October 23, 2005

TWO TABERNACLES

2 Corinthians 5:1-11

 

   "For we know that if our earthly house of this tabernacle were dissolved, we have a building of God, an house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. For in this [tabernacle] we groan, earnestly desiring to be clothed upon with our house which is from heaven: If so be that being clothed we shall not be found naked. For we that are in this tabernacle do groan, being burdened..." (2 Cor. 5:1-4).

   Paul had gone to great lengths contrasting his ministry of the New Covenant with Moses' ministry of the Old Covenant. In this passage Paul took another page from Moses concerning the tabernacle of the wilderness. "Moses was admonished of God when he was about to make the tabernacle: for, See, said He, that you make all things according to the pattern shown you in the mount" (Heb. 8:5). Moses had seen the "true tabernacle" and built with human hands an "example and shadow of heavenly things."

   Thus Paul likened our earthly mortal bodies to Moses' tent and contrasted it with our promised bodies of glory which he likened to "the true tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man" (Heb. 8:2). What a picture of our bodies of glory in resurrection! Just as Israel 's temporary tabernacle in the wilderness was replaced with the temple in the land, even so our bodies of glory will be "not made with hands. They will be "like unto His own body of glory" when we are finally "present with the Lord" in resurrection. Such is our hope!

   That our body is pictured as our dwelling place is also pictured of the Lord in His humiliation. "A body has Thou prepared for me" was the Psalmist's prophecy of the Messiah. His body was in an earthly tabernacle wherein He would serve and finally present Himself a sacrifice for our sins. And as He and we have borne the image of the earthy, even so will we share His image, our heavenly glorified Savior! As God has highly exalted Him, and seated Him far above the heavens, even so He has invited us to share His place of His glorious exaltation. To prepare us for such honor we are given bodies of glory fashioned like unto His body of glory. Surely he is able to subdue all things unto Himself. Is there anything too hard for the Lord?

 

Ivan L. Burgener