The section of our book which now opens before us contains the
instructive description of the curtains and coverings of the
tabernacle, wherein the spiritual eye discerns the shadows of the
various features and phases of Christ's manifested character.
"Moreover, thou shalt make the tabernacle with ten curtains of fine
twined linen, and blue, and purple, and scarlet: with cherubim of
cunning work shalt thou make them." Here we have the different aspects
of "the Man Christ Jesus." The "fine twined linen" prefigures the
spotless purity of His walk and character; while the "blue, the
purple, and the scarlet" present Him to us as "the Lord from
_heaven_," who is to _reign_ according to the divine counsels, but
whose royalty is to be the result of His _sufferings_. Thus we have a
spotless Man, a heavenly Man, a royal Man, a suffering Man. These
materials were not confined to the "curtains" of the tabernacle, but
were also used in making "the vail" (ver. 31), "the hanging for the
door of the tent" (ver. 36), "the hanging for the gate of the court"
(chap. xxvii. 16), "the cloths of service and the holy garments of
Aaron" (chap. xxxix. 1). In a word, it was Christ everywhere, Christ
in all, Christ alone.[12]
[12] The expression, "_white_ and _clean_," gives peculiar force and
beauty to the type which the Holy Ghost has presented in the "fine
twined linen." Indeed, there could not be a more appropriate emblem of
spotless manhood.
The "fine twined linen," as expressive of Christ's spotless manhood,
opens a most precious and copious spring of thought to the spiritual
mind; it furnishes a theme on which we cannot meditate too profoundly.
The truth respecting Christ's humanity must be received with
scriptural accuracy, held with spiritual energy, guarded with holy
jealousy, and confessed with heavenly power. If we are wrong as to
this, we cannot be right as to any thing. It is a grand, vital,
fundamental truth; and if it be not received, held, guarded, and
confessed as God has revealed it in His holy Word, the entire
superstructure must be unsound. Nothing can be more deplorable than
the looseness of thought and expression which seems to prevail in
reference to this all-important doctrine. Were there more reverence
for the Word of God, there would be more accurate acquaintance with
it; and, in this way, we should happily avoid all those erroneous and
unguarded statements which surely must grieve the Holy Spirit of God,
whose province it is to testify of Jesus.
When the angel had announced to Mary the glad tidings of the Saviour's
birth, she said to him, "How shall this be, seeing I know not a man?"
Her feeble mind was utterly incompetent to enter into, much less to
fathom, the stupendous mystery of "God manifest in the flesh." But
mark carefully the angelic reply--a reply, not to a sceptic mind, but
to a pious, though ignorant, heart.--"The Holy Ghost shall come upon
thee, and the power of the Highest shall overshadow thee; wherefore,
also, that holy thing which shall be born of thee shall be called the
Son of God." (Luke i. 34, 35.) Mary, doubtless, imagined that this
birth was to be according to the principles of ordinary generation;
but the angel corrects her mistake, and, in correcting it, enunciates
one of the grandest truths of revelation. He declares to her that
divine power was about to form A REAL MAN--"the second Man--the Lord
from heaven"--One whose nature was divinely pure, utterly incapable
of receiving or communicating any taint. This holy One was made "_in
the likeness_ of sinful flesh," without sin in the flesh. He partook
of real _bona fide_ flesh and blood without a particle or shadow of
the evil thereto attaching.
This is a cardinal truth which cannot be too accurately laid hold of
or too tenaciously held. The incarnation of the Son, the second Person
in the eternal Trinity--His mysterious entrance into pure and spotless
flesh, formed, by the power of the Highest, in the virgin's womb, is
the foundation of the "great mystery of godliness," of which the
topstone is a glorified God-man in heaven, the Head, Representative,
and Model of the redeemed Church of God. The essential purity of His
manhood perfectly met the claims of God; the reality thereof met the
necessities of man. He was a Man, for none else would do to meet man's
ruin. But He was such a Man as could satisfy all the claims of the
throne of God. He was a spotless, real Man, in whom God could
perfectly delight, and on whom man could unreservedly lean.
I need not remind the enlightened reader that all this, if taken apart
from death and resurrection, is perfectly unavailable to us. We need
not only an incarnate, but a crucified and risen, Christ. True, He
should be incarnate to be crucified; but it is death and resurrection
which render incarnation available to us. It is nothing short of a
deadly error to suppose that in incarnation Christ was taking man into
union with Himself. This could not be. He Himself expressly teaches
the contrary. "Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except a corn of wheat
fall into the ground and _die_, it abideth _alone_; but if it die, it
bringeth forth much fruit." (John xii. 24.) There could be no union
between sinful and holy flesh, pure and impure, corruptible and
incorruptible, mortal and immortal. Accomplished death is the only
base of a unity between Christ and His elect members. It is in
beautiful connection with the words, "Rise, let us go hence," that He
says, "I am the vine, ye are the branches." "We have been planted
together in the likeness of His death." "Our old man is crucified with
Him, that the body of sin might be destroyed." "In whom also ye are
circumcised with the circumcision made without hands, in putting off
the body of the sins of the flesh by the circumcision of Christ:
buried with Him in baptism, wherein also ye are risen with Him through
the faith of the operation of God, who hath raised Him from the dead."
I would refer my reader to Romans vi. and Colossians ii. as a full and
comprehensive statement of the truth on this important subject. It was
only as dead and risen that Christ and His people could become one.
The true corn of wheat had to fall into the ground and die ere a full
ear could spring up and be gathered into the heavenly garner.
But while this is a plainly revealed truth of Scripture, it is equally
plain that incarnation formed, as it were, the first layer of the
glorious superstructure; and the curtains of "fine twined linen"
prefigure the moral purity of "the Man Christ Jesus." We have already
seen the manner of His conception; and, as we pass along the current
of His life here below, we meet with instance after instance of the
same spotless purity. He was forty days in the wilderness, tempted of
the devil, but there was no response in His pure nature to the
tempters foul suggestions. He could touch the leper and receive no
taint; He could touch the bier and not contract the smell of death; He
could pass unscathed through the most polluted atmosphere. He was, as
to His manhood, like a sunbeam emanating from the fountain of light,
which can pass without a soil through the most defiling medium. He was
perfectly unique in nature, constitution, and character. None but He
could say, "Thou wilt not suffer Thine holy One to see corruption."
This was in reference to His humanity, which, as being perfectly holy
and perfectly pure, was capable of being a sin-bearer. "His own self
bare our sins in His own body on the tree." Not _to_ the tree, as some
would teach us; but "_on_ the tree." It was on the cross that Christ
was our sin-bearer, and only there. "He hath made Him to be sin for us
who knew no sin, that we might be made the righteousness of God in
Him." (2 Cor. v. 21.)
"_Blue_" is the ethereal color, and marks the heavenly character of
Christ, who, though He had come down into all the circumstances of
actual and true humanity (sin excepted), yet was He "the Lord from
heaven." Though He was "very man," yet He ever walked in the
uninterrupted consciousness of His proper dignity, as a heavenly
stranger. He never once forgot whence He had come, where He was, or
whither He was going. The spring of all His joys was on high. Earth
could neither make Him richer nor poorer. He found this world to be "a
dry and thirsty land, where no water is," and hence His spirit could
only find its refreshment above. It was entirely heavenly.--"No man
hath ascended up to heaven, but He that came down from heaven, even
the Son of Man _who is in heaven_." (John iii. 13.)
"_Purple_" denotes royalty, and points us to Him who "was born King of
the Jews;" who offered Himself as such to the Jewish nation, and was
rejected; who before Pontius Pilate witnessed a good confession,
avowing Himself a king, when, to mortal vision, there was not so much
as a single trace of royalty.--"Thou sayest that I am a king." And
"hereafter ye shall see the Son of Man sitting at the right hand of
power, and coming in the clouds of heaven." And, finally, the
inscription upon His cross, "in letters of Hebrew, and Greek, and
Latin"--the language of religion, of science, and of government--declared
Him, to the whole known world, to be "Jesus of Nazareth, the King of
the Jews." Earth disowned His claims (so much the worse for it), but
not so heaven; there His claim was fully recognized. He was received
as a conqueror into the eternal mansions of light, crowned with glory
and honor, and seated, amid the acclamations of angelic hosts, on the
throne of the Majesty in the heavens, there to wait until His enemies
be made His footstool. "Why do the heathen rage, and the people
imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the
rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against His
anointed, saying, 'Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away
their cords from us.' He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh; the
Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall He speak unto them in His
wrath, and vex them in His sore displeasure. Yet have I set _My King_
upon My holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the Lord hath
said unto Me, 'Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of
Me, and I shall give Thee the heathen for Thine inheritance, and the
uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession. Thou shalt break them
with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter's
vessel.' Be wise now therefore, O ye kings; be instructed, ye judges
of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling.
Kiss the Son, lest He be angry, and ye perish from the way, when His
wrath is kindled but a little. BLESSED ARE ALL THEY THAT PUT THEIR
TRUST IN HIM." (Ps. ii.)
"_Scarlet_," when genuine, is produced by death; and this makes its
application to a suffering Christ safe and appropriate. "Christ hath
suffered for us in the flesh." Without death, all would have been
unavailing. We can admire "the blue" and "the purple," but without
"the scarlet" the tabernacle would have lacked an all-important
feature. It was by death that Christ destroyed him that had the power
of death. The Holy Ghost, in setting before us a striking figure of
Christ--the true tabernacle--could not possibly omit that phase of His
character which constitutes the ground-work of His connection with His
body the Church, of His claim to the throne of David, and the headship
of all creation. In a word, He not only unfolds the Lord Jesus to our
view, in these significant curtains, as a spotless Man, a royal Man,
but also a suffering Man,--One who, _by death_, should make good His
claims to all that to which, as man, He was entitled, in the divine
counsels.
But we have much more in the curtains of the tabernacle than the
varied and perfect phases of the character of Christ,--we have also
the unity and consistency of that character. Each phase is displayed
in its own proper perfectness; and one never interferes with, or mars
the exquisite beauty of, another. All was in perfect harmony beneath
the eye of God, and was so displayed in "the pattern which was showed
to Moses on the mount," and in the copy which was exhibited below.
"Every one of the curtains shall have one measure. The five curtains
shall be coupled together one to another; and other five curtains
shall be coupled one to another." Such was the fair proportion and
consistency in all the ways of Christ, as a perfect Man, walking on
the earth, in whatever aspect or relationship we view Him. When acting
in one character, we never find aught that is, in the very least
degree, inconsistent with the divine integrity of another. He was, at
all times, in all places, under all circumstances, the perfect Man.
There was nothing out of that fair and lovely proportion which
belonged to Him, in all His ways. "Every one of the curtains shall
have one measure."
The two sets of five curtains each may symbolize the two grand aspects
of Christ's character, as acting toward God and toward man. We have
the same two aspects in the law, namely, what was due to God, and what
was due to man; so that as to Christ, if we look in, we find "Thy law
is within My heart;" and if we look at His outward character and walk,
we see those two elements adjusted with perfect accuracy, and not only
adjusted, but inseparably linked together by the heavenly grace and
divine energy which dwelt in His most glorious Person.
"And thou shalt make _loops of blue_ upon the edge of the one curtain,
from the selvedge in the coupling; and likewise shalt thou make in the
uttermost edge of another curtain, in the coupling of the second....
And thou shalt make fifty _taches of gold_, and couple the curtains
together with the taches; and _it shall be one tabernacle_." We have
here displayed to us, in the "loops of blue," and "taches of _gold_,"
that _heavenly_ grace and _divine_ energy in Christ which enabled Him
to combine and perfectly adjust the claims of God and man; so that in
responding to both the one and the other, He never, for a moment,
marred the unity of His character. When crafty and hypocritical men
tempted Him with the inquiry, "Is it lawful to give tribute to Cæsar,
or not?" His wise reply was, "Render to Cæsar the things that are
Cæsar's, and to God the things that are God's."
Nor was it merely Cæsar, but man in every relation that had all his
claims perfectly met in Christ. As He united in His perfect Person the
nature of God and man, so He met in His perfect ways the claims of God
and man. Most interesting would it be to trace, through the gospel
narrative, the exemplification of the principle suggested by the
"loops of blue," and "taches of gold;" but I must leave my reader to
pursue this study under the immediate guidance of the Holy Ghost, who
delights to expatiate upon every feature and every phase of that
perfect One whom it is His unvarying purpose and undivided object to
exalt.
The curtains on which we have been dwelling were covered with other
"curtains of goats' hair." (Ver. 7-14.) Their beauty was hidden from
those without by that which bespoke roughness and severity. This
latter did not meet the view of those within. To all who were
privileged to enter the hallowed inclosure, nothing was visible save
"the blue, the purple, the scarlet, and fine twined linen," the varied
yet combined exhibition of the virtues and excellencies of that divine
Tabernacle in which God dwelt within the vail--that is, of Christ,
through whose flesh, the antitype of all these, the beams of the
divine nature shone so delicately that the sinner could behold without
being overwhelmed by their dazzling brightness.
As the Lord Jesus passed along this earth, how few really knew Him!
How few had eyes anointed with heavenly eye-salve to penetrate and
appreciate the deep mystery of His character! How few saw "the blue,
the purple, the scarlet, and fine twined linen"! It was only when
faith brought man into His presence that He ever allowed the
brightness of what He was to shine forth--ever allowed the glory to
break through the cloud. To nature's eye there would seem to have been
a reserve and a severity about Him which were aptly prefigured by the
"covering of goats' hair." All this was the result of His profound
separation and estrangement, not from sinners personally, but from the
thoughts and maxims of men. He had nothing in common with man as such,
nor was it within the compass of mere nature to comprehend or enjoy
Him. "No man," said He, "can come to Me, except the Father which hath
sent Me draw him;" and when one of those "drawn" ones confessed His
name, He declared that "flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto
thee, but My Father which is in heaven." (Comp. John vi. 44; Matt.
xvi. 17.) He was "a root out of a dry ground," having neither "form
nor comeliness" to attract the eye or gratify the heart of man. The
popular current could never flow in the direction of of One who, as He
passed rapidly across the stage of this vain world, wrapped Himself up
in a "covering of goats' hair." Jesus was not popular. The multitude
might follow Him for a moment, because His ministry stood connected,
in their judgment, with "the loaves and fishes" which met their need;
but they were just as ready to cry, "Away with Him!" as "Hosanna to
the Son of David!" Oh, let Christians remember this! Let the servants
of Christ remember it! Let all preachers of the gospel remember it!
Let one and all of us ever seek to bear in mind the "_covering of
goats' hair_"!
But if the goats' skins expressed the severity of Christ's separation
from earth, "the rams' skins _dyed red_" exhibit His intense
consecration and devotedness to God, which was carried out even unto
_death_. He was the only perfect Servant that ever stood in God's
vineyard. He had one object, which He pursued with an undeviating
course from the manger to the cross, and that was, to glorify the
Father, and finish His work. "Wist ye not that I must be about My
Father's business?" was the language of His youth, and the
accomplishment of that "business" was the design of His life. "His
meat was to do the will of Him that sent Him, and to finish His work."
"The rams' skins dyed red" formed as distinct a part of His ordinary
habit as the "goats' hair." His perfect devotion to God separated Him
from the habits of men.
"The badgers' skins" may exhibit to us the holy vigilance with which
the Lord Jesus guarded against the approach of every thing hostile to
the purpose which engrossed His whole soul. He took up His position
for God, and held it with a tenacity which no influence of men or
devils, earth or hell, could overcome. The covering of badger's skins
was "above" (ver. 14), teaching us that the most prominent feature in
the character of "the Man Christ Jesus" was an invincible
determination to stand as a witness for God on the earth. He was the
true Naboth, who gave up His life rather than surrender the truth of
God, or give up that for which He had taken His place in this world.
The goat, the ram, and the badger must be regarded as exhibiting
certain natural features, and also as symbolizing certain moral
qualities; and we must take both into account in our application of
these figures to the character of Christ. The human eye could only
discern the former. It could see none of the moral grace, beauty, and
dignity which lay beneath the outward form of the despised and humble
Jesus of Nazareth. When the treasures of heavenly wisdom flowed from
His lips, the inquiry was, "Is not this the carpenter?" or, "How
knoweth this Man letters, having never learned?" When He asserted His
eternal Sonship and Godhead, the word was, "Thou art not yet fifty
years old," or, "They took up stones to cast at Him." In short, the
acknowledgment of the Pharisees in John ix. was true in reference to
men in general.--"As for this fellow, we know not from whence He is."
It would be utterly impossible, in the compass of a volume like this,
to trace the unfoldings of those precious features of Christ's
character through the gospel narratives. Sufficient has been said to
open up springs of spiritual thought to my reader, and to furnish some
faint idea of the rich treasures which are wrapped up in the curtains
and coverings of the tabernacle. Christ's hidden being, secret
springs, and inherent excellencies--His outward and unattractive
form--what He was in Himself, what He was Godward, and what He was
manward--what He was in the judgment of faith, and what in the
judgment of nature--all is sweetly and impressively told out, to the
circumcised ear, in the "curtains of blue, purple, scarlet, and fine
twined linen," and the "coverings of skins."
"The boards for the tabernacle" were made of the same wood as was used
in constructing "the ark of the covenant." Moreover, they were upheld
by the sockets of silver formed out of the atonement; their hooks and
chapiters being of the same. (Compare attentively chap. xxx. 11-16,
with chap. xxxviii. 25-28.) The whole frame-work of the tent of the
tabernacle was based on that which spoke of atonement or ransom, while
the "hooks and chapiters" at the top set forth the same. The sockets
were buried in the sand, and the hooks and chapiters were above. It
matters not how deep you penetrate, or how high you rise, that
glorious and eternal truth is emblazoned before you, "I HAVE FOUND A
RANSOM." Blessed be God, "we are not redeemed with corruptible things,
as silver and gold, ... but with the precious blood of Christ, as of a
lamb without blemish and without spot."
The tabernacle was divided into three distinct parts, namely, "the
holy of holies," "the holy place," and "the court of the tabernacle."
The entrance into each of these was of the same materials--"blue,
purple, scarlet, and fine twined linen." (Compare chapter xxvi. 31,
36; xxvii. 16.) The interpretation of which is simply this: Christ
forms the only doorway into the varied fields of glory which are yet
to be displayed, whether on earth, in heaven, or in the heaven of
heavens. "Every family, in heaven and earth," will be ranged under His
headship, as all will be brought into everlasting felicity and glory
on the ground of His accomplished atonement. This is plain enough, and
needs no stretch of the imagination to grasp it. We know it to be
true; and when we know the truth which is shadowed forth, the shadow
is easily understood. If only our hearts be filled with Christ, we
shall not go far astray in our interpretations of the tabernacle and
its furniture. It is not a head full of learned criticism that will
avail us much here, but a heart full of affection for Jesus, and a
conscience at rest in the blood of His cross.
May the Spirit of God enable us to study these things with more
interest and intelligence. May He "open our eyes that we may behold
wondrous things out of His law."