The next thing in the tabernacle that is treated of is the position of the people of God. They ax represented by the twelve loaves of shewbread, corresponding to the number of the tribes; and these emblems are placed on a table before the ark—but outside a vail. This vail is removed in the present dispensation, having been rent asunder at the death of our Lord. It was torn from the top to the bottom, signifying, (a) that it was done by God and not by man—from His side, not ours; and (b) that the action is final and absolute. Therefore the people are brought immediately into the divine presence— “brought nigh.” The table on which the shewbread rested was a further type of Christ. It was made of wood covered with gold (deity covering and investing His humanity), surrounded by a golden crown and border, or guard: and over the bread, which lay in rows, was laid the frankincense. Thus we have them in a certain sense “in Christ.” His people rest on Him, as the bread rests on the table. They are surrounded by Him, as the guard and crown surrounded the bread on that table, to protect and glorify them; and they are covered by the fragrant frankincense of His holy and perfect nature, ever ascending to God in their favor. The table has rings and staves, which fact shows that its application is now, during the time of their earthly pilgrimage, that all this is true of the redeemed. We do not wait to be in heaven to be in Christ in this position of extraordinary privilege and honor. The best robe is brought forth, from the father's house (to apply another type) that the prodigal may be invested with it just where he stands.
Immediately connected with that is the Candlestick (or lampstand) of pure gold. It consisted of the central shaft with triple branches at each side something in the form of a vine, with which its meaning is somewhat parallel, though distinct. There is the same primary idea of the branches abiding in Christ as their center and support, but in the vine the chief thought is fruit-bearing; here it is light-giving. The two services, though continually mingled, are distinct operations. In the vine each branch is supplied with the life-giving sap from the central stem, as each soul receives his power for spiritual bloom and fruitfulness by abiding in Christ. And each branch of the candlestick is made with a flower, and the developing fruit (knop) behind it. As light-givers, however, the source of power is the Holy Ghost, symbolized by the usual figure of the oil; even our Lord Himself, the central shaft, gives light in this way, that is, by the power of the Holy Ghost. This light shines continually on the table upon which in symbol the redeemed are exalted, covered with frankincense in the divine presence.
The light-giving function is at its highest and most appropriate use in the tabernacle, where it reveals all the relations between God and His people, but of course its use is universal. That was the true light, which (lit.) coming into the world lighteth every man. That of Galilee, and not—for example—Buddha, though his name signifies the Enlightened One, nor even Moses, though he gave an anticipatory reflection of that light, as a mirror might. What literal darkness, with its sins and doubts, its fears, perils, and lurking evils, is to the outward man, spiritual darkness—ignorance, prejudice, evil—is to the inward man. Light is knowledge; which seems a very meager definition, but it is beautiful in itself as well as in what it discloses and creates. For it discloses loveliness as truly as deformity, and not only discloses but creates all the beauties of color that deck the gorgeous universe. Light, which is the primal work of creation and which is a symbol of God Himself, is of so mysterious a nature that even though we find out year by year more about it, yet we do not know even now for certain what it is—whether for instance it be an element that travels to us from the heavens, or the vibration of some omnipresent ether, impalpable and all-pervading. None can understand it, but all can benefit by it. Each decade brings us some fresh discovery concerning it. Its susceptibility to sound; its power to produce sound; its power to reproduce form; its actual physical power to move bodies, as shown by the radiometer; its power to draw the tender shoot of the plant above the black earth; and when the darkness is doing its deadly work of producing poisonous carbonic acid gas from its leaves, the light suddenly appears, stops it, and in its turn produces the life-giving oxygen.
All this is true of that spiritual revelation and instruction which comes primarily from on high, to show us our sins and dangers, to guard us from hell and guide us to heaven, to heal and refresh our eyes—though it be painful at first as the sun's rays to those who have been long buried in the dark mines. When we struggle in darkness and the shadow of death with unseen foes, and cry in an agony for light, like Ajax of old; or when we feel the world sinking from us, the pall of a heavy, benumbing gloom settling down over us, and call for more light, like Goethe, then how good and how pleasant it is to behold the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
There is no wood in the candlestick: it is all gold. All the appliances are divine. The only element that could suggest anything merely human is the wick, and that was consumed in doing its beneficent work. Even the tongs and snuffdishes—those instruments with which the wick is trimmed and kept in order—must be of gold. “And look that thou make them after their pattern which was she wed thee in the mount.” All that pertains to light-giving must be in a divine way, the way shown in the mount to Moses, and in that other Mount of Olives, whence came the oil—where the divine instruction shone forth, not in a way dogmatic, bigoted, or apologetic, but full of grace and truth. And for all that the pattern be divine and the construction perfect, yet must the work of discipline and affliction take its course: the gold must be beaten and the wick must be shorn.