Exodus 20:25 “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.”
Read Exodus 20:22-26
In the Mid-2000’s MTV featured a show called “Cribs.” It highlighted the extravagant lifestyles and houses of celebrities. Often these celebrities would bring the camera to this or that room and use a phrase, “This is where the magic happens…”
God is showing his people “where the magic happens.” It is at the Altar that true forgiveness happens. It is at the altar God’s people would learn that a lamb died instead of them.
There is a portion of C S Lewis’ “The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe,” where Lucy and Susan are distressed by Aslan’s death on the Stone Table blurt:
“Who’s done it?” cried Susan. “What does it mean? Is it more magic?” “Yes!” said a great voice behind their backs. “It is more magic.”
“It means,” said Aslan, “that though the Witch knew the Deep Magic, there is a magic deeper still which she did not know. Her knowledge goes back only to the dawn of time. But if she could have looked a little further back, into the stillness and the darkness before Time dawned, she would have read there a different incantation. She would have known that when a willing victim who had committed no treachery was killed in a traitor’s stead, the Table would crack and Death itself would start working backward.”
The Altar is not about man building a staircase to heaven. It is place where heaven comes down and touches earth. God rescues the people of Israel before he ever gives the Law. He provides atonement for their sin before they ever try to earn his favour. Even the instructions for the building of the altar are meant to convey grace. “Don’t fashion the stones, I have already provided them. Don’t build a staircase to heaven, you will only expose how silly it is to try to climb to divine heights. I am the true altar and the true sacrifice.”
It is at the true altar, the Cross of Calvary, that we find the place of divine exchange. Our shame for his glory. The Exodus story itself is a story of death working backwards. John Stott put it magisterially when he said, “Sin is Man substituting himself for God, Salvation God substituting himself for man.” Let God’s Resurrection course through you today.
Today pray: Lord work your Deep Magic in me.