The introductory section of our new chap. 2 (book 3) enters at great length into the question why Moses was instructed in the wisdom of the Egyptians. Much of the argument appears to us extremely human, and it may be doubted how far anything satisfactory to the author himself is elicited. Such discussions tend to draw away attention from the genuine source of Moses' commission—the vision of glory in the burning but unconsumed bush—to the circumstances that preceded that great sight, or the flight into Midian forty years before. The worldly lore of Moses had no more to do with the deliverance which God wrought for His people, than the honor proffered by Pharaoh's daughter. The influence of these earthly advantages was rather negative than positive, inasmuch as they put Moses to the test, and proved whether he sought honor and ease for himself, or was the ready and willing servant of God's glory in behalf of Israel. Particular care seems to have been taken by God to guard against the rationalistic dream that either the redemption from Egypt, or the subsequent legislation in the desert, was derived, in any degree, from his early training in the learning of Egypt. Much more reasonable would it be to point us to the lessons he learned in solitary walk with God, as he tended the flocks of Jethro in the wilderness; for even the deliverer had to discover, by painful experience, that he was entirely dependent on God for the time, and the manner, and the wisdom, and the power that delivers. God would mark evidently that Egyptian might and knowledge could claim no part in His wonderful work. What was learned there must be unlearned first in lonely discipline; and the hasty zeal which supposed that his brethren must understand all at once the purpose of God is set aside, that the saving strength might have its spring and its direction in God Himself.
From more than one distressingly low and carnal reflection on this head, we turn to the happier theme of the tabernacle, or habitation of God, which He in His condescension deigned to occupy until the due time came when He settled His people in the outward rest of the kingdom—of course in type. A tent was all He would use previously; but that was the tent of meeting—not merely where Israel was to meet, but wherein God was to meet them. It was also called the tabernacle of testimony, because in its inmost recess lay the ark containing the tables which bore witness of that which God required front man.
In regard to the materials and general structure of the tabernacle and its utensils, Dr. F. discards symbolical meanings, and conceives simply that such metals, fabrics, &c., were employed as were at hand, and conveyed the most fitting impressions of God's majesty. Hence precious stones, gold, silver, blue, and purple, and scarlet; hence the choice of shittim or acacia wood, as the common and only suitable tree in that part of Arabia. But separate and spiritual meanings are eschewed as “without any solid foundation,” splendor of color and rarity being the grand considerations. “So far as the metals were concerned, we see no ground in scripture for any symbolical meaning being attached to them, separate from that suggested by their costliness and ordinary uses. A symbolical use of certain colors we undoubtedly find, such as of white, in expressing the idea of purity, or of red, in expressing that of guilt; but when so used the particular color must be rendered prominent, and connected also with an occasion plainly calling for such a symbol. This was not the case in either respect with the colors in the tabernacle.” Of course, we altogether reject such an arbitrary settlement of the question, as well as the reason for it in the contradictions of typologists. Our ignorance, or that of others, ought never to weigh when we approach a book filled, as scripture is, with a divine purpose from one end to the other. If it were simply a description of some human personage, decked out after his own fancy, we could understand no stress laid upon the choice, save as evidencing his own state of mind; but to assume that God directs certain colors, &c., to be used, corresponding with a pattern shown above to Moses, and that no moral meaning is to be gleaned from all, is a far more serious error than the precipitance which suggests a mistaken signification. It is to create a solitude, a waste, and to call it peace and wisdom. It is to give up seeking to understand a precious part of God's word.
“Of what, then,” says Dr. F., (vol. 2 p. 236,) “was the tabernacle a type? Plainly of Christ, as God manifest in the flesh and reconciling flesh to God.” With the general idea we agree, if we did not know that the sentence only keeps the promise to the eye, for in p. 243 the characteristic error of the typical writers is said to be for the most part understanding everything “personally of Christ.” It may be, too, that the phrase, “reconciling flesh to God,” is not intended to convey anything strange and unsound. But we do object to it as an unscriptural expression, calculated to cover and countenance the evil spirit of semi-Irvingism, which, we fear, is far from being wholly exorcised from its northern haunts. The Bible teaches, that God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself; but that is another thing, and evidently in contrast with His government under the law, which put sinful men far off, instead of seeking such. When Jehovah came down on Sinai, bounds were set, and death menaced him who should venture to touch the mount. But God was in Christ, reconciling, not repelling, and trespasses were discovered in all their hatefulness, but not imputed, as was necessarily done in the legal system. Such, too, was the aspect of God in Christ, not merely to Israel, but to the world. But this has nothing really in common with “reconciling flesh to God.” Still less is there anything resembling it in the blessed actings of God which laid the basis of all reconciliation in the cross and death of Christ. For man was too far gone to be profited even by the incarnate Son of God: he was lost, and salvation by blood was absolutely needed, and a new and risen life from God. The true doctrine, then, is not that Christ's flesh was the representative and root of all flesh as redeemed, but that He has reconciled us who believe, in the body of His flesh THROUGH DEATH. Thus divine favor flows through, and rests on the ground, not of incarnation merely, but of redemption. Christ was the “seed corn,” no doubt, but that figure is the one expressly used by our Lord to show that, till death and resurrection, there was and could be no fruit of like kind. “Except a corn of wheat fall into the ground and die, it abideth alone; but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit.” Enemies as we were, we could not be reconciled to God save by the death of His Son. Nothing short of the cross could reconcile us unto God in one body, because there only the enmity was slain. Hence, whatever the blessed and perfect display of God and man in His person here below, Christ is never treated as head of the body till He arose “the beginning, the first-born from the dead,” and ascended to heaven. He was born King of the Jews, as He had ever been and ever shall be the only begotten Son of the Father; but headship of the Church was a new relationship, only taken in resurrection and heavenly glory. As to all this no small confusion reigns in the “Typology.”
The true design of the tabernacle, viewed in all its parts, in the book of Exodus, we believe to have been mainly two-fold. First, there was the display of the ways of God to man; and secondly, there was the presentation of man, or of the priests who acted for man, to God. A remarkable proof and confirmation of this appears in the arrangement, which at first sight seems peculiar, not to say disorderly; for the golden altar, on which the incense was burned, is not classed with the other vessels of the sanctuary (Ex. 25), nor is the laver treated of in the full description given of the outer court where the great brazen altar of burnt-offering appears (Ex. 27) It is absurd, if we only think of Moses, to imagine that such a disposition of the holy vessels was the result of negligence or hazard; it is wicked so to think, if we own that God inspired the book, and directed the entire matter. As the directions stand, all the details of the vesture and consecration of the priesthood come in between certain of the holy vessels. It is not that they divide those pertaining to the holy of holies, nor even those of the holies in general, from the court outside. Man might have so arranged things, and called it order.
But the order of God is al ways profound and complete, and our wisdom is to follow and learn, not to judge, save in the sense of discerning its admirable propriety. Here, though not obvious, and thus more manifestly from above, the grouping is beautifully perfect. For we have the priests regulated in their due place (Ex. 28, 29) before the Spirit enjoins those things which distinctly typify the means of drawing near to God, or what the priests required for their sanctuary services. In other words, the first portion runs from chap. 25 to chap 28:19, and consists of the various manifestations of God, from the ark in the most holy place down to the brazen utensils and pins of the exterior court. The next two chapters concern Aaron and his sons, with the prefatory verses about the oil which fed the ever-burning lamp—though even here we doubt not that the idea, true of every institution before the priests are formally introduced, is the manifestation of God spiritually. But after they are fully brought before us, we have, in chap. 30 the golden altar of incense, reserved till now, the ordinance of the atonement, the money for the service of the tabernacle, the laver of brass, the holy anointing oil, and the perfume or incense for use “before the testimony.” The reason is plain. These, one and all, set forth, not God's displays to man, but the gracious provision for such as draw near to God; and therefore they rightly follow the account of the due attire of the priests, and of their official inauguration. This divine line of demarcation has altogether escaped the notice of Dr. F., or of the German theologians whom he generally follows.
The consequence of neglecting God's land-marks is plain. Another order usurps its place, and confusion is the inevitable result. The view borrowed from Hengstenberg is utterly inadequate to account for the phenomena within and without the sanctuary: it gives no key to the remarkable groups in which God has set things. It is a poor solution of these enigmas to lay down as an indisputable maxim that the holy of holies presents the things to be believed concerning God, and the holy place the things to be done by His believing people. Or, to cite the words of our author, “as Christ's whole undertaking is something sui generis, and chiefly to be viewed as the means of salvation and access to heaven, provided by God for His people—as under this view it was already symbolized in the furniture and service of the most holy place, it is better and more agreeable to the design of the tabernacle to consider the things belonging to the holy place as directly referring only to the works and service of Christ's people.” (p. 333.) Said we not truly that when Dr. F. spoke of the tabernacle as a type of Christ (p. 536), his words were not to be trusted? Here the larger, though we allow not the most momentous, part is spoken of as directly referring only to the works and services of Christ's people. Now we deny not, for a moment, the blessed manner and extent of the Lord's identification of His people with Himself; we allow that this is marked in a clear way in the instruments of service which met the eve in the sanctuary. But we affirm that the explanation offered fails in seizing the really salient points of the truth God is disclosing, and this as to both divisions of the tabernacle, not to speak of its surrounding court. Thus the ark is entirely divested of its true bearing, when viewed as the symbol of “the means or salvation.” The mercy-seat was really the throne of God's holy presence in the midst of Israel; the law beneath, which attested the righteousness which He could not but exact, and the cherubim, not looking outwards, as in the day of glory, pictured by the temple's order, but looking inwards and towards the mercy-seat. They were the emblems of the judicial power which guarded His throne and righteousness. Now not a word appears in all this, shadowing the means of salvation. Hence, Dr. F. is compelled to connect therewith the rites of the great day of atonement, as detailed in Lev. 16. But this is to wander from the end of the Spirit in the book of Exodus, in this particular part of it, which does not bear on the way and means of approaching God, but develops the various displays of God Himself. The design is to display God enthroned according to the rights of His moral nature, though in relationship with Israel.
The table of shittim wood, overlaid with gold, which comes next, but without the veil, of course, is the manifestation of God in man, as the golden candlestick is His display by the Holy Ghost—both the one and the other found in perfection in Christ Himself, like that closest of all set forth in the holiest. In every particular, then, Dr. F. is in error. None of these vessels, as exhibited in Exodus, properly refers to the means of salvation and access to heaven; all of them refer directly to divine manifestations in Christ, however by grace we may have fellowship and identification with Him in some of them. The same remark applies to the particulars about the tabernacle, its coverings, veil, and door in Ex. 26, as well as to the court and such of its contents as are given in Ex. 27. In this space, outside, the great altar overlaid with brass was the conspicuous object, where the people met God, or rather where He is here represented as manifesting Himself in righteousness about sin and in love to the sinner—the place, not of sin-offerings, but of burnt-offerings, where Christ, by the eternal Spirit, offered Himself without spot unto God, where he who believes may draw near to God displaying Himself in grace.
Again, if we glance for a moment at the golden altar in Ex. 30, the seriousness of the error is apparent, for being an instrument of service outside the veil, it must directly refer only to the works of Christ's people, according to the canon of Dr. F. That is, Christ is positively blotted out from the ministrations of the sanctuary. The golden altar and its incense directly refer to us, and not to Him, according to this calmly stated but rash theory. Are Christians really prepared for this?
Dr. F. may introduce saving clauses to conciliate those who would reject such a summary rejection of Christ from a large, if not the highest, department of His priestly office: for we must not forget that in the types Aaron acted, not only in the holiest, but in the sanctuary; not exclusively, of course, but most prominently. In the antitype, it is Christ in various spheres, Christ in the highest heavens, Christ in the heavenly places, the proper and destined home of our glory, and Christ in relation to the earth, that we have set forth in the tabernacle and its external precincts, where Israel drew near to God. But it is quite clear that if Dr. F.'s view were correct—if the sharp line of limitation which appropriates the inmost shrine to the types of Christ as the object of faith, and the apartment outside the veil to the representation of what Christians should be and do—the Lord Jesus must not be immediately and directly connected with any vessels save the ark and the mercyseat. And even on his own showing, the theory which thus limits the Lord to the holiest, and His people to what was found on the other side of the veil, does not stand the test: for, as we have seen in a previous part of the book, (and it is repeated here too,) the cherubim, made of the same piece as the golden mercy-seat, are regarded by the author as representations chiefly of “redeemed and glorified humanity,” the “ideal heirs of salvation” (p. 302). Christ, therefore, instead of being the grand object as well as expression of God, instead of being impressed on the entire tabernacle, and on every part within and without, is restrained to the narrowest bounds that can be conceived.
Happily, the system is most inconsistent, and the language used, even respecting the altar in the court, is such as to suggest to others, if not to the author, that Christ alone is the full answer to that altar, as well as to the burnt-offerings which characterized it. Thus he says, in p. 283, “this altar of sacrifice was to be the grand point of meeting between God and sinful men, between God and man as sinful; and only by first meeting there and entering into a state of reconciliation and peace, could they afterward be admitted into His house, as those who had the privilege of communion and fellowship with Him. The altar was, in a sense, God's table,” &c. And where but in Christ is such a table, or meeting-place, between God and sinful man to be found? We trust that Dr. F. looks for it in Him only, and would repudiate it anywhere else. But if so, his systematic parceling out of the sanctuary and its court is fundamentally defective and erroneous. Christ is set forth everywhere, according to the heavenly pattern, and this in relation to sinful men on earth, as well as to His saints as such, and to God in the intimacy of His being and as the supreme object of worship and allegiance. The most holy place naturally answers to the heaven of heavens, and the holy place to the lower heavens, according to the principle laid down in Heb. 9:24—the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man, as they are called in Heb. 8:2. The court without would, in like manner, correspond with the earthly scene of the manifestation of God to man and of his approach to God, as a sinner coming out of the world, not as a saint or priest, which is a relationship rather appertaining to the holy place. That we are justified in thus viewing the whole universe, including the heavens and the earth, as the house or habitation, “the true,” answering to the figures made with hands, is to us evident from Heb. 3:4, “Every house is builded by some man, but he that built all things is God.” The application of this could hardly be mistaken by an unprejudiced mind, least of all by the Hebrew believer, especially connected as it is with Moses the servant in the house of God. It is true that the tabernacle also applies to the Church, as the dwelling or house of God—Christ's own house, as we are here designated; and it is realized in the highest sense in the person of Christ Himself, the true temple. But these are far from being incompatible representations, but rather so many concentric circles round the one great thought—the habitation or dwelling-place of God, which, true of all, is emphatically verified in Christ and in His body, the fullness of Him that filleth all in all.
We do not, of course, coincide with Dr. F.'s incredulity, (p. 230,) as to any special and spiritual reasons for the drapery and disposition of Ex. 26, 27. though fully allowing that the details of this (as of every other subject, which depends on the measure of our subjection to scripture and intelligence in the Spirit) are open to ready misapprehension, and may be abused by mere fanciful conjectures. On these the reader will find some profitable hints in the “Synopsis,” pp. 75, 76.