In the medieval Church, where the Mass was central, the use of the words “Sacrifice”,  “Offering” and “Oblation” to describe what was happening in the Mass was common. Further, the action of the Mass was centered on what was called “the altar.”

Background

It is true that the use of the word “Sacrifice” for the “Eucharist” goes back to the early centuries when the movable holy table (made of wood) was often (on the analogy of the religion of the OT and the altars in the Temple) called “an altar.”

In the early centuries of the Church the sacrifice offered to the Father through Jesus Christ by the assembled Christians was both the fruit of the earth and their own consecrated lives (as “a living sacrifice” , Romans 12:1ff).  And this double sacrifice was seen as being intimately associated through the presence of the Holy Spirit with the one, unique sacrifice of Christ made at Calvary, which had been received by the Father in heaven and was eternally before him at His right hand in the Person of the exalted Lamb of God.  Thus the early Church understood that the gifts from the creation – bread and wine -- she offered to the Father were then given back by the Father through the Spirit to the assembled faithful as the heavenly food of the body and blood of the glorified, exalted and once slain, Lord Jesus Christ.

In later times, the wooden table (called the “altar”) gave way to elaborate stone altars and the vocabulary of sacrifice became dominant -- so much so in the West, that it seemed as if the priest were offering to the Father as a propitiation for the sins of the world, the very same sacrifice that Christ himself had offered and made at Calvary, that is Christ Himself.

So it is hardly surprising that the Reformers of the 16^th century in order to avoid all possibility of the Mass being understood as a repeating of the unique sacrifice of Christ at Calvary (a) cut back on the use of the word “sacrifice” for what the priest and people did in the Mass/Eucharist/Holy Communion and (b) began to call for only wooden communion tables which they called  “holy table.”

Anglican experience

Thus from 1552 all editions of The Book of Common Prayer  of the Church of England and the Anglican Churches have in  “The Order for Holy Communion” avoided all use of the word “altar” and referred only to the “table”.  In fact most editions of the classic BCP have avoided the use of “altar” altogether in any part of the BCP and this includes the latest, the 1962 BCP of the Anglican Church of Canada. The exception to this general rule is in the American editions of the BCP from 1804 to 1928 in a service that has no canonical or civil authority, and has been little used, the Office of Institution of a Minister (which came from the high church school led by Bishop Samuel Seabury).

Of course, high churchmen from the 17^th century onwards, and anglo-catholics from the 19^th century onwards, have tended to call the holy table by the name of altar and in doing so have claimed the virtual universal tradition of the Church from the 3^rd century to the 16^th century.  And anglo-catholics in particular have advanced theories of the eucharistic sacrifice which naturally require the use of the word “altar.” In so doing they have aligned themselves wholly or partly with the Roman Catholic doctrine of the Mass.

As far as I know there is nothing in the canon law of most Anglican Churches to forbid the use of altar for the holy table in general church talk and so in much ordinary church language the noun surfaces – as in “the altar guild” even in non anglo-catholic churches.  Further, in some of the many books/booklets of  new Rites for the Eucharist (e.g, the American 1979 book) the word “altar” appears in the rubrics alongside “holy table” as a synonym for it.

Finally, it remains to be said that for those who want to be guided by the classic Anglican Formularies the preferred word/phrase for that on which the bread and wine are placed remains “holy table.” In using this word/phrase they can have a high doctrine of the presence of Christ in the Communion Service as well as a high doctrine of the offering/sacrifice to the Father of consecrated lives and of gifts from his creation [for him to sanctify for holy use as the sacramental body and blood of the exalted Saviour].  It is wrong for high church and anglo-catholic brethren to insist on the use of the word “altar” when the dominant Anglican tradition is that of “table.”