BEGINNING OF THE TABERNACLE

November 24, 2013 ADULT SUNDAY SCHOOL LESSON BEGINNING OF THE TABERNACLE MINISTRY INVOCATION O God: We give thanks to You for the manifold blessings to us. You did not have to bless us but You did. We shall remain eternally grateful. Amen. WHAT YOU SHOULD KNOW AND UNDERSTAND While the Israelites were on their way to the Promised Land, God instructed the people to create the tabernacle a place where they could always find God s Presence and Guidance. THE APPLIED FULL GOSPEL DISTINCTIVE We believe in the indwelling of the Holy Ghost for all believers and that the Holy Ghost verifies and validates the Believer as part of the Body of Christ. TEXT: Background Scripture Exodus 35-40 Key Verse Exodus 40:38 Lesson Scripture Exodus 40: 16-30, 34, 38 (NKJV) 16 Thus Moses did; according to all that the LORD had commanded him, so he did. 17 And it came to pass in the first month of the second year, on the first day of the month, that the tabernacle was raised up. 18 So Moses raised up the tabernacle, fastened its sockets, set up its boards, put in its bars, and raised up its pillars. 19 And he spread out the tent over the tabernacle and put the covering of the tent on top of it, as the LORD had commanded Moses. 20 He took the Testimony and put it into the ark, inserted the poles through the rings of the ark, and put the mercy seat on top of the ark. 21 And he brought the ark into the tabernacle, hung up the veil of the covering, and partitioned off the ark of the Testimony, as the LORD had commanded Moses. 22 He put the table in the tabernacle of meeting, on the north side of the tabernacle, outside the veil; 23 and he set the bread in order upon it before the LORD, as the LORD had commanded Moses. 24 He put the lampstand in the tabernacle of meeting, across from the table, on the south side of the tabernacle; 25 and he lit the lamps before the LORD, as the LORD had commanded Moses. 26 He put the gold altar in the tabernacle of meeting in front of the veil; 27 and he burned sweet incense on it, as the LORD had commanded Moses. 28 He hung up the screen at the door of the tabernacle. 29 And he put the altar of burnt offering before the door of the tabernacle of the tent of meeting, and offered upon it the burnt offering and the grain offering, as the LORD had commanded Moses. 30 He set the laver between the tabernacle of meeting and the altar, and put water there for washing; 1

The Cloud and the Glory 34 Then the cloud covered the tabernacle of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. 38 For the cloud of the LORD was above the tabernacle by day, and fire was over it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel, throughout all their journeys.. COMMENTARY 40:16 The reassurance that Moses did everything just as the LORD commanded him is a type of summary statement that begins a sequence of such summaries (usually via the shorter wording as the LORD commanded him ) that strongly support the concept of precision of fulfillment. Moses was not the maker of the tabernacle, but he was its quality control supervisor, who saw by personal inspection that it conformed to all that Yahweh had directed on Mt. Sinai. He had the authority to reject any part of it should it fail to meet divinely-revealed 2

standards, but by reason of God s merciful involvement in the whole process, he found no flaws at all. MOSES SETS UP THE TABERNACLE (40:17 33) 40:17 When the tabernacle component parts were all ready to assemble, they probably were not assembled immediately but rather were kept ready by Moses for the first day of the new year when he would put everything together and thus symbolically house Yahweh in the midst of His people. The first month was an important time in the Israelite calendar, not only because it was the time established for the Exodus-honoring Passover festival but also because it was apparently God s intention that it be closely connected with the tabernacle. Thus the first Passover celebrated in the wilderness that of the first month of the second year required the erection of and availability of the tabernacle for the presentation of the appropriate Passover offering there by all Israelites No one is to appear before me empty-handed. Much of that entire block of Scripture revolves around the first month of the second year the Israelites came out of Egypt and during which they were camped at Sinai. 40:18 19 These verses describe in summary fashion the actual assembly of the tabernacle framework, curtains, and covering, as commanded in detail originally in chap. 26, ending with what might be called the theme statement of this chapter, as the LORD commanded him. 40:20 21 These verses sum up the placement of the tablets of the Ten Words/Commandments (the testimony ) in the ark and covering those tablets with the ark s special cover and then setting the ark within the Holy of Holies with the floor-to-ceiling dividing curtain that separated it from the holy place. Again the chapter s theme statement, as the LORD commanded him, concludes this paragraph. 40:22 23 This short paragraph summarizes the placement of the table in the holy place of the tabernacle with the bread of the presence on it, as originally required by the instructions of 25:23 30; it too concludes with the (by now expected) characteristic theme words as the LORD commanded him. 40:24 25 Moses placed the lampstand and lamps within the holy place as well, as the LORD commanded him on the south side of the holy place or left side as one faced toward the Holy of Holies (the tabernacle being oriented with its opening curtains to the east. 40:26 28 The gold incense altar went into the holy place as well, right in front of the special curtain that created the barrier to the holy of holies, thus finishing the placement of furnishings (table, lampstand, altar) for the holy place of the tabernacle. Earlier in Exodus no specific instruction to Moses required that he 3

burn the incense at this point, so one may ask why he did it here. The answer is that he was functioning as God s priest prior to the actual consecration of the Aaronic priests. Eventually the priests would take over the assignment of burning the incense, but for now Moses alone was unquestionably qualified. 40:29 The bronze altar on which offerings were cooked was set up by Moses in the courtyard in front of the entrance to the tabernacle proper, as the LORD commanded him in 27:1 8. 40:30 32 Moses then placed the bronze washing basin in the courtyard as the LORD commanded Moses in 30:17 21. A better translation of the Hebrew, one that would make clear that such a washing was in the future not necessarily immediately upon the assembling of the tabernacle would be Moses, Aaron, and Aaron s sons were to wash their hands and feet from it. 40:33 The courtyard and its entrance curtain were the last items Moses assembled in place, consistent with the original command. This final step was not necessarily undertaken as an example of the chronological order of setting up and/or disassembling the tabernacle. Even though when Moses set it up this time, he set up the tabernacle proper first and the courtyard last, there is no evidence that the tabernacle proper was set up first and the courtyard set up last each time the Israelites arrived at a new location in their journeys in the wilderness. And so Moses finished the work. He surely didn t do it all himself, but in all likelihood at this juncture he was already training Levites for the work they would eventually do. Nevertheless, one can describe the leader of a project as its doer; mentioning the actual hands-on workers is not required because their involvement would be assumed by any thoughtful reader. Either way the presence of the cloud was the result of the successful, obedient completion of the tabernacle, which was therefore ready for the presence of Yahweh to inhabit it symbolically through His glory cloud. The cloud came because the tabernacle was complete, whether or not the grammar per se supports that sequencing. 40:34 The cloud was none other than that which first appeared in 12:21 22 and guided and protected the Israelites thereafter in the wilderness as described in 14:19 20, 24; 16:10. It was the same cloud the Israelites had seen atop Mount Sinai since their arrival at the mountain and the same cloud that had indicated the presence of Yahweh at the entrance to the little tent of meeting Moses had set up outside the camp. It was a way God chose to manifest himself a visible presence indicating symbol of an invisible God. In the hot, arid wilderness of Sinai, where the sun beat down mercilessly upon people, plants, and animals, a cloud during the day represented a cool, beneficent, shade-giving divine kindness. But the cloud was much more than that. It displayed Yahweh s glory, 4

which was an awesome and frightening thing the closer one got to it. Accordingly, as the Israelites saw the cloud, they understood it to be a potentially overwhelming manifestation of the presence of their God, to be avoided carefully and not infringed upon. The cloud had thus progressed in location from Mount Sinai to the little, temporary tent of meeting to the tabernacle. Presumably, since it was only sometimes seen at the tent of meeting, it usually was still seen on Mount Sinai from which it came down when Moses arrived there (and to which it presumably returned when he left the tent). And the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle. How would an invisible God show His people that He had indeed come to dwell among them as they so earnestly desired and that thereby He was fully in covenant relationship with them, willing to go with them wherever He led them that is, that the rift between Yahweh and His people had been fully healed by reason of God s gracious love for His people and in consequence of Moses faithful intervention with Yahweh on behalf of the people? The answer is that He visibly went into His house! He left Mount Sinai and came to dwell among the encampment of His people, just as He had promised (33:14 17). His people had built His house for Him just as He commissioned it, and He showed His approval of their efforts and, more importantly, His desire to dwell among them by symbolically entering His house through the glory cloud that covered the house ( Tent of Meeting now in the sense of tabernacle) and also filled its inside spaces. The cloud was not the glory but a visible envelopment of the divine glory. God s glory per se might or might not be visible in all manifestations, but when He caused it to be visible, at least through its piercing of the darkness of the cloud, its brilliance was contained in part within the cloud so as not to be impossible to look upon. It was no more appropriate now for Moses to enter the tabernacle, even though he had been all through it as its building supervisor, than it would be for a house builder in modern times to retain a key and enter at will a house that he had built once it was sold to its occupying owner. Later Moses and Aaron would be able to enter the tabernacle, and provision would be made for the high priest to enter it, even the Holy of Holies, periodically. This was possible because the glory cloud did not continue to stay inside the tabernacle but mainly hovered on top of it. But by the present act of occupying His house through His glory and temporarily keeping all others out, God showed Moses and all Israel that the house was now His and the very thing they had built it to become. 40:36 38 In between the two contexts there remains a period of about fortyeight days (from the first day of the first month of the second year, when the tabernacle was erected, as stated in 40:1, to the twentieth day of the second 5

month of the second year, when the Israelites left Sinai. During those forty-eight days, the instructions and activities take place. The tabernacle usually had the cloud hovering over it; but whenever the cloud lifted from above the tabernacle, the Israelites knew to set out from wherever they were encamped. They had learned the basics of being led by the cloud prior to arriving at Sinai. They knew that if the cloud did not move, they were not to move either but to stay encamped at the last location to which God had led them (v. 37). Just as it had appeared as a dark cloud in the daytime and a fire in the nighttime prior to Sinai (13:21), so it now also changed appearance from day to night and back again as it hovered over the tabernacle (v. 38). The once relatively distant cloud (either far above them in the wilderness or on Mount Sinai or at the entrance to the little tent of meeting outside the camp) was now in the center of their encampment, right above the dwelling place of their God, who lived inside His tabernacle. They could see the cloud at all times, so it could at all times guide them in their travels (v. 38). Once built, the tabernacle became the symbol of Yahweh s presence among His people; and His glory cloud atop the tabernacle, a further symbol of His Presence and also of His Guidance. The LORD called to Moses and spoke to him from the Tent of Meeting ), confirming that the tabernacle was the place from which God would communicate with him and through him to Israel from then on. The invisible, only true God no longer spoke at a distance, on Sinai, but now to Moses, the people s honored and accepted representative, from within their very midst. Wonderful as this was, it was but a shadow of the closeness to God available now to his corporate people known as the church and his direct indwelling available to every individual who repents of sin and trusts in God s gift of salvation through Christ His New Covenant s new Moses and His for-all-time honored and accepted representative, rescuer, lawgiver, law ender, and heavenly Temple. CLOSING PRAYER: My God: I am grateful to have found You and kept You in the forefront of my being. Bless us continually with Your grace and mercy. They represent bountiful blessings for all of us. Amen. 6