The Tabernacle, and the Temple, are a picture of the cosmos. Or, perhaps, the cosmos is a tabernacle. We know this because Moses tells us so in his structure.
We see this first in the structure of Genesis 1. We have a two panelled story in 3 sections. What I mean is that day 4 corresponds to day 1, day 5 to day 2 and so on. In the first three days, three arenas are constructed by divisions. On day one, light is separated from darkness, which seems to be happening in the heavens for all they aren’t named yet, on day two heavens are separated from earth, one day three land is separated from sea and trees sprout.
Wait, on the third day trees sprout? Almost like when Paul said that Jesus rose on the third day ‘according to the scriptures’ he meant we should notice that kind of thing (that’s exactly what he meant).
Put that thought aside, and let’s continue our look at the days of Genesis. We have three arenas created: heavens, earth, sea. A triple-decker universe. This is nuanced later in the Bible with the breaking of the heavens into ‘heaven’ (sky) ‘heavens’ (where planets are) and ‘heaven above’ or ‘third heaven’ (where the heavenly temple is), but that distinction doesn’t seem to be in view in Genesis 1, they’re all just ‘heavens.’ These three arenas are defined by three distinctions: light/dark, waters above/waters below, sea/land.
On day four we return to the distinction of day one, light/dark, and fill it with the sun, moon, and stars. These are intimately related to spiritual powers as well as the ball of gas and barren rock we naturally think of, this is evident not least because we all know that plants don’t grow without the sun. Moses was as aware of this as you are. The form, made by division, is filled with life.
On day five we return to the distinction of day two, waters above/waters below, and fill them both with life: birds and fish.
On day six we do the same, returning to the final distinction, land/sea, with the filling of the land with life, including the man and woman. The third day wasn’t only a day of distinction because life started then, with trees sprouting on the land. We see man and woman placed in a garden that was made for them.
What does this have to do with the tabernacle? Everything. Moses is hoping you read that and thought to yourself, ‘wait… that sounds so much like the tabernacle.’ Is the world also a tabernacle? It is, dear friends, made for his glory.
What we should be looking for is a threefold structure, with some parallel to sea->earth->heaven, that is then also filled with things.
What do we find in the tabernacle and the Temple? Exactly that. One of the big clues is that the laver of the tabernacle is called ‘the sea’ in the Temple. This large bronze basin of water is in the outer court.
The tabernacle has three layers: an outer court fenced off from the rest of the Israelite camp, then the tent itself ‘the holy place,’ and then within the holy place a curtained area, ‘the most holy place’ or ‘holy of holies.’ Three areas, with a sea in the outer one and God dwelling in the inner one. It’s not a stretch to see this mapping onto Sea->Earth->Heaven. If you needed more help, we could then look at the furniture.
In the outer court we have an altar and a washbasin (‘the sea’). In the holy place a table for bread and a tree for light. In the holy of holies, the ark as the throne of God, and in the holy place but ‘bridging’ into the holy of holies is the altar of incense whose clouds of incense rise into the most holy place with our prayers.
Three areas, each filled with two (loosely) things. The two in the ‘earth’ zone are bread and trees, which seem evocative enough to confirm this.
The tabernacle is a model of the cosmos. The cosmos is a temple.
Seeing reality
This should transform the way we apprehend reality in two distinct, but interrelated, ways. First, we should see the creation around us as God’s Temple. It’s not God, but it is given to us to teach us about our Creator. It’s his and made for Jesus’ glory. Every tree is a prayer. The sky is an invitation. The sea a mystery.
They don’t just help us think on this, they are this, because their symbolic meanings are the reasons they were made. Nothing is ‘just’ a symbol. That’s a misunderstanding of what symbols are (they’re signs that participate in the reality that they signify). That tree was made by the Lord to communicate meaning to you that glorifies Jesus. That is its primary purpose. A Christian approach to ‘creation care’ starts with the world understood as meaning before anything else. Wonder is the correct response.
Second, the Church is the true Temple of God (1 Peter 2). Which means that there is the same interplay of meaning between the Church and the cosmos as there is between the tabernacle and the cosmos. This isn’t to say ‘nature’s all the church I need’ or something equally facile, anyone who thinks like that hasn’t even begun to understand the natural world they so admire. We should expect the natural world to tell the church’s story; we know the church tells the world’s story.
This is a deeper set of meanings than I feel like I’ve fully explored. At the least though it means that what we do in church is intimately about reality. We tell the truth about the world, ourselves, and God. We show the way to live that leads to human flourishing. It’s interesting to see how the teachings of Jesus lead to flourishing even for those who aren’t followers of his; I was talking recently with someone who works with those experiencing serious addictions, and he remarked how forgiveness is so often the key to breaking free from these patterns, even for those who don’t know Jesus. Death and resurrection are woven into all of life. You do have to die if you want to rise, and ‘die before you die.’ Forgiveness and repentance do lead to freedom, even if we mean the temporal freedom of human flourishing rather than the ultimate freedom before the face of Jesus.
Church is where you find out what life really is. That shouldn’t surprise us, the very world was made in a model of it. We could notice that the tabernacle is a journey from baptism to communion via prayer to the very word of God and we would be right to. The world tells you that story too. Everything does. Because it’s true.
Photo by Glen Carrie on Unsplash
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