All Scripture is profitable for the Church (2 Tim. 3:16), including the portions of the Old Testament about the Tabernacle and Temple. The New Testament frequently views the work of Jesus Christ, the Church, and the Christian life through the lens of the Tabernacle and Temple, as well as its priesthood, offerings, and holy days (which will be discussed in subsequent articles).
The Tabernacle and Temple
God dwelled with Israel and governed them from the Tabernacle, a sacred tent surrounded by a walled, outer court. The Tabernacle was at the center of Israel’s wilderness camp and of their religious life. It was later replaced by a permanent temple building under Solomon’s reign. In the new covenant, the Tabernacle and Temple, with all their sacred furnishings, find their fulfillment in Christ and his body, the Church.
1. Jesus, especially his physical body, is the new tabernacle and temple. As God’s glory “dwelled” with Israel in the Tabernacle, Jesus, who is the glory of the Father (Jn. 1:14), “dwelled” among us (Jn. 1:14). In fact, the word “dwelled” (skēnoō) in John 1:14 could be translated as “pitched his tent” or “tabernacled” among us. Jesus looked at the earthly temple building and said that if the Jews destroyed it, he would raise it up in three days, “but he was speaking about the temple of his body” (Jn. 2:21). When Jesus said, “I tell you that something greater than the temple is here” (Mt. 12:6), he was referring to himself as the ultimate temple. Jesus is the place where God dwells with his people, and he is the center of new covenant religious life. As God dwelled with Israel in a tent covered with skins, God now dwells with us in the skin-and-blood body of a man, his Son incarnate: “In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Col. 2:9). It is as if the deity of Christ was a glory cloud inside his fleshly body. This was most clearly revealed to the disciples at Christ’s transfiguration (Mt. 17:2; 2 Pet. 1:16–17), when “the indwelling Deity darted out its rays through the veil of the flesh with transcendent splendour” (Wesley).
As God dwelled with Israel in a tent covered with skins, God now dwells with us in the skin-and-blood body of a man, his Son incarnate.
2. The Church, as the body of Jesus, is the new temple on earth. If Jesus remained on earth in his physical body, then the Holy Spirit would not have come (John 16:7), and we would still have a single earthly temple in one location. But because Jesus ascended, the Holy Spirit has been poured out, filling the whole Church with Christ’s presence. Mystically united with Christ, the Church is in a profound way “his body, the fullness of him who fills all in all” (Eph. 1:23). Jesus continues to be embodied on earth in his Church. The Church is in some sense the continued “incarnation” of Christ on earth, and thus the temple where God dwells among the nations. Ephesians 2:20–22 explains that like all temples, the one holy catholic Church has a foundation, the apostles and prophets, as well as a cornerstone, Jesus himself, “in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” Peter uses the same metaphor: “You, like living stones, are being built up as a spiritual house [a temple]” (1 Pet. 2:5).
Notice that individual believers are stones in God’s temple and elsewhere called members (hands, feet, eyes, and ears) of Christ’s body which is that temple. When the church gathers each Lord’s Day, the scattered stones and body parts come together to form the mystical yet visible temple of God. As the Tabernacle was regularly torn down and reconstructed, the Church regularly gathers and scatters. A sacred space is claimed wherever believers assemble together, for we are “built together” into a temple, and grow into a holy temple as we are “joined together” (Eph. 2:20–22).
When the church gathers each Lord’s Day, the scattered stones and body parts come together to form the mystical yet visible temple of God.
While there is one verse in the New Testament, 1 Corinthians 6:19, which says that the physical body of each believer is a temple of the Holy Spirit who dwells in them, this comes after Paul addresses the whole church as a single temple: “Do you not know that you [plural] are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you [plural]?” (1 Cor. 3:16). The identity of the individual must not be separated from the corporate: “you are the body of Christ and individually members of it” (1 Cor. 12:27). An individual who isolates themselves from the Church should never presume to say, “I am the temple of God” or “I am the Church.” An individual who separates from the regularly assembling visible Church is like a stone in a field or a severed hand in a jar. When Jesus told the Samaritan woman that the time was coming when people would no longer worship only at Jerusalem or Mt. Gerizim (Jn. 4:21–24), he didn’t have in mind individuals merely worshipping in their homes; he had in mind the global Church, expressed in local communities, which he promised to “build” (like Solomon building the temple) and to preserve against the gates of hell (Mt. 16:18).
As God’s new temple, the Church must be kept holy. Paul was zealous, like Jesus flipping over tables in the Temple, to confront sin in the church at Corinth: “If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you [plural] are that temple” (1 Cor. 3:17). Just as Nadab and Abihu were struck dead for offering unauthorized incense in the Tabernacle (Lev. 10:1–2), Ananias and Sapphira were struck dead for lying to the Church and thus to the Holy Spirit who dwells in the Church (Acts 5:1–11).
While the church’s identity as a temple should make us careful to maintain holiness and harmony, it is also a tremendous encouragement. No one is closer to God than when he is near to Jesus, and no one is nearer to Jesus than when he encounters Jesus in his body, the Church. Jesus invites us to encounter him in the Church’s life and ministry of Word and Sacrament (Mt. 18:20).
The Laver or “Basin”
Each of the Tabernacle’s sacred furnishings teach us something about Christ and his Church. The first item in the outer court of the Tabernacle was the bronze laver or “basin” where the priests washed up before offering sacrifices.
3. Jesus is the ultimate laver. On the night before he died, Christ washed his disciples’ feet as the priests washed their feet in the laver: “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me” (Jn. 13:8). He did this as a symbol of the cleansing that he was about to provide when he died on the cross and water came out of his side (Jn. 19:34), a sign of spiritual new birth: “unless one is born of water and the Spirit, he cannot enter the kingdom of God” (Jn. 3:5; Ezek. 36:25–27). God saves us “by the washing of regeneration and renewal of the Holy Spirit, whom he poured out on us richly through Jesus Christ our Savior” (Titus 3:5–6). Calvin wrote that “Christ’s blood served … as a laver to wash away our corruption” (Institutes, 2.16.6). We are dirty, filthy, and spiritually unclean, but through Christ, we may have clean hands and a pure heart to ascend God’s holy hill (Psalm 24:3–4).
4. The Church offers spiritual cleansing at the laver of baptism. When Peter preached Christ, he told the people how to respond: “Repent and be baptized [washed with water] every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit” (Acts 2:38). Ananias told Paul, “Rise and be baptized and wash away your sins, calling on his name” (Acts 22:16). Baptism is a better laver because it is not merely a symbol of cleansing; it is a sacrament of cleansing through which the grace of Christ and the Holy Spirit is actually given. While baptism does not save automatically (Acts 8:13, 23) or guarantee final salvation (1 Cor. 10:2, 5), baptism saves as a means of grace to stir up people’s faith and regenerate those who believe: “Baptism now saves you, not as a removal of dirt from the body but as an appeal to God for a good conscience, through the resurrection of Jesus Christ” (1 Pet. 3:21). No one should assume that just because they were baptized, they are born again and will go to heaven; however, anyone who comes to the baptismal waters sincerely can have confidence that the grace signified there will also be given. In his notes on Titus 3:5 (“the washing of regeneration”), John Wesley followed the church fathers in referring to baptism as “the laver of regeneration”: “Sanctification is expressed by the laver of regeneration (that is, baptism, the thing signified, as well as the outward sign) and the renewal of the Holy Spirit; which purifies the soul, as water cleanses the body, and renews it in the whole image of God.”
John Wesley followed the church fathers in referring to baptism as “the laver of regeneration.”
Very early on, churches crafted basins to hold water for baptism and called them “fonts” (from the Latin fons for “spring of water”). As the laver was placed in the outer courtyard of the tabernacle complex, the baptismal font was placed just inside the main entrance of church buildings to signify that baptism is the sacramental entrance into God’s new temple, and that the cleansing of Christ by the Spirit is a requirement to truly belong to his people. As the priests had to wash in the laver before offering or partaking of the sacrifices, the Church strictly held that baptism is a prerequisite for participation in the sacrament and sacrifice of the Lord’s Supper. In the early church, it was even common to dismiss unbaptized visitors (those whom Paul calls “outsiders” in 1 Cor. 5:12) before proceeding with the Lord’s Supper.
The Bronze Altar (Altar of Sacrifice)
The second item in the outer court was the Bronze Altar or Altar of Sacrifice where the various offerings were made.
5. The cross of Jesus is the ultimate altar. The cross was the altar on which the ultimate sacrifice was offered up to God, putting an end to all animal sacrifices, which could not take away sin (Heb. 10:4). Hebrews 13:10 says, “We have an altar from which those who serve the tent have no right to eat.” In other words, the Church has an altar in the cross of Christ which the Jews who serve the old tabernacle have no right to eat, since they do not have faith. Luther preached, “The cross was the altar on which He, consumed by the fire of the boundless love which burned in His heart, presented the living and holy sacrifice of His body and blood to the Father” (Eighth Serm. on Psalm 110).
The cross was the altar on which the ultimate sacrifice was offered up to God.
6. The Church has an altar in the Lord’s Table. While the church does not have an altar at which new sacrifices are offered, since Christ offered a once-for-all sacrifice on the cross, Christ instituted the Lord’s Supper as a means to continually encounter and participate in his sacrifice: “Take, eat; this is my body”; “Drink of it, … for this is my blood of the covenant” (Mt. 26:26–28). In 1 Corinthians 10:16–18, Paul compares Christians eating Christ’s sacrifice at the Lord’s Table to Jews eating the sacrifices of the temple altar: “The cup of blessing that we bless, is it not a participation in the blood of Christ? The bread that we break, is it not a participation in the body of Christ? Because there is one bread, we who are many are one body, for we all partake of the one bread. Consider the people of Israel: are not those who eat the sacrifices participants in the altar?” In the preface to his Hymns on the Lord’s Supper, John Wesley includes an excerpt from Daniel Brevint which explains that although Jesus is not re-sacrificed in the Lord’s Supper, his once-for-all-sacrifice is made present and available to us, and thus the Supper may be called a “sacrifice”: “This sacrament, by our remembrance, becomes a kind of sacrifice, whereby we present before God the Father, that precious oblation of his Son once offered.” Just as some of the Old Testament sacrifices were eaten by the priests or worshippers, we eat Christ’s body and blood by faith, in a mystical and heavenly manner, when we eat the “spiritual food” of the Lord’s Supper (1 Cor. 10:3). John 6:53 is not a direct and exclusive reference to the Lord’s Supper, but the Supper is a clear opportunity to “eat” Jesus in the John 6:53 sense: “unless you eat the flesh of the Son of Man and drink his blood, you have no life in you.”
Paul compares Christians eating Christ’s sacrifice at the Lord’s Table to Jews eating the sacrifices of the temple altar.
As the altar and sacrifice of the new covenant, the Lord’s Table was the center of New Testament worship. The newly baptized at Pentecost were immediately “devoted” to breaking the sacramental bread (Acts 2:42), and Acts 20:7 refers to the Lord’s Supper as the primary reason for the church’s Sunday gathering: “On the first day of the week, when we were gathered together to break bread.” Justin Martyr gives us the earliest account of the church’s weekly worship and explains that churches everywhere gather to share the Eucharist (First Apology 66–67). For over fifteen centuries, the whole Church shared the Lord’s Supper at least every Sunday: “There is no real doubt about this simple historical fact—through the centuries this meal has been the central and characteristic action of the church at worship” (James Armstrong). Christian worship without the Lord’s Table is as unthinkable as Old Testament worship without the bronze altar. In their fourth hymn on the Lord’s Supper, John and Charles Wesley write of God bestowing his gifts from “his holy seat” (the mercy seat of the ark of the covenant) when the Church shares Christ’s sacrifice and eat his flesh at the Lord’s Table:
This eucharistic feast.
Our every want supplies;
And still we by his death are bless’d
And share his sacrifice.
By faith his flesh we eat,
Who here his passion show,
And God, out of his holy seat
Shall all his gifts bestow.
There is also a second sense in which the Lord’s Table is an altar of sacrifice: It is where believers offer themselves as a living sacrifice to God by uniting themselves with the sacrifice of Christ. Jesus said, “Drink … my blood of the covenant.” The Supper is a covenant renewal meal, a reaffirmation that we are crucified with Christ, and no longer living for the flesh (Gal. 2:20). As the Israelites offered costly sacrifices from the best of their herd or field on the bronze altar, Christians present their very lives at the altar of the Lord’s Table. This is one reason why Christians have typically kneeled for communion (in addition to showing reverence and humility at the remembrance of Christ’s sacrifice). Those in the American revivalistic tradition sometimes refer to the rails at the front of a church as “the altar,” but those rails were originally called “the altar rails”—the rails of the Lord’s Table. The rails were placed there for people to kneel at when receiving the Eucharist every week. Michael Svigel explains, “Many in the early church associated coming to the Lord’s Table with Romans 12 and offering our bodies as living sacrifices … reaffirming our commitment to discipleship, and to the Christian life, and to one another. … So in a sense in the early church, there was an altar call every week at the end of the service. There was a Table call to rededicate.”
The Lampstand
The Tabernacle tent was divided into two compartments. The first compartment was the Holy Place, where only the priests (the sons of Aaron) could go. The first sacred furnishing of the Holy Place was the Golden Lampstand, which was shaped like a seven-branched, blossoming almond tree (an allusion to the tree of life).
7. Jesus and the Holy Spirit whom he gives are the ultimate lampstand. Without the continually burning lampstand, the priests worked in total darkness. Jesus is the true Light who is never extinguished: “I am the light of the world. Whoever follows me will not walk in darkness, but will have the light of life” (Jn. 8:12). As the lampstand was crafted to recall the tree of life in the Garden of Eden, Christ and the tree of his cross are the ultimate tree of life, “abolishing death and bringing life and immortality to light through the gospel” (2 Tim. 1:10).
Jesus gives us light by filling us with the “oil” of the Holy Spirit to brighten our way (Eph. 1:17–18; 1 Jn. 2:20, 27). In the Book of Revelation, the Holy Spirit is symbolically presented as “the seven spirits of God” (Rev. 3:1), or as Grant Osborne puts it, “the perfect seven-fold Spirit.” This alludes to (or at least has obvious similarities with) the seven-branched lampstand in the Tabernacle. Thus Thomas Oden writes that in the temple, “The light of the Spirit beamed forth from seven lamps on a golden candlestick” (CC 379).
8. The Church, in union with Christ by the Holy Spirit, is the lampstand on earth. Jesus called himself the Light of the world (Jn. 8:12), but also called his disciples “the light of the world” (Mt. 5:14). The Church is a constellation of holy lights: “you shine as lights in the world” (Php. 2:15). In Revelation 1:20, John explicitly identifies seven churches in Asia Minor as “golden lampstands.” Revelation 11 goes on to speak of “two witnesses” who are identified as “the two olive trees and the two lampstands that stand before the Lord of the earth” (Rev. 11:4). While some think that this refers to two individuals in the future, it seems more likely, given the prior identification of lampstands with churches (Rev. 1:20), and the fact that two is the number of witness (Deut. 17:6; Lk. 10:1), that the two witnesses are a symbol of the whole witnessing Church. Whatever the case, the Church, filled with the oil of the Holy Spirit, is set up by God as a lampstand for all nations—a witness to Jesus, the true Light.
John explicitly identifies seven churches in Asia Minor as “golden lampstands.”
While the church does not have a physical “lampstand,” church buildings need to be lit, and Christians for centuries followed God’s example by using candles in deeply symbolic and beautiful ways. Joel Webb explains that the two candles on the communion table came to represent the divine and human natures of Christ. Many ancient churches had a lamp somewhere in the church that was kept continually burning, and the fire from this lamp was carried to the communion candles at the beginning of each service (a sign of Christ entering into the midst of his people), then carried from the communion candles back to the lamp (a sign of Christ leading his people out into the world). During Advent, a series of candles is lit leading up to Christmas, when the central white Christ candle is lit as a sign that Christ has come. At the Easter Vigil, a large white Paschal Candle is lit in total darkness as a sign of the light of Christ rising in the dark tomb and overcoming death, then lit every service until Pentecost. While these traditions are not required by God, they are beautiful symbols which point us to the reality of Christ the Light of the world.
The Table of the Bread of Presence (“Showbread”)
The second sacred furnishing in the Holy Place was a golden table with twelve loaves of bread—one for each of the twelve tribes. The bread was called “the Bread of Presence” because it was continually set before God’s presence. God’s “face” watched over it. The bread signified that God watches over, provides for, and sustains all of his people.
9. Jesus is the ultimate Bread of the Presence. Jesus is God’s provision for all of his people: “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger” (Jn. 6:35). Jesus provided for our greatest needs by offering the bread of his flesh on the cross: “The bread that I will give for the life of the world is my flesh” (John 6:51). Jesus ascended into the temple of heaven to be the sacrificial Bread that is continually set before the Father’s presence, interceding to provide for all our needs (Heb. 7:25; 9:24). The ascended Christ, the new Bread of Presence, assures us that God will hear our prayers and supply our needs: “My God will supply every need of yours according to his riches in glory in Christ Jesus” (Php. 4:19).
Jesus ascended into the temple of heaven to be the sacrificial Bread that is continually set before the Father’s presence.
10. The Church offers the Bread of Presence at the Lord’s Table. As there was a table with bread in the tabernacle, there is a table with bread in the Church. The Lord’s Table combines elements of the Table of Bread with the Bronze Altar, since the bread of Christ is his flesh sacrificed (John 6:51). The Lord’s Supper is God’s provision of “spiritual food” for his people (1 Cor. 10:3). John Wesley writes of the Lord’s Supper, “This is the food of our souls: This gives strength to perform our duty, and leads us on to perfection.” John Calvin writes, “The signs are bread and wine, which represent the invisible food which we receive from the body and blood of Christ. For as God, regenerating us in baptism, ingrafts us into the fellowship of his Church, and makes us his by adoption, so he performs the office of a provident parent, in continually supplying the food by which he may sustain and preserve us in the life to which he has begotten us by his word.”
The Altar of Incense
The third sacred furnishing in the Holy Place was the Altar of Incense, placed in front of the veil to the Most Holy Place. Incense was burned there every morning and evening as a symbol of Israel’s prayers rising up to God (Ps. 141:2).
11. Jesus is the ultimate Altar of Incense. As the incense ascended continually before the veil to the Holy of Holies because it was lit by the fire from the altar of sacrifice, Christ’s sacrifice on the altar of the cross qualifies him to intercede continually before the Father, offering unceasing prayers for his people. “He always lives to make intercession for those who draw near to God through him” (Heb. 7:25). Because of Christ’s sacrifice and intercession, we have unparalleled confidence that God hears our prayers.
12. As a holy priesthood, the Church offers the incense of continual prayer through Christ to God. The Book of Revelation depicts the prayers of the saints on earth as being collected into bowls of incense and offered before the throne of God by angelic creatures: “the four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fell down before the Lamb, each holding a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints” (Rev. 5:8). “And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel” (Rev. 8:3–4).
The Book of Revelation depicts the prayers of the saints on earth as being collected into bowls of incense and offered before the throne of God by angelic creatures.
The Church throughout history has considered it the duty (and privilege) of all Christians, as a holy priesthood, to pray at least every morning and evening (and often midday as well, as did the apostles and early church). As often as possible, Christians have offered these prayers together as living stones in an assembled temple (which was much easier when most people lived close together in cities or small villages). Rites for common prayer were developed. Even when used privately, Christians knew that they were offering the same prayers at the same times as their brothers and sisters throughout the world. The most famous Protestant example is the Daily Office of the Book of Common Prayer (“Office” comes from a Latin word meaning “duty”). Some churches throughout history (especially after the fourth century) burned actual incense to symbolize prayer ascending to God, to reflect the heavenly worship on earth (Rev. 5:8; 8:3–4), and to engage the sense more of the human body—its sense of smell—in worship. Incense is a staple of worship in the Eastern Church, common in Roman Catholic worship, and featured in some Anglican and Lutheran churches, especially on holy days such as Christmas and Easter. Most Protestant churches, however, have preferred to focus on the spiritual incense of actual prayer.
The Veil and Ark of the Covenant
The second compartment of the Tabernacle tent, the Most Holy Place, was blocked by a veil or “curtain,” and contained only one sacred furnishing: the Ark of the Covenant. The ark was a sacred chest with the tablets of the Law inside (the terms of Israel’s covenant relationship with God). It was topped by the Mercy Seat, where God would meet with his people and speak to them (through the High Priest), and extend forgiveness on the Day of Atonement when blood was brought (Ex. 25:22). Two golden cherubim (mighty angels) faced inwards over the ark, which was also viewed as God’s “throne” in Israel, or the footstool of his heavenly throne: “the ark of the covenant of the Lord of hosts, who is enthroned on the cherubim” (1 Sam. 4:4). When Israel traveled, the ark went before them and accomplished great works.
13. Jesus’s flesh is the veil of the Tabernacle which was torn to open the way to God’s heavenly throne. When Christ died on the cross, Matthew 27:51 says that “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.” This was an extraordinary sign, since the curtain of Herod’s temple was likely around 60 feet tall (the height of an oak tree). Hebrews 10:19–20 explicitly identifies Jesus’s flesh as the veil of the temple: “we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened for us through the curtain, that is, through his flesh.” It is as if when his flesh was torn on the cross, Christ’s bleeding side became a door to the glory cloud “inside,” now unveiled and made accessible to everyone. In Mark’s Gospel, the word “torn” (schizō) is only used twice: at Christ’s baptism, when the heavens were torn open for the Spirit to descend (Mk. 1:10), and on Christ’s cross, when the temple curtain was torn from top to bottom (Mk. 15:38). The point is that the tearing of Christ’s flesh opens up heaven itself.
It is as if when his flesh was torn on the cross, Christ’s bleeding side became a door to the glory cloud “inside,” now unveiled and made accessible to everyone.
In the Old Testament, only the high priest could enter the Most Holy Place and approach the ark, and even then he flooded the compartment with smoking incense to shield him from the glory cloud, and was required to bring the blood of sacrifice. “Christ has entered, not into holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true things, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God on our behalf” (Heb. 9:24). Now, we have boldness to approach the throne of grace (Heb. 4:16)—the heavenly mercy seat—and assurance that if we die, we will enter directly into the glory of God’s heavenly presence without being destroyed by it.
14. Jesus is the ultimate Ark of the Covenant. Jesus embodies God’s glorious presence among his people. As the glory cloud hovered over the ark, the power of God overshadowed Jesus in the womb of the virgin Mary (Lk. 1:35) and descended on him at his baptism (Mt. 3:15). Jesus is where God meets with his people and speaks to us. Jesus is where God’s heavenly reign touches down on earth. As the ark went before Israel doing great deeds and toppling idols, Jesus went about doing miracles and casting out demons. Jesus the Good Shepherd “goes before” his sheep (Jn. 10:4). As the mercy seat of the ark was the place of propitiation (where atonement was made), “God put Christ forward as a propitiation by his blood” (Rom. 3:25). The word translated as “propitiation” in Romans 3:25 (hilastērios) is translated as “mercy seat” in Hebrews 9:5. It is through Christ that God extends his mercy and forgiveness to sinful people.
Conclusion
Studying the Tabernacle helps us to have a deeper appreciation for the work of Jesus Christ and all that he accomplished. It also helps us to reform and deepen our worship, since New Testament worship has significant continuity with Old Testament worship. While much has certainly changed (we no longer offer animal sacrifices), the truths and principles of Tabernacle worship should inform how the Church worships God today. God is still holy and the Old Testament reflects his unchanging wisdom.
