Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 40:1-2

1 And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying,

2 On the first day of the first month shalt thou set up the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation.

The Israelites have now completed a great work, the creation of a beautiful tabernacle! It is incredible that they produced something like this having just come out of slavery and now living in the middle of the wilderness. Currently, the tabernacle is disassembled in its several parts, and now those parts need to come together in the desired form.

This again brings to mind the creation of the Earth at the beginning of Genesis. There, each day of creation was focused on its own element, each treated as an individual unit. But when we walk around the earth today, we see all these individual elements combined together in harmony. Land and water and animals and plants and stars and sun and people all overlapping in their systems and functions, all combined to the glory of God. So, too, the individually magnificent Ark of the Covenant, and brass altar, and golden menorah, and woven tapestries would all be assembled to one higher whole.

In the following verses, God will describe the correct order for all these separate parts to come together. This sequence would not only apply to this initial assembly, but every time that the Israelites traveled to a new destination and there reared the tabernacle. This repeated assembly is symbolic of how divine creation is not a singular event, but one that must be repeated and refreshed. We see this in God’s creation, where the elements of the earth are cyclically reassembled into the bodies of the new generation of people, animals, and plants. We see it in the hearts of the disciples that are continually refreshed, renewed, and recommitted as they toil through life’s distractions and sorrows.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 39:42-43

42 According to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so the children of Israel made all the work.

43 And Moses did look upon all the work, and, behold, they had done it as the Lord had commanded, even so had they done it: and Moses blessed them.

In the previous post I noted that the instructions for the creation of the tabernacle, its execution, and the presentation of the finished work, all call to mind the creation of the Earth at the beginning of Genesis. That pattern is concluded in today’s verses, where Moses approves of the work, very much in the style of “And God saw the light, that it was good,” (Genesis 1:4).

When it comes to divine works of creation, approval is an essential stage. God or His steward must see and validate that all has been done correctly. Both the original account of the earth’s creation and this account of the tabernacle’s creation are foreshadows of the ultimate presentation of finished work, wherein Christ will present our souls to the Father, showing Him the required perfection that we have obtained through him, then to receive the glad word that “it is good.”

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 39:32-41

32 Thus was all the work of the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation finished: and the children of Israel did according to all that the Lord commanded Moses, so did they.

33 And they brought the tabernacle unto Moses, the tent, and all his furniture, his taches, his boards, his bars, and his pillars, and his sockets,

34 And the covering of rams’ skins dyed red, and the covering of badgers’ skins, and the veil of the covering,

35 The ark of the testimony, and the staves thereof, and the mercy seat,

36 The table, and all the vessels thereof, and the shewbread,

37 The pure candlestick, with the lamps thereof, even with the lamps to be set in order, and all the vessels thereof, and the oil for light,

38 And the golden altar, and the anointing oil, and the sweet incense, and the hanging for the tabernacle door,

39 The brasen altar, and his grate of brass, his staves, and all his vessels, the laver and his foot,

40 The hangings of the court, his pillars, and his sockets, and the hanging for the court gate, his cords, and his pins, and all the vessels of the service of the tabernacle, for the tent of the congregation,

41 The cloths of service to do service in the holy place, and the holy garments for Aaron the priest, and his sons’ garments, to minister in the priest’s office.

Today’s verses answer directly to those in chapter 35, verses 10-19. There, Moses quickly listed out to the people all of the different elements that needed to be created for the tabernacle, and now we have listed out all of the created elements that they presented back to him. It is a perfect symmetry of concept to reality, command to creation.

This pattern calls to mind the creation of the world where God spoke with His mouth the things that He wanted to “let there be,” and then the physical creation of that thing occurred. “And God said, Let there be light: and there was light,” (Genesis 1:3). This parallel between the creation of the tabernacle and the creation of the world will be made even more explicit in tomorrow’s verses. It seems clear that we are meant to link those two events in our minds. God created a paradise, and now with the liberated Israelites He is recreating it in microcosm form. The tabernacle was to be a small cell of heaven in the middle of fallen earth.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 38:21-23

21 This is the sum of the tabernacle, even of the tabernacle of testimony, as it was counted, according to the commandment of Moses, for the service of the Levites, by the hand of Ithamar, son to Aaron the priest.

22 And Bezaleel the son of Uri, the son of Hur, of the tribe of Judah, made all that the Lord commanded Moses.

23 And with him was Aholiab, son of Ahisamach, of the tribe of Dan, an engraver, and a cunning workman, and an embroiderer in blue, and in purple, and in scarlet, and fine linen.

This chapter ends by giving a summary of the creation of the tabernacle. We hear, once again, that Bezaleel was the chief architect, and alongside him was Aholiab. It sounds like Aholiab specialized in the engravings and the embroidering, and that Bezaleel led in everything else.

We also hear that Ithamar, one of the sons of Aaron, is the scribe that has been recounting all of the work of the tabernacle to us. Aaron had four sons, and Ithamar was the youngest of them all. This is the first time we have heard of his work, in which he was chosen to witness and prove to the world the obedience of the Israelites in following the mandate of the Lord. We will hear of him a few more times in the other books of Moses.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 36:8-13

8 And every wise hearted man among them that wrought the work of the tabernacle made ten curtains of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubims of cunning work made he them.

9 The length of one curtain was twenty and eight cubits, and the breadth of one curtain four cubits: the curtains were all of one size.

10 And he coupled the five curtains one unto another: and the other five curtains he coupled one unto another.

11 And he made loops of blue on the edge of one curtain from the selvedge in the coupling: likewise he made in the uttermost side of another curtain, in the coupling of the second.

12 Fifty loops made he in one curtain, and fifty loops made he in the edge of the curtain which was in the coupling of the second: the loops held one curtain to another.

13 And he made fifty taches of gold, and coupled the curtains one unto another with the taches: so it became one tabernacle.

I won’t step through every single detail, but notice that the dimensions and design being described in these verses are exactly what God originally dictated to Moses up in the mountain. The author of this record wanted to make sure that we knew that the Lord’s plan was executed exactly as He had given.

With my little experience in creativity, I understand that one of the most difficult challenges is being able to effectively translate the conceptual to the material. It’s easy to have an image in your head, but to actually draw it is something else. You can imagine the characters and their actions perfectly, but the scene still falls flat on the page. It is the work of a true master simply to be able to express exactly what he meant to express, and here we saw that God’s vision was so crystal clear that it could be adhered to perfectly.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 36:1-4

1 Then wrought Bezaleel and Aholiab, and every wise hearted man, in whom the Lord put wisdom and understanding to know how to work all manner of work for the service of the sanctuary, according to all that the Lord had commanded.

2 And Moses called Bezaleel and Aholiab, and every wise hearted man, in whose heart the Lord had put wisdom, even every one whose heart stirred him up to come unto the work to do it:

3 And they received of Moses all the offering, which the children of Israel had brought for the work of the service of the sanctuary, to make it withal. And they brought yet unto him free offerings every morning.

4 And all the wise men, that wrought all the work of the sanctuary, came every man from his work which they made;

A theme in the Bible is the spiritual and conceptual manifesting in the material. The book even begins with it in the story of creation. On each day God expresses the idea of what He wants, and then it becomes a reality. “God said, Let there be light: and there was light,” (Genesis 1:3). At each stage, “God said,” and then it was so.

This theme most famously manifests in the birth of Jesus, which is the unseen, conceptual God becoming mortal man. In Jesus we see the idea of the law being lived out in perfection. In him we see the concept of perfect love made real upon a cross.

This same pattern of concept-to-reality has been playing out over the last ten chapters of Exodus. We have seen how God inspired Moses with the vision of the tabernacle, how Moses expressed it to the Israelites, and how it now becomes a reality. Accounts like these acknowledge and describe the process by which the metaphysical becomes the material, the vision becomes the work, and the idea becomes the creation.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 24:16-18

16 And the glory of the Lord abode upon mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days: and the seventh day he called unto Moses out of the midst of the cloud.

17 And the sight of the glory of the Lord was like devouring fire on the top of the mount in the eyes of the children of Israel.

18 And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.

The presence of the Lord descended upon the mountain, but Moses did not go up into it straightaway. He waited for the Lord to call him up, which did not occur until the seventh day. This immediately calls to mind the six days of creation, and the seventh day of rest. The reason for this parallel is not explained.

Perhaps that seventh day coincided with the Jewish sabbath, and the Lord was waiting for that sacred day to call Moses apart from the world. Perhaps the cloud on the mountain was purifying the place before the Lord’s arrival, recreating that part of the earth over six days just like it had taken six days to perform the original creation. Perhaps Moses required the six days to properly prepare his own soul for the meeting. Whatever the reason, we see a pattern of waiting a full measure for the time to be right.

This idea of sacred things taking a full measure to complete is also present in Moses then being up in the mountain for forty days and forty nights. If waiting seven days to ascend calls to mind the Genesis story of creation, then staying up in the mountain for forty days calls to mind Noah shut up in the ark while it rained for forty days and forty nights.

Both the initial conception of the earth and the flood are creation stories. Initial creation and recreation after the first had gone astray. They are symbols of beginning and resetting, of making everything new. Perhaps that was the Lord’s intent with these numbers, to suggest that His communion with Moses would usher forth a new beginning for Israel and all the world, a recreation of laws and principles that had been lost.

Posted on by Abe Austin

The Unknowable Author

Pure Creation)

John 1 tells us that in the beginning was the Word, which Word was apparently an animating and creating figure, by whom all created things were created. Of course, that would mean plants and animals and people, but even more fundamentally, if minerals and atoms and forces of nature are created things, then they were created by this Word also.

Thus, the Word would be neither mineral nor atomic nor natural, but instead an immaterial, uncreated being that has always been. The Word would have created all things, but not been made up of those things itself. It would have made this world, but would not be contained within this world. And the world, by measuring itself, would never find the Word, only clues that it existed somewhere “out there.”

The closest analogue that we have to this sort of creation is when a person composes a story, a song, or some other conceptual thing. The making of something physical like a bridge or a building would not be the same, because that requires using pre-created elements that are composed of the same sort of matter that we are. So, too, the physical book and the ink that forms the notes on the page are not the same, only the idea that is the story or the song itself. These are the things that are pure creations, things that are not made of the same stuff that we are, things that we exist entirely outside of. They are ours, they are of us, but they are also distinct from us.

The Author Becomes a Character)

However, John 1 goes on to tell us, “and the Word was made flesh.” Though the Word was uncreated, existing outside all the material universe, yet it entered into that universe. The author became a character within His own story, meeting and knowing the different protagonists and the antagonists, and influencing them along their way.

We once again have an analogue to this, for we also imbue our conceptual creations with the imprint of our own selves. For example, many authors will conceive of a story by imagining themselves in a particular situation, and then will write their own simulated words and thoughts and feelings within that context. The story itself is an idea, but the author, himself, is an idea within that idea. A love song will draw on the real-world longing and heartbreak of its composer, a conceptual reflection of the heart of the one that sings it. It has often been noted that all art is in some way an expression of its creator, which means the creator is recreated to some degree within it.

The Unknowableness of God)

But who could say that the imprint of the creator is the full creator? The story and the song capture only a single projected dimension of the creator. They do not capture the full person. They cannot. For once again, they are not made of the same stuff that the creator is made of. They cannot have his flesh, his blood, or his evolving states of mind after he first created them.

And so, too, it must be with the Word. For the Word was not a man, but the Word projected a single dimension of itself down into manhood. What we see in Jesus Christ does give us a glimpse at God, but it as flattened and narrow a view of God as the opinions and ideas in a story are a flattened and narrow view of their author.

You are right now receiving my ideas in this post, but think how much separation there is from these ideas to the actual, full me. Think of how much you still do not know about who and what and how I am. How insufficient these words would be to recreate me in the flesh. And then consider that these flat, limited ideas are to me as Jesus Christ is to God.

Thus, if you ever feel that you lack a full conception of God, is it any wonder why? We may know abstractly that He is our creator and that He is good and that He is worthy of our obedience, but none of us can really know Him at all, and we never will in this mortal life. The magnitude of God’s being is beyond incomprehensible. It could not be told in all the space and time of this entire universe because, after all, this entire universe is but an idea within His mind.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 12:16

16 And in the first day there shall be an holy convocation, and in the seventh day there shall be an holy convocation to you; no manner of work shall be done in them, save that which every man must eat, that only may be done of you.

Not only did God specify the duration of the feast and the diet for it, He also mandated that “no manner of work shall be done in them.” This was to be a rest and respite from the daily toils, and the only labor that God allowed for was the necessary work to have food for that day. There are a number of reasons and symbols that can be seen in this instruction.

  1. This would help to keep a remembrance of Israel being liberated from their slavery in Egypt. Their daily toil had been the hard labor of making bricks for Egypt’s construction projects, and they were beholden to their taskmasters for any rest and respite. Now, though, God would free them, and every year they would be reminded that they now had the pleasure of being able to take an entire week off with none to tell them otherwise.
  2. Setting aside one’s work also calls to mind when God rested the seventh day, after creating the Earth. This feast was initiated as the Israelite people were being led into a new chapter, and it was to be observed forever after at the beginning of each new year. This calls to mind themes of new creation, fresh starts, the end of one phase and the beginning of a new and better one.
  3. Finally, the Israelites were specifically being instructed to set aside their worldly work. They weren’t to spin, or craft, or sell. They weren’t to try and gain worldly wealth, or collect on worldly debts. They were to be focused on only doing the work they had been given by the divine. They would sacrifice their lambs, make the Passover meal, share with their neighbors, and burn the excess before the new day. A much lesser load than the usual workday, and a sign that they would sanctify their efforts to the Lord and He, in turn, would provide for them.
Posted on by Abe Austin

The Chicken or the Egg?

The Paradox)

We’ve all heard the classic dilemma, “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” Most people merely see this as an amusing puzzle, and quickly discard it as having no suitable answer.

But really, it is a very serious question, one that was posed by Aristotle himself over 2,400 years ago! The fact that we are still talking about it to this day, and still shrug it off without any clear explanation is a very alarming fact!

Now, to the creationist, the question really isn’t that troubling. If God created the Earth, the atmosphere, the seasons, and the universe as we know it, is it really any stretch to say that He could have architected the egg-bearing chicken also? And whether He did that with an egg or a mature fowl doesn’t really matter, He could have begun with either without any paradox.

But the materialist throws out the idea of an omnipotent creator, and puts in His place the forces of undirected, spontaneous evolution. Darwinism states that neither the chicken nor the egg came first, but a single-celled organism which, through a lengthy process of mutation and natural selection, developed into the species that we now call the chicken.

And I might concede that this would be a possibility, if we could agree that the evolution would have to have been a tool purposefully directed by the hands of an intelligent creator. But if one insists that this evolution occurred totally at random, which is the position of modern science, well that’s just plain ridiculous.

The Requirements)

Again, the proposal is that the chicken would have had to originate as some sort of single-celled organism, one which reproduced by dividing itself in half, but eventually it evolved into a creature that reproduced itself via a fertilized egg. This would mean that at some point in between there would have been a creature that still reproduced asexually, but which was also gradually developing sexual organs. Organs that eventually were able to produce and lay an egg, but initially this egg would not yet have been functional.

This means that the pre-chicken was expending energy and effort, giving up nutrients of its own body, subjecting itself to a more vulnerable state, all to produce something that was—for the time being—useless. And again, this might be acceptable if some Higher Power was requiring the life form to undergo this process, but it according to the laws of natural selection, this would mean that the species had a detrimental mutation which would have led to its extinction, not to its flourishing. This unnecessarily-handicapped pre-chicken simply would have been overrun by all the other variants that weren’t wasting energy laying undeveloped eggs.

And that’s just the matter of the chicken and the egg. But by itself, a female chicken still cannot produce a fertilized egg. Just as the species would have had to evolve from a replicating cell into a chicken that had embryonic and adult stages, it also would have had to evolve itself into male and female forms also. Thus it had go from being sexless to having sexed versions, but at least for a time those two halves would still have been reproducing asexually until they evolved into full sexual maturity. That means that there would now be two separate strands of random mutation, each evolving separately from one another, but somehow also in perfect tandem, developing in complementary ways, remaining compatible with one another once they both reached full sexual capability.

A Valid Question)

So as it turns out, the childhood question of “which came first, the chicken or the egg?” is actually a very weighty matter. It has all manner of scientific and metaphysical implications. 2,400 years later it still pokes holes in the most airtight theories of man and leaves us either with a stronger belief in our divine creator, or else a greater confusion of this inscrutable world.