Ge 12:7 The LORD appeared to Abram and said, "To your descendants I will give this land." So he built an altar there to the LORD who had appeared to him. 8 Then he proceeded from there to the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, with Bethel on the west and Ai on the east; and there he built an altar to the LORD and called upon the name of the LORD.
Ge 13:3 He went on his journeys from the Negev as far as Bethel, to the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai, 4 to the place of the altar which he had made there formerly; and there Abram called on the name of the LORD.
Ge 13:18 Then Abram moved his tent and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and there he built an altar to the LORD.
The life of a Christian is the life of the altar and the tent. God requires of His children that in His presence they have an altar and that on the earth they have a tent. An altar calls for a tent, and a tent in turn demands an altar. It is impossible to have an altar without a tent, and likewise impossible to have a tent without a return to the altar. The altar and the tent are interrelated; the two cannot be divorced.
Genesis 12:7 reads: "The Lord appeared unto Abram, and said, Unto thy seed will I give this land: and there builded he an altar unto the Lord, who appeared unto him." Here we see that the altar is based on divine revelation. Where there is no revelation, there is no altar. Unless God has appeared to a man, that man cannot offer his all to God. It requires revelation to produce consecration. No man on his own initiative can present himself to God. Man cannot come over to God's side. But the day a man is met by God, that day consecration takes place in his life. If you get a sight of God, you are no longer your own.
We need to realize that the power to offer oneself to God comes through revelation. Not all who preach consecration are consecrated people. Not all who understand the doctrine of consecration know the reality of consecration. Only those who have seen God are consecrated persons. God appeared to Abraham, and the immediate issue was that Abraham built an altar to God. The Lord Jesus appeared to Paul on the road to Damascus, and Paul immediately asked: "Lord, what wilt Thou have me to do?" (Acts 9:6) A turning point in our spiritual history does not come through our decision to do something for God; it comes when we see Him. When we meet God, a radical change takes place in the life. We can no longer do what we did in the past. When I meet God Himself, then I have the power to deny myself. The matter of denying self ceases to be optional when we have met God. "No man can see God and live." If God appears to any man, the whole course of his life is altered. Oh! it is not my decision to serve the Lord that enables me to serve Him. It is not my will to build an altar that produces an altar. It is when God comes out to a man that an altar is built.
When God appeared to Abraham, He said to him: "Unto thy seed will I give this land." Divine revelation brings us into a new inheritance. It brings the realization that the Holy, Spirit has been given to us now as an earnest of the inheritance which later on we shall possess in fullness.
God appeared to Abraham, and Abraham built an altar. This altar was not for sin offering, but for burnt offering. It was not a matter of settling the sin question, but of offering the life to God. It was the kind of altar spoken of in Romans 12: 1: "I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service." It was the mercy of God that caused the Lord Jesus to die for us: it was the mercy of God that provided the Cross on which we died with Him and on which the devil was dealt with: it is by the mercy of God that we have His life within: and it is the mercy of God that will bring us through to glory. It is on the ground of His mercies that God beseeches us to offer ourselves a living sacrifice to Him.
Note in connection with the burnt offering that while a person of ample resources might offer a bullock, one with less resources might offer a sheep, and one whose means were still more limited might offer a dove (Lev. 1:3,10,14). But whatever the offering, the offerer had to offer up the whole. God cannot accept less than an utter consecration.
And for what purpose is the burnt offering placed on the altar? To be wholly burned. Many of us think we offer ourselves to God to do this or that for Him, whereas what He is wanting of us is not our work, but ourselves. What the altar signifies is not doing for God, but being for God. Unlike the sacrifice of the Old Testament, which in one act was utterly burned, the sacrifice of the New Testament is "a living sacrifice." The meaning of the altar is the offering up of the life to God to be ever consumed, yet ever living: to be ever living, yet ever consumed. God wants these lives of ours consecrated to Him that throughout their entire course they may be ceaselessly being consumed for Him.
God appeared to Abraham, and Abraham offered himself to God. Abraham had not heard a lot of doctrine about consecration, nor had he been urged by others to consecrate himself; but Abraham had seen God, and when that happened, he immediately built an altar to God. Oh, brothers and sisters, consecration is a spontaneous thing. Anyone to whom God has manifested Himself cannot do other than live for Him. So it was with Abraham, and so it has been with everyone who has met God throughout the two thousand years of church history.
The altar has its issue in the tent. Genesis 12:8 says: "And he removed from thence unto the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent." From now on, Abraham lives in a tent. Actually he lived in a tent before, but not until he had built the altar does the Word of God bring the tent into view.
What is a tent? A tent is not a settled abode; it is movable. Through the altar God deals with ourselves; through the tent God deals with our possessions. At the altar Abraham had offered up his all to God. Was he thereafter stripped of everything? No! Abraham still possessed cattle and sheep and many other things; but he had become a tent-dweller. In other words, what was not consumed on the altar became attached to the tent. When we place our all on the altar, God claims many of our possessions, but what He leaves for our use belongs to the tent.
Abraham's life was a life of the altar. A day came when even his only begotten son was offered upon it. But what did God do with Isaac? He restored him to Abraham. What you place on the altar, God accepts. He cannot allow you to live for your own pleasure. The altar claims your all, and although God restores certain things from the altar, they can no longer be regarded as your own; they are related to the tent.
Some people ask: If I give my all to God, do I not have to sell all my possessions and dispose of all my money? If I consecrate myself to God, how much furniture may I have in my home and how many garments in my wardrobe? Some people are truly perplexed over such questions. But we need to remember that we have a life to live before God, and we have also a life to live in the world. In our life before God all must truly be on the altar, but for our life in the world we still have need of many material things. We need clothing, and food and a dwelling-place. We ought to consecrate our all to God and live for Him alone; but if He says I may retain a certain thing, then I retain it. Nevertheless, we must apply the principle of the tent to such things as He permits us to retain, for they are given back to us to meet our need in the world. We may use them, but we must not be governed by them. We can have them, or we can let them go; they can be given, and they can be taken away. This is the principle of tent-life. Let us learn this lesson, that we dare not use anything that has not been placed on the altar, neither may we take anything back from the altar, and what God gives back must be held on the principle of the tent.
Genesis 12:8 says: "And he removed from thence unto the mountain on the east of Bethel, and pitched his tent, having Bethel on the west, and Ai on the east: and there he builded an altar unto the Lord." This is Abraham's second altar. The altar had led to the tent, and now the tent leads again to the altar. If our possessions are not held loosely on the principle of the tent, they will cause us to take root, and there will never be a second altar. When we have consecrated our all to God, He lets us use certain things in the tent; but we have no choice as to what we take there. Everything must pass the altar that goes into the tent, and what has been placed in the tent may have to go to the altar again. At any time God may say: "I want this thing." If we cling to it and say: "This is mine," then in heart we have forsaken the altar and cannot say to God that our life is being lived for Him. We may have built our first altar, but in process of time we may have accumulated many things that cause us to depart from the life of the tent. If so, there can be no further altar. But how precious it is if we can always be tent-dwellers and can build a second altar.
Abraham had his failures. In his history there was a forsaking of the altar and the tent. But there was recovery. How did that recovery come about? Genesis 13:3-4 tells us: "He went on his journeys from the
South even to Bethel, unto the place where his tent had been at the beginning, between Bethel and Ai; unto the place of the altar, which he had made there at the first: and there Abram called on the name of the Lord." Recovery is a matter of returning to the altar and the tent.
Have any of you failed? Have any of you gone down into Egypt, so that now you have your own interests and your own aspirations? If you are seeking the way of recovery, you will find it at the altar and in the tent. Abraham's recovery involved his return "unto the place where his tent had been ... unto the place of the altar, which he had made." But what happened to Abraham after his recovery? Genesis 13:18 records: "Abram moved his tent, and came and dwelt by the oaks of Mamre, which are in Hebron, and built there an altar unto the Lord." Hebron means "fellowship." After his recovery Abraham entered into the place of continuous fellowship with God. And Abraham built another altar. If we are in fellowship with God, we will never forsake the altar. May He be gracious to us and cause us to see the importance of consecration so that we may live a life of the altar and the tent!
This work was originally published without copyright by The Stream Publishers.
