I treasure very much the word which the Lord has been releasing from the book of Exodus. This is a book filled with the experiential riches of Christ. Some of the points concerning Christ portrayed in Exodus are beyond our ability to utter. Neither in English nor in my mother tongue do I have the adequate utterance to express what I have seen concerning Christ in this book.
In the New Testament we have plain words concerning Christ, our experience of Christ, and the church. There is even a clear word concerning the preciousness of Christ and concerning our value in the sight of God. However, in the New Testament we do not have the full details regarding these matters. Many of the details are found in the types in the Old Testament. By the Lord’s grace, in this message I shall try to point out some of the wonderful details of the preciousness of Christ and of the preciousness of the saints in the sight of God. These details cannot be seen in the New Testament; however, they are found in the picture in Exodus 28.
The main part of the priestly garments was the robe, a long robe reaching almost to the ground. Over this robe the high priest wore a tunic and over the tunic, an ephod. Exodus 28:6 says, “And they shall make the ephod of gold, blue and purple, scarlet, and fine-twined linen, the work of a skillful workman.” By reading this verse we learn with what materials the ephod was made and what colors it had. The materials used in making the ephod were gold and linen. Gold is a mineral, and linen is a substance that comes from the plant life. The blue, the purple, and the scarlet indicate colors, not materials. However, we may say that the gold and the linen also have color. Gold, of course, is golden, and linen is white. Therefore, the ephod was a garment made of two materials and it contained five colors.
I do not believe that in the thousands of years of human history there has ever been another fabric composed of golden and linen thread woven together. Have you ever heard of a garment made of golden and linen textiles woven together? As far as the material is concerned, the ephod certainly was an unusual garment. Today some garments are made of dacron and cotton, and others, of wool and polyester. But where is there a garment made of linen and gold? We certainly would think it strange if someone today wore a jacket made of gold and linen containing the colors gold, white, blue, purple, and scarlet. I am certain none of us has ever seen a garment like this. Nevertheless, this is a description of the ephod worn by the high priest.
The ephod was made of linen thread and golden thread and with five colors: golden yellow, pure white, blue, purple, and scarlet. However, there was no black or gray in the ephod. Because it was made in such a fashion, the ephod was extraordinary in appearance. If you could have seen it, what color would you have said it was? Gold? Blue? Purple or scarlet? Since it was a mixture of several colors, it is very difficult to describe its color in a single word. Anyone who looked at the ephod carefully would have seen five different colors. However, he would not have a word to describe the overall color of this garment.
We know from the New Testament that the Lord Jesus is a Person with two natures: divinity and humanity. Christ’s divinity is typified by the gold in the ephod, and His humanity is typified by the linen. The gold and the linen in the ephod were not linked together or joined together. On the contrary, they were woven together. This weaving together of the gold and the linen in the ephod typifies the mingling of divinity and humanity in Christ.
Because we use the word mingling in relation to the divine nature and human nature of Christ, we have been condemned as heretical. Some are still falsely claiming that we teach that in Christ the two natures of divinity and humanity were mingled together to produce a third nature, a nature which is neither fully divine nor fully human. I have never said that the mingling of divinity and humanity in Christ produces such a third nature. The gold fibers and the linen thread used to make the ephod were not woven together to produce a third nature, something which was neither gold nor linen. No, neither the gold nor the linen lost its own particular nature when it was used to make the ephod. The gold remained gold, a mineral, and the linen remained linen, a substance derived from plants. The natures of these two materials remained, even though they were woven together, mingled together. The same is true of Christ’s divinity and humanity. The divinity and humanity of Christ have not been mingled to produce a third nature. Furthermore, in Christ neither divinity nor humanity has lost its own nature.
John 1:1 says, “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.” According to John 1:14, “The Word became flesh.” We may say that the Word, which is God, is golden, and that the flesh in John 1:14 is linen. Thus, when God became incarnate, the gold and the linen, divinity and humanity, were woven together, mingled.