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Two meanings in the tabernacle and its form
Next we have the tabernacle itself, which was one, though separated
into two parts. There were (as the word teaches us) two meanings in
the tabernacle and in its form. In general it was where God dwelt and
revealed Himself, hence, the heavens, God's tabernacle; and the Person
of Christ, God's dwelling.* The heavenly places themselves, says
the apostle, had to be purified with better sacrifices (Heb. 9:23). So Christ has passed through the heavens, as Aaron up to the
mercy-seat (Heb. 4:14). Again, it is used in the same sense as a
figure of the created universe (Heb. 3:3-4), where it is also used
as a whole as a figure of the saints, as the house over which Christ
is as Son. The veil was, we know on the same divine authority, the
flesh of Christ, which concealed God in His holiness of
judgment — in His perfectness as sovereign justice itself, but
manifested Him in perfect grace to those to whom His presence revealed
itself. The tent, the veil and the cherubim
The tabernacle* itself was formed of the same
things as the veil; figurative, I doubt not, of the essential purity
of Christ as a man, and of all the divine graces embroidered, as it
were, thereon. To this was also added cherubim, the figure, as we have
seen, of judicial power,** conferred, as we know, on Christ as man:
God "will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he
has ordained:" and again, "The Father judgeth no man, but
has committed all judgment unto the Son … and has given him
authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of
man." The outer coverings
It seems to me that the other coverings point to Him also: that of the
goat-skins to His positive purity, or rather to that severity of
separation from the evil that was around Him, which gave Him the
character of prophet — severity, not in His ways towards poor
sinners, but in separation from sinners, the uncompromisingness as to
Himself, which kept Him apart, and gave Him His moral authority, that
moral cloth of hair which distinguished the prophet; that of the
ram-skins dyed red points to His perfect devotedness to God,* His
consecration to God (may God enable us to imitate Him!); and that of
the badger-skin to the vigilant holiness, both of walk and in external
relationship, which preserved Him, and perfectly so, from the evil
that surrounded Him. "By the word of thy lips I have kept me from
the paths of the destroyer." "He that is begotten of God
keeps himself, and that wicked one touches him not." Besides
what may be called His Person, these things correspond to the new
nature in us, the new man, and of Him, so far as born of the Holy
Ghost at His incarnation — His birth in the flesh in which He was
the perfect expression of it; but I speak of the thing itself in
practice, or what is produced by the Spirit in us, and by the word. |
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