'A tabernacle for a shadow'

In Hebrews 9:13 through 10:18, you see God offering a better sacrifice as He moves right through the work of Christ. Jordan says, “He’s got a better tabernacle, covenant, service and sacrifice. If you’ve got the best, and you’ve got the real, what do you want with the old for? I mean, why be satisfied with a copy and a shadow and a picture when you can have the real thing? That’s the point with Israel. Reality.

“I asked a guy just the other night about that when he was arguing with me about water baptism. He said, ‘It’s just a ritual—‘the real baptism is the ‘by one Spirit are we all baptized into one body.’ I said, ‘Well, why would you want the ritual when you’ve got the reality?! Doesn’t make any sense to me. Not a bit.’

“The shadow is done away with and the body, the substance, is ours. I don’t want something I reach out and grab and can’t get a hold of. That’s what a shadow is. I want to be able to get it. I appreciate having the reality. Well, that’s Israel’s situation. They need to move from the shadow things to the real things.

“Hebrews 8:1 says, ‘Now of the things which we have spoken this is the sum: We have such an high priest, who is set on the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens.’ That high priest that God promised—we got him! There’s Psalm 110 again. When he says ‘he is set on the right hand of the throne,’ this is the third time Psalm 110:1 has been referred to and it will be referred to two more times before the book’s over, which will make five times.

“We’ve already seen Psalm 110:4 (‘The LORD hath sworn, and will not repent, Thou art a priest for ever after the order of Melchizedek’) been referred to at least six or seven times. I forget the count now up to this point. Psalm 110’s an important psalm in the mind of the guy who wrote Hebrews. The first verse says, ‘The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou at my right hand, until I make thine enemies thy footstool.’ His priesthood is a royal priesthood. It’s the priesthood of a king.

“We’ve looked at the passages. In Zachariah 6:13, it’s the priest sitting on the throne and he’s there and he’s going to come back. But the picture of Christ in Hebrews is as a royal high priest over a royal priesthood.

“The picture you get is not Christ sitting far above the heavens, and above all principalities and powers as the head of the church the Body of Christ, destined to stay there forever. But rather, He’s there on exile as the royal priesthood, waiting to come back and introduce His royal priesthood to the kingdom in the earth.

“While He’s there He’s got a sanctuary. He’s ‘a minister of the sanctuary, and of the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man.’ He’s talking about the ‘true’ one in the sense of ‘this is the original; this isn’t the copy. Moses made the copy on the earth. This is the original thing.

“Notice He’s talking about the tabernacle and it’s interesting; He’s not talking about the temple. Solomon built the temple and the temple Solomon built was a type of the millennial glory and the millennial reign of the Lord Jesus Christ; the peace and the blessings that are won by the Man of War.

“The book of Hebrews doesn’t go back to the temple; it goes ALL the way back to the tabernacle!”

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Jordan says in a different study on the same subject, “God’s original intention was to dwell with man in His Creation and sin threw a monkey wrench into that. What God does with Israel is He educates them about how He’s going to re-establish Himself in the earth and He gives them a place where His dwelling is going to be manifest.

 

“God would dwell on the earth in a tent made out of skin that Israel was in charge of. Amos calls it the tabernacle of David; the skin of David. You go all the way to Revelation and discover that it all begins to be accomplished there. In the between-time you have Jesus Christ come on the scene and ‘the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.’ He becomes the one through whom God's dwelling with man is to be accomplished.

 

"So the great issue in the universe all along has been God dwelling in His creation and sharing His life with His creation," says Jordan. "Now, the tabernacle God gave Israel is a foreshadowing of that. As the verse says, ‘The Lord chose Zion and desired it for his habitation. This is my rest forever; here will I dwell for I have desired it.’ His intention is to put His throne in the city of Jerusalem on the hill of Zion. That special place in Jerusalem that was the dearest to David’s heart.”

 

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The tabernacle, built by Moses, is a picture of the first coming of Christ and the temple, built by Solomon, is a picture of the Second Coming of Christ.

 

“The tabernacle was a temporary structure--made to be moved from place to place—but the temple was a permanent place built in the city of the great king, Jerusalem,” explains Jordan. “It was built by the king, Solomon. You remember David prepared all the stuff for it and wanted to build it but God said, ‘You can’t do it! You’re a bloody man!”?

 

“God was saying, ‘We’re not gonna build the temple by the bloody man, we’re gonna build it by the son of David.’ There’s another first and Second Coming comparison. Moses is the prophet and he builds the tabernacle. It’s the king who builds the temple. The temple is the second meeting place; the tabernacle was the first.

 

“The temple was renowned for its glory, majesty and beauty. It was like the city on the hill. It was gorgeous. People would come and marvel at its majesty.

 

“The tabernacle was just the opposite. It wasn’t built in the city; it was built for life in the wilderness, moving from place to place. Life, not in the kingdom reign of glory, but in the wilderness of nomad life. It was humble and unattractive in its outward appearance.

 

“When you walked up on the tabernacle what you saw was a funny-looking wall made out of boards and skins and post. It was not outwardly attractive. What does Isaiah say about Christ in His first coming? ‘There was no comeliness about him.’ He was a man of sorrow, acquainted with grief.

 

“The tabernacle was a place where God’s majesty dwelt but it was veiled behind the skins of that building. I keep emphasizing that the building was made out of badger skins and goat skins and all kind of skins. Well, where does god put His life? If He puts it in you, where does He put it? He puts it in a body of flesh. That’s the idea back there.

 

“By the way, the tabernacle was the center of life for the nation Israel. When Israel, in the wilderness, moved from one encampment to the next, the way they would settle in a location is the tabernacle would be in the center. And on one side there would be three tribes of Israel, and on another side there would be three tribes, and another side three other tribes, and another side three other tribes.

 

“Numbers, in the first few chapters, tells you specifically where each tribe was to be and everything about how they were lined up and encamped was determined by the tabernacle."

 

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In the Ark of the tabernacle were three things--the two tables of stone, a little pot of manna and Aaron’s rod that budded.

 

“The tabernacle is where the sacrifices were made,” says Jordan. “It’s where the priestly family, Aaron and his sons, were fed. It’s where all worship for God was accomplished. Deuteronomy 16:16 says that there were three great feasts in Israel—Passover, Pentecost and Tabernacles—and the only place they could be celebrated was at the door of that tabernacle. That’s a serious matter. That tabernacle was the center of everything that went on in Israel’s life.”

 

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Jordan says there is a fascinating comparison between the tabernacle that Moses built and the Book of John because, “just like this system is a system for Israel to approach to God, in the Four Gospels, which tell Israel how to approach God, whether John knew it or not, or intended it or not, God wrote the book in such a way that it follows the pattern of the tabernacle.

“When you come in the tabernacle, there are basically seven pieces of furnishing. The first thing you see is the brazen altar where the sacrifices were brought.

 

“You come through the gate, from east to west, and you see an altar where there’s fire and they’re killing and offering animal sacrifices, pouring out blood. Can you imagine how on a hot summer august afternoon, when they’ve offered sacrifices all day and all night for the nation, what a bloody mess that would have been?!

 

“Have you ever been around people where they killed animals and the blood’s all shed out? You know what immediately shows up? Flies. Gnats. It gets nasty. That tabernacle was not a sweet, wonderful place. The brazen altar spoke about blood (for atonement of souls).

 

“The reason it had fire in it was because the sacrifices had to be burned. It was like a big barbeque grill and it had a grate on it. The first thing when you walk into that tabernacle, it tells you, ‘You can’t approach God till you deal with sin and the only way is with blood and fire.’ ”