Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 40:9-11

9 And thou shalt take the anointing oil, and anoint the tabernacle, and all that is therein, and shalt hallow it, and all the vessels thereof: and it shall be holy.

10 And thou shalt anoint the altar of the burnt offering, and all his vessels, and sanctify the altar: and it shall be an altar most holy.

11 And thou shalt anoint the laver and his foot, and sanctify it.

All the different elements of the tabernacle were in place, but before they could be used, they had to be anointed with oil. Every part of it, inside and out, was to be anointed, which is said to be for the sake of “sanctifying” them.

To sanctify something has a dual meaning. It is used both to mean the cleansing and purifying of something, as well as to choose and set apart something for a holy purpose. Presumably both of those meanings are meant here. Every time the tabernacle was set up, they would be anointed to cleanse them of the world’s detritus, and to consecrate them once again to the service of the Lord.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 40:6-8

6 And thou shalt set the altar of the burnt offering before the door of the tabernacle of the tent of the congregation.

7 And thou shalt set the laver between the tent of the congregation and the altar, and shalt put water therein.

8 And thou shalt set up the court round about, and hang up the hanging at the court gate.

We now read the order in which the courtyard is to be erected. First the sacrificial altar, then the washing basin, and finally the courtyard walls and gate. With that, all of the elements would be properly in place, though not yet anointed and ready for use.

One thing that stands out to me is that the sacrificial altar is to be placed in line with the door of the tabernacle. Not off to one side, or at a bit of an angle, but directly on the path to it. The symbolism clearly being that there is no approaching the sacred inner places without first making a sacrifice. It might seem easier if we could obtain God’s full glory before we gave up our beasts of the flesh that hold us back, but that simply isn’t how it works. The offering must come first, the presence of God must come after. For this very reason, God remains inaccessible to any who try to reverse the order and say they will only make sacrifice after they first witness God’s presence.

But for those that do make offering, the washing presents itself next. The washing comes because of the sacrifice. We are made holy and clean, and now we are ready to enter God’s glory. That is the order, and it cannot be short-circuited or rearranged. We come by that path, or we don’t come at all.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 40:2-5

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

3 And thou shalt put therein the ark of the testimony, and cover the ark with the veil.

4 And thou shalt bring in the table, and set in order the things that are to be set in order upon it; and thou shalt bring in the candlestick, and light the lamps thereof.

5 And thou shalt set the altar of gold for the incense before the ark of the testimony, and put the hanging of the door to the tabernacle.

The tabernacle was to be constructed from the inside out. First the tabernacle and all of its elements would be placed, and then the elements of the courtyard and its walls. Thus, the first step is to erect the tabernacle with its pillars and walls and curtains and coverings of linen and skin. Apparently, though, the curtain door was not yet to be added. Next came the Ark of the Testimony in the most holy place, and on the other side of the inner veil the table of shewbread, the menorah, and the incense altar. Now that the interior was complete, the curtain door was added, and the tabernacle portion was complete.

When we first read about the structure of the tabernacle with its bones of wood and its outer coverings of hair and skin, it seemed clear to me that it was meant to represent a person’s body. It is a symbol for each of us individually. With that in mind, the bringing in of the spiritual artifacts represents the introduction of spirituality to our own person. First comes in the Ark of the Covenant, which represents the presence of God within us, the spark of divinity that all of us are born with. The table of shewbread is spiritual nourishment, the menorah is spiritual light, and the incense altar is our continual prayers. We must maintain in our dead flesh a living spirit, nourishing it by light and prayer, and we must set a door before us that keeps the material out so that the inner spiritual is uncorrupted.

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

Forced to Fit- Part Two

Accepting God as He Is)

Yesterday I shared the observation that our culture raises us with certain preconceptions about what is good and ideal. When we then engage with the idea of God, we find aspects of His revealed character that do not comport with our preconceptions. Either we discard Him, try to make Him fit our own ideals, or sacrifice our own values to embrace His.

If we elect that third option, this will likely see us surrendering to a God that we don’t fully understand or agree with. Based on our unrecognized bias, we might think that God is sexist, or unmerciful, or discriminatory, or antiquated. But if we surrender to Him even so, living according to His word in spite of our uncertainty, in time we will see our secret prejudices for what they are, and be able to let them go.

A Dangerous Justification)

For those that elect the second option, to try and change God, they often justify it by saying that the ancient records of Him were biased by the culture of their time. The irony of this generational snobbery is obvious. If you accuse another person of misrepresenting God according to his bias, how do you know that you are not doing exactly the same?

Another justification might be that the description of God’s standards was appropriate for that time, but there is a precedent for it to be updated now. After all, we do not still perform animal sacrifices or abstain from eating pork, so why couldn’t God update His opinion on certain social constructs today?

However, this argument ignores the fact that all of the aforementioned changes were never instituted by popular vote, only by those who carried divine investiture from God, Himself. Jesus was God incarnate when he approved of his cousin John’s use of baptism, when he corrected the Israelite conception of the sabbath, and when he began the practice of the sacrament. The twelve apostles were divinely appointed by Jesus with his authority, and guided by revelation, when they changed the sabbath to Sunday, opened the gospel to the gentiles, called for an end to animal sacrifice, and approved the eating of previously unclean animals.

It is not the Christian view that we can change any of God’s commands or practices at will. We have not instituted the changes from Mosaic law to Christian values at random, or due to popular preference. Every change that we observe is founded in a heavenly mandate, not in popularity. In contrast, where is the divinely invested steward who declares God’s approval of our modern social ideals? Where is the heavenly vision that roots our “progressivism” in God and not the earth?

Rejection)

This leaves the final possible response to our personal ideals differing from God’s: rejection. We can say, “yes, the God of the Bible is that particular way, and I will never be okay with that, so I will reject Him.” This, at least, is a more honest response than trying to change the divine.

But to the person making this decision I would encourage them to consider the origin of your values. Are they not directly from the society around you? Are they not from the material, fallen world? Ideals based in the world are doomed to the same fate as all the rest of mortality. These ideals will go out of fashion, and those that lived by them will similarly perish and fade. It is the natural endpoint of every worldly path. If you reject the transcendent, transcendence will respect that decision and similarly abandon you. If you wish to have no more reality than materialism and popularity, then you will have no more than them, and you will die with them.

If, on the other hand, you wish to have a hope for life, and renewal, and the transcendent ideal, and ultimate truth, if you wish to belong to those things and be transfigured by them, you should only expect to do so by embracing a message and a perspective that transcends from on high. One that comes from an ancient God, whose long-standing ways you should naturally expect to contradict many of the messages in our modern, constantly changing world. If you reject that God, then you must realize you have rejected your only option for eternal life, and you must accept the nihilistic void in His place.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Forced to Fit- Part One

Prerequisites for the Divine)

We are a culture that approaches God by first establishing a foundation of worldly ideals that we believe in, and then trying to make Him fit them. We reject God or alter Him because He simply doesn’t match our modern presuppositions about what ultimate good is supposed to be.

Some require a God who isn’t patriarchal. Some require a God who doesn’t wage war on His enemies. Some require a God whose sovereignty doesn’t supersede our own authority. Some require a God who can be validated by scientific methods. Some require a God who is socially progressive.

In these cases, feminism or pacifism or individualism or materialism or progressivism are our first God, and for God to be God He must be in alignment with that first ideal, or He must not exist at all. He is forced to fit, or He is discarded.

This is, of course, an inversion of the proper order. When man recognizes that he has a different life philosophy than God he is supposed to change himself to conform with the Almighty, not change the Almighty to conform with him!

A Modern Lens)

Let us note that differences between God’s ideal and our own is inevitable. Even setting aside personal selfishness and flaws, our modern culture has been far removed from the Judeo-Christian ethic for a while now, and we have been immersed in that climate from before we had any understanding at all. Even if we were raised in a traditional, Christian home, it is certain that we have absorbed presuppositions that we are not even aware of, reasons why we feel that we cannot accept God entirely as He has been described to us.

I have never met the person who did not have some baked-in misunderstanding of the Lord, including myself. I have never met the person who did not struggle with some aspect of who God is declared to be. This is a common challenge that we all grapple with in one way or another. Indeed, we could make a case that most of our path of discipleship is simply us coming to terms with God as He is, surrendering our inclination to try and change Him, and choosing to change ourselves instead.

There is a little more that I wish to say on this subject, but I will save it for a second post tomorrow.

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 39:22-31

22 And he made the robe of the ephod of woven work, all of blue.

23 And there was an hole in the midst of the robe, as the hole of an habergeon, with a band round about the hole, that it should not rend.

24 And they made upon the hems of the robe pomegranates of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and twined linen.

25 And they made bells of pure gold, and put the bells between the pomegranates upon the hem of the robe, round about between the pomegranates;

26 A bell and a pomegranate, a bell and a pomegranate, round about the hem of the robe to minister in; as the Lord commanded Moses.

27 And they made coats of fine linen of woven work for Aaron, and for his sons,

28 And a mitre of fine linen, and goodly bonnets of fine linen, and linen breeches of fine twined linen,

29 And a girdle of fine twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, of needlework; as the Lord commanded Moses.

30 And they made the plate of the holy crown of pure gold, and wrote upon it a writing, like to the engravings of a signet, Holiness to the Lord.

31 And they tied unto it a lace of blue, to fasten it on high upon the mitre; as the Lord commanded Moses.

Underneath the ephod was the blue robe, and upon the head was the mitre, and on the front of the mitre was the gold plate that said “Holiness to the Lord.” With this we conclude the final description of the creation of the tabernacle. Every item has been created, exactly as dictated by the Lord.

I feel that often when the Old Testament Israelites are spoken of, there is great emphasis on their stubbornness and faithlessness. Certainly, they had their moments. They murmured, they doubted, and they betrayed at various times, and even brought God to the point of contemplating their destruction. But they were approximately two million individuals in all, and clearly there was some good mixed in with the bad. If some of them were perpetually faithless and ungrateful, some of them were also perpetually trustworthy and obedient. Everything that we’ve read over the last four chapters has been a testament to that good portion. These chapters are a witness to the fact that there was leaven within the dough.

Posted on by Abe Austin

Scriptural Analysis- Exodus 39:10-21

10 And they set in it four rows of stones: the first row was a sardius, a topaz, and a carbuncle: this was the first row.

11 And the second row, an emerald, a sapphire, and a diamond.

12 And the third row, a ligure, an agate, and an amethyst.

13 And the fourth row, a beryl, an onyx, and a jasper: they were inclosed in ouches of gold in their inclosings.

14 And the stones were according to the names of the children of Israel, twelve, according to their names, like the engravings of a signet, every one with his name, according to the twelve tribes.

15 And they made upon the breastplate chains at the ends, of wreathen work of pure gold.

16 And they made two ouches of gold, and two gold rings; and put the two rings in the two ends of the breastplate.

17 And they put the two wreathen chains of gold in the two rings on the ends of the breastplate.

18 And the two ends of the two wreathen chains they fastened in the two ouches, and put them on the shoulderpieces of the ephod, before it.

19 And they made two rings of gold, and put them on the two ends of the breastplate, upon the border of it, which was on the side of the ephod inward.

20 And they made two other golden rings, and put them on the two sides of the ephod underneath, toward the forepart of it, over against the other coupling thereof, above the curious girdle of the ephod.

21 And they did bind the breastplate by his rings unto the rings of the ephod with a lace of blue, that it might be above the curious girdle of the ephod, and that the breastplate might not be loosed from the ephod; as the Lord commanded Moses.

Today we hear of the 12 stones set upon the breastplate, and the golden chains that anchor it to the shoulders of the ephod, and the blue lace that anchors it to the side of the ephod.

The 12 stones are some of the most individual pieces in all the ornaments of the tabernacle. Each one would have to be shaped and engraved uniquely, just as each member of each tribe would receiving individual care at the hands of the priest.

As with the original description from God, these verses emphasize that the binding of the breastplate to the ephod was so that it “might not be loosed.” This has an obvious practical function, to keep the thing from swinging around and banging into the priest as he goes about his duties, but there is also a symbolism in it as well.

If the breastplate represents the twelve tribes of Israel, and the ephod is the garments of the Lord’s representative, then their tethering together can be seen as a spiritual injunction that the two parties must not drift apart. The people of Israel should see that they are always bound to the tabernacle, the rituals of the priests, and all that they represent. They must bind themselves to God’s commands as if by the strength of metal above and the pliability of lace below.