EXODUS 40
We have had before us the faithfulness of God to His promise as the security of everything for His people. He acts in the sovereignty of mercy and grace not only for them but in them, that they may answer to His pleasure under new covenant conditions. Then we have seen, in type, the result of this divine acting in a people devoted in their affections to Him, and made spiritually competent to give effect to all that He commanded. That is, we see the faithfulness of His people in doing His will. Now, finally, in chapter 40 we have brought before us, in figure, the faithfulness of Christ. These three things must each have its right place with us; together they form a threefold cord not quickly broken. The tabernacle in its completeness was clearly the product and fruit of the faithfulness of God, and of the faithfulness of His people by His grace, and of the faithfulness of Moses.
The only actor in this chapter is Moses. He is seen here as the one who sets up the tabernacle, who puts everything in its right place, who brings all under the holy anointing, and who inaugurates every feature of the service. Until at last it can be said, “And so Moses finished the work” (verse 33).
I have no doubt that the Holy Spirit refers to this chapter in Hebrews 3: 2 - 6, when He speaks of “Jesus, who is faithful to him that has constituted him, as Moses also in all his house. For he has been counted worthy of greater glory than Moses, by how much he that has built it has more honour than the house. For every house is built by some one; but he who has built all things is God. And Moses indeed was faithful in all his house, as a ministering servant, for [p. 318] a testimony of the things to be spoken after; but Christ, as Son over his house, whose house are we, if indeed we hold fast the boldness and the boast of hope firm to the end”.
How blessed to think of the faithfulness of Christ as Son in relation to those “things to be spoken after” of which the tabernacle was a testimony! He has told out all that God is; He has declared the Father’s Name; He has sanctified His brethren; He has anointed them with the Holy Spirit; He has pitched the true tabernacle, and become Minister of it. He has set up a holy order of things in which God can be known in the full light of revelation, and in which He can be approached and served by a holy priesthood, purged and perfected in conscience, and responsive in affections and intelligence to God as fully revealed. God would have us to consider Him in His faithfulness, and all that holy order which He builds, and over which He is as Son.
HE never deviates in the smallest particular from the mind of God; the pleasure of Jehovah prospers in His hand; and He is Son over God’s house. And we are that house “if indeed we hold fast the boldness and the boast of hope firm to the end”. “The boldness and the boast of hope” are connected with the apprehension of how faithfully Christ as Son has established the will of God, and set up a spiritual order that is in every respect according to God’s pleasure. That order is not visible or material. It is only known as divine light enters the soul, and all that which, as to display, is yet future becomes a present reality to hope. In the face of the departure and disorder and apostasy which are the outcome of the unfaithfulness of men, we are to hold boldly to [p. 319] the revelation of God, and to all that which has been established spiritually by the faithfulness of Christ to God. Those who do so — and, of course, this includes, in principle, all true believers — form God’s house, over which Christ is as Son.
It is our privilege to come to the substance and reality of what the tabernacle figured. What Christ builds and what He orders must be in every detail in accord with the mind of God, for He “is faithful to him that has constituted him”. I trust it is an exercise with every one of us to apprehend those things which subsist spiritually as the result of the faithfulness of Christ, and that we truly desire that they should take form with us so that we may be, as it were, under His hand for the service and pleasure of God.
The different spiritual features and elements which make up the true tabernacle are now taking form by the Spirit in the saints, and under the ordering of Christ as Son over God’s house those elements get rightly put together. He alone can put every board, curtain, and peg in its place. If we consider Him in His faithfulness to bring about the pleasure of God in His house, I think it will have the effect of subduing us to Him, so that He may be able to put us each in our right place in relation to the service and testimony of God. Each will then contribute, and the contributions of all will be found in divine unity.
In verses 17 - 33 everything is set up and put in its place. The repetition seven times in this section of “As Jehovah had commanded Moses” shows how perfectly all was completed according to the mind of God. In figure every divine conception had been brought to fruition — not an element wanting. “And so Moses finished the work”.
[p. 320] Several New Testament scriptures come before the mind as we think of a divine structure set up for the pleasure and glory of God. “On this rock [”The Christ, the Son of the living God,”known in the soul by the Father’s revelation] I will build my assembly, and hades’ gates shall not prevail against it” (Matthew 16: 18). Here we see Christ’s assembly as a divinely built and invulnerable structure — the product of divine purpose and faithfulness. “To whom coming, a living stone, cast away indeed as worthless by men, but with God chosen, precious, yourselves also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2: 4, 5). Here the stones are viewed as giving evidence of the vitality that is in them by “coming”. It is spiritual movement on their part, answering to the activity found with the people in making the tabernacle and bringing it to Moses. “So then ye are no longer strangers and foreigners, but ye are fellow-citizens of the saints, and of the household of God, being built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the corner-stone, in whom all the building fitted together increases to a holy temple in the Lord; in whom ye also are built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2: 19 - 22). The whole structure will be surely brought to completion.
“The tabernacle of the testimony” speaks of all that is in the mind and will of God being brought into testimony before it is known in display. All the features of that divine system which was represented figuratively in the tabernacle are now taking form spiritually in saints of the assembly so as to be known in testimony. But what is now in testimony will be [p. 321] in public manifestation in the world to come, and this is a necessity for the glory of God. He will completely set aside the present world-system, and introduce His world — the moral features of which are set forth typically in the tabernacle. At present all is in testimony; in the world to come it will be in display. Both the testimony and the display are for the glory of God in Christ in a scene where He has been dishonoured. But the display will be God’s complete and public triumph in the very scene where sin and death and Satan’s power have been.
“And so Moses finished the work. And the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle. And Moses could not enter into the tent of meeting, for the cloud abode on it, and the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle” (verses 34, 35). Moses finishing the work, and the glory filling the tabernacle, carries one’s thoughts forward to the completion of all that was figured there. When there will be glory to God “in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages. Amen” (Ephesians 3: 21). “And he carried me away in the Spirit, and set me on a great and high mountain, and shewed me the holy city, Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, having the glory of God ... And the city has no need of the sun nor of the moon, that they should shine for it; for the glory of God has enlightened it, and the lamp thereof is the Lamb” (Revelation 21: 10, 23).
Every part of the tabernacle is viewed in Exodus 40 as brought to completion under the faithfulness of Christ as Son. He has not left a single thing to be added. God can dwell complacently, and His people can surround Him in rest. And this may look even [p. 322] beyond the world to come, to the final issue of God ways when He will be all in all. It is a brief vision of conditions suggestive of the eternal state.
“And I saw a new heaven and a new earth; for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea exists no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. And I heard a loud voice out of the heaven, saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and he shall tabernacle with them, and they shall be his people, and God himself shall be with them, their God. And he shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall not exist any more, nor grief, nor cry, nor distress shall exist any more, for the former things have passed away” (Revelation 21: 1 - 4).
In the meantime God is dwelling in the midst of His people, and their spiritual journeyings are regulated by the cloud over the tabernacle (Exodus 40: 36 - 38). Many look for providential guidance in their pathway here, and God does not fail them. But we need guidance as to our spiritual movements also, and these have all to be with reference to the tabernacle. If we want spiritual guidance we must have our eyes on “the tabernacle of the testimony”; the divine system must have a great place in our hearts. The guiding “cloud of Jehovah” is over the tabernacle, and His people must move with reference to it.