02.11. THE HANGINGS
THE HANGINGS THE word, “hanging,” is applied exclusively to three special curtains. The one at the gate of the Court, the one at the entrance of the Tabernacle and the third which hung from the four pillars between the Holy and the Most Holy Place. The last was designated as “The Vail.”
Each was of fine twined linen with blue, purple and scarlet color wrought in with needlework. The vail alone had the colors wrought into the forms of the cherubim. As it enclosed the Most Holy Place it formed a constituent part of the ten curtains, taking the place of the eleventh curtain and like them. THE HANGING OF THE GATE OF THE COURT
“And for the gate of the court shall be an hanging of twenty cubits of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen, wrought with needlework: and their pillars shall be four, and their sockets four.” (Exodus 27:16.) As there were ten pillars on this end, the four represent the central pillars, three on either side. In this hanging you have our Lord Jesus Christ as –The Way. He is the one and only way any man can come to God and find Him to be a Father.
He says so:
“I am the way, no man cometh to the Father, but by me.” (John 14:6.) But mark it well-the moment that hanging was lifted up or pushed aside it brought him who would enter there and into the Court face to face with the brazen altar, the altar of bloody sacrifice.
He could not enter in without accepting the sacrifice and its shed blood, without owning and confessing it as the sole ground of his approach to God; nay, he must himself bring the sacrifice, slay it and appropriate it for himself. Our Lord Jesus Christ is, indeed, the way to the Father. He is the Son and knows Him as the son knows a father; but you can no more separate our Lord from His relation to the cross as the altar of His sacrificial death than you could separate the gate from its relation to the brazen altar.
Just as the way led by that altar and over bloodstained ground, every inch of it a bloodstained way to the Tabernacle and the symbolic presence of God, so also our Lord Jesus Christ as the way to the Father is such only as you go by the cross, own Him thereon as your sacrifice for sin, as your substitute pouring out His blood for you. THE HANGING OF THE TABERNACLE
“And he (Moses) made an hanging for the tabernacle (that is, for the five pillars of the front of the Tabernacle) of blue, and purple and scarlet, and fine twined linen of needlework.” (Exodus 36:37-38.) If the hanging of the Gate represent our Lord Jesus Christ as the Way, this hanging sets Him forth as The Truth.
He says He is very and essential truth. “I am the truth.” (John 14:6.) The hanging at the five pillars was a way, it was a door, but it was also a revelation, a revelation of the truth concerning the Tabernacle. When the priest passed under the hanging he was face to face with the golden symbols within. In these symbols He saw the truth of God’s way in grace, in redemption and glory.
Outside of that hanging he could not know the truth of the Tabernacle, the truth it alone could reveal. Our Lord Jesus Christ is the antitype of all that. He is the revelation of God.
He is the revelation of God as the Father.
He is the revelation of God as the God of infinite love.
He reveals Him as the God of measureless grace. He reveals Him as a God who is able to save unto the uttermost all who come unto Him by faith in His crucified, self-immolated and risen Son. He reveals Him as the God of glory, the God who will give grace and glory and no good thing withhold from them who put their trust in Him.
He is the full and complete disclosure of God. He is the truth about God.
He is the truth of God.
He is the God of truth.
He is God manifest in the flesh.
Since He is God in the flesh and the truth of God He is indeed entitled to say, “I am the truth;” and fittingly does the hanging which revealed the truth of the Tabernacle symbolize Him as the truth. THE VAIL
“And thou shalt make a vail of blue, and purple, and scarlet, and fine twined linen of cunning work: with cherubims shall it be made. And thou shalt hang it upon four pillars of shittim wood overlaid with gold: their hooks shall be of gold, upon the four sockets of silver. And thou shalt hang up the vail under the taches, that thou mayest bring in thither within the vail the ark of the testimony: and the vail shall divide unto you between the holy place and the most holy.” (Exodus 26:31-33.)
Beautiful as were the other two hangings, this was transcendently beautiful, gorgeous in color, mysterious in the outspreading wings, awesome, strange, terrible in the figure of the lion, the ox and the eagle, but above all, in the face of the man looking out from the midst and dominating, the very look like that of a spoken command.
If the hanging at the gate represent our Lord as the Way, and the hanging at the door of the Tabernacle represent Him as the Truth, the Vail should be a symbol of Him as Life, thus making the trinity of His claimed appellatives complete:
“I am the way, the truth and the life.”
He is that life which from all eternity was with the Father, and for our redemption was made flesh, became visible, could be seen and handled; as it is written:
“That which was from the beginning, which we heard, which we have seen with our eyes, which we have looked upon, and our hands have handled, of the Word of life; (For the life was manifested, and we have seen it, and bear witness, and shew unto you that eternal life, which was with the Father, and was manifested unto us.”) (1 John 1:1-2.)
Since the vail (as we shall see more fully in the next chapter) is a symbol of our Lord incarnate, as eternal life incarnate, then as the first two hangings proclaim. Him the way and the truth, it is a demonstration that the vail sets Him forth as that life by which alone any man can enter within the vail in Heaven and have eternal part with God as His child.