6.1 Tabernacle Layout
© 2016 Christ Revealed Bible Institute
The part of the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of All, which had the golden censer and the ark of the covenant overlaid on all sides with gold… Of these things we cannot now speak in detail (Hebrews 9:3-5 condensed).
This course is not a study of the Tabernacle of Moses. Rather, in order to better understand the verses of the Covenant in the New Testament, we use the layout, parts, and purpose of Moses’ Tabernacle as a means of arranging those verses together in meaningful wholes. For instance, the Ark of the Covenant allows us to place two verses side by side – clearly you are an epistle of Christ – along with – And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us.
Use of the Metaphor. In general Christian teaching, the Tabernacle and its parts are used typically as a means of better understanding the Lord Jesus Christ as a solitary entity, a Jesus alone. This is strange to me, because those who wrote the New Testament, although they certainly used these things to speak of Jesus, yet they also used them to speak of our entrance into the knowledge of God. And they even used the Tabernacle to indicate God through us.
Here is the strongest New Testament statement expressing God’s primary use of the metaphor of the Tabernacle. Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus (Hebrews 10:19).
The Best Fit. But then the writer of Hebrews adds an afterthought to the list of the things found inside the Holy of Holies. Of these things we cannot now speak in detail. This statement opens the door for God to show us so many wondrous realities out from the simple and explicit details found in the Tabernacle of Moses in the wilderness.
The use of the Tabernacle as a metaphor is in no way limited to the topic of the Covenant. Yet I find that the Tabernacle, the place where the box containing the Covenant is kept, is simply the best fit in the Bible for us to know that Covenant. And so, in these two sessions, we will scan across the entirety of the Tabernacle, its layout, construction, and furnishings.
God’s First Move. To begin, your purchase of The Rose Guide to the Tabernacle was an initial requirement for this course. We will be referring to specific pages in that very useful picture book regularly.
God’s purpose for having Moses direct the construction and establishing of the Tabernacle is implied in this statement. Now the Lord called to Moses, and spoke to him from the tabernacle of meeting (Leviticus 1:1). The Tabernacle was God’s sticking His nose under the tent, so to speak, making Himself first known to many. By the Tabernacle, God made His first move towards His original intention to dwell in the midst of His people as His visible Body.
Pro-Thesis – Pattern. Yet, although the Tabernacle in the experience of Israel allowed only for a limited engagement between God and a human family, the children of Israel, it contains in its makeup a full description of God’s final intention. Thus we can say that the Tabernacle is a visible form of God’s Pro-Thesis, God’s original thesis statement.
And in that way we understand this command of God to Moses and then, of God to us. “See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain” (Hebrews 8:5b). Everything we bring forth must come only and precisely out from God’s original thesis statement, His Pro-Thesis or pattern.
A Tent. These lessons on the Tabernacle serve two purposes, first to establish in our minds the specifics of the Tabernacle and second to connect these specifics with New Testament truth. Thus, part of your work for these sessions is to learn the Tabernacle, Exodus 25-40.
The Tabernacle is specifically a tent, located inside a court bounded by a fence. The Tabernacle thus begins with the outer court. Look at the picture on pages 16-19 in the Rose Guide. God’s instructions to Moses were in cubits. The exact length in our terms of the cubit that Moses used is unimportant to our purposes; we need only the scale as well as the numbers God uses. To simplify our discussion, we will place a cubit at 18 inches.
Scale. Thus the outer court, at 100 cubits by 50 cubits (Exodus 27), would have been about 150 feet long and 75 feet wide. Then the tabernacle itself was, at 10 cubits by 30 cubits (figuring by the boards) (Exodus 26), about 45 feet long and 15 feet wide, not counting the extension of the covering skins. This makes the Tabernacle larger than what I have envisioned it, but smaller than the scale shown in the Rose Guide picture. The Rose Guide does have a scaled diagram, however, on page 20. It is difficult to compute accurately from Moses’ rendition. To fit the actual scale, even with a small space behind it, the Tabernacle is just under one third of the length of the outer court and just under one quarter of its width.
Spaces. The Tabernacle pictures in the Rose Guide are much too big for the court. But the Tabernacle I have envisioned, sitting under Tabernacle teaching for many years, is too small. The Tabernacle is also 10 cubits or about 15 feet tall.
The Tabernacle is then divided into two rooms which are 1/3 and 2/3 of the space. That means that the front room of the Tabernacle was around 15 feet wide and 30 feet long, and the back room was around 15 feet wide and 15 feet deep. Those are large rooms for the furniture in them, plenty of space for the priests. The front part of the outer court, however, about 75 feet wide and 90 feet deep is a bit small to my mind for all the activity taking place there.
Passing Through. Let’s bring back the primary interpreting verse of the Tabernacle. Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus.
It is impossible to enter the Holiest without first passing through 90 feet of activity in the outer court and then 30 feet of space in the Holy Place. To enter the Holy Place is to leave behind the outer court. To enter the Holiest is to leave behind the Holy Place. Yet, in every application of the Tabernacle to our walk in God, we never leave behind the pieces of furniture. Rather we become those pieces of furniture, and they show themselves at ever deeper levels the farther we go with God.
Entering the Gate. In the picture on pages 16-19 in the Rose Guide you can see the construction of the outer court, a series of “pillars” made of bronze tied to the ground with bands made of silver. The hangings that wall off the outer court are simple linen cloth. The height of the wall is 5 cubits or about 7½ feet; high enough so that no one can see inside the court on a flat plain.
The entrance into the outer court is called the gate. This is a WIDE entrance, about 30 feet wide. It is covered by a “screen” made of linen thread died blue, purple, and scarlet. All the children of Israel, women as well as men, were required to pass under that screen into the outer court bringing with them their offerings of animals, birds, or grain.
Altar and Laver. Go now to the picture of the Outer Court on pages 28-29 in the Rose Guide. You can see the large bronze Altar burning with fire located just beyond the screen as well as the smaller bronze Laver filled with water set just in front of the Tabernacle Door. You can also see priests engaging in specific activities. Now, Exodus 27 gives the size of the Altar of Burnt Offering at 5 cubits by 5 cubits by 3 cubits high, that is, about 7.5 feet square and about 4.5 feet high, close to a sheet of plywood. The altar in the Rose Guide is not proportioned correctly. The Bronze Laver filled with water is not given any dimensions in the account in Exodus 30.
A Bloody Place. The scene presented in the Rose Guide is a very sterile picture, not in any way reflective of reality. In contrast, there would have been many more priests at work in this part of the outer court, intermingling with dozens of Israelites, each dragging behind them cows and goats and sheep, or carrying baskets containing grain or birds. All around the court, priests would be slitting the throats of the animals while they are being held by their owners. Blood is everywhere, and poop. Cows do not go down easily or quietly, and goats do everything they can to evade the knife. The noise is deafening; dust is everywhere; the stink is awful; and the smoke rolling up from the fire is black as it slowly burns blood and flesh.
Outer Court Worship. The worship of God in the outer court is not a sanctimonious, spotlessly clean priest with hands raised up to heaven. The worship of God in the outer court is slaughter.
Do you want to worship God by the outer court? Here is how you do it. That every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God (Romans 3:19b). – If one died for all, then all died (2 Corinthians 5) The worship of God in the outer court is to come to the full acceptance and confession of – I AM crucified with Christ.
But in God’s picture, those who enter the outer court to be slaughtered then become God’s priests who are able to enter the Holy Place.
Hidden in Our Hearts. The water of the Bronze Laver is for washing. That He might sanctify and cleanse her with the washing of water by the word (Ephesians 5:26). Yet the water of this laver remains in the outer court, in the light of the natural sun/mind, and not by the light of the Holy Spirit.
Thus the admonition laid upon all who would approach the Bible in the outer court is NOT to “figure out” the Bible, but rather this. Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You (Psalm 119:11). Fools in the outer court spend their years figuring out and expounding on “the word.” Those called of God spend those same years hiding that word all through the fabric of their heart.
Into the Holy Place. On page 29 in the Rose Guide you can see the front of the Tabernacle, called in Exodus 26, the Door, made of the same material and colors as the screen that covered the Gate. The entrance into the Holy Place is the entire front wall. Yet the only passage through is to bend down, pick up the screen, and go under it. This same process holds true at all three entrances, Gate, Door, and Veil.
Then, on page 49 of the Rose Guide, you can see a cutaway picture of the interior of the Tabernacle. Again, the scale is off. The furniture in the Tabernacle is smaller in proportion to the size of the rooms. On pages 54 to 55 of the Rose Guide you can see the Holy Place with its three pieces of furniture, the Table of Showbread, the Lampstand, and the Altar of Incense.
The Holy Spirit’s Job. The difference between the environment of the Holy Place against the environment of the outer court is extreme. In the Holy Place quiet and peace reigns supreme. There is no more slaughter; there is no more death. This is the place of the Holy Spirit whose job is not to make us of Himself, but to take us to the fullness of Christ. Thus we see the Holy Place only as a passage.
Yet in this passage, we glean all that we can from the Holy Place, taking all that truth with us into the Holiest where we will see what it all really means for the first time. Just as with the outer court, the elements are not for us to “figure out,” but to place into our knowing by experience.
From the Holy Place to the Ark. The Holy Place is lit by the light of the lampstand, little lamps of fire burning olive oil. The air is filled with the aroma of the incense underneath of which might be smelled the odor of freshly baked bread. You can see the outline of the boards that make up the walls of the Tabernacle and the overwhelming immediacy of the Veil. The ceiling is over 9 feet above the heads of the priests. On page 72 in the Rose Guide, you can see another representation of what the Veil might have looked like. Some say that the Veil was a few inches thick, though Moses does not specify. Then, on page 77, you can see the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies.
Foursquare. It’s all about the Covenant. God’s instructions to Moses, the Pattern shown on the mountain, begins with the Ark of the Covenant with the Mercy Seat upon it (Exodus 25). This Ark (that is, box) is 2½ cubits long and 1½ cubits wide and high. That is about 45 inches long and 27 inches wide and high. Think 2 feet by 4 feet, about one quarter of a sheet of plywood. This box fits into a room then, of around 15 feet wide, 15 feet deep, and 15 feet high. The Holy of Holies is foursquare, a perfect cube of 10 cubits each way.
This depiction of the Ark of the Covenant on page 79 in the Rose Guide, specifically of the Mercy Seat upon it, certainly does grip the imagination, but we will wait until the two chapters on these two pieces of furniture.
The Pattern of the Covenant. The Ark contained the Covenant, the second two tablets of stone upon which Moses had chiseled the ten commandments, along with Aaron’s rod and a pot of manna. The only light ever to enter the Holiest was the dim glow of the golden censor.
The final element in the Holiest is shown on page 79 of the Rose Guide, the tip point of the pillar of fire, also seen on page 19, but far more graphically on pages 2-3. This is God covering over, dwelling among, and speaking together with His people.
The word, “pattern,” is from typos in the Hebrew, meaning a stamped out copy of an original model. Thus the Tabernacle of Moses is a visible representation of God’s original Pro-Thesis, His legal Covenant set forth from the beginning.