Noah Built an Altar

A Devotional Series from Genesis

Online Bible Audio/Readings Links (ESV)

7/5 Reading Portions: Joshua 7; Psalms 137-138; Jeremiah 1; Matthew 15

Genesis 8:20

Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and some of every clean bird and offered burnt offerings on the altar.

WORSHIP

When Noah built an ark, as seen earlier in our devotional series, he was a type of Christ, whereas the Jesus Messiah, the God-Man, built our salvation by fulfilling all Scripture. Here, in Noah, we see the response of the redeemed in Noah’s typology. How should we respond to our salvation in Christ? The answer: worship. In Noah’s day, Christ had not yet come, and He had not yet gone to the cross. So, the sacrifices of clean animals and birds was Noah’s worship before YHVH God. In our case, since Jesus has come and saved us by His substitutionary atonement, we need not bring clean animals to sacrifice at the altar. Those were mere foreshadows of the once-and-for-all perfect sacrifice of Christ (Heb 10:4, 10). But in another sense, our worship of God consists of the same thing. Since Christ had come and laid down His life at the altar of Calvary and has since risen from the dead and ascended into heaven, the altar we worship at, spiritually speaking, is the throne of heaven where the Lord Jesus sits. As our atoning Sacrifice, Jesus’ blood was shed in Jerusalem at Golgotha, being the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world. Now, having ascended, He is our great High Priest, going before us in the true Holy Place (Heb 6:19-20), with His sprinkled blood purifying heaven, cleansing it from the stain of even Satan’s sinful presence (Job 1:6; 2:1; Heb 9:22-23; 1 Jn 2:2). Therefore, when we worship God in Christ, it is always because of the substitutionary, atoning Sacrifice of the Lord Jesus Messiah. Hallelujah! What a Savior!