Exodus: Unity of Law and Grace

The Tabernacle

Professor: Dr. R.J. Rushdoony

Subject: Pentateuch

Lesson: The Tabernacle

Genre: Lessons with Q & A

Track: 88

Dictation Name: RR171AV88

Location/Venue:

Year: Early 70’s

Let us worship God. Prepare ye the way of the Lord, make straight in the desert a highway for our God. Blessed is he who cometh in the name of the Lord. Hosanna in the highest. Let us pray.

Almighty God, our heavenly Father, we thank thee that thou hast given us grace, that thou hast cast away from us the works of darkness and given us the armor of light. Grant, O Lord, that now, in this blessed season, we may rejoice in the gifts that are ours in Jesus Christ, that we may be mindful of how rich we are in Him, and how the ends of the earth shall serve Him and His people shall reign with Him. Fill us with a joy of this season. Make us ever mindful of our privileges in Christ, and make us ever mindful of our duty to communicate these things to others, to share with them in the bounty with which thou hast blest us, and in all things to give thanks unto thee. In Christ’s name, amen.

Our scripture is from Exodus 25:1-9. Our subject: The Tabernacle. Exodus 25:1-9. “And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering: of every man that giveth it willingly with his heart ye shall take my offering. And this is the offering which ye shall take of them; gold, and silver, and brass, and blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats' hair, and rams' skins dyed red, and badgers' skins, and shittim wood, oil for the light, spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense, onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod, and in the breastplate. And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them. According to all that I shew thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it.”

The subject of the tabernacle is a difficult one, because it is an area cluttered by so much nonsense. All kinds of fanciful and mystical symbolism has been attached to the tabernacle, and others have dismissed the subject as irrelevant. Perhaps in time we may have a detailed study which will enable us to understand every detail more fully than perhaps is now possible. Until then, we still have a duty to gain as much understanding as possible, and this understanding should come through scripture, not by going to supposedly pagan parallels and antecedents.

First, the tabernacle is a temple in a tent. Given the fact that some years were to pass before Israel entered Canaan, of necessity, the temple had to be a moveable one. It was still a remarkable and beautiful tent. We must not forget that royal tents in Antiquity and, at least to Henry VIII’s day, were amazing, they were ornate, they were costly, they were moveable palaces. Read sometime about the Field of Gold, and the French and English kings there assembled, and the splendor of their tents, a remarkable account. Such things were not uncommon in Antiquity.

Then second, God’s tabernacle was also a very costly one. A belief much propagated by the heretical, spiritual Franciscans was hostile to buildings and to anything except poverty. And poverty for a time became very much the ideal, as though if you had money there was something wrong with you, and you could only rid yourself of the curse by giving as much of it to the poor as possible. Naturally, this created a whole class of beggars. This idea is not entirely gone fro our society today, but the Bible does not present poverty as a virtue. Moreover, all sacrifices and gifts to God must be unblemished. Too many churches are a very sorry affairs. They are blemished offerings to God, and some must be called insults. Remember, God told the Jews after the captivity that they were living in homes with beamed ceilings and magnificence, and the temple of God was still in disarray.

Then third, the construction of God’s sanctuary had to be made out of willing gifts, verse 2 tells us. It was not tithes, but gifts over and above the tithe that went into the construction of the tabernacle. Materials were costly; gold, silver, and bronze, or more accurately in the English, that would be copper, because some words change their meaning over a period of time.

The words in verse 5 are not common ones. The ram’s skin could be dugong skins or seal skins. This may seem strange to us both were to be found in the Red Sea. Shittim wood is acacia wood, which is light and strong. According to Cole, in verse 2, every man whose heart makes him willing means literally, in the Hebrew, “every man whose heart makes him vow.” He cannot help himself.

Fourth, the temple is the house of a god, in any culture. Here, God calls it His sanctuary. The word refers to a consecrated place or thing, also a palace of refuge, a holy place. The tabernacle is called the tent of meeting in Exodus 35:21. This term stresses the communion of God with His people. In Exodus 38:21, it is called the tabernacle of testimony, which has reference not to somebody getting up and testifying, but as a witness to a contract. Since the two tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments on each are called the two tables of the testimony in Exodus 31:18, this term, testimony, refers to the fact that the sanctuary represents a legal bond, a covenant or a contract which binds both God and man. This was the temple throughout the centuries. This is the church today. It is evidence of a contract between God and man. While such thinking is not popular in our time, but it is basic, it is central to any understanding of the Bible. The sanctuary is now seen in modern religious thought as a place for inspiration, whereas the term “temple of testimony” describes the holy place as the witness to a legal and binding contract. That’s why the cross is so fitting on Christian churches, because the contract made in the cross renews the one made in the beginning. So, it reminds us of what God did to establish that contract. He gave his only begotten Son.

The terms of the covenant, or treaty, or contract are God’s law, and the people of God come to know the terms better and to grow in faithfulness to the covenant. That’s the point of coming to church. In verse 2, the word “heart” is used. In modern usage, heart is used in the metaphoric sense of an emotional connotation, as a center of feeling. Whereas, in the Bible as Kate observed, and I quote, “The word heart referred to in the Hebrew is not to the seat of the emotions, but to the seat of thought, purpose, and will. Thus, the offering was to come not merely from those who felt like giving, but from those who knew and were committed to the offering as the right thing to do.” Thus, when scripture says, “Keep thy heart with all diligence, for out of it are the issues of life,” it means our thinking, our purpose, our will.

H.L. Ellison, in his commentary, cited 2 Samuel 7:6-7, to maintain that God did not regard the later temple as a necessity, and he infers that the desire for a building, a solid structure, is something that man desires, not God. But this is nonsense, this is a part of the kind of heritage that the Christian Franciscans represent, and many people to this day do not believe in giving to a building project because it’s too mundane, it isn’t spiritual, but a reading of all of 2 Samuel 7 makes clear that the temple was very much a part of God’s purpose. Those who spiritualize the faith want usually to dispose of or at least downgrade law and buildings. It would make equal sense to dispose of clothing and food, while men cannot live by bread alone neither can men live very long without clothing, without buildings, or without law.

In verse 9, the word “pattern” is used. Our modern term would probably be plan or blueprint. The pattern God gives is specific, not only with respect to the size and the design, but also the colors and the furnishings. Since the covenant was an act of grace on God’s part, He not only provided its law but all the details of its construction. The covenant meeting place was not to be man’s design, but God’s, because it was a type, among other things, of Jesus Christ, God with Us. The tabernacle’s purpose, in part, was “that I may dwell among them,” as verse 8 tells us. Since God’s grace gave the covenant man’s devices had no place in it. Man’s duty was to hear and obey his covenant Lord. Since the tabernacle was a moveable sanctuary, the use of acacia wood was specified because of its durability and lighter weight. The moving of the tabernacle was to be as simple as possible while maintaining its quality.

In verse 8, there is an important shade of meaning. As Hertz pointed out, God does not command the building of the sanctuary that I may dwell in it, but rather that I may dwell among them. Solomon declared at the dedication of the temple, that “will God indeed dwell on the earth, behold the heaven of heavens cannot contain thee. How much less this house that I have builded?” The tabernacle gave to Israel its center of holiness. But it is more than that, as George Bush, the commentator of almost two centuries ago, pointed out, “The tabernacle is not only a sanctuary, but also a royal palace. It is the palace of God the King. As such, it sets forth also the two-fold functions of Christ as priest and king.” As Bush noted, this royal palace was God’s and it was, and I quote, “where he would keep the state of a court, as supreme civil magistrate and king of Israel, for once he would issue His laws and commandments as from an oracle, and where He was to receive the homage and tribute of his subjects. The idea of the tabernacle as in part, that of a palace for the king will seem perfectly clear to everyone who carefully notes the terms of which this building and also the temple are spoken of and referred to throughout the scriptures. And we doubt not it is a view essential to the right understanding of these structures and the things which belonged to them. It is a view also which is held by the Jews themselves who carry out the analogy and regard the utensils of the tabernacle as palace furniture, and the priests as its ministers of state and officers.” So, pointed out George Bush who, being a New Englander, could very well have been the ancestor of our current president, which tells you how even great families can decline.

Because the tabernacle was a palace, there was only one such place allowed. There was no multiplicity of kings and gods, but one God, one king over all. Gerhardis Vos pointed out, and I quote, “The tabernacle is as it were, a concentrated theocracy.” The tabernacle was a witness to a contract or a covenant, and to the great king who, by his grace, made the people his own. Moreover, it attests to the God-centered nature of biblical faith. Again, quoting from Vos, “In the ideal covenant fellowship here portrayed, the divine factor is the all-controlling one. Man appears as admitted into, adjusted to, subordinated to the life of God. Biblical piety is God-centered.”

Armenianism and the modern world and life view presuppose a democracy with God. The nature of the tabernacle and its construction witness very strongly against this. This is an important point, because the common error of scholars is to state that other people in Antiquity had sanctuaries, and therefore the tabernacle was simply derived from the practices of Antiquity. This is like saying that because you and I have a nose, eyes, and ears, we have an intellectual and personal derivation from Jack the Ripper. Such thinking is common and it is nonsense. Pagan sanctuaries were designed by men to set forth their ideas of the gods and of religion, but the tabernacle gives us God’s pattern, and it differed radically from design and meaning from all pagan temples.

U.Z Rule, in the last century, said of the tabernacle, and I quote, “For the working out of the purpose for which the tabernacle was designed, three things would be necessary. First, the tabernacle itself, made and furnished after the pattern shown to Moses. Second, a purposely ordered ritual of the service to be rendered at it. The leading characteristic of this service being that it was based upon the covenant into which the people had just entered with God, and third, a priesthood purposely set apart for this purpose.” Pagan temples had no formal worship. You did not go there at a given day of the year or month to worship. You went in there when you had a need, and you gave an offering to the gods to buy insurance. So that before you went on a sea voyage, you went and made a payment to the gods who governed the seas in order to have protection. If you didn’t get it, and had trouble at sea, you came back and you sometimes took it out on the temple. It was insurance.

The biblical tabernacle was the law center and palace, the sanctuary and the center of holiness and justice, dominion, and knowledge. Nothing else like it existed in Antiquity. Thus, the attempts to see parallels elsewhere are absurd. They are simply efforts to denigrate what the Bible tells us. Moreover, ignorance of the meaning of the tabernacle, being deeply rooted within the churches today, has led to a serious error. I indicated earlier, the common tendency is to see the church as a place for inspiration, and to find peace. But, if the tabernacle means anything, and the church, which is called the Christian synagogue and the Christian tabernacle in the early church, if that means anything it tells us that it is the center where God’s law is proclaimed. It is a witness to a contract, and the cross tells us of the completion of that contract, and that it involved the death of God’s only begotten son, and therefore, this legal contract is a very serious one, and that anyone who treats the tabernacle, temple, or church, in humanistic terms is defiling it. They are giving it a use alien to God’s intention, and God will judge all such. This is why, again and again, God has brought judgment upon Christendom, and is in process of doing so because men reduce the church to a human institution and they forget that the cross and the church witness to a covenant, a legal and a binding contract. Let us pray.

Our Father, thy word is truth, and thy word sets forth the meaning of thy tabernacle and of thy church. Make us mindful that thy covenant is a covenant of blood, that the price for the making thereof was the death of Jesus Christ, God incarnate, God the Son, and that we are to come to know thy law word for us, to hear and obey, for thou hast said through thy Son, that not one jot nor tittle of thy law word shall pass away as long as heaven and earth endure. O Lord, our God, make us faithful to thy covenant made at the cost of the blood of thine incarnate Son. In Christ’s name, amen. Are there any questions now about our lesson? Yes?

[Audience] The instructions for the building of the ark are more complicated and detailed than any other structure in the Bible.

[Rushdoony] Yes, and we’ll be coming to the ark and the holy of holies subsequently, and it’s very obvious since the rest of Exodus is given over to the matter of the tabernacle, that God took it seriously, that it was not a trifling matter to Him. Are there any other questions? We will be dealing with the ark two weeks hence. Yes?

[Audience] You mentioned that a lot of experts have taken to interpreting the tabernacle, I’m assuming you were talking about maybe some experts in typology, and where is that led astray, I know that, I’m aware that, but what kind of things did they miss?

[Rushdoony] Yes. There are a great many books that deal with the typology of the tabernacle, and there’s no question that it has a typological meaning, and we shall be dealing with that progressively as we go through it, but if you deny the covenant and the law, how are you going to read the typology? You’re going to have to invent something fanciful. You’re going to read all kinds of meaning into it because you have begun by dispensing with the most important aspect of the whole tabernacle, and of course, this is what you have in Scofield’s notes. You have a whole series of comments that really have no relevance to the meaning of the tabernacle, and since the tabernacles points, or is a witness to the law and to the covenant, and therefore, to Christ, his very idea that somehow the future must see a restoration of the temple is to say that Christ is nothing. There’s neither law nor Christ finally in the Scofieldian system. Any other questions or comments? Yes?

[Audience] The passage in 2 Samuel 7, I heard an argument recently that what was God saying through Nathan to David was that he didn’t want a physical temple, he never asked for one. He had been content to dwell in a moveable tabernacle, but that God would build the temple and that that was a reference to the body of Christ, the church itself.

[Rushdoony] Well, also to the fact that in due time, with Solomon, God gave the instruction that a temple was now to be built, and of course, finally it refers to Christ. But the idea that the building of the temple was somehow in disobedience is nonsense. David knew it had to be built but God said, “You’re not to build it, your son is the one who shall build it.” So, that’s misreading that statement. It does ultimately refer to Christ, but in the interim, the temple. Well, if there are no further questions, let us conclude with prayer.

Our Father, we thank thee for thy word and for thy manifold blessings to us. We thank thee that thy mercies are new every morning, that we live, move and have our being in thee, in thy grace, and in thy providential care. Indeed, O Lord, thou hast made us rich beyond our imagination, and if we could but see, we would see ourselves surrounded by thy heavenly hosts, and by manifold blessings yet to come, in time and eternity. How great thou art, O Lord, and we praise thee. And now go in peace. God the Father, God the Son, and God the Holy Ghost bless you and keep you, guide and protect you this day and always. Amen.

End of tape.