A raised structure — of earth, stone, bronze, or gold — where sacrificial offerings are made to God. The altar is the central piece of Israel's worship apparatus: the meeting point between sinful man and holy God, made possible only through blood. Noah built the first altar after the flood (Genesis 8:20). Abraham built altars at every encampment as acts of covenantal devotion (Genesis 12:7–8). The bronze altar of the tabernacle received the daily burnt offerings; the golden altar in the Holy Place received incense. The entire altar system points forward to the cross, where Christ became both priest and sacrifice, rendering all other altars obsolete (Hebrews 10:10–14).
AL'TAR, n. A table, or elevated place, on which sacrifices were anciently offered to some deity. Altars were originally made of turf, then of stone, then of wood, and overlaid with stone; and sometimes of marble, brass, silver, or other materials. In more modern times, the communion table in Christian churches is called an altar, as the place where the eucharist is celebrated. In Scripture, the place of Christ's oblation is figuratively called an altar.
Modern evangelicalism has largely abandoned the altar — both the concept and the architecture. Churches scrubbed of altars signal (often unconsciously) a theology scrubbed of sacrifice. The "altar call" remains as a vestige, but it has been stripped of its sacrificial meaning and reduced to a moment of emotional decision. Meanwhile, high-church and Catholic traditions risk the opposite error: treating the altar as a place where Christ is continually re-offered, obscuring the finality of Calvary ("It is finished" — John 19:30). The altar must always point to the cross — not replace it, not repeat it, but remember it.
Genesis 8:20 — "Then Noah built an altar to the LORD and took some of every clean animal and offered burnt offerings on the altar."
Exodus 20:24 — "An altar of earth you shall make for me and sacrifice on it your burnt offerings and your peace offerings."
Hebrews 13:10 — "We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat."
Romans 12:1 — "Present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship."
Revelation 8:3 — "Another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints."
H4196 — מִזְבֵּחַ (mizbeach): "altar, place of slaughter" — the central worship structure of Israel's tabernacle and temple
G2379 — θυσιαστήριον (thysiastērion): "altar, place of sacrifice" — used in Hebrews for the altar from which believers eat
"Every time Abraham pitched his tent in a new land, he built an altar — not a monument to himself, but a declaration that God owned that ground."
"The altar is not a relic of primitive religion — it is the architecture of atonement, and the cross is its final fulfillment."
"Paul calls our bodies a 'living sacrifice' — the altar is now wherever we lay ourselves down before God."