The central problem of our age is not liberalism or modernism, nor the old Roman Catholicism or the new Roman Catholicism, nor the threat of communism, nor even the threat of rationalism and the monolithic consensus which surrounds us. All these are dangerous but not the primary threat. The real problem is this: the church of the Lord Jesus Christ, individually corporately, tending to do the Lord’s work in the power of the flesh rather than of the Spirit. The central problem is always in the midst of the people of God, not in the circumstances surrounding them. —Francis, Schaeffer, No Little People
All Concerns the Tabernacle and the Tabernacle Concerns All (Exodus 30)
When you’re going on vacation the final bits of packing might seem haphazard and chaotic, but two things could be happening.
1. Things really are a mess. You’ve run through the house last minute gathering up tidbits you either forgot to pack or now think you might need and just throw them in.
2. There has been a strategic ordering and packing up of things and you’ve simply come to remaining smaller items that could only be packed last and for which there was no room in any other bag.
God didn’t pack the tabernacle instructions like you might pack for vacation. Everything has been highly organized. Chapter 25 concerned the furniture of the tabernacle, chapter 26 the tent itself, chapter 27 the courtyard, chapter 28 the priest’s garments, and chapter 29 the priest’s consecration. Now it’s time to pack some remaining items. Remember that the chapter divisions are inserted by man. These chapter divisions have been very good in seeing some natural divisions, but we must remember that they’re divisions within a section all concerning the tabernacle. The smaller items that make up chapter 30 don’t cohere together the way the items in chapter 28 do, but they do cohere with chapter 29 the way that chapter 25 does.
How do these all things go together? The way everything in chapters 25–31 go together. All these chapters are about the tabernacle. All these chapters are packed into the same place, or rather, are about the same place.
Even if a neighbor looked in on a crazily packed family car and asked what all that randomness was about, they could reply, “Vacation.” It’s not unrelated randomness. It is all about vacation.
This chapter is neither unrelated or random. All concerns the tabernacle.
When Israel would sojourn through the wilderness, all of these things wold be packed together and carried by the Levites. All of these things relate to the tent. The tabernacle is diverse, but not because it speaks of a great many different things, but of the great depth and diversity of a single thing, Christ and His redemption—that thing which binds not only the tabernacle together, but everything together. All concerns the tabernacle, and the tabernacle concerns all. Jesus’ redemption is so big that it not only unites all the tabernacle, it also is uniting all creation as a tabernacle.
The Apologist: Consecration over Agglomeration
Quietness and peace before God are more important than any influence a position may seem to give, for we must stay in step with God to have the power of the Holy Spirit. If by taking a bigger place our quietness with God is lost, then to that extent our fellowship with Him is broken and we are living in the flesh, and the final result will not be as great, no matter how important the larger place may look in the eyes of other men or in our own eyes. Always there will be a battle, always we will be less than perfect, but if a place is too big and too active for our present spiritual condition, then it is too big.
…The final result of not being quiet before God is that less will be done, not more—no matter how much Christendom may be beating its drums or playing its trumpets for a particular activity.
…The size of the place is not important, but the consecration in that place is. —Francis Schaeffer, No Little People
God Doesn’t Give Busy Work (Exodus 29)
God doesn’t give busy work. The consecration of the priests was a big to do, but what was all the doing for? Why were the priests and the altars consecrated so? Two answers are given, and the first one flows and swells into the second like a river bursting forth into a grand delta.
The priests and the altar are consecrated for the daily offerings (Exodus 29:38–42). In the morning, a lambs offered with wine and flour; in the evening, the same. A full meal is to be cooked up to Yahweh on the altar twice daily.
But why all of this? Why the priests, the altar, the tabernacle, the daily offerings? The answer God gives is Himself. These daily offerings are to be made at the tent of meeting where Yahweh meets with Israel (Exodus 29:42–43). How does the Holy God meet in covenant love with a sinful people? By the priest, the altar, and the tabernacle.
None of this smacks of man trying to pull himself up to heaven. Nor is this God giving man secret carful instructions to climbing a heavenly stairway. All this action is a display of God’s action. The tabernacle and all the priest’s action is a reflection of heavenly realities. Ultimately it is God who consecrates the tent and the priests (Exodus 29:43). The tabernacle is no display of man’s wisdom, but God’s. It speaks nothing of man’s work, but God’s redemption. The tabernacle is not about man ascending, but God descending.
God’s meeting His people here is not to be thought of as the event of a lifetime, but a lifetime event. God meets with His people here because He dwells here (Exodus 29:45). He dwells in their midst as their God for they are His people. He dwells with them in covenant love.
Still this isn’t the end of the blessedness that the tent testifies to. God is not content just to be their God; He wants them to know that He is their God (Exodus 29:46). Specifically, He wants them to know that Yahweh (all caps LORD), the one who has revealed Himself as sovereign, self-existent, eternal, infinite, immutable and incomprehensible, is their redeemer, the one who has delivered them.
The way that God wants Israel to know all of this is by a tent and priesthood that testify of Christ. Don’t shun knowledge of the tabernacle. Don’t think a study of the priest’s consecration moot. All of this is so that you might know Jesus, whose name means “Yahweh Saves.”
The Apologist: Leadership is Ministry is Servanthood
To the extent we are called to leadership, we are called to ministry, even costly ministry. The greater the leadership, the greater is to be the ministry. The word minister is not a title of power but a designation of servanthood. —Francis Schaeffer, No Little People
Christians Must be Fashion Minded (Exodus 28)
Confusingly, our skin-is-in society tells us clothes make the man. There’s a nugget of truth there. Perhaps we could better say clothes cover up the man. When man fell, he tried to cover up with fig leaves. These were insufficient. God made them garments of skins. Man is still trying to make clothes that make him something, rejecting the only garments that can cover His shame—those which God provides.
Clothes made the high priest. They were holy garments that made him holy (Exodus 28:3). The garments were part of the priest’s consecration (Exodus 28:41, 29:1ff). Because the priests were sinners, they needed to be clothed.
When the priests acted as ministers, they must dress up, but when the great High Priest Jesus acts as a minister, He must dress down. The priests had to put on heaven. Jesus had to put on earth. The sons of Aaron couldn’t reach that high, but the forever Priest after the order of Melchizedek did stoop that low. The priests had to put on holiness. Jesus put on humility. The priest’s holiness wasn’t perfect. Jesus’ humility was.
Before a holy God we need holy representation. We need a son of Adam who is the Son of God. We need someone not simply covered with holiness, but to cover us in His holiness. All the Aaronic priests died; they too were sinners, so how could they deal with other’s sins? Jesus made atonement once for all and ever lives for us clothing us in the robe of His righteousness. Clothed with the garments of the great High Priest, we draw near unto God with boldness and confidence. The shame of Eden is gone. We need not run away, but in Christ, we may draw near to our heavenly Father.
The Apologist: Dangerous Beauty (aka The Forbidden Woman)
Many seem to feel that the greater the art, the less we ought to be critical of its world-view. This we must reverse. —Francis Schaeffer, Art and the Bible
Ark and Altar (Exodus 27)
Some parts of the Bible are like nuts, and often, we’re too lazy to crack them. We easily bore with a passage like this. It is as though we shove the shell of in our mouth expecting candy and then quickly spit it out. Our palates are juvenile and our minds lazy. Comparatively, even among similar passages of Scripture, we find this one lackluster. After the description of the tabernacle, we find that of the courtyard plain, dull, and drab. What we bore with, the Israelites sang of.
“When iniquities prevail against me, you atone for our transgressions. Blessed is the one you choose and bring near, to dwell in your courts! We shall be satisfied with the goodness of your house, the holiness of your temple (Psalm 65:3–4)!”
“How lovely is your dwelling place, O LORD of hosts! My soul longs, yes, faints for the courts of the LORD; my heart and flesh sing for joy to the living God. Even the sparrow finds a home, and the swallow a nest for herself, where she may lay her young, at your altars, O LORD of hosts, my King and my God. Blessed are those who dwell in your house, ever singing your praise! Selah …For a day in your courts is better than a thousand elsewhere. I would rather be a doorkeeper in the house of my God than dwell in the tents of wickedness(Psalm 84:1–4, 10).”
“Make a joyful noise to the LORD, all the earth! Serve the LORD with gladness! Come into his presence with singing! Know that the LORD, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture. Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations (Psalm 100).”
Come to texts like this prayerfully. Come to texts like this willing to work prayerfully. Come to texts like this asking God to make you sing.
Cracking this nut isn’t a matter of finding some hidden meaning in the fine details, but rejoicing in the clear revelation found in the big emphases. The altar is the biggest piece of furniture in the court, don’t miss it. It’s the biggest piece of furniture associated with the tabernacle, and for good reason, it was the most utilized.
As the ark is central to the tent, the altar is central to the court. Sometimes a person might have a piece of furniture or an appliance so large they joke that they build their house around them. Sometime it’s no joke. The tent and the court are designed around the ark and the altar respectively. Ark and altar are not just the prominent pieces of the tabernacle, they are the prominent pieces of the universe.
The only way to the ark is through the altar. The only way into God’s blessed covenant presence is through the altar of Christ cursed for our sins. The only way to the throne of grace is by the judgment of the cross. That’ll make you sing.
The Apologist: The Imago Dei and Art
Being in the image of the Creator, we are called upon to have creativity. We never find an animal, non-man, making a work of art. On the other hand, we never find men anywhere in the world or in any culture in the world who do not produce art. Creativity is a part of the distinction between man and non-man. All people are to some degree creative. Creativity is intrinsic to our ‘mannishness.’ —Francis Schaeffer, Art and the Bible
When the Tabernacle Burst at the Seams (Exodus 26)
Rare is the soul who reads construction manuals for kicks. Chances are you don’t read the instructions for something you’re going to build; you just look at the pictures. Here are construction plans for something they built, and there are no pictures. You don’t even have the parts, and you couldn’t manufacture them to reconstruct this tent even if you wanted. The more pics of the tabernacle you look at, the better, for you soon realize they’re all different. We know neither the precise size nor appearance of the tabernacle and its furniture.
Don’t mourn that you can’t reconstruct the tabernacle exactly as it was. Don’t mourn that you have words instead of pictures. The majority of the Israelites never saw the tabernacle. It was mysterious. Access was restricted. The clearest insight Israel had of the tent was the text. The way they “saw” the tabernacle is the same way you see—through words. There are no photographs of the tabernacle, for the tabernacle itself is a picture, and one you are meant to see via words. In his commentary on Exodus, Phil Ryken writes,
The reason we study the tabernacle today is not so we can draw pictures of it or build an exact replica (although this can be helpful), but to learn what the tabernacle teaches us about knowing God. The question is what does the tabernacle mean? Why did God tell Moses to set up a tent, and why did he tell him to do it this way?
Don’t feel gypped because you don’t get to see the tabernacle; that’s like wishing you could reconstruct scaffolding once a building project is done. The tabernacle was scaffolding, and it’s no longer needed. We have a description of it, so that we can learn something about the structure that was once under it, but now, the scaffolding has fallen, or rather, that which lied under it, superseded and fulfilled it so that it burst at the seems and rose through it.
Jesus tented among us, the supreme revelation of God’s glory (John 1:14). Through the curtain of His rent flesh we all have access to the Holy of Holies (Hebrews 10:19–22). In Jesus, we’re not just brought into the inner sanctum, we’re indwelt as temples both individually (1 Corinthians 6:19) and corporately (1 Corinthians 3:16–17, Ephesians 2:20–22).
So read these construction plans like a child reads the manual to their newest Lego toy, or the way a young family reads the plans to a home they’re building. Look under the scaffolding to what Christ is, and what in union with Him you are.
No Other Boast 