All the materials offered by the people for the building of the tabernacle typify something of Christ experienced by us. However, in order to have the building, the skillful workers and the workmanship are also needed (Exo. 35:10, 30-35; 36:1-2). As we shall see, the workmanship for God’s building is also Christ Himself experienced by us.
In Exodus 35 and 36 the workmanship is related to wisdom (35:31, 35; 36:1-2). Exodus 36:1-2 speaks of “every man who was wise in heart, in whose heart Jehovah had put wisdom.” The heart of these workers was full of wisdom. Wisdom is simply Christ (1 Cor. 1:30). To have wisdom is to have the ability to know and understand spiritual matters and to know how to carry out matters. Therefore, wisdom, strictly speaking, is Christ as the way. If you have Christ, you have the way to know matters, understand matters, and know how to do things. Christ is our way. We must have Christ and be filled with Christ.
With the building of the church and with the service of the Lord, there is the need of the experience of Christ, and there is the need of being filled with Christ. Our heart has to be filled with Christ. Then we will have the wisdom to know how to serve the Lord and how to build the church. The wisdom, the way for us to serve the Lord and to build the church, is Christ Himself. The spinning women in 35:25-26 and the skillful men in 36:1-2 were all filled in their hearts with wisdom, that is, their hearts were filled with Christ.
Exodus 35:31 says of Bezalel, a principal worker for the tabernacle, “And He has filled him with the Spirit of God, with wisdom, with understanding, and with knowledge, and with all kinds of workmanship.” This verse implies four steps. The first step, being filled with the Spirit of God in wisdom, is in our spirit and our heart. When our spirit and our heart are filled with Christ, Christ becomes the wisdom in our spirit and heart. If we are going to serve the Lord in the church, that is, if we are going to have a share in the building of the church, our spirit and heart must firstly be filled with Christ.
From our spirit Christ will expand to our mind, our mentality. Christ will become our understanding in the second step. Wisdom is mainly in our spirit, but understanding is something in our mind. In our mentality we will understand the things concerning the service and the building. After we have understanding, we will have general knowledge, the third step. Spontaneously, we will have the knowledge and will know how to serve and how to build up the church.
Finally, after we have general knowledge, we will have the workmanship. We will have the divine idea of what to do and what to make. We will know what the shape, form, and style of our work should be. We may feel to visit the brothers and sisters. If we have the kinds of workmanship, we will have a proper idea of how to visit them and a proper idea of what we are going to build by visiting them. We will have the proper form, style, and expression.
The order in verse 31 is significant. First, Christ fills our spirit and heart, and we have Him as our wisdom. Then He expands into our mentality, and we have the understanding in our mind. After we have the understanding in our mind, we have a general knowledge. Then we know how to function, how to fellowship with others, and how to visit the brothers and sisters. We know how to help the saints to make a clearance of their past, offer themselves to the Lord, and follow the consciousness of the inner life. We know as well how to help the saints to have a prayer life and study the Scriptures. We do not work blindly, not knowing what we are going to build. We know the style, the expression, and the shape of what we are building because we have the kinds of workmanship. We know what the need of the brothers and sisters is at the present time, we know how to help them, and we know by helping them what we shall be building.