All right, so this lesson is entitled proper worship on the tabernacle and what we're doing is we're combining all the content There's a lot of content on the tabernacle narrative It'll buy will trivia is that there's one fourth of the entire book of Exodus is just on the instructions and the construction for the tabernacle There's a lot of content and most people fall off the bandwagon whenever they're reading scriptures running field testament They go through Genesis and Exodus and they got other familiar fun stories epic adventures And then you get to the nitty-gritty details of how to build a tabernacle and there are nitty-gritty details And it's long most people like oh man, I'm gonna start snoozing through this and then they just skip right over it Then they hit Leviticus and then they just drop off right don't do that My purpose here for you in this lesson is not to go through the weeds and get lost in all the details of course whole books many books Volumes of books are written on the tabernacle typology There's a lot you could say as always with every part of scripture But I want you to come away from this lesson having a renewed appreciation of why the tabernacle was built how it's connected to previous stages of salvation history specifically creation and the cool typology of what God wants to do to All the months is people and how that's filled in Jesus Christ and his church and his liturgy the mass So that's the great takeaway point that I want to have for you in this in the study Okay, so don't fall out the bandwagon definitely read it through at least once especially with the guidelines I'm giving you here and my outline in this the lecture in general So before we dive into the text let's go through this plenty of introductory remarks to make your thematic introductory remarks on the tabernacle as a new Garden of Eden as well as a perpetual or portable Mount Sinai That's that's what makes this stuff so much fun is to read it in this lens The tabernacle is not just a tent in the wilderness where God is hanging out with his people and they're they've left each of them They're on their way to the promised land really the tabernacle is a new garden of Eden and a portable Perpetuation of Mount Sinai so with that then let's look at this room number one the literary structure of this tabernacle narrative because really it's chapter 25 through 31 that records the instructions of the tabernacle then 32 to 34 There's the apostasy of the golden Kathy a spiritual harlotries what I called it We discussed that the last lesson lesson nine then it goes back to the tabernacle in chapter 35 chapter 35 to 40 with the construction There's a lot of repetitions there It's pretty much verbatim the same stuff with some key differences here and there but all this happens So just to back up one more point here the instructions of the tabernacle are given to God are given to Moses by God when he goes up to The mountain for 40 days and 40 nights after the great ceremony of the covenant on chapter 24 on Mount Sinai So we see this in chapter 24 If you just flip back a couple of verses here I really just one one verse one chapter chapter 24 verse 15 Moses went up the mountain and the cloud covered the mountain and he goes Into the glory of the cloud in the seventh day and he was up there for 40 days and 40 nights just summarize that while he's up there All the horrible stuff the spiritual harlotry and I golly triggers on the base of the mountain which we talked about last week But it's super interesting so then he comes down from the mountain and then you've got the construction So why the repetition is the big question here? Why do you have a huge chunk of section a huge chunk of scripture chapters 25 to 31 on the instructions? If then you've got the golden capital policy and then you've got the tabernacle again Why repeat it? It's because there's a literary device going on here.
There's a contrast between true worship and false worship Okay between the sinfulness of the people and the holiness of God and I got a great There's a couple of longish quotes here that I have to introduce this lesson But I thought you know what what the heck let's just let's just talk about it I'll read you the quotes because it does such a good job from your Catholic introduction the Old Testament source that I've given you For the first quote on this point about how you've got tabernacle golden calf tabernacle that structure there is significant Why and this is what it says quote the concluding account of the instructions and the construction of the tabernacle are wrapped around the account of the Covenant breaking worship of the golden calf the sacred author intends a contrast between the false worship of the people Which of course is chapter 32 and the prescriptions for true worship in the surrounding chapters Moreover the account suggests that the atoning liturgy that will take place in the tabernacle sanctuary is the bandage that wraps around the wound of the People's sin that is the remedy and the antidote at least temporarily for the sinfulness of the people in quote That's a really beautiful insight why you have this repetition because chapter 32 34th the golden calf and the sin and the breaking of the covenant And they brought the curses of the covenant upon themselves for disobedience is false worship It's like dolatris harlotry as we said now the tabernacle then is wrapped around that incident as a bandage and took to bandage up their wound Their sinfulness can be healed through the true worship of God in the tabernacle liturgy That is an excellent beautiful way to look at the structure of really the second half of the entire book of Exodus And why there's one quarter of the entire book of Exodus books on the tabernacle and why you got the tabernacle instructions Surrounding the Israel the Israel's apostasy and idolatry it's because worship of God is the means by which we heal our sinfulness That's beautiful now I'm gonna take it one step further here that this quote doesn't say but the end of chapter 31 just before to get to the golden calf and the beginning of chapter 35 Right after the healing of Israel through the ministry of Moses So right before the calf and right after the calf you've got instructions on the Sabbath day That's also very important because the Sabbath day is the day in which you worship God All of the instructions for the tabernacle are geared towards worship of God and having Sabbath rest with God The Sabbath rest that was really lost at the Garden of Eden And in fact that brings us to the next major point here I want to introduce this topic with you on is another quote from the calving North of the Old Testament and that is the concept that liturgy and worship is the overarching theme and overarching goal and overarching intention of this entire book Remember we've said so many times in the previous lessons freedom from and freedom for freedom is not just doing whatever Whatever the heck you want to do right? Hey, I'm free. This is where we live in a free country I can do whatever I want to do well. That's not true freedom That's free will yes You can choose to do whatever you want to do but freedom is living in accordance with God's will for your life freedom is being holy Freedom means not being enslaved by sin enslaved to sin or to Satan or into death But to be free from Satan sin and death to be free for worship of God freedom is really living as a child of God All right, and we use our free will to choose that and so without point Let me read another great quote for you It says this quote this is important to recognize that the activity of the whole book is orientated toward the communion through worship Enabled by the construction of the tabernacle at the end neither the deliverance of the Exodus nor the law given at Sinai are ends in themselves The Exodus liberation brings the people to a place where they can worship in light of this literary form We may truly speak of the liturgical orientation of the book of Exodus the initial deliverance is all about worship the conflict between the Pharaoh and Israel Centers on worship and the overall exodus from Egypt culminates in worship Indeed just as Genesis is the creation account of the world as a place for worship Exodus may be understood as the creation account of Israel as a people of worship in quote and that's awesome So just as we kind of said about this the structure of this whole narrative is that true worship of God heals their false idolatous worship That's the point of the Exodus remember who are you gonna serve?
That's that word of God we've seen so many times are you gonna avad which is to serve to work to worship Pharaoh and Egypt or are you going to serve to Work to worship for God for yachal year deliver And if you're gonna be free from Pharaoh and Egypt to be free for God and worship of God The whole point of it all is the tabernacle the tabernacle is gonna give you the means by which you can be truly free to worship God Uninhibited right from sin right from slavery and so this also brings up this last line here about the connection with Genesis The just as Genesis the creation account of the world is a place for worship Exodus may be understood as the creation account of Israel as a people for worship That's what I want to segue to the next section here is how then does the tabernacle and the whole story of Exodus Renew and restore the worship that God meant for Adam and Eve back in Genesis because back in Genesis Adam was called to avad God to serve and Worship God as a priestly son in the sanctuary Eden we talk about all of that in the Genesis Bible study Right he is the son of God and he is supposed to serve in the sanctuary of Eden as a high priest Whereas like all the cosmos all the universe is this this gigantic temple and he's the high priest serving in the holy of Holy so we talk about all that with Genesis in the same way now Israel as a nation is called to serve and worship God as his firstborn son Like we saw in chapter 4 22 and he's dirt and Israel's called to be a king of priests and a holy nation in Exodus 19 5 and 6 they were called to be a kingdom of priests king a holy nation God's firstborn son to serve where in the sanctuary of the tabernacle And that begins the general overview of this parallel between Adam serving as priests in the sanctuary of Eden and the in the gigantic Universal temple which is the which is the cosmos and Israel here serving as God's firstborn son in the priestly nation in The sanctuary of the tabernacle so if you break them apart if you just focus on Adam now What was going on with Adam in the garden of Eden? Well if you go back to Genesis chapter 2 15 what did God say till and keep the garden right till and keep it and that's more than just taking out your Rates and your shovels and you know planting your roots and harvesting your fruit and putting down you know the fertilizer and all this kind of stuff To till and keep the garden is liturgical so to till is avat it's the same word that we've seen so many times here in Exodus To till is to avat to work to give service right and then the word to keep is shamar All right, it's to guard to keep to protect so Adam is told to avat and shamar the garden Those are the turgical words those are the words that are used for the priestly service in the temple and tabernacle later on So what this means then is that Adam is the high priest serving in the sanctuary of Eden Which is all the turgical he's supposed to avat it into shamar to serve to worship and to work and to keep and guard and protect Then in so doing he enjoys communion with God in the Sabbath rest of all of creation that seventh day that covenantal day in which man Worships God and has rest in communion and intimacy with God. Okay, but what happened? He screwed it up, right?
Through his disobedience all right through his rejection of God in his refusal to obey and to trust God as a heavenly father He fell he fell into sin and we saw in the last lesson if you remember various parallels between the fall of Israel led by Aaron In the golden calf parallels what happened with Adam in the garden right because Aaron in a certain way is a new Adam falling from grace We saw all those parallels last week. Well, what happens is he he disobeyed Adam disobeys He falls from grace and then he becomes what enslaved Adam is enslaved now to Satan to sin into death and he's also exiled He's exiled from the Garden of Eden and he's also cursed to avat to serve in hard labor, right? By the sweat of his brow. He's gonna bring forth thorns and thistles so he's serving in hard labor exiled from the land enslaved to Satan Sin and death We'll take all of that and draw the connections with Israel here in the book of Exodus Israel is now enslaved or Excuse me exiled right Israel's exiled to Egypt from the promised land because of all the shenanigans of what happened with Joseph and his brothers And then the great fam and all that stuff we talked about at the end of our Genesis Bible study So Israel is enslaved here exiled to Egypt But now Israel also has to serve Pharaoh in the heart of a Bach of slavery.
He's not serving God Israel is not serving God Israel is serving Pharaoh the hard labor is misery of slavery just like Adam has now serving Satan And then a point see here in your notes kind of following this long God Then who does what with Israel deliver Israel to what to serve him to avat him at Mount Sinai and to Shamar to keep the tabro tabernacle Sanctuary as a priest so now Israel is a son of God called to avat and Shamar him in the tabernacle sanctuary Just like Adam was to avat and Shamar God in the Eden Edenic sanctuary the sanctuary of Eden and to have solemn Sabbath rest in the Sinai Covenant That's why the repetitions of the Sabbath day is just there everywhere in Exodus because the Sabbath day is rooted in creation And it's meant for proper worship of God and that's restored in Sinai And then it's also a perpetuated in the tabernacle So just as Adam failed so to this is real fail as we saw last lesson Israel fails to keep the covenant Just like Adam did but there but Israel was restored afterwards and really right there You have a similar kind of repetition of going on of creation fall restoration or you could also call it creation fall re-creation Adam was created he fell he's restored But obviously there are major consequences after that restoration things just don't go back to normal just like we saw with Israel There's creation of Israel as a nation There's the fall with the golden calf then there's restoration through the intercession of Moses But there are major consequences as a result So then it's really amazing to see these parallel side by side between Adam as a son of God called avat and Shamar falling from grace Restored same thing with Israel Okay, so what does this mean then with the tabernacle the tabernacle then and here's the conclusion the tabernacle is the restoration of the garden of Eden And the perpetuation of Mount Sinai so the union with God that covenant will you with God that was broken in the garden of Eden through Adam sin Is now at least partially restored through the covenant of Mount Sinai and I say partially because ultimately Jesus Christ is gonna truly bring us back to the garden truly Bring us back to intimacy with God But still Mount Sinai is a restoration of that union broken the garden of Eden So Adam was created to be God's sign as we saw in the covenant of creation now Israel is God's sign of the covenant of Mount Sinai Now God wants to perpetuate keep this intimacy He wants it to continue he God is not bringing Israel as is his new firstborn son to Mount Sinai And establishing this covenant and forgiving them of their sin if then he says okay off you go now Right time to leave the nest right time to move out of the house It go towards the promised land and conquer your enemies and hey good luck with it all No, God wants to be with his people right? He wants the intimacy to continue therefore the tabernacle is a perpetuation of Sinai the tabernacle is a portable Mount Sinai where God will Dwell amongst his people and so as you go and you study as we will right now study the tabernacle We're gonna see how the tabernacle in many respects is a perpetuation a continuation of the Mount Sinai Covenant because God wants to dwell amongst his people Simultaneously that tabernacle sanctuary is a restoration of the sanctuary of Eden and really Eden was a mountain as well We can't get into all that stuff But all the covenants that God establishes with this people really were on mountains I discuss this in the salvation history course But if you go through covenant by covenant Eden was a mountain Then you go to Mount Mariah for Abraham of course Mount Ararat for no I forgot about it in here They got Mount Sinai and it goes on and on so my point is the tabernacle is a restoration of Eden as well So when you study the tabernacle not only are you gonna see hints and signs that the tabernacle resembles Mount Sinai But it will also represent the creation account and the Garden of Eden that is amazing Okay, that's amazing That's what makes the over overarching picture of the tabernacle so exciting And when you apply the typology of the tabernacle God dwelling amongst his people Restoring intimacy lost at Eden portable sign all the stuff that I'm saying to you and you apply it to what it means to worship God in the Liturgy of the mass it gets really exciting when you go to mass because again It's a perpetuation of the new exit is a Jesus Christ. All right, so lots to meditate and pray about