Heavenly Temple/Sanctuary.
- Thread starter phipps
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| Type | Antitype |
| Numbers 19:2. A red heifer without spot. | Hebrews 9:13, 14. Christ offered Himself without spot to God. |
| Numbers 19:2. There was to be no blemish in the animal. | John 15:10; 2 Corinthians 5:21. Christ never disobeyed the law of God. He “knew no sin.” |
| Numbers 19:2. One that had never borne the yoke, never been forced to do anything. | John 10:15. “As the Father knoweth Me, even so know I the Father: and I lay down My life for the sheep.” |
| Numbers 19:3; Deuteronomy 21:4. The red heifer was slain without the camp, in a rough valley, that had never been cultivated. | Hebrews 13:12; John 10:16. “Wherefore Jesus also, that He might sanctify the people with His own blood, suffered without the gate.” |
| Numbers 19:5, 6. Heifer and cedar wood, hyssop, and scarlet, were burned in the fire. | 2 Peter 3:7. The earth is “reserved unto fire against the day of judgment and perdition of ungodly men.” |
| Numbers 19:17-19. Those ceremonially unclean were cleansed by being sprinkled with the ashes, | 1 Corinthians 6:11. “Ye are washed, but ye are sanctified, but ye are justified in the name of the Lord Jesus.” |
The first half of the book of Exodus details the miraculous deliverance of Israel from Egypt. The second half of the book deals with issues that include beauty. The divine instructions of Exodus 25:1-9 are followed by Exodus 25:10-31:11, with God’s “blueprints” for the portable tent sanctuary, its furnishings, and the priestly vestments. From Exodus 35:1 to the end of the book (Exodus 40:38) are found God’s detailed descriptions, along with the record of the precise accomplishment of them. This record includes extensive details of artistry.
This collection of details is tedious reading to many modern Christians. But it pleased God not only to present these many instructions to the newly-freed slaves but also to include them in Scripture.
There are almost fifty chapters in the first five books of the Bible that record God’s precise directives regarding a beautiful sanctuary. He provides not only the architectural blueprints but also the exact directions for the furnishings. It is significant that on Mount Sinai God gave not only the Decalogue, His instructions for obedience within the covenant, but also specific directions of how to fashion a lavish structure involving almost every type of artistic skill.
God was architect of it all, even inspiring the artisans to craft the minute details of decoration. Nothing was left to human devising. There are more chapters regarding the plans for, and consequent building of, this sanctuary and its furnishings than for any other subject in the first five books of Moses.
The earthly sanctuary modelled on the heavenly sanctuary according to Hebrews 8:1-5, "Now this is the main point of the things we are saying: We have such a High Priest, who is seated at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in the heavens, a Minister of the sanctuary and of the true tabernacle which the Lord erected, and not man. For every high priest is appointed to offer both gifts and sacrifices. Therefore it is necessary that this One also have something to offer. For if He were on earth, He would not be a priest, since there are priests who offer the gifts according to the law; who serve the copy and shadow of the heavenly things, as Moses was divinely instructed when he was about to make the tabernacle. For He said, “See that you make all things according to the pattern shown you on the mountain.”
If the earthly sanctuary was only a “shadow” of the heavenly, we can hardly begin to imagine the kind of beauty that must exist in the real sanctuary, the one that God Himself made.