Exodus 40:1-2a
VA’YIDABER YHVH EL-MOSHE LEY’MOR:
BE’YOM-HA’CHODESH HA’RISHON BE’ECHAD LA’CHODESH
TA’KIM ET-MISH’KAN OHEL MO’ED:
VE’SAM’TAH SHAM ET ARON HA’EI’DUT….
And YHVH spoke to Moses saying:
On The First Day of the New Moon, the First of the Month,
you shall erect the Mishkan, the Tent of Meeting
and you shall place into it the Ark of the Testimony….
40:17-18a
VA’YE’HI BA’CHODESH HA’RISHON BASH’SHANA HA’SHENI BE’ECHAD LA’CHODESH
HUKAM HA’MISHKAN:
VA’YAKAM MOSHE ET-HAM’MISHKAN…
It was in the first month of the second year, on the first of the month,
that the Mishkan was set up:
Moses erected the Mishkan….
These devotions are an integration of Torah and Gospel. Therefore, the comments on this passage are going to be very significant where Messianic theology is concerned.
First, note that DATES and TIMES are extremely important in the economies of God. All it takes to realize that God’s works are precise is to note the ABSOLUTE PRECISION of the workings of the Cosmos and of Life within it: see my book DESIGNED LIFE for just an introduction to this fact; take the course from Hebraic Christian College on the DESIGNED LIFE THESIS to comprehend even further the absolute intricacy and precision of the creative and redemptive works of God in the Universe, in the Earth within our Galaxy and in the Human Body within the overall complex of biological Life. For instance, it has been estimated that the odds of the physical constants* that govern the operations of the Cosmos having come about by random means rather than by Divine Design are like throwing a dart across the vast diameter of the Universe and striking a bull’s eye that is smaller than a pea. Such a credulous idea flows from an assumption of absolute materialism, and that assumption results in what Creationists consider to be a case of a priori intellectual distortion.
[*over twenty-two major ones besides up to a hundred or more lesser ones]
Consider that Moses erected the Mishkan on the anniversary of the day when the Passover Lamb was taken for inspection before the day of Passover just five days later on the New Moon of Nissan in the year of the Exodus. Therefore, the erecting of the Mishkan in which the Divine Presence took up permanent residence among the Covenant People of Israel was a precise event coordinated to the selection of the Perfect Lamb of Sacrifice, the Lamb whose blood covered the Israelite families and shielded them from Death. That event then paved the way for the Divine Presence to reside among the Blood-Bought People of God in a culture of LIFE freed from the domination of Condemnation and Death.
[Deuteronomy 30:19; Psalm 103:1-5 etc.; cf. 1 Corinthians 15 for an apostolic elaboration of this important truth.]
Is it not obvious what this means in terms of the New Covenant that has been purchased and inaugurated by the Sacrificial Blood of our Lord, Jesus the Messiah, and by the offering up of his Precious Body once for all for sins? The physical erecting of the Tabernacle of Witness in the Desert by the Hand of the Anointed Redeemer Moses has been consummated as to its prophetic potency by the Spirit of Messiah in the raising up of the Messianic Community to be the Spiritual Habitation of God on Earth; this is so throughout all cycles of Redemption that extend far into the prophetic future, farther than our eyes can now see and our ears can now hear. The climax of Redemption is best seen in Revelation 21-22 in the matter of the descent of the New Jerusalem to Earth as the Eternal Home of the Redeemed, a cohabitation with God and the Lamb in Transcendence; when this occurs, Heaven will merge with the Temporal Creation to fulfill God’s eternal intent for all His creative works, world without end; and we His Redeemed People, Jew and Gentile as One in Messiah, will operate within and throughout all creations of God in all times and all eternities.
This is sufficient for a devotional contemplation. But please realize that the entire Bible is an explication of the details of the Redemption pointed to in the passage in Exodus 40. The precision of God’s Works and the perfection of His Times is a breathtaking truth. Let your soul take comfort in knowing that God is overseeing the development of your life within the grand schema of His purpose for all his designs. “He who began a good work in you will continue to bring it to completion until the day when our Lord returns to take unto himself his Eternal Bride.” (Philippians 1:6, q.v.)
