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The Tabernacle the prophetic Scriptures, wherein the Holy Spirit "testified beforehand the sufferings of Christ, and the glory that should follow" (I Peter 1: 11). In connection with the typical significance of the Jew- ish tabernacle, we have one of the many clear proofs that the Old Testament is the New Testament concealed; whereas the New Testament is the Old Testament re- vealed. Jehovah of the Old Testament is Jesus of the New. And the Triune God gave to Israel the tabernacle, the priesthood, and the offerings, in order that sinful man might recognize the promised Saviour, and understand the significance of His mission and death. When our Lord was among men, He was repeatedly bidding those who heard His teaching to study the Old Testament Scriptures. To the unbelieving Jews He said, "Yc search the scriptures (R. V.); for in them ye think ye have eternal life: and they are they which tes- tify of me.... Had ye believed Moses, ye would have believed me: for he wrote of me" (John 5:39, 46). By "the scriptures" Christ meant the Old Testament; for the New Testament was not written until after He died, arose from the dead, and went back to heaven. And when He said, "Moses wrote of me," He included Exodus; for Moses wrote the first five books of the Bible as he was inspired by the Holy Spirit. To the two disciples on the way to Emmaus the risen Lord also said that the prophets had foretold "the suffer- ings of Christ, and the glory that should follow." "And beginning at Moses and all the prophets, he expounded unto them in all the scriptures the things concerning himself" (Luke 24:27; cf. 24:26). Again, to the ten disciples, still later in the same eve- ning, He said,
The Tabernacle "These are the words which I spake unto you, while I was yet with you, that all things must be fu~filled, which were written in the law of Moses, and m the prophets, and in the psalms, concerning me" (Luke 24:44). That the tabernacle was typical of Christ and His re- demptive work on the cross, is clear from many statem:nts in the New Testament, some of which we shall cons1d~r in these studies. All the ministry of the priests in this "earthly sanctuary," yea, even the sai:ctuary it~elf, s~rved as a series of object lessons concermng salvation, smful man's access to a holy God, and his worship of the Re- deemer of sinners. It is as though God had painted a portrait of Christ some fifteen hundred. years befor~ He was to be born into the world as the Child of Bethlenem, in order that when He did "tabernacle among men" as the only begotten Son of God, all the world might recog- nize Him as the promised Saviour. Years ago, when I first left Australia to come to Amer- ica, my mother gave me photographs of my aunts and uncles in England, whom I was to visit en route. I h~d never seen them; for I was born in Australia, and had never been to England to visit them. On board the boat I studied these photographs very carefully; I wanted to be sure to recognize my relatives at the pier. And sure enough, I did know them, because their likenesses were stamped upon my mind. . . Had the Jews of our Lord's day confined their studies to the Old Testament, free from the traditions of men, they would have recognized their Messiah in a moment. If all men of this Christian era would only study the New Testament·in the light of the Old, they would look with wonder and awe upon the portrait of Christ in the Old Testament; for it is a true likeness of the suffering, risen,
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