Read Exodus 25:1-27:19 at Bible Gateway.
the teaching tools of scripture
terumah paragraph divisions 2012 feb 25
exo 25-26, the mercy seat 2011 feb 08
exo 27-28, the tabernacle of witness 2011 feb 09
This week’s torah portion does form a chiastic structure, which had eluded me until this year:
Exo 25:10-27:19 {p+p+s+p+sx4}
1a) Exo 25:10-26:30 {p+p+s+p+s} Pattern for furnishings (ark, table, lampstand), curtains, frame for Most Holy + Holy Place;
1b) Exo 26:31-33a, The pattern for the veil and its frame;
1c) Exo 26:33b, Placement of the ark of the covenant behind the veil;
central axis) Exo 26:33c-34, “The veil shall be a divider for you between the Holy Place and the Most Holy. You shall put the mercy seat upon the ark of the Testimony in the Most Holy;”
2c) Exo 26:35, Placement of the table and lampstand in the Holy Place;
2b) Exo 26:36-37 {s} The pattern for the screen and its frame;
2a) Exo 27:1-19 {s+s} Pattern for furnishings (altar), curtains, frame for the outer court.
There is a loose end; the first parsha of this portion, Exo 25:1-9 {s} The offering commanded to build the Tabernacle, does not fit neatly within this structure. We have seen loose ends like this before in Torah, and usually they are elements of a greater structure spanning several parashiot or even the whole book.
The central axis throws the spotlight on the purpose for the veil: to be a divider between the Holy Place, and the Most Holy Place wherein was the mercy seat of God. The Most Holy Place contained the ark of the Testimony. It was over the mercy seat on the ark that God met with Moses (Exo 25:22), so that the place of His presence was above the mercy seat.
But access to His presence was divided off by a divider, the thick, heavy veil, which separated God from man. The veil did not just “screen” God from the Holy Place – it “screened” God from the entire world. Only the High Priest could enter behind the veil, and this only once per year, to offer atonement for himself and for Israel on the Day of Atonement.
So I ask myself, why make the divider, which separates man from the presence and mercy of God, the central axis of the tabernacle? For these chapters in terumah contain nearly all the blueprint for the entire tabernacle: Most Holy Place, Holy Place, and Outer Court. I believe it is precisely because that at the moment of Yeshua’s sacrifice on the cross, only one thing changed in the tabernacle. This divider was rent asunder so that it was torn in two (Mat 27:51).
The dividing wall is the central axis of the tabernacle (God dwelling with man), so that the act of its removal would likewise be the central axis of the new tabernacle, that is, the church, the Body of Messiah on this earth. So the presence of God, the mercy of God which covers over our transgressions of the Law because He is seeking to love us, spread out from the Most Holy Place to touch the whole world, because of Yeshua our Messiah. He is the way through the veil. Our High Priest has made atonement for our sins.
We who have been raised in the church might not realize what a monumental shock and paradigm shift this is in the history of the world. Since the day of satan’s rebellion against God, God has been making separations in His “uni”verse (Gen 1 and following), until the damage to its unity with God could be undone. YHVH’s priesthood nation, which stood between Him and the rest of the world, could not even breach this separation without death, except in a very limited prescribed case. For 1500 years Israel had been ingrained with concept of the holiness of the presence of God which must not be transgressed. But at the central point of history, at the crucifixion of Messiah, the dividing wall comes down. Access to God and His mercy is now open. The door is standing open in heaven (Rev 4:1).
And the Spirit and the bride say, “Come!” And let him who hears say, “Come!” And let him who thirsts come. Whoever desires, let him take the water of life freely. Rev 22:17
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