Old Testament Symbolism
Old Testament Symbolism
These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the culmination of the ages has come. (I Corinthians 10:11)
I am using the term "symbolism" instead of types, shadows, allegories, similes, and so forth. I hope you will indulge me this latitude as it simplifies matters.
As you might have expected I will begin with my old favorite, the "four great types." These are: the days of creation; the Tabernacle of the Congregation; the journey of Israel from Egypt to Canaan; and the seven feasts of the Lord.
These four all tell us the same story. Our redemption begins while we are in spiritual darkness. It progresses until we are at rest with Christ in the Person and will of the Father.
I have written much concerning the seven feasts of the Lord. It is my point of view that in our time the program of redemption has proceeded as far as the spiritual fulfillment of Pentecost, that is, to the fourth of the seven celebrations.
Considering the work of the Spirit of God from the days of the Protestant Reformers, which I understand to be the beginning of the latter or spring rain, I would surmise that the twentieth century was the "Pentecostal Century," in that speaking in tongues spread across the world to an unprecedented extent.
Now the Spirit is presenting the final three celebrations: the Blowing of Trumpets; the Day of Atonement; and Tabernacles. Those believers who are listening to the Spirit of God and obeying Christ are confessing and turning away from their sins, in the spiritual fulfillment of the Day of Atonement, of Reconciliation to God.
Another symbol of God's plan of redemption is the Tabernacle of the Congregation with its seven furnishings, of which the Lampstand is number four. The Lampstand corresponds to the feast of Pentecost. They both are number four in a series of seven symbols.
Four is halfway between one and seven. Since the Divine redemption has as its goal the overcoming of all sin and self-will, the driving of all evil from the creation, we might conjecture that today we are at the midpoint of this struggle.
The foundation for our release from the authority and power of Satan was accomplished on the cross of Calvary. Now God is ready to finish the task of removing all sin and self-will from His creation. He is beginning with His Church.
This is why we are being urged by the Spirit to confess our sins; also, to remain patiently in our "prisons" until our self-will has been destroyed and we are content to rest in God's will as expressed through the Lord Jesus Christ.
God created man and woman with the intention of forming them in His image and making them His eternal house, resting place, and throne. God will not cease working until this plan has been completed perfectly.
As I said, we are halfway there. The future indeed is glorious for every believer who presses forward to the Omega of redemption.
A third symbol of God's program of redemption is the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark as a whole may be viewed as Christ—Head and Body, the Servant of the Lord.
The solid-gold Lid of Reconciliation, the representation of the Fullness of the Glory of God, rested upon the Ark.
Within the Ark were the granite slabs on which were written the Ten Commandments. Also, the memorial Jar of Manna. Alongside the Ark, if my understanding is correct, was placed Aaron's Rod that budded.
It is significant that, unlike the other furnishings of the Tabernacle, the poles by which the Ark was carried were not removed from the Ark when Israel was encamped. This points out a fact that may be important.
The permanent position of the poles may be telling us that the Ark with its three objects always is on the move. It may be true that its destination may be revealed in the cherubim.
If we are to proceed to the fullness of God, the three "furnishings" of the Ark always must be active in us.
Of greatest importance is the Covenant, the Testimony, the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are the "King," we might say, the Nature of God that governs His creature with all authority and power. It is the iron scepter of righteousness.
Melchizedek was "king of righteousness."
And Abraham gave him a tenth of everything. First, the name Melchizedek means "king of righteousness"; then also, "king of Salem" means "king of peace." (Hebrews 7:2)
The Ten Commandments are not the final form of the eternal moral law, but a representative of it. The fullness of the eternal moral law is found in the Lord Jesus Christ Himself. This is why the new covenant is not written on granite but on the human heart. It is "Christ in us, the Hope of glory."
The Sermon on the Mount, Matthew, Chapter Five through Seven, spoken by the Lord Jesus Christ, is the Law from Zion and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem. Taken as a whole it is the eternal Sabbath of God. We can obey these admonitions if we keep asking the Lord Jesus to help us. The keeping of them will conform us to His image.
As we grow in the new covenant, the Word of God is written in our mind and heart. When it has been completed in us, we will be the Word of God—no less than this.
Please keep in mind that He who is writing His Word in us spoke into existence all that is contained in the firmament above us. So yes, He certainly can form the dust of the ground into His Word!
For those God foreknew he also predestined to be conformed to the image of his Son, that he might be the firstborn among many brothers and sisters. (Romans 8:29)
It may be true that the Divine redemption is a bit grander than we have considered!
The Ten Commandments, and their eternal form in the new covenant, testify of the Character of God. God's Character is as a lion that brooks no competitors. When God has completed His work of redemption, all of His creatures who have been saved from destruction will behave in the image of God's Character.
After they have been clothed with immortality, they will be in the likeness of His outer appearance.
It seems to me that Satan's most successful work in the Christian churches has been that of persuading the believers that belief in Christ is the important thing, not righteous behavior. That belief in Christ is more important than obedience to Christ, appears to be a common misunderstanding.
Thus the most important feature of the Divine redemption, righteousness of behavior, which is the image of God, is defeated. God's people are under the impression that the new covenant brings them to Heaven by "grace," meaning regardless of how they behave, apart from any moral change in their personality..
We ought to know better than this, but we don't. Consequently the immediate future will be filled with all sorts of chastisements that have as their purpose the turning of the believers to righteous behavior in the Lord Jesus.
God never will fellowship with or work with unrighteousness!
So the granite slabs on which were written the Ten Commandments, the Covenant, were placed in the ever moving Ark—Christ, Head and Body.
Which had the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron's staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant. (Hebrews 9:4)
The Bible informs us that the Law shall go forth from Zion and the Word of the Lord from Jerusalem. The Words the nations shall hear are those of the Sermon on the Mount.
Many nations will come and say, "Come, let us go up to the mountain of the Lord, to the temple of the God of Jacob. He will teach us his ways, so that we may walk in his paths." The law will go out from Zion, the word of the Lord from Jerusalem. (Micah 4:2)
What Law and Word of the Lord shall go forth in the last days if it is not the Sermon on the Mount (Matthew, Chapters Five through Seven)? These are the Word of the Lord Jesus that shall endure when the heavens and earth pass away.
Heaven and earth will pass away, but my words will never pass away. (Matthew 24:35)
It is not the Law of Moses that will go forth from Zion and Jerusalem, because, according to the Book of Galatians, that law has been superseded by the new covenant. In the new covenant the Law of the Spirit of God is not written on stone tablets but on the fleshly tables of our heart.
In addition to the stone slabs on which were written the Ten Commandments, there was a jar of manna in the Ark. The Memorial Jar of Manna represents our dependence on the Lord for everything. We are learning to "lean on our Beloved."
We depend on many resources, don't we: money, our government, our family, our friends, our health, our education, our talents, perhaps our church. Little by little God knocks our props from under us until we find ourselves trusting in God for everything. This is the message of the daily manna.
Think of it! For forty years the Israelites depended on the daily manna for their food. Forty years! That the manna was in front of their tents every morning is a vivid illustration of God's faithfulness.
It probably takes many years before some of us really trust God. But learning such trust is absolutely necessary if we are to move forward to the fullness God has for us.
Last but not least is Aaron's Rod that budded. This speaks to us of resurrection life, which is the Life by which all of God's chosen leaders rule. It is the crown of life!
The history of the Christian Church should have been one of the actions of the Spirit of God. Instead it has been one of the actions of religious people.
The fourth chapter of the Book of Hebrews exhorts us to enter the "rest" of God. When we are living in the rest of God we are very conscious of the leading of the Spirit of God. We seek continually to look to the Spirit and obey the Spirit.
The Spirit of God is the new-covenant counterpart of the old-covenant Law of Moses. The Jewish festival of Pentecost is associated with the giving of the Law of Moses on Mount Sinai.
The Apostle Paul to the end of his days was endeavoring to press into the fullness of the first resurrection from the dead. This would mean that his thinking, speaking, and behaving were under the wisdom and power of the Spirit of God.
The term "Christ" refers to the fact that the Lord Jesus lives and moves by the anointing of God's Spirit.
But we are rewarded with the Life of the Spirit only as we "die" to our own self-life, our own plans, ambitions, wisdom, imaginations. We cannot follow the Holy Spirit and our self-will at the same time.
This reminds us of Melchizedek who ministered by the power of an endless life.
And what we have said is even more clear if another priest like Melchizedek appears, one who has become a priest not on the basis of a regulation as to his ancestry but on the basis of the power of an indestructible life. (Hebrews 7:15,16)
It is God's will that every member of the Body of Christ live in the power of an indestructible life, that is, in eternal life. But that means we are living in righteous behavior, as was Melchizedek.
For the perishable must clothe itself with the imperishable, and the mortal with immortality. (I Corinthians 15:53)
The verse above is referring to the resurrection of the body when the Lord Jesus returns.
In order for this to be true of us we must agree to experience the sufferings of Christ.
For we who are alive are always being given over to death for Jesus' sake, so that his life may also be revealed in our mortal body. (II Corinthians 4:11)
The verse above is referring to the resurrection of our inward nature, which makes us competent and eligible to receive an incorruptible body when Jesus appears..
There are people like Aaron and Moses who were chosen by the Lord to occupy positions of prominence. Then there are others like Korah, Dathan, and Abiram who, because they are jealous, endeavor to supplant those whom God has chosen. But they do not have the Spirit of God.
This jealousy and desire to supplant the place of another was true in the day of Moses; has continued to be true throughout history as we see in the behavior of the Pharisees; and often is true today.
This is why so many of our churches are dead spiritually. They are not operated by the Spirit of God but by human ambition.
There is yet another symbol that, I believe, represents even more of the fullness of God than is true of the Ark of the Covenant. I am referring to the four cherubim.
Their faces looked like this: Each of the four had the face of a human being, and on the right side each had the face of a lion, and on the left the face of an ox; each also had the face of an eagle. (Ezekiel 1:10)
Perhaps these faces portray what will be true of the believer who has been redeemed fully.
Of greatest importance may be the face of a human being. It is the human being who is God's image and to whom it has been given to be the house, resting place, and throne of God.
I was glancing through a magazine the other day and I saw a picture of a little girl standing outside the glass cage of an aquarium. I would guess the girl was about ten years old.
Facing her from inside the glass tank, floating in the water, was a hippopotamus. The weight of the hippopotamus was stated as 4,000 pounds. The girl was studying the hippopotamus and the animal was studying her.
Then it came to me so clearly that human beings indeed represent God to all of the other creatures. The important face of the cherub is that of a human being.
Next to the face of a human being is the face of a lion. As I see it, this face tells us of the eternal moral law of God. We ordinarily do not think of the law as a lion, but it is.
The lion is the king of the jungle. So it is that the eternal moral law of God, as expressed by the Lord Jesus, is the King that is destined finally to command all human behavior.
One of the great errors of our day places the will of man as the supreme "right" of all creation. The person who is "in control" is admired; and increasingly so each day, it appears.
This is a destructive situation. The only valid will in the universe is the will of God. The will of God proceeds from God's desires, but it always is governed by His moral nature, His standard of right and wrong.
God always is righteous, and He wants His children always to be righteous, not just in an imputed sense but in actual behavior. Nothing else is acceptable to the God of Heaven!
The will of man often is not governed by God's standards of right and wrong.
Under the old covenant, God's standard of right and wrong was expressed in the Ten Commandments. Under the new covenant God's standard of right and wrong is expressed in the Lord Jesus Christ. As through Christ we embrace what is good and renounce and reject what is evil, our personality is conformed to God's standard of right and wrong.
This change in us is what we mean when we say that Christ is being formed in us.
But solid food is for the mature, who by constant use have trained themselves to distinguish good from evil. (Hebrews 5:14)
So we have the human being and the lion as two faces of the cherub. Jesus Christ and His saints will govern mankind throughout the thousand-year Kingdom Age, and they shall rule with the scepter of iron, uncompromising, righteousness.
Throughout the thousand-year Kingdom age the people of the nations (the "sheep") will be taught the Sermon on the Mount. The enforcement of these laws will be without compromise. The precepts of Christ's Word will not be regarded as suggestions, as they are today in so many instances.
The third face of the four cherubim is that of an ox.
The mature believer always has work to do. Do you remember how Jesus said, "I have finished the work You gave Me to do"?
The Lord Jesus addressed very severely the servant who buried his talent. Jesus called him lazy and wicked and sent him into the darkness.
The Bible says that much increase is by the strength of the ox. It is true that if we are to provide "food" for God's household we must be willing to work hard.
Faith is an important aspect of the Kingdom of God. So is hard work. God is not pleased with lazy believers!
Then comes the face of the eagle. We ought always to be flying in prayer rather than worrying or scheming! Eagles are relatively clumsy when they are walking around, aren't they?
The Eagle represents the Spirit of God. It is the Spirit of God who puts the deeds of our body to death when we confess them and then renounce and turn away from them. When we do this, the Spirit puts these sinful actions to death.
When the Spirit puts to death the sinful actions of our flesh, we then can fly; we are released from the chains of sin that bind us to the earth.
Babylon, which is a religious program operated by the will and talents of human beings, would have us slave away at ecclesiastical projects. But the Lord Jesus, if we will get our eyes off people, teaches us to fly.
We need to read the Song of Solomon every so often. Our Beloved is not a dignified elder statesman. Rather, He comes bounding over the hills. He is pleased when we skip along with Him.
It is so undeniably true that our world is the valley of the shadow of death. It will "kill" us if we let it.
But if we will walk carefully with the Lord Jesus, we will find opportunities to soar in the heavens, even when we are bearing the load of responsibility for others who find it difficult to serve the Lord.
My beloved spake, and said unto me, Rise up, my love, my fair one, and come away. For, lo, the winter is past, the rain is over and gone. (Song of Solomon 2:10,11)
The human being, the Lion, the Ox, and the Eagle, characterize the mature believer. Our faithful observance of the three articles of the Ark of the Testimony bring us to the four faces of the cherubim, which are the image of God Himself.
Remember, it is the little girl who controls the hippopotamus, that is, it is her race that put the hippopotamus in the glass tank.
The cherubim have wings and are able to fly.
The cherubim are full of eyes. God reveals all things to them, although they are blind to the things of the world.
The cherubim do not turn but always go straight forward.
There is a wheel in the middle of a wheel. When we have been made complete in Christ in God, there will be a wheel in the middle of a wheel. On the throne of our life will be four Persons: The Father, the Son, the Spirit, and ourselves.
Above the vault over their heads was what looked like a throne of lapis lazuli, and high above on the throne was a figure like that of a man. I saw that from what appeared to be his waist up he looked like glowing metal, as if full of fire, and that from there down he looked like fire; and brilliant light surrounded him. Like the appearance of a rainbow in the clouds on a rainy day, so was the radiance around him.
This was the appearance of the likeness of the glory of the Lord. When I saw it, I fell facedown, and I heard the voice of one speaking. (Ezekiel 1:26-28 )