The heavenly Tabernacle

 

2 Tim 3:16

All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness,

Do you perhaps think that the Tabernacle belongs in the Old Testament, and has no bearing on us today? It may come as a surprise to you to learn that there is a real, functioning Tabernacle in heaven right now, at this moment. How do we know that? Because it is written in Revelation, a book dealing with times still in the future for us, and it shows that the heavenly Tabernacle will be in place until the final hours of human history arrive. God will show parts of it to humankind throughout the Tribulation period (the seven-year reign of the antichrist here on earth). Let me show you how God revealed it to John, and how the Old Testament Tabernacle foreshadowed it.

Rev 4:5 ….In front of the throne, seven lamps were blazing. These are the seven spirits of God. These lamps burn brightly in God’s throne room, which the Menorah, or golden lampstand with seven candles that was the only source of light inside the Holy Place in the Tabernacle, was an example of.

Rev 4:6 Also in front of the throne there was what looked like a sea of glass, clear as crystal. In the earthly Tabernacle, the Bronze Laver stood in the outer court where priests washed themselves before entering God’s presence. It serves as an example for us of the cleansing of sin. This basin was even called “the Sea”. But now in heaven, it is no longer necessary to be cleansed by water, therefore the solid foundation which the sea of glass forms before the throne, conveys the perfect purity and peace that already reigns there.

Rev 6:9 When the Lamb broke the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of all who had been martyred for the word of God and for being faithful in their testimony. The bronze altar in the outer courtyard was used for animal sacrifices, and the blood of the animals was poured out at the base of this earthly altar, exactly in the place where the martyrs are standing under the heavenly altar now. How appropriate, because their blood has been poured out on earth.

Rev 8:3-4 Another angel, who had a golden censer, came and stood at the altar. He was given much incense to offer, with the prayers of all God’s people, on the golden altar in front of the throne. The smoke of the incense, together with the prayers of God’s people, went up before God from the angel’s hand. In the earthly Tabernacle, the altar of incense stood before the veil leading to the Holy of Holies. Only the high priest and the sons of Aaron could minister there, interceding for the people. This is exactly what Jesus is doing for us at the heavenly altar of incense, as described above.

Rev 11:19 Then God’s temple in heaven was opened, and within his temple was seen the ark of his covenant. Nobody could see the ark of the covenant behind the veil in the Tabernacle on earth except the High Priest, and only once a year when he made atonement for the sins of the whole nation. But at the time in the future that our verse above describes, God will show the ark to everybody on earth, signifying one last time that Jesus has opened the way through the torn veil for all to approach Him.

Rev 15:5 After this I looked, and I saw in heaven the temple—that is, the tabernacle of the covenant law—and it was opened. Just before the first bowl of God’s final judgement of earth is thrown out, He shows the ark of the covenant. The earthly ark contained the covenant laws made with Israel. The mercy seat on top of the ark in heaven covers these laws one last time, because at the commencement of the bowl judgements, mercy time will finally end, and nobody can then be saved anymore.

It would seem that heaven functions like an open Tabernacle - God lets it connect and interact with this world, and it is meant to shape and influence the whole of our lives. Won’t it make sense then, to equip ourselves with knowledge of what the elements of the earthly Tabernacle represented, how they all point to Jesus, so that we can grow in appreciation, wonder and awe of what He did for us? Unfortunately, we human beings need constant reminders of how great the love of God is for us, and the role that Jesus plays in showing us this love tangibly. This is why knowledge of the Tabernacle is so meaningful – we can appreciate Jesus on an ever-deepening level and so carry His remembrance in our hearts forever!

The heavenly Tabernacle will cease to exist when the old heavens and earth are burnt up. God then creates all things new, also the capital city of the new heaven, the New Jerusalem. And then, something remarkable is seen by John:

Rev 21:22 I did not see a temple in the city, because the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are its temple. This is the ultimate fulfilment of what the journey through the Tabernacle is showing us – we will not need a progression, a path to holiness, anymore, we will at that time live in the Holy of Holies!

I enter the Holy of Holies

The Tent of Meeting

 

Ex 33:9-10

As Moses went into the tent, the pillar of cloud would come down and stay at the entrance, while the LORD spoke with Moses. Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshiped, each at the entrance to their tent. The LORD would speak to Moses face to face, as one speaks to a friend.

This tent was Moses’ personal tent, which he pitched far outside the camp, in the time before the Tabernacle was built. He called it the Tent of Meeting, and everyone who sought the Lord could visit this tent. However, Joshua his young minister, was not content with a visit every now and then, he never left the tent - he abided there.

The Hebrew word mishkan was the name of the tent or Tabernacle that came later and means dwelling. It was where God dwelt among His people throughout the Exodus and later in the Temple in Jerusalem. The mishkan was the place where people went to pray, and to ask the priests to intercede for them.

This is a picture of what prayer is. It means entering the place where God dwells, meeting Him there, and speaking to Him face to face because He considers us His friends. So, we ask the question: Is this possible? And we wonder to ourselves: but we are not like Moses, how can it happen for us?

Let’s find our answers in what Jesus did for us on the cross!

He became Immanuel – God with us (Matthew 1:23 “The virgin will conceive and give birth to a son, and they will call him Immanuel” (which means “God with us”). This means God came to earth to dwell among us in the form of man, as Jesus.

He does not need a special temple anymore, instead our bodies become His temple and He lives within us through the Holy Spirit (1 Cor 6:19 Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? …..)

When Jesus died on the cross, the curtain separating the Holy Place from the Holy of Holies (where God dwelt in the Temple) was torn from top to bottom, giving believers direct access to God (Heb 10:20 By his death, Jesus opened a new and life-giving way through the curtain into the Most Holy Place.)

And we then became His friends (John 15:15 I no longer call you servants, because a servant does not know his master’s business. Instead, I have called you friends, for everything that I learned from my Father I have made known to you.)

So yes, it is possible!  The question we must consider is: Will we be paying Him a visit now and then? Or will we follow Joshua’s example and abide with Him?

Pearls to ponder:

Prayer is a meeting between us and God; it’s about dwelling where He dwells. This means that we must become aware of the fact that our spirit is a mishkan, a Tent of Meeting where He is eagerly awaiting our visits…. let’s keep running into that sanctuary, that place of peace, joy, and rest!

You are my hiding place

The stones cry out

 

Nehemia 3:15

The Fountain Gate was repaired by Shallum son of Col-hozeh, the leader of the Mizpah district. He rebuilt it, roofed it, set up its doors, and installed its bolts and bars. Then he repaired the wall of the pool of Siloam near the king’s garden, and he rebuilt the wall as far as the stairs that descend from the City of David.

For roughly 2000 years, many considered the pool of Siloam a mythical place, and the incident where Jesus famously healed a man born blind, only a parable, a story with a nice moral lesson. People who do believe that the Bible recounts factual history, identified another water source and claimed it to be the original pool of Siloam. The problem was that it was built hundreds of years after Jesus and was far too small for the function the Bible describes that it had.

In the summer of 2004, workers in Jerusalem were repairing a broken sewer line just outside the old city of David’s walls, when they uncovered two ancient stone steps. Just that, leading to nowhere that they could see. Archaeologists were called in, and they began to uncover step after step, descending to an area far larger than anyone expected – about 70 metres along one side, with steps on at least three sides so that crowds could enter the water from several directions. It has the appearance of a mikvah bath (where people bathed in running water for purification rituals), big enough for thousands of pilgrims to purify themselves before continuing their climb up to the temple to bring their offerings.

The water that flows into this pool comes from the Gihon spring, through a tunnel. This tunnel was built by Hezekiah about 700 years before the blind man washed his eyes in those waters, and its construction is another miracle among the many that is found in the history of Jerusalem. The archaeologists dated the tunnel to around 700 BC (therefore in Hezekiah’s era), silencing the sceptics who proclaimed that the tunnel was built much later. Coins and pottery from the time of Jesus were also found around the pool area.

This is only one of many archaeological discoveries made in recent times, all confirming the authenticity of biblical accounts, rooting them in real history with tangible artifacts proving the accuracy of the stories written in the Bible. These finds keep increasing today in our times, one discovery rapidly following upon another!

And this led me to consider the words of Jesus found in Luke 19:39-40 Some of the Pharisees in the crowd said to Jesus, “Teacher, rebuke your disciples!” “I tell you,” he replied, “if they keep quiet, the stones will cry out.”

Is this not exactly what is happening now before our very eyes?

Pearls to ponder:

Start searching and tracking modern archaeological finds in Israel and stand amazed to see the stones from antiquity crying out that God and the Bible is real, and not just stories!

The Stones Cry Out