The first furnishing specified in chapter 27 is the one you would have confronted on entering the outer court of the Tabernacle – the altar of burnt offering. Leviticus tells us that the priests were never to allow the fire to go out on this altar. Here the burnt offerings were to be offered daily (Lev. 1).
This altar was constructed of bronze. Some translations and commentaries refer to it as brass but brass, a combination of copper and zinc, was unknown until about 20 B.C. What God was speaking of was bronze, a combination of copper and tin. Of course there was an obvious utilitarian purpose in using bronze. The fire would be hot and it would not go out so a metal had to be employed which could withstand extreme heat over an extended period of time. Bronze would do that.
More importantly, bronze was used to express God’s extreme displeasure toward sin. The serpent lifted up by Moses to avert the death of the Israelites was bronze (Num. 21: 4 – 9). The feet of our Lord in Revelation 1:15 are bronze picturing His coming judgment against sin. The large altar of bronze stood in the foreground of the outer court impeding the forward progress of the worshiper and demanding sin is reckoned with.
The altar reminds us that our Jesus did not flinch before the Cross. There He became “a whole burnt offering” consumed in the unmitigated wrath of the Father. There was neither reserve nor restraint. Our Lord gave his all for us. Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end. (Jhn. 13: 1).