Seeing Christ in the Tabernacle

Ervin N. Hershberger

• Publisher: Vision Publishers Llc
• Year: 2012
• eBook ISBN: 9781932676334
• Topic: Theology & Religion
• Subtopic: Biblical Studies

Christ is marvelously foreshadowed in every piece of the Tabernacle. Every feature was planned by God with design and purpose. Because of God's plan that the Tabernacle would be fulfilled in Christ, both in its structure as well as in its function, it can be said that this book is more about Christ than the Tabernacle. As readers tour this amazing interpretive construction with Hershberger, they will be delighted to see figures of Christ where they least expected to find them. The smallest details are given significance in this great symbolic foreshadowing of Christ and His Church. This book has served many through personal studies and group studies. Every preacher and Bible teacher could benefit from this well thought out study

CHAPTER ONE

I. THE ARK OF THE COVENANT,
A MOST HOLY VESSEL

Exodus 25:10-16; 37:1-5

The Ark was made of shittim wood overlaid with gold inside and outside. Shittim wood (sometimes called iron wood) is of the acacia family, of which there are many varieties. The shittim tree, said to reach a maximum height of about twenty-five feet, does produce some valuable timber. It is a hard wood, resistant enough to heat and decay that it has been described as indestructible. Such durability appropriately typifies the incorruptible body of Jesus, prepared for His incarnation (Heb. 10:5). As it is written, “neither wilt thou suffer thine Holy One to see corruption” (Ps. 16:10b; Acts 2:27; 13:35).

The Ark, completely overlaid with gold within and without, reminds us that Jesus retained full deity in union with His humanity. Throughout the Tabernacle, wood typifies His humanity and gold His deity. Though He had voluntarily emptied Himself of some of the unique attributes and prerogatives of Deity (Phil. 2:6-8), “to be made like unto his brethren” (Heb. 2:17), He was nonetheless God, even in the flesh.

To be our Daysman (Job 9:33) Christ needed to be equally representative of God and man. No one but Jesus ever qualified to thus bring God and man together. He was not a hybrid (half God and half man), but He was fully God and fully Man. In fact, had He been less than God, His sacrifice would not have sufficed for the atonement; and had He not been fully Man, the atonement would not have applied to man. “For verily he took not on him the nature of angels [consequently atonement does not apply to angels]; but he took on him the seed of Abraham” (Heb. 2:16), “to make reconciliation for the sins of the people” (v.17c).

The Ark especially emphasizes the PERSON of Jesus, while the Mercy Seat emphasizes His PURPOSE. The efficacy and validity of the atonement rest equally upon His Godhood and His Manhood. Both are absolutely essential as a BASE for the Mercy Seat (Propitiation #2435*; Rom. 3:25). The crown of gold upon the Ark (Ex. 25:11) foreshadows “the man Christ Jesus” (1 Tim. 2:5), promoted and exalted as “KING OF KINGS, AND LORD OF LORDS” (Rev. 19:16).

Dimensions (Ex. 25:10) and Typological Suggestions

Length: 2½ cubits = 5 half-cubits or units of measure: 5 = Grace.

Breadth and height: 1½ cubits = 3 half-cubits: 3 = Trinity

Vertical girth: 4x1½ = 6 cubits: 6 = the number of man.

Horizontal girth: 2x2½ + 2x1½ = 5+3 = 8 cubits: 8 = New Beginning

Maybe that’s manipulating numbers, but it simply illustrates what the Bible plainly teaches: the Trinity (3), by Grace (5), offers Man (6) a New Beginning (8). “If any man be in Christ, he is a NEW CREATURE: old things are passed away; behold, all things are become NEW” (2 Cor. 5:17). WHAT A BONUS!

“And… the Levites bare the ark of God upon their shoulders with the staves thereon, as Moses commanded according to the word of the Lord” (1 Chron. 15:15). This reflects the high respect and reverence with which the Ark was to be borne.

THE CONTENTS AND THEIR SYMBOLISM

1. The Tablets of Stone (called the Testimony—Ex. 25:16) with the Ten Commandments engraved in stone, represent God’s law. “Yea, thy law is within my heart” (Ps. 40:8b). Like those stones were kept in the Ark, so God’s Law was fully KEPT (i.e. observed and preserved) by Christ.

All of us have broken God’s Law. Only in Christ (typified by the Ark) can we be pardoned, cleansed, and safely covered by the Blood-sprinkled Mercy Seat.

2. The Golden Pot of Manna (Ex. 16:32, 33) typifies Christ as the Bread of Life, eight times declared to be the true Bread that came down from heaven (John 6:32-35, 48-58).

3. Aaron’s Rod that budded (Nu.
17:10)

depicts Resurrection: Life out of death. Christ our Mediator verily rose from the dead! “In him was life” (John 1:4). He could truly say, “I am the resurrection, and the life: he that believeth in me, though he were dead, yet shall he live: and whosoever liveth, and believeth in me shall never die” (John 11:25, 26). “Because I live, ye shall live also” (John 14:19b).

 

I. VIOLATING THE HOLINESS OF THE ARK WAS
PUNISHABLE BY DEATH (DENYING THE DEITY OF
CHRIST MAY BE ETERNALLY FATAL!)

Safety was not in the Ark of the Lord but in the Lord of the Ark. Some 530 years later, Israel had forsaken the Lord of the Temple and trusted in “the temple of the Lord” (Jer.7:4). Tragedy followed both errors.

Today, unfortunately, some people rely on Communion (the Table of the Lord), while slighting the Lord of the Table.

A. Tragic experience taking the Ark into battle (1 Samuel 4)

1. Slaughter in the army, 4:10

2. Sons of Eli, 4:4, 11

3. Eli himself, 4:12-18

4. Phinehas’s wife, 4:19-22

B. Tragedies Encountered by the Philistines (1 Samuel 5)

1. At Ashdod, 5:6

2. At Gath, 5:8-9

3. At Ekron, 5:10-11

C. Tragedy Struck Israel at Bethshemesh (1 Samuel 6)

1. The Ark was returned after seven months, 6:1-18.

2. 50,070 Israelites died because some of them had looked into the Ark, 6:19-21.

3. To look into the Ark they had to lift the Mercy Seat, exposing themselves to the Law that they had broken. Exposure to the broken Law without benefit of the Mercy Seat would mean death to any of us! See 1 Samuel 6:19, NASB.

4. Uzzah touched the Ark and died immediately for his error (2 Sam. 6:6, 7; 1 Chron. 13:9-14). Later the move was completed safely, using the prescribed methods, 15:25-29.

Do we need any more proof that true holiness is inviolable?

II. TWO OTHER ARKS ALSO TYPIFIED CHRIST

A. NOAH’S ARK was a beautiful type of Christ. The universal death sentence (Gen. 6:7) could not be reversed, but God’s grace provided a way to rise above it. Not one soul perished in the Ark. It mattered not how heavy the torrent, how furious the tempest, nor how deep the tide; the Ark rose triumphantly above it all. Like Christ, it provided absolute safety for all who abode within, but it could help no one on the outside.

B. The Ark of Bulrushes (Ex. 2:3) was neither big nor strong, but it was safely sealed. As long as baby Moses stayed in, and the mighty waters stayed out, all was well. That little Ark triumphantly carried baby Moses upon the very waters in which he had been sentenced to die (Ex. 1:22), and Moses became a son in the house of him who had pronounced the sentence! Likewise, by believing and abiding in Christ, we can become sons and daughters of Him who said, “The soul that sinneth, it shall die” (Ezek. 18:4). That sentence remains unchanged, “But thanks be to God, which giveth us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ” (1 Cor. 15:57). Christ is our Ark of safety!

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. Why did Christ need to become Man to bring us salvation?

2. How did incarnation affect His relationship with the Father?

3. When and how did Jesus become God’s begotten Son?

4. Did the Old Testament ever call Him Son except prophetically?

5. What did it cost Him to condescend from Infinity to infancy?

6. What did it cost Him to pay the price of our redemption?

7. What shall He have as His reward? Philippians 2:9-11.

8. What lessons should we learn from the life of Jesus?

9. What does the incorruptibility of shittim wood portray?

10. What does abiding in Christ imply and require?

11. What are the practical evidences of Christ working in us?

12. What are the manifestations of Christ working through us?

13. Why did they KEEP the Tablets of Stone in the Ark?

14. What’s the only possible way for us to KEEP the commandments?

15. What does the budding of Aaron’s rod portray about Jesus?

16. How did the Manna represent Christ as the True Bread?

17. How does Noah’s Ark typify Jesus?

18. How is our experience in Christ similar to Noah in the Ark?

*Index number in Strong’s Concordance.

CHAPTER TWO

THE MERCY SEAT, CHERUBIM,
AND SHEKINAH GLORY

I. THE M...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title
• Copyright
• Table of Contents
• Credits Due
• Foreword
• Preface
• Introducing the Tabernacle
• Chapter 1: The Ark of the Covenant
• Chapter 2: The Mercy Seat, Cherubim, and Shekina Glory
• Chapter 3: The Table, Shewbread, Lampstand, and Oil
• Chapter 4: The Tabernacle Curtains and Covering
• Chapter 5: The Tabernacle Structure
• Chapter 6: The Court, Gate, Pillars and Hangings
• Chapter 7: The Brazen Altar and Laver
• Chapter 8: The Holy Garments of the High Priest
• Chapter 9: The Consecration of the Priests
• Chapter 10: The Golden Incense Altar
• Chapter 11: The Passover and Great Day of Atonement
• Chapter 12: Aaron, Eleazer, and the Levites
• Abbreviations used in this book
• Footnotes
• Bibliography