A Place for God to Dwell
(Exodus 25:1-9)
It wasn't long after the Lord rescued his people Israel from the merciless bondage of Egypt that he instructed Moses to build a sanctuary that He might dwell in the midst of His people. The Passover had been slain, the blood had been applied, and God's people had been led across the Red Sea with a mighty hand. Now the Lord says to Moses in (Exo 25:8 KJV) "let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them."
The first order of business, of course, was to gather up all of the materials needed to make the habitation of God. Notice the striking variety of materials that it pleased God to use for His house: (Exo 25:3-7 KJV) "And this is the offering which ye shall take of them; gold, and silver, and brass, {4} And blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine linen, and goats' hair, {5} And rams' skins dyed red, and badgers' skins, and shittim wood, {6} Oil for the light, spices for anointing oil, and for sweet incense, {7} Onyx stones, and stones to be set in the ephod, and in the breastplate."
Of metals there were some precious and some common. So it was with the cloth, varied in color and in texture from the course goats hair to the soft and fine white linen. Likewise, the skins were of the domesticated ram and also of the ferocious and wild badger. What extreme differences among these materials with which God would build his tabernacle!
The intriguing assortment of God's wise design is also seen in the stones of Aaron's breastplate. Representing the various tribes of Israel to be born on the heart of the High Priest, there were sardius, topaz, carbuncle, emerald, sapphire, diamond, ligure, agate, amethyst, beryl, onyx, and jasper. Stones differing in color, hardness, origin, and value: how fitting to represent the many differences among chosen people. Each taken from the earth, varied in the extreme, yet all upon the heart of the High Priest. Each stone set exactly in the place which God ordained for it...each one precious...each one important to the God who inhabits eternity.
These things were no doubt written for our learning and it is not hard to see in this wonderful variety of tabernacle materials a picture of the New Testament Church. When Jesus began to gather the materials for His church the assortment was just as interesting: fishermen, a tax collector, and a physician. "Ye are God's building," Paul later tells the church at Ephesus and just as the tabernacle materials were all carefully joined together in God's masterful plan by an intricate system of taches, loops, pinions, and sockets, so too Paul tells them that they, being "fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit." It is often these extreme differences among the materials which God has chosen to build his house that causes us so much trouble...irritating us and rubbing us the wrong way. The goat hair doesn't have much affinity with the fine linen nor the wild badger with the domestic ram. But Paul would have us know in Romans 12 that this is all part of God's extraordinary plan and each of us has an important and unique place, "for as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another. Having then gifts differing according to the grace that is given to us." And even though this unlikely arrangement of such an assortment of parts is often displeasing to us, it would be good for us to remember Paul's words in 1 Cor 12: "now hath God set the members every one of them in the body, as it hath pleased him....(and)...those members of the body, which seem to be more feeble, are necessary."
The beauty and the wonder is easy to miss. Covered with badger skins, God's house, like the New Testament Church, was not much to behold from the outside...not much to commend it to folks...like the Saviour himself, "no beauty that we should desire him." But on the inside how very different: so much gold, fine linen, blue, purple, scarlet, and "the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle."
So too, the value is easy to miss. Afterall, no single contribution of metal, cloth, or skin was worth much. But scholars say that the gold and the silver alone in God's house was worth over $1,200,000.00. Similarly, looking at the odd mix of materials in the church: the rare and the common, the course and the fine, the wild and the tame one is confounded by the thought of how precious it is to Christ who, "loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish." Let us love it too.
