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The Torah reading תצוה Tetzaveh (“you shall command,” Exodus 27:20-30:10) reads like an article in Architectural Digest or Vogue, but the interior design of the Tabernacle, the architectural details and even the priests’ uniforms reveal God’s character to us. These are not just fashion whims; they’re permanent examples of God’s holiness. The purpose of the Tabernacle was to plant God’s words in our midst.
We see in the garments of the priests, they are arrayed primarily in white, then the high priest has outer garments in blue and adorned with gold and precious jewels. In our modern times, most priests, pastors, nuns, monks, etc., regardless of whether they are Orthodox, Catholic, Protestant, usually wear black robes. It’s a stark contrast to the white and bright colors God instructs His priests to wear in the Tabernacle.
In Western cultures, black is the color traditional associated with death and mourning but in eastern cultures, people usually wear white when they are mourning the death of a loved one.
And in modern Judaism, there is still a palpable mourning of the loss of the Temple. This is why Jewish tzitzit do not include the required blue thread because that color was lost after the destruction of the Temple and only rediscovered in modern times.
“Let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I am going to show you, as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture, just so you shall construct it.”
Exodus 25:8-9 NASB
The Sanctuary was created as a dwelling place for the LORD among His people. He repeatedly implores Moses to “build it as you saw on the mountain.” This was not a “mere” copy, but a facsimile, a visual representation on earth of what happens in heaven.
The Book of Hebrews makes it abundantly clear that Yeshua is the fullness of what all the elements in the Tabernacle represent. Heaven’s goal is to live among His people. This is God’s self-expressed desire.
I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.
Revelation 21:22 NASB
At the end of the age, as we read in Revelation 21, in the city of God, there is no need for a temple, no need for the facsimile because God Himself is truly dwelling among His people. When the fullness is revealed, there is no need for a copy. There will be no barrier of protection between God and His people. It won’t be needed.
I will dwell among the sons of Israel and will be their God. They shall know that I am the LORD their God who brought them out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them; I am the LORD their God.
Exodus 29:45–46 NASB
All of the furnishings and contents of the Tabernacle point to God’s holiness, and His glory. The tabernacle shows us the character of God and this is something to which we should all aspire.
Then the LORD passed by in front of him and proclaimed, “The LORD, the LORD God, compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth; who keeps lovingkindness for thousands, who forgives iniquity, transgression and sin; yet He will by no means leave the guilty unpunished, visiting the iniquity of fathers on the children and on the grandchildren to the third and fourth generations.”
Exodus 34:6–7 NASB
The Apostle Paul teaches us that we should aspire to be suitable house for the spirit of the Lord and we should grow and produce the fruits of the spirit to others.
The families of Israel surrounded the Tabernacle, but the families of Levi surrounded the inner ring just next to the Tabernacle. The Levites are there to guard the Tabernacle and to remind the people that the tabernacle was a very special place, a holy residence and to be careful of how to approach and how to conduct themselves in the tabernacle.
What happened at Sinai didn’t stay at Sinai
We saw something similar at Mt. Sinai, of how the perimeter mountain was surrounded to protect the people. They could come close to a point, but not too close. What happened at Sinai didn’t stay at Sinai and wasn’t meant to stay there. God explicitly told Moses to show the people what he saw on the mountain and they were to transport God’s home with them as they traveled from Egypt to the Promised Land.
The Tabernacle was a reminder that God loves His people and that He wants to be with them.
The green is the courtyard. The yellow section is the Holy Place and the blue part is the Holy of Holies. God is not a pop star or a performer on a stage Who everyone can see at any time. To see God is by His invitation only.
Moses could go to see God anytime, by God’s invitation but Aharon only had an open invitation to meet with God once a year.
God had given the Levites, who were not Cohanim, authority to protect the sanctity of the Tabernacle but by the days of the Messiah Yeshua, the Temple guards, rather than protecting the sanctity of the Temple, were the lapdogs of the corrupt priests and allowing the priests to defile the Temple precincts with commerce.
As we have discussed before, the Ark of the Covenant represents the words, law and testimony of God. The showbread represents the people in repentance before the Lord. The incense altar represents the prayers and action of the Lord and the altar of sacrifice is a symbol of God’s people and their repentance.
When we approach God, we have to ask ourselves why we are there. Are we just getting our ticket punched or do we desire deep in our hearts to return to God? The reason that God “hated” their sacrifices is that the hearts of the people were far away from Him. They weren’t approaching the altar to repent of their sins. They were holding back from Him. They were willing to give Him animals but they were not willing to give Him themselves, which is what He really wanted all along.
Ex. 34 tells us that God is “compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in lovingkindness and truth” and He wants His people to live those attributes too.
The words of the Lord, and His laws are a revelation of His mind.
The prayers of the saints go up to God and that incense, that smell, goes to God’s “nose”
The menorah are like God’s eyes and the showbread represent His people who God looks upon at all times.
The altar of sacrifice and eating parts of those sacrifices is like God’s mouth.
If you take a snapshot of Samson, particularly while he was head over heels in love with Delilah, he seems like a hopeless cause. If one looked at the Apostle Paul when he was signing off on Stephen’s execution, it would have been easy to just look at the outside and to write him off too, but God didn’t look at them as people saw them. He saw their potential and harnessed it for His purposes.
Hear about the neglected Temple, and weep (Ezekiel 43:10-27)
Ezekiel lived in a very turbulent and dangerous time in the history of the Jewish people. In his life, he had to navigate the end of the nation of Yehudah (Judah, the southern kingdom) and the beginning of Yehudah’s exile to Babylon.
One particular phrase that you see in Ezekiel 43 are phrases that talk about the physical presence of the LORD in the Temple. The targums, the Aramaic dynamic translations of the Hebrew scriptures, rendered this presence as “Shekinah” (“dwelling”) or “Memre” (“word,” see John 1:1):
He said to me, “Son of man, this is the place of My throne and the place of the soles of My feet, where I will dwell among the sons of Israel forever.” (Ezekiel 43:7, NASB)
And He said to me, “Son of Adam, this is the place of the abode of My glorious throne, and this is the place of the abode of the habitation of My Shekinah, where My Shekinah dwells among the Children of Israel forever…” (Ezekiel 43:7, Targum)
And he said to me, “You have seen, son of man, the place of my throne and the place of the print of my feet, in which my name shall encamp in the midst of the house of Israel forever…” (Ezekiel 43:7, New English Translation of the Septuagint)
The point is that the Temple had been built for God to inhabit, but God gave Ezekiel prophetic x-ray vision of what was actually happening in the Temple (Ezekiel 2–20). On the outside, it was the temple of God, but on the inside, the priests were actually worshiping the false gods of the nations around them and most of the people had no idea of how corrupt the priests and temple apparatus had become. The priests were using God’s house to engage in wickedness.
“by setting their threshold by My threshold and their door post beside My door post, with only the wall between Me and them. And they have defiled My holy name by their abominations which they have committed. So I have consumed them in My anger.” (Ezekiel 43:8 NASB)
“by their placing their threshold beside the thresholds of My temple, and their building alongside My temple court, and the wall of My temple between My Memra and them. They defiled My holy name with their abominations that they have committed, so I destroyed them in My wrath.” (Ezekiel 43:8, Targum)
“when they place my entry by their entries and my doorposts next to their doorposts, and they rendered my wall as if mine and theirs were joined and desecrated my holy name by their lawless acts that they were committing, and I wiped them out in my fury and by murder.” (Ezekiel 43:8, Septuagint)
The “law of the house” was that the entire mountain that the temple rested upon was supposed to be “most holy,” like the inner sanctum of the Tabernacle/Temple. But in the days of Ezekiel, the king’s palace was right next door to the Temple. They were sharing doors and walls between the king’s palace and the Temple.
One doesn’t have to be Jewish or ritually pure to meet the king, but only ritually clean Jews were supposed to be allowed to enter the Temple precincts. Since the people had purposefully blended the home of the king with the home of God, it was inevitable for the sanctity of the Temple to ignored. The lines between “church and state” were blurred to the point of irrelevance.
However, God’s plan is to sanctify all the people and in the Messianic age, as we see a glimpse of in Acts 10. God will lift all of humanity up — both Jew and Gentile — and make all of humanity holy to Himself. If the dwelling place of God is with mankind, and there is no more veil of separation, and no more temple, then everybody has got to be transformed from unholy to holy to survive in the Messianic age and the age to come.
One day, all who approach God will be able to go through the veil with confidence, not arrogance. In Jeremiah 31, where we learn about the new covenant and the judgment of God. Think of your life like it was a movie. Imagine the editing job the Lord will do on that movie to cover over all your sins, transgressions and iniquities that have been nailed to the cross, paid for, forgiven, covered and wiped away. This is how God will elevate us from sinners to saints, from unrighteous to holy. It’s a great promise, a profound opportunity look forward to receiving God’s great mercy.
But in this great blessing, there is also a warning, that we do not treat God’s mercy flippantly. It’s a great honor God gives to mankind that He wants to live among us, but we need to go through a detox before we are holy enough to approach Him. We all know people who have really done a 180 and went from living in evil to living in righteousness and unfortunately, we probably know people who started out in righteous and did a 180 and decided to go all-in to evil. Whether we are a stench in God’s nostrils or a soothing aroma before God depends on how we respond to His invitation, His mercy and His love.
Summary: Tammy