"Make an altar of acacia wood for burning incense......Put the altar in front of the curtain that is before the ark of the Testimony---before the atonement cover that is over the Testimony---where I will meet with you.  Aaron must burn fragrant incense on the altar every every morning when he tends the lamps.  He must burn incense again when he lights the lamps at twilight so incense will burn regularly before the Lord for the generations to come.  Do not offer on this altar any other incense or any burnt offering or grain offering, and do not pour a drink offering on it."  (Exodus 30:1, 6-9)

This altar was made of wood overlaid with pure gold.  It is again a picture of Jesus in His humanity and in His deity, the wood pointing to His humanity, and the gold speaking of His unchangeable deity.  It was three feet high and one and one-half feet square.  It was the tallest piece of furniture in the holy place, and speaks of the highest act of worship possible, that of prayer and priestly intercession.

It was placed in the central position in the holy place, between the table of shewbread and the golden candlestick.  it stood directly in front of the veil and the ark of the covenant in the holy of holies, with its covering of the blood sprinkled mercy seat.  There was to be a continual offering of incense upon coals taken from the brazen laver at the door of the tabernacle.  It is the most complete picture and type of Jesus now in heaven as our interceding HIgh Priest.  Hebrews 9:24 tells us:  "For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God's presence."

That leaves no doubt whatsoever about the significance of the tabernacle, as pointing Jesus.  The tabernacle was in every detail a shadow and type of the coming Redeemer.  The writer of Hebrews says that the holy place was a "copy of the true one"; the priest was a figure of Jesus; his ministry at the altar of incense a figure of Jesus in heaven offering the incense of His prayers in our behalf, so that the smoke of his incense rises constantly before the ark and the mercy seat, representing the throne of God.

At the brazen altar Jesus died for us, shed His blood, reconciled us to God, and made us forever secure in Him.  But, at the golden altar He lives in heaven to intercede for those whom He has already died, and who are already saved.  The brazen altar speaks of the death of Christ; the golden altar speaks of the living, resurrected, ascended Lord Jesus Christ.  The two altars speak of the death and the resurrection, and makes up the full message of the Gospel, "that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised up on the third day according to the Scriptures" (1 Corinthians 15:3-4).

Jesus, therefore, today is in heaven offering the incense of His own intercessory work on the basis of the blood of the Cross of Calvary.  Incense is a common Biblical figure for prayer and for intercession on the part of God's people, "May my prayer be set before you like incense" (Psalm 141:2).

The need for the priestly intercession was constant.  We today who are in Christ are also New Testament priests.  We have been justified at the Cross, but we are still in a wicked world and we carry with us the old nature, and are constantly defiled by contact with the world and the flesh.  For this we need provision, and Jesus is in heaven to meet this provision and to intercede for all believers.

The incense rising before the veil was a constant reminder to the priest that he still had the old nature, that he still came short that he still needed the intercession and the work at the altar of incense.

As the priest in the tabernacle offered incense for Israel, today we have in heaven a great High Priest who is there to intercede for us.  By the offering of the sacrifice on the brazen altar we are saved, but by the incense on the golden altar we are kept.  The incense is a continual offering, by which He is able to save all those who come by faith to Him, seeing that "He ever liveth to make intercession for us."

This intercession in heaven is ONLY FOR BELIEVERS.  The priest offered incense only for those who had first of all brought their sacrifice to the brazen altar at the door of the tabernacle, and approached on the basis of the shed blood.  So, too, Jesus in heaven today prays and intercedes only for those who have already been born again.  He does NOT PRAY for sinners.  The priest at the golden altar is powerless to do anything for the sinner until the sinner comes first to the Savior at the Cross, represented by the altar of burnt offering.  The Bible leaves no doubt about this.  In Jesus' prophetic high priestly prayer in John 17:9 He says:  "I pray for them.  I am not praying for the world, but for those you have given me, for they are yours."

Jesus at the right hand of God can do nothing for the sinner, UNTIL he comes by the way of the blood and the altar and the Cross.  On the Cross, Jesus did everything that God was able to do to save sinner.  At the Cross He was able to say, "It is finished," referring to the work of redemption.  But it did not apply to His work of intercession because that work is still going on today, at the right hand of God.