The Tabernacle - A pattern, a figure, a shadow
Few people realize the great importance of the Tabernacle in scripture. 2 chapters are given to creation. But there are 50 chapters that are devoted to a description of the Tabernacle and it’s related ministries. 50 Chapters! That’s a lot. To give you some idea of how much that is, Galatians, Ephesians, Philippians, Colossians, 1 Thessalonians, II Thessalonians, 1 Timothy, 2 Timothy, Titus, Philemon, 1 Peter, and 2 Peter are 50 chapters. How much teaching is there in those 12 books? God did not say my Bible is going to be too small so I need 50 chapters of filler. God has things for us to learn by studying the Tabernacle.
But sadly you hear very little about the Tabernacle in churches today. It is almost like they are disregarding 50 chapters of God’s word. From cover to cover it is all God’s word.
2Ti 3:16 All scripture [is] given by inspiration of God, and [is] profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness:
All scripture would also include the Old Testament. It would also include the Tabernacle.
Paul said,
Act 20:27 For I have not shunned to declare unto you all the counsel of God.
We should do likewise. We need to teach the whole counsel of God.
Some might say we will stay with teaching about Jesus and we don’t teach out of the Old Testament.
What people who say that don’t understand is that the Old Testament is about Jesus.
Psa 40:7 Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book [it is] written of me,
Notice it does not say in a few parts of the book. No it says in the volume of the book.
Jesus is in the entire volume of this Blessed Book.
Jesus said in,
Luk 24:44 And he said unto them, These [are] the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fulfilled, which were written in the law of Moses, and [in] the prophets, and [in] the psalms, concerning me.
The law of Moses is a reference to the first 5 books of the Bible. And Jesus said that what is written therein is concerning Him.
And you are going to see thru this series that there is nothing else in the Old Testament that speaks more of Christ than the Tabernacle. The entire Tabernacle, Every piece of furniture points to Christ. Every hanging, every piece of cloth, every sacrifice and every ceremony all pointed to Christ. From the materials that it was made from to the very colors that were used all symbolized Jesus.
If you are not seeing Jesus when you are reading the Old Testament, then you are missing the main point.
You see God teaching spiritual principals in the Old Testament by using pictures. Teaching by pictures is a very good teaching method that we use today. You know the saying a picture is worth a thousand words. Teaching by pictures is powerful and God knew that.
Sometimes it helps you to understand something better if you can see it with your eyes first. Then when someone gives you the explanation in words you have something you can relate it to.
Say for example you go to the jungle where no man has been before and you tell them about an automobile. They are not going to understand your explanation of it very well.
But if you let them see a car first, and let them see it in operation, then when you explain to them what an automobile is and what it’s purpose is and it’s value, and how to operate it, they are going to understand much better than if they had never seen a car.
What we have in the Tabernacle are pictures of the revealed truth of the New Testament.
We see in the Tabernacle New Testament truth laid out before us in a way we can see it. In pictures. And the pictures in the Tabernacle will help us to see more clearly the revealed truth in the New Testament.
And the Tabernacle was not something that Moses made up. Moses was instructed to make all things in the Tabernacle according to the pattern that God showed him.
A Pattern
Heb 8:5 Who serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things, as Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, [that] thou make all things according to the pattern shewed to thee in the mount.
Moses was not allowed any creative license with the Tabernacle.
Moses was in the mount a long time.
Exo 24:18 And Moses went into the midst of the cloud, and gat him up into the mount: and Moses was in the mount forty days and forty nights.
Moses goes up to the mountain and God starts to give him the instructions for the Tabernacle.
Exo 25:8 And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them.
Exo 25:9 According to all that I shew thee, [after] the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make [it].
Exo 25:10 And they shall make an ark [of] shittim wood: two cubits and a half [shall be] the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof.
And the instructions go to Chapter 31.
In Chapter 32 Moses is interrupted.
Exo 32:1 And when the people saw that Moses delayed to come down out of the mount, the people gathered themselves together unto Aaron, and said unto him, Up, make us gods, which shall go before us; for [as for] this Moses, the man that brought us up out of the land of Egypt, we wot not what is become of him.
And you know what happened.
Exo 32:7 And the LORD said unto Moses, Go, get thee down; for thy people, which thou broughtest out of the land of Egypt, have corrupted [themselves]:
Moses had to go down and deal with the corruption.
After that mess is dealt with then God tells Moses to come back up the mountain.
Exo 34:1 And the LORD said unto Moses, Hew thee two tables of stone like unto the first: and I will write upon [these] tables the words that were in the first tables, which thou brakest.
Exo 34:2 And be ready in the morning, and come up in the morning unto mount Sinai, and present thyself there to me in the top of the mount.
Exo 34:3 And no man shall come up with thee, neither let any man be seen throughout all the mount; neither let the flocks nor herds feed before that mount.
Exo 34:4 And he hewed two tables of stone like unto the first; and Moses rose up early in the morning, and went up unto mount Sinai, as the LORD had commanded him, and took in his hand the two tables of stone.
So Moses went back up the mountain.
Exo 34:28 And he was there with the LORD forty days and forty nights; he did neither eat bread, nor drink water. And he wrote upon the tables the words of the covenant, the ten commandments.
Exo 34:29 And it came to pass, when Moses came down from mount Sinai with the two tables of testimony in Moses' hand, when he came down from the mount, that Moses wist not that the skin of his face shone while he talked with him.
Exo 34:30 And when Aaron and all the children of Israel saw Moses, behold, the skin of his face shone; and they were afraid to come nigh him.
Moses was in the mountain with God for 40 days the first time and then another 40 days the second time. That is 80 days.
One of the reasons that Moses was in the Mount for such a long time was to receive all the detailed instructions for the Tabernacle.
God gave such great detail about the Tabernacle because God was going to use it as a figure.
A Figure
Heb 9:7 But into the second [went] the high priest alone once every year, not without blood, which he offered for himself, and [for] the errors of the people:
Heb 9:8 The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing:
Heb 9:9 Which [was] a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience;
The Bible says that the Tabernacle was a figure for the time then present. The gifts and sacrifices that were offered it says could not make him that did the service perfect. The Tabernacle itself did not have the power to save anyone. The Tabernacle could not clean the conscience.
But the Tabernacle was a figure of what could. And as you will see over and over in this study is that the tabernacle was a figure of Christ.
They were not saved by works during the Tabernacle days and now we are saved by grace.
Rom 3:20 Therefore by the deeds of the law there shall no flesh be justified in his sight: for by the law [is] the knowledge of sin.
Rom 8:3 For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God sending his own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh:
That is a pretty clear statement, what the law could not do.
What the law could not do was accomplished by God sending His own Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, and for sin, condemned sin in the flesh.
Rom 4:13 For the promise, that he should be the heir of the world, [was] not to Abraham, or to his seed, through the law, but through the righteousness of faith.
Rom 4:14 For if they which are of the law [be] heirs, faith is made void, and the promise made of none effect:
Rom 4:15 Because the law worketh wrath: for where no law is, [there is] no transgression.
Rom 4:16 Therefore [it is] of faith, that [it might be] by grace; to the end the promise might be sure to all the seed; not to that only which is of the law, but to that also which is of the faith of Abraham; who is the father of us all,
Only Jesus can save.
Only by putting faith in Jesus can save.
The Tabernacle was a figure of Jesus.
So the Israelites were saved not by doing the works of all the sacrifices and offerings.
The Israelites were saved by putting their faith in what the sacrifices and offerings were a figure of. And that is Jesus.
We get saved by looking back and putting faith in the Messiah who came.
They got saved by looking forward and having faith in a Messiah who would come.
Only faith in Jesus saves today and only faith in Jesus saved then.
They did not have a cross and the revealed Jesus to see and put faith in like we do.
So God gave them a figures pictures and foreshadowings of Jesus.
Heb 9:24 For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, [which are] the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us
The Holy places made with hands is a reference to the Tabernacle.
A Shadow
Heb 10:1 For the law having a shadow of good things to come, [and] not the very image of the things, can never with those sacrifices which they offered year by year continually make the comers thereunto perfect.
Jesus is in the O.T. in type and symbol
Gen 3:15 is the 1st foreshadowing
Gen 3:15 And I will put enmity between thee and the woman, and between thy seed and her seed; it shall bruise thy head, and thou shalt bruise his heel.
Heb 1:1 God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets,
Heb 1:2 Hath in these last days spoken unto us by [his] Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds;
One of the divers manners that God spoke in time past was by the pattern, the figure, the shadow of the Tabernacle.
Today God has spoken to us by His Son.
It is God that spoke both ways. It is the same God, so the message should be the same.
We should see God teaching us thru the Tabernacle the same thing as God teaches us thru His Son.
Now the Tabernacle will not teach us everything that the Son taught. God does deal in progressive revelation. Which simply means God continued to reveal more and more as time went on. So at the time of the Tabernacle not everything had been revealed yet. But what ever was revealed in the Tabernacle will not conflict with what God revealed later. God does not make mistakes.
Progressive revelation stopped when the Bible was completed. There is no more need for any more revelation. We have it all right here in our hands.
If we are looking at the Tabernacle correctly we will see Jesus. I heard someone one time teach that God put everything in the Tabernacle that He wants in your home. They then said that God even put a kitchen in the Tabernacle. They got that idea because there is a table with some bread on it. Hello. There is no kitchen in the Tabernacle. The table of showbread was not a picture of a kitchen in a house.
One of the mistakes that people make when teaching the Tabernacle is to try to make something mean something that God did not intend it to mean.
Another mistake that some make is trying to make everything mean something. I am sure that everything in the Tabernacle does mean something, but we should not have to stretch to get the meaning.
And we always need to keep in mind that the primary purpose of the tabernacle is to point to Christ. Not your home or any other off the wall thing.
The entire tabernacle and everything in it foreshadows Jesus, His work, His People, and how His people are to do His work.
Every piece of furniture pictures Christ
Ark – mediator
Alter of incense – intercessor
Golden candlestick – light
Table of showbread – bread
Laver – cleansing
Brazen alter – sacrifice
The overall type is the cross work of Christ – the pieces of the furniture are laid out in the form of a cross.
Why study the Tabernacle
1) study of the Tabernacle gives an understanding of God’s redemptive plan
2) Study of the Tabernacle shows the sinfulness of man
3) Study of the Tabernacle shows the Holiness of God
4) Study of the Tabernacle shows Christ’s fulfillment of God’s redemptive plan
5) The priestly ministry in the Tabernacle reveals how sinful man can approach a holy God with acceptable worship.
6) Study of the Tabernacle priesthood will give an understanding of Christ’s priestly ministry
7) Study of the Tabernacle will give us a greater appreciation of our role as believer priests. We have access anytime.
8) The sacrifices shows the great importance God placed on the need of a blood sacrifice
9) You need a good understanding of the Tabernacle to understand much in the book of Hebrews.
10) And every piece of the Tabernacle has a timeless truth to teach us that applies today.