Printer Friendly Page

What Is The Altar At Which We Eat?

Hi again L____,

Thank you for the honor of being placed on "the top of your list in your Front Burner Bookmarks" for the present time. You seem to be doing very well at trying the spirits, so I will only commend you for doing so and encourage you to continue to do so for my writings and all others.

You ask about the altar mentioned in Hebrews 13. That altar is mentioned in connection with the admonition to avoid the false doctrines mentioned in the previous verse:

Heb 13:9  Be not carried about with divers and strange doctrines. For it is a good thing that the heart be established with grace; not with meats, which have not profited them
that have been occupied therein.
Heb 13:10  We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. 
The phrase "they have no right to eat" at our altar" is a direct reference to the tribe of Levi which was given to the house of Aaron as a gift for the purpose of "serving the tabernacle." Those Levites were never to enter the holy place or ever touch any of the holy implements at pain of death.

Num 8:19  And I have given the Levites as a gift to Aaron and to his sons from among the children of Israel, to do the service of the children of Israel in the tabernacle of the congregation, and to make an atonement for the children of Israel: that there be no plague among the children of Israel, when the children of Israel come nigh unto the sanctuary.
All of this is covered in depth in the series which are posted both on video and in study notes on iswasandwillbe.com. The title of that series is The Law of The Offerings. I would strongly urge you to read that series because it is in that series that I cover the "altar at which we eat" and why "they that serve the tabernacle have no right to eat at our altar."

'Food' in scripture is doctrines. 'Leaven' in scripture is also "the doctrine of the Pharisees" in its negative application.

Mat 16:12  Then understood they how that he bade them not beware of the leaven of bread, but of the doctrine of the Pharisees and of the Sadducees.
Christ broke bread and gave it to His disciples and said, "Take eat, this is my body..." and of the cup of wine He also said, " This is my blood in the New Testament..." So Christ, Christ's body and Christ's words are all one and the same. They are all God's means of bringing all of us to know God and His son Jesus Christ.
Joh 6:63  It is the spirit that quickeneth; the flesh profiteth nothing: the words that I speak unto you, they are spirit, and they are life.

Joh 17:3  And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast sent.
We have recently begun a series of studies in the book of Revelation. It presents the sayings of this book in the way they were meant to be presented as a book which words were to be 'kept' in John's day and in the day of any who hear and read the words written therein and who are given ears to hear what the spirit says to the churches, because the time is at hand."

Rev 1:3  Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
If you have not yet done so, I would like to take this opportunity to invite you to join us in our weekly Bible studies live on video on Ustreamtv at 3 P.M. every Sunday afternoon. If there are 5 Sundays in a month, then we take the fifth Sunday off to have some time with our family.

The studies are live, and we invite your participation.

I hope to see you there this Sunday. If you cannot make it, then all the studies are alway available in video and in study notes on iswasandwillbe.com

Your brother in Christ,

Mike