Friday, June 07, 2013

The Tabernacle/Tent of Meeting

This week I’d like to tell you about the Tabernacle of God, what it teaches us about His plan of salvation, and how it is reflected in our churches today.

The Tabernacle was a large tent used by Israelites to worship the Lord.  It was the place where God made His presence known among them; for this reason it was also known as the Tent of Meeting.  The Tabernacle was built according to God’s design, given to Moses at Mount Sinai.  There were three spaces in the structure.  An outer courtyard was open to the sky.  Inside the courtyard was a large enclosed space called the Holy Place.  At the back of this room, screened from view by a heavy curtain, was a smaller chamber called the Most Holy Place.  The courtyard was where people came to express their devotion to God.  The Holy Place was reserved for priests and their work.  The Most Holy Place belonged to God alone. 

This floor plan was designed to teach people about our relationship with God.  We are evil; sin makes us filthy through and through.  God is holy; nothing impure may come before His presence.  God stands in the Most Holy Place; we are outside where sin keeps us from seeing or approaching His glory. 

But the Tabernacle was a Tent of Meeting; its purpose was to connect us to our Maker.  And so God provided the Holy Place.  The Holy Place is where the priests did their work—they acted as mediators between God and His people.  The design of the Tabernacle taught every Jew that the only way to connect with God was through the work of the priesthood.

Eventually, the Tent of Meeting was replaced by a Temple of stone and wood.  The same basic design remained—outer court, Holy Place, Most Holy Place.  But when Jesus died on the cross, something remarkable happened—at that moment, the curtain of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51).  When Jesus completed His suffering, He ripped away the sin separating us from God—through Jesus, we now have direct access to the Lord of heaven.  Jesus is our High Priest; He is our Mediator with the Almighty.  When Jesus speaks, we hear the words of God; when we pray to Jesus, God listens to us.  Jesus has replaced both Temple and Tabernacle; Jesus is where we now go to meet God.

Among the most important furnishings in the Tabernacle were the altars.  There were two: the Altar of Burnt Offering and the Altar of Incense.  The Altar of Burnt Offering was the place where animals were sacrificed to the Lord; the Altar of Incense burned aromatic spices that filled the air with their perfume.

The sacrifice of animals was necessary because of sin.  God’s punishment for sin is death; but in order to show us mercy, He was willing to accept someone else’s blood in place of ours. God told the Israelites the life of a creature is in the blood, and I have given it to you to make atonement for yourselves on the altar; it is the blood that makes atonement for one's life (Leviticus 17:11).  When the people angered God with their disobedience, they brought an animal for sacrifice on the altar.  This was not a cheap way to get off the hook; giving away an animal was a financial sacrifice.  But giving up a source of food and income was a small matter when compared to escaping God’s punishment, so they were happy that the Lord accepted animal blood in place of theirs.

We don’t offer animals for sacrifice anymore; Jesus has made the practice unnecessary.  In fact, those animal sacrifices were just placeholders serving until the time of Jesus’ death on the cross.  Our Lord shed His blood, God’s blood, in place of ours.  This is why Jesus had to be Son of God and Son of Man. Only as a man could God shed blood and die; only the blood of God could have enough worth to settle the debt incurred by every human sin. 

Churches still have altars, but their purpose has changed.  There is no longer any sacrifice of blood; Jesus has done everything needed to forgive our sins and make us right with God.  But the altar does remind us that salvation did not come cheaply; it cost the Son of God His very life.  We should be humbled by this sacrifice and deeply grateful.  We should be moved by love to give ourselves to Christ as living sacrifices, putting His work before our pleasures.  The altar is a symbol of dedication—God’s dedication to us and our dedication to Him.

I mentioned earlier that there were two altars in the Tabernacle—the other being the Altar of Incense.  The Altar of Incense was tended each day, sending fragrance throughout the Tent of Meeting and up towards heaven.  The Altar of Burnt Offering was concerned with bringing God’s mercy to the people; the Altar of Incense was about showing appreciation to the Lord of heaven.  God’s people wanted to honor Him by burning sweet perfumes for His enjoyment.

The Altar of Incense is also connected with prayer.  In Revelation chapter eight we read the following: Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all the saints, on the golden altar before the throne.  The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of the saints, went up before God from the angel's hand.  God loves hearing our prayers; they go up to Him like fragrant incense.  He wants us to thank Him for His blessings.  He wants us to seek His guidance and ask for His protection.  Through Jesus, God has proven that He wants to share our joys and sorrows, so He urges us to pray continually (1 Thessalonians 5:17).

Another item in the Tabernacle was the Golden Candlestick.  In a room with no windows, this was the only source of light and it was always kept burning.  This candlestick represented the Light of God that pushes back the darkness of sin and death.  This light shines in our lives through Jesus, who described Himself as the light of the world; He said, Whoever follows me will never walk in darkness, but will have the light of life (John 8:12).  The Golden Candlestick of the Tabernacle lives on in churches that fill the sanctuary with candles. 

The Tent of Meeting also included a table filled with loaves of fresh bread.  This represented how God watches over His followers, providing for their every need.  However, we must remember that man does not live on bread alone but on every word that comes from the mouth of the LORD (Deuteronomy 8:3).  The Word of God came to us in human form; it is Jesus who gives nourishment to the soul.  He said, I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty (John 6:35).  It is only through Jesus that we can truly have life, life that is full and everlasting.

Of all the things found in God’s Tent of Meeting, nothing was more sacred or important than the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark was a box made from acacia wood, covered in gold.  The lid featured two angels facing each other, their wings bending down and forward.  Inside were the stone tablets containing the Ten Commandments, a copy of God’s Book of the Law dictated to Moses, the staff of Aaron that miraculously sprouted buds, and a jar of manna (the bread of God sent to feed the Israelites while living in the desert).  The Ark was holy; to touch it was to die instantly by the hand of God.  This was because God treated the Ark as His earthly throne.  The lid was called the Mercy Seat; it was here, between the angels, that God would show His magnificent glory. 

The Ark of the Covenant was designed by God as a witness to Christ’s redeeming work.  It was made from wood that grew in the desert; Isaiah spoke of Jesus as a root out of dry ground, the only life growing in a world made dead by sin.  The box was covered in gold, representing Jesus’ glory as the Son of God. The Commandments and the Book of the Law demand perfect obedience; because no sinner is capable this, God’s Son lived a perfect life as our representative.  The manna was bread created by God from the morning dew; Jesus is our bread of life, filling us with a vitality that death cannot bring to an end.  Aaron’s staff, although it was dead wood, sprouted with new life by God’s command; in the same way Jesus, although dead in the grave, rose alive by the command of God to live forever as our Savior. The lid of the Ark was called the Mercy Seat; it was sprinkled with the same sacrificial blood that marked the Israelites as children of God.  When Jesus sits on His throne and judges us as our King, He shows mercy on everyone marked by His blood and forgives them. 

The Ark is lost to time; no one knows where it lies or if it even still exists.  But it did its job; it helped God’s people understand the great things Jesus would do when He came.  That’s what the Tabernacle and the Temple were all about; showing us how God reaches out to sinners through His Son.  Jesus is the Tabernacle.  He is the Altar, the Candlestick, the Bread, the Ark.  Jesus is where you can meet God, now and always.

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