MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.— Exodus 26:15-30
THE BOARDS AND BARS OF THE TABERNACLE
Christ is the true Tabernacle, the ground of the world’s reconciliation, and refuge, and hope. What living truths are suggested to us by this passage concerning the Saviour and His great salvation?
I. That invincible strength underlies the apparent weakness of the Gospel. When we regard the vails and curtains of the Tabernacle, we might think it a frail structure to be swept away by the winds; but under these draperies are solid boards fixed in solid sockets, and strong bars, giving to the whole frame-work of the building the greatest consistency and compactness. In the days of His flesh how weak Christ appeared, and yet what power dwelt in His word and spirit! “He was crucified through weakness, yet He liveth by the power of God.” How contemptible the Gospel in the eyes of worldly wisdom, and yet how powerful and invincible! How feeble the Church of Christ often appears, and yet the mightiest storms of persecution have failed to sweep it away! We learn—
II. That the Gospel, despite all its natural and human aspects, has a Divine character and basis. “The tenons were not fixed directly in the ground;” for the habitation of God should have no connection with earth; but they are fitted into sockets; and these are inserted in the ground, so that one socket always corresponded with one tenon.”—Kalisch. Christ is not of the earth: before He ascended into heaven, He first descended. The whole scheme of salvation is a Divine and supernatural work. This Tabernacle “descended out of heaven from God.” Our faith rests in the power of God. The sockets of silver supporting the Tabernacle, and disconnecting it from the earth, symbolises the great truth that the Church of Jesus rests, not on human wisdom, or strength, or love, but, whilst it touches earth, it belongs altogether to heaven. The solid silver, and not the shifting sand, reminds us that faith in Christ rests on a Divine and firm foundation, and not on the yielding opinions of men, and the changing fashions of the world.
III. That out of the strength of Christ spring the highest glory and joy. “And thou shalt overlay the boards with gold: and thou shalt overlay the bars with gold,” Exodus 26:29. The salvation of Christ is not a bare salvation, but it brings with it also beauty of character, joy of heart, and a hope full of glory. Let the world know their mistake in attempting to realize beauty and blessedness without the strength of God—the strength of righteousness. It cannot be. Beauty of life and joy of heart can never be real and lasting if not based on the immortal love and strength of God. “Strength and beauty are in the sanctuary.” And let the Church seek to realize its full privilege in Christ. In character, we are often satisfied with the bare boards of mere honesty and uprightness; in experience, we are content with the boards and bars, a mere sense of safety: in hope, we rest content with the bare expectation of pulling through in the judgment. The gilded boards of the Tabernacle are eloquent illustrations of the New Testament doctrine, that in Christ we must rise to beauty, to brightness, to bliss.
IV. That Christ is an everlasting dwelling-place to His people. The Tabernacle was built of boards of acacia-wood. The wood of the acacia is so durable, that it is said even not to rot in water. The strength of Christ is everlasting. “We are born not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible; by the word of God which liveth and abideth for ever.”
Let us hide in Christ, forsaking all refuges of lies.
ILLUSTRATIONS
BY
REV. WILLIAM ADAMSON
Tabernacle-Thoughts! Exodus 26:1-30.
1. Rosenmuller says that the portable temple of the Israelites had in its whole arrangement a resemblance with the temples of antiquity. Lachemacher states that in many of the Grecian temples the back part was not to be entered by anybody; and here the statue of the deity was placed. Spencer shows that in the Egyptian temples the inner or sacred part was shrouded in darkness, and divided from the front or outer portion by a curtain embroidered with gold.
2. Law sees in the Tabernacle a type of Christ—a sketch of that fair frame of Christ, which God the Holy Spirit wrought and planted in this earth. He is the true Tabernacle of Hebrews 8:2, the greater and more perfect Tabernacle of Hebrews 9:11. It points to a mystic fabric which human hands produce not—which human skill erects not—which human imperfection taints not. Christ is discerned, the end and excellence of the predictive house.
3. Macmillan suggests that it is an emblem of man indwelt by the Holy Spirit. Man’s body is a tabernacle sojourning in the wilderness of the world. In his constitution God has wrought out in higher form the great truths which were symbolised in the Jewish tabernacle. But what constituted its glory! The Shekinah—the token and symbol of God’s Presence. Without this, its golden furniture and priceless jewels were meaningless, as our world without the shining of the sun. So what constitutes the glory of man is Christ dwelling in the heart.
“As some rare perfume in a vase of clay
Pervades it with a fragrance not its own,
So when Thou dwellest in a mortal soul,
All heaven’s own sweetness seems around it thrown.”
Divine Æstheticism! Exodus 26:1-37.
(1.) Henry Martyn wrote, “Since I have known God in a saving manner, painting, poetry, and music have had charms unknown to me before. I have received what I suppose is a taste for them; or Religion has refined my mind and made it susceptible of impressions from the sublime and beautiful. Oh, how Religion secures the heightened enjoyment of those pleasures which keep so many from God by their becoming a source of pride!”
(2.) Win-slow says that to the new creature in Christ Jesus even the world of nature seems as a newborn creation, now that he has passed from death unto life. The sun shines brighter—the air breathes softer—the flowers smell sweeter—the landscape is clad with deeper verdure and richer loveliness. In a word, the whole creation appears in newborn beauty and sublimity.
(3) Even so Christ is not seen to be full of loveliness outside. Once in Him, the soul perceives His exquisite beauty; “My Beloved is fair and ruddy, the chiefest amongst ten thousand; yea, He is altogether lovely.” Once, he could perceive no beauty in Him that He should desire Him; now he exclaims, “Thou art all my salvation, and all my desire!”
“All over glorious is my Lord,
Must be beloved, and yet ador’d;
His worth if all the nations knew,
Sure the whole earth would love Him too.”
—Erskine.
Woods and Forests! Exodus 26:15-30.
(1.) Whence did Israel obtain the wood, as trees are now small and scarce! The wilderness was not always without forests. No doubt the sepal, the tree which now sparsely occurs, grew in extensive woods. These were being cut down at the time of the Exodus, in order to serve as fuel in the ancient smelting works, many of which were found by Holland among the Sinaitic mountains. These vast mines could not be worked when the supplies of fuel in the shape of the acacia forests ceased; but recently Captain Burton has resumed their workings, by way of experiment, in behalf of the Khedive of Egypt. He has brought specimens of the metallic ores, as enumerated in this chapter.
(2.) This denudation of the Arabian Peninsula would seriously alter the state of the country, as all who know the service of trees in the economy of nature can realise. Greece and Italy have changed for the worse since their forests were cut down, and no doubt at the time of the Exodus, when timber covered the sides of the hills, streams washed the dry ravines, rains attracted by the foliage carpeted the soil, affording no inconsiderable sustenance for cattle.
“There, interspersed in meads and opening glades,
These trees arise and shun each other’s shades;
There in full light the verdant plains extend,
And, wrapt in cloud, the granite hills ascend;
E’en the wild heath displays its purple dyes,
And ’midst the desert grassy meads arise.”
—Pope.
Tabernacle-Base! Exodus 26:15. The tabernacle in the wilderness had no foundation. It was pitched in the bare and sterile desert. Its floor was the shifting yellow sand. No marble pavement or cedar hoarding separated the golden furniture and the costly curtains from the naked ground. Barefooted priests in splendid vestments paced over the earth in the discharge of their sacred functions. But it is not so with the spiritual temple. There is no combination in it of beauty and barrenness—preciousness and worthlessness—imperishableness and changeableness—glory and vanity. It is all fair, all glorious. It is built upon solid and enduring bases—the foundation of the Apostles and Prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner-stone.
“Ah! why on sands like these thy temple rear!
How shall its base the storms and billows shun!
Build on the Eternal Rock of sapphire clear.
Art-Studies! Exodus 26:19-25. Lytton says that art is the effort of man to express the ideas which nature suggests to him of a power above nature. Hillard says that many persons feel art, some understand it, but few both feel and understand it. Emerson says that the study of art is of high value to the growth of the intellect; in other words, that the refining influence is the study of art. Cousin says that art neither belongs to religion nor ethics; but that, like these, it brings us nearer to the Infinite. Hazlitt says that art must anchor in nature, or it is the sport of every breath of folly. Victor says that the basis of true beauty is moral, which, however, is veiled in nature; and that it is the province of art to bring out this moral beauty, and to give it more transparent forms.
“Happy who walks with Him, whom what he finds
Of flavour, or of scent in fruit or flower,
Or what he views of beautiful and grand
In nature, from the broad majestic oak
To the green blade that twinkles in the sun,
Prompts with remembrance of a PRESENT GOD.”
—Cowper.
Tabernacle-Materials! Exodus 26:19-25.
(1.) Some suggest that the golden ornaments and vessels, the silver sockets and brazen utensils, and the jewels on the high priest’s breastplate, represented the mineral kingdom. Law remarks that the gold typifies the transcendent blaze of Deity in Christ, the silver the ran-some-price paid for the redemption of souls, and the brass the enduring strength of the God-man.
(2.) It, is further noticed that the boards of shittim wood or acacia, the table of shewbread, the linen wrappings, and the ornamentation of the furniture, represent the vegetable kingdom. Law says that the wood symbolised the spotless purity of Christ’s manhood, the white linen the holy life, and the furniture the various adornments of redemption’s scheme.
(3.) The coverings of badgers’ and goats’ skins, and the crimson colours of its curtains, procured from the juice of a shellfish or an insect, thus represent the animal kingdom. Law suggests that the coverings indicate the meek and lowly guise in which Christ lived on earth; and the crimson colours the stream of precious blood that flowed when the sword of divine justice pierced the side of Christ.
“Thou usest all Thy works,
The meanest things that be;
Each has a service of its own,
For all things wait on Thee.”
—Bonar.
Beauty’s Ministry! Exodus 26:30.
(1.) Mrs. Stowe says that the human heart yearns for the beautiful. The beautiful things which God makes are free to all ranks in life. A love of the beautiful is implanted in every one; but it rusts out and dies, either because they are too hard pressed with the cares of life, or because they are too much engrossed with the pleasures of sin, to cultivate it. He who implanted the yearning has given ample opportunity for its lawful gratification.
(2.) The old parchments, with their beautiful thoughts, were marred by minds of a subsequent generation covering them over with puerile representations; but science has enabled man to destroy or erase this obliteration, and so to restore the original writings. The cares of life and the pleasures of sin obscure the taste for the Beautiful; but Divine Grace removes this defect, and disposes the renewed mind to appreciate the Ministry of Beauty.
(3.) A gifted writer says that Beauty was the angel of deliverance that led him out of darkness into light. “My nature was a seething caldron of ungoverned passions; but I loved nature. The beauty of twilight—the sweet influence of a summer night—the purity and freshness of early morning—would soften my most wayward mood.” Alas! all this “light” was not the light of life. Beauty cannot lead the soul into that light. As the priest within the holy place could not tee its Ministry of Beauty without the aid of the oil, type of the Holy Spirit, and as the high priest could not when within the Holiest perceive its glories without the Shekinah—light; so the soul cannot enjoy the beauties of religion without the spirit and presence of Christ. Spirit of Beauty,
“What is thy worship but a vain pretence,
If they who tend thine altars, gathering thence
No strength, no purity, may still remain
Selfish and dark, and from life’s sordid storm
Find in their ministrations no defence?”—Trench.