If we view the tabernacle as a whole it was Jehovah's dwelling in the midst of his people, and that to which it answers under the new clispensa tion can be no other than the human nature of our Lord. He was God manifest in the flesh," Im manuel,' God with us, and in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily' (I Tim. iii. 16 ; Matt. i. 23 ; Col. ii. 9.) Hence St. John (i. 14), in speaking of his incarnation, says : The Word became flesh and tabernaclea' (ecriclivcare) among us,' where the language evidently points to the ancient tabernacle as the symbolical residence of Jehovah ; and in the book of Revelation (xxi. 5) the same apostle, in announcing the final presence of Christ, in his glorified humanity with his church, uses the expression : the tabernacle of God is with men.' From these statements of the N. T. we may hold ourselves justified in concluding that the ancient tabernacle, viewed in its general aspect as the dwelling of Jehovah, found its antitype in the human nature of Christ, in whom God really dwelt.
Viewed more particularly in its two great divisions, the tabernacle symbolised in its inrrer department the reign of Jehovah in his own majesty and glory, and in its outer department the service of God by propitiation and prayer. In keeping with this the writer of the Epistle to the Hebrews teaches us to regard the outer part of the tabernacle as more strictly typical of the person of Jesus Christ, and the inner of heaven, into which he has now entered. Thus he speaks of him (viii. 2) as now, in the heavenly state, a minister of the true [i.e. real, c'tkrAivn, as distinguished from symbolical] taber nacle which the Lord pitched, and not man,' where the allusion seems to be partly to the fact that Christ is in heaven, and partly to the fact that he ministers there in human nature. Still more ex plicit is the language used in ch. ix. II, where the writer, after spealcing of the sacerdotal services of the ancient economy as merely figurative and out ward, adds : ' But Christ having appeared as high priest of the good things to come, by means of the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands (that is, not of this creation), nor by means of blood of goats and calves, but by means of his own blood, entered once (for all) into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.' In interpreting this passage, we would follow those who take the whole as far as the words his own blood,' as the subject of the sentence, and conse quently join the clauses depending from St& with vapa-yey6kcevos, and not with ei4X0ev; for it seems to he more natural to suppose that the writer should say that it was by means of a more perfect taber nacle and a holier sacrifice that Christ became the high-priest of spiritual blessings, than that it was by these means that he entered into the holy place. The objection to tbis construction which Dean Alford urges, that in that case ol,So would be left without any preceding member of the negation to follow,' is of no weight, for it burdens the construc tion lie adopts as much as that he rejects ; and is to be obviated in either case by resolving °Me into Kal 06 (see Meyer's note on ver, 12). Assuming this
to be the proper construction of the passage, it seems clearly to represent the human nature of our Lord—that in which he made his soul an offering for sin—as the antitype of the ancient tabernacle in which the high-priest offered sac rifice ; whilst the heavenly world into which he has entered as a high-priest was typified by the holy place into which the Jewish high-priest entered to appear in the symbolical presence of Jehovah. For further confirmation of this may be adduced ch. x. zo, where the writer, speaking of the privilege enjoyed by believers under the new dis pensation of approaching God through Christ, says, we can do it by a new and living way which he hath inaugurated (evercabwrev) for us through the veil (that is, his own flesh).' The allusion here is undoubtedly to the ancient tabernacle ser vice, and the truth set forth is, that as the high priest of old went vvith sacrificial blood through the veil into the Holy of Holies, so we, as made priests unto God by Jesus Christ, may approach the immediate presence of Jehovah through that path which the Saviour has inaugurated for us by his death in human nature—that path by which he himself has preceded us as our great intercessor, and which is ever fresh and living for us. There may be some rhetorical confusion in this passage, but the general idea seems plainly this, that the body of Christ, slain for us, affords us a passage by means of sacrifice into the presence of God, just as the first tabernacle with its services afforded an entrance to the high-priest of old into the Holy of Holies (comp. Owen and Bengel on the passages ; and Hofmann, Schrifibeweis, p. 405, etc. ; Weissag. Erfiill. 189, ff.) We have also N. T. authority for putting a typical significancy on the capporeth or mercy seat. Regarding this, we have the testimony of the apostle, when he says that God hath set forth his Son to be a propitiation (or mercy-seat) through the faith in his blood.' The word here used is tXarrriocop, which is the term employed by the LXX., by Philo, and by Paul himself (Heb. ix. 5) to designate the covering of the ark in the Holy of Holies. The application of it to our Lord, there fore, in this passage, is doubtless intended to inti mate the analog,y between him, as the true medium of propitiation between God and the sinner, and the mercy-seat, or symbolical covering of sin under the law.
Thus far we have N. T. evidence to guide us in the symbolical and typical meaning of the ancient tabernacle and its parts, and beyond this we do not think it safe to go.
(Lund, Die alt. 2iiclisch, Heiligthiimer darge :teat, fol. 1695, best edition by Wolf, Hamb. 1738 ; Lamy, De Tabernat. Fred. fol. Par. 1720 ; Witsius, 'De Tabern. Levit. Mysteriis' in his Ails tell. Sac. L. 3'8 ; Bahr, Symbolik des Alos. Cul/us, i. 55, ff.)—W. L. A.