Exodus 30:2, commentary and pictures

The verse gives the form of the golden altar of incense, foursquare, a cubit in length and a cubit in breadth and two cubits in height, with horns of the same construction as itself. In the earthly wilderness tabernacle that altar stood in the holy place just before the veil or curtain that separated the holy place from the most holy place, directly before the ark and the unseen mercy-seat. The wilderness tabernacle was a portable sanctuary built at God's command as His dwelling among the Israelites, with two apartments, the holy place and the most holy place. Its furnishings and proportions were later followed in Solomon's temple, which remained the sanctuary until the Romans destroyed it in A.D. 70.

The verse also describes the altar seen in the holy place or first apartment of the heavenly temple in the holy city. It is reached through a door and behind the first veil, and stands there before the second veil that opens into the holy of holies, together with the candlestick with seven lamps and the table of shewbread and the censer. All its furniture, including the altar, is of purest gold and reflects the image of Christ who enters there. The priest burned holy incense upon the earthly altar every morning and evening, facing the mercy-seat. Its fire was kindled by the Lord and kept sacred, and its fragrant cloud filled the sanctuary and spread through and around the tabernacle day and night, while its horns were touched with the blood of the sin offering and sprinkled with blood on the great Day of Atonement.

The altar is an altar of perpetual intercession whose incense and cloud of fragrance represent the prayers, praise, and confession of Israel and of God's people daily ascending before God. That ascending worship is directed by faith to Christ, the unseen Mediator before the mercy-seat in the heavenly sanctuary. The incense represents Christ's merits and intercession and His perfect, spotless righteousness imputed to His people through faith. Sinful people's worship is acceptable to God only when Christ presents and purifies it, and through Him as Mediator repentant believers approach God and claim the benefits of His mediation and receive mercy and salvation. Jesus ministered before that heavenly altar in the holy place, offering the saints' prayers with the smoke of the incense in the golden censer to His Father, until the prophetic periods ended in 1844, when He closed the door of that apartment and passed within the second veil into the most holy place.