GOD'S HOUSE AND ITS PROTECTION
GOD’S HOUSE AND ITS PROTECTION
AH Is it asking too much to ask you to say a word as to chapter 25, and the link with this chapter?
JT Chapter 25 is a question of what the people would supply to Jehovah as the outcome of love. Following chapter 25, what we have in chapter 26 is for housing. Verse 8 of chapter 25 reads, “And they shall make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I shall shew thee, the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the utensils thereof, even so shall ye make it”, Exodus 25:8. It is the idea of pattern, and of course what Christ was here, as indicating what is of heaven down here, and having therefore conditions of housing and protection; it is really God’s house, and that means Christ is here as Man as the pattern, and the assembly, too; that is the idea in the type, the dwelling-place of God. The quality of the metals, and so on, being so rich, reminds us of His house, “whose house are we”, (Hebrews 3:6); the saints are God’s house. This is very cursory and may not be perfect, but calls attention to the saints and what they are down here, and it is intended to affect us, as now; we can take more account of it, with the Holy Spirit here among us to fill out the divine thought, and make it practical here below.
HW Is it like John 17 and the Lord’s prayer for unity?
JT The thought runs right through; it is one tabernacle.
AH In that way chapter 26 indicates the wonderful graces that mark the saints.
JT The epistles, especially thinking of Paul, help [p. 144] us as to the curtains, boards, bars and pillars, all referring to the saints.
AH Why the Pauline epistles?
JT Paul is the architect of the assembly, the master builder, who laid the foundation of the assembly, and let others take care how they build upon it. He was “an elect vessel to me”. We have more of Paul’s history than of any other; we come to finality in Paul. Much had intervened after the resurrection and ascension, till Paul; but when he came things began to develop.
TJM Is this a portrayal of it?
JT The pattern is here; all is of one pattern. The whole matter was not there; it awaited the coming of the Holy Spirit. The thought is to bring out the sufferings of Christ, and we must have Paul to bring them out; none suffered as much as Paul: “I rejoice in sufferings for you, and I fill up that which is behind of the tribulations of Christ in my flesh, for his body, which is the assembly”, Colossians 1:24, Paul says and it is all suggested here in Exodus.
Ques Does it begin in Acts 13?
JT Yes; it was in Antioch that “the disciples were first called Christians”, Acts 11:26; that is what Christ is down here in a practical way, and that was first seen at Antioch; the assembly was first seen there in its proper form; and now we are to come up to it; suffering belongs to the moment.
AM “Through him we have both access by one Spirit to the Father”, Ephesians 2:18. Is that Jew and Gentile?
JT Very good; there is the thought of access there; we are not stationary.
Ques As to the ten curtains, would that refer to responsibility?
JT I would say that, but the number is more than that, than administration. So much is in the mind of God, as seen in Moses.
[p. 145] Ques Is the mind of God taken on, so that we have variety, ten curtains, not twelve?
JT Very fine. Then there is the colour, then the artistic work, and one measure for each curtain, so it says, “And thou shalt make the tabernacle [with] ten curtains of twined byssus, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubim of artistic work shalt thou make them. The length of one curtain shall be twenty-eight cubits, and the breadth of one curtain four cubits — one measure for all the curtains. Five of the curtains shall be coupled one to another, and [the other] five curtains coupled one to another. And thou shalt make loops of blue on the edge of the one curtain at the end of the coupling; and likewise shalt thou make [them] in the edge of the outermost curtain in the other coupling. Fifty loops shalt thou make in the one curtain, and fifty loops shalt thou make at the end of the curtain in the other coupling: the loops shall be opposite to one another. And thou shalt make fifty clasps of gold, and couple the curtains together with the clasps, that the tabernacle may be one [whole]”. Oneness is the great idea in it all; so that the Holy Spirit is to be given place; it is alluded to in the book of Hebrews.
Rem The first part, to the end of verse 6, is the tabernacle, the actual dwelling of God; the tent which follows is to protect that.
JT Very good, and in verse 7 there is a different set of things, curtains of goats’ hair, and another number, eleven; then metals or materials, gold, silver, copper, then wood, and so on; it is all instructive, and we get that in the epistles.
Rem Paul speaks of those who “love our Lord Jesus Christ in incorruption” Ephesians 6: 24, which would be like the first set of curtains, and “to those who love God”, Romans 8:28, would be like the second set.
JT God is above all, “one God and Father of all”, — all works through the one Lord, one faith, one baptism, to one God, from the outer to the inner; Ephesians 4:4 - 6.
AH Would righteousness be in view in the cherubim?
JT I should rather say government, and the care meetings, as we had yesterday, even to the sisters and their hair, for headship should be there; it is government.
Rem It is beauty according to God.
JT Yes, comeliness; it is now the goats’ hair, and the rams’ skins dyed red, for “the Christ’s head God”, 1 Corinthians 11:3.
AM As to the public side, would there be any link with the thought of the universe in Psalm 19?
JT Well; then Hebrews 3:4 says, “he who has built all things [is] God”, that is God in Sonship. It refers to the universe really, in a material sense, but the tabernacle refers to it in a spiritual sense, and is composed of persons, and speaks of love.
Rem It is held together in love.
JT We had that last evening, the woman in Revelation 12, speaking of “the remnant of her seed”; they keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus, and are called the remnant of her seed.
Rem You cannot have the one without the other.
JT It is very important that the thought of God should be before us. We are in the midst of the nations, their parliaments, their congresses, and so forth, and there should be some such thought of government in our meetings; but “the testimony of Jesus” brings Him into it all, and then the blessed Spirit, so that all three divine Persons are bound up in the fellowship.
Ques Why is it His personal name here, “Jesus”?
JT Young people when they are converted need to be instructed in the thought of Jesus, and developed [p. 147] into the thought of God; that all things are given into His hands; young people need to know that. John 4 brings that out, that is the system, and the woman there becomes active in it; that is “the Christ” involves the system, and she is in it. The name of Jesus is so necessary for the youth, and His testimony, and that they are bound up with it.
HW “For the spirit of prophecy is the testimony of Jesus”, Revelation 19:10.
Rem That is the order of man in whom the testimony goes through..
JT “I Jesus ... I am the root and offspring of David” Revelation 22:16; “the root and the offspring of David” are a smaller thought than “I Jesus”, but the youth are to grow up in it.
ECM It draws out our feelings for the Person.
JT Yes, it is not now a military thought.
Rem It involves His deity.
JT Yes.
Ques Would the thought of “the mystery of piety” apply, 1 Timothy 3:16?
JT Very good. The young people think little of that. But what about our chapter; there are the rams’ skins dyed red, and the badgers’ skins; they are both external things, but there is strength in them? Then in verse 15, “And the boards for the tabernacle thou shalt make of acacia-wood, standing up”; they stand up straight for support; the curtains will not support, but the boards will; we look to the brethren to support things; so we get in verse 16 the measurements of them.
AH It is the thought of being upright, as man was originally made.
ECM It is the obligation of the fellowship.
JT Yes. It was said as to Job, “this man was perfect and upright”, Job 1:1; it is a general thought, it is man’s form as made to look up to God, to pray and to call on God, “when ye stand praying,
forgive”, Mark 11:25; animals are made on another principle.
Rem The man in Lystra was told by Paul to “Rise up straight upon thy feet”, Acts 14:10.
JT Very good, and in Acts 3, too. The man “had never walked” in Acts 14; it is the Gentile position; in chapter 3 the man “was lame from his mother’s womb”, it is the Jewish one, for he had walked, it does not say that he never walked.
WJ Ephesians 6:13 says, “having accomplished all things, to stand”; everything that is needed is to be done.
AH In verse 19 we are to have a good base to stand on, “bases of silver”.
JT The thought of what is basic is derived from that; it is a good thought of what is fundamental, and we can see that the thought of the boards carries all that with them, even if only in a few, “the remnant of her seed”, Revelation 12:17; the true idea is there, they “keep the commandments of God, and have the testimony of Jesus”.
FI The bases would carry the thought of redemption; no one can stand, unless on that basis.
JT Yes, the man in Acts 3 “held Peter and John” (verse 11) as he walked and leaped and praised God; a man like that is in the good of the assembly, a testimony alongside of Peter and John to the truth.
Ques Why is the breadth of the boards the same as the breadth of the ark?
JT The dimensions of the ark have the Person of Christ in mind; outwardly it is very small; the mind is taxed as to these measurements, they are peculiar measurements, two and a half by one and a half, and so it reads, “And they shall make an ark of acacia-wood; two cubits and a half the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof”, Exodus 25:10. We need to look into these measurements [p. 149] and see where the Person of Christ can be found.
He was no ordinary man. He “gave his strength into captivity, and his glory into the hand of the oppressor”, Psalm 78:61. Things fell before the ark; Dagon fell; it shows there was power, even in the measurements, and the only one who can answer to them is Christ, there is extraordinary power in Him, “he delivered up his spirit” John 19:30, an act of power.
GJD “For both he that sanctifies and those sanctified [are] all of one”, Hebrews 2:11.
JT Good, but the ark is always by itself. All went down before it, even on the cross; He delivered up His spirit, and He rose in divine power.
AWP Is there a point of distance?
JT Yes, like at the Jordan, “about two thousand cubits”, Joshua 3:4.
GJD I was thinking of that, and yet there is the relation between the ark and the boards.
JT Yes, but the distance and the distinction must be there; “that through death he might annul him who has the might of death, that is the devil”, Hebrews 2:14.
Ques Does the half cubit suggest our dependence on one another?
JT Good; and dependence on the Lord!
AH What about the corners (verse 23)?
JT Yes; the number eight comes in here; and then there is the gold.
AH All to indicate the great strength of the structure.
JT Quite so; the thought of ‘twins’ is in it, according to the note to verse 24. So verse 23 reads, “And two boards shalt thou make for the corners of the tabernacle at the rear; and they shall be joined beneath, and together shall be united at the top thereof to one ring: thus shall it be for them both; they shall be for the two corners. And there shall be [p. 150] eight boards, and their bases, of silver, sixteen bases; two bases under one board, and two bases under another board”. This is a resurrection number, sixteen bases, so that they are united as being all of one strength.
FI As to redemption and resurrection and correspondence to Christ; we cannot uphold the testimony unless we take after Christ in some way.
JT Yes, we must begin there; the book of the Acts is that all has to be learned again, so “they persevered in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles”, Acts 2:42; the apostles will carry out what He was.
AH So Paul says, “my ways [as] they [are] in Christ”, 1 Corinthians 4:17.
JT Just so.
AH What about these bars?
JT They are basic. So verse 26 reads, “And thou shalt make bars of acacia-wood; five for the boards of the one side of the tabernacle, and five bars for the boards of the other side of the tabernacle, and five bars for the boards of the side of the tabernacle at the rear westward; and the middle bar in the midst of the boards reaching from one end to the other”. Notice, it is “tabernacle”, not ‘tent’; so verse 29 goes on, “And thou shalt overlay the boards with gold, and make of gold their rings, the receptacles of the bars, and shalt overlay the bars with gold”. All is overlaid with it, so that the appearance inside is gold. “And thou shalt set up the tabernacle according to its fashion, as hath been shewn thee on the mountain”, and so the whole system comes out from God.
ECM “Now he that has wrought us for this very thing [is] God, who also has given to us the earnest of the Spirit”, 2 Corinthians 5:5.
JT Quite; for “God [is] faithful”, 1 Corinthians [p. 151] 1:9.
ATG So it is of God “are ye in Christ Jesus”, 1 Corinthians 1:30.
JT The faithfulness of God is found in 1 Corinthians 1:9, and again in chapter 10:13, and then in 2 Corinthians 1:18, “Now God [is] faithful, that our word to you is not yea and nay”; the working out of this is seen in Paul’s conduct; they made out that he told lies, but he did not, “For the Son of God, Jesus Christ ... yea is in him” (verse 19); it is the veracity that belongs to the saints; they are transparent. The three references to God’s faithfulness are worked out in Genesis 22:19 with Abraham at Beersheba, and as Isaac was raised up (he is not said to come down) Abraham goes and dwells there. It is the faithfulness of God.
RGB I am wondering if it is seen in Moses going into the holiest of all, and God communicating His mind; Numbers 7:89.
JT Yes, Jehovah spoke to him, and it came from the mercy-seat, and that speaks of the Holy Spirit here below; it is very touching that the Spirit of God should be seen there, and that that is where the voice comes from, and then, in chapter 8, it refers to the offering of the Levites.
AH What represents these bars today?
JT Influences among the brethren; how things are held; whether the position is not held in power by the middle bar, a universal thought, and we must not limit it to the local position, though the latter governs the former: “thus I ordain in all the assemblies”, 1 Corinthians 7:17.
AM Would the middle bar be love, and the other ones be brotherly love?
JT Very good; love has to be expressed in the abstract in 1 Corinthians 13.
AM There was not much of it in the Corinthians.
JT That is it; Paul had to unfold it.
Ques What do we learn from the [p. 152] gold?
JT It is called divine righteousness, and represents what is of God, involving righteousness.
Rem It is put upon the saints by the Spirit.
JT Well, where it really exists; if not we are only a sect, “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who has been made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and holiness, and redemption”, 1 Corinthians 1:30; that indicates what it is.
AWP Thus we are impressed with what God is.
AM The abstract is not enough; the things have to be made.
JT Yes; we have not only what is required, but from chapter 36 onwards we have what is made.
AM Would you distinguish between what God does, “The place that thou, Jehovah, hast made thy dwelling, the Sanctuary, Lord, that thy hands have prepared” (Exodus 15:17), and what the saints make?
JT Yes; Paul refers to the foundation he had laid, and let a man be careful how he builds on that: “I have planted; Apollos watered; but God has given the increase”, 1 Corinthians 3:6; and then we have the idea of “the temple of God” (verse 16), that is the shrine, and all must work out from that, “the Spirit of God dwells in you”.
AH Do we see the way things are bound together here in one tabernacle, all moving together?
JT Yes, and the remarkable way brethren are extending shows unity is there. Subdivisions carry the idea of unity, and it works out from the thought of the bread and the cup.
ECM “In whom ye also are built together for a habitation of God in [the] Spirit”, Ephesians 2:22.
JT The idea of growth there is remarkable, the assembly growing, to work out the assembly’s place in the millennial day; the thing is completed when the saints come down from heaven with Christ for a thousand years, but all worked out with men as we [p. 153] are, as in the temple. Then we have verse 31, the veil, “And thou shalt make a veil of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and twined byssus; of artistic work shall it be made, with cherubim. And thou shalt attach it to four pillars of acacia-wood overlaid with gold, their hooks of gold; they shall be on four bases of silver. And thou shalt bring the veil under the clasps, and bring in thither, inside the veil, the ark of the testimony; and the curtain shall make a division to you between the holy [place] and the holiest of all”; it is the very centre of things, where God is.
Rem And from that the truth of the temple is worked out in 1 Corinthians 3.
JT Yes, we have been helped in that for years; meetings have been dividing up, and God gets more, Christ gets more, and the saints get more, and so it goes on.
Rem It is the great idea of expansion.
JT Well; in those days the meetings were very large and few could take part; it is not so now, there is more liberty, and this chapter works out like that. Then we have verse 34, “And thou shalt put the mercy-seat on the ark of the testimony in the holiest of all”. Now we have what is usable, a table, “And thou shalt set the table outside the veil, and the lampstand opposite to the table on the side of the tabernacle southward; and thou shalt put the table on the north side”, it is on the north side, it is more pressure, and that is there! And now it is the curtain at the entrance (verse 36), “And thou shalt make for the entrance of the tent a curtain of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and twined byssus, of embroidery. And thou shalt make for the curtain five pillars of acacia-[wood], and overlay them with gold; their hooks shall be of gold; and thou shalt cast five bases of copper for them”. The copper means strength in the external position, but all the most precious things are [p. 154] inside.
AH Is there a link with the copper altar in the next chapter?
JT That altar was anointed seven times. It is Christ in the sense of bearing things, and of suffering; a most sorrowful thing happens among the saints causing suffering to many.
AH Would it be like Paul filling up the sufferings of Christ (Colossians 1:24)?
JT Yes; he says, “that which is behind”, as if some had not suffered enough.
AH So Epaphras was “always combating earnestly for you in prayers”, Colossians 4:12.