The Tabernacle of the Israelites (Part II)
By Liaf
Part one gave you the overall plan of the tabernacle that God told Moses to construct for the Israelites. We will now delve a little more into the specifics--- namely the dimensions, descriptions and significance of the tent, court, and items therein. The Israelites then could not see the significance. As the Apostle Paul said, these were but a shadow of things to come. A shadow is cast by something that has substance. That substance is Christ. Today, we can look back and see the prophetic significance. Before I go on, I want to say that in the same spirit of prophetic interpretation of Revelation, no two people agree on every detail. Sometimes these little details bother me and I oftentimes see even more significance in them as I meditate on them. Nevertheless, the general interpretations are generally agreed upon, that is if one holds orthodox view of mainline Christianity (which I do). If one does not believe in the deity of Christ for example, then one would have to deny the meaning of the materials contained in the Ark of the Covenant and invent an entirely new meaning. Usually those who take a more liberal view of Christianity are too scholarly to even consider the significance of the Ark or the tabernacle. They either do not give the subject a second thought and effectively truncate that from Scripture as insignificant, or perhaps they attribute the tabernacle as a form of evolutionary religious thought of man only subject to a passing interest on their part.
I will start with Exodus 25. From chapters 25 to 31 are the chapters where God actually gave Moses the plans, then there are a few chapters interruption and the final chapters of Exodus is a repeat of 25 to 31 describing the same things as they construct everything.
Exodus 25:1-9: And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying,
Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering: of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering.
And this is the offering which ye shall take of them; gold, and silver, and brass,
And blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats' hair,
And rams' skins dyed red, and badgers' skins, and shittim wood,
Oil for the light, spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense,
Onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod, and in the breastplate.
And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.
According to all that I shew thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it.
First of all, the Israelites were to give the materials for the tabernacle willingly. Obviously even a dim person can see that there is an element of grace here. The entire idea of a tabernacle for God to dwell with them was symbolic of a time of grace; not something forced by the Law. However, this is not to say that in their time they were not to follow the Law as a "type" of something to happen in the future. And indeed, God did dwell with them, but not in the same dimension that we experience today. Notice too that God showed Moses the pattern for it. "What do you mean, Liaf? He unrolled blueprints?" Yes. That’s exactly what I mean. Maybe God’s blueprints don’t look like the ones for our homes. Nevertheless, God showed Moses some type of plan. I take comfort in these passages when for years I’ve been warned of my lack of faith because I have "head knowledge" instead of "heart knowledge". These evangelists better tell God he’s out of line too. God devoted an excessive amount of His Word to mathematical details. Let’s go over the significance of these materials:
Gold represented divinity, silver represented redemption, and brass represented judgement. The shekel of the sanctuary was made of silver for redemption according to various passages in the Bible. We will also see that brass was used for the altar of burnt offerings. Already in the end-time series we saw that the angry Lord had feet of brass (as if to stomp his enemies with judgement). In a similar manner, fire also represented judgement where the sacrifice was burned. The colors blue, purple, scarlet, and fine linen represented the four-fold depiction of Christ as shown in the gospels. Blue was his eternal side (John’s gospel portrayed Christ this way). Purple was his royal side (Matthew’s gospel). Scarlet was for the suffering servant (Mark’s gospel) and "fine linen" was white, the perfect man (Luke’s gospel). Wherever we see these colors, we must think of Christ and his nature. A liberal Christian who denies the deity of Christ already runs into severe interpretive problems by verse three (and there are about seven chapters to go). The only other way to circumvent this problem is to either ignore it (alias ‘sweeping it under the rug’) or totally reinterpret it to fit their own theology. Of course when that happens, the interpretation is man’s ideas and when you carefully scrutinize it, sooner or later there will be contradictions. So much for their scholarly ways.
The rams skins dyed red and the badger skins have a beautiful significance regarding Christ’s shed blood and sinful humanity. I will explain more on that later. Shittim wood (why are you chuckling?) otherwise known as acacia wood represented humanity. The oil represented the Spirit of God; the incense had it meaning relating to Christ’s work and the believer in Christ. The precious stones for the ephod represented the twelve tribes of the people of God. However, that was used for the priest’s attire and that will be another subject later on.
As we continue reading this chapter, we find that verses 10-16 describe the Ark of the Covenant. This box (2 ½ x 1 ½ x 1 ½ cubits) represented the dual nature of CHRIST. How do we know this? It was made of acacia wood (his humanity) overlaid with gold both inside and outside (his divine nature). Inside the Ark were the UNBROKEN tablets of the Law. Remember that the Moses broke the first ones symbolizing that man cannot keep the Law (and they were having an orgy of all things when that happened). Only Christ can keep them UNBROKEN INSIDE of his very nature. According to Hebrews, the Ark also contained Aaron’s budding rod (a type of resurrection from a dead stick), and a pot of manna that came from heaven (Jesus said he was the bread from heaven). What more proof do we need? Regarding the dimensions, you may be wondering why 2½ cubits long by 1 ½ wide and high? If you notice something carefully, these are forms of the numbers 3 and 5. 3 represented divine manifestation and 5 represented grace. But this was 3 and 5 halves as if to signify that the Ark is "only half the story". The Ark was not Christ. It was typical of Christ. It was the Earthly representation of the heavenly thing.
When we get to verse 17, see the instructions for the mercy seat. This was a covering for the Ark:
Exodus 25:17-22: And thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof.
And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat.
And make one cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end: even of the mercy seat shall ye make the cherubims on the two ends thereof.
And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be.
And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee.
And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.
This golden lid represented the throne of God where Cherubim encompassed it (Revelation 4:2-8). Notice it was called the mercy seat. Once per year the High Priest sprinkled blood on it as an atonement for the children of Israel. The only thing separating the unbroken tablets of the Law and the sinner facing the throne of God was that mercy seat. Only the mercy of God could come between the sinner and the unbroken tablets of the Law. With the blood of Christ presented on our behalf as depicted by the High Priest sprinkling it on the mercy seat, we can stand righteous before God. The book of Hebrews says: Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need. Too many Christians have a vague view of a heavenly throne with a righteous God sitting there. They interpret this passage as meaning they can come to God and to his throne without fear because they are forgiven. This is true, but I want to impress upon my readers the awesome thought this verse is to the Jew. The allusion is coming before God just as the high Priest went into the Holy of Holies and stood before the Ark of the Covenant. Nobody dared to even think of doing that let alone actually doing it. Only the High Priest was allowed to do that and even then with severe restrictions. This also explains the enigmatic statement that Christ made to Mary after his resurrection when he said, "Touch me not; for I am not yet ascended to my Father". You see, Christ had to enter before God Almighty to present his blood on our behalf just as the High Priest had to enter the Holy of Holies to sprinkle the blood. Shed blood meant that a life was given in exchange of another person. We can therefore enter before God through the complete work of Christ without fear because his blood was sprinkled on that mercy seat of the throne of God in heaven. Had Mary touched Jesus, the contact of a sinful human would have nullified Jesus’ work. The High Priest was properly washed, attired and ready by himself to enter the Holy of Holies. Nobody else dared to do this. Please read Leviticus 16 for an entire description of the Day of Atonement rituals. You can see that the High Priest had quite some task to do. This all foreshadowed the atoning work of Christ. This is why understanding the significance of the Ark of the Covenant is so important. The only ritual directly involving the Ark is that of the Day of Atonement. And that holy day is the crux of Christ’s work and Christianity.
The rest of chapter 25 describes the table of shewbread and the lamp stand (menorah). Basically, the table of shewbread was where 12 loaves of bread were kept and replaced weekly by the Israelites. The table was 2 cubits long, one cubit wide and 1½ cubits high. It was covered with trimmed borders and gold and had acacia staves covered with gold (as did the Ark). Since Christ was the bread form heaven (the manna), the bread represented God’s people giving back to God again what He provided for them. Christians should likewise give of their resources, especially materially to the workers of God (represented by the priests). There were various utensils on the table as well, which handled some of the drink offerings mentioned in the Bible. Considering this, and since the bread was presented thereon, we can see a communal element here. The theme involved the life in Christ, fellowship and giving.
The chapter concludes with a description of the menorah. No exact measurements are stated in the Bible although it was made according to the pattern that God gave to Moses (Exodus 25:40). I figure there is a mystical element to this lamp since the dimensions were not given, and God wanted those measurements out of His Word for some reason. However, this did not mean there were no boundaries. Perhaps the clue to the missing (yet existent) measurements lies in the meaning of the menorah. Being made of gold, it represented a divine nature. It gave off light continually powered by the olive oil. Divinity, Light and the Spirit are the common themes here. As Jesus said he was the Light of the world, the lamp represents God’s people empowered by the Spirit to be light-bearers of the gospel. In Revelation 1:20, the seven churches are pictured by the menorah. God’s Spirit is also seen as sevenfold in the heavenly menorah (Revelation 4:5 , see also Isaiah 11:1-2). When Solomon built the temple, he had ten of these menorahs in place of just one. This indicates to me that the ten tribes of the house of Israel would become the light-bearers of the gospel. Jesus said, "Ye are the light of the world." And again he said, "The kingdom of God shall be taken from you [the Jew], and given to a nation [the house of Israel] bringing forth the fruits thereof." Later on I want to talk a little more in detail about the Holy Place, but for now I gave an overview of these two pieces of ‘furniture’. Actually, the Bible does not speak about the altar of incense in that same room until after the details of the tent and court and other things are discussed first.
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This is my small candle menorah--- a seven-branched lamp that is thought to be similar to the menorah in the tabernacle. Nobody knows for sure what the one in the tabernacle looked like, but these smaller versions are generally believed to be the approximate likeness of the larger one in the tabernacle. |