Immediately after the tabernacle of God was completed and raised up, two things happened. The first thing that happened was that the glory of God filled the tabernacle (Exo. 40:34-38). That was perhaps the first time in history that God’s glory was physically manifested. What is God’s glory? God’s glory is simply God expressed. In the same way, the shining from an electric light bulb is the manifestation of electricity. It is electricity glorified.
The day the glory of God filled the tabernacle was truly a great moment, because God had gained a dwelling place on the earth. Suppose that there was a group of God’s children who were truly willing to learn to mutually coordinate in the life of God and to be joined with one another and built together to be the Body as God’s spiritual habitation so that God could rest in it. We would have to believe that wherever there was such a group of people, God Himself would be expressed and glorified among them! There is nothing on the earth that could be more glorious than this!
The second thing that happened was that the word of God was revealed in the tabernacle. Before the tabernacle was raised up, God had spoken with Moses on Mount Sinai. We may recall that the situation manifested there was terrifying. However, after the tabernacle was raised up, the glory of God filled the tabernacle, and from then on, God spoke to Moses in the tabernacle (Lev. 1:1). In the New Testament it is recorded in the book of Acts that when the church of God was produced on the earth, the glory of God filled the church, and God spoke in the church, just as He did in the tabernacle in the Old Testament.
Do you want to see the glory of God? If you do, then you must come to the builded church. Do you want to hear God’s word? If you do, then you must again come to the builded church. The glory of God and the word of God are two great matters. The glory of God is the expression of God, and the word of God is the explanation of God. God can be expressed only in the builded church, and God’s word can be revealed only in the builded church.
From the time that the tabernacle was built, the children of Israel had the tabernacle as their center. They encamped with the tabernacle as their center, they moved with the tabernacle as their center, they worshipped with the tabernacle as their center, and they fought with the tabernacle as their center. Everything in the lives of the children of Israel was centered on the tabernacle, and the tabernacle was centered on the Ark. Today it is the same with the church on the earth. Whether in relation to our work, service, worship, or warfare, we as the children of God should have the church as our center, and the church must have Christ as its center. Within the tabernacle there had to be the Ark, and outside of the Ark there had to be the tabernacle. Today it is the same. If we want to have Christ, we must have the church, and if we want to have the church, we must have Christ. Christ is the content of the church, and the church is the expression of Christ. The mutual matching of these two constitutes a normal situation.
It is a pity that this situation was maintained for only a short time before the Israelites became degraded and fell into desolation. As recorded in the book of 1 Samuel, the people of Israel fought with their enemy and were defeated, and the Ark of God was captured. The Ark was taken into the land of the Philistines and brought into the temple of their idol. However, God protected the Ark by His divine power, and as a result, the Philistines returned the Ark, sending it into the midst of the people of God. The Israelites, however, did not return the Ark to the tabernacle. Instead, they brought the Ark to the house of Abinadab and, subsequently, into the house of Obed-edom. At that time the Ark was separated from the tabernacle. That was a very abnormal situation. If you read church history, you will see that the same kind of situation occurred in the church. Whenever the church was in desolation and was abnormal, it seemed that Christ had been captured. In other words, it seemed that Christ had departed from the church and was separated from the church. Today you cannot find Christ in the formal churches. Rather, you see Christ mainly in the homes of the individual believers and in the individual believers themselves. This, however, is not the normal condition of the church.
This condition of the Ark being separated from the tabernacle continued until David came and there was a new recovery. As a man according to God’s heart, David had a desire to build a temple for God so that God might have a resting place on the earth. Therefore, he brought the Ark of God into the city of David, which was on Mount Zion at the center of Jerusalem, and set the Ark in the tent which he had pitched especially for God.
In principle, what David did was right, because the Ark could not be without a tent. However, in a finer sense, this brought in a very delicate problem, because at that time there were two tents. The first one was the original tent, which first had been kept in Shiloh and then later had been moved to Gibeon. The other tent was the tent that David had pitched in his own city. The former tent had been built by Moses according to the pattern that God had revealed to him on the mountain, but during David’s time it had lost the Ark and was separated from the Ark. The latter tent pitched by David had been pitched not through the revelation of God or according to the pattern shown on the mountain but according to David’s good heart and intention, yet within it was the Ark. This was a very delicate matter. In church history there have been many similar situations. Sometimes when the church was in desolation, Christ and the church were completely separated, and all that was left of the so-called church was a formal facade. Instead, the presence of Christ could be touched in the homes of the saints who loved the Lord with a pure heart. Like David, these saints had the heart to prepare the church for Christ, yet their preparation was not according to the original revelation and pattern. No doubt, in principle, this kind of desire was good, but what they did could not last to eternity because it was not out of God and was not what God wanted.
Later, David wanted to build a house for God, and this desire was pleasing to God. However, because he was a man of war, and there was still no peace in the land, God did not let him accomplish this matter. For the rest of his life, David then prepared all the materials for the temple of God.
When Solomon succeeded his father, David, to the throne, the first thing he did after he became king was to go to the tabernacle at Gibeon, and there he worshipped and offered sacrifices to God. Solomon led his servants and the people there, and he offered one thousand burnt offerings. At Gibeon during the night, God visited Solomon and appeared to him in a dream, asking him what he desired to have. Solomon did not ask for anything for himself but only asked God to give him wisdom. God granted him his request and gave him wisdom. After Solomon awoke from his dream, he immediately left Gibeon and went back to Jerusalem. There he stood before the Ark of God and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings. This shows us that after Solomon received the wisdom of God, he realized that the tabernacle without the Ark was empty and that it had only an appearance and not much value. This implies that regardless of how proper a church is in appearance, as long as it does not have Christ as its content, then in the sight of God it is empty, having only an appearance but not much spiritual worth. Once Solomon received God’s revelation and wisdom, he immediately left the empty tabernacle at Gibeon and returned to the Ark of God at Jerusalem. However, Solomon was not satisfied with the Ark alone, for he knew that although the tabernacle without the Ark was an empty shell, the Ark without the tabernacle was also something abnormal. Therefore, not long afterward, Solomon began to build a permanent tent, the temple, for the Ark.
If a church looks proper from the outside and is according to the pattern revealed by God on the mountain, but on the inside the Ark is nowhere to be found, that is, Christ cannot be contacted within it, then that church is merely an empty tabernacle and is worthless. On the other hand, to merely have the Ark does not mean that there are no problems. When the Ark was in the house of Obed-edom and when it was placed in the tent that David had pitched, it was still sojourning, staying in those places temporarily. Until the Ark found a proper tent or a fixed temple, it did not have a resting place (cf. Psa. 132). Therefore, we need to see that it was improper for the tabernacle to be without the Ark and that it was also abnormal for the Ark to be without the tabernacle. In other words, to have the church without Christ is improper, and to have Christ without the church is also abnormal. In a normal situation, it is necessary to have not only the Ark but also the tabernacle or the temple, which was a more permanent and enlarged tabernacle.