Ten Commandments; Tabernacle

1 Corinthians 10:6 ^NASB “Now these things happened as examples for us, so that we would not crave evil things as they also craved.” The word “examples” is the Greek word tupos [tupoj] from which we get the transliterated English word “type.” Typology is basically a system of foreshadowing, a system of representation used in the Old Testament where certain events or certain objects foreshadow or represent doctrinal truths or principles that are later revealed in the New Testament. In terms of typology the nation Israel is a type of the individual believer in the New Testament in many different ways. There are representative truths given in the whole exodus event that foreshadow doctrinal truths in the believer’s life. The Passover itself is a picture of redemption. The slavery in Egypt is a type of the believer’s slavery to sin prior to salvation. The move through the Red Sea is a type of the baptism by means of God the Holy Spirit where the believer is identified with Christ in His death, burial and resurrection. It happens at the moment of salvation and makes a clear, distinct break with the old life. In terms of typology the giving of the law on Mount Sinai is after the salvation of the nation. The redemption of the nation takes place first; then there is the revelation of divine requirement. Nobody is saved by keeping the law.

In Exodus 19:5, 6 we have what is probably the central passage in understanding the Old Testament. ^NASB “Now then, if you will indeed obey My voice and keep My covenant, then you shall be My own possession among all the peoples, for all the earth is Mine; and you shall be to Me a kingdom of priests and a holy nation...” This decree sets the nation of Israel apart from all other nations on the earth and they will be the nation who will be the intermediary agent for all other agents to come before the Lord. The giving of the Mosaic law is specifically related to this to show how they are to function and to live before man and before God as that kingdom of priests. In the same way there is an analogy because we are a kingdom of priests. We are to function as ambassadors for Christ; we live before God and before man in a certain way in order to carry out that same mission. From this we see three things that are given. First, it was God’s purpose to create a nation that will be a unique treasure, a valuable possession for Almighty God. Secondly, they are to be a kingdom of priests. Access to God will be limited groups through the nation Israel functioning in that intermediary state. Third, that the nation will be holy; which means to be set apart to the service of God.

We have seen that the covenant is modeled after a secular treaty called a suzerain-vassal treaty form. Suzerain refers to a nation that controls another nation in international affairs but allows it a certain measure of domestic sovereignty. The word “vassal” refers to a person or maybe a feudal lord who held land and received protection from a suzerain in return for homage and allegiance. This is the model that man serves as the servant of God. God has delegated to man certain responsibilities in order to rule the earth. We trace this theme all the way back to the creation of man. The suzerain-vassal treaty was a second millennium BC treaty between a powerful king or empire and its vassal state or client nation. It was composed of a preamble which is analogous to Exodus 20:2a, “I am the Lord your God.” This is a simple statement in the text identifying God as the Lord, the King. The second section in a suzerain-vassal treaty was the historical prologue which would identify the parties. This is the second part of Exodus 20:2, “… who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” Then there would be a section which gave various stipulations, general requirements. These are given in Exodus 20:3-17, known to us as the Ten Commandments. Specific requirements are given in Exodus 22-23:13, called the book of the covenant. Then there would be a provision for reading so that the people, the vassal, would be continuously reminded of its obligations and of the stipulations in the covenant. That is given in Exodus 24:2-7. There would be certain witnesses to the covenant, and here we have God on the one side represented by the altar and the tribes on the other side. This is given in Exodus 24. Then there would be a list of blessings and cursings.

The Ten Commandments is like a prologue, a summary of ten mandates that guarantee freedom, privacy, and provide the ethical outline for the entire judicial system and legislative system in Israel. We will see as we get into the Torah, the judgments and regulations, that they are basically case laws. Case law is the idea that if somebody does such and such then this is what you do in that situation, and that becomes a precedent for much of Anglo-Saxon law. The third section of the Mosaic law deals with the spiritual life, ceremonial regulations in the law. These have to do with priesthood, the function of priesthood, the garb, the dress, the uniform of the high priest, the feast days and sacrificial system; all of which was designed to teach certain principles in a very vivid, visual way about salvation and about the person and work of Jesus Christ.

Exodus 20:3 ^NASB “You shall have no other gods before Me.” This excludes the worship of all other gods. It is a prohibition of idolatry, of polytheism, and is a statement that there would be exclusive worship of God. At any time they went to another god, another deity, an idol, for something then that would put that other god before the Lord God and that would be idolatry. So the foundation for all the absolutes is in the person of God because of His sovereignty, because He created the universe the way it is; and because the universe is the way it is then everything functions in the universe the way it does because God decreed it to be such. We live today in an era of relativism. Relativism ultimately grounds law in consensus, in the views of the majority. If the majority happens to be biblically oriented and operating on divine viewpoint then, of course, they can be right. But if the majority is operating on a system of human viewpoint, a system of relativism, then the majority will always be wrong. Absolutes are handed down from heaven, they do not come up from creation. What we understand as the root of the Ten Commandments, even though these are for believer and unbeliever alike, is that if we are going to live in God’s world and if we are going to have any degree of success, happiness and stability both nationally as well as personally, then it must be grounded upon the absolutes of God’s Word and the reality of who God is and what he has done.

The first command prescribes monotheism; the second command proscribes idolatry. Exodus 20:4 ^NASB “You shall not make for yourself an idol, or any likeness of what is in heaven above or on the earth beneath or in the water under the earth. [5] You shall not worship them or serve them; for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me, but showing lovingkindness to thousands, to those who love Me and keep My commandments.” Notice the connection here between loving God and obedience. We have seen this again and again in Jesus discussion on love in John 15—“If you love me, keep my commandments.” Love is related to doing the right thing, and doing the right thing is defined as applying doctrine.

The Hebrew word here for idol is pesel. It refers to an idol; not simply an image but an image that is designed to be worshipped. So there is a vast difference between having a statue or image of something and actually worshipping them. We know that the Bible does allow for art and does promote art work (1 Kings 7:23). Just think of all of the artistry that was involved in making the furniture for the temple.

One of the things that we have in the opening four commandments is that there are reasons given for each one of the mandates. The first two commandments are linked with an explanatory clause in verse 5: “You shall not worship them or serve them…” The word for “serve” goes back to the word at the very beginning related to Adam’s work in the garden. Our work and fulfillment of God’s mandates for our lives is part of our worship, and we are to renovate our thinking so that we can work in such a way that it brings glory to God. Man was created in the image of God to represent God and in idolatry there is a role reversal, and man who is the image creates another image begins to serve that rather than serving God. This is the perversion of God’s purpose for man. “…for I, the LORD your God, am a jealous God, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children, on the third and the fourth generations of those who hate Me.” The term “jealous” here is the Hebrew word qana which means to be jealous (the negative sense); to be zealous, a desire to completely possess that which is rightfully what is owed.

Ezekiel 18:20 ^NASB “The person who sins will die. The son will not bear the punishment for the father’s iniquity, nor will the father bear the punishment for the son’s iniquity; the righteousness of the righteous will be upon himself, and the wickedness of the wicked will be upon himself.” This seems to stress the fact that sin is not punished except individually. Each is responsible for his own failures and successes, it is not somebody else’s responsibility. If we fail as a parent it is not going to be brought upon our children. In Exodus 20 the passage seems to suggest just the opposite: that the sin of the father is brought upon the children to the third and fourth generation. What is going on here?

We have to look upon the word “of” here. Literally in the Hebrew it is “the iniquity of the fathers on the children of those who hate me.” In the Hebrew “on the children” is really a lamed, which is a preposition, at the beginning of the participle, and the preposition is a lamed of reference which literally means “with reference to those who hate me.” So the discipline that extends down through the fourth generation curse (and that is what this is a reference to) is that God continues to show His loving kindness to those who respond to Him and keep His commandments, but if one generation is negative to God and they reject God, then if that is passed on to their children then those in that next generation who continue in that path will continue to receive divine discipline. They are those who continue to hate God and reject Him. A lot of times in Scripture we have to be careful with the words love and hate, especially when they are used in the same context, because they are not speaking necessarily of absolute love or absolute hate. They are used in what is called a merism, i.e. a figure of speech that uses opposites, like heaven and earth (everything, the whole universe), darkness and light, (meditate on God’s Word) day and night, which just means continually. When love and hate are used that way love means acceptance and hate means rejection.

The idols that we have in our society are mental abstractions. We worship money, things that money can buy, education, all kinds of ideals that we set up in place of God. Anything that is in our life that is a priority above and beyond God and the learning of doctrine is an idol. So there is a prohibition of idolatry.

Then we come to the third commandment. Exodus 20:7 ^NASB “You shall not take the name of the LORD your God in vain, for the LORD will not leave him unpunished who takes His name in vain.” This is a very interesting commandment. The idea of the Hebrew word that is translated “vanity” means to attach the name of God to a worthless cause, literally to lift up the name of God to vanity, to something that isn’t really there, something that is false. The greatest example of the violation of this commandment is when people say, Well God called me to do that; this is God’s will; God spoke to me last night and this is what we need to do, and so on. There are a lot of religious hucksters out there who are claiming they are teaching God’s Word and doing what they do in the name of God, and that is precisely what this is prohibiting. It is attaching the name of God to a worthless, meaningless or false cause. It is claiming the divine stamp of approval for that which God has not specifically authorized. God will discipline that individual.

Exodus 20:8 ^NASB “Remember the sabbath day, to keep it holy.” Whenever we read anything about the Sabbath it is always attach to God’s pattern of creation. However we are going to interpret the days in this verse we have to use that same principle to interpret the days of Genesis chapter one. If we don’t then we render both passages meaningless. Whenever we think about the Sabbath we need to think about God’s provision. Why did God rest on the seventh day of creation? It was not because He was tired! He rested because His plan was complete and He had provided everything that man needed for sustenance on the earth. In other words, God’s grace provision in creation was sufficient; it was total, nothing more needed to be done. This tells us that the Sabbath specifically speaks of the grace of God, the sufficiency of God’s grace that is absolute and total provision for us so that the Israelites in turn, instead of trying to go out and take care of ourselves in the seventh day, were not to work. It also speaks of the faith-rest life: that we are to continue to trust God and relax in His provision, relying upon His promises and procedures and principles so that we can advance in the spiritual life. Not only did this apply to the family, it applied to the servants in the family, to all the animals; everyone was to take the day off to symbolize their rest in God.

The reason is given. Exodus 20:11 ^NASB “For in six days the LORD made the heavens and the earth, the sea and all that is in them, and rested on the seventh day; therefore the LORD blessed the sabbath day and made it holy.” This is not the original verb bara but asah, which takes us back to God’s restorative activity in those six days of Genesis chapter one. This was for Israel. Nobody up to this point that we know of rested on the Sabbath and applied this. The Sabbath is a particular sign of the Mosaic covenant and no longer applies.

Exodus 20:12 ^NASB “Honor your father and your mother, that your days may be prolonged in the land which the LORD your God gives you.” Why? Because that is where we learn authority orientation. It children aren’t taught to respect parents they will not respect authority anywhere. Note that this does not say that if you honor your parents you will live a long time. There are conditions to this: “your days will be prolonged in the land.” That is a technical term in the Old Testament referring to the promise land; it is talking to Israel living in the land under the Mosaic constitution. If we turn over a couple of pages we learn that in Israel recalcitrant youths who did not orient to authority were taken out and stoned. It was a capital crime to disobey your parents.

Exodus 20:13 ^NASB “You shall not murder.” It does not say you shall not kill. Some use this for anti-military arguments and for doing away with capital punishment, etc. The Hebrew word means to commit murder. This was first established in the Noahic covenant which was for all people, both Gentiles and Jews. God restated this in the Mosaic covenant and gave it depth into case law.

Exodus 20:14 ^NASB “You shall not commit adultery.” This is a violation of the sanctity of marriage, stealing someone else’s spouse. Adultery is prohibited because it violates the divine institution of the family and marriage and begins to break down the foundational cohesive unit of society.

Exodus 20:15 ^NASB “You shall not steal.” This clearly recognizes the private ownership of property.

Exodus 20:16 ^NASB “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor.” Protection of a person’s reputation. This is a command against perjury in the court.

Exodus 20:17 ^NASB “You shall not covet your neighbor’s house; you shall not covet your neighbor’s wife or his male servant or his female servant or his ox or his donkey or anything that belongs to your neighbor.” This is a prohibition of mental attitude sins.

Exodus chapter 25 begins instruction in the ceremonial law. This has to do with construction of the tabernacle and the priesthood, all of which relates to the individual Jew’s relationship to God. All of the tribes had a specific place where they camped in relationship to the tabernacle, and the tabernacle was at the center of the camp depicting the fact that as a person God is to be at the center or heart of our life. God is to be the central reference point in our life.

Everything about the tabernacle indicates something about the nature of Christ and God. Inside the innermost part was the holy of holies where was the ark of the covenant where the Shekinah glory resided. There was only one entry point to God. Everything about the tabernacle ultimately portrays something about the person and work of Jesus Christ. This tells us that there is only one way to God and that is through the one entry, and before getting there certain rituals had to be observed. First there was the altar of burnt offering typologically representing salvation. It was there that the lamb was sacrificed, the blood is applied to the corner posts, and represents the application of the death of Christ to the believer in his stead. After the sacrificing of the lamb the priest comes to the laver where he washes his feet and his hands. This represents confession of sin, cleansing from what we have done, where we have been and what we have thought. There is cleansing here before entering into the tabernacle itself.

In the holy place was the table of showbread on one side, opposite was the golden candlestick, and then at the entry point of the holy of holies there was the altar of incense. Each of those things tell us something about Christ. It is interesting that all of these pieces are made of acacia wood on the inside and then overlaid with gold. That pictures the hypostatic union. The table of showbread represents the importance of God’s provision for all of our nourishment, ultimately in Jesus Christ who is the bread of life. The candlestick represents the revelation of God, His illumination of our minds to the truth, and ultimately that represents Jesus Christ who is the Light of the world. The altar of incense represents the prayers of the saints going up to God. The fire was always lit, and that speaks of Christ’s continual intercession for us as our great high priest.

Once a year the high priest would go into the inner sanctum which was the holy of holies. There was one article of furniture there, the ark of the covenant which was a wooden box or chest that was encased in gold and it had a lid on it, the center point of which was called the mercy seat. All of this speaks of the atoning work of Christ on the cross. Then there were two cherubs on top of the box. Inside the box there were three things: manna which represents God’s provision for Israel. They complained when they were in the wilderness and so it represents their rejection of God’s grace and provision. There was Aaron’s rod that budded, representing the rebellion over Aaron’s appointment to the priesthood. Aaron’s rod sprouted; life was brought forth out of death. It is a picture of regeneration but it is a reminder of man’s rejection of the high priest, Jesus Christ. The third element was the broken Ten Commandments, the tablets Israel had broken in violation, especially when God was giving them to Moses on the mount and they were down having Aaron build them the golden calf. So the three things inside the box represent the sin of the nation and its rejection of God’s provision.

Cherubim are always associated with the righteousness of God. They looked down upon the mercy seat and once a year the high priest would take the blood of the lamb without spot or blemish and place it on the mercy seat. As the righteousness and the justice of God looked down upon the sinfulness of man it is covered by the blood. This is a picture of our salvation: that our sinfulness is taken care of by the substitutionary atoning work of Jesus Christ on the cross. The ark of the covenant was the dwelling place and throne room of God on the earth.

All the garments of the high priest represented something significant as well. He had an ephod which was like an apron that was made of the same material as the curtains all around in the tabernacle, and it had shoulder straps on which were set two precious stones, one on each shoulder, on which were engraved the names of the twelve tribes of the children of Israel, six names on each stone. It represented the fact that then high priest brought the nation Israel into the presence of God so that God would be gracious to the nation.

He then wore a breastplate on his front that had twelve precious stones affixed to it, and they represented the tribes of Israel. Because he worse this breastplate over his heart, the center point of his life, it is a visual representation of the compassionate intercession undertaken by a priest to Yahweh. So it pictures how Christ compassionately intercedes for us in the presence of God.

He also worse a blue robe that was one piece, and it represents the unity in the person of Jesus Christ. He wore a turban that had inscribed on it “Holy [separated] to God.” Underneath it all he wore a linen garment to protect his modesty, and this is in contrast to the pagan priests who many times were just naked before the various gods in fulfillment of all the fertility rituals and the phallic cult that was so dominant in the ancient world.

All of this was to speak about God, His uniqueness, how the believer is to get into the presence of God, and to teach basic principles about the person and work of Jesus Christ on the cross.