MP #8 The Tabernacle - The Ark
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INTRODUCTION Exodus 25-30
INTRODUCTION Exodus 25-30
The Tabernacle is the focal point of the next several chapters and they are rich, absolutely rich with Messianic implications and truth.
First in chapters 25-30 Moses received the instructions for it’s construction.
Second, chapters 36-40 describe it’s construction.
The Tabernacle will be the center of life for all that is Israel as they move through the wilderness in route to the promised land.
It will be the center of life because it was where YHWH dwelt, God was with His people.
The Tabernacle represented worship, sacrificial worship and in that way it pictured Christ.
We cannot be sure how much the people understood about Christ at this time, but they did know the following, all of which pointed to Christ.
1. The worshipper was to bring an animal for sacrifice from his own herd or flock to serve as a substitute.
2. The worshipper laid his hands on the animal to symbolize the transfer of sin and guilt to the substitute.
3. The animal had to die. Sin brought death, the animal died a penal substitutionary atoning death.
4. The blood was collected and sprinkled around the altar by the priest.
In all of these we see Christ.
Christ was always central in the Tabernacle worship.
Every piece of furniture speaks of Christ.
The curtains, the walls, the sockets, it all speaks of Christ.
And certainly, the activities, especially the sacrifices, all pictured Messiah.
Buckle your seat belts, we shall be in the Tabernacle for a while.
This passage makes a very profound statement, life had to be substituted for life, when the person sinned they forfeited their life, but this life could be cleansed, restored, and made whole by the death of a substitute.
This picture of Christ was ever present in the Tabernacle.
The blood of the bulls, goats, and lambs were in them selves ineffectual, but as types and symbols of Christ’s life and blood they were temporarily atoning.
For the Law, since it has only a shadow of the good things to come and not the very form of things, can never, by the same sacrifices which they offer continually year by year, make perfect those who draw near.
Otherwise, would they not have ceased to be offered, because the worshipers, having once been cleansed, would no longer have consciousness of sins?
But in those sacrifices there is a reminder of sins year by year.
For it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins.
The word shadow is very important here.
It reminds us that the Tabernacle was the not the true focus.
A shadow is the image cast by the real thing.
It teaches us that the real thing is Jesus, and the Tabernacle is merely a picture of Him.
As we come to this study of the Tabernacle the first thing we see is…….
THE PROVIDENCE OF YHWH
THE PROVIDENCE OF YHWH
In Exodus 25:1-2, YHWH takes the initiative.
YHWH initiates the conversation with Moses in verse 1.
Then in verse 2 Moses is instructed to speak to the people.
The people did not ask for a Tabernacle, they did not ask for a place to worship, this was all God.
YHWH designed the Tabernacle down to the nth degree.
Down in verse 9 we discover that there is a God given pattern of the Tabernacle and the furniture.
The Hebrew word for pattern is defined as a replica, something this is a representation of something else.
Does that mean there is another Tabernacle from which this one is patterned?
Indeed it does, and herein lies the secret to the Tabernacle being Messianic.
This earthly Tabernacle is patterned after a heavenly one.
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation,
and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy places once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
This earthly Tabernacle that the Lord is about to have built, is patterned after the Heavenly abode of God where Christ will pour out His blood.
But when Christ appeared as a high priest of the good things to come, He entered through the greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this creation,
and not through the blood of goats and calves, but through His own blood, He entered the holy places once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.
Friends, everything about this Tabernacle speaks to us of Messiah.
It points to Him.
The Tabernacle and its construction was a providential act of God.
We need to understand the layout of the Tabernacle and what it means.
The Tent of Meeting as it was often called was somewhat symmetrical.
The Holy of Holies was a perfect cube, 10 cubits wide, 10 cubit long, and 10 cubits tall.
This is a reminder of the perfection of God.
A cubit is about 18” so it was a 15’ cube.
There was only one piece of furniture in the Holy of Holies, the Ark of the Covenant.
The Holy Place was a rectangle, 20 cubits long, 10 cubits wide, and 10 cubits tall.
So it was 30 x 15 x 15.
Within the Holy Place were the Table of Shewbread, the Candlestick, and the Altar of Incence.
The tabernacle was surrounded by a court one hundred cubits long and fifty cubits wide.
This court was enclosed by curtains of fine twined linen hung from Pillars of brass.
The pillars were trimmed with chapiters and fillets of silver, and the curtains were suspended from silver hooks.
The court formed an oblong, and was placed with its longest sides toward the north and south and the ends toward the east and west.
The door, or entrance, of twenty cubits width, was in the center of the east end of the court. The curtains forming the door of the court were of “blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen wrought with needlework,” and were suspended from four pillars of brass, trimmed with silver.
As you entered the court, you encountered the Bronze Altar.
This is where sacrifices were made.
Bronze always symbolized judgment.
Sin was judged at the Bronze Altar.
Next you encountered the Bronze Laver, or Basin.
Here the priest washed.
Symbolically it represented the cleansing of sin.
So you have the general layout.
There is a message in the layout.
We will discover that in order to get to YHWH, you must come on YHWH’s terms.
Let me say that again, the message of the Tabernacle is the same message that Jesus preached.
If you are going to come to God, you are going to do so on His terms.
Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father but through Me.
This is the very message of theTabernacle.
All the religions of the world are claiming to have their own way to God.
But the message of the Bible is that there is on one way, there is only one Mediator between God and man, and that is the person of Jesus Christ.
The details of worship were very specific for each occasion.
The priest had to follow those instructions to the letter if he were to enter into the presense of YHWH.
To fail to follow those instructions meant death.
Likewise, all who come before God who have taken some other path, will perish.
Consider the arrangement of the furniture.
Sin had to be dealt with and washed away in the outer court before you could go any farther.
With only a few exceptions, all the sacrifices were slain in the court, at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation, as the entrance of the first apartment was often called; for the whole congregation of Israel could assemble in the court and at this door.
Only the priests could enter deeper into the tabernacle itself, for it typified the heavenly sanctuary, where God and Christ abide, surrounded by shining cherubim and seraphim.
All the work performed in the court was typical of work done on the earth.
While the work performed in the first and second apartments of the sanctuary was typical of work done in heaven.
Are you starting to get the picture.
Christ was sacrificed here on earth, represented by the outer court of the Tabernacle complex.
But He then took His own blood into the Sanctuary, the Heavenly One, the One made by God without hands.
Just as God spoke the world into existence, He sure spoke and the Tabernacle was.
But the sacrifices all took place outside the sanctuary.
Once you were cleansed of sin in the outer court, you could enter the Holy Place, where each piece of furniture represents our relationship with Christ.
Then as you went into the Holy of Holies, Jesus was pictured there as the One who could bring you into the presence of the Father.
He is the way!
The reality is, every detail of the Tabernacle tells the story of Christ and salvation.
So let’s begin by taking a look at the Ark of the Testimony, the centerpiece of the Tabernacle.
THE ARK
THE ARK
The Ark is where the Lord begins.
Generally speaking, the first item or person mentioned in a list is the most important.
Such is the case here.
Have you seen those Kohler faucet commercials?
The one that encourages you to start with the faucet and design your home around that faucet, that is exactly the idea here.
God begins with the Ark, and everything else is commanded in order to support and or surround the Ark.
Without the Ark, there is no need for the Tabernacle, it would be nothing special.
But why?
The Ark is most important because it typifies Christ in His penal substitutionary death.
The Ark typifies Christ as the embodiment of God.
For in Him all the fullness of Deity dwells bodily,
In the body of Jesus of Nazareth, the fullness of God dwelt.
Jesus was fully God!
100% man, yet 100% God.
This has such a profound impact on John that he would write….
And the Word became flesh, and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father, full of grace and truth.
The Ark represented the presence of God in the midst of His people.
We talk about the Tabernacle being at the center of the camp, but really it is the Ark that made that a necessity.
The Ark and it’s Mercy Seat represent the very throne of God.
God was in the midst of His people just as Christ was in the midst of His people.
As such it signifies Christ as the presence of the Triune God with His people for the carrying out of His economy to establish His kingdom on earth.
The Ark comes first out of necessity.
Without the Ark, the embodiment of Christ, there is no need for a place of worship.
Consider the construction materials, there are only two, Acacia wood and gold, just as in Jesus there are two substances, Deity and humanity.
It has generally been understood that the acacia wood represents the humanity, the flesh of Christ.
Therefore the gold must represent His deity.
In the construction of the Ark, the two become one, just as in Christ, the two become one.
Hence as the Nicene Council concluded, Jesus in His deity is of the same substance as the Father.
Yet at the same time, He was fully man.
We call this the hypostatic union, two natures, in one person, fully human and fully God.
The doctrine of the incarnation expressed in the Nicene Creed and the Definition of Chalcedon: that Jesus Christ, the only begotten Son of God, begotten before all the ages and of one substance with the Father, was made flesh through the Holy Spirit and the virgin Mary, making Him truly God and truly human, possessing two natures, which are not confused, changed, divided, or separated.
Those last 4 words come with great emphasis.
First the two substances were not confused.
Jesus was flesh, and He was deity, distinct in both regards, yet the two became one in Christ.
Likewise, the Ark was acacia, and gold, and the two substances were not confused, or mixed, yet formed one identity.
Second, the two substances were not changed.
His humanity was not some special kind of humanity, He was real flesh and blood like you and I, only with out sin.
Yet it was unchanged.
His deity was also unchanged.
In the incarnation, Jesus did not lose any of His deity, it was unchanged.
The two natures of Christ, His humanity and His deity, cannot be divided or separated from one another.
Taken as a whole, Jesus is His own person, yet at the same time fully part of the Godhead.
Fully God, and fully Man, bound together as one person.
All of this is bound up in the Ark and its construction.
Everything about the Christ was also true of the acacia and the gold.
The Ark had specific dimensions.
45” long by 27 “ wide and 27” tall.
So twice as long it is was wide and tall.
This was a large box.
The Ark was more than just a piece of furniture.
For when the Ark was taken in the days of Eli, the Bible says the glory departed.
And she said, “The glory has departed from Israel, for the ark of God was taken.”
Again, this symbolizes the importance of Christ.
A church without Christ is just a building, just as the Tabernacle without the Ark was just a tent.
We would be remiss if we did not take note of the fact that the Ark rested in the Holy of Holies.
The most holy place on earth.
Why, because of the presence of YHWH.
This is where YHWH met with His people.
This where YHWH spoke to His people.
Just as in the NT days, as the writer of the Hebrew letter says, ….
God, having spoken long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways,
in these last days spoke to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the worlds,
YHWH spoke to the world through His Son just as He spoke to the world from His Ark.
Last, there is the holiness of God.
The construction of the Ark required a lid, more commonly known as the Mercy Seat.
They symbolized the presence of God on His throne where He graciously handed out mercy.
Here the sinner recieved pardon for the sins committed.
Notice the mercy seat is pure gold, typifying the holiness of Deity.
The Mercy Seat was untainted and unmixed, pure Gold just as Jesus is Deity.
It is a reminder that only God can forgive sins.
In life, this was the problem the Pharisees had with Jesus.
Jesus went all over Israel forgiving sins.
Their response was, who does He think He is, only God can forgive sins.
But that was exactly the point, as God Jesus could forgive sin.
We mustn’t miss the fact that this Mercy Seat was a Holy place, because this is where God sat.
This is why we find Cherubim attached to the Mercy Seat.
Cherubim are almost always found protecting what the Lord has deemed special.
In the case of the Mercy Seat, they protect His holiness.
In fact, woven into the veil we shall discover later that their were two more Cherubim.
Taken together, they protected the Holiness of God.
Even the priest had to be protected from the holiness of God.
The Lord instructed them to fashion four gold rings and attach them to the Ark.
Then they fashioned poles and over layed them with Gold, and the poles were utilized to carry the Ark.
Lest they touch it and they die.
The Ark typified the holiness of God, so much so that they were forbidden to even touch it.
This too typified Jesus Christ because He was the Holy One of God.
One of the names of Christ was the Holy One of God.
“And we have believed and have come to know that You are the Holy One of God.”
saying, “What do we have to do with You, Jesus the Nazarene? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!”
“Let us alone! What do we have to do with You, Jesus the Nazarene? Have You come to destroy us? I know who You are—the Holy One of God!”
Demons recognized Jesus as such, and so did Peter.
It was common understanding for Messiah.
One final thought on the Ark, it is called by the same Title as Noah’s ark.
Both were rectangular shaped boxes.
Both were utilized as a means of salvation.
In both cases, you had to come to the Ark of you were to live.
A failure to come to the Ark meant you died by drowning in Genesis and that you would perish in Exodus.
The same is true today, those who refuse to come to Jesus, the Ark of our Salvation, shall perish.
In verse 22 YHWH states, there (between the Cherubim of the Ark) I will meet with you.
In Jesus, God became man, and there He met with man, face to face.
The contents of the Ark are important to us as well.
First there are the Tablets of Law.
The tablets typify Christ as King, the lawgiver.
Remember, the first two tablets were broken.
This reminds of man inability to keep the law.
We continually break the law.
But the Tablets in the Ark were unbroken.
This is a picture of the perfect obedience and sinless life of Jesus Christ.
This proved Jesus was the King of kings and Lord of lords.
Jesus is the lawgiver and the law keeper.
It is interesting to me that the Tablets of the Law were inside the Ark, under the Mercy seat where the blood of atonement was sprinkled.
This reminds us that the law is subservient to grace.
That the purpose of the law was never to save, but rather to bring us to Christ, to the Mercy Seat, where we find grace and mercy in our time of need.
Therefore the Law has become our tutor unto Christ, so that we may be justified by faith.
This was always the intended purpose of God’s law, to drive us to Christ in search of mercy.
The law condemns, but Christ saves.
The throne of our King, sits above thelaw.
But also the Ark is symbolic of the Covenant of law.
The Covenant made with Israel through Moses was a covenant of law.
The law too is the embodiment of God.
The expresses who God is.
The law is not a product of rational thought as what is good or bad.
The law expresses the very nature of God, that He is holy, righteous and good.
The law then, is the word of God.
And the word became flesh and dwelt among us!
Jesus was the word, He spoke the word of God, He embodied the word of God.
And just as the law was the center piece of the Mosiac Covenant, so too is Christ the centerpiece of the New Covenant.
The Ark contained the word of God the law, Christ contained the word of God fully.
So we see the connection.
Second there was the pot of manna.
Manna nourished the people, sustaining them on the wilderness journey.
The manna pictures Christ as prophet, as the Word.
It is the word of God, Jesus that sustains us and carries us through our earthly journey.
Jesus is the Bread of life.
Jesus then said to them, “Truly, truly, I say to you, Moses has not given you the bread from heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread from heaven.
“For the bread of God is that which comes down from heaven and gives life to the world.”
Jesus as the Bread of Life is a very important picture for us.
So much so that Jesus used the metaphor that we must eat His flesh and drink His blood.
He did not mean this literal, but figuratively.
Just as the Israelites had to eat the manna in order to live, so too must we eat of Christ.
The eating of bread pictures Christ and the Believer becoming united as one.
When we eat, the bread becomes part of us.
That is His point perfectly, Jesus must become part of us and we of Him.
We are baptized into the Body of Christ.
This means we are immersed in Christ.
We are part of Him and He in us.
Last, there was Aaron’s rod that budded.
This typifies Christ as priest.
Aaron was the first High Priest, Christ is the last.
Therefore, since we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus the Son of God, let us take hold of our confession.
The rod that budded was God’s method of affirming Aaron as His chosen vessel to function as High Priest.
The rod, a cut branch, a dead stick, literally came back to life and budded, it was resurrected.
Each spring we are reminded of the life giving nature of our God as the plant world buds and springs to life.
Like Aaron’s rod, during the winter months the trees look dead, but then every spring, buds appear.
The trees spring to life.
Such was the story of Aaron’s rod.
But more that just picturing the resurrection of Christ, the rod that budded reminds us that Jesus is the source of life.
Jesus said to her, “I am the resurrection and the life; he who believes in Me will live even if he dies,
and everyone who lives and believes in Me will never die—ever. Do you believe this?”
Jesus is the source of life, the life giver.
Do you see the connection?
The claim of Jesus was that He was the Son of God sent to die and act as the eternal High Priest.
His resurrection affirmed that He was God’s man, that is the picture there.
who was designated as the Son of God in power, according to the Spirit of holiness, by the resurrection from the dead, Jesus Christ our Lord,
So hopefully you can see how the Ark and it’s contents tell the story of Jesus Christ.
CONCLUSION
CONCLUSION
As we consider these great truths surrounding the Tabernacle , we need to remember that the way to YHWH is now open into the Holy of Holies for every believer in Christ.
All the barriers have been overcome by Christ.
No longer are we restricted to the outer court where we can only see YHWH from a distance.
We are welcome to enter into the Holy of Place, the place of fellowship, where we can commune with God around His table in the light of Christ.
But let’s not stop even there, let us go on into that most intimate place with the Lord, the place of worship in the Holy of Holies, the very throne room of the eternal Creator God, Elohim, YWHW.
“ Let us therefore come boldly to the throne of grace, where Abba awaits.
Abba is the equivalent of Daddy.
We have a heavenly Father, but He is also our Daddy.