How great is God’s wisdom! And how wonderful its expression in devising the means of bringing guilty sinners near to Himself as worshippers! Satan no doubt imagined that God’s glory was for ever besmirched, that He was irrevocably defeated, and His plans for man’s blessing irretrievably ruined, by the entry of sin into the world. But God had resources of which Satan had no knowledge, which He would manifest in His own good time, to accomplish all that was in His heart, to completely recover His glory in Man, and to procure for Himself through Man a glory that He had not before. Whenever sin came in God announced the coming of the seed of the woman who would bruise the serpent’s head, though no doubt the meaning of this was hidden from every creature at that time. In crushing the serpent’s head, the heel of the woman’s seed would be bruised, indicating the death of the Son of God in the moment of His great victory. That the Son of God should come forth as Man, and die upon the cross, to procure all for God, was wisdom beyond all creature thought.
There is no indication in Scripture that Noah maintained his altar for communion with God, or that he ever built another for sacrifice. With Abraham it was different, for at different times he is found building his altar. The call of Abraham gave character to his life. His life was that of a pilgrim and a stranger, as indicated by his tent; and his link with God in heaven was set forth in the altars which he built. Because of this, the heavenly calling of the Christian is beautifully illustrated in Abraham, for, like him, we have been called to walk as pilgrims and strangers in this world, and to be marked by communion with God.
Abraham had no altar in Ur of the Chaldees, nor on the journey to Haran, or even in Haran, where he was taken by his father, Terah. It was not until he reached Canaan, drawn by the call of God, that his first altar is erected. On reaching Canaan, “Abram passed through the land to the place of Sichem, to the plain of Moreh. And the Canaanite was then in the land. And the Lord appeared to Abram, and said, To thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar to the Lord, who appeared to him” (Gen. 12:6-7).
When Abraham had answered to the call of God, and reached the land of his pilgrimage, God appeared to him and disclosed His purpose regarding his inheritance; and it was then Abram built his altar. It might be said that he built his altar as having the light of the purpose of God. The altar was the witness to the Canaanite, who was in the land, that this pilgrim and sojourner who was among them had a God that he worshipped; but for God the altar was the evidence that Abraham desired to answer to His mind and will in having communion with Him.
At a much later date, when the remnant of Israel returned to the land under Zerubbabel and Joshua the high priest, “they set the altar upon his bases; for fear was upon them because of the people of those countries: and they offered burnt offerings thereon to the Lord, even burnt offerings morning and evening” (Ezra 3:3). The fear of the nations around manifested that the confidence of the remnant was in God; He was their resource in danger, and His worship, which centred in the altar, assured them of God’s interest in them. But Abraham was fully assured of God’s interest in him; he had no need to fear the Canaanites when God had appeared to him. He raised his altar to the God who appeared to him, knowing His purpose concerning the land, and realising his place in the favour of God. His altar was for the pleasure of God, the evidence of His trust in Him; but it was also a testimony to those around that he served and worshipped God.
Although Abram built an altar, there is no mention of any offering upon it. He has learned of God’s purpose, but not yet of the means of its accomplishment by sacrifice. The altar was built to a God that Abram knew, the God who had called him while in Ur of the Chaldees, and who had appeared to him in the land into which he had moved in obedience to the divine call. It was not an altar to an “unknown God,” like that of the inhabitants of Athens, but to a God who, in wondrous grace, had revealed Himself to Abram, and made known to him the secrets of His heart.
This first of Abraham’s altars was built at Sichem, in the plain of Moreh. Sichem means shoulder, and Moreh means teacher. Might not this teach us that in coming into the land, Abram can rely on the strength of God, and on the teaching of God? The very appearance of God would assure Abram of His support; and the words that God spake to him instructed him in the thoughts of God.
Removing from Sichem, Abram came “to a mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Hai on the east: and there he builded an altar to the Lord, and called upon the Name of the Lord” (Gen. 12:8). Here is the first mention of Abraham’s tent. He had come into the land, had passed through to Sichem, but did not settle there. Again he moves near to Bethel, but he does not build a permanent residence there, he pitches his tent, manifesting that he is a pilgrim in the land that God had promised to his seed for an inheritance.
God’s pilgrim is seen in his true character with his tent and his altar, for he cannot do without God in his pilgrim journey if he is to maintain his true character. There was no fresh appearance of God at this time, but Abram “called upon the Name of the Lord.” This is the true mark of a saint of God! It is not without significance that it is on Jehovah’s Name that Abram calls, even although this is not the special name by which God was known to Abram. Later we shall see that it was the Name of Almighty by which God made Himself known to him, yet it is to Jehovah, the Name by which God was known to His people Israel, that Abram calls.
In the New Testament, when the profession of Christianity was widespread, and there were many that were mere professors, without the knowledge of God in their hearts, Timothy was exhorted by the Apostle Paul to “follow righteousness, faith, charity, peace, with them that call on the Lord out of a pure heart” (2 Tim. 2:22). There are many in the Christian profession that call out of a feigned loyalty “Lord, Lord,” but in the coming day the Lord will not own them. The true saint of God calls on the Name of the Lord from a heart that knows Him as revealed in the cross, and by the love of God shed abroad in the heart by the Holy Spirit.
Calling on the Name of Jehovah evinced Abram’s knowledge of Jehovah, and his dependence upon Him. The altar was the outward evidence of his link with God, a testimony for all to take account of, but his calling on the Name of Jehovah was not only a profession of faith in Him, but the evidence of a living link that had been formed by the call of God. Abram never would have called on the Name of Jehovah had not God first called Abram while in Ur of the Chaldees. It was the divine call that gave the power to answer to it, and that gave the desire and intelligence to call upon Jehovah’s Name.
It was on the mountain, an elevated place, between Bethel and Hai, that this second altar was built, and where Abram called on the Name of Jehovah. Away from the influences of man’s dwellings, God’s pilgrim can manifest his true separate character, and be under the influence of the Lord on whose Name he calls. Bethel means God’s house, and Hai an heap. On the mountain, Abram is able to take account of his divine call, both in relation to the interests of God as found in His house, and in relation to a doomed world, which in the eyes of the true saint of God is but a ruined heap.
Alas! on leaving the mountain retreat where he had been calling on Jehovah’s Name. Abraham journeying south, is influenced by the famine of the land, and “went down into Egypt.” How readily is the true saint of God affected by what takes place in the world. It was a wrong step for a pilgrim; for the world, as seen in Egypt, with its resources of wisdom and substance for the men of this world, is not a place for one that calls on the Name of the Lord. It is a very sorrowful tale, for although Abram seems to acquire considerable wealth there, he had lost his pilgrim character, been unfaithful to God and to Sarai his wife, and had caused the Lord to plague Pharaoh and his house. There could be no altar to Jehovah in such a place, and no calling on Jehovah’s Name.
Returning from Egypt, Abram comes back to the very place “where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Hai; to the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: and there Abram called on the Name of the Lord” (Gen. 13:1–4). How good it was for Abram to return to the place of his first love, where in the energy and freshness of his desires after God he had built his altar.
God had not forgotten how His servant had answered to His call, and the Spirit of God delights to tell us that it was “to the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first.” So often, after departing from the path of God’s will, there is not the return to the place of departure. It was so with the church as set forth in “Ephesus.” The Lord has against it that it had left its first love, and calls upon it to “Remember therefore from Whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works” (Rev. 2:4-5). Alas! instead of repenting and returning, there is never return to first love and the first works, but instead, a final condition of ruin that causes the Lord to utterly reject the Christian profession.
Coming back to where he had been, to the place of the altar, there is no word of rebuilding the altar, but “there Abram called on the Name of the Lord.” He is back to normal relations with God after breaking his associations with the world; but there remained with him through Lot, the stain of Egypt; and very soon it manifested itself in the strife between their herdsmen.
We may be able to return to our normal relations with God after some lapse into worldly ways or associations, but there might remain permanent damage to those who have been associated with us, who have been carried forward hitherto on our faith, as Lot seems to have been carried on the faith of Abraham. It is not that there was the complete absence of faith in Lot, for the Apostle Peter tells us that he was “just,” a righteous man in the sight of God, but he had not the energy of faith that was found in Abraham.
There is no mention of Lot ever building an altar, or calling on the Name of the Lord; although he was probably with Abraham where he pitched his tent, and called on Jehovah’s Name. When it came to choosing the part of the land in which he would dwell, there is no thought of referring the choice to God; he is influenced by appearances, he “beheld all the plain of Jordan, that it was well watered every where, before the Lord destroyed Sodom and Gomorrah, even as the garden of the Lord, like the land of Egypt, as thou comest to Zoar.” What was like the land of Egypt appealed to Lot: he could not look by faith beyond the present to see the plain as it would be after God had judged it. If he had had an altar, and had been accustomed to call on the Name of the Lord, he would no doubt have been spared the many snares into which he fell.
R. 1.4.64