• The BaptistWay lesson for May 10 focuses on Exodus 25:1-11, 17-18, 23-24, 31-32; 26:1-2, 7-8; 27:1-2; 29:43-46.
A picture is worth a thousand words
No, really. As I sat down to write this lesson, my daughter asked about the book in my hand. “What is that book about, Daddy?” I told her it is about the tabernacle, and she wanted to know, “What is a tabernacle?” With barely an explanation given, she wanted to know if there were pictures in the book. For her, the 408 pages of I.M. Haldeman’s The Tabernacle, Priesthood and Offerings were sufficiently summarized in its eight illustrations.
You likely will not have time in one Sunday morning to cover all the details of the tabernacle, much less to give those details the attention they deserve. That alone is frustrating. Added to that frustration is the difficulty students will have keeping up with the vast amount of information contained in Exodus 25-30. If only you could summarize those six chapters of Exodus with a great visual aid.
As it turns out, there is such a thing! You can find a download link for a free printable 3D scale model of the tabernacle here. The teachers of our young children’s class used this model a few months ago, and the children loved building it. Using this 3D model on Sunday morning is a great way for you to break the monotony. You may be surprised to see how much fun your adult learners have and how much they retain from the lesson.
The insufficiency of earthly things
Other commentators you undoubtedly are consulting will answer questions about why God instructed Moses to make a tabernacle and why God gave such detailed instructions for its construction. Rather than cataloguing the construction and furnishings of the tabernacle, I want to focus attention on the ironic insufficiency of the tabernacle.
Nancy Pearcey, in her newest book Finding Truth, states my assertion very well when she writes: “The finite cannot reach to the infinite, so the only way it is possible to know eternal truth is if God has communicated to the human race—giving his own transcendent perspective.”
Earthly things like the tabernacle, the Temple and the human body by themselves cannot transport us to God nor can they bridge the gulf sin created between God and us. These earthly things are limited and insufficient in their ability to accomplish atonement, redemption, forgiveness and salvation. Only by God’s initiation, revelation and work can these things even point us to Go
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Hebrews 9 clearly explains the insufficiency of the tabernacle. In verses 8-14, we learn worship in the tabernacle could only make people outwardly clean but could do nothing for the “conscience,” or the spirit of a person. For a person to be cleansed completely—inside and out—required the union of the temporal and the eternal, the material and the Spirit, the finite and the infinite in the person of Jesus Christ. Furthermore, full and total cleansing required not the repeated sacrifice of animals but the once-and-for-all shedding of the innocent blood of Jesus Christ. Nothing about the tabernacle or done in the tabernacle could achieve what Jesus accomplished.
The wonder of earthly things
Even though earthly things such as the tabernacle, the Temple in its various manifestations and the human body are insufficient in themselves for effecting righteousness—holiness—in relationship to a holy God, it is truly a marvel this same holy God uses earthly things for holy purposes. You might even say it is beautiful.
With respect to the tabernacle, we see marvelous beauty in God’s detailed instructions for the construction and crafting of the tabernacle and all its furnishings and adornments. Exodus 25:3-7 records the various things the people of Israel were to offer for the construction—gold, silver, and bronze, blue, purple, scarlet yarn and fine linen, onyx stones and gems.
An aside: Remember the description of God’s presence in Exodus 24:10? What a marvelous visual aid the tabernacle was for the multitudes encamped around it who did not get to see God’s beautiful and glorious presence.
Walter Brueggemann, in Theology of the Old Testament: Testimony, Dispute, Advocacy, takes this list as evidence “that the tabernacle tradition is preoccupied with beauty.” He asserts, “The culmination of this elaborate preparation is the coming of ‘the glory of the Lord.’” What a marvelous thing indeed.
The most marvelous wonder of all, though, is Paul’s teaching that human beings, these earthly vessels of clay, are temples of the Holy Spirit (1 Corinthians 6:19). What a beautiful thing that God would rather dwell in us than in the most magnificent building. What wonder that we are fearfully and wonderfully made for that—with attention given even to the number of hairs on our heads.
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