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GOD REVEALS HIS RIGHTEOUSNESS TO MAKE HIS GLORY KNOWNEXODUS 25-31,35-40INTRODUCTION My method this morning is a little different than normal. I decided some time ago that I was not going to go through all the details of the tabernacle and its construction right now. Rather my plan is to deal with the details of Exodus 25-31 and Exodus 35-40, while I teach my way through the NT book of Hebrews. I will be starting Hebrews in October and so we will return here to Exodus when I come to chapters 5-10 in Hebrews. This morning I’m going to give a “big picture” overview of these chapters. My hope is to give you some help in understanding the significance of the tabernacle and how it is presented here in Exodus and to see something of the greatness of the glory of God. What I hope to do is to help us think about the overarching theology of the tabernacle, not the particular typology of it. I hope that we will understand more clearly how God intended for the tabernacle to function in Israel and then see how that function is taken up and fulfilled in Christ and the church. I’ve read a dozen commentaries on these chapters and so while I have had a few original insights, much of what I’m going to say comes from what I’ve read. Notice the outline of these chapters: 25-31 recount Moses' meeting with God on the top of Mt. Sinai, when God gives him the 2 tablets with the 10 Commandments and the instructions on how to build the tabernacle and how to cloth and consecrate the priests. Then 32-34 recount Israel's worshipping the golden calf, God's reaction, Moses' intercession and the reiteration of the covenant. Finally, chapters 35-40 record the building, inspecting and setting up of the tabernacle. I regularly encourage people to read through the Bible, beginning to end, so that they can grow to know and love God better. On more than one occasion Exodus 25-40 is as far as people get. The details in chapters 25-31 of how to build the tabernacle are bad enough but then chapters 35-40 are an almost verbatim repetition of those descriptions, the only difference being that the people are building what God described earlier. To our modern sensibilities these tedious descriptions are too boring to endure, especially when we have been told that the Bible is so important in knowing God. People want to know, how does this stuff help me know God? Not being able to answer that question causes many to abandon the effort and to stop reading. One of the ways that the Bible emphasizes what it considers important is through tedious descriptions of details and repetition. A person familiar with Hebrew literature, reading through the account of Exodus, when coming to these details and then the repetition of those same details would immediately know that this is very important stuff. One commentator made the observation that the biblical authors only give two chapters to the creation of the universe but thirteen chapters to the creation of the tabernacle. In the biblical worldview, the creation of the tabernacle reveals the power and wisdom of God in greater ways than the creation of the universe. One thing that has been emphasized since Israel arrived at Mt. Sinai in Exodus 19, is that it is a very dangerous thing to go near to God. Being around him is not safe as one misstep; one touch of the mountain will result in immediate death. We know it is God’s intention to have Israel go to the Promised Land and so the question arises, how can this God who is a consuming fire go with Israel? Or to say it from the other direction, how can Israel safely go with him? How can God be the God of Israel and they his people, as he has said, when this threat of death hangs over their association with him? In addition, how will Israel ever learn to know and trust God when only Moses can come into his presence? How can they know him if he remains distant, hidden in a cloud and fire on top of the mountain? The answer to these questions is found in God giving to Israel the tabernacle and the priesthood and all that is associated with these two institutions. In Exodus 29:44-46 is the key text in understanding the purpose of the tabernacle. God says, “I will consecrate the Tent of Meeting and the altar and will consecrate Aaron and his sons to serve me as priests. Then I will dwell among the Israelites and be their God. They will know that I am the Lord their God, who brought them out of Egypt so that I might dwell among them. I am the Lord their God.” God saved Israel out of Egypt and he has now given them the tabernacle so that he might safely dwell among them so that they might know him. At the end of Exodus 40, after the tabernacle is built, the cloud, which covered Mt. Sinai, the glory of the Lord, came and filled the tabernacle. This consuming fire, which was on the top of the mountain, far away from the people, inaccessible, has now come to dwell in a 30 foot by 15 foot tent surrounded by a 150 foot by 75 foot by four foot tall fence made of cloth. The glory of God fills the tent and so Israel now lives within a few yards of the God who spoke the 10 Commandments to them from the cloud and so terrified them that they begged Moses to tell God to stop. In the Tent of Meeting God has come near to dwell with his people. He lives with them so that they can know him, so they can see his glory and thus worship him as he alone deserves and requires. MAIN POINT God gave the tabernacle to Israel to reveal his glory. Through it we learn that…I. God is king over the whole earth, not just Israel Like the Egyptians, all the tribal peoples among whom Israel is going to live worship their own gods. One of the features of these tribal deities is just that, they are tribal. They are "our" god but no one elses. They belong to the people who worship them and they do not have power or authority beyond the borders of their nations. No tribe would claim that their gods rule over the whole earth. Rather, they are merely viewed as more or less strong in relation to the other tribal gods. You can see this quite clearly in many of the accounts of Israel’s wars with the pagan nations. God regularly gets mad at pagan kings because they claim that Yahweh is merely a tribal deity like all the other idols of the nations. So God, when he institutes a system of worship for his people and commands them to build a tabernacle, in both the construction of the tabernacle and in the way that construction is recorded in Exodus emphasizes that he is no merely tribal, regional, limited god but rather the Creator of the heavens and the earth and the king over all. I want you to consider some of the ways that God communicates his glory as king over the whole earth in the tabernacle and through how God’s directions are recorded in Exodus. First, in chapters 25-31, which records God’s description to Moses of the tabernacle while he is in the cloud on Mt. Sinai, it says “The Lord said to Moses…” seven times (25:1, 30:11, 17, 22, 34, 31:1 & 12). Then notice in 31:12, the seventh thing that God instructed Moses in was in the Sabbath rest. This is not an accidental pattern. It corresponds exactly to Genesis 1 where God created the world with six creative words and then spoke a blessing on the seventh day calling it the Sabbath. Just as God created the universe with six words followed by a word creating the Sabbath so God creates the tabernacle with six words followed by a word creating the Sabbath. Second, the materials, the colors, the embroidery, the precious metals and stones, the dimensions of the tabernacle all are connected to the creation account. Peter Enns, in his commentary says this, “The precise measurements of the structure, combined with the symbolism of the curtains and the furnishings are not without deep significance. The tabernacle seems to represent a microcosm of creation itself. The splendor and beauty of the materials used—fine fabrics, precious metals, and stones—affirm the goodness of the created world. The precise and perfect dimensions of the tabernacle indicate a sense of order amid chaos… to think of the tabernacle as an act of cosmic re-creation is precisely what the building of the tabernacle originally intended to convey.” Third, look at Exodus 39:42-43. After Bezalel and Oholiab along with the other skilled craftsmen have finished building the tabernacle they bring it all to Moses for his final inspection. He is the only one who saw the pattern on the mountain and so he is the only one who can say whether or not the tabernacle meets specifications. Look at what it says, “The Israelites had done all the work just as the Lord had commanded. Moses inspected the work and saw that they had done it just as the Lord had commanded. So Moses blessed them.” Now compare this to Genesis 1:31-2:3, “God saw all that he had made and it was very good. And there was evening and there was morning, the sixth day. Thus the heavens and the earth were completed in their vast array. By the seventh day God had finished all the work he had been doing; so on the seventh day he rested from all his work. And God blessed the seventh day and made it holy, because on it he rested from all the work of creating that he had done.” Just as God inspected his creation and saw it was very good so Moses inspects the creation of the tabernacle and sees it is all very good. Then, just as God ends his inspection with a word of blessing so Moses blessed them as they finished the work. There is a clear parallel between these two passages. The tabernacle is the symbolic re-creation of the Garden of Eden, the perfect creation in the midst of Israel where God will rule. Finally, the fact that the tabernacle points to God’s kingship over the whole creation is seen in a number of ways. I will mention two. First, the gold and the precious stones and the purple cloth and the restrictions on people approaching the Most Holy Place at the center of the tabernacle all call to mind the royal courts of ancient kings. Second, the most obvious evidence that the tabernacle shows God’s sovereignty over the whole earth is the Ark of the Covenant. This is the 3’9” by 2’4” wood box covered in gold with a cover that is covered in gold having two statues of angelic cherubim on the top that is set in the inner most part of the sanctuary, the Most Holy Place. God says that it is on the top of that box, between the cherubim that he will dwell among Israel. It is there he will meet with them and give them commands. In other words he is enthroned between the cherubim as the king who commands obedience to his rule. This exact phrase is used in two Psalms to describe God’s rule over the universe. Psalm 80:1 and 99:1 both say that God is enthroned between the cherubim. This is a direct reference to the cherubim on top of the Ark of the Covenant which represent the real angelic cherubim that worship and serve God in heaven. He is enthroned between these two statues of cherubim in this tent that represents his perfect creation. Thus the tabernacle daily represents to Israel that the God they worship is the God who is the sovereign king over all the earth. He is not some tribal deity, limited in power and dependent upon the people but he is the Creator and ruler of all peoples and all events in the universe. To say that the Lord is "our" Lord does not mean that he is not also the Lord over all other peoples, regardless of their religious commitments. Their worship of him is what he is due. Their worship is not, like that of the idol worshipping nations, the means by which you manipulate the deity to get him to do what you want. The tabernacle and priesthood and sacrifices are set up so that the king can dwell with his law breaking people without killing them and so that they can draw near to him with their petitions for mercy. God gave the tabernacle to Israel to reveal his glory. Through it we learn that…
II. God is beyond our comprehension One of the strange things about the tabernacle and all the furnishings of it is that the Bible does not explain the significance of any of it except in the book of Hebrews. Even in Hebrews the author doesn’t get into the details but rather uses the earthly tabernacle and the actions of the priests and the sacrifices to explain the work of Christ. The emphasis in Hebrews is on the "temporariness" of it all, not explaining all the typology. For example, nowhere are we told exactly what the Bread of the Presence symbolizes or the lamp stand or the horns on the altar of burnt offering or the cinnamon in the incense or... In other words, there is a lot about the tabernacle that is simply unknown to us, beyond our comprehension. I know that many commentators, both Jewish and Christian, have spent enormous energy on explaining the meaning of every detail of the tabernacle. The famous English Reformer, Thomas Cranmer famously asked in all seriousness when reflecting on the fact that the Most Holy Place is a perfect square, 15 ft. by 15 ft., “In what sense is Jesus like a square?” However, the Bible does not answer that question or a host of others we might ask. The whole thing is somewhat mysterious and unexplained. God has done this on purpose. He is very clear about how things are to be built and how the priests are to function but he does not explain why he wants things done in this way. When you combine this fact with the fact that the place where God dwells, the Most Holy Place is always dark, it is not hard to understand that God aims to let Israel know and us that he is beyond their comprehension. While God reveals true things about himself, yet there are mysteries about God that we will never know or understand. No one will ever know God as he actually is in the fullness of his being. We can know him and we can know true things about him but no one, apart from Jesus, the Son of God made man, will ever know him completely. Late in the book of Deuteronomy Moses writes, “The secret things belong to the Lord our God but the things revealed belong to us and to our children forever that we may follow all the words of this law.” We are obligated to understand and to obey all that God has revealed to us, including for Israel building things for which they do not really understand the purpose. However, we are not to demand from God that he explain everything nor should we attempt to explain the things he has not told us. We are to be content with what he has told us. God gave the tabernacle to Israel to reveal his glory. Through it we learn that…
III. God is holy and unapproachable by sinful humanity While the making of the tabernacle brings God right into the midst of the camp of Israel, yet the way it is constructed and the ministry of the priests and the offering of sacrifices clearly communicate that the way into the presence of God is not open to all. As I pointed out last week, the tabernacle preserves the three levels of approach to God that God required on Mt. Sinai in Exodus 24.. None of the people could go up on the mountain at all. Aaron and his sons, who are the priests and seventy of the elders who are the judges and rulers were able to go part way up the mountain but only Moses could enter into the cloud of the glory of God at the top of the mountain. In the same way the tabernacle is divided into three areas. The courtyard, where all the ceremonially clean men in Israel could enter in order to offer sacrifices, the Holy Place where only the priests could enter and then only after certain purification rituals and finally, the Most Holy Place, where God said he would live above the cover of the ark of the covenant and where only the High Priest could enter once per year to offer blood atonement for the sins of the people. In addition as you go into Leviticus, you discover that there were all kinds of ways that Israelites could become unclean and thus be excluded from entering the courtyard. Women could never enter, even into the courtyard. Uncircumcised Gentiles could not enter the courtyard. Physically disabled people could not enter even into the courtyard. In other words, the tabernacle was a continual reminder that drawing near to God was not something available to everyone. There were conditions to be met and sins to be atoned for and uncleanness to be washed away before you could enter God’s presence. Some categories of people could never come near. Then there are those stories scattered through Leviticus and Numbers of people who attempted to approach God on their own terms and were killed. Like Aaron’s two oldest sons, Nadab and Abihu, who were among those favored few that saw the vision of the likeness of God on the mountain but who disregarded God’s command that only incense made exactly as he commanded could be burned in the tabernacle. These two sons put a different kind of incense in their censors, lit it and walked into the Holy Place. They had on the right priestly clothing, they performed the right animal sacrifices, they washed at the basin outside the tent and yet as soon as they entered the Holy Place, fire came out from the Most Holy Place and burned them up. Finally, the structure of this story in Exodus tells us that one of the main points of the tabernacle is to remind us that we are sinners and cannot approach God any old way we want. As I’ve pointed out, 25-31 are structured around these seven words from the Lord creating the tabernacle and establishing the Sabbath in a direct reenactment of the creation account. Then notice what happens immediately after God brings the tabernacle, the microcosm of the universe into existence, the people fall into sin, just like Adam and Eve in the Garden. Exodus 32:1 follows immediately upon the heels of God's description of the tabernacle. The Israelites, led by Aaron, the chief priest, make an idol and engage in false worship of a false god. They are sinners and thus the tabernacle daily reminds them that they are sinners. The tabernacle excludes people from the presence of God. The tabernacle and its rules make it plain that God is not accessible to sinners in general but only certain kinds of sinners. God is only willing to accept certain sinners, those who come to him through the tabernacle. God gave the tabernacle to Israel to reveal his glory. Through it we learn that…
IV. God is loving and has made a way for sinful humans to live with him and he with them The golden calf incidence separates God’s command to Moses on how to build the tabernacle and the actual building of the tabernacle. The fact that the tabernacle is built in spite of the grievous sin of the people of Israel, led by their high priest, clearly manifests the grace of God. God is willing to accept sinners who come to him in the way that he prescribes. The tabernacle is the embodiment of the love and grace of God towards sinners. What the building of the tabernacle interrupted by the golden calf incidence also demonstrates is that there is only one way to come to God. You cannot come to God on your own terms or according to some human religious scheme, as the Israelites attempted to do with their worship service around the golden calf. All who attempt to come to God in a way other than the way he prescribes will meet the same fate that eventually all the Israelites who were 20 years old and up met, except Joshua and Caleb, they will die. All who seek to know and worship the true God through false religious systems will be killed. It is at this point that the NT makes the most use of the tabernacle and all that is associated with it. In John 1:14 we are told that “The Word (who is God and who is with God) was made flesh and that he made his dwelling with us.” The word that is translated by that phrase “made his dwelling” is taken directly from the OT. It literally means that the eternal Word of God “tabernacled” among us by becoming a human being. It is the verb that is related to the noun for the tabernacle. In other words John 1:14 says that Jesus, in his physical self is the tabernacle. (This is what Jesus meant when he called himself the temple in John 2:19.) The end of that verse says, “we have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only who came from the Father’s side.” Jesus living upon this earth was the ultimate fulfillment of everything that the tabernacle represented. Like the tabernacle, he is the perfect creation of God and he is the perfect manifestation of the glory of God because as Paul says in Colossians, “for in Christ all the fullness of the deity dwells in bodily form.” But not only is Jesus the perfect tabernacle he is also our high priest and he is the lamb without blemish or defect who takes away our sins. The tabernacle is the revelation of the grace of God given to guilty sinners in and through the person, the life, the death and the resurrection of Jesus. Every day as Israel lived in sight of the tabernacle and then when they entered the land and came to the tabernacle and then the temple three times each year they were reminded that God had made a provision for their sins. They were supposed to learn that they could be forgiven and accepted by God in the tabernacle through the intercession of the priests and the sacrifices of the animals in their place. They should have learned by the fact that the tabernacle was a symbol and that the animals had to be sacrificed every day and that the priests kept dying and had to be replaced and were only men that there had to be a greater fulfillment of the types. As Hebrews 9:8 says, “The Holy Spirit was showing by this that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still standing.” This is why Jesus was so upset with the Jewish leaders and the Jewish people when he came. God had left them, in the tabernacle and temple the perfect preparation for his coming but because they wanted to worship a god of their own making and in ways that they preferred they did not recognize the one who was the fulfillment of the tabernacle. God gave the tabernacle to Israel to reveal his glory. Through it we learn that…
V. God is faithful and will fulfill his promise to restore the heavens and the earth Finally, the tabernacle is clearly understood by the OT as being a physical and earthly representation of heaven, the place where God dwells. This can be seen in Exodus 25:9 where God tells Moses, “Make this tabernacle and all its furnishings exactly like the pattern I will show you.” In other words, the tabernacle is based on something that Moses saw, not merely something God told him. The presence of the statues of the cherubim over the Ark of the Covenant and embroidered in the curtains separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place also indicate that the tabernacle is a symbol of heaven. In Hebrews 9:24 the author makes this explicit when he says, “For Christ did not enter a man-made sanctuary that was only a copy of the true one; he entered heaven itself, now to appear for us in God’s presence.” The tabernacle as the symbol of heaven holds forth the promise that one day heaven will fully invade this creation and all things will be restored. The tabernacle, then the person of Christ and now the church is the outpost of heaven on earth which holds forth the promise that one day heaven will invade and take over the earth. This is the symbolism that is used in the final chapters of the book of Revelation. The new heavens and the new earth, the place where God will dwell with his people forever is pictured as the perfect temple. In that place as God dwells with his people “he will wipe away ever tear from their eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain, for the old order of things has passed away.” When heaven takes over earth through the victory of Christ, then we will live in the unveiled presence of God forever. At the end of Revelation 21 John mixes the metaphor and God himself and the Lamb become the temple in which we live with God. All who have their names written in the Lamb’s book of life will dwell in God and with God, in the Lamb and with the Lamb so that God will be all in all. Thus will be fulfilled forever the promise that God held forth when he had Israel build him a tabernacle in the wilderness. He will have come to dwell with his people in a world made new through the ministry of our great high priest, who is the lamb who was slain who is the temple of God. God goes with his people now on the way to the Promised Land so that one day we can live in his glorious presence forever. God gave the tabernacle to Israel to reveal his glory. Through it we learn that…
© Copyright 2006 John Swanson.
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