either altar for your daily bread and as you made that choice one Kingdom or the other began to grow on the face of the earth and in the lives of men.
Matthew 11:12 And from the days of John the Baptist until now the kingdom of heaven suffereth violence, and the violent take it by force.
To navigate without frames use links below
1
0127 [hmda] 'adamah from "adam" the red earth from which Adam was made.
2 Protectio trahit subjectionem, subjectio protectionem. Coke, Littl. 65.