![]() ![]() What does He do there? Just as earthly priests presented the blood of sacrifices and incense representing the prayers of the saints, “we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous” ( 1 John 2:1), who “maketh intercession for the saints according to the will of God” ( Romans 8:27). Indeed, when Jesus ascended to heaven, He did so as our “great high priest” ( Hebrews 4:14). Since they “serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things” ( Hebrews 8:5), the priesthood ordained in the time of Moses must also be symbolic. He is even called the passover lamb: “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us” ( 1 Corinthians 5:7). Jesus was the One who all the sacrifices (mainly lambs) pointed to. When John the Baptist pointed out the Messiah standing in the crowd along the Jordan river, he declared, “Behold the Lamb of God, which beareth away the sin of the world” ( John 1:29, margin). These three (the court, the holy place, and the most holy place), and the services that were performed in each of them, form a prophetic timeline of Jesus’ work of redemption, spanning from His nativity to the final destruction of sin. There, two apartments represent two phases of Jesus’ ministry as priest, the daily and yearly services mentioned below. Passing into the tabernacle itself, we move from earth to heaven. The outer court, where the altar of sacrifice was, represents the earth, where Jesus was crucified. The layout of the tabernacle represents both time and place. ![]() This is just after he points out that Christ is our “high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man” ( Hebrews 8:1, 2).Īn brief outline of the meaning of the elements in the tabernacle services: And the apostle Paul notes that the Levite priests “serve unto the example and shadow of heavenly things” ( Hebrews 8:5). How do we know that the elements of the “tabernacle” represented a better, heavenly system? Moses was emphatically told to “make them after their pattern, which was shewed thee in the mount” ( Exodus 25:40). We are still unraveling its myriad lessons today. But it added much more detail about the process of justification, and judgment, and blotting out of sin. This system only built on the basic service, long forgotten or neglected, of offering a sacrificial lamb. The sanctuary was to be at the heart of a new system of worship, which was rich in lessons about salvation and the Messiah to come. This would be God’s house in their camp, a house of symbols. The solution? “Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them” ( Exodus 25:8). It is no surprise, then, that when Moses went up into the mountain, God outlined a system that would teach His people in more detail than had ever been revealed before. Under these circumstances, something drastic had to be done, to impress upon the newly-freed Israelites a knowledge of God’s character and of His plan to save them, not only from slavery, but from the bondage of sin. And if you just wanted to have a “good time,” the deities of the day wouldn’t condemn your immorality - in fact, the golden calf scene at Sinai was just an imitation of Egypt’s cult festivals. Impressive ceremonies led by their pagan priests held the common people in superstitious wonder. Everything they worshipped was something you could see. Thus their minds were not directed by this service to the great Sacrifice, and their faith was weakened.” 1Īt the same time, the popular religion of Egypt was very senses-oriented. To make matters worse, “on account of the superstitious veneration in which animals were held by the Egyptians, the Hebrews were not permitted, during their bondage, to present the sacrificial offerings. A new Pharaoh came to power, and turned the Hebrews into slaves. But when Jacob’s sons settled in Egypt, the Gospel picture, which had once been so clear, began to fade. And the promises to Abraham were God’s way of explaining the gospel: “in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed” ( Genesis 22:18 compare with Galatians 3:8, 16). Abraham got a better idea of what this meant, when God said he must sacrifice his own son. When Abel obeyed God’s instructions, he “offered unto God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, by which he obtained witness that he was righteous” ( Hebrews 11:4). As Adam’s descendants sacrificed a lamb, they showed faith in God’s promise of deliverance from sin. He promised that the Messiah would be born among the family tree of believers. ![]() Right after sin, God instructed Adam to offer sacrifices as a token atonement for sin. ![]()
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