Exodus 28:5 and 6 say, “And they shall take the gold, and the blue, and the purple, and the scarlet, and the fine linen, and they shall make the ephod of gold, blue and purple, scarlet and fine-twined linen, the work of a skillful workman.” Christ has an ephod made of gold, blue, purple, scarlet, and fine-twined linen. Gold here denotes golden thread. Gold was first beaten into thin plates and then it was cut into thread to be woven into a textile. Gold signifies Christ’s divinity. The blue signifies His heavenliness, and the purple, His kingliness, His royalty. The scarlet signifies Christ’s redemption accomplished by His sacrificing Himself through the shedding of His blood. The fine linen signifies the Lord’s human life. The twining points to His sufferings.
The gold, the blue, the purple, and the scarlet were all woven into the fine-twined linen to make the ephod, a piece of clothing used for fastening. This piece fastens, holds, ties, us to Christ. We are bound to Him in a way that is beautiful and glorious. Both divinity and humanity are woven into the ephod. In the ephod we see Christ’s heavenliness and kingliness; we also see His redemption. Because the ephod includes all these elements, Christ has the power to hold us. He has the strength to fasten us to Himself.
It may seem that this message contains little more than an objective word concerning Christ. Actually, this matter of the ephod is very subjective and experiential. It shows us how to enjoy Christ and how to experience Him. Christ is the High Priest, and He has an item of clothing called the ephod, a fastening and binding piece used to hold us and carry us by His divine glory and human beauty.
Exodus 28:8, speaking of the ephod, mentions “the band for its fastening, which is upon it.” The Hebrew words translated “for its fastening” can also be rendered “of the ephod.” Actually the Hebrew word for fastening here is a verbal form of ephod. If we translated it literally, we could coin a new word—“ephoding.” However, we use the word fastening; other translations use the word girding. This is a further indication that the ephod was used for fastening, girding, binding. As we have seen, it was composed of Christ’s divinity, His kingliness and heavenliness, His redemption, and His fine humanity. Therefore, in this ephod we see Christ’s divine glory and His human beauty.
When the high priest was together with the other priests, he stood out as the most divinely glorious and humanly beautiful one, for only he had the ephod with the shoulder plates and the breastplate. None of the other priests wore the ephod. The ephod was a garment especially glorious and beautiful. If someone were to wear an ephod today with a breastplate containing twelve precious stones set in gold, we certainly would find it striking, attractive, and beautiful. Such a garment would be much more impressive than a uniform worn by a five-star general with many stripes and decorations.
Sometimes we may pray, “Lord, I’m weak. I cannot hold on to You. But, Lord, I know that You hold me.” Yes, the Lord holds you, but you may not experience being held by Him, because within you there is no realization of His divine glory and His human beauty. But the more you consider His glory and beauty, the more you are held to Him, fastened to Him, and have the sense within that you are safe.
The ephod was made of two pieces that were held together at the shoulder. Verse 7 says, “It shall have two joining shoulder-pieces at its two ends, that it may be joined.” These shoulder pieces joined the front side to the back side. Therefore, the shoulder pieces had the joining power, the binding strength. The golden settings that held the onyx stones were fastened to the shoulder pieces. Thus, the entire ephod was a fastening piece. At the top it had two shoulder pieces. Those pieces were for the purpose of joining the two ends of the ephod and also for holding the golden settings for the onyx stones. This portrays that Christ today is full of holding strength and fastening power because He is composed of divinity, heavenliness, kingliness, redemption, and humanity.
Verse 11 speaks of the golden settings: “With the work of a stone engraver, like the engravings of a signet, you shall engrave the two stones according to the names of the sons of Israel; you shall make them enclosed in settings of gold.” The Hebrew word translated settings also means plaited work, plaited settings, filigree settings (see vv. 13, 14, 25). These golden settings can be compared to mountings used by jewelers. A precious stone, perhaps a diamond, needs some kind of setting in order to be placed in a gold ring. The golden settings for the onyx stones were filigree settings, fine work made with golden thread that was plaited together to make a beautiful design. This was the setting that held the precious stones.
The fact that the filigree settings were gold signifies that only the divinity of Christ can hold us. Strictly speaking, we are held by Christ’s divinity, by His divine nature. Because we have been regenerated, we have this divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). The divine nature now becomes the power to hold us in a beautiful, glorious way.
Once again I would say that the way Christ holds us is not the way a shepherd holds a lamb in his arms. With that kind of holding there is not any glory or beauty. Rather, we are held by Christ like precious stones held in filigree mountings. Although we do not have the language adequate to speak of such things, by our experience we know that we are held by Christ’s divine nature in a glorious and beautiful way. We are not held merely by Christ’s power; we are held by His divine nature gloriously and beautifully.