The tabernacle is constructed in the exact order as God instructed Moses. The very last task to be completed is making the garments the priests must wear to minister to God in the Holy Place. They are not to appear before either in filthy garments or naked. As in the garden God clothed Adam and Eve appropriately before sending them out of God’s presence. Now we see that the priests are not to return to the presence of God without an appropriate and distinguished covering. This indicates that man is still inherently sinful and cannot appear before a holy God naked, for we wear our sins like garments of flesh. In the beginning, God made the earth, like the tabernacle. The author of Hebrews says that the outer tabernacle is in fact symbolic of the earth. God made living things, like the furniture and the utensils and the holy articles which fill the temple. He made the garden like the sanctuary, he made Adam, like the priests and he made them garments to cover their nakedness. God tells them most directly do not let any of your private parts show. There seemed something offensive and extra filthy about a man’s private parts. Was it that God could see from eternity past to eternity future all the perversion that would stem from this place on his body? Was it that it was a reminder of the first sin or the continuance in sin in the seeds that would emerge from this part of a man? Is that why he instructed them to circumcise all males as a sign of the covenant? We can only speculate. But we know that throughout the scripture’s garments are mentioned that the angels appear in white garments, that there are robes of righteousness and garments of praise, that we as Christians are instructed to put on the “armor of God” to protect ourselves and that in the end the linen garments are a symbol of the righteous acts of the saints, whereas the filthy garments are a picture of the sinfulness of that man. In Zechariah the angel of the Lord is instructed to remove “Joshua’s filthy garments as symbolic that his sin has been taken away.” So while these priestly garments with their extensive details and colors and weighty materials are assumably no longer necessary to approach God there is something that remains valuable about appearing before God clothed in something special. AS Christians that something special is the blood of Christ with which we actually wash our filthy robes and make them white again?
God made a place for man in the beginning to dwell with Adam his son. He walked with him, talked with him, he gave adam work and instructed him to cultivate this sacred paradise called the Garden of Eden. This is where they would meet and where he would converse with Adam (man). Adam had access to eternal life but chose knowledge and evil instead. Man fell and was cast out of that sanctuary, God made garments to remind all of sin and death too which man was now bound and he was to wander and work the earth and dust from which he came, like Egypt, as slaves.
But now God has reached into Egypt rescued his people and begun to restore and deliver them little by little. He gives them a plan and a pattern. God instructs Israel to make a tabernacle, a sanctuary and a meeting place and garments – not so that they can return to the garden, not yet, but so that God can dwell with them in the filth of the earth. God is willing to Come down, to join them in the places they were cast.
What a beautiful Picture of Christ that we see begin to take shape in the book of Exodus.
Just as Adam took of the fruit from the tree of knowledge of good and evil disobeying Gods first command, so too Israel broke the first of God’s commandment, “you shall have no other gods before me.” They took all the gold and fashioned a calf. Was Adam’s sin not in some ways breaking the same command. Although he directly defied Gd’s one and first command do not eat ofo the tree of knowledge, yet it really was you shall have no other gods before me. And adam did, adam listened to his own voice, the voice oof his wife the vovice of the enemy and ultimately all of these became gods in a way that Adam listened to and followed over and above the one true God their cerator and father. Man continues to sin and reject God’s commandments over and over again in the same way.
But God in his mercy and unwavering love for his creation and children forgivens again and again. God lets the sons of Israel make the tabernacle, and he makes it holy so that he dwell in it and he says “I will dwell there in the midst of my people as a picture of eternity.” God keeps his word for when it is finished and fully constructed and consecrated his glry and presence fill the holy place and all throughout the wildnerness junrye Godo is in the midst of Israel leading guiding directing and loving them into the promise land.
All the details the fine twisted linen, the rings and the stones and the engravings and the garments show us the sacred nature of God and of the sacred nature of his dwelling. We see the particulars of how a priest must dress and appear and minister to Yahweh. When the priests go before the Lord they bear the names of the twelve tribes of Israel every single time for they are to worn around his neck in front of his breast as a breastplate. These are heavy and surely the priests feel the weight of that burden each and every time they appear before God, they cannot forget Israel and neither will God. The garments were heavy, the stones, the bells, the material the gold, the layers, the turban. This was not small task putting in on and taking it off. The priests were required to prepare themselves too the utmost before entering the presence of the Highest.
There was a plate of Gold upon the priest’s head, “holy to the lord” like the twelve stones these are found in the book of revelation. The linen garments are the righteous acts of the saints again found in revelation. The end of the end is all about the tabernacle of God among men coming down out of heaven, but the one HE makes for us to dwell together, made without hands, likely the pattern that the earthly tent was made from, as was shown to Moses on the mountain. The people of Israel did all the work, then Moses blessed them.
The priests were called to the most important task in Israel they were to atone for the sins of Israel by bringing blood, they were to minister and appear before Yahweh and they were too teach the laws of Yahweh to the people of Yahweh. They alone were permitted to enter the holiest place, and only covered with these spectacular garments. They had to be dressed in a way which inspired awe reverence and attentiveness by the people, but also in a way that hid their flesh and shame from the Lord God who is to holy to look upon sin. Ot gives new meaning to the immense power of Christ blood.
Sadly, over time the priests failed. They failed to teach God’s laws to God’s people in way that truly honored Gd and revealed his mercy to his people. These garments became a source of pride and misused power.
If Gd knew this why allow it? Why go through all this hardship and grueling work? But then again why make a garden of Eden if God knew Edam and Eve along with all their seed would be cast out? Only to leave the sanctuary empty and void of both God and man.
Here is why I suggest: God desires that we know there is something to return to that we are trying to get back too, only not back but forward. Heaven and the kingdom of God awaits us it is paradise, it is the place where we dwell with Gd and he is our God and we his people, he waits like the prodigal’s father with arms open to all who return. He has set eternity into our hearts, so that we never forget where we came from or where we are headed. One day our garments of filth and pride will be replaced with robes of righteousness and garments of praise. We will bear God’s name on our foreheads. We will be a kingdom of priests. We will once again dwell with God and walk with Jesus in communion and intimacy and for now the veil is torn and we get to enter into his presence through prayer, but some day face to face.
my faith place 