Leviticus 8:14

"And he brought the bullock of the sin-offering: and Aaron and his sons laid their hands upon the head of the bullock of the sin-offering. And he slew it; and Moses took the blood, and put it upon the horns of the altar round about with his finger, and purified the altar, and poured out the blood at the base of the altar, and sanctified it, to make atonement for it. And he took all the fat that was upon the inwards, and the caul of the liver, and the two kidneys, and their fat; and Moses burned it upon the altar. But the bullock, and its skin and its flesh, and its dung, he burnt with fire without the camp; as Jehovah commanded Moses."

"He brought the bullock ..." Moses officiated at this consecration. On all subsequent occasions, it was the High Priest who did so; but as yet there was no High Priest.

The procedure here followed the instructions given in Leviticus 4:6,7 in most particulars, but not in all of them, due to the special circumstances. "The blood is smeared on the altar of burnt-offerings rather than on the veil and altar of incense."[16]

There was another variation in the handling of the ram of burnt-offering later in the ceremony (a type of peace-offering). The flesh was burnt upon the altar of burnt-offerings instead of being eaten by the priests, for, "There were as yet no priests to eat it."[17]

"He purified the altar ..." This action constituted a once-for-all action making the altar acceptable to God as a place where sacrifices were to be offered. By the repeated offerings of these sacrifices, "God wrote indelibly in their souls and burned it into their hearts that they were sinners, even though they were in the service of God."[18]

The implication here of the sinfulness of the altar and its need to be cleansed shows that, for Christians, it is not the WOOD of the Cross that saves, but the BLOOD of Him who died upon it.