The entire Bible of sixty-six books shows us a complete picture composed with the tabernacle, many offerings, and a high priest. Also this picture has an outcome, a result. In the Old Testament the central item of the history of the children of Israel was the tabernacle and later on the temple. The tabernacle and the temple are actually one thing in two stages. The tabernacle or the temple is the focus of the Old Testament history. The Old Testament is a book of history and its center, its focus, is God’s dwelling place.
According to the teaching of the Old Testament, this dwelling place of God was not only for Him to dwell in upon this earth, but also for God’s people to enter into so that they might enjoy God and experience God and even stay with God. This dwelling place was so that God’s people might abide with God and might dwell together with God on the earth. It is not a small thing that firstly God would come to the earth to dwell among man, and secondly, that man can enter into God’s dwelling place. Actually God’s dwelling place is just Himself. On the one hand the tabernacle was God’s dwelling place, and on the other hand it was just God Himself. In the New Testament according to John 1, God Himself incarnated to be such a dwelling place, not only for Him to dwell in, but also for His chosen ones to enter into and to dwell in with Him.
For God to come down to dwell among man on the earth is not a small thing. And for us, the fallen human race, to enter into God Himself as our dwelling place to abide with God is too great! How could we, the sinners, come to enter into God and to enjoy Him and to dwell with Him? There is no other way except by the offerings. And all the offerings are Christ.
According to the typology of the Old Testament, this wonderful Christ on the one hand is the tabernacle, and on the other hand is also the offerings. He is the offerings for us to partake of that we may share Him. All Christians know that the Lord Jesus is our Savior, our Redeemer. This is absolutely right! But we have to see that for Him to be our Savior and Redeemer He has to be all the offerings. He has to be our sin offering, our trespass offering, our burnt offering, our meal offering, and eventually, all-inclusively, our peace offering. If He is not all these offerings He could not be our Savior. Very few Christians realize that for Christ to be our Savior and our Redeemer He has to be the five basic offerings plus all the subordinate offerings, including the wave offering, the heave offering, and the drink offering. Some have been Christians for years and yet have not realized that our Savior is composed of all these offerings.
Our Savior, our Redeemer, Jesus Christ, is composed of all the offerings. This is typified by a complete picture in the Old Testament. In the Old Testament the history was mainly composed of a tabernacle or a temple with all of the offerings. Those people chosen by God in the Old Testament did nothing but contact this tabernacle or temple. The way for them to contact the tabernacle or temple was to offer something day by day. They offered the sin offering, the trespass offering, the burnt offering, the meal offering, the peace offering, the heave offering, the wave offering, and the drink offering. Their worship was nothing but the offering of these sacrifices to God. Then after offering these things, they shared and ate a part of the things they had offered to God.
That was a picture in the Old Testament. Now let us consider the entire Bible. What does the entire Bible portray? The entire Bible portrays just one matter: that the Second of the Godhead, the Second of the Trinity, the Son of God, became tabernacled. He became the flesh. John 1:1 and 14 tell us clearly that in the beginning was the Word and the Word was God and this Word became flesh and tabernacled among us. The Apostle John who wrote this Gospel used a word very meaningfully. He used the word tabernacled as a verb. Many translators, however, did not have the boldness to translate it in this way. Rather they translated this word for tabernacled into dwelt. It is right to say dwelt, but the dwelling of the incarnated God among man was not a common dwelling. That dwelling was something very particular. That dwelling was the tabernacle.
While He was on this earth dwelling among man, He was tabernacling. This verb indicates that the One who was the subject of the sentence was a tabernacle. He was God becoming a man. And this Man was a tabernacle. In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was God, and this Word became flesh, and this flesh was the tabernacle!