The above picture was retrieved from this web address.Exodus 25: (New International Version)
40 See that you make them according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.
Examining the picture above shows that the Tabernacle of Moses has certain dimensions. These dimensions may be significant.
Moses' design was given to him by God. This was the foundation of Jewish worship, and it is divinely inspired. But it was more than just a kind of Jewish liturgy that was being introduced ~ it was a great big prophetic picture. That is, it was a huge object lesson teaching about something important and still future. It was meant even to instruct the Jews through its symbolism: so they would recognize their Messiah when He came.
For us, today, it is a detailed picture of Jesus: even down to the fact that the furniture was arranged in the form of a cross. It also predicts, seemingly, the times and seasons. And there is increasing interest in the church in these things, for a good reason.
Biblical history in our universities is now just a curiosity. Academics give far more credence to their own constructions of history that are based on Archaeology. For this reason, Christians who insist on taking the Bible at face value struggle with the representations of history that are given in our classrooms.
But when we are considering a prophetic picture given by God, the scriptures have long provided a valid concept of history that is more mystical and metaphysical. When we take the ancient chronologies given in the Masoretic text we are confronted with a picture of Old Testament history that spans precisely 4,000 years. These 4 millennia were divided up into 2 periods of 2K each by ancient Jewish scholars. By this, they understood there were to be 3 ages of man in God's cosmology: the age of Adam, the age of Moses (or the Law), and the age of the Messiah.
When we look at the Tabernacle of Moses, we see this reflected. We see three compartments with specific dimensions. These dimensions are thought by some to relate to significant time-frames in Jewish and Gentile history.
Moses led the children of Israel out of Egypt in about 1500BC. The dimensions of the outer court of the tabernacle is 1500 cubic cubits (15 x 10 x 10 ).
The inner court or Holy Place has the dimension of 2,000 (20 x 10 x 10). Christian scholars sometimes interpret this as the "Church Age": from first advent to second advent. Does it have to turn out exact? No. But at present we have not necessarily reached 2,000 years. The church has only existed since its birth in 30AD. It is possible this age is about over.
The final dimensions of the Holy of Holies is 10 x 10 x 10 or 1,000. This seems to many to represent the idea of a "millennial reign" of the Savior here on earth. But many scholars do not buy that possibility and rule it out as being a too literal take on the scriptures. Other ways of looking at the picture emerge. There is no final agreement on these things.
The point of all this may not be to find a key that unlocks sealed secrets, like the exact date of the Lord's return. But there still emerges, even in the tabernacle design, a generalized picture of the plan of God for mankind. It is useful as an object lesson about the Messiah and His ultimate mission.
The Jews were a prophetic people, guided by prophets and "types and shadows". God gave them the law, the feasts, the Temple and even the picture of the seminal creation "week" revealed in Genesis. All of these things pointed to Jesus and His ultimate purpose. Today we are beginning to access the truths contained in the Jewish religion, the heavenly pattern that predicts the whole work of God from day 1 to the Sabbath and beyond. And the Tabernacle turns out to be a beautiful gem, loaded with divine information.
2 comments:
This is neat stuff. I was jsut on the Jewish Website that I senty you a link too. It is neat what they say about Sukkot( Feast of Tabernacles) Joy and Unity they discribe it. Also do you know how they come up wit the Jewish Year of 5767? That means we are a long way off from the 7th year. The Jews are pretty good record keepers.
Yeah,Clive and I were yakking about that a couple months ago in some e-mails. Yes, the Jews were good record keepers. But there is fair evidence that they tampered with the calendar in the first or second century. That theory goes that they didn't want their calendar to jibe with the Christian calendar so they made some adjustments.
The thing Clive does with this is to show where they miscalculated by some omissions in the OT chronology. There is also the problem, some think, of the difference in lunar and solar years. But the Jewish lunar years had to be adjusted to be in sync with God's real-time, which is solar.
I tend to buy into the first theory, but can't prove it. Also, we calculate the years by the Masoretic text, which I think is the most reliable, and which Jews and Christians favor. There are timeline discrepancies in some of the other texts. They tend to make the time lapsed a bit longer.
But the Jewish calendar is wrong. I think it was tampered with, frankly.
Post a Comment