By Ezekiel Kimosop
I came across a debate on Facebook regarding the admissibility of spiritual altars in church sanctuaries. The proponents of this practice insist that a spiritual altar should be erected in the church by a "prophet of God" so that the church is appropriately constituted and demonic forces are constrained. They claim that the church would seamlessly and exponentially attract numbers and that those who seek God's intervention in their lives in the sanctuary would receive prompt miracles. One preacher allied to this group suggested that a certain rural church was not growing because an altar had not been erected by a "prophet of God" who had the anointing of God! On further inquiry, it was gathered that the prophet should be paid a handsome sum of money to facilitate the installation and commissioning of the church altar.
My view is that such altars are part of a set of occult practices that have been surreptitiously or stealthily introduced into contemporary charismatic Christian worship. These occult practices reduce the worship of God to high occult. They derail the focus of the congregation from Christ and propel some preachers to divinity status. Those promoting these practices are drawing abominations into the Christian faith while purporting to speak the mind of God. They are attempting to add to what Christ has already accomplished for us at the cross!
The truth is that Christ was and is the final sacrifice from God who was offered by our heavenly Father for our redemption. He was slain from the foundation of the world (Revelation 13:8). Christ is God's exclusive sacrificial Lamb who was crucified for us at the cross of Calvary once and for all. His atonement was sufficient, efficacious, and final.
In Christ, we meet God through our covenant relationship anchored in His shed blood. We therefore do not require any other sacrifice or medium to reach God. Christ alone is the answer. Jesus cried at the cross saying "it is finished!" (John 19:30).
What was finished?
1) Our separation from God on account of our sinful condemnation in Adam was decidedly finished! God's wrath was appeased in Christ and those who come to Christ by faith are cleansed and counted as His covenant children (John 1:12). They are justified by God in Christ and rescued from sinful condemnation.
2) The Levitical ritual practices for the atonement of sin were finished in Christ. Never again would these practices be required by God for the atonement of our sins! Christ sacrificial death on the cross of Calvary was final. It is not replicable.
Hebrews 9:13-15 says: "For if the blood of bulls and goats and the ashes of a heifer, sprinkling the unclean, sanctifies for the purifying of the flesh, 14 how much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without spot to God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? 15 And for this reason He is the Mediator of the new covenant, by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions under the first covenant, that those who are called may receive the promise of the eternal inheritance." (NKJV).
3) We were once and for all totally redeemed and liberated from any sinful condemnation. We cannot walk in condemnation as a Christian community.
Romans 8:1-4 says: "There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, who do not walk according to the flesh, but according to the Spirit. 2 For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has made me free from the law of sin and death. 3 For what the law could not do in that it was weak through the flesh, God did by sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, on account of sin: He condemned sin in the flesh, 4 that the righteous requirement of the law might be fulfilled in us who do not walk according to the flesh but according to the Spirit." (NKJV).
Keep away from false teachers!
Keep it Christ!
© Ezekiel Kimosop 2019
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