By F.B. Meyer
"For there was a tabernacle made." HEBREWS 9.2.
THE eye is quicker than the ear. And there is therefore no language so expressive as the language of symbols. The multitude will better catch your meaning by one apt symbol than by a thousand words. The mind shrinks from the intellectual effort of grappling with the subtle essences of things, and loves to have truth wrapped up in a form which can easily be taken in by the eye, the ear, the sense of touch.
This explains why there is such a tendency toward ritualism in the Romanish and Anglican Churches. Where man's spiritual life is strong, it is independent of the outward form, but when it is weak it leans feebly on external aids.
And it was because the children of Israel were in so childish a condition that God enshrined His deep and holy thoughts in outward forms and material shadows. The untutored people must have spiritual truth expressed in symbols, which appealed to the most obtuse. For fifteen hundred years, therefore, the Jewish worship gathered round the most splendid ceremonial that the world has ever seen, ceremonial which these Hebrew Christians sadly missed when they passed into the simple ordinances of some bare upper room.
Let us for a moment study those ancient symbols. Choose an expanse of sand. Mark out an oblong space forty-five feet long by fifteen feet broad. Lay all along upon your outlines a continuous belt of silver sockets, hollowed out so as to hold the ends of the planks that form the walls of the Tabernacle. Now fetch those boards themselves, beams of acacia wood fifteen feet high, covered with the choicest gold, and fastened together by three long bars of gold, running from end to end.
The entrance doorway must face the East, composed of five golden pillars, over which fall the folds of a rich and heavy curtain. Then measure thirty feet from this, and let another curtain separate the holy from the most Holy Place. Now fetch more curtains to make the ceiling, and to hang down on either side over the gilded acacia beams that form the outer walls. First, a gorgeous curtain wrought with brilliant hues, and covered with the forms of cherubim, next, a veil of pure white linen, third, a strong curtain of rams' skins, dyed red, and, lastly, to defend it from the weather, a common and coarse covering of badgers' skins. The court is constituted by heavy curtains that hang around and veil the movements of the priests within.
Let us cast a brief glance at each item as we briefly pass from the outer to the inner shrine.
THE BRAZEN ALTAR, with its projecting horns, to which animals designated for sacrifice were tied (Psalm 118.27), or on which the fugitive laid hold for sanctuary and shelter (Exodus 21.14), stood in the outer court. There were offered the sin offering, the burnt offering, and the peace offering. It was deemed most holy (Exodus 29.37). And well it might be, for it was the symbol of the cross of Calvary, that wondrous cross where Jesus offered Himself as a sacrifice for sin, Himself both priest and victim and altar too.
None could enter the holy place save by passing this sacred emblem, any more than we could ever have entered into fellowship with God, unless there had been wrought for us upon the cross that one all-sufficient sacrifice and oblation for sins, which purges our heart from an evil conscience. The longer we live, and the more we know of God, the more precious and indispensable does that cross appear. It is our hope in sorrow, our beacon in the dark, our shelter in the storm, our refuge in hours of conviction, our trysting-place with God, our pride and joy.
Blest cross! blest sepulchre! blest rather beThe Man that there was put to death for me."
And if the brazen altar speaks of the one sacrifice, once for all, of Calvary, the laver speaks of the daily washing of the stains of our wilderness journeyings, as Jesus washed the feet of His disciples (John 13).
THE SEVEN-BRANCHED CANDLESTICK, from which the light was shed which lit up the holy place, would first arrest the eye of the priest, who might cross the threshold for the first time. Its form is familiar to us from the bas-relief on the Arch of Titus. How eloquently does it speak of Christ!
The texture of beaten gold, on every part of which the hammer strokes had fallen, tells of His bruisings for us (Exodus 25.36). The union of the six lesser lamps, with the one tall Centre one, betokens the mystery of that union in light-giving which makes the Church one with her Lord, for evermore in illuminating a dark world. The golden oil, stealing through the golden pipes that needed to be kept clean and unchoked, shows our dependence on Him for supplies of the daily grace of the Holy Spirit (Zechariah 4.2).
And the very snuffers, all of gold, used wisely by the high-priest to trim the flame, are significant of those processes by which our dear Lord is often obliged to cut away the unevenness of the wick, and to cause us a momentary dimming of light that we may afterward burn more clearly and steadily. His life is the light of men. In His light we see light. He sheds light on hearts and homes and mysteries and space, and hereafter the Lamb shall be the light of heaven.
THE GOLDEN SHEWBREAD TABLE must not be overlooked, with its array of twelve loaves of fine flour, sprinkled with sweet smelling frankincense, and eaten only by the priests, when replaced on the seventh day by a fresh supply. Here again, as in the last symbol, is that mysterious blending of Christ and His people.
Christ is the true bread of presence. He is the bread of God. Jehovah finds in His obedience and life and death perfect satisfaction. And we too feed on Him. His flesh is meat indeed. We eat His flesh and live by Him.
The table was portable, so as to be carried in the journeyings of the people, and we can never thrive without taking Him with us wherever we go. This is the heavenly manna, our daily bread; our priestly perquisite.
But the people also were represented in those twelve loaves, as they were in the twelve stones of the breastplate. And doubtless there is a sense in which all believers still stand ever before God in the purity and sweetness of Christ. "For we, being many, are one bread and one body, for we are all partakers of that one bread." Oh, is it possible for me to give aught of satisfaction to God? To believe this would surely instil a new meaning into the most trivial acts of life. Yet this may be so.
THE CENSER, OR ALTAR OF INCENSE, is classed with the Most Holy Place, not because it stood inside the veil, but because it was so closely associated with the worship rendered there. It was as near as possible to the ark (Exodus 30.6). It reminds us of the golden altar which was before the throne (Revelation 8.3).
No blood ever dimmed the lustre of the gold. The ashes that glowed there were brought from the altar of burnt offering, and on them was sprinkled the incense, which had been compounded by very special art (Exodus 30.34-38). That precious incense, which it was death to imitate, speaks of His much merit, in virtue of which our prayers and praises find acceptance. Is not this His perpetual work for us, standing in heaven as our great High Priest? Ever living to make intercession, catching our poor prayers, and presenting them to His Father, fragrant with the savour of His own grace and loveliness and merit?
THE VEIL, passed only once a year by the high-priest, carrying blood, reminded the worshippers that the way into the Holiest was not yet perfect. There were degrees of fellowship with God to which those rites could give no introduction. "The way into the holiest was not yet made manifest."
"The veil, that is to say, His flesh" (Hebrews 10.20). Oh, fine twined linen, in your purity, you were never so pure as that body which was conceived without sin! Oh, exquisite work of curious imagery, you cannot vie with the marvellous mysteries that gather in that human form! Yet, until Jesus died, there was a barrier, an obstacle, a veil. It was bespattered with blood, but it was a veil still.
But at the hour when He breathed out His soul in death, the veil was rent by mighty unseen hands from top to bottom, disclosing all the sacred mysteries beyond to the unaccustomed eyes of any priests who at that moment may have been burning incense at the hour of prayer, while the whole multitude stood outside.
The way into the Holiest lies open. It is new and living and blood-marked. We may therefore tread it without fear or mistake, and pass in with holy boldness to stand where angels veil their faces with their wings in ceaseless adoration (10.19, 20).
THE ARK. A box, oblong in shape, 4 ft. 6 in. in length, by 2 ft. 8 in. in breadth, its height; made of acacia wood, overlaid with gold, its lid, a golden slab, called the Mercy-seat, on which cherubic forms stood or knelt, with eyes fixed on the blood stained golden slab between them, for it was on the Mercy-seat that the blood was copiously sprinkled year by year, and there the Shekinah light ever shone.
In the wilderness wanderings the ark contained the tables of stone, not broken but whole, the manna, and the rod. But when it came to rest, and the staves were drawn out, the manna, food for pilgrims, and the rod, which symbolised the power of life, were gone. Only the law remained.
The law can never be done away with. It is holy, just, and good. Not one jot or tittle can pass away from it. It is at the heart of all things. Beneath all surfaces, below all coverlets, deeper than the foam and tumult and revolution of the world, rests righteous and inexorable law. We must all yield to its imperial sway. Even the atheist must build his walls according to the dictates of the plumb-line, or they will inevitably crumble to ruin.
But law is below love. The golden Mercy-seat exactly covered and hid the tablets, as they no longer leaped from crag to crag, but lay quietly beneath it. An ark without a covering, and from which tables of stony law looked out on one, would be terrible indeed. But there need be no dread to those who know that God will commune with them from above a Mercy-seat which completely meets the case and is sprinkled with blood.
We are told by the Apostle, who had well read the deepest meaning of these types, that "God has set forth Christ Jesus as a Mercy seat, through faith in his blood" (Romans 3.24, 25). Jesus has met the demands of law by His golden life and His death of blood, and we may meet God's righteousness in Him. Our own righteousness would be an insufficient covering, too narrow and too short, but our Substitute has met every possible demand. "Who is he that condemns ? It is Christ that died." Grace reigns through righteousness unto eternal life.
But ah, no blood of goat or calf can speak the priceless value of His blood, by which we have access into the Holiest. Oh, precious blood, which tells of a heart breaking with love and sorrow, which betrays a life poured out like water on the ground in extremest agony, which gathers up all the meaning of Leviticus and its many hecatombs of victims, the pledge of tenderest friendship, the purchase money of our redemption, the wine of life. Your scarlet thread speaks to us from the windows of the past in symbols of joy and hope and peace and immortal love. The precious blood of Christ!
