Genesis 8:20

20. Noah builded an altar This is the first altar mentioned in history, although it is generally supposed that Abel built one for his acceptable offering . It is possible that the antediluvian saints brought their gifts to the gate of Eden, where God had “tabernacled the cherubim . ” Chap . 3:24 . Whether this were so or not, all traces of that paradise were obliterated by the deluge, so that even the geographical marks of the antediluvian record cannot now be identified . מזבח , the Hebrew for altar, is from זבח , to slay, a place where victims were slain in confession of the desert of sin . Noah, the priest of the human race, type of the Great High Priest who offered himself without spot unto God, comes forth upon the baptized earth, and his first act is to make this solemn confession of sin in behalf of the rescued remnant of humanity . This man, who alone was perfect in his generations, and who walked with God, built the first altar, and sprinkled it with the blood of every clean bird and beast as a confession of sin . Sacrifice is symbolic in its very essence . The slain victim represents the worshipper, its death being typical of the desert of sin; the consumed offering going up from the earth in smoke typifies the prayer in which the man sends his inmost being up to God; while at the same time all these sacrifices, divinely appointed, prepared man to understand God’s great Sacrifice, wherein Christ offered himself up unto God, that He might be just and the justifier of all that come unto him by faith . Noah did not see Calvary, but God saw it; and we now see the smoke from this first historic altar, together with that from the tabernacle and the temple, blending in the cloud on the gospel mercy-seat .