The Tabernacle

Story:  The Tabernacle

Passage: Exodus 26

Characters:  God, Moses

Summary:    God gives Moses instructions for the Tabernacle. 

  

Notes:  I have been putting this post off because it is long and confusing and full of details which I was tempted to say are meaningless.  However, these details come straight from God so I am going to dive in and look at them.  God wanted Israel to build a tabernacle.  The previous three items were to be placed in the tabernacle.  I am going to list the things God specifically asked for and then if I have an idea of what they represent, I will try to communicate that.  Most of this is speculation unfortunately.  Here goes, the details of the tabernacle:

Dimensions -  God supplied specific dimensions for the cover, the curtains, and the frame of the tabernacle.  He even had enough detail to instruct what to do with overlap.  I believe He gave them the dimensions so they would know how much material they would need.  His structure is both solid, and portable.  It comes apart fairly easily for when they had to move around.  The basic design was that there was a room made of an elaborate colorful curtain covering a frame.  This was covered by a plain piece of material.  This was then covered by two more coverings made of watertight animal skin. 

Colors – God specified the colors to be used for the curtains.  They were to be blue, purple, and scarlet with images of Cherubim worked into them.  These same colors were used for the veil.  I did some research on the use of colors in the Bible and I may post that sometime.  Basically what I found was that blue represents the law, purple represents royalty, and scarlet represents both sin and cleansing.  I find it fascinating that if you were to be in the Holy of Holies with the Ark, you would be surrounded with gold, blue, purple, and scarlet.  You would be in a place where holiness, royalty, the law, and cleansing are all combined together.  This is a beautiful picture of the plan God had for humanity and it is communicated purely through the colors He specified for His Tabernacle. 

Clasp material – God specified the material of the clasps used to hold the curtains together.  The innermost curtain would have gold clasps and the next curtain would have bronze.  Obviously we see the continuation of gold being the only metal visible in the Holy of Holies.  This purity and holiness is really powerful if you think about it. 

Material of the curtains – The materials used from the inside out are, fine linen, goat hair, rams’ skins, and goatskins. 

Material of frames – The frames of the Tabernacle would also be visible from the inside and thus they were also acacia wood overlaid with gold. 

The veil material – The veil would be the same material as the curtains, but it would serve a different function.  The inside of the Tabernacle would be holy ground, but the Ark would be even holier.  The phrase “even holier” seems redundant.  How can something be more holy?  The point of this distinction is that God is infinitely more holy than we can comprehend!  God has us picture holiness, and then tells us He is even more holy than that.  The Ark which represents the presence and holiness of God is in the Most Holy Place.  This was the least accessible part of the Tabernacle.  A common person could only access God through the High Priest, and even he could only enter the Most Holy place once a year I believe. (We will read more about this later and I will edit this if I am wrong)  The holiness of God keeps us from Him.  We cannot survive being exposed to this Holiness without His mercy!  Because of this, I am fascinated by the positioning of the other pieces of furniture we have read about.

Position of the table and lampstand – If you remember, the lampstand seems to represent the guidance of the Holy Spirit and the table for the Bread of the Presence seems to represent the physical presence of God manifest in Christ.  We now know that the Spirit lives in us as Christians and guides us closer to God.  We also know now that Christ came to Earth and acted as our High priest.  He was the go between us and a Holy God.  As such, the Spirit and the Son are like the intermediaries through whom we can access the Spirit.  Thus the son and the Spirit are uniquely accessible to us in a way the holiness represented by the Father is not.  This is not to say that the Son and the Spirit are not holy, but rather that by God’s perfect design, this is the way He extends His mercy to us and allows us access to a Holy God.  Although these things were not fully understood in Moses’ time, we see that both the Table and the Lampstand are positioned outside of the Most Holy Place and are rather in the Holy Place.  As you can see, this communicates that these two are Holy, but accessible.  The Table is located just outside the veil, and when Christ was crucified, we read in the gospels that the veil was torn in two symbolizing that we now have access to the Father in ways that we never had before.  If you were to enter the temple after the veil was torn, you would see the Ark of the Covenant with the Table of the Bread of the Presence between you and the Ark.  I think this is a powerful picture of God’s plan for restoration of us to Him and it was all symbolized in the tabernacle in Moses’ day.

Questions:  Is this interpretation of the Tabernacle correct? Does it make sense?  What else is symbolized in the design of the tabernacle?

Lessons:  The Tabernacle shows us that from the beginning, God had a plan to restore us to Himself.  Take a moment and just worship the Holy God who loved us enough to restore us to Him even in the middle of our rebellion against Him!  Worship Him for His unchanging mercy and grace!

The Ark of the Covenant

Story:  The Ark of the Covenant

Passage: Exodus 25:10-22

Characters:  God, Moses

Summary:    God gives Moses instructions for the Ark of the Covenant. 

  

Notes:  The Ark of the Covenant is an interesting article.  It is the first item which God gives directions to build.  The purpose of the Ark is found in verse 22.  “There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak to you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.”  This was to be where God presided.  The Ark was to be a physical object designed to show God’s presence and His holiness.  The ark was to be made from acacia wood, but overlaid in gold.  The entire thing would be covered in gold.  This would be an incredibly beautiful and precious item!  It appears that God saw gold as the metal which best captures His holiness.  Even though the ark would be made of wood, it would be covered with gold.  It was to be fairly simple.  It was a golden box with a golden lid.  The mercy seat is where we started seeing some intricacy.  There were to be two golden cherubim made of a single piece of gold as the lid of the Ark.  Their wings were to overshadow the Ark and their faces were to face the center.  God said He would meet them from the middle of the mercy seat.  These heavenly worshippers were facing the center and worshipping.  The lid is called the mercy seat.  I don’t know exactly why it is called that, but I suspect it is because mercy has to be involved whenever God directly interacts with humanity.  This was the seat where He would show mercy to Israel.  This is the first indication of how much mercy is an aspect of God’s character!  The first item He wants built for the tabernacle is one which directly represents His presence.  There are three main concepts which He wants portrayed with this Ark: holiness, worship, and mercy.  I find that incredible!  God was going to make Himself present to imperfect Israel and the attributes He wanted portrayed in His presence were holiness, worship, and mercy.  One other aspect of the ark is that Israel was instructed to place their testimony in the Ark.  God wanted this item for His presence to contain proof of His presence.  He would provide testimony of His presence and this belonged in the Ark.  The Ark is referred to as both the Ark of the Covenant, and the Ark of the Testimony.

Questions:  Why was everything overlaid in gold?  Why was the Ark to be carried with poles?

Lessons:  Holiness, worship, and mercy are the focus of the Ark of the Covenant.  Take some time to just think about why God would choose these things to communicate through the Ark of the Testimony.

The Covenant Confirmed

Story:  The Covenant Confirmed

Passage: Exodus 24

Characters:  God, Israel, Israel’s leaders

Summary:    God has Moses and Israel’s leaders come close to the mountain and He shows Himself to them.  Moses reads the law to the nation and they commit to follow it.  Moses goes up the mountain into the presence of God. 

  

Notes:  God requested that Moses, Aaron, Nadab, and Abihu along with seventy elders come up to the Lord to worship Him.  This is a pivotal moment in Israel’s history and God wanted to make His covenant with all the leadership of Israel.  These were to be the leaders of Israel over the coming years.  Before they approached the mountain, Moses read the law to the people of Israel.  The people answered in unity that they would do everything the Lord told them to do.  Moses wrote down the law and then set up an altar and twelve pillars.  This represented the twelve tribes of Israel under the leadership of God.  Moses had young men sacrifice oxen to the Lord and half of the blood was poured on the altar.  Blood is hugely significant in the covenant we make with God.  This is because blood represents life.  Our covenant with God is one of sacrificing our life and accepting His life.  Moses once again read the words of the law to the people of Israel and once again they promised to obey.  Moses threw the other half of the blood on the people and declared it the blood of the covenant the Lord made with Israel.  Then Moses and the leaders of Israel went up and saw God standing on a clear sapphire floor.  God spared them and let them see this vision of Him.  The passage says they beheld God, and ate and drank.  This was not a purely spiritual experience; there was a physical aspect to it as well.  Moses was summoned up the mountain by God to receive the stone tablets with the law.  Moses and Joshua approached the mountain.  Apparently, Joshua was allowed to accompany Moses.  This is rthe first we hear of Joshua in the Bible.  Joshua was not one of Israel’s leaders at this point, he was Moses’ assistant.  When Moses left, he put Aaron and Hur in charge.  I don’t know who Hur was, but obviously Moses respected his wisdom and leadership.  Moses entered the mountain and waited.  He waited six days and on the seventh day, God called Him into the cloud.  The glory of the Lord is described as a devouring fire on top of the mountain.  Moses was in the presence of God for forty days and nights. 

Questions:  What did Moses eat for forty days?  Did the people think he had died?  Why was Joshua allowed to accompany Moses?  Why did God require blood for the covenant?

Lessons:   This is a huge moment.  This is possibly Israel’s highest point.  They are given the law and they respond positively.  They make a covenant with God and their leaders see God.  This is a moment where God comes down to Earth and meets His bride, Israel.  His holiness and glory required that His primary interaction with Israel was through a priest.  Today, we have the Holy Spirit dwelling in us and sometimes this very personal connection to the God of the universe makes us forget that holiness and power and we take our relationship with God for granted.  We need to remember that God is holy and powerful and we are only able to connect with Him through the blood of the new covenant shed by the perfect Lamb of God.

Israel at Mount Sinai

Story:  Israel at Mount Sinai

Passage: Exodus 19

Characters:  Moses, God, Israel

Summary:    Israel came to Mount Sinai.  The people camped out while Moses went up to God.  God came to the mountain in a thick cloud.  There was fire and the ground shook.  The people consecrated themselves and were not allowed to touch the mountain.  Aaron was allowed to go up the mountain with Moses, but no one else could.

  

Notes:  The people had been traveling for three months now.  God called to Moses from the mountain.  This was strangely not a new thing for Moses!  God made a covenant with the people through Moses there.  If they obeyed His voice and kept His covenant, they would be His treasured possession and a kingdom of priests.  The people responded by promising obedience.  I find God’s response funny.  In response to their confidence, He tells Moses that He is coming down there so the people can hear Him and believe Moses.  In other words, yeah I know they said that, but I’m going to make sure they hear me so they won’t forget.  God gave them three days to consecrate themselves.  They had to wash their dirty clothes.  Moses set up limits for the people.  If they were to even touch the mountain, they were to be killed by being stoned or shot with an arrow.  They were not allowed to be touched.  There is something about contact with holiness which is not allowed.  It is almost like by touching the mountain, the person would  become holier by association.  Then if someone else touched that person, they would repeat the process.  I don’t know if that’s what was really going on, but it does look like it.  Moses also told the men to not go near the women.  He didn’t say not to sleep with the women, he said not to go near them.  He knew human nature well enough to know that the only sure way to keep them from defiling themselves was to not even give them the opportunity.  The mountain was surrounded by smoke and covered in fire.  The whole mountain shook.  This was the display of glory that came when God showed up at the mountain.  Interestingly, He wasn’t even displaying His full glory.  If His partial glory can affect the Earth like that, can you imagine His full glory?  There was a trumpet sound and Moses spoke.  God responded with thunder.  His voice was not like thunder, His voice was thunder.  The sheer power and majesty in this passage is intimidating!  Too many times we lock God into the image of a poor helpless lamb who just wants to nuzzle us and frolic around in the grass with us.  That is not what I see here!  I’m not saying that God is not a loving lamb, but He is also a powerful holy God.  When He comes, the mountains shake and are covered in fire and smoke.  His voice is the thunder.  We need to make sure that we do not water God down and ignore this facet of His character.  God then tells Moses to go back down and warn the people to stay back.  He also tells Moses to make sure the priests consecrate themselves.  Moses responds by reminding God that God already told them not to come up.  God responds by telling Moses to go down and remind them.  This is also funny to me.  God basically says to tell the people to stay back and Moses is thinking, “No I don’t want to leave.  I already told them that they don’t need to hear again!”  God felt otherwise.  Apparently Moses has changed from the shepherd who would not obey a burning bush to a man who couldn’t comprehend people not listening to the commands of God!  God knows the people well though and sends Moses down anyway.  Apparently the priests had not consecrated themselves either.  Maybe they felt they did not need it because they were priests.  It is obvious that their status did not make them any cleaner in God’s eyes than the rest of the people.  God wanted Aaron on the mountain as well.  God knew that Aaron would soon be the high priest of Israel and He wanted Aaron up on the mountain with Moses to witness His glory.  Maybe God was trying to keep Aaron’s focus on Him because He knew Aaron’s susceptibility to idols.  Who knows?

Questions:  Were the people really going to try to go up the mountain?  Did they protest to consecrating themselves?  Why did the priests not originally consecrate themselves? 

Lessons:  We need to make sure we remember God’s holiness and power.  We don’t serve a weak God!  We are dirty and without Him washing us clean, we don’t even deserve to be in the presence of Him.  Too often we take for granted the fact that we can pray and He will listen!  We forget the price that it took to gain us this access to God.  We forget how dirty we are compared to His holiness!  We must never forget what it means that He is holy and we are not!

The Passover

Story: The Passover

Passage: Exodus 12:1-28

Characters:  God, Israel

Summary:

The Lord told Israel what He was about to do and what they had to do to be spared.  Each household was to take a lamb without blemish and keep it for four days and then kill it.  They were to smear the blood of the lamb on their doorposts.  Then they were to eat the lamb along with unleavened bread and bitter herbs. They were to eat it with their shoes on, their belt buckled, and their staff in hand.  God would kill every firstborn in Egypt, but when He saw the blood, He would pass over the Israelites.  They were to celebrate tis with a feast every year.  For seven days, they would eat unleavened bread.  Now work would be done for those seven days.  Moses told the elders what to do and they obeyed.  

Notes:  I have nowhere near enough time to do Passover justice in this post, but here goes!  The feast of unleavened bread is the first celebration that God gives Israel, and it is the first aspect of the law that we see.   Since Christ fulfills the law, every time we study part of the law, I will try to show the way that Christ fulfilled it!  The Passover was a time when God showed mercy to Israel and delivered them from Egypt.  Throughout the Bible, Egypt represents sin, the flesh, and death.  God was going to deliver His people from sin and bring them to the Promised Land.  Let’s look at how He is going to accomplish this!  First, every household is supposed to find a lamb. This lamb needs to be perfect.  Interestingly, a lamb is needed for each household.  (Spoiler alert: Jesus is the ultimate Passover lamb)  In order for Christ’s sacrifice to cover us, we must become part of God’s household.  Fortunately, we see this all throughout the New Testament.  We are adopted as heirs; we are the sons of God.  This lamb was not just chosen and killed, it was kept for four days by the family.  This lamb became a part of the family and lived with them for a short time before they killed it.  Likewise, Christ lived among us for a short time before we killed Him.  They were to eat it while prepared to move.  When we are saved, we need to be ready to go.  Salvation is the beginning of a journey, not the end.  God specifically says that He will execute judgment on all the gods of Egypt.  We have already seen how the plagues were a direct attack on specific Egyptian gods.  Here God states that that is what He is doing.  Egypt worshipped these false gods, so the true God attacked each one to prove that He is the only true God worth worshipping!  God is not happy when we give the glory and worship that He deserves to something we create ourselves.  We see a taste of His wrath in His treatment of Egypt.  God has done many many miracles already for Israel, but this is the first one that He wants them to commemorate with a feast forever.  During this feast, there is to be no leaven present.  Yeast is a leavening agent.  Yeast is later referred to in the New Testament.  Yeast mixing through bread is compared to sin working through our lives.  By having no leaven, the Israelites were symbolically keeping themselves pure from sin.  This was obviously important, because twice God specifies that if anyone has leaven in their possession, whether Israelite of foreigner, they are to be cut off from Israel!  This was a serious deal!  Moses specifies that this is to be celebrated even after Israel arrives in the Promised Land.  This is the most significant moment in history so far, and it is possibly one of the most significant moments in history ever up to our current place in history!  The Passover laid the groundwork for how God was going to redeem His people to Him.  This was more than foreshadowing, this established the structure and meaning of what Christ would later do for the entire world!  God is God and could have saved us in a number of ways, but He chose to save us through innocent blood taking His wrath in our place.  This is the first time we see this play out and this is the precedent for what Christ did for us!  Christ did not have to die because the Passover happened, rather, the Passover had to happen and Christ had to die, because that is how God decided to structure our redemption!  The fact that many people died in the Passover is tragic, but necessary!  For the Israelites to be saved, they had to be saved from something!  For us to be saved, we must be saved from something!  The emphasis should not be on the fact that God killed Egyptians, but rather that He spared the Israelites!  In fact, we see that that is what the Feast of Unleavened Bread is for: to remind future generations of the way that God spared them.  The focus of the Feast is not on the death of the Egyptians, but on the life of the Israelites!  Likewise, our focus should not be on the fact that there are people who are not saved, but rather on the fact that there are people who are saved!  Salvation makes no sense!  Judgment on the other hand is totally logical!  We are broken and have strayed from the purpose of our design and creation.  We deserve death!  When people die, they are getting what they and we deserve!  It is the right thing for bad things to happen to us!  The illogical and strange thing that happens is that some are saved!  Grace is by definition not deserved, and if we feel we must question God, do not question His judgment, but rather His grace!  He has every right to judge us and destroy us!  If you think differently, you do not understand His holiness!  He had no conceivable reason though to judge and destroy His own son so that we are passed over.  Take some time and just worship God for His mercy and grace which He has lavished on those of us who don’t even deserve another breath!

Questions:  Why was the death of a lamb necessary?  Who exactly was going to pass over Egypt? 

Lessons:  The lessons in this passage are somewhat apparent!  This story speaks volumes about God’s mercy and grace.  Some see this as an example of a judgmental God.  I see this as a story of a merciful God full of grace!  In fact, how can there be mercy without judgment?   A life was taken in every house in Egypt, but in Goshen, that life was not the one deserving of death.  Keep in mind, that even though we have been given life, a life was still taken: a life that was infinitely undeserving of death.  Keep this in perspective, and never give in to the temptation of believing that our grace is deserved!