Exodus 25 introduces us to a new order of figures, not only earthly ordinances, but that which appertains to the tabernacle. Undoubtedly in itself it composed a worldly tabernacle; but this does not hinder these figures from typifying what was to be for the most part of a heavenly character.
After the call to the people to bring their offerings, we find the use to which they were to be applied.
First and foremost stands the center of Levitical worship – the ark. We must remember that they are but shadows, and not the very image of the thing. In none of these types can one find the full truth of Christ and of His work. They are only a faint and partial outline of the infinite reality, and could not possibly be more. Hence they have the imperfection of a shadow.
In fact we could not have the full image until Christ appeared and died on the cross and went to heaven. As Christ is the true and perfect image of God, so is He the expression of all that is good and holy in man. Where will one find what man should be but in Christ? Where the faultless picture of a servant but in Him? And so one might go through every quality and every office, and find them only in perfection in our Lord Jesus. There indeed is the truth. The legal ordinances and institutes were but shadows; still they were types distinctly constituted; and we should learn by them all.
In these shadows we may see two very different characters or classes, we may say, into which they are divisible. The first and foundation of all the rest is this: God would disclose Himself in some of them to man, as far as this was possible then; secondly, founded on that and growing out of it, man would be taught to draw near to God.
Impossible for such access to exist and be enjoyed until God had drawn near to man and shown us what He is to man. We can see therefore the moral propriety and beauty of this distinction, which at once separates the shadows of the latter part of Exodus into two main sections. The ark, the golden table, the golden candlestick, the tabernacle with its curtains, the vail, the brazen altar, and the court, form the first division of the types, the common object of them all being the display of God in Christ to man.
Of these the highest is the ark. It was the seat of Divine Majesty in Israel; and as all know (and most significant it is), the mercy-seat was pre-eminently that throne of God – the mercy-seat which afterward we see with blood sprinkled on it and before it – the mercy-seat which concealed the law destructive to the pretensions of man, but maintained it in the place of highest honor, though hidden from human view. Was this nothing? Was there not comfort for any heart which confides in God, that He should take such a seat as this, and give it such a name, in relationship with a guilty people on the earth?
Next came the table, and upon it a defined supply of bread. For what was presented there? One loaf? No such carnal thought entered as if God had need of bread from man. The bread that was set on the golden table consisted of twelve loaves – in evident correspondence with the twelve tribes of Israel, but this assuredly in connection with Christ, for He is ever the object of God’s counsels. It is God displaying Himself in Christ; but those who had this connection with Christ were Israel. Of them He came, and He deigned to have the memorial of them on this table before God.
In the candlestick another truth comes before us. It is not God who thus deals with humanity, of which Israel was the chosen specimen, and the one remembered before Him; but in the seven candlesticks, or rather the candelabrum with its seven lights, we clearly see the type of Christ as the power and giver of the Holy Spirit in testimony for God. This is in connection with God’s sanctuary and presence. Now, in all these things it is the display of what God is to man; God Himself in His own sole majesty in the ark, God Himself associated with man, with Israel, in the show-bread, God Himself with this light of the sanctuary or the power of the Spirit of God.