02.14. PINS AND CORDS
PINS AND CORDS THE Tabernacle was secured to its place by pins of brass and cords of linen. The pins were driven into the ground, the cords passed .over the outer covering of badgers’ skins, tying them down, and were fastened at the end and sides to the pins or nails.
“All the pins of the court shall be of brass.” (Exodus 27:19.) “The pins of the tabernacle, and the pins of the court, and their cords.” (Exodus 35:18.) THE PINS OF BRASS The word, “pin,” is also translated, “nail.” (Judges 4:21; Judges 5:26.) It is also rendered, “stake.” (Isaiah 33:20; Isaiah 54:12.) The pin or nail is a symbol of our Lord. He is called a Nail.
“A nail in a sure place.” This is set forth in a remarkable Scripture in Isaiah 22:20-25. The Lord speaks of a certain Eliakim, the son of Hilkiah, as His servant.
He says He will commit His government unto him. He makes this far-reaching promise:
“And the key of the house of David will I lay upon his shoulder; so he shall open, and none shall shut; and he shall shut, and none shall open. And I will fasten him as a nail in a sure place; and he shall be for a glorious throne to his father’s house. And they shall hang upon him all the glory of his father’s house.”
After His death, His resurrection and ascension to Heaven, our Lord Jesus Christ applies this Scripture to Himself. In a letter which He sent through the Apostle John to the Church in Philadelphia, a city in the province of Asia, he says:
“He that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth.” (Revelation 3:7)
Since He thus claims to have the key of David with power to open and shut, it is a demonstration and proof that He is the Eliakim of whom the prophet Isaiah speaks; and since Eliakim is to be fastened as a nail in a sure place, and this sure place is the throne of David in Jerusalem, and all the glory of the Father’s house is to be hung upon Him, you have the clear and unmistakable teaching that the nail or pin of brass is a divinely chosen symbol of Him and sets Him forth as He who shall establish the throne of His father David and become the guarantor for the fulfillment of all the promises of glory made to the nation of the Jews first and then to all Israel. In Isaiah 22:25, of Isaiah’s prophecy, another nail is spoken of as fastened in the sure place, a nail upon which the Jews will hang all their hopes of glory in the latter days; but this nail will be cut down and all that is hung upon it will fall; as it is written:
“In that day, saith the LORD of hosts, shall the nail that is fastened in the sure place be removed, and be cut down, and fall; and the burden that was upon it shall be cut off: for the LORD hath spoken it.” This second nail is a symbol of Antichrist who, as his name indicates, will come before the true Christ, even, our Lord Jesus Christ. He will make a covenant or agreement with the returned Jews. He will make such promises and concessions to them that they will hail him as their deliverer; but the Lord will come and-cut him off and all who cast their hopes upon him and reveal Himself to be the true and abiding nail, fastened in the sure and covenant place upon Mount Zion forever. The nails or pins of the Tabernacle were brass. They would not rust. The action of rain, wind and storm would not affect them. The pins of brass stood every test.
They symbolize our Lord Jesus Christ as— The Tested One.
He was tested in the Mount.
He was tested there by the Devil as the first man had been tested by him.
He was tested in His appetite.
He had fasted forty days and nights and the Devil appealing to His hunger bade Him turn the plentiful stones about Him into bread.
These stones which may be seen today had the suggestive appearance of loaves of bread. The temptation was psychologically and illustratively forceful. In bidding Him to do this thing the Devil was tempting Him to turn away from His chosen attitude of faith, take Himself out of His Father’s hand, cease acting like a man and exercise His covenantly restrained deity.
It was a genuine test.
It was an appeal to His claims as God. He stood the test.
He refused to act in His divine power even though hunger was making its demands upon Him and the deity in Him could have instantly responded He had taken the place of a man in perfect and absolute dependence on the Father.
He refused to take Himself out of His hand.
He would abide before Him as the man who had chosen to walk by faith and not by sight.
He was tested as to His faith in the Father’s promise concerning the Providence that should watch over Him daily as a man. The Father had promised should He walk the earth by faith as a man He would give Him and His circumstantial experiences into the care of guardian angels; they should be continually at His side to support Him with their greater than human strength, lest in His weariness He might even dash His foot against a stone; as it is written:
“He shall give his angels charge over thee, to keep thee in all thy ways, They shall bear thee up in their hands, lest thou dash thy foot against a stone.” (Psalms 91:11-12.) That he might test Him in this the Devil led Him to the highest point in the temple, quoted the promise of God the Father, and then bade Him cast Himself headlong and see whether the God whom He claimed to be so specially and specifically His Father would interfere with the laws of nature and whether the angels with their up bearing hands would come to the rescue. To experiment with the promise of God, to see whether God will keep faith with Himself is the rankest kind of dishonoring and treasonable unbelief. It is raw guilt, the guilt of trifling with the integrity and honor of the Almighty. It is the sin of presumption, a presumption which might well call for the sudden letting loose of the fiery judgments of God. The Son of God stood the test.
He refused to trifle with the Father who had committed His honor to the faith and surrender of His Son.
He repudiated the temptation.
He was tested with the offer of worldly power and glory.
He came into the world to be King of the Jews, King of Israel and King of kings.
He knew the way thereto led through the bloody sweat of Gethsemane and the agony of the cross. The Devil offered Him a short cut.
He offered Him the rulership of the world without going to the cross.
It was not an idle offer.
He was the original prince of this world.
God gave Him the title, power and authority in the “beginning;” when He created the heavens and the earth. The earth was then perfect, beautiful, a province in the Empire of God. The Devil was not satisfied with the rulership of the world.
He was an angel, the chief of the cherubim.
He was Lucifer, the son of the morning.
He was full of knowledge.
He was so full of knowledge, so “wise,” that “no secret” could be hid from him.
He was so full of beauty that by reason of it his heart was “lifted up.” His “brightness” corrupted his wisdom. (Ezekiel 28:3; Ezekiel 28:17.) His pride was equal to his greatness. He exalted himself above measure.
He would be satisfied with nothing less than an equal share of the rulership of the universe.
He would not overthrow God nor take His place. He would be equal with God.
He is the one to whom Paul refers inferentially in Php 2:6, who (in contrast to our Lord who would not hold on to his equality but “emptied” Himself of it and became a servant) snatched at equality with God.
He said:
“I will exalt my throne above the stars of God.”
“I will be like the Most High.” (Isaiah 14:13-14.) He said:
“I am God.”
“I sit in the seat of God.” (Ezekiel 28:1.) By this act and attitude he became Satan (the word “Satan “signifies an “adversary”).
After this, by a cataclysmic event the earth fell into a state of chaos.
Satan and his host were banished to the dark void surrounding the earth. When the earth was remade, man created and set upon it as the provisional ruler and prince, Satan accepted it as a challenge.
He determined to destroy man and ruin the purpose and plan of God concerning him. He tempted man with his own fatal desire to be as God.
Man yielded, fell, was set aside of God and became the willing, but unconscious slave of Satan.
Satan then became the Devil. “Devil” signifies “a slanderer.”
He was the slanderer of God, traducing His name and character to man. In facing our Lord Jesus Christ he faced the “Second Man,” – the “Last Adam.”
Although cast out, cast down and utterly fallen from his high place, he was still by title the “prince of this world.” Our Lord Himself owns him as such. He says:
“The prince of this world cometh, and hath nothing in me.” (John 14:30.) With his usurping angels as the” rulers of the darkness of this world, and in spite of the official judgment against him and his system called “the world,” he is still (under God) the power behind the powers and authorities of earth.
He was willing to hand over his practical rulership to the Lord. The condition he made was a straight one.
He knew it was in the infinite plan that the Son of man as immortal man should be coequal ruler of the universe with the Father; he would give up all claims to the world, retire his evil angels from the border land of the earth, cease all battle to hold it and give full and undisputed title to Him as “The pod of the whole earth “if He would fall down and acknowledge him as the true and by right “equal” ruler of the universe with the Father. Listen to the offer as he made it:
“And the devil, taking him up into a high mountain, shewed unto him all the kingdoms of the world in a moment of time. And the devil said unto him, All this power will I give thee, and the glory of them: for that is delivered unto me; and to whomsoever I will I give it.
If thou therefore wilt worship me, all shall be thine.” (Luke 4:5-7.)
Back of all this the supreme aim of the Devil was to break up the everlasting covenant and prevent man from ascending in Christ to the joint rulership of the universe with the Father. But the Son of God stood the test. He bade the tempter to be gone.
He said:
“Get thee behind me, Satan: for it is written, Thou shalt worship the Lord thy God and him only shalt thou serve.” The test continued in other forms.
He was tested with an offer of the crown of David, temptation to take the crown and rulership of the Jews at once, He was tempted by the Jews themselves.
Five thousand people had followed Him into a place where there was no opportunity to obtain provisions. The people hungered. The Lord took the loaves of bread and two small fish which a lad had with him. He bade the multitude sit down, then multiplied the “five loaves and the fish, gave to the disciples, and the disciples gave to the people; and when all had eaten and were fully satisfied there were twelve baskets full of food remaining. The people felt that a man who could meet their necessities in such a fashion was fit to be, and by right should be, king. Such a king would deliver them from the two things from which men yearned to be—freed-toil and taxation. With a wild, sudden outburst, they rushed upon Him and determined to make Him king. They were ready to follow Him into Jerusalem and own Him as the Son of David.
It was popular frenzy and enthusiasm.
It had made kings before, it has made them since.
It was an appeal to ambition, to vanity and the love of power.
Mark how He met the assault:
“When Jesus therefore perceived that they would come and take him by force, to make him a king, he departed again into a mountain himself alone.” (John 6:15.) And what think you He did then?
Gave Himself up to prayer; as it is written:
“And when he had sent the multitude away, he went up into a mountain apart to pray: and when the evening was come, he was there alone.” (Matthew 14:23.) He met the test, repudiated the crown, gave Himself up to prayer, to meditation and communion with the Father.
He was tested in the garden with the cup the Father gave Him to drink. As a man He shrank from the cup. In the depth and loneliness of the garden He prayed. The statement of it is simple—but O how cuttingly, penetratingly pathetic:
“He fell on his face, and played, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me.” In this cup, He saw Himself to be made sin, to be treated as sin, and to be treated as such by the infinite Father.
What a test it was. To submit to all the judgment of God the Father whom He loved, and for whose sake He had become incarnate; to allow Himself to be set aside, even for a moment and treated as the very sum and substance of sin. But He stood the test.
Hear His cry coming up out of the very heart of His agony:
“Nevertheless not as I will, but as thou wilt.
If this cup may not pass from me, except I drink it, thy will be done.” (Matthew 26:37; Matthew 26:42.) He was tested with the possibility of escaping from the death of the cross.
They came to arrest Him.
Peter drew out his sword to defend Him.
He bade him put up the sword and said to him:
“Thinkest thou that I cannot now pray to my Father, and he shall presently give me more than twelve legion (72,000) of angels?”
What a possibility, seventy-two thousand of the strong angels of God sweeping like a guard of honor and glory about Him.
What an easy way to confound His foes, glorify Himself and then ascend in radiant pomp to Heaven.
He stood the test of what such a staggering suggestion might give.
He said:
“But how then shall the Scripture be fulfilled, that thus it must be?” (Matthew 26:53-54.) What a revelation of decree in Holy Scripture.
“Thus it must be.”
What a sublime exaltation of the written Word, not only that it must be, but that it should be, that at all cost it should be fulfilled.
What a revelation of the written Word as \ the supreme rule of the Son of God.
What an arraignment of the limited mentality and shriveled spirituality of men who, even in His name, attempt to teach and yet question the full authority of that Scripture He continuously quoted and by which He regulated every movement and moment of His daily life.
Behold, the eternal, immaculate, Almighty Son of God taking His place in obedience to the everlasting covenant and on the threshold of the representative hell through which He was about to pass, feeling Himself under bonds and surrendering Himself absolutely to the written Word as full, final and supreme authority for Him. No thought of Himself obtruded here. His one anxiety! That the Scripture should be fulfilled, and that He might fulfill it even at the price of His own measureless agony.
Nothing could more dynamically demonstrate and prove the Scripture to be the inspired, inerrant, infallible Word of God than the surrender to it of the Living Word.
He was tested on the cross.
While He was hanging in agony on that cross the people tested Him.
They mocked Him.
They saw His poor head turning from side to side in the horror of His physical woe. They passed and repassed under His cross, laughing, jeering at Him, imitating the helpless movement of His head, turning their own and wagging it from side to side.
They called out to Him:
“If thou be the Son of God, come down from the cross.” (Matthew 27:40.) He was tested by the priests.
They said:
“He saved others; himself he cannot save, (true! He was under covenant not to save Himself that He might save others). If he be the king of Israel, let him now come down from the cross, and we will believe him (O the stigma that abides upon them-the people who refuse to believe in Christ on the cross; and that is the stigma of the professed religionist today who will not believe in and glorify the Christ on the cross).
“He trusted in God; let him deliver him now, if he will have him; for he said, I am the Son of God.” (Matthew 27:42-43.) He was tested by the thieves who were crucified with Him.
They took up what the mob, the priests, the scribes and the elders had said and “cast it in his teeth.” (One of them it is to be remembered, took it all back, repented and confessed Him as his only hope and Saviour.) He was tested in all points where man can be tested.
He met all the tests; as it is written:
“In all points tempted like as we are, yet without sin.” (Hebrews 4:15.)
He met every assault of the Devil with a two-edged sword. That sword, the Sword of the Spirit; as it is written: “The sword of the Spirit, which is The Word of God.” (Ephesians 6:17.) (The Written Word.) To every suggestion of the Adversary He lifted up that sword and said:
“It is written.”
He cast Himself in absolute faith upon God His Father; He took the place of a dependent before Him. He made the written Word His law and command.
He won the victory.
All this testing and triumph is symbolically set forth in the brazen pins of the Tabernacle.
They proclaim Him The Tested One, The Victorious One. The pins were the things to which the cords were fastened.
They were the anchorage and security of the Tabernacle.
They were’ its hope and security against any windy blast or storm or destroying tempest.
Herein are they again a fitting symbol of our Lord. He Himself is the anchor of the soul that trusteth in Him.
He is our Surety.
He is our Hope; as it is written:
“Which hope we have as an anchor of the soul, both sure and steadfast, and which entereth into that within the veil.” (Hebrews 6:19-20.) The Tabernacle was rooted, grounded, built up and established by the function /0£ the brazen pins. This is the secure relation between us and our Lord Jesus Christ; as it is written:
“Rooted and built up in him, and established in the faith.” (Colossians 2:7. ) A pin or nail is that on which things are hung or suspended. The hope of our manifestation to the world as sons of God at His appearing and glory is hung on Him; as it is written:
“And every man that hath this hope in (on) him.” (1 John 3:2) We are told in the prophecy of Isaiah that He will be fastened as a nail in a sure place. That Sure place is the throne of David on Mount Zion; as it is written:
“Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion.” (Psalms 2:6.) It is the Father’s assurance to the Son, so sure He speaks of it in advance as though already accomplished.
It is an immensely suggestive fact that the root of the word” sure,” is the root of the word” amen.”
It means that which is “faithful,” “permanent,” that which” abides.”
Wherefore it is written:
“All the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us.” (2 Corinthians 1:20.) It is immensely suggestive because our Lord calls Himself—The Amen—The Sure.
“These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning (the Word of God) of the creation of God.” (Revelation 3:14.) But Amen is the ending.
Thus He is both the beginning and the ending. The Fiat that creates, the Amen that records the decree accomplished.
He is The Amen, let it go at that—He is The Sure.
All this the brazen pins in final terms set forth; but let it be well noted, ever remembered, the security of the pin was not merely in what it was in itself, but in the fact that it was driven deep, was buried in the earth, and it was that part which emerged from the earth, was risen above it, to which the cords were fastened. The security of the believer is to be found in the fact that our Lord Jesus Christ died, was buried and rose again. .It is the risen Christ that makes His death of avail and it is to the risen Christ we are joined and in His resurrection life made secure; as it is written:
“If Christ be not raised your faith is vain.” (1 Corinthians 15:17.)
Thus while it is true that the Lord will come as the Living One and seat Himself upon Mount Zion and all the promises made to fathers in Israel shall find their sure fulfillment in Him-for us who are believers today, the sure place is the throne of God on high on which He sits at the right hand of the Father. To the risen man upon the unchanging, unshakeable throne of God we are securely fastened. For us He is now—the nail fastened in a sure place. THE CORDS The cords were fastened to the pins. By holding down the coverings they held the Tabernacle together, made it secure and abiding.
They drew the Tabernacle together and made it whole, complete. The cords set forth the drawing and holding power of our Lord Jesus Christ. The drawing power of His mighty love; as it is written:
“I drew them with the cords of a man, with bands of love.” (Hosea 11:4.) “The love of Christ (Christ’s love for us) constraineth us.” (2 Corinthians 5:14.) The word “constraineth” signifies “to hold together.” The love of Christ holds us together.
If our union with and abiding in Christ depended upon our love and steadfastness to Him, how the winds of circumstance would blow us apart.
It is His love for us that holds us.
It is His unchanging love for the Church that holds it together.
If it were not for the peerless drawing and holding power of the love of Christ manifested to us the Church would be wrecked, swung apart into disconnected and individual fragments.
“And I, if I be lifted up from the earth will draw all men unto me. This he said, signifying by what death he should die.” (John 12:32-33.) “To draw” has in it here the force “to pull,” as when a rope or cord is tautly pulled.
Thus the cords set forth the work of Christ in the energy of His infinite love. The pins give us the person of Christ in all the wonder and beauty of His faithfulness to God and man. The pins and the cords went together.
One was of no use without he other.
Pins were useless without the cords. The cords had no function without the pins. The Person and the Work of Christ must go together.
You cannot separate the person of Christ from His work, whether that work be on the cross or now in Heaven.
Hear what Paul says:
“Jesus Christ and him crucified.” (1 Corinthians 2:2.) That conjunction—and—is the inspiration of the Holy Spirit.
It is set there as the divine and eternal link between the Person of Christ and the Work of Christ. As to the Person of Christ, Paul tells us that in Him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily, and that He is God manifest in the flesh. As to His Work, Paul tells us that He died for our sins according to the Scriptures. The work He finished on the cross was the prelude to another work He is carrying on in Heaven on the throne of God today.
“He ever liveth to make intercession.” (Hebrews 7:25.)
Christ as God manifest in the flesh, Christ on the cross an atoning sacrifice and Christ in Heaven the loving and ever living high priest, cannot be separated in any of His parts and functions. When therefore Paul says, “Christ and him crucified,” he is saying, “The Christ whom I preach unto you is the Christ who died on a Roman cross, but now lives, the same Christ, on the throne of God.” To attempt to separate the person of Christ from His work is to be guilty of treason both to the person and the work of Christ.
There are those who do attempt to separate them. They exalt and glorify the person of Christ.
They are willing to do this that they may discredit His work on the cross.
They are willing to say He was good, even an holy man, the fullest manifestation God ever made of Himself personally in man; but they refuse to accept His death on the cross as a penal sacrifice, an atonement for sin. They set Him up simply as the highest expression of merely human ethics. They exhort people to contemplate His love for His fellow-men, His compassion and measureless denial of self. They affirm, should the world follow His example it would bring in a warless world and an era of everlasting peace. An ethical Christ wins the applause of the hour. A sacrificial Christ is rejected. But the person and the work of Christ cannot be treated in that way without open infidelity to Christ, without disaster both to His person and His work. To treat Him merely as a good man denies His own claims to deity. To treat His death as a moral and not a penal sacrifice makes it nothing better than a brutal, ruthless and useless murder. A Christ without deity and a cross without atoning blood presents a Christ unknown to Scripture.
Separate the pins from the cords and see what follows.
Let the pins be driven into the ground never so firmly, without the cords there is nothing to connect them with the Tabernacle.
Set up the person of Christ alone, glorify, magnify, exalt Him as you will, there is nothing to connect Him with man. His holy, sinless, perfect person is a repudiation of the natural man.
Apart from His work on the cross the life of Christ is an indictment of the natural man, and His holiness like the flames of Sinai against him.
Separate the cords from the pins and there is nothing to make them of avail. Unless they are fastened to the pins they cannot hold the Tabernacle in its place, the coverings would be subject to every gusty, blowing wind.
Preach the cross of Christ, talk of His sacrifice and fail to connect it with Him as God incarnate-the sacrifice is worthless—for only God can atone to God. The death of Christ is of avail because He is very God. It is God atoning to God, God satisfying God, God meeting and sustaining His own claims of righteousness, satisfying the demands of His own essential being. God finding the righteous way in which He may still be righteous and yet save the unrighteous sinner.
Take away the deity of Christ and the cross is a pitiful failure; it is not only the place of the cry of despair, it is the place of a man actually forsaken of God, and forsaken of men.
Take away the sacrificial, atoning character of the death of Christ and His deity is a fiction and Himself either a deceived weakling or a fittingly exposed deceiver.
Never was there a time when it was more important for those who pretend to preach Christ to preach Christ and Him crucified.
Preach the Christ who as very God offered Himself in sacrifice as real and true man.
Preach Him as the Christ who arose from the dead, ascended to Heaven, and because He was crucified, because He died as a sacrifice for sin, can give eternal life to the believing sinner, lives in Heaven for such and from thence seeks ever to draw him closer to Himself with the cords of His mighty and unfailing love. To preach Christ and Him crucified, means to preach the living Christ who was crucified and whose resurrection life and power is proof that His death has been accepted as atoning sacrifice and way of salvation for men. The pins and the cords must go together.
Turn resolutely away from the man who preaches the person of Christ and not His death.
Refuse to hear him who preaches Christ on the cross but denies His deity.
Refuse to hear him who separates the person of Christ from the work of Christ, the person of Christ from the death of Christ. Turn away from the preacher who seeks to preach the one without the other.
Pins and cords must go together.