Tag: Jesus Christ

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.

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.”

God in the Dock (Exodus 17:1–7)

“The ancient man approached God (or even the gods) as the accused person approaches his judge. For modern man the roles are reversed. He is the judge: God is in the dock. He is quiet a kindly judge: if God should have a reasonable defense for being the God who permits war, poverty, and disease, he is ready to listen to it. The trial may even end in God’s acquittal. But the important thing is that Man is on the Bench and God is in the Dock.” —C.S. Lewis

Three times Yahweh has tested Israel in the wilderness (Exodus 15:25–26; 16:4; Psalm 81:7). When you take a test three times, you hope to see some progress. Israel scores worse. Discontent to merely grumble, she quarrels and tests. God is testing her, and she tries to flip the tables. She tries to put God in the dock.

The word “test” has a legal flavor to it, a flavor that grows more pronounced as one advances through the text. God tells Moses to go ahead of the people with the elders. Why the elders?

“If a man has a stubborn and rebellious son who will not obey the voice of his father or the voice of his mother, and, though they discipline him, will not listen to them, then his father and his mother shall take hold of him and bring him out to the elders of his city at the gate of the place where he lives, and they shall say to the elders of his city, ‘This our son is stubborn and rebellious; he will not obey our voice; he is a glutton and a drunkard.’ Then all the men of the city shall stone him to death with stones. So you shall purge the evil from your midst, and all Israel shall hear, and fear (Deuteronomy 21:18–21 ESV).”

The elders function as judges and witnesses. A rebellious son is brought before the elders, seen guilty, and then judged. Israel tried to judge God and was on the cusp of sentencing. Of course she couldn’t kill God, so the mediator would have to do (Exodus 17:4). God takes His rebellious son out before the elders. He instructs Moses to bring the staff with which he struck the Nile. Every time this staff falls, it falls with salvation and judgment. Previously, Egypt was judged; Israel was saved. Here Israel is the guilty one. Israel is guilty, but she isn’t struck. The rock is struck so that she might drink. Paul tells us that this rock was Christ (1 Corinthians 10:4).

God is indeed in the dock, but He remains on the Judge’s bench as well. The Father still sat over the court judging our sins, but the Son willingly takes our place so that water might flow.

Tons of Grace in Ounces of Bread (Exodus 16)

Think of all that God gives you when you put a piece of bread in your mouth. He’s given you wheat. He’s given you a farmer, his health, and hours and hours of a season of sowing, growing, and harvest. He’s given you rain and sun. He’s given you a tractor with a plow and seed drill. He’s given you a combine to harvest it and trailers to transport it. He’s given you diesel, oil, grease and the refineries that produce them. He’s given you rubber, tires, and sleepy truck drivers. He’s given you factories with hundreds of laborers: factories to produce the farm equipment, factories to make the bread. He’s given you thousands of years of history, for, behind all of this are centuries of sweat and labor to invent, innovate, and refine. He’s given you a grocery store and stockers. He’s given you a job, life, and health to purchase and eat the bread. And we’ve only dealt with the wheat. We haven’t considered the salt, the water, the butter, the sugar, or the yeast. When you eat one bite, just one bite of bread, you are immeasurably wealthy and incomprehensibly blessed. There are tons of grace in ounces of bread. The only proper response to such lavish generosity is gratitude. Even when we are grateful, our gratitude never matches up to His generosity. Sadly, were often presumptuous. Worse yet, we grumble. And yet, the bread is still there.

God saves. Then, Israel grumbles. Yet, God is gracious. Still, Israel grumbles. Still, God is gracious.

When Israel eats this manna, think of all that God is giving them. This manna is epic. This lengthy account doesn’t begin to match their lengthy experience. “The people of Israel ate the manna forty years, till they came to a habitable land. They ate the manna till they came to the border of the land of Canaan (Exodus 16:35 ESV).”

Yet, the true magnitude of the mann isn’t found in it’s duration, nor it’s delicacy, but it’s meaning. Like the Supper, the true feast can only be had by faith. Manna was spiritually enriched and nutrient loaded.

Jesus feeds the five thousand in the wilderness. Later he tells the crowds that the bread and the manna both testify of Him, the true bread from heaven (John 6). How do they respond? With grumbling. The crowds leave. Many of His disciples leave. Jesus turns to the twelve and asks if they will leave also. Peter responds, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life, and we have believed, and have come to know, that you are the Holy One of God (John 6:68–69 ESV).”

This was the test of the manna.

“And you shall remember the whole way that the LORD your God has led you these forty years in the wilderness, that he might humble you, testing you to know what was in your heart, whether you would keep his commandments or not. And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna, which you did not know, nor did your fathers know, that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD.” —Deuteronomy 8:2–3 (ESV)

Jesus is the Word of God. Jesus is the Bread of Life. The manna was epic. There were tons of grace in every ounce.

The Penning Pastor: Jesus, Fraught with all Blessings

The Lord Jesus Christ, sent from God on a merciful errand to a lost world, did not come empty; no, he is fraught with all blessings suitable to all persons, extending to all times, enduring to all eternity. —John Newton, Works

The Penning Pastor: A Tree Without Root

A Christian is the child of God by faith in Christ: he draws near to God in the name of Christ: he is led and supported by the Spirit of Christ: Christ is the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, of the faith, hope, and love of every believer. From him alone every good desire proceeds: by him alone every good purpose is established: in him alone any of our best performances are acceptable. Let us beware (it is a necessary caution in these days) of a Christianity without Christ. I testify to you in plain words, that this is no better than a house without a foundation, a tree without a root, a body without a head, a hope without hope; a delusion, which, if persisted in, will end in irremediable destruction: “for other foundation can no man lay, than that which is laid, Christ Jesus ;” he is the corner-stone, “chosen of God and precious.” Alas! for those who are offended with him in whom God is well pleased! but those who trust in him shall never be ashamed. —John Newton, Works

Jesus Isn’t a Meal, He’s a Feast (John 6:22–58)

John chapter six isn’t about the Lord’s Supper, but it and the Supper are about the same truths. In both, Jesus uses a metaphor to point us to Himself, and one thing He tells us is that He is a meal, not a feast.

These Galileans failed to realize they were coming to the King of kings, not Burger King. You cannot have this bread your way. When Jesus tells them there is a heavenly Bread that endures for eternal life, they ask for it (John 6:34). They want eternal life, but they want only a meal, not a feast.  They want Jesus as they want Him (cf. John 6:14–15).

Jesus’ doesn’t make himself palatable to sinful tastes. He pushes the metaphor to the extreme to their disgust. Jesus keeps saying “Mana. Mana. Mana.” Like their forefathers they grumble at the heavenly Bread the Father has provided, proving themselves to be another generation doomed to perish in the wilderness due to unbelief (cf. Hebrews 3, 1 Corinthians 10:1–11).

Jesus then has the audacity to tell them that He isn’t an acquired taste, but a given taste (John 6:37, 44–45, 65). You can’t by effort come to taste and see that Jesus is good. If you savor the Savior it is because your mouth has been washed by the waters of regeneration to give an appetite called faith. Jesus says that eating is coming and drinking is believing. Jesus is the eternally satisfying Bread of life to His people because they never stop eating, meaning, they never stop believing.

Man knows this much, he is hungry and thirsty. The problem isn’t a lack of appetite, but what we try to satiate that appetite with (John 6:27–29). There are many variations of the fountain of youth/life legends. Imagine that such a fountain exists in a narrow cave, but there’s a catch. There’s always a catch huh? Once you drink of the fountain you have eternal life, but you cannot leave the cave. Once you do, you die immediately. Man wants eternal life, but he wants to leave the cave. He wants Jesus as a meal, not a feast. He wants to drink the fountain only to enjoy other drinks. But what if the only thing worth devoting an eternity of existence to was knowing and enjoying the fountain? This is one of the many things we declare and anticipate in the Supper, that day when the bride will forever feast with her Beloved, and her every desire is fully satisfied in Him.

Prosperity Theology is Prosperity Worship (Psalm 4)

“Offer right sacrifices, and put your trust in the LORD.” —Psalm 4:5

David calls for his enemies, those who are trying to shame his honor (Psalm 4:2), to offer right sacrifices. I believe the implications is that they were offering sacrifices—to YHWH! But, they were not right. Why? Their sacrifices made in the temple and according to the law, were expressions of rebellion and idolatry.

I also take the “many” referred to in v. 6 to be these same enemies. David goes on to contrast himself with them in v. 7.

“There are many who say, ‘Who will show us some good? Lift up the light of your face upon us, O Lord!’ You have put more joy in my heart than they have when their grain and wine abound.

Why were these men—Jews, not Gentiles—unhappy with David, God’s anointed? They wanted “good,” they wanted it as it came from YHWH invoking the Aaronic blessing (Numbers 6:22-27). They were prosperity theologians. They wanted the good, they would even render up service to God in seeking it, but they despised God’s king. They wanted God’s goods, but not His “son” (Psalm 2:7). David, in contrast, delights in God Himself. David is opposed, yet finds superior joy in God Himself. His enemies lack some good, and are disgusted with God’s king. Who is worshipping God?

These men treated sacrifices like quarters and God as a vending machine to dispense the goods they want. Likewise, much worship, in Christian congregations, is a rebellious act of treason against King Jesus (cf. Isaiah 1:12–20). You cannot by much sacrifice wield God to bless your unrighteous rebellion.

The Warrior Poet

“To the Choirmaster: with stringed instruments. A Psalm of David” —Psalm 4 Heading

“These are the men whom David put in charge of the service of song in the house of the LORD after the ark rested there. They ministered with song before the tabernacle of the tent of meeting…” —1 Chronicles 6:31–32

“[Hezekiah] stationed the Levites in the house of the LORD with cymbals, harps, and lyres, according to the commandment of David and of Gad the king’s seer and of Nathan the prophet, for the commandment was from the LORD through his prophets. The Levites stood with the instruments of David…” —2 Chronicles 29:25–26

To the ancient Jew, David would’ve been their most revered king, lyricist, and composer. He is King Richard, Shakespeare, and Bach all in one. He was the warrior poet. He led His people into war. He led them into worship.

Jesus is the true and better David. He is the King of the king, the substance behind the shadow of David. He is the inspiration of David’s poems; they not only speak of Jesus, in them, Jesus speaks. He is the ultimate worship leader, gathering a people from every tribe, tongue, and nation to sing in harmony  to the praise of His glory.

Despising the Shame of the Psalms for the Joy of Greater Glory (Psalm 3)

I’m afraid many confess to love the psalms as many confess to love Jesus; it’s a sentimental love based on imagination. Like a piece of childhood nostalgia revisited, upon inspection, many find the psalms aren’t as pure and good as their flannel graph memories. The psalms might be the most warmly affirmed yet least known portion of Scripture. We speak of them like we would a great ancestor, but are later shamed to learn that he held slaves. What are we to do with language like this?

“Arise, O Lord! Save me, O my God! For you strike all my enemies on the cheek; you break the teeth of the wicked (Psalm 3:7).”

“O daughter of Babylon, doomed to be destroyed, blessed shall he be who repays you with what you have done to us! Blessed shall he be who takes your little ones and dashes them against the rock (Psalm 137:8–9)!”

I think perhaps the truth that helps us to understand such difficult passages, and to rightly understand less difficult ones is this: often, though not exclusively, as Augustine said, Jesus is the great singer of the psalms. We can sing the psalms, but our covers never match Jesus’ original. “Arn’t these psalms for congregational worship?” Yes. “Can’t we sing them?” Yes. But, I believe you’ll find it is when the voice of the psalm is taken out of your mouth and put into the mouth of Christ that it is most sweet and meaningful. The second psalm teaches us this. That psalm not only speaks of Jesus, in it Jesus speaks, and thus we should approach many psalms of David. As psalms of God’s king over God’s people.

On problem we have is out distance from monarchy. Consider Britain’s anthem, “God Save the King.”

God save our gracious King!
Long live our noble King!
God save the King!
Send him victorious,
Happy and glorious,
Long to reign over us,
God save the King.

Thy choicest gifts in store,
On him be pleased to pour,
Long may he reign. / May he defend our laws,
And ever give us cause,
To sing with heart and voice,
God save the King.

We’d do better to sing the psalms like a Brit. Our individualism too often infects the psalms as we want to make them like our modern worship choruses, centered around ourselves and our emotions. But the psalms, like the truly great hymns of the faith, are centered around Christ. If we’d approach this psalm more like a patriotic anthem, rather than a personal lament, we’d hit closer to the mark.

One might think I’m trying to rob them of the psalms, but this doesn’t mean we sing the psalms less, but more. The King’s personal lament, that we are assured was heard by God, means that we sing His lament as a song of praise. Jesus’ sorrow means our joy.

David knew that his personal welfare and the blessedness of the people of God were linked together because of God’s covenant (Psalm 3:8). David’s zeal for his enemies’ destruction wasn’t personal vengeance, but holy worshipful zeal. Opposition to David was opposition to God (Psalm 2:2–3), and to the good of God’s people.

Now consider how this is fulfilled in the King. Jesus was surrounded by enemies, enemies who were close to him. Judas betrays with a kiss. His fellow countrymen who had welcomed him into the city shouting, “Hosanna to the Son of David!” soon cry “Crucify him!” wishing him to be driven from the city. Like David, Jesus departs His city, the place of His rightful rule. He is driven outside to be shamed and mocked as forsaken by God. But unlike David, who was only being chastened in love, Jesus is forsaken in wrath. Like David, Jesus is suffering for sin, but unlike David, Jesus isn’t suffering for His sins, but the sins of His people. But God lifted up the head that bowed saying “It is finished.” and bestowed on Him the name above all names. In Christ our enemies’ teeth are shattered. The serpent has been de-fanged by the crushing weight of his crucified heel, and we boast with Paul “O death where is your sting?”

How do we sing this psalm, and many others? In Jesus’ name and for Jesus name. Maybe if our reading of the psalms was Christocentric then our worship would be, or, maybe if more contemporary worship music was Christocentric, we’d be better readers of the psalms.