Christ the altar.
I should now come to the second part of the office of this high-priest, and speak to that, as also to those things that were preparatory unto his executing it; but first, I think it convenient a little to treat of the altar also upon which this sacrifice was offered to God.
Some, I conceive, have thought the altar to be the cross on which the body of Christ was crucified, when he gave himself an offering for sin; but they are greatly deceived, for he also himself was the altar through which he offered himself; and this is one of the treasures of wisdom which are hid in him, and of which the world and Antichrist are utterly ignorant. I touched on this in one hint before, but now a little more express. The altar is always greater than the gift; since the gift was the body and soul of Christ—for so saith the text, 'He gave himself for our sins'—the altar must be something else than a sorry bit of wood, or a cursed tree. Wherefore I will say to such, as one wiser than Solomon said to the Jews, when they superstitiated the gift, in counting it more honourable than the altar, 'Ye fools, and blind, for whether is greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?' (Matt 23:18,19).
If the altar be greater than the gift, and yet the gift so great a thing as the very humanity of Christ, can it—I will now direct my speech to the greatest fool—can that greater thing be the cross? Is the cross, the wooden cross, the cursed tree, that some worship, greater than the gift, to wit, than the sacrifice Christ offered, when he gave himself for our sins! O idolatry, O blasphemy!
Quest. But what then was the altar? Answ. The divine nature of Christ, that Eternal Spirit, by and in the assistance of which he 'offered himself without spot to God'; he, through the Eternal Spirit, 'offered himself' (Heb 9:14).
1. And it must be THAT, because, as was said, the altar is greater than the gift; but there is nothing but Christ's divine nature greater than his human; to be sure, a sorry bit of wood, a tree, the stock of a tree, is not.
2. It must be this, because the text says plainly 'the altar sanctifies the gift,' that is, puts worth and virtue into it; but was it the tree, or the Godhead of Christ, that put virtue and efficacy into this sacrifice that he offered to God for us? If thou canst but tell thy fingers, judge.
3. The altar was it of old that was to bear up the sacrifice until it was consumed; and concerning the sacrifice under consideration, the tree could not bear up that; for our sacrifice being a man, consisting of soul and body, that which could bear him up in his suffering condition, must be that that could apply itself to his reasonable and sensible part for relief and succour, and that was of power to keep him even in his spirit, and in a complete submissiveness to God, in the present condition in which he was; and could the tree do this, think you? Had the tree that command and government of the soul and sense of Christ, of the reason and feeling of the Lord Jesus, as to keep him in this bitter suffering, in that evenness and spotlessness in his torment, as to cause that he should come off this great work, without the least smell or tang[25] of imperfection? No, no; it was through the Eternal Spirit that he 'offered himself without spot to God.'
Quest. Wherefore then served the cross? Answ. I ask, and wherefore then served the wood by which the sacrifices were burned? The sacrifices were burned with wood upon the altar; the wood then was not that altar, the wood was that instrument by which the sacrifice was consumed, and the cross by which Christ suffered his torment and affliction. The altar then did bear both the wood and sacrifice, that did uphold the wood to burn, and the sacrifice to abide the burning. And concerning the matter in hand, the tree on which Christ was hanged, and the sacrifice of his body, were both upheld by his divine power; yet the tree was no more a sacrifice, nor an altar, than was the wood upon the altar; nor was the wood, but the fire, holy, by which the sacrifice was consumed. Let the tree then be the tree, the sacrifice the sacrifice, and the altar the altar; and let men have a care how, in their worship, they make altars upon which, as they pretend, they offer the body of Christ; and let them leave off foolishly to dote upon wood, and the works of their hands: the altar is greater than the gift or sacrifice that was, or is, upon it.
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