( With a Model.) BY C. H. B. READ EXODUS. 27:9-14.
XO 27:9-14{THE tabernacle, with its furniture, its sacrifices, and its ritual, were a shadow of things to come. In Heb. 9;10. we have a reference to these things:-" Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things." Christ is the fulfillment of the shadows. In the first verse of the tenth chapter we read, " The law being a shadow of good things to come." This was only a shadow, a type, a parable, a figure for the time then present. But we cannot have a shadow without a substance. It is a blessed thing to learn from the shadow what the substance is like. Not only do we need the substance, but we need the light. You must have light to make a shadow. When God called Moses into the mount, it was in His presence that He gave the shadows. God had the reality (Christ) before Him through all eternity; He brought Moses up to the mount into the light of His presence, and the shadow is cast upon the earth.
The books of Exodus and Leviticus to most Christians are unknown books. One man told me that he had not read them in ten years, because he thought them to belong only to the Jews. If he had understood the book of Hebrews he would have seen how all these things refer to Christ. The Sabbath was a shadow of the rest we have in Christ; the shed blood pointed to Christ. God knows we cannot understand all His mind by abstract statements, so He gives us pictures, as we do our own children, that we by the pictures may be enabled to enter more into the wonderfully full and varied aspect of the work of Christ. They all pointed to one Christ, to the one sacrifice. The tabernacle is a type of Christ (Heb. 9:11). It may be taken also as a type of all believers as God's house (Heb. 3:6), and in a dispensational sense, God's dwelling place. In the millennium (Rev. 21:3) primarily Christ is everything.
There is a three-fold way of looking at it too. If you will turn to Ex. 25 you will see that the first thing God describes is not the court, as I have described, but the Ark of the Covenant. But the first thing that was made was the curtains, the tabernacle itself (Ex. 36). But the first thing we will look at will be the court. The thing God first mentioned. is the Ark of the Covenant. It was inside of the most holy place, a type of the risen and glorified Christ. God's first object is Christ. God travels outwards step by step from the Ark of the Covenant. But the curtains were made first, for this reason, Christ must first come and tabernacle amongst us. Christ is born, and the word says, He is "Emmanuel, God with us." Before a single thing could be fulfilled He must come down here. I would take up the outside first, for this reason; the first thing you and I apprehend of Christ as sinners coming to God, is not a Christ in glory, or the blessed truth of Emmanuel. We are outside as sinners until we are brought step by step into the inner place. Just as in Lev., the first thing God mentioned is the burnt offering, but the first thing the leper needed, and the priests, when consecrated, was the sin offering the first thing I am to know is, my sins forgiven. How can God bring a poor, vile sinner, defiled, under the curse and judgment, into His own very presence, in perfect righteousness, and with peace to the sinner's conscience? He does it by His grace, and in these things we will see how it is done. How can I as a sinner sit down in God's presence in perfect peace with Him? I find plenty of people who are at peace with themselves, but are they at peace with God?
Turn first of all to Lev. 13, and notice a special thing or two there. This describes the plague of leprosy, a type of sin, for two reasons;-First, it was a most contagious disease; man cannot keep it to himself; just like sin. Second, leprosy was a disease which only God could cure (2 Kings. 5:7). It must be the Great Physician who makes whole, and no one else. If there was only a spot on the man's flesh leprous, he was unclean (verse 2). Notice this verse (13). It is all turned white, and then he is clean. A leper as white as snow, and the priest " shall pronounce him clean." This is a type of the sinner. When a man has a single plea in his own defense, he has not taken his true place before God. My only plea is, " God be merciful to me a sinner." God does not require a man to do anything; if I justify God, God will justify me, but if I try to justify myself God cannot receive me. We cannot take the children of Israel as a type of sinners here, we must go to the leper outside of the camp; a sinner is outside of God's presence. Jonah rose up to flee from the presence of the Lord; three times we are told that. That is the sinner's action, running away from God. God shall punish men, by giving them just what they want, everlasting destruction from His presence. The world does not like the name of Jesus mentioned in its social gatherings. If I introduce the name of God or Jesus into a party, it makes people feel very uneasy; they are outside of His presence. As sure as there is an eternal God and eternal life for the believer, there is eternal, unending punishment for the unbeliever. He only asks one thing of the sinner, that is repentance. God wants the sinner to acknowledge his true condition before Him. Then He puts away all our sins and brings you and me into His presence as white as snow. By nature I am away from God, outside the camp. The sinner outside the camp sees that God dwells inside, the pillar of cloud shows that He dwells in there. There is a barrier of five cubits high, of fine linen, all around here. What is that which keeps the sinner off from God? What is the reason that any sinner here in his sins cannot have pleasure in God? Is it not because you are unholy and God is holy? How can a holy God have fellowship with the sinner, or the sinner stand in the presence of God and not be lost? One thing that keeps a sinner away from God is God's righteousness. Fine linen signifies righteousness (Rev. 19:8), in this case the righteousness of God. It is upheld by brass pillars. Brass always signifies justice or judgment. In the first chapter of the Revelation we have a picture of Christ judging the churches, and His feet shine like fine brass. He stands firm. His decrees are settled in justice and judgment. God's righteousness is no vain thing. As sure as God is righteous He will punish every sin. Unless there is faith in Christ every man shall have his portion in the lake of fire. Supposing we leave out Christ; how impossible it would be for the sinner to have fellowship with a holy God.
But how did God come to have a wall around Himself? God did not always have a wall around Himself. In Ex, 19. we are told that Moses went up to God in the mount, and God said, " I have borne you on eagles' wings and brought you to myself." There was no wall there! But when the law came in, bounds were put around. He told Moses to go down and ask them if they would do the things that were commanded them, and they said, " All that the Lord hath said we will do." If they had been wise they would have said, " We cannot keep these commandments." Thus the law entered, or, slipped in by the way (Rom. 5:20). If they had declined to do it, they would have remained on the ground of grace. But all the people answered together and said, " All that the Lord bath spoken, we will do." In Rom. 12, we read, " They are together become unprofitable." "There is none that doeth good, no not one." You recollect that the quails were given twice. God gave them before the law was given (Ex. 16:13), and afterward (Num. 11:31), and so as to the water out of the rock. Mark the difference-before the law was given, they murmured and God did not say a Word to them, but afterward, when the law was given, and they murmured, the Lord smote the people with a very great plague. Why did He do so? The law had come in. Before that they were on the ground of grace. The law was not given to make any one righteous. How vain then to make covenants with God now. " The law entered that the offense might abound." We have all " sinned and come short of the glory of God." God gave the law then for the purpose of proving all men guilty. And now, how did God come to have a tabernacle? It was an after thought, so to speak. God says, as it were, " I am going to dwell with man, anyway." The first mention we have of the tabernacle is after the law was given, and man had broken it. It was after the golden calf was worshipped. The law came in, and prevented all approach of man to God. Then God said, " I will go down to man." Where was Jesus when he said, " Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy-laden, and I will give you rest?" Was He very far off? He came down very close to them. Christ came down in a lowly form, and was born in a manger and went to the sinner's place, on the cross. How did the Shepherd find the sheep? He went where the sheep was. Christ comes to us. " All we like sheep have gone astray." " He is brought as a lamb to the slaughter." We can say " Christ has redeemed us from the law, being made a curse for us." The leper was not told to come inside, but the priest was to go outside the camp to him. He could not come before God, but the priest went out to where the leper was. When it was impossible for man to approach God, then God came down to where man was. Christ went to the cross, and bore the sinner's doom, when He cried, " My God, my God, why hast Thou forsaken me?" The blessed truth of the gospel is, not that we are seeking God, but God is seeking us. We ought to seek God. But God says, " there is none that seeketh after God;" on the other hand, " the Father seeketh worshippers."
These hangings of fine linen were about nine feet high; that is higher than we are, and the law is higher than we. It proves that we have sinned and "come short of the glory of God." We find here a curtain to the gate, embroidered with three colors. What does that signify? Jesus says, " I am the way, the truth, and the life." It is not only made of fine linen, but it has three colors on it. In those three colors we have that which shadowed forth Christ. Fine linen signifies Christ's righteousness, that is, His own spotless humanity. He was the spotless man. In the three colors we have what Christ was as a Savior. In the first, the blue (the blue always comes first, and is the heavenly color, like the vault overhead), is a type of Christ as the One who came down from heaven. You understand why that comes first. He must first come from heaven to give life to the world. It is a type of Him as a heavenly stranger on earth. Then the purple, that is the royal color. When Christ was crucified the soldiers placed a crown of thorns upon His head, and put a purple robe on Him. We read of others clad in purple. It is a type of royalty. He comes from heaven, and is presented to Israel as the Messiah, the king of the Jews. The scarlet-He was the one who shed His blood to put away our sins. We have them also in the four gospels-in Mark, the spotless One; in Matthew the royal One, the king of the Jews; in Luke, the scarlet, the Savior of sinners. "This man receiveth sinners, and eateth with them." In John, we have the heavenly color, the Son of man who is in heaven; the Son of God from heaven. You see, then, the importance of having these things on the gate. No man cometh to God but by Christ. But let us see that it is God's Christ we have before our minds. Supposing I take off the blue, and leave out the purple and scarlet, will such a Christ save you? No, we cannot leave out His divinity. Leave out the purple, will not the blue and scarlet do? No, if He is not the Messiah, He is not the one promised of old. Supposing we leave out the scarlet, will not the rest do? No, He may be the royal and heavenly one, and the spotless man, but if He is not the man who shed His blood He cannot he my Savior. Or, again, shall we ignore the fine linen? Supposing we say Christ was not without sin, that will not do-such a one would need a Savior Himself. He " knew no sin," He shed His blood for us, to put away our sin. God has only one thing to put before the sinner, and that is Christ. He is just, and the justifier of him that believeth on Jesus. Every soul that believes on the Son of God hath eternal life. If I, a sinner, trust in Jesus, then I am saved. I come to God through Christ alone.
Now I have entered in, and I am inside. Consider the difference of being inside and outside of the walls. Outside there is a barrier to keep us off. Coming through Christ I come inside, and now they surround me. While I am outside I do not like to hear that God is just and holy, but inside, I am glad of it, for His own righteousness shuts me in. As surely as God is just He will justify every believer in Jesus. God hates sin, but loves the sinner, and He put the sinner's sin on His own Son. " He is faithful and just," just to the sacrifice of Calvary, to forgive the sins of all who confess them.. If I really come to God through Jesus, He closes me around with righteousness. Adam and Eve took of the forbidden fruit, and knew they were naked, ran away from God, and hid themselves. They made aprons of fig leaves, to cover themselves. First of all, God calls Adam into his presence, and makes him confess his sin. Then we are told that unto Adam and his wife God made coats of skin. When they believed in Christ, God clothed them Himself. So with the sinner. All I can do to fit myself for God makes me more unfit for His presence. God forgives the sins of all who trust in Jesus, and also counts them righteous.