The golden censer was placed in front of the veil, outside the holy of holies. Every morning and evening Aaron burns incense on it. Nothing else is to be offered on it except incense, and once a year blood from the atonement sacrifice is placed on it to make atonement. (Exodus 30:1-10)

We know that the holy of holies represents the heart. The veil represents the border between the heart and the rest of the body. (For more information read What Do Eden, The Lost Ark, and the Holy City Have In Common?) And so just outside that veil we find this censer, which I gather is something like a bowl with a handle on it. It burns incense which creates smoke which keeps Aaron from dying when he enters the holy of holies on atonement.

Leviticus 16:12 And he shall take a censer full of burning coals of fire from off the altar before the LORD, and his hands full of sweet incense beaten small, and bring it within the vail: And he shall put the incense upon the fire before the LORD, that the cloud of the incense may cover the mercy seat that is upon the testimony, that he die not:

This incense Aaron burns PROTECTS him. Without it, when he enters the holy of holies, he would die. God promised that He would appear above the mercy seat and speak to man on several occasions (Exodus 25:22 for instance). So this smoke was to hide that place where God was to appear so that Aaron would not see God. Again, this was for Aaron’s protection that “he die not”. So how did that protect Aaron?

The SMOKE

God hides from all of us. If you don’t believe me, when was the last time you saw Him? I thought so. God isn’t here. God doesn’t float around all glowing and tell people to do things. Why not? Because if God told you to do something, and you didn’t do it, it would be a sin, and He’d have to kill you on the spot.

God has told us to do many things in the Bible. Most people don’t do them. And that is sin. The definition of sin, actually. The penalty for sin is death (Romans 6:23). And yet God hasn’t killed them for it. Why not? Because they are ignorant. Their sin doesn’t count because they didn’t know any better (Romans 5:13). So God “winks at” their sins of ignorance (Acts 17:30).

But if God came down, in all his power and glory, and TOLD you, personally, on no uncertain terms EXACTLY what HE wanted from you, made it clear to you so that you understood it, and gave you everything you needed to do it…

If you then decided NOT to do it – If you instead spit in His face and told Him you were going to do it YOUR way, and that you couldn’t care less what HE wants – why, then He’d have to kill you. That is a sin – a sin without ignorance, without deception, with a clear mind making a simple choice that you hate God.

You KNEW better – you SAW Him. You saw PROOF beyond question that it WAS God. You KNEW He was right! And yet you decided to sin WILLFULLY! And there is NO sacrifice for a WILLFUL sin! (Hebrews 10:26). But you haven’t done this. No man has EVER done this.

God has kept man in relative ignorance all along, so that it is impossible – physically impossible – for ANYONE to commit the unpardonable sin. It just can’t be done. To commit a sin which is completely willful requires that you are not deceived; not ignorant; that you fully know every facet and every reason WHY God commanded every law; and that you are fully convinced with proof that no empirical mind could possibly argue that He exists, and that He commanded this exact thing.

And since God knows that, He is extremely careful not to let ANYONE get into that position. God takes great pains to reveal Himself to mankind one step at a time; here a little, there a little (Isaiah 28:10). Only if we accept the last truth He revealed to us, will He show us another. If we stop obeying at any point along the line, there is still much we didn’t know, and so much ignorance which God can use as our excuse, thereby giving us hope for a chance in the second resurrection. Although the more we know when we rejected God, the worse off we will be then.

And so for our own protection, God has kept His throne room clouded so that man CANNOT see Him clearly.

1 Corinthians 13:12 For now we see through a glass, darkly; but then face to face: now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known.

No man has ever looked God in the face; not because God is so blindingly bright – although on a physical level that probably has something to do with it – but because men are carnal. And God can’t take the risk of someone fully knowing Him, and then rejecting Him. Because that would mean our instant, permanent death. And so even Moses was not allowed to see God’s face.

Exodus 33:18,20 And he [Moses] said, I beseech thee, shew me thy glory. … And he [God] said, Thou canst not see my face: for there shall no man see me, and live.

But we’re not all in the same level of deception. Some have obeyed what God has given them well enough and pursued it with sufficient zeal that God has shown them more; and more and more; Others have taken their talent and buried it, and are stuck exactly where they started. So for some, the glass is “darker” than others. Moses saw more of God than anyone else. Who else saw God’s hindquarters?

Numbers 12:6-8 And he said, Hear now my words: If there be a prophet among you, I the LORD will make myself known unto him in a vision, and will speak unto him in a dream. MY SERVANT MOSES IS NOT SO, who is faithful in all mine house. With him will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches; and the similitude of the LORD shall he behold: wherefore then were ye not afraid to speak against my servant Moses?

Moses’ relationship with God was close enough that God spoke to Him personally; not in hazy dreams, or in visions, or in “happening to open the Bible to a certain page” that leads us to the truth. But personally. So Moses saw God through less fog – less incense – than the rest of us. He actually perceived part of God’s true form, because Moses was as God said “faithful in all mine house”.

So the smoke that Aaron blew into the holy of holies to protect himself from the face of God was because Aaron wasn’t close enough to God to look God in the eye and live. He was never even as close to God as Moses, so seeing the slightest portion of God would have killed him. The smoke prevented that, therefore the smoke pictures ignorance.

When we pray to God, we symbolically go before the mercy seat in heaven – if we do so unworthily, we would die as well. But because of our ignorance, even though we may have sins of which we are not aware, we are allowed there, even welcomed – because God hides in the thick darkness (1 Kings 8:12).

The golden censer burns incense, and the incense creates smoke; the smoke shrouds the throne of God so that we perceive Him only as “through a glass, darkly”. It symbolizes the darkness of our minds which prevents us from seeing God and protects us from His immediate wrathful judgment – God has shrouded our minds in ignorance “that we die not”.

The CENSER

But now we have to ask, where does that ignorance which clouds the mercy seat originate?

As has been established, the holy of holies represents our heart. Inside the heart resides all spiritual matters – our spirit, conscience, and so on. Surrounding that heart is a veil, that keeps out all light and all intruders. It also keeps out God.

Acts 7:51 Ye stiffnecked and uncircumcised in heart and ears, ye do always resist the Holy Ghost: as your fathers did, so do ye.

The uncircumcision of their hearts blocked the holy spirit’s access to their hearts. It was that veil which prevented God from pricking their conscience and working with them as He does with the new covenant Christian.

2 Corinthians 3:15 But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart.

But there is a door in this veil, that allows access to our hearts for a select few. But how do we determine who is allowed in there? How do we decide to block God out or give him access? What guards the doorway to our as-yet uncircumcised hearts?

Well, let’s put it a different way. What prevents the miracles of God from convincing a carnal mind? What allowed Israel to see massive miracles… and then, while holding a glass of water which flowed from a rock in one hand and bowl of bread that fell from the sky in the other, STILL not believe God and tempt him, and say things like “can God bring meat in the wilderness?”

Psalms 78:19 Yea, they spake against God; they said, Can God furnish a table in the wilderness?

What caused this utter lack of faith? The simple answer is… “reasoning”.

Now I’m as big a fan of reasoning as anyone. Maybe more. But I’ve watched this process in myself and in many others, so I know this is how this works; when you have a dramatic healing, the euphoria has scarcely passed before your mind starts to reason it’s way around it. The mind isn’t a part of the heart – it lives in the brain. And the mind’s job is to doubt everything, prove everything. And so when you see a fever disappear under your hands, or watch Jesus raise the dead, or watch the red sea part, your first thought is “Wow!” – the second thought is “Ok, what’s the trick? How’d he do that?? Smoke and mirrors, hidden wires, what?”

When someone says it was God that did it, your mind considers that, then realizes it can’t see God; can’t lock Him in a laboratory and test Him over and over again. And so figures “maybe the red sea was going to part there anyway!” – or “sure, the fever went away, but they probably would have gotten better on their own; I guess we’ll never know now”.

The point is that the mind takes the acts and beliefs and statements of God and DOUBTS them. Now doubt is not a bad thing – but carnal people don’t like God anyway. They don’t WANT to obey a bunch of – to them – petty, arbitrary rules because some unseen self-important taskmaster of a God said so!

And so they don’t WANT to believe the Miracles! They don’t WANT to believe what God said! So the seed of doubt GROWS, and they nourish it and fertilize it with massive amounts of verbal manure and in the end you have doubted to a point that has past all fairness and logic and reason, and can only be described as “…an evil heart of unbelief, in departing from the living God” (Hebrews 3:12).

The MIND produced DOUBT; the DOUBT kept you from understanding the TRUTH and that is, by definition, IGNORANCE! And that IGNORANCE is the smoke which keeps you from dying when you enter the throne room of God!

As a Biblical case in point, take Peter; Peter was impulsive and often acted before thinking. Often it got him in hot water, but in this case it got him walking on water.

Matthew 14:28-29 And Peter answered him and said, Lord, if it be thou, bid me come unto thee on the water. And he said, Come. And when Peter was come down out of the ship, he walked on the water, to go to Jesus.

Notice that there was no problem walking on water. He was out there, walking, and he didn’t have ANY problem with it – until his mind introduced DOUBT! He wasn’t thinking about where He was, or how was this possible, or had the lake suddenly frozen or gravity been reversed, or trying to figure out HOW was this happening – He was just doing what God said.

Verses 30-31 But when he SAW the wind boisterous, he was afraid; and beginning to sink, he cried, saying, Lord, save me. And immediately Jesus stretched forth his hand, and caught him, and said unto him, O thou of little faith, wherefore didst thou DOUBT?

He was fine until he SAW that the wind was scary, and was AFRAID; until He started REASONING, and DOUBTING, He had no problems at all coming to Christ; but once his mind introduced doubt it closed the veil around his heart and LOCKED God out! That doubt make him ignorant and kept him from seeing God!

But I don’t mean to vilify the mind. The mind is a tool, and it is just doing its job. That job is to protect the heart, the emotional and conscience center, from unauthorized influence. The heart has a veil around it for a reason – if it weren’t for that, we would automatically believe everything anyone said to us. The mind’s doubting is there for our protection. You might say it is our heart’s sentry.

Ephesians 4:14 That we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive;

It is the job of the sentry who stands at this guardpost to challenge incoming spirits and ideas that would otherwise wreak unknown havoc in the heart. It stands in front of the ONLY ENTRANCE into the heart, our own private holy of holies, and no one can pass without it’s approval.

1 John 4:1 Beloved, believe not every spirit, but try the spirits whether they are of God: because many false prophets are gone out into the world.

To get past this guard, a wandering spirit must first convince the mind that it belongs there. That it makes sense. This is how our mind TRIES the spirits whether they be of God. Now most so-called Christians today just “give their heart to Jesus” and then are always talking about how God “lays things on their hearts”. What they have done is consciously opened up their heart – not to Jesus, but to anything and everything. Any spirit that comes now, and imprints any feeling upon their heart, is welcomed and called “Jesus”.

They have been taught that they had to open up their hearts and ignore their doubts, ignore their suspicions, ignore every sound reason (basically turn off their brain) and just accept the “spiritual experience” of “knowing God” “on faith”. Which means that now, any passing spirit can walk right past the sleeping guard and into their heart and do whatever it wants. So in reality, they’re no better off than those Israelites who just bolted the door to their heart shut and locked everyone out. And probably worse.

The challenge is that your sentry must be educated; you must DECIDE which spirit you want to let in your heart; then by study and REASON you must learn how to RECOGNIZE that spirit. Your mind does this by comparing these spirits with the Bible and the immutable laws of the universe. God’s spirit is distinctive. It’s condemnatory, makes you uncomfortable, and tells you things that you usually don’t want to hear – at least at first. But it’s always the same. It always works according to the Law, and to the Bible.

Isaiah 8:20 To the law and to the testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it is because there is no light in them.

Your mind must learn to recognize God and allow him passage, but not the other spirits. It has to be trained to allow one spirit, and one only, into your heart, just as the Golden Censer allowed one person, Aaron, and one person only into the holy of holies. Anyone else died on the spot from the fire which came out of the holy of holies, and so likewise must any spirit “die” who attempts unauthorized access to your heart.

So to summarize the process, when some person, spirit, or idea comes to the veil around your heart, they are challenged by your brain; they have to supply identification or proof of some sort that they belong there. This is the incense and it is placed in the censer. It has to be tested, and so it burns, and the smoke wafts up from the censer and if the smoke smells right, they get to pass. If it stinks, they die as far as your heart is concerned.

And so the censer, in the human body, represents the mind. But as you’ll see before we’re done, the temple symbolizes a lot of different things; God has used this same pattern in creating His throne room in heaven; the garden of Eden; the tabernacle and two temples so far, and who knows what else. So to make sense, this censer has to have a place in ALL of those symbols; it has to make sense in EACH one of the patterns and THEN we’ll know that we have an answer that is unassailably right!

So in the human pattern, it is the mind. In the temple and tabernacle patterns it is the censer that guards the veil. But in the Garden of Eden, it’s something else. We’ll get into the Garden of Eden in detail later, but for now, the garden of Eden itself represented the holy of holies; where God dwelt. In the midst of the garden symbolized the ark of the covenant. But when Adam and Eve sinned, they could no longer enter the holy of holies as we can today, so they were locked out of that portion by the veil.

Being placed under the physical covenant, they could still enter the outer temple, which is why they were left in Eden, just not in the GARDEN of Eden. But outside the gate of the Garden was an Angel, with a flaming sword. Preventing ANY unauthorized access to the Garden of Eden, the holy of holies, the dwelling place of God. It’s job was to challenge any who would pass, kill any who failed the challenge, and permit only those who actually belonged in the Garden, if any. Which is a perfect parallel to everything I’d said so far.

There is also a parallel in the temple in heaven, but let’s save that for a little later. For now, we have overlooked one important fact; we’ve explained the censer, the veil, the smoke and Aaron – but we haven’t looked at the INCENSE itself!

The INCENSE

We have explained what happens when incense burns – doubt. And we’ve explained where the incense burns – in the mind. But in between those two steps, in between the mind and the doubt it creates is an important step; the PROCESSING. After all, the mind won’t doubt if nothing is given for it to doubt. So you have to put something IN for the mind to process and only then can it create doubt and with it ignorance.

As has been said, the incense is in a way the I.D. Card. It is the proof of the worthiness of the person wanting access. It is the material which the mind processes to create ignorance, in the human symbol; but in the temple of God, this incense did a very similar thing, although it is not at first obvious… two particular incidents come to mind:

Leviticus 10:1-2 And Nadab and Abihu, the sons of Aaron, took either of them his censer, and put fire therein, and put incense thereon, and offered strange fire before the LORD, which he commanded them not. And there went out fire from the LORD, and devoured them, and they died before the LORD.

Nadab and Abihu had no business in the holy of holies. And their incense was not pleasant before God, since He hadn’t commanded them to offer any. And so their I.D. was rejected and the fire came out of the holy of holies and killed them instantly. Another time, Korah and a group of Levites gathered together against Moses…

Numbers 16:3 And they gathered themselves together against Moses and against Aaron, and said unto them, Ye take too much upon you, seeing all the congregation are holy, every one of them, and the LORD is among them: wherefore then lift ye up yourselves above the congregation of the LORD?

See their contention was that ALL the congregation was holy – just as holy as Moses, if not more so – and so ALL of them had a right to be offering sacrifices, and entering the holy of holies, and so on. And so a test was proposed; a sort of deadly contest between Moses and Aaron on the one hand, and 250 rebels on the other.

Verses 4-7 And when Moses heard it, he fell upon his face: And he spake unto Korah and unto all his company, saying, Even to morrow the LORD will shew who are his, and who is holy; and will cause him to come near unto him: even him whom he hath chosen will he cause to come near unto him. This do; Take you censers, Korah, and all his company; And put fire therein, and put incense in them before the LORD to morrow: and it shall be that the man whom the LORD doth choose, he shall be holy: ye take too much upon you, ye sons of Levi.

So Moses told them that the test would be the CENSER. Again the incense is used as a proof of acceptance; a swiping of your passport to gain access into God’s presence. The “contest” was held in the door of the tabernacle, and needless to say, Moses won and God killed the 250 men, again by a fire that came out of the holy of holies. But then a strange thing happened; God commanded that the censers these men had used be saved, for they were now holy.

Numbers 16:38 The censers of these sinners against their own souls, let them make them broad plates for a covering of the altar: for they offered them before the LORD, therefore they are hallowed: and they shall be a sign unto the children of Israel.

Even though they were offered by rebellious men who themselves died for their act, they had been offered before the Lord and that made them holy, so they were beaten into a covering for the altar. I won’t attempt to explain that.

Verse 40 To be a memorial unto the children of Israel, that no stranger, which is not of the seed of Aaron, come near to offer incense before the LORD; that he be not as Korah, and as his company: as the LORD said to him by the hand of Moses.

The common thread through these incidents is that these men wanted to gain unauthorized access into the presence of God; and so they burned their incense, and it failed to pass the test, and so they were killed. Entering the presence of God is a dangerous thing if you are not worthy, sincere, and doing it for the right reason.

But there is another thing that can be explained now; I’ve been careful to say so far that the incense of Aaron burned and created IGNORANCE which protected him from seeing God; but there is another way we are prevented from seeing God, and that is through DECEPTION.

Ignorance is not necessarily caused by sin; it’s simply someone who didn’t know something. But deception can only exist by lying. Only if someone has sinned and deliberately misled others can deception exist. Therefore, as ignorance is created by good incense, so deception is created by bad incense.

The incense offered by Korah, Dathan, Abihu, Nadab, and so on symbolized DECEPTION. And their incense STANK in God’s nostrils (Isaiah 65:5), and was to God a savor of death unto death (2 Corinthians 2:26). It symbolized their protection through lies and deception, which wasn’t good enough to allow them access to God’s throne room.

The incense offered by the righteous, by those who deserved to be in God’s throne room, symbolized their protection through ignorance, which exists in all and which can exist without any sin. Simply by not knowing, we are protected because where there is no law, there is no sin.

But now we must move from the physical to the spiritual; for as the censer exists in the temple to guard the entrance of the holy of holies, so there is an analogous censer in heaven keeping those who don’t belong out of the presence of God.

It is believed by most every pagan on earth that his prayers are carried to his god by the smoke of his incense, or his candles, or his fire, or what have you. This is also the commonly held explanation of the incense of God in most books on the subject. But take a look at the scriptures that are used to say that:

Revelation 8:3 (Weymouth) And another angel came and stood close to the altar, carrying a censer of gold; and abundance of incense was given to him that he might place it WITH the prayers of all God’s people upon the golden altar which was in front of the throne.

That does not say that the smoke IS the prayers of the people; it says the angel is carrying a golden censer (the Heavenly type of the Earthly one) and he puts incense on it, so that he can place the golden censer WITH the prayers of all God’s people on the altar! It says that the INCENSE is the prayers, but not the smoke!

Verse 4 And the smoke of the incense rose into the presence of God from the angel’s hand, and mingled WITH the prayers of His people.

Notice that once again it doesn’t say that the smoke IS the prayers, in fact it specifically says that it isn’t! For it says that the smoke rose and mingled WITH the prayers of His people! Now if the smoke IS the prayers, it can’t very well mingle WITH them can it??

Psalms 141:2 Let my PRAYER be set forth before thee AS INCENSE; and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice.

Does that say that smoke equals prayer? No! It says that INCENSE equals prayer! And as we’ve just seen, there is a BIG difference between censer, incense and smoke! So the smoke is NOT the prayers. The smoke is the cloud that prevents us from seeing God WHEN we pray. And the INCENSE is the prayers.

And think about it; in light of everything said so far, the point of the incense is to ask for passage; to submit our identification for review before entering the throne room of God. And how else do we approach the throne of God, if not through prayers? What is it that requests an audience in the throne room of God, if not prayer? And so prayer is the incense, but NOT the smoke.

I’ve explained how it works in the temple, and I’ve explained how it works in the human heart; So all that remains is to explain how it works in heaven.

We can’t walk to heaven. First, it’s a long walk and secondly we’re not really sure where it is. So we are transported there in spirit. That is to say, we stay here and our spirit rings in on the heavenly switchboard.

If we could see what’s actually going on, and follow our prayer, we would see it entering the temple of God in heaven and moving across the sea of glass, and up to a golden censer. In that censer, our prayer would be deposited and the smoke would be produced to cloud the most holy place. If our heart is pure enough, the smell of our incense would be sweet and grant us passage into the most holy place; where, before the throne of God our prayer is heard.

Proverbs 15:29 The LORD is far from the wicked: but he heareth the prayer of the righteous.

Proverbs 28:9 He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, even his prayer shall be abomination.

If however our heart condemns us, or is downright wicked, the prayer is refused access, fire comes out from the throne and… well, you get the idea. The angels which surround the throne of God would kick you right off that sea of glass.

So as one final summary;

1. The censer symbolizes the sentry at the gate of your heart (your brain), God’s temple, God’s throne, and the Garden of Eden.
2. The incense symbolizes the prayer, and the identification presented by someone wanting access to your heart, God’s temple, God’s throne, and the Garden of Eden.
3. The smoke represents the test of that prayer, and the smell of the smoke determines whether passage is permitted or not. The smoke will burn either from ignorance or deception, and if it’s the former you will be allowed, if it’s the latter you’ll be forbidden access, and killed either literally or metaphorically.

And the purer your heart is, the clearer your smoke will be, and the better will be your picture of God.