02.06. FOUNDATION OF THE TABERNACLE

FOUNDATION OF THE TABERNACLE THE foundation of the Tabernacle consisted of one hundred sockets of silver, two under each of the forty-eight boards, and four under the pillars of the vail.

Each socket weighed a talent (nearly a hundred pounds).

“A talent for a socket.” (Exodus 38:27.) The silver was taken from the atonement money which each man above twenty must give as a ransom for his soul.

It was his redemption price.

“And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel after their number, then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the LORD, when thou numberest them; that there be no plague among them, when thou numberest them. This they shall give, everyone that passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary: (a shekel is twenty gerahs:) an half shekel shall be the offering of the LORD.

Everyone that passeth among them that are numbered, from twenty years old and above, shall give an offering unto the LORD. The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when they give an offering unto the LORD, to make an atonement for your souls.” (Exodus 30:11-15.)

“And the silver of them that were numbered of the congregation was an hundred talents, and a thousand seven hundred and three score and fifteen shekels, after the shekel of the sanctuary: A bekah for every man, that is, half a shekel, after the shekel of the sanctuary, for everyone that went to be numbered, from twenty years old and upward, for six hundred thousand and three thousand and five hundred and fifty men. And of the hundred talents of silver were cast the sockets of the sanctuary, and the sockets of the vail; an hundred sockets of the hundred talents, a talent for a socket.” (Exodus 38:25-27.) The silver money sockets of the Tabernacle are a symbol of the precious price paid by our Lord Jesus Christ for the ransom of those who are His; as it is written:

“Ye are bought with a price.” (1 Corinthians 6:20.) But this redemption price was paid by Him neither in silver nor gold, but with His own precious blood.

“Ye were 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.” (1 Peter 1:18-19.) The word, “precious,” signifies, “costly.”

It was costly indeed, this blood, this “half shekel of the sanctuary,” told out drop by drop in the anguish of the cross. By “precious” means of “exalted worth.” It was.

It was nothing less than the—blood OF GOD.

Startling! but true.

Hear the word of Holy Scripture about it:

“The church of God which he (God) hath purchased with his own blood.” (Acts 20:28.)

Since our Lord Jesus Christ was the “purchaser,” the statement is therefore, of course, a declaration that He was God. This is only another one of those side testimonies which are continually waiting to thrust themselves in that they may suddenly and unexpectedly proclaim His deity.

Atonement by—the blood OF GOD––that is the authoritative word of Holy Scripture. And it is on this basis of atonement the Tabernacle was set up. The basis of––redemption by atonement. The basis on which our Lord Jesus Christ is presented to men is not that of a good man, nor yet, as merely God manifest in the flesh.

He did not come into the world that He might live in sinless perfection as a man, nor that He might demonstrate Himself to be a God-man.

If that were all, there would be little hope for sinful man. The more such a Christ should reveal Himself in holiness and divinity, the greater and more bridgeless would be seen to be the gulf between Him and the natural man. To set Him up as an example to men would be to mock the helplessness of men.

He did not come into the world to live a life so transcendently perfect and beautiful that the multitude would fall in love with Him––No!

He did not come into the world to live at all. His one great purpose was to die. To die, that by His death He might provide an atonement for the sinner, ransom him from guilt, from penalty and power of sin.

He Himself testifies He came into the world to die. “Therefore doth my Father love me, because I lay down my life, that I might take it again. No man taketh it from me, but I lay it down of myself. I have power to lay it down, and I have power to take it again. This commandment have I received of my Father.” (John 10:17-18.)

He received this command before He carne into the world; and this in the nature of the case; for as the Lamb of God He was ordained before the foundation of the world.” (1 Peter 1:20.) He received this commandment in His pre-incarnate state while He was in the “form” of God. (Php 2:6.) As He was God the Lord, coeval and co eternal and coequal with the Father, He could not be “commanded “without His willingness. If He received a commandment from the Father to lay down His incarnate life, it was because He had agreed to do so, and agreement in Godhead between Father and Son is––covenant.

It was according to covenant He was brought again from the dead––such is the assertion of Scripture.

“The God of peace that brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, that great shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the everlasting covenant.” (Hebrews 13:20.) The logic of that statement is inexorable.

If He were raised from the dead according to the everlasting covenant, then by And through that same covenant He entered into death. This is His own definite statement:

“Now is my soul troubled; and what shall I say? Father save me from this hour?” Do you see the meaning of that?

He is soliloquizing.

He is asking Himself whether He shall call upon the Father to save Him from that shameful death of the cross already casting its deepening shadows upon Him.

He could have done that. At the grave of Lazarus He declared before the people that the Father always heard Him, and He meant by that––always answered Him.

He said:

“I knew that thou hearest me always.” (John 11:42.) If He had called upon the Father, the Father would have heard and answered Him.

Listen, I pray you, how He finished His soliloquy:

“But––for this cause (literally––on account of this) came I unto this hour.” (John 12:27.)

He came to be rejected of His own people and hung upon a Roman cross––and at once He speaks of that death and the manner of it;

He says:

“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth, will draw all men unto me.” And then in explanation of the peculiarity of this expression it is written:

“This he said, signifying what death he should die.”

(John 12:32-33.).

Wherefore, also, it is written:

“We see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels (angels are not subject to death) made a little lower than the angels for––the suffering of death. . . that He by the grace of God should taste death for every man (one).” (Hebrews 2:9.) Continually He announced He had come into the world to die.

Persistently He told His disciples He would be crucified. As the hour drew on we are told, “He steadfastly set his face to go to Jerusalem.” (Luke 9:51.) From all eternity He was ordained to be crucified. As such Paul preached Him.

He refused to preach Him in any other way. He might have preached Him as a good man.

He might have preached Him as the God who came down to earth to show Himself as such to men.

He never did so preach Him. In none of his discourses does he dwell upon the perfect, human life of Christ that he may set Him before men as a worth-while and saving example.

If he speak of His deity (and none has written more amazingly in support of it than he) he does so that he may draw attention to the immensity of the transaction on the cross; that it might be seen He was there in all the perfectness of His humanity and all the plenitude of His deity––perfect man for a perfect sacrifice––eternal and very God, that as God His sacrifice might satisfy the being of God––God atoning to God on behalf of man that God in all righteousness and to the justification of His righteousness might save unrighteous and sinful men––making them at last essentially and eternally righteous.

Never, not for a moment, does Paul engage in the worse than babbling of those who talk about such meaningless and extra Scriptural things as the “precepts “and “principles” of Christ. His one theme was Christ and Him crucified. A crucified, a sacrificial and an atoning Christ, whose shed blood, like the silver base of the Tabernacle, was the only foundation upon which any human being could stand and be accepted of a holy God. THE TABERNACLE A SYMBOL OF THE CHURCH

If the Tabernacle set forth our Lord Jesus Christ as the dwelling place of God, equally so is it a symbol of the Church as the dwelling place of God on earth today. By regeneration, by the impartation of His life and nature through the operation of the Holy Spirit the risen Christ dwells in each genuine believer; each believer, each real Christian is––the reincarnation of Christ.

It is this process of reincarnating Christ in a human life that gives us the distinctive character of this age and the distinctive character of God’s dealing with the world today; as it is written:

“Even the mystery (secret) which has been hid from ages and from generations, but is now made manifest to his saints: To whom God would make known what is the riches of the glory of this mystery among the Gentiles; which is––Christ in you, the hope of glory.” (Colossians 1:26-27.) The believer is “joined” to the Lord as “one spirit.” (1 Corinthians 6:17.)

Christ in each believer joins each believer to every other believer, and these individual believers constitute the spiritual body of Christ in which each is a special and “particular” member.

“By (in) one Spirit are we (we have been) baptized into one body whether we be Jews or Gentiles.” (1 Corinthians 12:13.)

(This baptism by the Risen Lord of Jewish believers into one spirit took place at Pentecost in Jerusalem, the baptism of the Gentile believers at the house of Cornelius in Caesarea, where after they had been baptized into the Spirit they were, also, baptized in water.)

“So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and everyone members one of another.” Romans 12:5) Again it is written:

“Christ liveth in me.” (Galatians 2:20.)

Since Christ dwells in the believer, and Christ is God, very God of very God, then God is dwelling in the Church and the Church is the Tabernacle of God, the dwelling place of God; as it is written:

“Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner (like the corner board of the Tabernacle going from the bottom all the way to the top). In whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord; In whom ye also are builded together (are being builded) for an habitation (dwelling place) of God through the Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:21-22.)

Beyond question the Tabernacle is a symbol of the Church as the reincarnation of Christ, the dwelling place of God on earth.

Since the Tabernacle was built upon the silver of the half shekel and that silver was the silver money of atonement for Israel and a symbol of the atonement to be made by our Lord Jesus Christ by and through His sacrificial death, it is an open declaration that the Church stands before God today on the basis of the atonement made by that sacrificial death and outpoured blood and finds its acceptance and security on none’ other. And that his sacrificial and atoning death may ever be kept before the Church as the ground and security of her acceptance before God there has been given to her two ordinances and two only, Baptism and the Breaking of Bread.

Baptism “is the confession of the individual believer that Christ died, was buried and rose again.

It is the confession of the believer that the moment he believed he was owned of God as having been put to death judicially in the death of Christ as his substitute; that he was buried representatively in His grave, rose and ascended representatively in Him and is now accepted as seated in “heavenly places” in Christ.

It is the believer’s further confession of his confidence should he die and his body be buried away, he, too, like his Lord, and by His power should rise from the dead and be made immortal. The Breaking of Bread is the confession of the Church as a Body, and in assembly order, not only that Christ died, but that His death is the sole ground of approach to and worship of God. The Breaking of Bread is. the setting up of the cross in the very midst of the’ assembly and a proclamation by the Church that its standing and acceptance before God as His Tabernacle and dwelling place on earth is alone in the atoning sacrificial death of His Son, The authoritative word of the ordinance is this: “Ye do shew the Lord’s death.” By that ordinance the attention of the Church is drawn, not to the life our Lord lived on the earth, but ––to the death He died on the cross. With such an ordinance in the midst (and continuously––not spasmodically) observed, neither the preacher in the pulpit, nor the professor in the pew has any excuse for missing the mission of the Lord in the world. With that ordinance centered before them there is no ground on which to exalt Him merely as a good man, a teacher and a dispenser of “precepts” and “principles;” in the broken bread and poured out wine; in the headquarters statement: “This is my body, This is my blood,” there is only one vision of Him given to the Church––His bloody and sacrificial offering of Himself as the Great Sin Offering provided of God for the salvation’ of guilty and ruined human beings. And as she takes of that bread and wine the Church confesses that she lives because––He died. Nor is this all of the ordinance.

“Ye do shew the Lord’s death till––He come.”

“Till He come.”

Then He is coming again!

What daylight in those words for the assembled Church.

If He is coming again then––He is alive.

If He is alive then He rose from the dead, and His resurrection is the incontrovertible demonstration and proof that the sacrificial death the Church is solemnly memorializing in that ordinance, has met and settled all claims of righteousness against her. It is the guarantee of the promise He made: “Because I live (will live again after my death) ye shall live also.”

“Till He come!”

What music in those words––what a prospect they unvail.

He is coming back, coming for the Church for whom He died.

How immense is this ordinance.

It sets forth: The Death, The Burial, The Resurrection, The Ascension, The Second coming of our Lord.

How can a Church go wrong with these two ordinances:

Baptism as the individual confession of the Believer that he has passed through the judgment with Christ on the cross.

Breaking the Bread––the Church seated together on the Lord’s Day (Day of His resurrection) with the judgment of the cross behind her and the glory of the Coming Lord before her.

Just think of it!

Judgment behind us.

Glory before us.

Let the wisdom and genius of the Lord who inspired these ordinances as safeguards of the Church in respect to doctrine be glorified; for, in face of any denial of the truth these ordinances are there the proclamation of it and the rock––like resistance to any denial of it.

See how Baptism rebukes anyone who fails to recognize that his faith must own a Christ dead, buried and risen again; and as baptism requires that the body buried in the baptismal water shall be lifted out again, how this baptism keenly rebukes those who would profess faith in Christ and deny His bodily resurrection.

See how the ordinance of the Breaking of Bread, the Lord’s Supper rebukes those who fail to see that the only ground of approach to God is in the sacrificial death of His Son. The sockets of the Tabernacle were made of individually given half shekels.

Each man had to bring his half shekel. Salvation is not to be had in bloc.

Social salvation, salvation of society as such is something entirely unknown to Holy Scripture––it is absolutely––extra Biblical.

Salvation is individual––personal.

Social and personal salvation considered as systems are as far apart as the east is from the west. Social salvation has to do with man here, it does not go beyond the horizon of this world and time.

Individual salvation has to do with man not merely here, but beyond this world, in eternity, it is his relation to eternity that determines God’s dealings with him here. The man who is saved for eternity has the grace and equipment of God to live here no matter what the social condition. The man who is identified with a social salvation, with a mere moral adjustment of the world and no guaranty of the favor of God in eternity lacks the favor of God here, and no matter how fine may be the civilization of which he is a contributing factor both that civilization and himself are doomed to judgment and destruction.

Wherefore our Lord has said, “What shall it profit a man, if he shall gain the whole world, and lose his own soul?” There is a far––reaching meaning in that. It is saying in final terms that no matter how this world may be builded, what comfort and beauty you may put into it for the sake of the mass, if you do not have a personal salvation by and through a personal Saviour, it shall profit you nothing––a whole world gained and a personal soul lost is a fearful rebuke to the illusion and delusion of a so––called––Social Gospel.

Nay! salvation must be individual––you must bring your half shekel.

You must make a personal application of the cross to your soul, you must claim an individual part in it. Do not make a mistake, the Gospel is not for the mass, it is for “every creature.” It separates you from the mass and says to you: “If thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God raised him from the dead thou––shalt be saved.” (Romans 10:9.) In Israel there was the same standard for all. Each must bring a half shekel. The rich could bring no more. The poor should bring no less; as it is written:

“The rich shall not give more, and the poor shall not give less than half a shekel, when they give an offering unto the LORD, to make an atonement for your souls.” (Exodus 30:15.) The rich had no pre-eminence by reason of their wealth. The poor were not shut out because of their poverty. ,

You may be rich in moral character––you may have a great reserve capital in the merit of works of righteousness you have wrought. This will not save you, it will not give you eternal life, it will not give title to enter Heaven and the kingdom of God.

If you would be saved you must bring the half shekel––the blood of Christ, that is the true half shekel of the sanctuary; that is the only coin that will pass at the throne of God––and that is––all sufficient. Come with the blood of Christ and offer that to God, you shall be accepted and saved no matter who you are or what you have been.

You may be poor, utterly bankrupt in character, a moral outcast, no matter, you can offer the half shekel of the sanctuary, the precious blood of Christ, it will pay your debt and you shall stand absolved and clean in God’s sight; for it is written:

“The blood of Jesus Christ his Son, cleanseth us from all sin.” (1 John 1:7) The half shekel counted for the rich, it brought him atonement. The half shekel counted for the poor, it brought him atonement.

It is the blood, and the blood alone that counts, it is the blood alone that meets the individual case; as it is written:

“It is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” (Leviticus 17:11) The silver sockets were a continual memorial to the children of Israel that the Lord had redeemed them; it was, also, a memorial that He had purchased them, they were His and no longer their own. This is the logic of the price paid for us on the cross, the logic for all who believe; as it is written:

“Ye are not your own. For ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God in your body, and in your spirit, which are God’s.” (1 Corinthians 6:19-20.) The sum of the teaching is simple enough. The silver foundation of the Tabernacle testified that our Lord Jesus Christ should come into the world to die as a sacrifice for sin and on that basis make it possible for God to dwell in man. The silver sockets of the Tabernacle testify that as a Church and individual members of it we stand before God accepted in His sight and owned as His dwelling place on the basis of the half shekel of the cross, even the atoning blood of the Son of God offered by us through faith. Not only is our standing before God on the basis of the atoning sacrifice of the Cross and the fact that we have claimed the blood as offered on our behalf, but our approach individually is on that ground. At no time in our Christian experience, no matter how fully we may have surrendered to the indwelling of Christ, never, at any time, even in the most exalted state of our appropriation of Christ can we approach Him and the Father’s throne on any other ground than of the blood shed for us. When the Church as His, glorified Bride shall be caught up at His Coming for her and enter Heaven with Him, when she shall find herself on the threshold of the kingdom and about to return with Him in His Kingly splendor, even then every individual member will break out into the great song that shall thrill Heaven with its paean of praise to the redeeming grace and triumphant authority of the blood. This will be the song they will sing:

“Thou art worthy to take the book, (the title deeds of the kingdom), and to open the seals (the signals for the outpouring of judgments) thereof: for thou wast slain, and has redeemed us to God by thy blood out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation.” (An individual redemption.) (Revelation 5:9.)