I wanted to share some thoughts concerning the “spiritualizing” or “typifying” of the many aspects of the Wilderness Tabernacle.
I do believe the Lord wants us to recognize patterns and pictures in Scripture, but I think unless the Bible specifically calls something a “type” or “pattern”, we have no business saying that it is.
I believe there is plenty to learn from what the Bible teaches plainly without having to nit-pick what the Bible “implies” or “may say”.
And I’m sure you’re all very well aware of the lengths some people will go to in twisting the plain meaning of Scripture to fit one’s predetermined doctrinal assumptions.
I’ve been there myself, so I’m not pointing my finger at anybody.
While doing some research, I was amazed at the variety of interpretations out there that are applied to the colors and covering of the Tabernacle’s tent sanctuary.
For example, I heard one teacher say that the outer covering was plain in appearance and therefore pointed to Yeshua’s common appearance as prophesied in Isaiah 53 that “He was not well-formed or especially handsome; we saw him, but his appearance did not attract us”.
Another interesting teaching I came across pointed out that with the coverings, there was a progression from the more beautiful to the less attractive.
The first covering of the finest white linen woven with blue, purple and scarlet and decorated with cherubim was the most beautiful and the unattractive badger skin covering on the outside was the least attractive.
The point of that particular lesson was that the beauty and splendor of God is not necessarily to be judged by surface appearances.
But as with many things in the kingdom of God, the harder we search and the deeper we look for the things of God, the more beauty and splendor we will find.
And I’m sure you’ve heard that the second covering of rams’ skins being dyed red foreshadows the blood of redemption that Yeshua shed for us.
Or that the third covering being black signifies the blackness, evil, and sins of the world that that were covered by the blood Yeshua shed for us.
While reading through the variety of interpretations, to be honest with you, some seemed to make good sense (like the color red representing Yeshua’s shed blood) while others seemed to be a bit of a stretch.
And that’s the problem I have with all of this seeing Yeshua in everything left and right and up and down and diagonally in the Scriptures.
It’s the darn lack of consistency.
So after wracking my brains over this for a good solid 4 hours or so last night and getting feedback from those much, much more learned than me (thank you Kathy!), my conclusion in a nutshell is that there isn’t any direct connection between the coverings of the Tabernacle and Yeshua.
And I’m well aware there are about 20 billion Christian sites out there that say the opposite.
Look man, if I wanted to I could find a way to see Yeshua in the ice coffee I’m drinking right now.
Sometimes the good ole plain meaning of the text is best!
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