Some have thought the altar to mean the cross on which the body of
Christ was crucified when he gave himself an offering for sin; but
they are greatly deceived, for he also himself was the altar through
which he offered himself; and this is one of the treasures of wisdom
which are hid in him, and of which the world and antichrist are
utterly ignorant.
The altar is always greater than the gift, and since the gift was
the body and soul of Christ--for so saith the scripture, "He gave
himself for our sins"--the altar must be something else than a sorry
bit of wood, or than the accursed tree.
Wherefore I will say to such, as one wiser than Solomon said to the
Jews when they superstitiously magnified the gift, in counting it
more honorable than the altar, "Ye fools and blind; for whether is
greater, the gift, or the altar that sanctifieth the gift?"
If the altar be greater than the gift, and yet the gift so great a
thing as the very humanity of Christ, can it--I will now direct my
speech to the greatest fool--can that greater thing be the cross?
Was the cross, the wooden cross, the cursed tree that some worship,
greater than the gift, to wit, the sacrifice which Christ offered,
when he gave himself for our sins? O idolatry! O blasphemy!
But what then was the altar?
The divine nature of Christ, that eternal Spirit, by and in the
assistance of which "he offered himself without spot, to God." "He
through the eternal Spirit offered himself."
And it must be this, because, as was said, the altar is greater than
the gift; but there is nothing but Christ's divine nature greater
than his human. To be sure, a sorry bit of wood, a tree, the stock
of a tree, is not.
It must be this, because the Scripture says plainly, the altar
sanctifies the gift, that is, puts worth and virtue into it. But was
it the tree, or the godhead of Christ, that put virtue and efficacy
into this sacrifice that he offered to God for us? If thou canst but
count thy fingers, judge.
Let the tree then be the tree, the sacrifice the sacrifice, and the
altar the altar; and let men have a care how, in their worship, they
make altars upon which, as they pretend, they offer the body of
Christ; and let them leave off foolishly to doat upon wood and the
works of their hands.