One of the great types of Christ in the Old Testament is the Tabernacle erected by Moses. Of the fifty chapters in the Bible dedicated to the Tabernacle, thirteen chapters are found in Exodus, eighteen in Leviticus, thirteen in Numbers, two in Deuteronomy, and four chapters in the book of Hebrews.
Until the building of the Temple, the Tabernacle was the temporary, self-appointed dwelling place of God for approximately 400 years. It was not that Moses built a Tabernacle and then invited God into it. God, who conceived the plan, instructed man to build it because He had a desire to dwell among His chosen people ("that I may dwell among them." Exodus 25:8). There were two things needed in this plan: (1) Grace, that God would even consent to dwell among them, and (2) the Divine Order, that instead of human will or assumption, the Tabernacle would be according to God's plan and will.
The Tabernacle was not only to be merely the official dwelling place of God but also a symbol and prophecy of the "man" in whom God should become incarnate—the man who should be the final and eternal dwelling place of God. This dwelling place is finally revealed as the antitype Jesus Christ. John 1:14 speaks of the Word taking on flesh and dwelling (to tabernacle) among us. We learn from this that the human nature that was created and assumed by the Living Word of God was God's tabernacle, His dwelling place among men. God was in the man, Christ Jesus, reconciling the world unto Himself—Immanuel, God with us. Jesus told the religious leaders of His day that if they destroyed this temple (referring to His body, this dwelling place), "I will raise it up in three days."
The Tabernacle
The Tabernacle, consisting of the Tabernacle Proper (Holy of Holies and Holy Place) and the Outer Court, was approximately 75 feet by 150 feet. Around the outer court were 60 brazen pillars (20 on the north, 20 on the south, 10 on the east, and 10 on the west) with chapiters and bases. Silver sockets were located on each of the pillars in order to hang the fine linen curtain that enclosed the outer court. The entrance on the East Side of the Tabernacle was a 30-foot, outer hanging of blue, purple, and scarlet. Located near the entrance, inside the outer court, was the Brazen Altar where the Burnt Offering was given each morning and each evening. Looking westward to the Tabernacle Proper revealed the Brazen Laver, made of the looking glasses of the women, which was located near the opening of the Holy Place. The hanging found at the entrance to the Holy Place was also made of blue, purple, and scarlet. The two compartments of the Tabernacle proper were constructed with forty-eight boards made of acacia wood, overlaid with gold. The outer walls and top of the Tabernacle were covered with three types of garments of which the outer garment was of badgers' skin. Within the Holy Place were three pieces of furniture: to the north was the Table of Shewbread, to the south was the Candlestick, and to the west was the Golden Altar of Incense. Behind the Veil which divided the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies was the Ark of the Covenant which had a mercy-seat for a covering lid.
There is no greater type in the Bible, no more complete type, of the Lord Jesus Christ than that of the Tabernacle. Christ is found in every part of it including the blood shed and sprinkled, the High Priest, and even the animals.
The Tabernacle _ Its Pilgrim View
The book of Hebrews reveals the Tabernacle as the doctrinal presentation of Christ for the Christian's pilgrim life on earth. Whereas the Solomonic Temple is the oikos or permanent house (the Millennial view), the Tabernacle-tent was a portable dwelling place that could be picked up and moved and reassembled. The Levites and priests were responsible for the covering and bearing of the Tabernacle through the journey. At the next divinely appointed place, they were to reassemble the Tabernacle, taking heed that no thing was added or omitted from the divine plan.
When the Tabernacle was initially set up at the foot of Mount Sinai, it was put together in such a way that it could be disassembled and all the pieces taken with the Israelites in their moving throughout the wilderness and earlier years of their sojourn in Canaan. (Note: at the time of the building of the Solomonic Temple, all of the pieces of the Tabernacle were placed in an annex room of the Temple for permanent storage.) When the moment for the movement of the camp came, there was the moving the Cloud and the blowing of the two silver trumpets. The dismantling commenced with the taking down of the curtains of fine linen, ram's skins, goat's hair, badger skin. These and all the curtains of the Tabernacle were neatly folded and placed into two wagons which became the responsibility of the Gershonites. Next, the bulky structure was dismantled and placed into four wagons under the responsibility of the Merarites. The Kohathites were in charge of the furniture and utensils of the Tabernacles.
The Carrying of the Tabernacle Throughout History
In the sojourn of God's saints throughout history, every generation has had to re-establish the Faith. Every generation is given the pieces to this great Christ who must be re-established in every generation. We are called upon to re-erect, in all its detail, the Christ of the Scriptures for another generation. Men in every generation must preach, write books, write songs, testify, and live the consecrated, anointed life. Each generation must take the fabric of its faith and build up from the beginning worship based on the details of the pillars and their bases, the chapiters, the sockets, the fine linen, the pieces of the furniture, etc. Without this re-establishment, the Tabernacle would become an empty monument of a forsaken Faith.
Though perpetually reconstructed in every generation, the Tabernacle of our faith must remain identically the same in each generation. Nothing is to be lost, nothing is to be added. Nothing old is to be discarded, and nothing new is to be added. This is the reason that we must "earnestly contend for the faith which was once (for all), delivered unto the saints" (Jude 3). Its re-establishment must be fresh, but the substance and plan must be eternally the same.
However, today the Tabernacle is being reconstructed; the Tabernacle is changing. It is being given new curtains, a new altar, a new laver, a new kind of gold, a new veil. A generation has arisen believing that the old is no good anymore; the Tabernacle needs a new facelift; it needs to come up to the contemporary look. The contemporary claims that the old Christ and the old Bible are no longer sufficient; a new Christ with a new look, and a "new" (neo) song, and a "new" Bible are needed. The new Tabernacle of the contemporary is not resembling the last time it was reassembled in history and the times before that.
To Cover and to Bear
We read in Numbers 4 that there was much care and respect given to the preparation for the moving of the Tabernacle to the next location. Several times in this chapter it is mentioned that the priests were to "cover" the pieces and then, once the pieces were covered, the Levites were to "bear" the Tabernacle. The priests were to take down the inner veil of blue and the ark of the testimony, and cover them first with the badger skin and then with a cloth wholly of blue. The priests were to also take the table of shewbread and cover it first with blue and then badger skin, to ready it for the journey. The priests were to take the various utensils of the table of shewbread (such as the dishes, spoons, bowls, and covers) and spread them with a cloth of scarlet and then badger skin to ready them for the journey. The priests were to take the candlestick and its parts, and tongs, snuffdishes (cleaners and trimmers for the wick), and oil vessels, first covering them with blue and then badger skin. The priests were to take the golden altar first covering it with blue, then with badger skin. The priests were to take all the instruments first covering them with blue, then with badger skin. The priests were to take the brazen altar, remove the ashes, and spread a purple cloth upon it, and with the vessels, censers, fleshhooks, shovels, and basons thereof, finally cover it all with badger skin.
All of this was done with care, preparing it with respect to be moved to the next location. Once the location was acknowledged by the Cloud (the Holy Spirit) coming to a rest, they carefully reassembled the Tabernacle exactly as it was before only in a new setting, in a new place.
The Old Furniture in a New Location
The most precious piece within the Tabernacle was the ark of the covenant. It represented the very heart of God, the shekina glory. Christ is that heart, that mercy seat, that gold, that covenant. This precious piece is being lost in the contemporary erection of the Tabernacle of our time. The Truth of the Spirit may be preserved in books (and this is needed), but the Spirit of the Truth can only be preserved in the heart of Christians. This is fast becoming a lost reality of the past. It is rare to see people with a "heart" for God and His Truth. Even preachers, who have learned the professional way of handling the gospel, tend not to have "heart" for God. Jokes and disrespect have become a way of conversing from the pulpit and more so outside the pulpit.
Remember the ark had the outer covering of blue, representing heaven. This speaks of our need of communion with God; this is what keeps respect and dignity in our preaching and in our living. Otherwise, we become "casual" with God. Have you noticed, dear reader, the recently released recordings of Fundamentalists? The covers and pictures of the singing artists are taking on the Neo-Evangelical and Charismatic look. The "in" thing now is the "casual" look of the quartet, or the "casual" and youth appealing look of the soloist, and the "casual" look of the promotional material. The dress look of dignity is fast disappearing and the "casual" look is in for the promoting of the Gospel. Even the promotional material of Bible colleges and Christian universities has done away with the dress look of the tie and coat. We have truly succumb to the "dress down," "dumb down," "casual" appearance of the world. The covering of dignity is gone and the heavenly heart of respect and communion with God is absent.
The Table of Shewbread, the Candlestick, the Golden Altar of Incense and all of the instruments were to be carefully covered and then borne along. These pieces spiritually represent feeding, walking, communion, and practice, respectively. They were all covered inwardly with blue, because heaven is to be the motivation of the Christian life. The outer covering is that of the badger skin; this is what the world sees. It is still true today that "He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows, and acquainted with grief: and we hid as it were our faces from him: he was despised, and we esteemed him not" (Isaiah 53:3). He is still the badger-skinned Christ. We still must erect a badger-skinned Christianity. If we ever try to change this and make it more contemporary in our preaching, in our music, and in our church programs, we are doing what God has forbidden us to do.
The utensils of the Table of Shewbread were to be covered with scarlet then with badger skin. These are the tools which handle the feeding and meditation upon the Lord. These are our study, our intellect, our talents and abilities. All of these instruments are dangerous outside of the blood of Christ, the scarlet. The Apostates and their scholarship, their music, and their abilities are not in Christ. Why is it the evangelical world is greatly drawn to the scholarship of the Neo-Orthodox writers and the Neo-Evangelicals? These men do not serve the God of the Scriptures; they know not the covering of the Blood. For the God of Scriptures is not a compromiser, is not an ecumenicist, is not a sympathizer to Rome, and is not a despiser of biblical separation. Such a concoction is a gospel of another kind upon which the curse of God resides! Dear student of the Word, make sure your study and scholarship is in the Blood of Christ. Scholarship today is becoming more of a tool to destroy the Faith rather than to preserve the Faith. This reality is because the heart for the Faith is not present in the scholar! One could have had a love for the Truth at one time; but if he ever ceases receiving a love of the Truth, then God personally will send a strong delusion to him, that he should believe a lie (II Thessalonians 2:10,11). Scholarship is being flaunted in the church today, but not under the blood, "ever learning, and never able to come to the knowledge of the truth" (II Timothy 3:7).
There is also the Brazen Altar, found at the entrance; this is where we found Christ. It was at the altar of Calvary, the cross. But the Brazen Altar is also where the Burnt Offering was given (Leviticus 1), the offering of consecration. Carnality has become the master sin of the church today: worldliness of dress, worldliness of standards in the schools and the church. Many churches state in their articles of faith that they are against "worldliness," but they have never defined it. Their emphasis upon evangelism has never provided time to teach the people holiness of heart and life. It is to be more than just ecclesiastical separation; there must be personal separation from the things of the world and the spirit of the world in living the Christian life. In Christian schools and churches, yes, it is rare to see the Brazen Altar for a consecrated life being erected even in their music today.
Conclusion
It will take our entire lifetime to re-establish the spiritual Christ for another generation. He must be preached all over again; He must be sung all over again; He must be lived all over again, but without any of the contemporary spirit affecting the re-erecting of Him. Another generation must hear, and in their prime they too must erect everything piece by piece. Although many desire to leave out certain pieces because it is not popular with their generation, we must carefully erect this Christ of the Tabernacle. And once it has been erected, we must carefully dismantle and cover it with the greatest of dignity that it may be carried to the next place and the next generation.
In these days of great neutrality and compromise, in these days of growing professional Christianity, it is evident the only ones that are concerned about "covering" and "bearing" this Tabernacle, this pilgrim view of Christ for the sojourn of history, is the remnant. They are the ones possessing the "heart," a blood-covered scholarship, and desire to bear the Faith on to the next generation. They will become hated because they refuse to change; they will become ridiculed by the "in crowd"; but, they will be the ones who will hear the "well done" when they enter Heaven, for they gave all to keep it according to the pattern!
May the Lord enable us to earnestly contend for the Faith which was once and for all delivered unto the saints without changing it, altering it, compromising it, or modernizing its promotion.