The Divine Dwelling

Introduction

Can I be honest with you this morning? To be fair, I hope you know I’m honest with you every Sunday morning. But can I be especially honest with you this week? When I looked at this passage at the beginning of the week, I really questioned whether we should do this passage at all. I don’t think I’ve ever done that with a Bible passage before. Before us this morning, we have a chapter that, to all intents and purposes, is about curtains! Curtains! What can we possibly learn about living for Christ? What can we possibly take away that’s useful from a chapter… about curtains? I’m not anti-curtains, don’t hear me wrong, unless you’re talking about 90s hairstyle curtains. Definitely against them. You know, curtains are great! If I didn’t say that, Rachel (who owns a curtain business) would not be happy! But don’t they belong in a book on interior design rather than a Sunday morning thinking about Jesus? This is about changing rooms, not changing hearts.

But do you know, as the week’s gone on, and I’ve looked carefully at this, I’ve become more convinced this stuff is really at the heart of so much that we see in the New Testament. I know that’s quite a statement, but I think you’ll see this morning it’s true. What’s pictured in these curtains, veils, and screens are some of the massive themes in Scripture. And they point us straight to the Lord Jesus and His work on the cross. Sorry, should have given a spoiler alert there! It’s reminded me that the scriptures are a goldmine of Gospel-filled goodness if we just take the time to read them carefully and think them through. I know I’ve set the bar quite high there, but let’s see as we go through. So first of all, we see…

A Covering, Containing Curtain (v1-14)

When I read this through the first time this week, I must admit, I did not even have a clue what this was really even describing. I think whenever I’ve read this before, my eyes have sort of glazed over. There are 10 curtains, no 11 curtains, no two sets of five curtains, no a veil, no a screen. Twisted linen, no scarlet yarns, no goats’ hair, no tanned rams' skins, no goatskins—that’s before we get to different translations! Goats’ skins, badgers' skins, fine leather, hides of sea cows, skins of dolphins. And that’s before we even get to the various dimensions! Four cubits, twenty-eight cubits, thirty cubits. What even is a cubit? So let me try and help.

Part of the issue is that it's only describing part of the whole structure—the tent which housed the holy of holies and the holy place. The outer court is not even touched here. It’s just the one tent. But that one tent has four layers of curtains on it, as well as a veil on the inside and a screen at the front. The breakdown looks something like this:

1. 1. A layer of finely embroidered linen
   2. A layer of goats’ hair fabric
   3. A layer of tanned rams' skins
   4. And a layer of probably goatskins (that’s the tricky one to translate)

The last two layers are sometimes counted as one. The reason you get different measurements is that as you put one layer on top of another, the layers need to be bigger. The first layer of embroidered linen would be about a foot and a half off the floor on two sides, presumably so it didn’t get damaged. The next layer, though, covered it and went right to the floor. A foot and a half is about a cubit, or 45 cm in metric—it’s the length between your elbow and the end of your fingers. So it differed slightly from person to person, and over time too. The loops and golden clasps are there to hold the curtains together so that the tabernacle may be a single whole. There were no gaps; there was no way to sneak in. Wholeness is a huge deal in the law, and the tabernacle was to be whole, complete, perfect.

But why were there any curtains at all? Why not just have it open? Well, it’s not just a weather consideration; it’s a "keep out" consideration. The curtains cordoned off the tent so that no one could enter. It contained the tent; it covered it from prying eyes. And from the outside, it would have looked very ordinary. The embroidered curtains lay within; they couldn’t be seen from the outside. The various layers made it waterproof, yes, but they also hid the wonders from the outside world. Imagine if someone came to live on your street, they bought a house, you never saw them, and they never opened their curtains. The message would be clear, wouldn’t it? Keep out! Stay away! Don’t come near! That was what it was like for the Israelites. God moved in among them, but the curtains remained closed. You never got to see inside. While God was among them, the message was stay away!

This message was reinforced by the cherubim. We think of cherubs like this, but in the Bible, they’re described more like this—sort of terrifying birdlike creatures with animal and human faces. They’re guardian angels with flaming swords—the sort of bouncers of the angelic world. And that is their function here. They are on the curtains; they are also on the veil, but we’ll come to that in a few minutes. They symbolically encircled the tabernacle, as we see them around God’s throne in Ezekiel’s vision.

But all of this would be hidden to the outside world. The embroidered curtains were covered by the other layers on top, and only the priests were allowed in the tent itself. Many have noted the hidden nature of the spiritual realities seen in the tent—the Holy of Holies, yes. No light in there, smoke from the altar of incense to further hide it. But the whole tent within the tabernacle layout had a hidden glory. From most angles, it would just have seemed like an ordinary tent. Apart from the entrance screen which we’ll come to later, all its majesty was hidden. Covered up by the animal skins and goats hair. Even the curtains themselves were hidden. Everything was contained, covered, and hidden away.

We know from last week that the tabernacle is a huge picture of Christ, especially His incarnation when He tabernacled among us. So it is fitting that the glory of the tabernacle is hidden, that from the outside, you could not see the wonder that lies within. It is veiled by the curtains. Hebrews 10:20 speaks of Christ’s flesh as like the veil in the temple, the curtain. We’ll come back to that later. But let me put it this way: If it had no glory or majesty, the picture wouldn’t work. But it does—just inside! If all its glory and majesty were on show, then it wouldn’t work. But it’s not; it’s hidden. The curtains allow for both to be true. They contain and conceal what lies within; they cover it up, that there might be glory but not seen.

Veiled in flesh, the Godhead see, hail the incarnate deity. You would not be able to tell from Christ’s appearance He was God. There was no halo around His head; there was no light emanating from His skin. There was glory there, but it was hidden, veiled. It took supernatural eyes to see Christ for who He is; it still does. But once you’ve seen it, there’s no denying it.

A Compass Co-ordinated Construction (v15-30)

The next section focuses on the frames that made up the scaffolding of the tent. These were tent poles, if you like. They were made up of several frames set with cross bars for stability. The frames were made of acacia wood, and the cross bars were covered with gold. They were to be joined at the top but not at the bottom so they could fit into a number of silver bases—probably not gold as they were to touch the ground underneath and were a little further away from the ark. The shape they make is a box shape—a cuboid, basically what I showed you before. Some historians think there may have been a central beam so that it wasn’t a flat roof, but there’s no mention of it here. Again, it is a very plain and simple structure.

The main new thing that we find is that the tabernacle is to be set up according to the points of the compass. There’s a north side (v20 and 35), a south side (v18 and 35), an east and a west (v22 and 27). Wherever the tabernacle was to be set up, it was to be set up facing the same direction according to the points of the compass. Why? So that the entrance was always to the East, and as you headed closer to the holy of holies, you were headed West. In the Bible, heading West is nearly always associated with coming closer to God and His purposes—Abraham heads west to the promised land, the Israelites, despite being to the south of the promised land here, enter it across the Jordan, heading west. Conversely, to head east is to head away from God. Cain goes East to the land of Nod, mankind goes East to the plain of Shinar to build the Tower of Babel, Lot heads East when faced with the choice by Abraham—East to Sodom and Gomorrah. West towards God, East away from God.

That doesn’t mean, though, we need to cross the seas into the West, as they do in Lord of the Rings, to the undying lands. Though Tolkien’s almost certainly picking up on this pattern in Scripture. Nor does it mean that America is the promised land, despite what some of our American cousins try to tell us! We don’t need to change the lyrics of ‘Give thanks with a grateful heart’ to ‘Go west where the skies are blue,’ even though those songs have the same tune! Sorry if you can’t unhear that! But it isn’t a prophetic call to colonize the west of America. What is it then?

The points of the compass are rarely mentioned in the New Testament, usually just in phrases meaning the whole world—from the east and west. There is one famous journey West though in the Gospel—a journey to come closer to God and worship Him—the wise men who come from the East. They come to Jerusalem, to the temple, but find that the one they’re looking for isn’t there. No, he’s lying in a bed of straw or possibly toddling in a temporary home by this point. The King is no longer seated on a throne at the west end of the temple or tabernacle—inaccessible and unapproachable. The King is now among them—God with us, Immanuel. So, the fulfilment of this is less about the points of a compass but where the compass was pointing.

We don’t pray and worship now pointing a particular direction as they did in the Old Testament. Our prayer and worship are now directed through Christ. We can pray in any direction, so long as we come through Christ. We can approach God pointing North, East, West, even South! So long as we approach God through Christ. Back here, though, it meant they did. They needed to have the entrance on the East side, and that meant again the tabernacle was a copy of the garden of Eden. There was an entrance to that garden, and it was on the East side, we’re told in Genesis 3. It was guarded by a cherub, we’re told there too—as was the tabernacle.

And so our last point…

A Veiled Threat (v31-37)

The final items we meet are the veil and the entrance screen. The entrance screen is there as a sort of front door on the tent. There was no curtain here, so a screen was put in place with 5 pillars of acacia wood overlaid with gold. The bases of the pillars were to be bronze, not silver like the others—a sign we’re moving further away from the holy of holies as the metals get less precious. (The metal possibly wasn’t bronze as we know it nowadays, but it was certainly a less precious metal than gold or silver). The entrance screen again blocked the inner part of the tent from view. Even if you were in the outer court, you couldn’t see in. There was no opening of doors or hatches to let you see in; you would have to walk around. There are no cherubim mentioned here. All the cherubim are hidden from view.

The most significant item here, though, is the veil. The veil was made of the same material as the curtains around the tent. The veil was held up by four pillars of acacia wood overlaid with gold, similar to the entrance screen but fewer pillars as it was inside. Silver bases, not bronze. And this did have cherubim embroidered into it. This veil gave the Holy of Holies its own angelic bouncers. If the general message of the tabernacle was "keep out," this was doubly, trebly so! This was like those warning signs on hazardous sites—‘Keep Out,’ ‘Quarantined area,’ ‘Danger of death!’ And these were no vain threats. The high priest, when he entered the holy of holies, would have to wear bells so that those outside could tell whether he had dropped down dead in the presence of God. He had to be attached to a sort of rope so that they could drag out his body if he didn’t survive entering the Holy of Holies.

Two of Aaron’s sons would die after offering unauthorized fire in the tabernacle—consumed by God’s holy fire. The bouncers were not so much to protect God, as though he needed protection! But to stop the people from coming too close, lest THEY should die! The veil was a big no entry sign to keep people out. God would not be among the people in that way; people could not approach God. Even if you don’t know much about the tabernacle, you’ve probably heard of the veil—you just didn’t know it. In the New Testament, it’s referred to, confusingly, as the curtain. Yes, another curtain! We meet it at the key moment in the New Testament—when Jesus dies on the cross.

Just at that point, this veil, this curtain gets mentioned again, really for the first time since Exodus. Mark 15:37-38, "And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom." It’s mentioned in Matthew, Mark, and Luke. At the point of Jesus' death, this curtain, or its successor at least, is miraculously torn from top to bottom. Now think about this, God could have miraculously broken the altar- the sacrifices are over. It would be true, but it’s not what happens. He could have broken the temple itself, sent it crumbling down. But he doesn’t. That happens when the Romans destroy it 40 years later. He could have broken the lamp, the table, the bronze basin. But He doesn’t. Of all the things He could choose, he breaks the curtain!

What’s the message, what’s the point? The point is access. Access to the Father. The curtain was a big no-entry sign, well now the curtain has come down, the veil has gone! The temple curtain is torn down, the living way to heaven is seen; through Christ, the middle wall has gone, and all who will may enter in. It’s no coincidence that straight after we’re told the curtain of the temple being torn, that the very next thing we see is someone coming into the kingdom. Mark 15:37-39 ESV, "And Jesus uttered a loud cry and breathed his last. And the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom. And when the centurion, who stood facing him, saw that in this way he breathed his last, he said, 'Truly this man was the Son of God!'" It’s not that the centurion saw the curtain torn, it’s that the centurion experienced the effects of the curtain being torn.

The way is now open to the Father for all, even those who took part in His Son’s death. If the curtain was there as a message: keep out! Surely the tearing of the curtain is the message: come in! Come in, draw near, find welcome. You know those cheesy bosses who say cliches like ‘my door is always open,’ even when there’s times it’s clearly not! Well, God’s door is now firmly open because of Christ. All who will may enter in and find fellowship with the father through Christ. And as believers, we need to remember that, God’s door is always open. He is not inaccessible in the way that he was in the Old Testament. Christ has opened the way to the Father. And we can approach Him now to find mercy and grace. The message is no longer stay out; the message is come in?

But do we still live like the curtain is up? Like the living way hasn’t been opened up by Christ’s death. Do we come to the Father? In prayer, in worship. Or do we treat Him as though the door is closed, or only open once a week or once a year- as it was in the Old Testament. Communion, fellowship with the Father is not a burden we bear, it’s a privilege there to be enjoyed. The door to our Father’s office is open! But do we try and come through someone else as though the way is not really open to us, but only open to ‘holier’ people. People ask me to pray for them, and I do. But you are allowed to come to the Father in prayer without going through someone else. In Christ, we have access to our loving heavenly father.

What if we only communicated with someone through someone else? If my children sent other people to ask me for things? In Christ, we can bring our needs to the Father; we don’t need to go through anyone but Christ who is the very image of the Father. In other words, we don’t need priests or pastors to communicate with the Father for us. That is the privilege of every believer. Why wouldn’t we do that though? Perhaps because we don’t feel worthy? Perhaps because deep down we feel the door should be closed to us, the curtain should be up. But that’s why it is torn in two at Christ’s death. When the barrier between us and God was dealt with, as Jesus died for our sin. Yes, as believers we still have sin, but it is sin that was dealt with at the cross.

We may feel like we are in debt, but the debt was paid at the cross. We may feel like slaves to sin, but we are freed at the cross. It just takes time for us to get our heads out of that slave mentality and into the son mentality. And the son mentality means we come in, not stay out. Like the unabashed children who walked in on their fathers while they were live on national tv via on zoom, we can come into the Father. Only unlike them, we can expect a smiling welcome. A come-in sign, not a keep-out sign. So curtains, yes, but more than curtains. And in Christ, the curtain had gone, the way is open. So come in! Christ bids us come! Let’s come before the Father now in prayer.