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The Structure (Part 2)

The Tabernacle
The TabernacleSteve Gregg

This segment focuses on the remaining verses of Chapter 26 in Exodus, delving into the intricate structure of the curtains surrounding the sacred space. The dimensions and materials of the curtains are described, symbolizing purity and representing the fellowship of the saints. The significance of the pillars is explored, highlighting how even those whose lives are cut short can still possess wisdom and righteousness. The veil that separates the Holy Place is examined, with connections made to the glory that radiated from Moses' face and the greater glory revealed in the New Testament. The profound message is that God's presence is accessible, and through Jesus, believers can boldly enter into the holiest place.

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Transcript

Today we'll be finishing up the verses that remain to be covered in Chapter 26 of Exodus, namely verses 31 through 37. After that we have just one more chapter on The Tabernacle. There are three altogether here in a row.
And then we have some discussion of the Priest
Garments. And then we get back, after the Priest Garments are described, we get a description of one or two items more that pertain to The Tabernacle. What we have studied so far is the general layout of The Tabernacle.
We have studied the Ark of the Covenant and the Mercy
Seat. And by the way, we've studied the Table of Showbread and the Golden Candlesticks. And yesterday we discussed the building itself.
And you remember that The Tabernacle had an
outer court which was not enclosed. It was only surrounded by curtains. It didn't have a roof over it.
And then there was the building. And that's what we discussed yesterday, the
building itself, called the Sanctuary or the Holy Place. It was the tent, actually.
And
it was made of boards, of acacia wood, which were covered with gold. And those boards were 15 feet long and about 27 inches wide. And they stood next to each other.
There were
20 on each of the south and the north walls. And there were eight on the western wall. So that standing side by side, they provided a three-sided box, or structure, that was 15 feet tall, 15 feet wide, and 45 feet long.
So it was square in its height and its width.
And it was three times that in length. And that was divided up into two parts.
And those
boards we talked about as representing the Christians, actually, believers. And we saw why yesterday. We can't go into the reasons today.
We don't have time. But then we talked
about the coverings that went over it, too, because, of course, it was an enclosure, it was a tent. And it had four coverings, two curtains, two curtains as they're called, and two coverings.
The first curtain was made of linen, which was dyed three different colors,
blue, purple, and red. And it had cherubim woven into it, images of cherubim, angelic beings. And it was covering the whole building, over across the top and also hanging down the sides and the back, all the way up to within a cubit, within 18 inches of the ground.
And then there was another curtain over that, which was black, and it was woven of black goat's hair. And then above that was a covering of ram's skin, dyed red. And then above that was a covering of what the King James Version calls badger's skins.
Now, we said there
are no badgers in that part of the world. They're probably not thinking of badgers as we are. Many translations change it to sea cows or seals or porpoise skin.
In other words,
some kind of leathery, weatherproof covering that was on the outside. Now, we talked about that yesterday. We can't go into it today.
But I said that I believe the covering of
the tabernacle is Jesus. It is he that is held up by, or he is upheld and exalted by the church. And so the boards were holding up the roof above themselves, and the roof covered them and protected them from foul weather and such.
And there were four of these coverings.
And these four, I think, may have reference to four aspects of Jesus' character and ministry. We talked about the outer one being uncomely and weather-beaten, the inner one being fine-twined linen representing purity, and the colors had symbolic meaning too, which we'll look at today.
And then the other ones, the ram's skin dyed red, perhaps referring to, reminding
us of the ram as a sacrificial or the substitutionary sacrifice, as in the case where the ram was provided to take the place of Isaac on the altar. And also the goat's hair, goats were the sin offering in the Jewish religion. There were different offerings, many offerings.
And the sin offerings were always goats. And also the color black, the blackness of that curtain of goats' hair was indicative of sin. And Jesus, who had known no sin, became sin for us and carried our sins.
We find in the coverings of the tabernacle four aspects of
the character and ministry of Jesus. The walls made up of the Christians, the body of Christ. And we saw several ways in which those boards correspond to individual Christians.
Even
as the Bible says that we are living stones built up into a spiritual house using the figure of the temple, which was made out of stone, we are the stones that make up the walls of the spiritual temple. So also the boards that made up the walls of the tabernacle, those correspond to us also. Now, we did not discuss the eastern side of the building.
We have the walls on the south and the north and the west, and we have the coverings and we've got the floor, but we don't have anything so far on the eastern side. And that's what we read about here. Now, on the eastern side, there was a gate or it's called a door, and it was made of curtains also.
And we'll read about those in verses 36 and 37. And those
made up the eastern wall of the building. They were held up by five pillars of chimwood covered with gold.
And then also there's another curtain described here in verses 31 through
35, and that is the veil, the oft-spoken of veil of the tabernacle. And we have much in the Bible about the veil and we will talk about that mostly today. Let's read this section in verses 31 through 37.
And thou shalt make a veil of blue and purple and scarlet and
fine, fine twined linen of cunning work with cherubims shall it be made. And thou shalt hang it upon four pillars of chimwood overlaid with gold. Their hooks shall be of gold upon the four sockets of silver.
And thou shalt hang up the veil under the tatches that thou
mayest bring in further within the veil, the ark of the testimony or the ark of the covenant and the veil shall divide unto you between the holy place and the most holy. So the interior of that tent was divided into two parts, the holy place, which all the priests would go into and eat of the table of showbread and all that. And then the most holy or the holy of holies or the holiest of all.
These are three, of course, these are identical terms,
the most holy, the holy of holies or the holiest of all, indicating that as you make your approach to God, and of course that's what the tabernacle represents, is the way of approach to God. It is a symbolic picture of how God is reached, of how God is approached. And as you come into the outer court, there is a holiness there.
The altar of it, the altar where the
blood sacrifices are offered, is the first thing you come to. And the Bible says, whatsoever touches the altar is holy or set apart. The word holy means set apart.
And so anything
that they touch the altar had to be holy. The priests had to be sanctified, had to be made holy so that they could minister at the altar. Then the sacrifices, the actual animals, if someone would say, oops, that was the wrong animal, I need it back.
It would be too late.
If it touched the altar, it's dedicated to the Lord, we can't get it back. It's set apart.
Anything that touched the altar was holy. And yet, there was a deeper holiness that you could press into than simply having your sins washed, which is the first step of coming to God. And when you enter into the tent, you come into the holy place.
And that was representing
the fellowship of the saints, as I showed in a few studies back. But even though you were in a holy place there, there was a holier place still. You could come into a holier state.
You could come to a place which was the holiest of all, the holiest of holies.
And that was, of course, only the priesthood going there in those days, but now we can also figuratively speaking. And so there are depths of holiness.
There are degrees of separation
under God. When you had offered your sacrifice on the altar, your sacrifice, which represented you, died for the sins, it was your substitute. And so you had really come and had sins dealt with, but you could have turned around and walked out of the enclosure and never had any contact with God at all.
It was simply the initial separating of yourself and preparing
yourself to enter into the presence of God, and then of course the labor of cleansing, the basin where they'd washed, representing baptism. But still, having gone through these stages, the person had not necessarily entered into the holy place. And that's when you come through the door into the holy place, and that is in the fellowship of the saints.
When
you come into fellowship with the Christians, you are in a separated place, a protected place. There is safety and separation and specialness in the presence of the church. Now, a brother was talking to me last night.
We were talking about whether God loves people
who are in the church more than he loves people who are not in the church. And we know that God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten son, and greater love hath no man than this, that he lay down his life. So Jesus laid down his life for the whole world, therefore he must love the whole world as much as anyone can be loved.
However, he loves
his church in a special way. Maybe not more necessarily, maybe the actual quantity of love toward his church is no different, but the way in which he loves his church is different. Even as I may love all of you very intensely with all my heart, and yet when I have a daughter, or I have a wife, or I have someone who is special to me, I may love them not necessarily more but very differently.
And so the church has a very different kind of a role in the
heart of God, it's a different place. The church, his bride, his set-aside ones, his elect, his holy ones, the ones that he has betrothed to himself, the ones that he has chosen for himself. And so the church is a deeper place.
You come into the church, you
are in a more special place with God, more separated from God. And yet there is a holier place still where you come. And I'm not saying that you grow through these stages, I'm not suggesting that there are stages of sanctification.
What I'm saying is that in your experience,
and it may happen all at once, but there are certainly three different states that you could be in at different times, or you could pass through immediately. You can press right into the presence of God in the holiest of all. Now the veil that we read about here separated between the holiest of all, that is the holy of holies, and the holy place itself, the rest of that enclosure.
Verse 23, we read, the veil shall divide unto you
between the holy place and the most holy. Thou shalt put the mercy seat upon the ark of the testimony in the most holy place. And thou shalt set the table outside the veil and the candlestick over against the table on the side of the tabernacle toward the south.
And thou shalt put the table on the north side. And thou shalt make a hanging
for the door. Now this is now not the veil, but the door of the building.
Of the tent
of blue and purple and scarlet and fine twine linen wrought with needlework. And thou shalt make for the hanging five pillars of shinim wood. And overlay them with gold, and their hooks shall be of gold.
And thou shalt cast five sockets of brass for them.
Now there are four pillars holding up the veil and five pillars at the door. The reason should be obvious.
At the door you've got a wider area to encompass, to cover. The doorway
of the building is 15 feet wide. The veil covered a smaller area.
So it was smaller
and you had only four pillars to hold it. We won't say too much about the door, except that Jesus is the door. He made that very clear.
And I think we should read the passage
where it's stated that just to get a well-rounded picture of how this fits together. John chapter 10, the first nine verses. Jesus said, Verily, verily, I say unto you, He that entereth not by the door unto the sheepfold, but climbeth up some other way, the same as a thief and a robber.
But he that entereth in by the door is the shepherd of the sheep. To him the porter
openeth, and the sheep hear his voice. And he calleth his own sheep by name and leadeth them out.
When he putteth forth his own sheep, he goeth before them. And the sheep follow
him, for they know his voice. And a stranger will they not follow, but will flee from him, for they know not the voice of strangers.
This parable spake Jesus unto them, but they
understood not what things they were which he spake unto them. Then said Jesus unto them again, Verily, verily, I say unto you, I am the door of the sheep. All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers.
But the sheep did not hear them. I am the door. By
me if any man enter in, he shall be saved, and shall go in and out and find pasture.
Okay, now the door. He was talking about a sheepfold here, which is a slightly different picture than the tabernacle, but not so different because the tabernacle, which represented the fellowship of Christians, is the sheepfold. The fellowship of the saints is the sheepfold.
And Jesus said he was the door to that. Now in the description of the door, we have five pillars holding it. The door is made of fine twine linen, three colors, also so is the veil, the same three colors, and so is the ceiling of the tabernacle, those same three colors.
We said that while there are differences of opinion as to the meaning of these colors,
I feel it's probable that the blue represents heaven or the divine side of Jesus, the heavenly side of him, or aspect or side. I guess this is as good as we can get. And then the red, which is the name, what Adam means, the name Adam means red, and representing the red earth from which Adam was made.
The red symbolizes the earthly or physical or natural side of
the man. So we have in Jesus a heavenly side, represented by the blue, as the heavens are blue, and a red side, which is the human side, and then in between these colors you have the purple, which is a blending of the two. The blending of the two.
Jesus is the
son of God, as the blue represents, he is the son of man, as the red represents, and he is also the royal mixture of the two, the purple, Emmanuel, God with us. God in human form, God was in Christ, reconciling the world to himself. Great is the mystery of godliness, God was manifest in the flesh.
This is what the purple may represent, and
I think probably does, is the blending of the two characters. So Jesus, in his double nature, his divine and human nature mixed together, is represented by these colors. And the veil is fine twine linen, again representing his purity.
Jesus said, when he was at the door, he said, if anyone enters by me, he shall come in and be saved. And says then he shall go in and out and find pasture. In other words, you would come into the fellowship of the saints, but you'd go in and out, really.
You wouldn't just stay in
fellowship all the time. You'd go in and out of fellowship, because there's people on the outside who need to be ministered to. You see, the priests would enter into the holy place through the door.
They would go in and they'd be illuminated in the presence of the
seven golden candlesticks. They would offer their incense upon the golden altar. They would eat of the showbread.
But then they'd go out again, because there were people in
the outer court who needed ministry. There were people out there who needed someone to put their sacrifice on the altar for them and to minister to them. So Jesus indicated that it's just like in the tabernacle, the sheepfold.
You come in and you go out. Now, in the
figure of a sheepfold, of course, the shepherds would bring their sheep together at night into the sheepfold, which was usually either a fence or a wall made of stones, or perhaps often a hedge that was enclosed. Mostly it was just like a square or a round enclosure with a gap for the sheep to walk through, a doorway.
But there was no closing door, and
the shepherds himself, after he would bring his sheep into the sheepfold, would lie down in the doorway and sleep there himself, being the protector of the sheep, the wolves, the thieves, or anyone who might want to get in and hurt the sheep would have to go through him first. So the shepherd always slept in the door of the sheepfold. Now, sometimes several shepherds would keep their sheep all together in one fold, and in the morning they would come and they would stand at the doorway and they would call their sheep.
Each shepherd
would individually call his sheep. And this is a known fact. The sheep knew their shepherd's voice.
And so a shepherd would stand there at the doorway, and there'd be many different
people's flocks in the fold perhaps, and he'd call his sheep and they would come out. The ones that were his would come out and the others would stay in. Then the next shepherd would come up and he'd call his sheep and they'd come out.
Jesus said, my sheep know
my voice. The voice of a stranger they don't know, and they won't follow. And so we have this beautiful picture of how Jesus takes us into the fellowship of the saints and keeps us protected there in the sheepfold for refreshment, for rest.
This is when we come into the fellowship
of the saints, we get refreshed even as the sheep at night lay down to sleep and rest. But then in the daytime, the day is time for work. The night comes and no man can work, so that's when we get refreshed.
But in the day season, we go out and he calls us out
by name and he leads us forth. And so we go out of the sheepfold in order not only to be close to the shepherd, but also to find pasture. And so I think you will find that you are fed most when you are in the service of the Lord, when you are going in and out.
You get fed in and you get fed out really. If you only stay in fellowship all the time, you will reach the limit to how much you can be fed. You'll get glutted because you'll be eating and eating and the things of God, but you won't be putting any out.
But as you
go out of the sheepfold and minister on the streets or in the factory or in the office or in the school or wherever you go, then you are putting out also and you are going to be fed more. Imagine if there was no system in your body to eliminate the wastes of the food that you eat. If you could only eat and there was no way for the wastes to be disposed of, you certainly would not eat for very long.
And you would become full. And besides the
fact that you'd become, all the toxins would destroy you, but you would certainly become full and there'd be no room to eat anymore. And so you would be fed only for a short time in that condition.
But as you are ministering in and out, as the priest would go into the
holy place and be ministered unto, and they would eat of the bread there and they would minister to the Lord also. And then they'd go out and they'd minister to the people in the outer court. So this is the picture that Jesus has of the sheepfold.
The sheep
go in and out of the sheepfold. And this is all for their benefit because even as they go out there finding pasture, you find that when you're witnessing or when you're sharing with someone else, you get fed. Sometimes you get fed more there than when you're listening to a Bible study because the Holy Spirit begins to speak through you.
As Jesus said when you're
called before magistrates, don't premeditate what you shall say, for the spirit of your Father which is in you shall give you words to speak at that moment. And be not you that speaks, but the spirit of your Father which is in you, he said. And so while you are out ministering, sometimes God will be feeding you at that moment something to give to them.
And you'll be getting fed at the same time and most of you can testify that you've had that. Now as you go inside here, you then see of course the table of showbread, the lampstand and the golden incense altar. And behind the golden incense altar is this other veil which is described in verses 31 through 35.
This veil separates between the place
where you are and the place where God is. God was in the Holy of Holies over the mercy seat waiting to meet with man. And the priests every week, and I'm not sure but I think maybe every day, I know they were every day ministering out in the outer court.
I'm not sure if they
went every day into the holy place or if that was just on the Sabbath, but I know they only ate the bread of the table of showbread only once a week. Whether they went in there and offered incense every day, I'm afraid I'm too rusty on my Old Testament to be able to tell you at this point. We'll probably discover that as we go along.
But one thing's for sure, they didn't go
into the Holy of Holies very often. In fact, most of them never did. They might be ministering on a regular basis right outside burning incense on the altar right at the veil and I'm sure their curiosity was aroused and many times they must have attempted to part the veil a little bit and look behind them, but they couldn't because God had to hide himself from men in those days.
Even though they had gone through the brazen altar and they had offered
the sacrifices for their sins and their sins had been temporarily covered for the moment, even though they'd washed at the labor of cleansing and been baptized, even though they'd had this experience, even though they'd come into the fellowship of the saints and they'd heard the word of God and they'd been fed on the bread of life and Jesus said, you're clean through the words that I've spoken unto you. Even though they had come this clean, nonetheless, their hearts were still not regenerated. In the old covenant, people were not born again.
People were saved. They were saved by faith, just like you and I are saved, but they weren't saved to the same condition that we are saved to. They were saved, but they were not changed necessarily.
They were, I'm sure it was up to them to change themselves. They had to
keep the law and cursed was any man who did not continue in every word that was written in the law. And if they kept it fairly well, they might, as they went along, as if they disciplined themselves, they might get better and better at keeping the law, but still they were unchanged in their hearts.
But in the new covenant, of course, the law is written
on our hearts. The change is an interior change and it is possible for us to be totally cleansed, to be clothed with the righteousness of Christ as he dwells in our hearts by faith and therefore we can go in behind the veil, but the priests could not in those days. So there is that place of intimacy that was, that was separated from the priests by this veil.
Let's talk about the
veil just a moment. It was the same three colors that the door was and that the ceiling was and that the priest's ephod were. It was held up by four pillars instead of five, had cherubim on it, as we saw.
I won't go into the meaning of the gold and the silver and the pillars and all,
because I really don't know what all they mean. There is something interesting about these pillars though and it's interesting in what they lacked. They did not have what most, well, all the other pillars in the tabernacle and also in Solomon's temple had, as we'll see as we study those things.
And that is what the Bible calls chapters. Now, that's the King James Version.
We would call them capitals.
That's not even a word we commonly use very often. Of course,
we're talking about those ornate crowns at the top of pillars. Usually a pillar has a base and a crown on it of most buildings that have any ornamentation to them.
And that crown is the
capital, the cap of the pillar. And all the pillars in the tabernacle except for the four here had capitals on them. But these ones did not.
They were like architecturally unfinished.
They were just, they just kind of came up to where you'd expect to find the crown and then they were kind of cut off right there and there was nothing more. And they just had the sense of being unfinished as though they hadn't really reached their full potential, maybe, or as though they hadn't really, as though there hadn't been enough time to complete them.
Now this, we will find at
the veil, we'll see in the New Testament, the veil represents the body of Jesus. And the veil that separated the Holy of Holies from the holy place was the fact that there was an unfinished work. There was a work that had not been finished yet that had kept man from being able to go in to the presence of God.
Now Jesus, of course, finished that work. And the veil, the thing that divided
between the Old and New Testament, the coven, the veil there, is the thing that makes the difference. The hinge was the death of Jesus, the ministry of Jesus, when he came and gave his life for us, his death.
Now his life was cut off early, not earlier than God intended it to be, clearly, but
early as far as the lifespan is concerned. In fact, he was cut off in the midst of his days. The Scripture gives three score years and ten as the average lifespan of a man, seventy years.
Jesus
died at about thirty-five years old, thirty-three to thirty-five, we're not sure the exact age. So he only lived about half that time. His life was not finished off in that sense.
Now his work was
finished in that time, but his life was cut short even as his pillars didn't have the finishing touches on them. In fact, it's interesting that the pillars were not crowned. And also the Bible says in Proverbs 16 and verse 10, I think it is, it says that, no, it's verse 31, Proverbs 16, 31.
It
says that the hoary head, which means gray hair, is a crown of glory if it be found in the ways of righteousness. In other words, old age and the white hair on your head when you're an old person is a crown of glory to you if you learned, if you became old practicing the ways of righteousness. Now Jesus was never crowned with this hoary head, at least not in his lifetime.
He was cut off from
the land of the living, as Isaiah 53, verse 8 says, he was cut off. In the midst of his days, he was cut off. In the midst of the week, as it says in Daniel chapter 9, he was cut off.
But he
does have a hoary head now. He does have white hair now. If you read Revelation chapter 1, John saw him in his glorified state and his hair is white as wool.
And he is crowned in that sense.
But in his earthly life, he wasn't crowned with old age and hoary head like that. Even as these pillars were cut off early, apparently, and were not crowned with the normal capitals at the top.
Well, there may be, maybe I'm making more of this than is really valid, but maybe not. I thought I'd say that much. Now talking about the veil, there are more than one veil in the scripture.
A veil was always to conceal something, of course. Women would wear veils in those days to conceal their faces. I suppose it was called immodest.
Just as if a woman walked down the street today
to Poplis, we would consider her immodest because she was showing something that might allure men who look. And so, of course, we consider that in our society, at least, we consider that women ought to cover the top half of their bodies and so to be modest, so as not to be too alluring, to hide that which would be maybe seductive or alluring to the man. And in that society, they went so far as even to cover their faces in public because women often have pretty faces and they didn't want to be alluring men other than their husband.
The only person who got to see
their face was their husband. And this is why Jacob got into trouble and got the wrong wife, because at his wedding, he thought he was marrying Rachel, but she had a veil over her face and he went and took her into his tent and he made love to her in the morning when the light came, the veil was moved, he found out that he had the wrong woman. And also later on when Isaac was seeking a wife, or actually his father was seeking a wife for him, and the servant had gone out, Eleazar had gone out and found Rebecca and was bringing her back to Isaac.
The Bible says that
she saw Isaac in the distance as she was approaching, she said, who is that? And the servant told her that's her future husband and she lit off her camel and she covered her face with a veil because it was not yet her husband. It was just a way of modesty and meekness to cover and to conceal. Now in the New Testament, the Bible talks about women covering their heads with veils.
In 1 Corinthians 11, I don't believe that this applies to our time necessarily in the strict sense of women having to cover their heads, but in that society basically it was a symbol of submission and humility and modesty. There's always this idea of concealing something, hiding something behind a veil. Now Moses in chapter 34 of Exodus, if you'd like to look there, I think it'd be good if you did.
Exodus 34 verses 33 through 35. You remember Moses had asked to
see God's glory and God said, I can't let you see my glory. No man can see me and live, but I'll tell you what I will do.
I'll put you in a cleft of a rock. I'll cover it with my hand. I'll pass
by and when I pass by, I'll remove my hand.
You can look and see my hindered parts or the afterglow
after God had passed by. And so this he did and Moses then saw the afterglow when God had passed by. He only got to see sort of the infection of the glory of God that had caught on.
So we say
that when Moses saw the hindered parts of God and the afterglow, he himself began to glow. Now we'll talk about this for a moment, but I want you to see what happened here in verse 33. Now what actually happened when Moses came down from the mountain with the glow on his face, the people of Israel were scared.
He didn't even realize his face was glowing, but the people of Israel were
freaking out because his face was glowing like a light bulb. And so it says in verse 33, until Moses had done speaking with them, he put a veil on his face. But when Moses went in before the Lord to speak with him, he took the veil off until he came out and he came out and spake unto the children of Israel, that which was commanded.
And the children of Israel saw the face of Moses, that the
skin of Moses face shone. And Moses put the veil upon his face again until he went in to speak with God. So we see that Moses in public had to wear a veil, just like a woman in that society would wear a veil in public.
But when she went before her husband, she'd take off her veil and
Moses would speak to God without a veil. There'd be nothing between him and God, but between him and the people, there was this concealing veil. Now in 2 Corinthians 3, there is an illustration drawn about the two covenants, which is drawn from this concept or this historical fact of Moses wearing a veil over his face.
I'd like for you to read with me 2 Corinthians 3, verses 12 through
18. Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech, and not as Moses, which put a veil over his face, but the children of Israel could not steadfastly look to the end of that which was abolished. That is the glory, the light of his countenance was abolished, or to be abolished, because that was the light of the old covenant.
But their minds were blinded,
for until this day remaineth the same veil untaken away in the reading of the Old Testament, which is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the veil is upon their heart. Nevertheless, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil shall be taken away.
Now the Lord
is that spirit, and where the spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open, or more properly unveiled faces, beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the spirit of the Lord. Now here we have Paul getting as mystical as ever he does.
And in the earlier verses that we didn't read, he talks
about the contrast between the glory of the Old Covenant, represented by the glow on Moses' face, and the glory of the New Testament, which undoubtedly was represented by the glow of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration. The glory of that New Testament, where his face shone like the sun, and his garments glistened white, the Bible says. Now, the New Testament and the Old have a different glory.
The Old Testament had the earmarks of God on it, and God gave it. It had his
righteousness in it, and it had his holiness expressed in it. But it didn't do everything.
It wasn't perfect, because it couldn't make the people perfect. And the New Covenant was given to do that. And so there was a greater glory to the New Covenant.
And he talks, in this chapter,
we didn't read the verses before he talked about it, just before the verses we read, he talked about the old glory faded away, just like the glow on Moses' face eventually faded away. But the glory of the New Covenant doesn't fade away. Now, Moses received that glow by gazing on the glory of God, or the afterglow.
He wasn't able to see the unveiled glory of God. But what he did
see caused him to take on that glory to a certain extent. But it says we're unlike that.
We have a
superior position of what Moses had there, because we're looking at the glory of the Lord without avail on our face. And it says we are being changed from glory to glory into that same image. So Moses received some of that glory on his countenance, but it faded away.
The Old Testament
was not permanent. It was going to fade. And so that's represented by the glory of it that was faded off his face.
But the glory of the New Testament is renewed every day. The glory that
we have experienced, that is the image of Christ that is given to us, and gazing upon his character and on his glory, that is not something that fades, but it is something that we go from one stage to another. We go from glory to glory into the same image.
So it's an increasing glory. It's something
that excels in glory, as Paul says. Now, we're not like Moses, then, who veiled his face.
And Paul
sort of makes some interesting applications, which I can't go into, but he indicates that Moses was veiling his face so that children of Israel could not look on that which was fading away. Some people have thought that this indicates that Moses veiled his face because he didn't want them to see that the glory was fading. But I don't think that's really what's being taught here.
The idea is that the glory that was on his face was a fading glory, and even though it was a fading glory, and an inferior glory to the glory that we experience in Christ, nonetheless, it was so great a glory that it had to be veiled lest the people freak out. And yet the glory upon us is even greater. Remember, the Sanhedrin looked on the face of Stephen and saw his face as it were the face of an angel.
And in the visions of Jesus after the Transfiguration, also in the book of Revelation,
John saw Jesus and his face shone like the sun. The glory of the new contrasted from the glory of the old. Now, the veil is taken away in Christ that says we don't have to hide our faces.
In fact,
we're here to shine to the world. There was such a difference between the old glory and the new. Ours is an exceeding glory.
Ours is an increasing glory and a perpetual glory. And we're growing
into the image of Christ, and the glory of God is going to be seen upon us more and more. Because the path of the just is as the light of dawn that shines more and more until the full day.
But the old glory faded. Now, that veil over Moses' face was the first veil that we find in the Scripture besides the tabernacle veil. Then also there was the veil of the temple.
In 2 Chronicles
3.14, there's the description of the veil that Solomon made for the temple. This veil was either destroyed and replaced by Zerubbabel or else it was somehow preserved through the Babylonian captivity and continued until the time of Christ. At any rate, when Jesus came to earth, the temple was still standing or another temple was standing, and there was a veil there.
And when Jesus died,
the Bible tells us that the veil of the temple was torn. Now, that veil, you remember, separated between the place where men could commonly go, that priests could commonly go, and the place where priests could not commonly go, into the very presence of God and the Holy of Holies. And so, the veil represents the body of Jesus as his body was torn and broken on the cross.
So, the veil was
torn simultaneously in the temple. And that's described in Mark 15.38, as well as the other synoptic gospels. All three of the synoptics record that on the veil of the temple as rent in twain.
The exact wording is used in all three gospels. So, the veil in the temple, which actually
was the follower of the veil in the tabernacle, that was destroyed. It was no longer to be used.
Now, we know that the Jews replaced it or repaired it, but, and they used it still, but the glory had departed. There was no more glory to be had. They were still separating themselves from the Holy of Holies, but it wouldn't have mattered if they hadn't done so, because there was nothing in there.
God had departed. Jesus said to the Jews when they
rejected him, your house, meaning the temple, is left unto you desolate. In other words, the glory was departed, and he walked out, and he never went back into that temple again in his lifetime.
And the glory departed with him, because he was the Shekinah glory in human form.
We have the veil of the tabernacle, which represents the veil of Christ's flesh. I'd like you to see some things that the book of Hebrews says about this, and then there's another concept I want to dip into quickly here before we finish.
Look at Hebrews 9. We saw this passage
on our first study of the tabernacle. It says, Then verily the first covenant had also ordinances of divine service in a worldly sanctuary. That's the tenth.
And there was a tabernacle made,
the first, the holy place, wherein was the candlestick and the table, and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary. And after the second veil, that's the one we're reading about, the tabernacle which is called the holiest of all. Now, in verse 4 it says that the golden censer was in there, the golden altar.
It really wasn't inside there, it was on the outside,
but it was associated with the holiest of all. It was the last point of departure into the holiest of all. But there's mention of the second veil there.
And then in verse 9 it says, Which was
a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience. So we see that it was a wonderful thing, this tabernacle and the veil and all that stuff, but it couldn't make people perfect. And it was good as far as it went, but it didn't go far enough.
Now, I want to see
what else Hebrews says in talking about this veil, so that we can get a picture of what the veil represents. Chapter 6, verses 19 and 20. Hebrews 6, 19 and 20.
Which hope we have as an anchor of
the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that which is within the veil, whither, that is wherein, the forerunner is for us entered, even Jesus, made in high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek. Now, it says that our hope is like an anchor to our souls, the hope of being like Christ, the hope of the glory of God, is like an anchor that enters within the veil. Now, we have not yet really seen God in any visible manifestation, as the priest did in the Holy of Holies, but our hope is already there.
Our hope has already gone inside the veil.
Jesus is our forerunner and draws us in after him. We enter in him.
And so he is the forerunner and
we follow behind, and our hope is there within the veil like an anchor that keeps us from drifting off. We could backslide if we didn't keep our eyes on that final hope, that hope of being like Jesus. We keep our eyes on that goal.
We're not going to backslide. It's like running the race,
looking unto Jesus, the author and finisher of our faith, looking at the goal of the race. This is what is within the veil, the intimacy with God.
When we see him as he is, we should be like
him. Now, in Hebrews 10, verses 19 and 20, we get the explanation of the whole thing right here. It says, having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holiest.
Now, that's the Holy of
Holies. Now, no one in the Old Testament ever entered boldly into the Holy of Holies. Even the high priest, when he went in, didn't go strutting in there, because he knew he could be knocked dead if he wasn't right with God in there.
So, you know, he didn't enter boldly. He entered probably
quite sheepishly, knowing that it was very possible for him to die that day if he didn't have his heart properly prepared. And yet we can enter boldly into the holiest place, where they couldn't even go, by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, his body, his flesh.
So, the veil represents
the body of Jesus, as it was broken on the cross, so the veil was torn. And it was the body of Jesus that kept the glory of God from being seen, although those who had spiritual sight could see, behold his glory as of the glory of the only begotten of a father, but they couldn't really see the glory of God completely, because it was veiled in the person of Jesus. Fortunately, they couldn't see it.
If they could see it, it would have destroyed them. No man can see him
and live. But they could see his body, and that body was broken, and all the glory of God was poured out unto us at that time when he was broken.
And he has entered in beyond the veil.
Now, we can enter boldly before him, too, because of this. In chapter 4, verse 16 of Hebrews, let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, which is the same thing as the mercy seat, the throne of grace, the seat where God is seated, the mercy of God is seated there, the throne of grace.
So, this is talking about within the Holy of Holies. Let us therefore
come boldly unto the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy at the mercy seat and find grace to help in time of need. So, the picture of the high priest going in past the veil with the blood to sprinkle on the mercy seat to beseech God for mercy, sheepishly, perhaps timidly going in with this blood of an animal to sprinkle on there.
But we're not in the same condition. The veil has
been torn open. We walk right through boldly.
We have the blood of Jesus to commend us. We
sprinkle that on there to say, God have mercy on us. And we know that he's going to grant it.
We don't have to worry that he's going to strike us dead. It says that God does not chide us. He does not abrade us or scold us for coming before him and asking him for things.
Let us ask him for
faith. We've got from God who gives all things liberally and does not scold, abrade us, not, the Bible says. So, we come boldly and tell him, Lord, because of what Jesus has done, here's the blood, not us that we're commending.
It's Jesus who commends us. And we stand boldly before you
and seek your help and your grace and your mercy at this time. OK, now I want to talk briefly about what it is that the veil did.
The veil, of course, concealed God from man. And we have in
the Old Testament both statements about God concealing himself or hiding himself from man and statements about a promise that he will not hide himself forever from man. In Psalm 27, verses 8 through 9, would you look at that? Psalm 27, 8 through 9. God was forever hidden from the priests of the Old Testament behind the veil.
But he's not hidden to us
because Jesus has made him known. He has revealed himself in the first and his own son. Psalm 27, 8. When thou said, seek ye my faith, my heart said unto thee, thy faith, Lord, will I seek? Put not thy servant away in anger.
Thou hast been my help. Leave me not, neither forsake me,
O God of my salvation. Now, David said, I heard you say to seek you.
I hear your voice speaking to
my heart. You said, seek my faith. My heart is responding.
I said, my heart said, I'm your faith,
Lord, will I seek? But don't hide your faith from me because it's just a frustration to seek you if you're not going to, if you're going to hide from me. You're going to hide behind the veil. You're going to conceal yourself.
I want to seek you, but I want to seek you and find you.
And that's what Hebrews chapter 11, I think verse 6 says that without faith, it's impossible to please him. For those that would come unto God must first believe that he is and that he is the rewarder of those who diligently seek him, that your efforts at seeking God will be rewarded.
It
will not be an exercise in futility. It will be a rewarding venture. You will seek him and you will find him when you seek him with your whole heart.
But until you seek with your whole heart,
until your heart is turned to the Lord, the veil remains. You see, when it shall turn to the Lord, the veil should be taken away, the Bible says. But until the heart is turned, there is that veil.
And David says, my heart is saying, I'm turning to you, Lord. You said, seek my faith. My heart is turning.
My heart is saying, your faith, Lord, while I seek now,
remove the veil. Because if I seek you and don't find you, I'll be frustrated. I may be discouraged from seeking you any further.
So I'm going to respond to you. But you have to do your
part. Remove the veil.
Don't hide your face anymore from me. Take the veil away. And there's many
places in scripture, Psalm 13 is the first of the Psalms.
And then there's all the way through where
it says, how long will you hide from me? How long will you hide your face from me? So God is described as hiding from men until they seek him with their whole heart. Now, the problem is not with God, but with man. In Isaiah 59, verses one and two, it says God's ear is not heavy that he cannot hear.
His hand is not shortened that he cannot save.
But the problem is your iniquities have separated between you and God. It says in verse two of this is Isaiah 59, your iniquities have separated between you and your God and your sins have hid his face from you that he will not hear.
So it's not God who's unable to reach you. It's you that
are unable to reach God because you have sin in your life. And the sin has built a barrier so that it has hid his face from you.
I want to show you something very wonderful that I discovered today
as I was reading Isaiah. I saw this for the first time, the comparison between two verses in Isaiah. One of them is in chapter 50 and the other in chapter 53.
It's chapter 50, verse six
and chapter 53, verse three. Isaiah 50, verse six says, and this is a description of Jesus' suffering for our sins. It says, I gave my back to the smiters and my cheeks to them that pluck off the hair.
I hid not my face from shame and spitting. God did not hide his face from the
reproach that was necessary for us to be redeemed. And yet look at chapter 53, verse three.
He is despised and rejected a man of men, a man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid as it were our faces from him. He was despised and we esteemed him not.
Now David says,
don't hide your face from me, God. Why is there this veil that covers up? And yet it's not God who hides himself. It's we whose sins have separated between us and our God and hidden his face from us.
He didn't hide his face even when it was painful to expose it.
Even when showing his face meant that it would be grabbed in the cheeks and the hair plucked out. And when his face would be bloodied by a crown of thorns and by beatings of the fists of soldiers, he didn't hide his face from that.
God is not the one who is inclined to hide. It's man who hides.
After Adam sinned, God was still looking for him in the garden, but it was man who was hiding in the bushes.
It was God who was still calling the man. You see, now if there, if God's face is
hidden from you, guess whose fault it is. The veil is taken away in Christ.
The veil remains over a
person's heart until the heart turns to the Lord. We read that in 2 Corinthians 3. If it, when it be turned to the Lord, the veil is taken away. So it's a matter of the heart.
We hid our
faces from him. That's the problem. Not that he hid his face.
He didn't hide his face from shame
and spitting. And then going on here, I want you to look at Isaiah 48, since we're in Isaiah and looking at this general section. Isaiah 48, 6. Now this has to do with God promising to reveal those things which had been hidden about himself.
The removal of the veil so that we could see the
things of God, that we could know the deep things of God, that we could have intimacy with God in this way. It says, Thou hast heard, see all this and will not ye declare it? I have showed thee new things from this time, even hidden things, and thou didst not know them. Now God describes here that he is willing to reveal the hidden things that we don't know.
In fact, in Jeremiah, what is
it? 33.3? Is that where it says that? Call unto me and I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. Call unto me, he says, I will answer thee and show thee great and mighty things which thou knowest not. Jeremiah 33.3. So we have this picture of God's heart where he's showing his willingness to reveal himself.
If only people will turn their hearts and
remove the veil so that they can see him. And I want you to see now in Matthew 13, the chapter about the parables. Isaiah 48.6 was the last verse we saw.
Matthew 13.10. And the disciples came and
said to Jesus, why do you speak to the people in parables? And he answered and said unto them, because it is given unto you, the disciples, not the people, the crowds, but the disciples, is given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom of God or heaven, but to them, the crowds, it is not given. There is a difference between those who are disciples and those who are not. For whosoever has understanding, it is implied, to him shall be given, and he that hath more abundance.
But whosoever hath not, from him shall be taken away, even that he hath. Or one gospel
says, seems to have. Therefore speak I to them in parables, because they seeing, see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
And in them is fulfilled the prophecy of Isaiah, which
saith, By hearing ye shall hear, and shall not understand. And seeing ye shall see, and not perceive. For this people's heart is waxed gross, their ears are dull of hearing, their eyes they have closed.
The veil is there by their choice, lest at any time they should see with their eyes,
and hear with their ears, and should understand with their heart, and should be converted, and I should heal them. God forbid, he says, that they would be converted and healed. He's being sarcastic.
This is quoted from Isaiah. Isaiah says, So far be it from you to want to be healed.
So close your eyes quick before you see the truth and get converted.
That's what's being
implied here. And so they close their eyes, lest they should be healed. Goodness gracious, wouldn't that be terrible, if they would see the truth and get healed.
And so they quickly close their eyes. And they create a veil there. And then, that's why he speaks to them in parables.
And the parables were a sort of a veil. And then in verse 35 of the same
chapter, well, verse 34 and 35, All these things spake Jesus unto the multitude in parables, and without a parable spake he not unto them, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken by the prophet, saying, and by the way, this prophet is the psalmist in Psalm 78, verse 2, though it's not quoted exactly, I will open my mouth in parables, I will utter things which have been kept secret from the foundation of the world. So just as the secret things of God were hidden behind the veil throughout the whole Old Testament era, God promised that he would utter those things, he would reveal those things, he would disclose them to his disciples.
Those who
turn their hearts to him and follow him, they would be partakers of the secret things that were formerly hidden behind the veil. And so he opened his mouth in parables and will reveal things that were hidden from the foundation of the world. And I'd like you to look finally at 1 Corinthians 2. 1 Corinthians 2, verses 9 and following, But as it is written, the place where this is written is Isaiah 64, 4, As it is written, I have not seen nor ear heard, neither have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for them that love him.
Certain things have historically
been concealed from men about God. The deep things of God have been hidden. But God has revealed them to us by his Spirit.
For the Spirit searches all things, yea, the deep things of God. For what
man knoweth the things of a man save the spirit of man which is in him? Even so, the things of God knoweth no man but the Spirit of God. Now the deep things of God are spoken of in verse 10.
The Spirit searches the deep things of God and reveals them to us. The deepest part of the tabernacle contained the greatest mystery and it was shrouded by the veil and it was hidden from the eyes of men. And I had not seen and ear had not heard and it hadn't even entered into men's imaginations what was going on behind that veil, the things that God had prepared for those that love him.
The mercy seat, even the angels desire to look into it, but he has revealed them to us
through his Spirit which was given to us because of the rending of the veil in Jesus. When Jesus died, he made the Holy Spirit available to us so that we could pass in behind him. He's the forerunner.
He passed on beyond the veil and he's our forerunner and we go in also and there we
commune with God through Jesus. We have to pass through the veil and by the way the veil was torn from top to bottom. Not a single thread of it was still attached from one side to the other.
There was no way that a man could walk through there and trip over something like some little particle of it that was still attached. God tore it completely. I think many times our own religious nature causes us to want to reattach the veil partially.
You know, to still make some restrictions,
some barring of the entrance with God. We often, you know, instead of having the veil torn completely, we still allow some of the threads to remain across the opening so that we can't really get through quite. And you know, we put restrictions on ourselves that God has not placed.
He's removed
all the hindrances. He's removed all the obstacles. He's removed all the restrictions.
We simply come
bearing the blood of Jesus to present at the throne of grace and the mercy seat and to find, to boldly seek mercy and grace to help in time of need. And yet so many times men would like to weave that veil together at least partially again. Say, well, it's wonderful to believe in Jesus, but you must be circumcised also.
We don't have people saying that today, but that was the problem in
the days of the New Testament. That's what they were saying. He's circumcised too.
The veil isn't totally torn.
There's still some strands remaining through which you must pass to get to the holy place. And yet there is nothing left to do except to be in Christ because our life is hid with Christ in God.
And so if Christ has entered in and we are in him, we are in the presence of God and we can boldly stand before him at any moment and say, God, I fear you, but I'm confident before you because of Jesus. Because I come bearing the blood of Jesus. I don't come committing my own righteous work.
I come
commended by the blood of Jesus. And therefore I boldly stand before you and say, this is what I need. I need mercy.
I need your help. I need grace because I'm a weak person and I have enemies
that are trying to cause me to fall. I need these things and I ask you boldly knowing that you're going to give it to me because I have removed the hindrance.
You've removed the veil. There's no
restrictions left. There's no more conditions to be met.
The veil is completely torn in the body of Jesus.
And that's what was meant when he said it is finished. When he said it is finished, the veil was torn.
All that unfinished work that the Jews did in the tabernacle was completed on the cross. There was no more need for the tabernacle or the temple or the veil. And therefore God demonstrated his displeasure with that system that continued the temple system by destroying that veil and saying, come on in everybody.
What an embarrassment that must have been to the priests, especially
after they repaired it to remember how it had been torn. And certainly they must have seen the hand of God and that veil was a pickling, four and a half inches thick about it. And it was torn from top to bottom.

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