The Messiah in Moses and the Prophets

by Eleazar Lord

Doubtless Moses previously understood the true doctrine concerning the person, mediation, and sacrifice of the Divine Mediator; but to qualify him to teach this doctrine and to enforce the duties connected with it, an exhibition was made to him of that Person in the form in which he was to make atonement by the sacrifice of himself. On the occasion of receiving instruction concerning the tabernacle, being called up into the mount, he, with Nadab, Abihu, and seventy of the elders, saw the Elohe of Israel, in the likeness of the God-man, as appears from the allusion to his person, and what took place. “There was under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone.... Upon the nobles he laid not his hand.... They saw (the) Elohim, and did eat and drink.” They evidently saw his person in the form in which he was to execute the priestly office, and which was to be foreshown by the tabernacle. No man hath seen the Father. But Moses saw (the) Elohim, the Elohe of Israel, Jehovah, the Messenger, the God-man. On another occasion Jehovah came down and stood in the door of the tabernacle, and said, “With Moses will I speak mouth to mouth, even apparently, and not in dark speeches, and the similitude of Jehovah shall he behold.” Numb. i. He appeared in the form of man to Abraham, Jacob, and others, with no accompaniment of visible glory. Isaiah saw him, the King, Jehovah Zebaoth, seated on a throne; Ezekiel, in the likeness of a man on a throne, John, as the Son of man, clothed with a garment down to his feet.

After this manifestation to the leaders and elders of Israel, Moses went alone into the midst of the cloud on the mount, and remained there forty days, receiving instructions for himself and the people concerning the tabernacle. “And Jehovah spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering, &c.; ... and let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them. According to all that I show thee, after the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the instruments thereof, even so shall ye make it.” This perfect model, by an imitation of which he was to represent the incarnate person and sacerdotal work of Christ, was shown to him in the mount. No doubt a visible pattern of the tabernacle and its instruments was shown to him. That it was not a mental vision, or a verbal description merely, by which he was instructed, is clearly indicated by the phraseology above quoted from Exod. xxv. 9: “According to all that I show thee;” more strictly, “According to all that I make thee to see.”

Again, after a variety of directions concerning the table for the show-bread, the candlestick, and other articles of furniture, Jehovah said to Moses, “Look that thou make them after their pattern which was showed thee in the mount.” Exod. xxv. 40, and xxvi. 30. “Thou shalt rear up the tabernacle according to the fashion thereof which was showed thee in the mount.” And relating to the altar of burnt offerings: “Hollow with boards shalt thou make it: as it was showed thee in the mount, so shalt thou make it.” xxvii. 8. Again, at the dedication of the tabernacle it is said, “According unto the pattern which Jehovah had showed Moses, so he made the candlestick.” Numb. viii. 4.

This phraseology, accompanied as it is by minute verbal descriptions of the several objects, still refers to something more definite; a form, model, pattern, which he was strictly to imitate. The purposes to be answered required perfect accuracy in the copy. And hence the apostle, Heb. viii. 5, alluding to this scene, says: “Moses was admonished of God, when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, saith he, that thou make all things according to the pattern showed to thee in the mount.”

This construction is confirmed by a portion of subsequent history. When Solomon was about “to build an house for the sanctuary,” David, instructed by Divine inspiration in respect to the forms of different parts of the edifice, caused patterns or models thereof to be constructed for the guidance of his son. “Then David gave to Solomon the pattern of the porch, and of the houses thereof, and of the treasuries thereof, and of the upper chambers thereof, and of the place of the mercy-seat; and the pattern of all that he had by the Spirit, of the courts of the house of Jehovah, and of all the chambers round about, of the treasuries of the house of Elohim, and of the treasuries of the dedicated things.” 1 Chron. xxviii. In these services no discretion was left either to Moses or to Solomon. The things to be made were to be made in exact imitation of the patterns furnished.

If we suppose that Moses beheld the person of the Mediator in the likeness of man, and at the same time beheld the model of the tabernacle and its furniture, by a copy of which he was visibly to prefigure and represent the human nature and the official works of Christ, then the structure erected by him, with the throne, the altar, and all the instruments and rites of the Levitical service, will appear in the highest degree fitted to instruct the people in the great truths concerning his kingly and priestly offices. His consecration of the most holy apartment as his dwelling-place, answerable, as the place of his intercession and of his mediatorial throne to that in which he was to appear after his incarnation and ascension, will be intelligible; and the fact that there he reigned as King, dictated laws, and administered the Theocracy, and that he was on subsequent occasions soon in connection with the visible form and accompaniments of the tabernacle, by Isaiah, Ezekiel, and others, and lastly by John after his ascension, will appear consistent with all that is made known to us of his mediatorial agency and visible manifestations under the primeval, patriarchal, and Mosaic dispensations. During those dispensations he as truly officiated as Mediator as after the full realization of what the tabernacle prefigured; exercised the offices of Prophet, Priest, and King, and dwelt personally in the holy place of the tabernacle after that was prepared, till he formally forsook and withdrew from it, prior to the destruction of the first temple. His office and relations, as civil head and ruler of the nation, implied his personal presence. That, as their civil ruler, he was King in the same sense as other kingly rulers, appears from what is said when, through unbelief and desire of a leader and judge who should be always visible, they sinfully demanded a king from among themselves, like the kings of other nations: “Ye said, A king shall reign over us, when Jehovah your Elohe was your king.” 1 Sam. xii. 13.

From the oracle, the cover of the mercy-seat in the holy place within the veil, as one ever present, he spoke to Moses, dictated the laws which are recorded after the erection of the tabernacle, and gave responses to the high priest on special occasions, whenever appealed to, not only during the ministry of Moses, but afterwards. And it is to be noticed that, as there were during the earlier dispensations certain localities appropriated to Divine worship, where altars were erected to Jehovah and typical sacrifices offered, and Divine manifestations and revelations were vouchsafed; so, after the tabernacle was set up, and also after it was transferred to the temple, it was the place resorted to for oracular responses as well as for sacrifices of burnt offering. On the occasion of the war with Benjamin, “the children of Israel, and all the people, went up and came unto the house of Elohim, and wept, and sat there before Jehovah, and fasted that day until even, and offered burnt offerings and peace offerings before Jehovah. And the children of Israel inquired of Jehovah, (for the ark of the covenant of [the] Elohim was there in those days, and Phinehas the son of Aaron stood before it in those days,) saying, Shall I yet again go out to battle? &c.... And Jehovah said, Go up,” &c. Judges xx. Thence, in the days of Eli, Jehovah spoke to Samuel 1 Sam. iii. See also Joshua vii. 6; 1 Chron. xxi. 30; 2 Sam. xxii. 7; Psalm xviii. 6; xxvii. 4; Isaiah lxvi. 6.

Now, the tabernacle was erected expressly to be the dwelling-place of Jehovah as Mediator, “Let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.” Exod. xxv. 28, “Thou shalt put the mercy-seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shall put the testimony that I shall give thee. And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.” xxv. 21, 22. “There I will meet with the children of Israel, and the tabernacle shall be sanctified by my glory.... And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God, and they shall know that I am Jehovah their Elohe, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them.” xxix. 43, 45, 46. The tabernacle in the wilderness had its station in the midst of the camps; from the precincts of which all lepers were to be excluded, “that they defile not their camps in the midst whereof I dwell.” Numb. v. 3. So no satisfaction might be taken for the life of a murderer in the land of Canaan; for blood defiled the land, and it could not be cleansed “but by the blood of him that shed it. Defile not therefore the land which ye shall inhabit, wherein I dwell: for I Jehovah dwell among the children of Israel.” Numb. xxxv. 34. Accordingly we read that “the glory of Jehovah filled the tabernacle.... The cloud of Jehovah was upon the tabernacle by day, and fire was on it by night, in the sight of all the house of Israel throughout all their journeys.” Exod. xl. 34, 38.

All this phraseology plainly indicates the local presence of the Personal Word; as plainly as the records of his visible presence on any occasions. Various other scriptures confirm this. When king David said to Nathan, “See now, I dwell in an house of cedar, but the ark of God dwelleth within curtains,” Nathan was directed to “Go and tell David, Thus saith Jehovah, Shalt thou build me an house to dwell in? Whereas I have not dwelt in any house since the time that I brought up the children of Israel out of Egypt, even to this day; but have walked in a tent and in a tabernacle.” To this follow allusions to his dealings with David, and promises concerning the future. “Then went king David in [i. e. into the tabernacle] and sat before Jehovah, ... and made acknowledgments, thanksgivings, and prayers to Jehovah Zebaoth, the Elohe of Israel.” 2 Sam, vii.

It is thus manifest that the tabernacle was intended as the residence of the official Person, and with reference to his official works; and being a figure of his human nature, he dwelt in it, and exercised his prophetic, regal, and priestly offices in it, as he was to do afterwards when literally incarnate. If it represented his human nature, then doubtless he dwelt in it and if he dwelt in it in any sense answerable to his subsequent dwelling in the human nature, then he dwelt in it locally and personally. The services performed there accordingly imply and confirm this view. There was a shedding of blood, the blood of the covenant, which has flowed in every age, through which remission of sin was granted. See Levit. xvii. 2; Heb. ix. 22.