40 Minutes In The Old Testament - Episode 94 (Exodus 25:40-26:31)

Episode Date: August 31, 2017

It's a whole lot about trees, light and Holy Spirit this week. Chad Bird and Daniel Emery Price take a closer at the lampstand and discuss the sevenfold Spirit of God and God's use of trees through the scriptures. Jesus says He is the light of the world. How does that statement fit in with all of this? It's an interesting episode. Have a listen!

welcome to another episode of 40 minutes in the old testament i'm daniel emery price joined by chad bird in texas but not underwater what's up chad not underwater yeah yeah thankfully yeah we are uh we are in new bronfels which is uh far enough inland to to where we escaped the brunt of the storm thankfully uh we got some heavy uh heavy winds and uh and and some constant rain for about three or four days but uh we're recording now on tuesday after uh the hurricane was just this past weekend uh so as of this recording things are still very very bad in houston so we'll keep praying for for them and support them in any way we any way we can but right now where i'm sitting it's high and dry so uh we're all all safe and sound here yeah that's good i'm sure

people were wondering if uh chad was in a boat uh or something yeah i was out cutting down gopher trees to build my ark yeah keep me uh keep me safe safe above the waters no it wasn't it wasn't too bad here uh of course as we all know as the world knows now uh houston is is underwater so we'll uh be uh keeping track of our of our folks down there and see uh see how things turn out yeah all right well uh what are what are we going to be talking about in the uh in the book of exodus today well no floods no arcs at least not the the floating kind uh we are in the middle of chapter 25 of exodus we introduced the lampstand the golden lampstand or the menorah last time i want to say a few more things about it before we make a transition to uh some of the uh the

other parts of the tabernacle like the uh the the fabric itself what it's uh what its role is there's a couple interesting things about kind of the general construction of the tabernacle itself i'm not going to spend a lot of time with it but point out a couple things and uh especially spend a few minutes talking about the uh the veil uh in particular the the veil that hangs between the mostly the place and the holy place, because that is of deep theological significance, as we'll hear. So we'll cover the menorah, a little bit about the curtains around the tabernacle, and then the veil. And I guess we'll see what time it is then, how much farther we might be able to go. So that's the plan for today.

All right. Sounds good. All right. So back to the golden lampstand or the menorah. It's called both names in both the Torah as well as later in Kings when we have the construction of the temple itself. Later in the temple is really when you have the lampstand called the menorah. At this point, it's just a lampstand. As I mentioned last time, it's made out of basically one piece of gold. The whole thing is one unit, and it is shaped like something from nature, like a little golden tree, a light tree, if you will. It's got its base, which the Hebrew word for its base is the same word for a stalk, the stalk of a plant that's going to have branches coming off of it.

And the word for the branches on the lampstand is the same word that you would use for the branches of a tree. And added to these images of the floral aspect of nature are the fact that the cups that hold the oil and the wick, these are shaped like almond blossoms. As I pointed out last time, all of this imagery that we get from nature used to describe the golden lampstand is taking us to an identification between this and the tree of life that we see way back in the beginning of Genesis. So as the tree of life stood in the midst of the Garden of Eden, which was kind of like the first tabernacle, if you will. This was the special place, the Garden of Eden was a special place that God set aside for his people where he would dwell with them, where they would have their own space, where they would work, where they would worship, where they would be with God. The whole earth was there. The whole earth, of course, was God's creation.

But this garden was the special place of God's creation. And there you had the tree of life. There you had Adam and Eve engaging in sacred activities. Well, taking the place of the Garden of Eden in the midst of this vast wilderness is now the tabernacle. The tabernacle is the perpetuation of Eden in a fallen world. And within the tabernacle, in the holy place, you have a new tree of life. This is a golden tree with its base and then its three branches on either side. It's a total of seven.

And its fruit is light itself. So this new tree of life, we have the fruit of light shining forth into this darkened room. So we talked a little about that time, about that last time, just kind of going through that again. Now, one of the things that we started talking about, but I don't think we spent enough time talking about, is the connection between the seven branches, the seven lamps or lights on this and the Holy Spirit. We have repeatedly, both in the Old Testament as well as the New Testament, the Holy Spirit referred to in a sevenfold kind of manner. And one of the first places we see this is in Isaiah. This is a section that most of us are familiar with.

We've heard this many times. This is the beginning of Isaiah chapter 11. A lot of times we'll hear this in the Christmas season. Here's the way it starts out. It says, then a shoot will spring from the stem of Jesse, and a branch from his roots will bear fruit. Now, this shoot or this branch that's coming from Jesse, who is, of course, the father of David, this is the Messianic branch or the Messianic shoot. So it's this idea that Jesse or the Davidic line has been chopped down like a tree.

So you have a stump there. and then you have coming from this stump this uh this branch and this or this shoot and this is the messiah this is the the new and the better david who is going to reign over the kingdom of god so this is this is the christ that we're talking about here that's verse one then it goes on and this is what i want to focus on it goes on to talk about how upon this shoot or branch upon the messiah the holy spirit will rest and he's described in a sevenfold way so he's first it says the spirit of the lord will rest upon him so that's the first the spirit of the lord but then we have six other characteristics the spirit of wisdom understanding counsel strength knowledge

and the fear of the lord so all those together are the seven characteristics of the holy spirit seven being the number of completeness or of perfection and so right here in isaiah chapter 11 verse 2 is the first time that we have this sevenfold nature of the holy spirit accented and this is the holy spirit that then rests upon the the son of david upon the messiah but that's not the only place there are multiple instances of this actually in in the book of revelation which we hinted at last time uh to begin with look if you look in revelation chapter one verse four uh it says john to the seven churches that are in asia grace to you and peace from him who is and who was and who is to come and from the seven spirits who are before

his throne. Now this isn't talking about seven spirits in the sense that there are seven different spirits. Another way to render this would be to the seven-fold spirit who is before his throne. And then you have a couple of other instances of this. You've got chapter 5, verse 6. It's describing Christ as a Lamb of God. It says he has seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven spirits of god sent out into all the earth and i think the best illustration of this the seventh nation of the holy spirit is in chapter four verse five let me turn there now this is after the letters to the seven churches and uh it's talking about the throne of god and it says from the throne proceeds flashes lightning and sounds and peals of thunder all right then says

there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne now this is this is tabernacle temple imagery here the throne of god is where you have the holy of holies and the seven lamps that are before the throne again this is tabernacle imagery is referring to the menorah and it says these The seven lamps of fire burning before the throne are the seven spirits of God, or the sevenfold spirit of God. So you kind of put all of that together, and you apply it to the menorah itself, and you come out with the fact that this sevenfold candlestick, which is connected backwards to the tree of life and forwards to the Holy Spirit, that this tree which gives forth the fruit of life is an emblem of the spirit of god who takes the light that is from god himself and shines that out into the world of darkness that's why for

instance in the creed uh if you confess the creed in your churches it talks about the holy spirit as as as the light of light uh he's the one who christ is the light of light the spirit is the light he's the one who lightens us he's the one who gives life he's the one who takes away the darkness of unbelief and who fills our hearts with the light of the knowledge of the glory of glory of god in the face of christ so the holy spirit is uh is embedded beneath the emblem of this menorah that's in the holy place as the one who continues to give uh to give light and to give life to to the world what's interesting about there's a there's a ton that's interesting about that uh i'll i'll throw two balls out there uh one is that as you have this this light

that uh that the holy spirit is is representing or is there's is uh that the menorah is representing and throwing out the darkness it's it is interesting that there's a couple of well there's a lot of but themes that kind of run throughout the old testament into the new testament that jesus himself sort of takes as his own so when jesus says things like i am the light of the world this is not a weird thing for him to say if he is in fact god right that all of this stuff as all this stuff gets sort of replaced in christ you have where what used to be in the tabernacle you have this object that represents the holy spirit that's bringing forth light and then jesus comes and says i'm the light of the world now right for the light of the whole world

is me uh we see this kind of language in the old testament and messianic prophecy where it talks about a light is dawned or that those who dwelled in great darkness have seen you know a light has shown or you see language talking about the rising sun implying that the night is over that sort of thing so light's a kind of a big deal in in the bible like that god god uses that language a lot the other thing is that trees bearing unusual fruit is a big thing in the in the bible i mean you have initially like you said that gets replaced with this menorah and and this this tree image that brings forth light which also gets replaced by the cross of christ which is a different tree uh that has the fruit of the body and blood of christ all of this the initial

eating of this bringing forth death and then christ's cross which he dies for the sins of the world to bring forth life which is what he attaches to the fruit that hangs off that tree which is his body and blood where it's whoever eats and drinks this um will live forever so i mean all all of that stuff is connected to things that christ will say about himself and things that christ will do yeah that's that's a great point i especially like the fact that uh you can trace throughout the old new testament the trees bringing forth that which you wouldn't expect i mean that's that's so much the way that god works yeah yeah yeah he he take you look at something and you think oh that's that's uh that's gonna that particular tree is gonna bring forth

a or b or c and god says no it's gonna bring forth x and y and z it's gonna it's gonna bring forth that which you don't expect so god is always bringing for something from natural objects that you would never anticipate whether that is good the knowledge of good and evil or life or healing or body and blood or light or whatever whatever it might be yeah i mean i mean we see more of this imagery i mean when i sort of there's there's several i sort of skipped over but um We'll see it again when they put a serpent on a pole or on a tree and you have them look at it. And Jesus totally says that that's all about him. You know, I mean, we don't have to connect those dots.

He does it for us and says, yeah, that's me. Yeah, yeah. In John 3, the last place that you would expect there to be healing and the very symbol of the sickness itself, that is where the healing is. that's where the healing is found yeah yeah jesus essentially says like things on trees is about me just so you know all everything hanging on a tree is is about me and i've and i've done this from the beginning i've i've had things on trees and uh that's all that's all pointing you to the cross yeah and one more thing uh uh before before we leave this i think it's worth pointing out is that and you you hinted at this too when you were discussing the the light of the world is that what

we see what we see between the old new testament is is an escalation there's never uh there's there's not there's not in the sense that the new testament is something radically new from the old what it does is it brings the old to to fulfillment it amplifies it it expands it it makes it uh better and greater as the book of hebrews will say so it works with what is there and yet it makes it even better uh when it's done and that's what you see with light of the world Now this, because the menorah is bringing light to a very small space, to one small room that has walls and has a roof over it. This is not the world. This is not even a very large area.

But that light is bringing light to that particular room. Now what happens in Christ is this expands. Gone is the tabernacle. Instead, it's replaced by Christ himself. And Christ then is the light not of a room but of the world because in him everything is better, everything is greater, everything in him is amplified to a divine degree so that now it becomes cosmic in the life that he brings. Yeah, I mean, and this is part of the scandalous thing. I mean, we see Paul talk about this a lot, that this light and this salvation isn't just for a specific group of people, but is for the world. Now, that's obviously alluded to many times in the Old Testament, like I said, where it talks about Gentiles having light dawn on them and this sort of thing.

Uh, but when Paul says crazy things like, you know, uh, and quoting prophets like Isaiah and others about those who did not seek me have become my people and this sort of thing. Uh, you know, he, he, he literally says like people who didn't want anything to do with me, I've, I've snatched up and brought to myself and those who sought me in uh and all the and and through the law uh by and large have rejected me that's a super offensive thing if you're somebody who is has lived uh in adherence to all of these things and has studied all these things and then you have all these other people that they don't you could be you if you're a jew and uh in that time and you're pursuing righteousness via the law and you care about the law and then you have all these

other people who they're not pursuing righteousness through the law they don't give a rip about the law and god's like yeah i'm i'm saving all of them like that's that's the offense they don't you're gonna be like hold up man like that like i don't like this messiah at all i think i don't think i believe in him because that's that's a shady move like these people are they're not just like indifferent to you they don't they don't they they hate you like they're they're not about they're not about what they haven't walked this road for generations like we have like they haven't been looking for the messiah they don't care that's the scandal of the whole thing uh that that when when jesus says he's the light of the world he says yeah i've come to to gather them all

up uh expect and certainly including those who want nothing to do with me that's why the earliest controversy in the church uh was not over music and worship or women's roles or any other even a christological controversy i mean some of the things that uh that we've struggled with over the years that the biggest controversy in the early church was the inclusion of gentiles in the church yeah i mean what are we gonna do with these people they don't eat the right kind of foods uh the guys aren't circumcised i mean uh what they're doing everything everything wrong so how can they be part of our community uh and so it ended up you know the first church council that was called was called to deal with this they got they're eating the wrong kind of foods

uh they're hanging out with the wrong kind of people their bodies aren't the way they're supposed to be, so on and so forth. So one of the biggest struggles that the early church had to deal with was, you know, just how open are we? I mean, are we going to be a church of Jews who include a few Gentiles? Are we going to be a church for all people, Jews, Greeks, slave, free, men, women, you name it. And of course, that's what the church is, as Paul makes abundantly clear in his in his writings but it was a it was a problem it was an obstacle for for the church back then because you know like you said you had these people that uh had not been following the laws of moses had not been following the traditions of the elders and now all of a sudden they're

wanting to be equal members of of the church which was a scandal to those who had been steep in the tradition of their fathers for the whole life yeah jesus coming as the light of the world like definitely uh shines light on some uh xenophobic tendencies in the hearts of everyone yeah yeah i think every single one of us in one way or another i'm sure there's some exceptions out there but most of us anyway uh would uh would react in some way negatively to certain people showing up at our church to be like what's she doing here yeah right what's he doing here yeah i mean we might like to say that uh that we wouldn't respond that way but there's probably we probably all have a certain group of people or certain individuals or if they showed up

and sat down next to us in the pew or the chair at church we'd be we'd be we say to ourselves what in the world is he doing here yeah yeah if i had a bunch of if all of a sudden uh on sunday morning a bunch of a bunch of people walked in in orange robes uh i'd be like i mean i'd be excited but i'd also be like what's happening right now yeah you'd have a bunch of people rubbernecking right let me turn around they'd be they'd be shocked yeah i'd be like are you guys lost you know you're in the wrong place right yeah so i mean this is a this ongoing probably we're uh we're glad that jesus is our light you know we you know i think there's maybe a few spots where he shouldn't be shining right or like i'm glad that you're shining uh but it'd

be really good if you could just change and and uh be like us yeah that's right that's that we usually do we're happy to have you here as long as you make a few changes yeah we the church has always had difficulty um trying to christianize uh the the cultures that the gospel goes out to and that is not not in a sense of uh you know of of bringing in healthy uh ethics rooted in love of god and neighbor that obviously comes along with uh with the christian faith but in trying to depending on where i mean so since since christianity took over in the in the west uh we just want to westernize everywhere we go and and we are it's easy to think well this is what christian culture looks like and again this isn't this isn't just rooted in acceptable ethics

of of how to love each other well but you know you need to probably dress like this and and and needs to look like this and your churches need to be uh looking like this and this is how society needs to to function and i don't need just completely stuff we've made up and they had that problem right out right from the jump man like now see like you're a christian now we don't we don't eat that and uh and we don't and we don't say that and we that's not how uh where the language we use yeah yeah and so we the church still struggles with that man like if you we go into other places and this can be even like a very minor thing this seems like a huge bunny trail but even within you know you have a place like like the united states is a big place

with varying degrees of cultural change from one place to the next i mean things aren't the same where i live as they are in uh you know southern california that the cultures are different or if i go to the inner city of detroit or something like that it's it's death it's definitely different and i can easily uh if i'm not careful be like well there's some things that need to change to make this better and what i really mean is like to make it more like the things i'm comfortable with right yeah yeah yeah we we no matter where we go we carry our culture our cultural biases yeah and that and that's not what jesus means by being the light of the world no our our particular cultural differences are artificial light we bring with us and uh when

we try and shine those everywhere into the actual light of christ truth that we're we're just in the end probably gonna end up doing nothing more than passing a bunch of legalisms that are reflection of our own cultural biases yeah i had a uh i was talking to a jehovah witness uh not too long ago And he was talking about all the terrible things that were going on in the world and, you know, how terrible everybody was. He didn't talk about his own sin at all, but there was a lot of other people's sin that he was wanting to discuss. I said, you know, if I was sitting on my front porch and I said, if I went up and down this street over the course of a year, i was able to get every single family on this street to adhere to the ten commandments to accept them and to practice them this would be a really great street to live on and he's like

he said yeah yeah it'd be great i was like yeah it'd be everyone you know we wouldn't have to lock our doors and like and it'd be a great street and i was like and then and then you could come and live move into this neighborhood and and it would be super righteous right and he's like yes i'm like no wrong wrong it wouldn't be super righteous it'd just be very moral and everybody a very ethical place to live it'd just be very moral and everybody's still be going to hell like i'm just not just making them change their behavior i haven't dealt with the problem and like while you're sitting here talking about all the things that everybody needs to change you don't you haven't talked about like forgiveness for those things or or redemption from those

things you haven't talked about any of that it's just we got to make society change and then it'll be good but it won't be good like it might be nice place to live but everyone's still in rebellion to god like nobody nobody's righteous at that point that's just trying to take things that we that we like this this is the this is what the society i want is a culture i want and like implement that and even legislate that uh and then that way we can feel we can feel good about it but at the end of the day you don't need and this is what's this is what's true about this is you don't need jesus for that religions do this all the time the church did this so you can you can mandate behavior if you want like that's not every that's not that difficult and

that's unfortunately what we want so much of the time is that we want this this fake light um that that looks it looks good everything looks clean and everything looks proper but you don't you don't need jesus for that that's not that's not the kind of light he's talking about theologians use this latin phrase the opinion legis which means basically that we're all of the uh our primary mode of thought is that we is the law that that that's the way that we get right with god and luther talks about how our best and brightest works are those which damn us the most because you know if we if we are able to really get our life together and clean up our act and walk the straight and narrow outwardly we are uh on the pathway to hell because what we've trusted in

is our own doing our own righteousness which is always the way of uh the way of the world's the way that we all go because that's the way it works in this world right and that's not the way it works in the grace grace is the exact exact opposite of that yeah well you know when you have paul talk about numerous times talk about like walking in the light or uh and that sort of thing i think that we we often think that that's um yeah you gotta walk in the light so that means that you know you gotta do the stuff uh that's not what that means uh walking in the light is letting yourself be your sin be exposed for what it is it's it's not calling your sin something else if you're walking in the light then that means that you're naming your sin you're willing

to acknowledge uh the darkness that you that you contribute to and you're repenting of those things uh walking in the light is not you walking with the light shining it all over everybody else's stuff that's just that's not what it is and you're you're behind it uh no walking in the light is you being like i'm willing to be exposed i'm not going to call my sin righteousness uh i'm going to call my sin sin i'm gonna i'm going to be exposed like this is not about you forcing other people into the light this is about you be living that way where you're like i i live a life um that is exposed for what it is uh and that that results in me knowing that christ is all i got yeah that's man yeah that's the light that's the light of the world man a light of the world i mean jesus says

this he's like hey the light shines and like it exposes everything right yeah to walk in the light is to walk in in christ whose light takes away the darkness of our sins and uh and it's it's not a light that we somehow manufacture within our hearts some kind of artificial life it's based upon artificial righteousness it's it's walking in the light that is that is him uh a light that uh takes away our darkness and that lights the path before us that we can walk in grace and mercy and not not according to our works or some kind of righteousness that we dream up on our own right all right well we've uh we i don't know we've sort of we that was a kind of a long bunny trail kind of but it all had to do with light which uh the menorah has to do with so

maybe not maybe not completely off topic not off topic at all no so that takes us to the end of chapter 25 uh that covers the whole uh the whole menorah so chapter 26 is um all about uh this might not sound very exciting to you but hopefully we can bring a little bit of uh of riches out of this it's all about the coverings of the tabernacle i mean this is this is a tent we're talking about i think sometimes we forget that because tabernacle is such a fancy word well a tabernacle there's nothing but a tent it's a it's a it's a pretty good size tent it's not like a four-man tent that you buy at cabela's or something this is a good size a good size structure but it is still a a portable a portable sanctuary just like they had tents so the the uh the ancient peoples had

tents that they lived in and now god has a tent and if you have a tent you have to have a some kind of structure and you have to have some sort of covering over that structure so that's what the first um all 14 verses are about and then are the coverings and then you have a few verses about the structure itself and then we then we're gonna get to the veil so just to briefly describe this you you have basically four believe it or not four different coverings over the tabernacle This is not a one-covering kind of tent. You've got four different ones. Now, the outer ones are kind of your standard sort of materials.

You've got goat's hair was pretty common to use woven together as a covering. So the three outer layers are leather and ram's skins and goat hair. So those are the three outer coverings of the tabernacle. We're not for sure if those cover the whole thing or maybe some one part, some another. But anyway, those are the outer coverings. If the innermost covering that I think is most fascinating, the innermost covering is made out of linen, twisted linen. And what's most intriguing about this, so this is the part that you would have actually seen inside the tabernacle. what's most interesting about it to me anyway is that it's it's made in such a way as it's

woven together that it has images of cherubim that are woven into the linen fabric itself so as say you're a priest and you step into the tabernacle to maybe light the menorah or you're there on the Sabbath to eat the unleavened bread, or maybe it's the morning or the evening when you stand in front of the veil and you light, you burn incense, and you offer up prayers. Well, as you step into the holy place and you look around you, the curtains are going to be full of images of the angels, these cherubim that are woven into the fabric of the tabernacle itself now what i love about that is a couple different things first of all it's a it's a it's a visual iconic reminder that you are stepping into the earthly presence of heaven itself

and we we still do this every time that we gather together as the people of god around god's gifts so when we gather as the church to worship we gather with with angels and archangels with cherubim and seraphim so surrounding us unseen maybe pictured we have pictures of angels in our in our church the church i did uh but whether you see them pictured or not they're there and you had so you have these these icons woven into the fabric of the tabernacle tabernacle coverings which indicated visually the invisible presence of the angels who were who were there that's the first thing that i love about this the second thing is these cherubim that are woven into the fabric are in the holy place are a representation of the golden cherubim

that you have on top of the ark of the covenant inside the most holy place so you have these solid gold cherubim that are attached to the mercy seat over the ark of the covenant And then you have these images of cherubim woven into the fabric of the coverings in the holy place. So they provide sort of a connection between the most holy place and the holy place, as well as serving as these beautiful images of the invisible presence of the angels around the worship of God. that's uh that's what you have going on with uh with the the linen coverings around the tabernacle and then you have uh the the centerpiece if you will of this fabric and that is the veil that hangs between the most holy place and the holy place usually we refer to it as as the veil

so it's a veil that's made out of blue and purple and scarlet material it too has cherubim that it It's woven into the fabric itself, and it hangs there between the Most Holy Place and the Holy Place as both a barrier and an entrance. So it's a barrier 364 days a year, and it's an entrance one day a year on the Day of Atonement or Yom Kippur, when it becomes an entrance for the high priest as he goes behind that to enter into the most holy place and to sprinkle blood on the mercy seat. But most of the time, it's a barrier. It's a dividing wall. At the same time, though, it has this interesting quality, the veil does,

because on one side you have this direct presence of God, and on the other side you have the work of the priesthood, where the priests are doing their work most of the time. So the veil is also kind of a joining together, a bridge, if you will, of where God is and where man is. So it functions in this dual nature sort of way as the very thin veil between God's presence and where men as priests are present to serve him. There's things to say about the veil, and we're going to have to say them next week. Oh, I'll let this do it. I got everybody ready.

I got everybody thinking. You got everybody prepped. There's – Tune in next week. The veil is – there's – shocker, spoiler alert, Jesus has something to do with that veil. Yeah. Yes, he certainly does. So that's it.

Well, guys, if you want to come hang out with me and Chad in San Diego in about six weeks or so, You can do that by going to herewestillstand.org and registering for the Here We Still Stand conference, which we will both be at. We're going to be both talking there, and we're going to be live podcasting from there. And so we'd love to hang out with you. If you want to get 10% off, you can use the code 40OT, and that will give you 10% off your registration. Ridiculous amount of food. The money that you spend on the registration, you will recoup and then some just in the food and beverages that you will consume. It's a ridiculous deal, and you should definitely try to make it happen.

And if you are one of those people that's dragging their feet and like, yeah, yeah, I'm going, I'm going, you are running out of time. So you should do that. Don't be a procrastinator. Do as I say, not as I do, because I most certainly am. And that's it, Chad. we'll see you next week man alright we'll see you then thanks