The parabolic function of the tabernacle services.
The tabernacle, with its contents and its institutions, was one great parable embracing and uniting many subordinate parables. A parable looking towards the time of the new covenant—the "present time," as the writer calls it; or, as we might even more closely render it, the impending season. For in God's economy the new state of things is to be ever looked at as impending. So Christ would have us, who rejoice in his first advent, to be ever making ready for his second one. And in the same way the men of the old covenant had to be on the look-out for the initiation of the new. Rejoicing in what Moses had given them, they looked eagerly for what Messiah had to give; and in the mean time Moses had given them parables through the eye, even as in after times Christ gave his disciples parables in words. Such mode was suitable for the time and the purpose. What parabolic teaching was there, then, in the tabernacle and the things connected with it?
I. THE REALITY OF GOD'S DWELLING WITH MEN. Each Israelite family had its tent, and Jehovah's tent was in the midst of all, a center of unity, protection, and glory. Jehovah was the Companion of his people in all their pilgrimage and vicissitudes. It is only as we recollect this that we get at the full significance of John's expression concerning the Word becoming flesh and tabernacling among us, full of grace and truth (John 1:14). The glory that belonged to the tabernacle was thus a parable of the Incarnation glory.
II. THE POSSIBILITY OF SATISFACTORY INTERCOURSE BETWEEN GOD AND MAN. It was dangerous for a man to meddle in Divine things according to his own inclination and his own wisdom. Yet he could not stand aside and neglect Divine things altogether. Such a course was equally dangerous with the other. But if he would only submit to the way of Jehovah's appointment, attending to every detail, and striving to comprehend the undoubted purpose in it, then he-was assuredly in the way of safety. He was doing what God wanted him to do with the resources then within his reach. And though an obedience of this kind, an obedience in certain external rites, could not take away all trouble of conscience, yet when a man comprehended that Jehovah had even this in view, he would feel that what he enjoyed not now he would enjoy hereafter. Though the blood of bulls and goats could not put away sin and wash out the heart's deep defilement, yet the blood-shedding was not in vain, if it intimated the coming of something that would take away sin.
III. THE POSSIBILITY OF REAL SERVICE. In itself, the elaborate ritual of the tabernacle was nothing. Save as it was parabolic and provocative of hope and aspiration, it could not be called other than a waste of time. "What mean ye by this service?" was a question which might well be put to every Levitical person every day.
But when the service of the high priest looked forward to the sacrificial cleansing service of Christ in perpetuity, and when the service of all the subordinate attendants looked forward to the daily obedience of Christians, faithful in little things, then assuredly the service of the tabernacle gets lifted above a mechanical routine. Under the old covenant, a whole tribe, separated for ritual observance, serving Jehovah in formal religious ordinances, was thereby serving, not only a nation, but all mankind. Serving God in appearance, the Levite served men in reality. Now, under the new covenant, we serve God in serving men. The Christian, because he is a Christian, has most power of all men to serve his brother man.—Y.