Sermon Tone Analysis

Types in Tabernacle

JND on the tabernacle in Exodus: But He also glorified God???all that God is in love, divine righteousness, truth, majesty.

All God is was glorified by the Son of man, and not only the Son of man goes righteously into the glory of God, but God is fully revealed as the place of access for us in that character: righteousness is proved by His going to His Father.

The shittim-wood and the tables of the law are there, but all is clothed with the gold.

God's own righteousness is there too.

It is with this communion is, only as yet the veil hid it within.

The character as yet was a judicial throne.

At that time man (save Moses owned in grace) could not go in, and God did not come out.

Now He has come out in grace, clothing Himself in humiliation that He in perfect grace may be with us; and man is gone into the glory according to the title of an accomplished redemption.

The cherubim, throughout the Old Testament, wherever they act, are connected with the judicial power of God, or are the executors of the will of that power; and in the Apocalypse they are generally connected with providential judgments, and belong to the throne, but the seraphic character is connected with them there, so that the throne judges, not merely in present governmental judgment, but finally according to God’s nature.

“And there will I meet with thee,” said God to Moses, “and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all the things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.”

Moses, who receives the thoughts of God for the people, was there to have his intercourse with Jehovah, and that without a veil.58

It was, then, the most intimate and most immediate manifestation of God, and that which came nearest to His very nature, which does not thus manifest itself.

But it was a manifestation of Himself in judgment and in government,59 it was not as yet in man, neither according to man, but within the veil.

In Christ we find Him thus, and then it is in perfect grace and divine righteousness, proved by man’s place, and the latter only when the veil has been rent; till then Christ remained alone, for grace was rejected as well as law broken.

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 tabernacle62 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,63 conferred, as we know, on Christ as man: God “will judge the world in righteousness by that man whom he hath ordained:” and again, “The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son… and hath given him authority to execute judgment also, because he is the Son of man.”

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,64 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 keepeth himself, and that wicked one toucheth 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.

In the court God meets the world (I do not speak of the world itself through which we walk :65 this was the desert); but it is where those coming up out of the world draw near to God, where His people (not as priests or as saints, but as sinful men) draw near to Him.

But in coming out of the world, it is an enclosure of God’s, who is known only to those who enter therein.

There the altar of burnt-offerings was first found; God manifested in justice as to sin, but in grace to the sinner, in His relationship with men, in the midst of them, such as they were.

True, it was the judgment of sin, for without this God could not be in relationship with men; but yet it was Christ in the perfection of the Spirit of God who offered Himself a sacrifice, according to that justice, for sin, to put sinners in relationship with God.

He has been lifted up from the earth.

Upon earth the question was as to the possibility of men’s relationship with Him who is holy and living: that could not be.

On the cross He is lifted up from the earth, rejected by the world; nevertheless He does not enter into heaven.

Upon the cross Christ has been raised from this world—has left it; but He still remains presented to it, the object of faith as a full satisfaction to the justice of God, as well as the witness of His love, of the love withal of Him who has glorified all that God is in this act.

He is the object still, I say, to the eyes of the world, though no longer on it, if, through grace, one goes there and separates from this world, while God in justice (for where has this been glorified as in the cross of Jesus?) can receive according to His glory, and even be glorified there, by the most wretched of sinners.

As regards the approaching sinner, it was for his guilt and positive sins.

In itself the sacrifice went much further, a sweet savour to God, glorifying Him.

It is here then that the altar of burnt-offerings is found, the brazen altar: God manifested in righteous judgment of sin (meeting however the sinner in love by the sacrifice of Christ); not in His being (spiritual and sovereign object of the adoration of saints), but in His relation with sinners according to His righteousness, measured66 by what their sins were in His sight; but where withal sinners present themselves to Him by that work in which, by the mighty operation of the Holy Ghost, Christ has offered Himself without spot unto Him, has satisfied all the demands of His righteousness, and more, has glorified Him in all that He is, and has become that sweet-smelling savour67 (of sacrifice) in which, in coming out of the world, we draw near to God, and to God in relation with those, sinners in themselves and owning it, who draw near to Him, but find their sins gone through the cross on their way; and, besides that, come in this savour of His sacrifice who made Himself a whole burnt-offering.

It was not the sacrifice for sin burnt outside the camp: there no one approached.

Christ was made sin by God, and all passed between God and Him; but here we draw near unto God.

The priests were to take care that the light of the candlestick should be always shining outside the veil ...but it was a light, through which He manifested Himself in the power of His grace, but which applied itself to His relationship with man viewed as holy or set apart for service to Him, all the while that it was the manifestation of God.

Essentially it was the Holy Ghost.

The garments were composed of everything that is connected with the Person of Christ in this character of priesthood; the breastplate, the ephod, the robe, the broidered coat, the curious girdle, and the mitre.

The ephod was, par excellence, the priestly garment; made of the same things as the veil, only that there was no gold in the latter, and there were cherubims (but all enclosed inside the veil was gold, for God’s government and judgment were in Christ, as Son of man): in the ephod, gold but no cherubim,69 because the priest must have divine righteousness, but was not in the place of rule and government (compare Num. 4).

It signified also the essential purity and the graces of Christ.

The girdle was the sign of service.

The girdle was of the same materials as the ephod to which it belonged.

Arrayed in these robes of glory and beauty, the high priest bore the names of the people of God in the fulness of their order before God; upon his shoulders, the weight of their government, and upon the breastplate on his heart—breastplate which was inseparable from the ephod, that is, from his priesthood and appearing before God.

He also bare, according to the perfections of God’s presence, their judgment before Him.

He maintained them in judgment before God according to these things.

They therefore looked for answers through the Urim and Thummim that were in the breastplate; for the wisdom of our conduct is to be according to this position before God.

Upon the hem of the robe of the ephod70 there was the desirable fruit, and the testimony of the Holy Ghost, which depended on the priesthood.

I think that Christ, in entering heaven, made Himself heard through the Holy Ghost in His people—hem of His garment (compare Psalm 133); and He will make Himself heard through His gifts when He comes out also.

Meanwhile He bears within also the iniquity of the holy things in holiness before the eternal God.

(This holiness is upon His very forehead.)

Not only His people, but their imperfect services are presented according to the divine holiness in Him.

The dress of the high priest demands a little further explanation.

That which characterised him in service was the ephod, to which was inseparably attached the breastplate in which the Urim and Thummim were placed.

With the ephod, therefore, the description begins.

It was that in which, as thus clothed, he was to appear before God.

It was made as the veil, with the addition of gold, for the veil was Christ’s flesh, the actings of which could not be separated from what was divine; but in the exercise of priesthood He appeared before God within the veil, that is, figuratively, in heaven itself; and there what met, and had the nature and integral essence of (along with the heavenly grace and purity) divine righteousness, had its place and its part as found in Him: as it is written, looking at Him in a somewhat different aspect, but alike as to this,71 “an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.”

The groundwork of the priesthood, then, was absolute personal purity in man, in its highest sense as a nature flowing intelligently from God, and in the priesthood glorified72 every form of grace interwoven with it, and divine righteousness.

It was service, and the priest was girded for it, but service before God.

The loins were girt, but the garments otherwise down to the feet.

This was especially the case with the robe all of blue.

But to pursue the ephod itself.

The high priest represented all the people before God, and presented them to Him, and this in a double way.

First, he bore them on his shoulders—carried the whole weight and burden of them on himself.

Their names were all graven upon the two onyx stones which united the parts of the ephod; there was no wearing the ephod—that is, exercising the priesthood—without carrying the names of the tribes of Israel on his shoulders.

So Christ carries ever His people.

Next, the breastplate was attached inseparably to the ephod, never to be detached.

There also he carried the names of his people before the Lord, and could not, as thus dressed in the high priestly robes, be there without them.

As it is expressed, he bore them on his heart before Jehovah continually.

They shall be upon Aaron’s heart when he goeth in before Jehovah.

Thus are we borne ever before God by Christ.

He presents us, as that which He has on His heart, to God.

He cannot be before Him without doing so; and whatever claim the desire and wish of Christ’s heart has to draw out the favour of God, it operates in drawing out that favour on us.

The light and favour of the sanctuary—God as dwelling there— cannot shine out on Him without shining on us, and that as an object presented by Him for it.

This was not, however, all.

The Urim and Thummim were there—light and perfection.

The high priest bore the judgment of the children of Israel in their present ways and as to their present relationship73 upon his heart before Jehovah, and this according to the light and perfection of God.

This we need, to get blessing.

Stood we before God, such as we are, we must draw down judgment, or lose the effect of this light and perfection of God, remaining without.

But, Christ bearing our judgment according to these, our presentation to God is according to the perfection of God Himself—our judgment borne; but then our position, guidance, light, and spiritual intelligence are according to this same divine light and perfection.

For the high priest inquired and had answers from God according to the Urim and Thummim.

This is a blessed privilege.74

Introduced into the presence of God according to divine righteousness in the perfection of Christ, our spiritual light, and privileges, and walk, are according to this perfection.

The presentation in divine righteousness gives us light, according to the perfection of Him into whose presence we are brought.

Hence we are said (1 John 1) to walk in the light as He, God, is in the light—a solemn thought for the conscience, however joyful a one for the heart, telling us what our conversation ought to be in holiness.75

Christ bearing our judgment takes away all imputative character from sin, and turns the light which would have condemned it and us, into a purifying enlightening character, according to that very perfection which looks on us.

This breastplate was fastened to the onyx stones of the shoulders above, and to the ephod above the girdle below.

It was the perpetual position of the people, inseparable from the exercise of the high priesthood as thus going before the Lord.

What was divine and heavenly secured it—the chains of gold above, and the rings of gold with lace of blue to the ephod above the girdle beneath.

Exercised in humanity, the priesthood, and the connection of the people with it, rests on an immutable, a divine, and heavenly basis.

Such was the priestly presentation of the high priest.

Beneath this official robe he had a personal one all of blue.

The character of Christ too, as such, is perfectly and entirely heavenly.

The sanctuary was the place of its exercise.

So the heavenly Priest must Himself be a heavenly Man; and it is to this character of Christ, as here in the high priest, that the fruits and testimony of the Spirit are attached—the bells and the pomegranates.

It is from Christ in His heavenly character that they flow; they are attached to the hem of His garment here below.

His sound was heard when He went in and when He came out; and so it has been and will be.

When Christ went in, the gifts of the Spirit were manifested in the sound of the testimony; and they will be when He comes out again.

The fruits of the Spirit, we know, were also in the saints.

But not only were there fruits and gifts.