Crystallization-Study of Exodus (4)
Message Four
The Three Tabernacles
Scripture Reading: Exo. 25:9; 40:34; Psa. 84:1-11; John 1:14; 2:19-21; 1 Cor. 3:16-17; Rev. 21:3, 22
I. The three tabernacles in the Holy Scriptures—the type of the tabernacle, the reality of the tabernacle, and the consummation of the tabernacle—reveal the goal of God's economy to have a corporate people to be His dwelling place for His expression and representation in eternity—Gen. 1:26; Exo. 40:34; Rev. 21:2-3, 10-11; 22:1, 5:
A. The type of the tabernacle in the Old Testament is a full and complete revelation of the individual Christ as the Head and the corporate Christ as the Body, the church, including many details of the experience of Christ for the church life (as God's dwelling place, the tabernacle and the temple were one)—Exo. 25:9; 1 Kings 8:1-11; Heb. 9:4.
B. The reality of the tabernacle in the New Testament is the incarnated Christ, the individual Christ, and the corporate Christ, the Body of Christ; through His death and resurrection the individual Christ was enlarged to be the corporate Christ, the church, composed of the New Testament believers as the temple, the house of God, and the Body of Christ—John 1:14; 2:19-21; 1 Cor. 3:16-17; 1 Tim. 3:15; Heb. 3:6; 1 Cor. 12:12.
C. The consummation of the tabernacle as the conclusion of the complete Bible is the New Jerusalem, a great corporate God-man as the eternal, enlarged, universal, divine-human incorporation of the processed and consummated Triune God with His regenerated, transformed, and glorified tripartite people—Rev. 21:3, 22; 22:17a.
II. Psalm 84 is the secret revelation of the enjoyment of Christ as the fulfillment of the type of the tabernacle so that we may be incorporated into Him to become the reality and consummation of the tabernacle—vv. 1-11:
A. The deeper love and sweeter experience of the house of God in Psalm 84 comes after the experience of God's dealing and stripping and is recovered by the experience of God as our unique portion and by Christ's being given the unique position—73:17, 25-26; 80:15, 17; Col. 1:17b, 18b.
B. God's purpose in dealing with His holy people is that they would be emptied of everything to receive only God as their gain and be rebuilt with the Divine Trinity to become the masterpiece of God, fulfilling God's eternal economy for His expression—Job 10:13; Eph. 3:9-11; 2:10.
C. God is faithful to take away all our idols and to lead us into His economy for us to enjoy Christ so that He may have a recovery purely and wholly of the person of Christ—1 Cor. 1:9; 1 John 5:21; cf. Jer. 2:13; Lam. 3:22-24.
III. The intrinsic content of Psalm 84 is the secret revelation concerning the enjoyment of Christ as the incarnated Triune God, the God-man—Col. 2:9; 1:12:
A. The center of this secret revelation is the house of God (Psa. 84:4, 10a), typified by the tabernacle (Exo. 40:2-8) and by the temple (1 Kings 6:1-3; 8:3-11).
B. Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God (Col. 2:9) is the fulfillment of the types of the tabernacle and the temple:
1. This fulfillment commenced in His incarnation as the individual Christ (John 1:14; 2:21) and will continue (1 Tim. 3:15-16) until it consummates in the New Jerusalem as the corporate Christ, the great God-man (Rev. 21:2-3, 22).
2. The New Testament, from Matthew through Revelation, covers the entire span of the incarnation of the Triune God and is a record of the divine incarnation.
3. The enjoyment of Christ as the incarnated Triune God in God's house is portrayed by the arrangement of the tabernacle and its furnishings (see diagram).
IV. The psalmist's longing and even fainting to be in God's tabernacles indicate to what extent the psalmist loved God's tabernacles; this love was matured through many trials—Psa. 84:2.
V. "At Your two altars even the sparrow has found a home; / And the swallow, a nest for herself, / Where she may lay her young, / O Jehovah of hosts, my King and my God"—v. 3:
A. The two altars—the bronze altar for the sacrifices and the golden altar of incense—are the leading consummations of the work of the incarnated Triune God, who is Christ as the embodiment of God for His increase—Exo. 40:5-6:
1. At the bronze altar, a type of the cross of Christ, our problems before God are solved through the crucified Christ as the sacrifices; this qualifies us to enter into the tabernacle, a type of Christ as the incarnated and enterable Triune God, and to contact God at the incense altar.
2. At the golden altar of incense in front of the Holy of Holies (Heb. 9:4), the resurrected Christ in His ascension is the incense for us to be accepted by God in peace; through our prayer at the incense altar, we enter into the Holy of Holies—our spirit (10:19)—where we experience Christ as the Ark of the Testimony with its contents.
3. Through such an experience of Christ we are incorporated into the tabernacle, the incarnated Triune God, to become a part of the corporate Christ (1 Cor. 12:12) as God's testimony for His manifestation:
a. The bronze altar for the sacrifices is related to God's judicial redemption accomplished in the physical realm by Christ in His earthly ministry—Rom. 5:10a; 8:3; Heb. 9:14; 7:27; 10:10.
b. The golden altar of incense is related to God's organic salvation carried out in the divine and mystical realm by Christ in His heavenly ministry—Rom. 8:34; Heb. 7:25; 9:24.
B. Through these two altars God's redeemed, the "sparrows" and "swallows," can find a nest as their refuge and a home with God in rest—cf. Psa. 90:1; 91:1:
1. The cross of Christ, typified by the bronze altar, is our "nest," our refuge, where we are saved from our troubles and where we "lay" our young, that is, produce new believers through the preaching of the gospel.
2. When we experience the resurrected Christ in His ascension, typified by the golden altar of incense, we are accepted by God in such a Christ and find a home, a place of rest, in the house of God.
3. This house is the processed and consummated Triune God united, mingled, and incorporated with all His redeemed, regenerated, and transformed elect (John 14:1-23) to be the Body of Christ in the present age and the New Jerusalem as the mutual dwelling place of God and His redeemed in eternity (Rev. 21:3, 22).
VI. "Blessed are those who dwell in Your house; / They will yet be praising You. Selah… / O Jehovah of hosts, blessed is the man / Who trusts in You"—Psa. 84:4, 12:
A. In type, the house is the church as a totality (1 Tim. 3:15), and the tabernacles (Psa. 84:1) are the local churches (Rev. 1:11).
B. Praising the Lord should be our living, and our church life should be a life of praising—Psa. 22:3; 50:23; 1 Thes. 5:16-19; Phil. 4:4, 11-13.
C. In the church life we trust in God, not in ourselves or in our natural human ability, to work out a solution to our difficult situations—2 Cor. 1:8-9, 12.
VII. "Blessed is the man whose strength is in You, / In whose heart are the highways to Zion"—Psa. 84:5; cf. Phil. 4:13; John 15:5:
A. The highways to Zion signify our intention to enter into the church as the house of God and are the blessed highways for seeking the incarnated Triune God in His consummations, typified by the furniture in the tabernacle—Heb. 10:19-22.
B. On the one hand, we have entered into God; on the other hand, we are still on the highways to enter into God.
C. The highways to Zion in our heart mean that we need to take the way of the church internally, not externally; when we are deeply in the inner life, we will certainly be in the way of the church; the highways to Zion will be within our heart—cf. 1 John 1:3-4.
D. Zion is the very spot where God is, the Holy of Holies; the overcomers become Zion, and the Lord's recovery is to build up Zion—Rev. 21:16; cf. Exo. 26:2-8; 1 Kings 6:20; cf. Rev. 2:7.
VIII. "Passing through the valley of Baca, / They make it a spring; / Indeed the early rain covers it with blessings"—Psa. 84:6:
A. Baca means "weeping"; on the one hand, those on the highways to Zion are strengthened in God (v. 5); on the other hand, they are opposed by Satan, who causes them to suffer persecution.
B. The trouble and persecution caused by Satan can make the highways a valley of weeping; this special term indicates that the psalmist had been disciplined by God and had been stripped by Him.
C. The highways to Zion are not external, superficial, or cheap; we must pay a price to take the way of the church—Phil. 3:7-8; Matt. 25:9; Rev. 3:18; Acts 20:19, 31; Psa. 56:8.
D. When we pass through the valley of Baca, God makes this valley a spring (cf. Col. 1:24; Heb. 10:34); this spring is the Spirit (John 4:14; 7:38-39).
E. The more we weep on the highways to Zion, the more we receive the Spirit; while we are weeping, we are being filled with the Spirit, and the Spirit becomes our spring.
F. Those who come into the church life by passing through the valley of weeping find that this weeping eventually becomes a great blessing to them; this blessing is the Spirit.
G. The tears they shed are their own, but these tears issue in a spring, which becomes the early rain, the Spirit as the blessing—Zech. 10:1; Gal. 3:14; Eph. 1:3.
IX. "They go from strength to strength; / Each appears before God in Zion… / For a day in Your courts is better than a thousand; / I would rather stand at the threshold of the house of my God / Than dwell in the tents of the wicked. / For Jehovah God is a sun and a shield; / Jehovah gives grace and glory"—Psa. 84:7, 10-11a:
A. The more we go on in the church life, the more strength we will gain—cf. Prov. 4:18; 2 Cor. 3:18.
B. If our service is intrinsically according to God's will in the church life, each day will be worth many days in God's eyes—Joel 2:25a.
C. The blessings of dwelling in the house of God are our enjoyment of the incarnated and consummated Triune God as our sun to supply us with life (John 1:4; 8:12), as our shield to protect us from God's enemy (Eph. 6:11-17), as grace for our inward enjoyment (John 1:14, 17), and as glory for the outward manifestation of God in splendor (Rev. 21:11, 23).