Exodus Tabernacle Overview

Exodus — Steve Gregg

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Exodus Tabernacle Meaning (Part 1)

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Exodus Tabernacle Overview

ExodusSteve Gregg

The Exodus Tabernacle served as a portable dwelling place for God among the Israelites and was a significant undertaking constructed from donated materials such as gold and wood. While Exodus provides a factual account of its design, size, materials, and positions, the New Testament recognizes Christ as at least one antitype of the tabernacle, embodying God's dwelling among people in physical form. The tabernacle represents the approach to God, with Christ serving as the anti-type that leads the way to God, and the writer of Hebrews uses it to convey the approach to God and the inaccessibility of God without Christ.

Transcript

Let's turn to the book of Exodus in chapter 25. Now, here we come finally to the subject of the tabernacle. In earlier lectures, we've already covered some later chapters than these, and I gave my reasons at the time.

Chapters 32 and 33 and 34 are the story about how Israel, while Moses was up on the mountain, receiving this information about the tabernacle, Israel made a golden calf and sinned against God. God's interview with Moses was interrupted. Moses went down and had to deal with the golden calf issue.

And the people seem to be essentially repentant after judgment was brought about on certain culpable parties. And God restored the covenant with Israel because of the intercession of Moses. Now, that was really pretty much the last real action of the book that was in chapter 32, 33 and 34.

Now, everything we have not yet covered pertains to the tabernacle. And as you have found reading through the book of Exodus, the tabernacle information is covered essentially twice. We have seven chapters, chapters 25 through 31, which give the initial description of the tabernacle.

And then after the story about the golden calf and all of that, we have the description of them making the tabernacle and all of its furniture. And the description is given again. The early description in the first section of seven chapters simply tells us how God commanded them to make it.

And then there are five chapters, chapters 35 through 40, which tell how they did make it, which was exactly the way God told them to make it. And most of the same details are given again. The second rendering of the information is a bit shorter and not every detail is given, but sometimes it seems as you're reading through it, that every detail is being given the second time as well as the first time.

Now, I decided it'd be best for us to take that information one time only. Now, God had whatever reasons he had to give it twice in the book of Exodus. And someone says, well, we should take it twice because God gave it twice.

There was a reason for it. Well, as you read through the book of Exodus, you will read it twice. That's fine.

But our comments only have to be made once because I would have the same comments to make the first time going through the material as I would have to make the second time. And so we save some time by taking all 12 chapters that remain at once, not in one lecture, of course. It'll take far more than that, but taking it all together so that we don't have needless duplication, or at least we can minimize the duplication.

Now, the tabernacle was a means by which God could meet with Israel and dwell within their camp. It says that in chapter 25 and verse 8, God said, let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them. The word sanctuary means a holy place.

It's related to the word sanctify or holy. The word sanctify means to make holy. A sanctuary is a place that is holy, a place that is set apart.

The word holy means set apart from other places, distinctive for one purpose, namely for God. And so this building was going to be a place that was just for God. It would be God's habitation among Israel.

Now, God doesn't live in temples made with hands. The Bible makes that very clear. But God manifests his presence in certain places.

When we speak of the doctrine of the presence of God, we have to realize that the presence of God is spoken of more than one way in the Bible. Of course, God is present everywhere. We believe in the omnipresence of God.

The psalmist said, where shall I go to escape your presence? If I send into heaven, you're there. If I make my bed and shale, well, there you are, too. If I take the wings of the morning and flee to the other islands of the sea, even there, your right hand will guide me.

Everywhere I go, you're there. You're everywhere. And we know that God, the Bible says elsewhere, that the eyes of the Lord run to and fro throughout the whole earth, beholding the evil and the good.

And so it is that we have the doctrine that God lives everywhere. God is everywhere. But he is also manifest at certain times and places in special ways.

And so we could speak of God's universal presence when we're talking about his omnipresence. We're talking about his universal presence everywhere in his universe. But we also could speak about his manifested presence or his manifest presence, which was, for example, when he appeared to Moses in the burning bush or for that matter, when he appeared as a human being to Abraham or to Jacob or to anybody else where God appeared in a theophany, in a human like form that we could say his presence was manifested there in a special sense.

Because we cannot see God, he's invisible, his universal presence is unknown to us except by faith. But his manifest presence occurs when he makes himself visibly present or at least palpably present. And so in the cloud, in the pillar of fire, in the burning bush, in various theophanies, in various ways, God made his presence manifest to Israel.

Now, Moses said, you know, how shall we know that we are your people unless you go with us? God had said to Moses after the calf, the golden calf was made, that God would not go with them. He would send his angel, but he was going to leave. They could leave God behind.

He'd stay behind and he didn't want to be among them because they were so wicked. He'd probably flash out in anger and wipe them all out in an instant. But Moses had prayed and says, no, we need for you to go with us.

If your presence doesn't go with us, then we don't want to go. And how else can we know that we are your people unless you are among us, that is, unless we can see that you are here. And so God made the arrangement that he could be in their midst.

And this tabernacle became the earthly dwelling place of God for probably about 500 years. Well, we don't know exactly when it was destroyed. It was destroyed by the Philistines near the time of David.

And it wasn't until Solomon came to power after David that a new structure was built to replace the tabernacle. And that was the temple. The tabernacle was sort of a prototype temple, but it was different than a temple in that it was portable.

It was really probably the first really, as we might say, prefab building. You could break it down, move it and set it back up again. Of course, people had tents before this, but this was not just a tent.

Although the word tabernacle is often a synonym for a tent. The tabernacle was a building made of wood. It had coverings over it that made it look like a tent.

It didn't have a solid roof, but it had tarps and curtains over the top. And therefore, it was kind of a tent after all, but it had solid walls. And the building was set within a courtyard that was surrounded by curtains hung from pillars.

And in this tabernacle, there were certain pieces of furniture that are mentioned. Seven, in fact. And so the worshipers would come to God with an animal to sacrifice.

And they would enter the gate of the courtyard of the tabernacle. They would encounter a priest there and he would help them perform this ritual on this animal. They'd sacrifice it at an altar that stood there within the gate.

After that, the priest would go to wash his hands at a certain basin that was prepared for that purpose. It referred to as the labor of cleansing in the narrative. Then on occasion, a priest would go inside the building itself because all this that I just described took place out in the open air in the courtyard.

But the priest would go inside the building, some priest would, twice a day. And they would, I believe it was twice a day, they'd burn incense there. Inside the building, they would, the building was divided into two parts.

The first part was twice the size of the second, and that part was called the holy place or the sanctuary. And there was in that place, three pieces of furniture. There was a table that had 12 loaves of bread upon it, called the table of showbread.

As the priest walked in from the east end, that table would be on his right, it was on the north side of the building. To his left, on the south side within the building, would be another item, and that would be a candlestick or lamp stand. King James was candlestick, it's a lamp stand, it's an oil lamp.

It's not candles like we think of candles. They did have wicks, but they were oil lamps rather than wax candles as we might think of a candle. And so he had the table of showbread on his right, he had the lamp stand on his left.

And in front of him, there was a small altar, 18 by 18 inches square and only a couple of feet high. And it was golden, it was wood overlaid with gold and incense was burned on that altar. And every day, a priest would, inside that holy place, burn incense to the Lord.

But beyond that incense altar, there was a thick veil. And on the other side of that veil was the other compartment of the sanctuary, and that was called the holiest of all. Or the holy of holies, as it's sometimes called.

Or the most holy place. These different terms are used for it. I think when Solomon built the temple, I think in the description of the building of it, the holy of holies was called the inner sanctuary.

But it was the smaller part, the smaller compartment inside the building. The building actually was about 15 feet wide and 45 feet deep. It was 15 feet tall.

So if you looked at the building from the front, it was really a square, 15 feet wide by 15 feet tall. But the building was three times that long. And so it could be divided into two parts where the back part was 15 feet long and the front part was 30 feet long.

The holy of holies was 15 by 15 by 15 feet, a cube. And the holy place was twice the size. Now, although the priest would go daily into the first part of the building to burn incense, the holy of holies was only accessed once a year.

In there, there was only one piece of furniture or two, I guess, that were kind of both part of one. One was the Ark of the Covenant. This was a wooden box that was gold plated.

And it held the Ten Commandments. It was actually the box to hold the covenant stones. The word ark simply means box.

The Ark of the Covenant was this fancy gold plated box which had the stone tablets in it. Eventually, we find that it had a couple other items in it, like the golden pot of manna that was collected under God's instructions in Exodus 16. Also, at a later date, when there was a conflict between Korah and Moses and Aaron, there was a contest where Aaron's rod and Korah's rod were set out overnight.

And Aaron's rod came to life and budded and the other did not. And this was to show that God was really on the side of Aaron and Moses rather than on Korah and his guy's side. And this rod of Aaron that later budded was, at least a part of it, was apparently put in the Ark of the Covenant.

Or else, as it says in some places, it was laid before the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies. But anyway, associated with the Ark of the Covenant were the stone tablets primarily. The golden pot of manna that was collected to keep in perpetuity as a remembrance of the manna in the wilderness.

And then there was Aaron's rod that budded. Now the box had a lid and this was like a separate piece of the furniture, although obviously it's an accessory to the Ark. And that is the lid.

It was a solid slab of gold. It was called the mercy seat. It was the only part, the only piece of furniture, well I'm going to take that back.

I was going to say it was the only piece of furniture that was solid gold, but the lamp stand was also solid gold. But most of the furniture was wood overlaid with either gold or bronze or brass. And the mercy seat was a solid slab, a rectangular slab of gold that covered the box, the Ark.

And as part of the mercy seat, there was also these two cherubim that were molded from gold and were of one piece with the mercy seat. So we have actually pictures of some of these things. I'd like to show you real quickly.

This is a model that someone has made that they think the tabernacle overall looked something like this. This is the way the schematic of it would look. And you can see that over on the right side of this picture would be where you enter the gate.

That's on the east side. This is not really a perfect thing because it shows the post of the courtyard. And for some reason it doesn't have 20 posts.

There are 20 posts. I think this only has 16 shown. I guess they didn't have room on the page.

But you come in from the right and there is the square altar where the sacrifices are offered. Then you come to the laver, which is the wash basin. That's that round thing.

And then the building is depicted and the priest goes in there and you can see, as I described, on the right, he sees the table of showbread on the left, the golden lamp stands, and then straight ahead of him is the golden altar of incense. The Holy of Holies, which is also not depicted to scale here because it's not square, has the Ark of the Covenant in it. Now, this is what that first piece of furniture is thought to look like by some.

This is actually a life-size scale model of the tabernacle. I got these from the internet. I'm not sure whose model this is, but I know the Seventh-day Adventists have a display model of the tabernacle.

This is made to all the same specifications. And I think this might be that model that these pictures were taken from. This is somebody's idea of what the brazen altar of sacrifice looked like.

This is where the blood was offered at the beginning of one's entrance. This is what somebody thought the labor looks like, although no one knows. And there are much different-looking pictures of labors that you'll find if you look at different artist's renditions.

This is the table of showbread, pretty typical of what most people depict it as. This is the lamp stand, not a very good picture. I had to blow it up large to feature it because that guy standing next to it was a mannequin of a priest, and his beard looked really fake.

So I cut him out of the picture. Then this is the golden altar of incense. And then this would be somebody's idea of what the Ark of the Covenant looks like with the mercy seat upon it and the two cherubim on top of that.

So that's pretty much the pictures that I have. And I hope that helps you a little bit as we talk about these things, the picture of what things are like. Now, the order in which they are described in Exodus is rather eccentric because they're not described in a logical order at all.

In Exodus chapter 25, it begins by talking about taking offerings from the people to use for the building of these things, the building and the furniture and so forth of the tabernacle. But that is not the only time we're going to read about that. There's going to be other references to these offerings given in chapter 30 and in chapter 35 and in chapter 36 and chapter 38.

But we're told again and again that the people donated the items. These items are going to take a lot of gold. It's going to take a lot of wood, a lot of gold, a lot of materials for the tapestries and the tarps.

And the people apparently had all these items which they had taken when they left Egypt because God had told the Israelites to ask the Egyptians for gold and for things like that. And apparently they had really plundered the Egyptians. They had a lot of wood with them.

They must have been carrying on carts because the boards of the tabernacle were 15 feet tall and there were 50 or 60 of them. I forget exactly, I think they had 50 such boards. Maybe pretty large pieces of wood.

And yet the Israelites when they left Egypt were hauling all this stuff out which they had taken from the Egyptians, including, you know, leather goods and linen goods and so forth. And so we have several references to the people donating these things. We'll look at those later on.

But then Exodus 25 goes into some detail about the Ark of the Covenant. In verses 10 through 22, and that is no doubt the most interesting and the most significant piece of furniture in the whole thing. But from that point on, it doesn't follow any kind of logical sequence in recording the various items.

For example, in chapter 25, verses 23 through 30, we have the table of showbread. And then in verses 31 through 40, it talks about the lampstand. Now, the lampstand and the table of showbread were not the item's position nearest to the Ark of the Covenant.

So it's not clear why they are mentioned in that order. And the golden altar isn't mentioned until a bit later. Because after this, in chapter 26, the whole chapter is given to describing the courtyard and its hangings.

And also, it's in the building. I'm sorry, the courtyard. I'm mistaken.

It's the building itself in chapter 26. The courtyard is mentioned in chapter 27. But the building itself, its materials and its design are covered in chapter 26.

And then in verse 27, you have the altar burnt offering, which is the bronze altar that one meets with when they first come into the courtyard. That's where the animals are sacrificed. Chapter 27, verses 1 through 8. And then chapter 7, verses 9 through 19, describes the courtyard.

And that's made of curtains. And then the last two verses of chapter 27 talk about the care of the lampstand, strangely. Because the lampstand was mentioned back in chapter 25.

And now a couple of verses about how the priesthood to take care of it are given at the end of chapter 27. Chapters 28 and 29 kind of interrupt the whole thing by talking about the garments that the priests would wear and even the ceremony of consecration of the priests. Now, that's an important part of the tabernacle worship.

Though it's interesting that these two chapters, 28 and 29, interrupt the description of the tabernacle itself and of its furniture. Because all of chapter 28 and most of chapter 29 are devoted to this. And then the last part of chapter 29 talks about the daily offerings that the priests will offer.

So you've got this sort of parenthesis in the middle, 28 and 29, about the priests, their garments and their consecration as priests. And then chapter 30, we finally get to the altar of incense. Verses 1 through 10 talk about the golden altar of incense.

And in the same chapter, verses 17 through 21, describe the bronze labor of cleansing, the basin, the wash basin. And so between those two, there's a description of the command to take a half shekel of silver from each adult male in Israel as money to ransom them. And this silver is also used for the building of the tabernacle.

That interrupts the description of the altar of incense and the bronze labor. These things are not mentioned in an obviously logical order at all. In chapter 30, verses 22 to 33, you have the formula given for the oil that will be used to anoint the priests and the other things that have to be anointed.

And then in verses 34 through 38, a special formula of incense that was to be burned on the incense altar. Now, all that's left then in chapter 31 is to describe who is going to do the work, who's going to make all this stuff. And so in chapter 31, verses 1 through 11, there is a identification of certain men that God has ordained and anointed and enabled to do this work.

So that's the order in which things are given. They're given in a different order. And when you go to the last chapters of the book and you get the same information, but mixed up in a different order.

So I really have no idea why in the arrangement of the Book of Exodus, the order was chosen that it was. I don't know that there's any deep reason for it. But I want to describe, I want to talk about these things and teach about it in a logical order.

And what I want to do is talk about the things as one would encounter them. If you were an Israelite in Israel at the time or in the wilderness at this time, you would enter into the courtyard and then you'd encounter things in the order that I mentioned earlier. And I want to examine the different aspects of the tabernacle in that order.

Now, in talking about the tabernacle, there are two very different things, very different concerns that we have to cover. One of them are just the facts. And that's really what Exodus gives us, is just the facts.

The size, the shape, the materials, the colors, the positions that things will be put in. Just the bare bone facts. Not very inspiring in themselves.

But those facts are important facts because God repeatedly, at least seven times, tells Moses, make sure that you make everything according to the pattern that I showed you on the mountain. It's evident that when Moses was on Mount Sinai, God gave him a visual image of the tabernacle and the pattern of it, the blueprint. Now, we are not told that he gave him a written blueprint, but he described things here.

And Moses wrote these things down, apparently. But Moses also saw the pattern. And God continually said to make sure you make everything according to the pattern that was shown to you on the mountain.

And the reason for that is, we are told in Hebrews, because the tabernacle on earth was to reflect certain heavenly realities that were depicted in this pattern that he had seen. And in Hebrews chapter 8, speaking about Jesus and his priesthood in verse 4, it says, For if he were on earth, he would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law, who serve the copy and the shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For God said, see that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.

Now, it says here that the priests in the temple, which were serving at the time Hebrews was written, because the temple apparently had not yet been destroyed, they serve the copy and the shadow of the heavenly things. That means they serve in the earthly building, which is a copy and a shadow of heavenly things. Now, they, the priests in the writer of Hebrews, they were serving in the temple, not the tabernacle.

But the writer of Hebrews considers that the temple and the tabernacle are essentially the same as each other in significance, because he quotes what was said about the tabernacle as if it's relevant to, you know, the temple of his own day as well. That Moses was told to make it according to the pattern. And that is because it is a copy and a shadow of heavenly things.

So in addition to the fact of the tabernacle, they're given an exodus. There is also a concern that Christians have for the meaning, the heavenly things that are depicted by shadows and by types in the tabernacle. And this has always been a study that has fascinated many Christians, some more than others.

But it is interesting because when you look at the tabernacle and you begin to understand how the New Testament depicts salvation and our relation with God, you begin to see that the tabernacle anticipated Christianity. It anticipated the things that the New Testament teaches about Christ and about ourselves in relation to God. In Hebrews chapter 9, beginning with verse 1 through verse 5, Hebrews 9, 1 through 5 says, Indeed, even the first covenant and ordinances had ordinances of divine service.

It means of sacrifices and the earthly sanctuary for a tabernacle was prepared. The first part in which was the lampstand, the table and the showbread, which is called the sanctuary, the holy place. And behind the second veil, the part of the tabernacle which is called the holiest of all or the holiest of holies.

Or in Exodus, it's called the most holy place. Which had now this is difficult, verse four of Hebrews 9 says, which had the golden altar of incense. Now, actually, the golden altar of incense was not in the holy of holies.

It stood outside the veil of the holy of holies. The priests use the golden altar of incense on a daily basis, but they couldn't go into the holy of holies on a daily basis. So the golden altar of incense was not in the holy of holies.

And therefore, commentators have wondered, why does the writer of Hebrews say that the holy place or the holy holies, excuse me, had the golden altar of incense? Some feel that it just means that since it was just outside the door of the holy of holies, the golden altar of incense was associated with the holy of holies. But that's not that doesn't it's not as logical as what we would expect. What some commentators point out is that the word altar in verse four can be translated censor, the golden censor of incense.

Now, this would make some sense because in burning the incense at the altar, incense and coals will be gathered at the infant's altar. And on the whole on the day of atonement, the one day when the high priest could go into the holy of holies, he would take the incense censer into the holy of holies and leave it there during part of the day and come back for it. It would fill the holy of holies with incense smoke.

And so many commentators feel that this is not really a reference to the infant's altar, but should be translated the infant's censer because that was taken in the holy of holies on the day of atonement and left there for a period of time. And that may be what the writer of Hebrews had in mind here. So it says that the holiest of all had the golden altar of incense or or censor of incense and the Ark of the Covenant overlaid on all sides with gold in which were the golden pot that had manna, Aaron's rod that budded and the tablets of the covenant, the stone tablets of the law.

And above it were the chair of them of glory, overshadowing the mercy seat. And then the writer says of these things, we cannot now speak in detail. Well, he didn't have enough ink and space to speak in detail of them, but many Christians have decided to do so and have spoken in detail of them.

We're going to speak in a little bit of detail about them a little more than the author of Hebrews did on that occasion. But we're not going to go into so much detail as some people do. But the detail that is here alluded to is the interpretation of the fact.

We have the bare facts of the tabernacle to consider. Then we have the interpretation of the facts. That's what the writer of Hebrews almost teases us about when he says we can't right now go into detail about these things.

He doesn't mean the size and shape of them as if he wanted to go over all the material in Exodus chapter 25 to 31 and just tell us the colors and the shapes and so forth and sizes. He has in mind the heavenly things that are represented in these things, the spiritual truth that God deliberately depicted in the design of the tabernacle. And the writer of Hebrews makes it very clear by his statement that he could, if he had the time, give much more detail than he cares to give at this time.

And so there is detail to be gotten from it. Exactly what that detail means, what the true interpretation is, has been sometimes disputed. Right now, we're going to talk about the facts, but we also want to, as we look at the facts, talk about the meaning, the interpretation of them.

And you can actually give an interpretation of the overall picture of the tabernacle and make some interesting observations, but also going down to the individual pieces of furniture and so forth and the rituals associated with them. There is meaning in them, and there are at least three ways in which the tabernacle serves as a type of spiritual thing. First, it serves as a type of Christ himself.

God dwelt among Israel in the tabernacle and God dwelt among men of earth in the person of Christ. And John is the one who tells us that this connection is to be made in John chapter one and verse 14, where John said the word became flesh and dwelt among us. The word dwelt there in the Greek is tabernacle, pitched his tent, pitched his tabernacle.

Just as God pitched his tabernacle among Israel in the wilderness, so God has pitched his tent among us, has tabernacled among us in the person of Christ, the incarnation of Christ. And John says, and we beheld his glory. And Israel did see the glory of God, the manifest presence of God in the cloud, the Shekinah glory, as they called it.

In the tabernacle, that's where his glory is manifested. John says that's happened again in Christ. And so as we look at the details of the tabernacle, we see that the New Testament writers recognize that Christ himself was at least one antitype of the tabernacle.

It looks forward to Christ himself and his embodiment, his dwelling on earth in a human form. In John chapter two, in verse 18, the Jews answered and said to Jesus, what sign do you show us since you do these things? And Jesus answered and said to them, destroy this temple and in three days I will raise it up. And in verse 21, it says, but he was speaking of the temple of his body.

Now, the temple was a later construction after the tabernacle, but it was simply the more permanent form of the same thing. The tabernacle was a portable building. Why? Because Israel was a portable nation.

They were moving around. They're going to travel around for 40 years, as it turned out. This had not yet been determined at the time the tabernacle was made, but they were travelers and they had to take their tent or the temple with them.

Eventually, once they were a settled people and had a king, a second king, a third king, actually, in Solomon, they actually built a permanent building. But the building, although it was more elaborate and larger than the tabernacle, was built on the same basic pattern as the tabernacle because it was simply to be the same thing in a more permanent and somewhat more impressive structure. So, the temple and the tabernacle, in principle, are both the same thing.

And John says in John 1, 14, that Jesus was God tabernacling among us and then Jesus himself spoke of his body as a temple. So, the tabernacle and the temple together are a type of Christ dwelling among people in a physical body. But secondarily, the tabernacle and the temple after it are a type of the church.

And that's not surprising because the church is the body of Christ. It is the continuing body of Christ. Jesus was in a body when he was on earth, a man's body, and then he ascended to heaven and he became the head of a corporate body.

And all who are in Christ are part of that body and therefore the church itself, the body of Christ, is seen as an antitype of the tabernacle. In Ephesians chapter 2, although the imagery is probably more of a temple than a tabernacle, Ephesians chapter 2, Paul says in verse 20, that we have been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom, that is in Christ, the whole building being joined together, like the building of the tabernacle was joined together with rods and so forth that held the boards, individual boards into place, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom, that is in the Lord, you also are being built together for a habitation of God. In the spirit, the tabernacle and later the temple were the habitation of God and we as Christians collectively are built together to be a habitation of God through the spirit.

Now again, the imagery of a temple is more in view because it's not about a foundation. The tabernacle didn't really have a foundation, it was a movable building, but nonetheless, it was the habitation of God prior to the temple and the temple was simply a continuation of the same concept. Also in 1 Peter chapter 2, again using the image of the temple, not the tabernacle, but in principle the same thing, 1 Peter 2, 5, Peter said, you also as living stones are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ.

That is to say that we are built like living stones into a temple. Now the writer of Hebrews actually likens us to the tabernacle itself. In Hebrews chapter 3, verses 5 and 6, Hebrews 3, 5 says, and Moses indeed was faithful in all God's house as a servant for a testimony of those things which would be spoken after.

What does that mean? God's house was the tabernacle in Moses' day. God, Moses faithfully built the tabernacle according to the pattern that was shown in the mount as a testimony. The tabernacle becomes a testimony of those things which would be spoken afterward, that is in the New Testament.

The tabernacle was a building that bore testimony to truths that would later be revealed in the New Testament. It says Moses was faithful in the building of this, he was faithful in God's house, in building God's house it means, the tabernacle. Then verse 6 says, but Christ as a son over his own house, his own tabernacle, whose house we are if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope from the end.

So we are the house that corresponds to the tabernacle. The tabernacle was built by Moses, that house was built for God and he faithfully built it to be a testimony to future things. Those future things are the things that we are, the house of Christ, Christ's own house, which house we are.

So we can see the tabernacle is a type of Christ, also a type of the church collectively, which is also Christ's body. In another sense, perhaps less clearly testified to in scripture, the individual Christian is sort of like a tabernacle. Because God not only dwells collectively in the church as the temple of the Holy Spirit, but the Bible speaks about our bodies being like temples of the Holy Spirit, or the temples of God, place where God dwells.

So that it says in 1 Corinthians chapter 6, verse 19, 1 Corinthians 6, 19 says, or do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have from God and you are not your own. So individually, our bodies, our habitations, God lives in each of us. Christ lives in our hearts by faith, the Bible says.

And if we have the spirit of Christ, then we belong to him because he is in us and he lives in us. So really, more often than not, the tabernacle pictures the whole church collectively, but every individual Christian is something of a temple, a habitation of God as well. And there's one other way in which the New Testament seems to use the tabernacle as a type.

And this agrees with it being a type of Christ, because the tabernacle shows the way to approach God. It is a type of approaching God. Now, I say in this sense, it agrees with Christ being the anti-type because Christ said, I am the way.

He said, the way I'm going, you know, I'm going to the Father and you know the way. And they said, we don't know the way. And in John 14, 6, Jesus said, well, I am the way.

I am the approach. I am the path that leads to God. I am the way that you come to God.

No one comes to the Father, but through me. And so also, if you wanted to come to the Father, if you wanted to come to God in Old Testament times, you had to go in the way of the tabernacle. There was a specific means of approaching God that was very elaborate, very specified and very inflexible in the Old Testament.

The tabernacle was the depiction of that way of approach to God in the New Testament. Christ is that way of approach, but approaching God, just the phenomenon of man approaching God to worship, to commune with God, that phenomenon is depicted in the tabernacle. And the New Testament brings that out.

It would appear in Hebrews 4, 16. Now, I'm not I don't know if most commentaries would agree with me on this, but I believe that this is correct. In Hebrews 4, 16.

The writer has led us, therefore, come boldly to the throne of grace that we may obtain mercy and find grace to help in time of need. In my opinion, the throne of grace corresponds to the mercy seat. Throne, seat, grace, mercy, throne of grace, mercy seat.

Particularly because he says we come to the throne of grace and we receive mercy and obtain help, grace to help in time of need. But his reference to us coming boldly to the throne of grace is intended to be a contrast to the lack of confidence that anyone could have had in the Old Testament coming before the mercy seat, coming into the Holy of Holies. It was very inaccessible.

God's presence was not available to everybody. Only the high priest, only one man in the whole nation could approach the mercy seat. And he could only do it once a year.

It had to be the right year and he had to do all the right rituals or else it would kill him to go in there. It was very scary to approach God in the Old Testament. But because of what Christ has done, we can come boldly, we can come confidently into the very presence of God and approach his throne of grace and seek mercy as the high priest sought at the mercy seat.

If you look at Hebrews chapter 6, verses 19 and 20, it says, this hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which enters the presence behind the veil. The presence behind the veil is the Shekinah glory in the Holy of Holies, behind the veil. The veil is that which separated between the Holy of Holies and the other part of the building, the sanctuary.

And behind the veil is the Ark of the Covenant. Behind the veil is the Holy of Holies. Behind the veil is the Shekinah glory of God.

And he says that our hope in Christ is like an anchor that lays hold of that presence that is on the other side of the veil in the Holy of Holies. It says where the forerunner has entered for us, even Jesus. Now, Jesus has entered into that Holy of Holies for us and we are attached to him.

So he is our anchor, anchoring us to the presence of God. That is, nothing can remove us. Just like a boat that is firmly anchored to the sea bottom, it will not be moved by waves and so forth from its position.

So also, we cannot be moved very far from God, as long as our hope in Christ takes hold behind the veil in the Holy of Holies, that presence of God there. But it says that Christ is our forerunner who has entered there. Now, a forerunner is just running ahead of others who are running behind in the same direction, going the same place.

Christ has entered ahead of us into the Holy of Holies. But since he's said to be a forerunner, it means that we are going there too. We go, we enter into that place too.

We come before God's presence as well. In Hebrews chapter 10, verses 19 through 22, there is certainly an allusion to the tabernacle here. Hebrews 10, 19 says, Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the holiest, that is, the Holy of Holies, by the blood of Jesus.

Now, notice the boldness again. Back in chapter 4, verse 16, it says, Let us come boldly before the throne of grace. I said that's the mercy seat.

This seems to confirm my suspicions, because it's about being bold in coming into the Holy of Holies. That's where one would find the Ark and the mercy seat. We entered into the Holy of Holies by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he consecrated for us through the veil, that is his flesh, and having a high priest over the house of God, let us draw near, let's approach God with a true heart, in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and our bodies washed with pure water.

The heart sprinkled with blood reminds us of the bloody sacrifices offered at the brazen altar, the bronze altar, and our bodies washed with pure water is probably a reference to baptism, but in the imagery here, it's like we've come to the labor of cleansing. We're drawing near to God. We can actually go behind the veil.

We can come boldly into the Holy of Holies by the blood of Jesus, because we've done the preliminary things. We've been sprinkled with the blood at the bronze altar. We've been washed with water at the labor of cleansing.

We've come into the building, and now we can go right into the Holy of Holies. This is what he's using the tabernacle as an image of. Let's draw near to God.

Now, this is not simply let's get saved. This is talking about fellowship with God. This is talking about daily having access to God, not once a year like the high priest had, but anytime we can boldly come into the presence of our father.

Just like you and I would not be able, if we wished, to simply knock on the White House door and have an interview with the president. He's too busy. We're not important enough.

But I'll bet his daughters could run into his office anytime and sit on his lap, and they'd think nothing of it. He's their dad. They come boldly into the Oval Office, where other people, most people couldn't come at all.

And the others who come in come with great ceremony and great respect and so forth for the office of the man there. His children just come in without any intimidation at all. And so we do.

We can come before God on terms different than were possible in the tabernacle. You see, what the writer of Hebrews tells us is that one thing the tabernacle was conveying to us was not just the way of approach to God, but it was intended to convey the inaccessibility of God before the time of Christ. We can see that in chapter 9 of Hebrews.

In chapter 9 of Hebrews, it talks about the limitations and the inaccessibility of God in the tabernacle system. At verse 6, after it's in the first five verses, it catalogs some of the details of the tabernacle. In verse 6 says, Now, when these things have been thus prepared, the priests always went into the first part of the tabernacle performing the services.

That'd be the holy place, of course. But into the second part, the Holy of Holies, the high priest went alone once a year, not without blood for which he offered for himself and for the people's sins committed in ignorance. The Holy Spirit indicating this.

Now, what he's saying is this ritual of the high priest once a year going into the tab into the Holy of Holies, the Holy Spirit in creating that ritual was indicating something to us. What? What was he indicating? The Holy Spirit was thus indicating that the way into the holiest of all, that is into the Holy of Holies, was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was still standing. It was symbolic for the present time in which both gifts and sacrifices are offered, which cannot make him who performed the service perfect regarding conscience, concerning only food, etc.

Now, but Christ came, verse 11, as high priest, good things to a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is not of this creation, not with the blood of goats and calves, verse 12, but with his own blood he entered the most holy place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption, and so forth. Now, what he's saying here is that Christ has entered a more perfect tabernacle. There's a sense in which the tabernacle, as an approach to God, has its holiest of all, its Holy of Holies is in heaven.

And that's where we enter into the presence. Now, he said, while the first tabernacle was standing, this ritual of inaccessibility of the Holy of Holies was the Holy Spirit's way of communicating that the way into the presence of God was not yet really manifested until Jesus came. In pre-Christian times, God could not be approached boldly as we can approach him boldly now, as we saw in Hebrews 10.

Let us come boldly into the Holy of Holies. Let us draw near to God, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed in pure water. We're, in our own lives, experiencing and doing the things that correspond spiritually with what was ritually seen in the tabernacle.

And, of course, the tabernacle shows the way to approach God under the Old Covenant. And it has the types and shadows of spiritual realities that we will be looking at as we study it. But it also, the writer of Hebrews said, is there to convey a notion.

The notion is that people could not come to God like we can now, while the first tabernacle was standing. If you wanted to come before God in the Holy of Holies and experience the immediate presence of the Shekinah glory, well, you're just out of luck. You just need to wait a few thousand years until the Messiah comes.

Because then you can't. Because we enter now through a new and living way, prepared through the veil of his flesh when he died. And we now come boldly, entering into the holiest of all, into the holiest place in Hebrews 10, 19 we see.

And so the bottom line in Hebrews, after it's made all its points about the tabernacle, is that which we see in Hebrews 10, 22, let us draw near to God. Let's have a close relationship with God. Let's approach him confidently.

And this is something that Christians can improve upon in their lives. Because Christians sometimes do not fully appreciate the grace of God and do not fully appreciate the way in which Jesus has removed every barrier. So that we don't have to come groveling and fearful that God is not going to accept us in his presence.

We should still come humbly. We should still come reverently because he's due that. He's an awesome God who, you know, anyone who would not be reverent toward him does not fully appreciate that.

But also anyone who does not come boldly before him and freely, and like a child approaching their father, that person does not fully appreciate the grace of God and what is found there at the throne of grace, at the mercy seat. Now, we're going to have to take a break. And when we come back, I want to talk about the details of each item.

We want to talk, first of all, about the courtyard, because that's the first thing that one would see. If a person was in the camp of Israel, and they were coming to where the tabernacle is, the first thing they'd see is the courtyard. In fact, they'd see nothing else.

Because the courtyard was a curtained open-air enclosure, but the curtains were seven and a half feet tall. So, unless you were like Goliath, you would not be able to see over the curtains. You would not be able to see anything.

So you might be able from a distance to see the top part of the building, because it was 15 feet tall. You can see maybe some of it above the level of the curtains. But for the most part, you just see the curtains.

And you're going through the gate at the east end. And then you encounter certain things and do certain things. And we want to talk about those in their proper order.

Not the order that they're given in Exodus, but in the order that would be the actual experience of the worshipper in biblical times. And as we do look at each of these things, to the extent that I am able, I would like to tell you what I think the spiritual meaning is of things. In so far as the New Testament gives us guidance, or perhaps even our intuitions may give us some insights.

So we'll take a break there. And we'll talk in detail about these things. Which the writer of Hebrews said he could not talk in detail about.