50 The Tabernacle scarlet, ornamented with twelve precious stones, was fas- tened to the ephod by golden chains. No wonder this two- fold garment, the ephod and the breastplate, with the girdle, was "for glory and for beauty"! And how elo- quently did it speak forth the glories and the beauties of the Lord Jesus Christ! Once again, the blue, purple, and scarlet remind us of our Lord's heavenly character, His royalty, and His sacri- fice. We hardly need dwell longer on this point just here, all-important though it is; for we have already discussed this truth more than once. But let us note particularly that gold also went into the making of the ephod, the breastplate, and the girdle of the ephod. Exod. 39:3 ex- plains how the gold was literally woven into the cloth: "And they did beat the gold into thin plates, and cut it into wires, to work it in the blue, and in the purple, and in the scarlet, and in the fine linen, with cunning work." From this it is clear that the gold was actually woven into the cloth, yet as a separate thread. As the light fell upon this beautiful material, the gold must have glistened in all its glory; the fine white linen, embroidered in blue, purple, and scarlet having another glory all its own! And what a picture of our Lord Jesus in His eternal deity and in His spotless humanity! Gold ever speaks to us of deity; the fine linen, of His humanity. The blue tells us that the eternal God came down from heaven itself; the purple, that He is the King of kings; the scarlet, that He died, shed His precious blood, for His sinning creatures. The fine white linen tells to all that this God-Man was holy, absolutely and forever holy! The gold and the beautifully embroidered linen formed the one ephod, the one breast- plate, the one girdle-all composing this garment "for
51 The Tabe-rnacle glory and for beauty"; yet the gold and the linen were separate and distinct. Even so our Lord's two natures-deity and human- ity-are both beautiful as only they can ever be, and both are seen in His "altogether lovely" Being. He was born a helpless Baby; yet He flung the planets into space. He lay in a manger; yet "the cattle on a thousand hills" are His own. He was tempted, tested, and tried; yet He could not sin because He was God. He worked in a carpenter's shop, and lived among humble folk; yet He could turn the water into wine, and feed the multitudes by His mighty power. He "grew in stature and in favour with God and man"; yet He is "the Ancient of Days," "whose goings forth have been from of old, from everlasting." He lay in the bottom of the boat, asleep on a pillow; yet He arose to still the tempest. He was the "Man of sor- rows," weeping with others, shedding tears of agony in the Garden of Gethsemane; yet He turned heartaches into rejoicings when He raised the dead, and gave them back to their loved ones. He died, and was buried-a lifeless corpse; yet He arose in triumph by the power of His own Holy Spirit! Prophets for four thousand years before He was born had foretold His coming to be "Immanuel, God with us." Yes; the gold and the fine linen were separate and distinct; yet they were woven into the one piece! "God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto himself" (II Cor. 5:19). The gold could not be separated from the linen with- out ruining the cloth; the linen could not be separated from the gold without twisting the :fine wires-ruining both. Nor can we separate our Lord's two natures. If He was not God, then the Bible is untrue, and Christ bore false witness to His deity-blasphemous thought! Skep-
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