I. Intro & Recap.
A. The ancient pathway.
1. The pattern of the Tabernacle gives us a pattern for spiritual life.
2. Jer 6:16
“Thus says the Lord: “Stand in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where the good way is, and walk in it; then you will find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’
3. Three perspectives of interpretation.
a. God’s plan of salvation and sanctification.
b. Jesus as the Way the Truth and the Life.
c. Our three part being of spirit, soul and body.
B. Following Jesus from the Altar to the Ark.
1. Altar of Burnt Offering, the Cross of Jesus.
Jesus went willingly to the cross, taking upon Himself our sin and sickness, our iniquity and infirmity. By His own blood He atoned for our sin and by His stripes we were healed. We receive salvation and healing by faith in the blood of Jesus. After our confession of faith, like Jesus we take up our cross daily and offer our bodies to God as living sacrifices, which is our spiritual act of worship to Him.
2. Bronze Laver.
Jesus was tempted in every way that we are, but He never sinned. Nevertheless, Jesus was baptized in the Jordan River by John “to fulfill all righteousness”. After our confession of faith we follow Jesus into the waters of baptism. In baptism, we identify with His death and die to our old nature. As we rise from the water, we identify with His life and embrace our new creation life in Christ. In the waters of baptism, the Lord separates us from all oppression. After our baptism, we daily wash in the water of the Word, cleansing and renewing our minds.
3. The Lampstand
Jesus is the Word made flesh Who ‘tabernacled’, or dwelled, among us. He was completely filled with the Spirit in every way. We prayerfully ask the Spirit to reveal the Word of God to us as we read it and receive the implanted Word into our soul. We submit our thoughts, opinions and beliefs to the Truth of God’s Word and let His Word be a lamp unto our feet and a light unto our path. We pray for His Spirit to fill us continually with the every aspect of His ministry.
4. The Table of Shewbread.
Jesus is the Bread of Life, the true manna that came down from heaven. He has prepared a table before is in the presence of our enemies. Here we meet Jesus in His humanity and divinity and commune with Him face to face. He knows our sorrows and was familiar with rejection, so He ministers healing to any trauma and emotional wounds we carry. As we meet Jesus at the table, He restores our soul as we submit our emotions to Him.
5. The Altar of Incense
Jesus, our Great High Priest, forever lives to make intercession for us. In His life, Jesus demonstrated prayer that is pleasing to the Father involves the submission of our will to His will. As Jesus prayed “Yet not My will, but Yours” in the Garden and taught us to pray “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done”, we make our requests to God but always submit them to His perfect will.
II. Intro to Part IV: The Most Holy Place.
A. Another perspective: A return to Eden.
1. As we approach the Most Holy Place (Holy of Holies), it helps to see the Tabernacle from a new perspective of interpretation. So far we have seen
a. God’s plan of salvation from the Altar to the Ark
b. Jesus the Way the Truth and the Life
c. Our three part being of spirit, soul and body.
2. Now we will see the tabernacle as God’s restoration of us to Eden.
a. the land of Eden
b. the garden and
c. the Tree of Life.
3. Genesis 2:8&9
8 The Lord God planted a garden eastward in Eden, and there He put the man whom He had formed. 9 And out of the ground the Lord God made every tree grow that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The tree of life was also in the midst of the garden, and the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
4. Three distinct areas, the Land of Eden, the garden that God planted in it and the Tree of Life that God placed in the garden. The Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil was there as well.
5. Like the tabernacle, we approach from the East, the sun of our galaxy pointing the way to the Son of God, the Light of the World.
6. We should also see ourselves in Eden. Our body is like the land of Eden, the garden is our soul and the Tree of Life our spirit.
B. Walking with God and tending our soul.
1. In the garden, God would walk and talk with the man He created. This speaks of our fellowship with God in the depths of our soul and spirit.
2. Genesis 2:10 says “Now a river went out of Eden to water the garden, and from there it parted and became four riverheads.”
a. These rivers flowed beyond the garden out into the earth.
b. The result of our communion with God will be that life flows out of us in all directions, reaching all who come in contact with it.
3. John 7:37-39a
37 “On the last day, that great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried out, saying, “If anyone thirsts, let him come to Me and drink. 38 He who believes in Me, as the Scripture has said, out of his heart will flow rivers of living water.” 39 But this He spoke concerning the Spirit…”
4. Genesis 2:15 “Then the Lord God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to tend and keep it .”
a. We have this Eden, this body, made for us by God and he has placed us in the garden, our soul, to tend and keep it.
b. This is what we saw last week in our study of the Holy Place, we tend and keep our soul at the Lampstand, at the Table of Shewbread and at the Altar if Incense.
c. By meeting with Jesus here, we submit our mind, will and emotions to Him.
d. Walking through the garden of our soul with the Lord, listening to His instruction and obeying His voice is how we tend our soul.
C. Created for fellowship with God.
1. Before we get too far into this study, we need to understand the implications so far. The most important thing we should take away from this is that God made us for fellowship with Him.
2. God not only desired fellowship with Adam, He took the initiative of fellowship. God is still taking the initiative to fellowship with us today.
a. God made the garden for man to live in and God visited Him there.
b. When fellowship was lost because of our sin, God made the Tabernacle, to dwell among us on the Mercy Seat, above the Ark of the Covenant.
c. Finally, God sent Jesus, to dwell in our hearts by faith, so that we could have fellowship with Him again.
3. We see from this pattern that God wants fellowship with us and constantly takes the initiative to move close to us and facilitate our fellowship with Him, because we are powerless to do it.
4. We could look at this pattern of God taking initiative and see that God desires to have fellowship with us more than we desire fellowship with Him.
5. The proof of this is that one day, God came to Adam in the garden but Adam did not come near to God. Instead, he hid from God.
D. Choosing the Tree of Life over the Tree of Knowledge.
1. Genesis 2:16&17
16 And the Lord God commanded the man, saying, “Of every tree of the garden you may freely eat; 17 but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die.”
2. The Tree of Life represents our meeting with God and receiving life from His Spirit into our spirit. It represents Jesus, the Life, hanging on a tree to become a curse for us, to taste death for us, so that we may eat of the fruit of His atonement, which is life forevermore.
3. But just as Adam & Eve chose knowledge over life, so do we. Just as Adam & Eve:
a. tried to become like God through knowledge,
b. invented ways to cover their nakedness and shame and
c. hid from God after they sinned, so do we.
4. God is calling us to stop trying to reinvent ourselves into some new improved version of who we are by seeking knowledge and instead, just come to Him for life.
III. The Most Holy Place.
A. The Veil.
1. Separating the Holy Place from the Most Holy Place was the veil. The veil represents the Lord Jesus Christ.
2. Hebrews 10:19-21
19 Therefore, brethren, having boldness to enter the Holiest by the blood of Jesus, 20 by a new and living way which He consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, His flesh, 21 and having a High Priest over the house of God, 22 let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience and our bodies washed with pure water.
3. Exodus 26:31 Two Cherubim woven into the Veil. We should note that after the fall of man, two cherubim guarded the way to the Tree of Life with a flaming sword.
4. The sword of the Lord was for judgement. This sword was executed on Christ as the judgement for our sin was upon Him so that our access to life could be restored.
a. Zech 13:7
“Awake, O sword, against My Shepherd, against the Man who is My Companion,” Says the Lord of hosts. “Strike the Shepherd, and the sheep will be scattered…”
5. When Jesus yielded His Spirit to God on the cross, the veil was ripped in two, right in the middle, from top to bottom.
a. Matt 27:50-53
50 And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. 51 Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split, 52 and the graves were opened; and many bodies of the saints who had fallen asleep were raised; 53 and coming out of the graves after His resurrection, they went into the holy city and appeared to many.
6. We enter the Presence of the Lord and fellowship with God because Jesus was pierced for us. By His death and resurrection, Jesus made a new and living way for us to worship God in spirit and truth and receive life from God again.
7. As we pass through the veil, we enter the Most Holy Place, this is where Jesus ministers to our spirit with life.
8. In the Tabernacle, the Lord dwelled between the cherubim on the Mercy Seat. These Cherubim are not preventing our access to life, they are bowing before the presence of the Lord on the Mercy Seat.
B. Jesus, the Ark.
1. We see Jesus in the Ark.
a. Made of wood, overlaid with gold. (dual nature)
b. Col 2:9 “For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily…”
c. Inside were the two tablets of stone (Father, the Lawgiver), the pot of manna (Jesus, the Bread of Life) and Aaron’s rod that budded (the Spirit, life and fruitfulness)
2. Jesus came that we might have life and have it in all its fullness, abundance. (Jn 10:10)
3. In John 20:11-16, Mary Magdalene came to the tomb where Jesus lay, expecting to find Him dead. Let’s see what she found there.
4. John 20:11-16
11 But Mary stood outside by the tomb weeping, and as she wept she stooped down and looked into the tomb. 12 And she saw two angels in white sitting, one at the head and the other at the feet, where the body of Jesus had lain. 13 Then they said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping?” She said to them, “Because they have taken away my Lord, and I do not know where they have laid Him.” 14 Now when she had said this, she turned around and saw Jesus standing there, and did not know that it was Jesus. 15 Jesus said to her, “Woman, why are you weeping? Whom are you seeking?” She, supposing Him to be the gardener, said to Him, “Sir, if You have carried Him away, tell me where You have laid Him, and I will take Him away.” 16 Jesus said to her, “Mary!” She turned and said to Him, “Rabboni!” (which is to say, Teacher).
5. I see two revelations in this passage.
a. This is a picture of the Mercy Seat on top of the Ark and it proves that our fellowship with God and the Tree of Life has been restored in Christ.
b. Most of our fellowship with Jesus has been in our soul, in the garden, and has yet to move past our mind, will and emotions to worship Him in Spirit & Truth.
6. The Mercy Seat.
a. Two angels in white sitting where the head and feet of Jesus had been, where His body had been laid in death and His blood had been sprinkled.
b. This is symbolic of the Mercy Seat, the two Cherubim on either side of the Presence of God, where the blood of the lamb had been sprinkled.
7. Worship in Spirit & Truth.
a. She turned and saw Jesus, but did not recognize Him. She thought He was the gardener. The garden speaks of our soul.
b. Most of our Christian life is spent wrestling with our mind, will and emotions to submit them to God.
c. Jesus’ tomb was in a garden. (John 19:41-42) Most of the time we look for Jesus in the garden and stop there. But Mary went through the veil, the stone that was rolled away, into the place where the Presence of God had been laid in death and found Jesus alive.
d. Yes, we do meet Jesus in the garden of our soul. We tend and keep it with Him, but He died so that we can eat from the Tree of Life again.
e. So that life could flow from His Spirit to our spirit and we could be sustained by the Lord with abundant life.
8. John 4:24 “God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.”
C. Jesus, the Life.
1. John 1:4 “In Him was life and the life was the light of men.”
2. John 3:16 “For God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have everlasting life.”
D. Inside the Ark.
1. The Hidden Manna: the Bread of Life
2. The two tablets of stone: the Word of Life
3. Aaron’s rod that budded: the Spirit gives Life.
IV. Application.
A. How do we partake of Life in the Spirit?
1. It’s very simple yet so hard for us, we simply receive His life. At salvation we received His life by faith. Receiving His life by faith never stops.
2. But to receive His life, we have to go where the Life is, we have to get in the Spirit.
3. Apply the blood and water to our body. Then submit our mind, will and emotions to Him in the garden of our soul. But don’t stop there, press in through the veil and receive life from Him in the Spirit.
B. Repentance for neglecting fellowship with God and seeking life in other things.
1. “My people have committed to evils… they have forsaken Me, the fountain of living waters and have dug for themselves cisterns that cannot hold water.”
2. Repent for neglecting fellowship with God and for seeking life in other things.
C. Prayer model.