Jesus Christ in the Old Testament Session 5

Session Five: Theoderm: The Holy Skin of God in the Tabernacle, Altar, and Priesthood
In this session we’ll discuss the Theoderm, or The Holy Skin of God in the Tabernacle, Altar, and Priesthood.
Session Notes

What We Will Learn Today

God’s House as a New Garden of Eden
The Sacred Locations of God
Adam and Eve as the First Priests
The Tabernacle as the Skin of God
Christ as the High Priest
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Theoderm: The Holy Skin of God in the Tabernacle, Altar, and Priesthood

We read the Bible backwards and forwards. Like a novelist writes the beginning of his book with a view to the end, so God the divine Author wrote Genesis with a view to Revelation (and vice versa).

From Eden to the tabernacle to the temple to the Incarnation and the church, God is establishing his kingdom in creation.
The Creation account reads like the construction of the tabernacle and the tabernacle like the Creation account. God’s house is a new Eden.

All the individual parts of the tabernacle proclaim the person and work of the Messiah, who is the new tabernacle of God.

The Sacred locations of God:

Eden
Tabernacle
Temple
Incarnation
Proclaim God’s will to make earth and heaven his holy dwelling place with his priestly people in the Messiah.

Torah Doppelgangers: Creation and the Tabernacle 

In Genesis 1, God is a divine priest overseeing a cosmic liturgy.
Language: badal (separate) and mo’ed (times) and ohel mo’ed (tent of meeting)
Creation is a liturgical event and the tabernacle is a creational event—and both are the Christological epiphany of God’s ultimate salvation
Other Parallels Between Creation and the Tabernacle:
Gen. 1:31 and Exodus. 39:43 have the same word for “saw”
In Gen 2:1 Exodus 39:32 the Hebrew of “completed” is the same root.
Gen. 2: and Exodus 40:33 The Hebrew of “completed” and “work” are the same roots in both passages.
Gen 2:3, “Gen 2:3 and Exodus 39:43, The Hebrew roots of “blessed” and “all the work” are the same.

Adam and Eve: The Priests in the Garden Sanctuary

Guarding and Keeping: the two verbs, shamar and avad, are used to describe the duties of Adam and Eve as well as the priests and Levites (Gen 2:15; Exod 12:24-25; Deut 12:12-13; Number 3-4).
Priests and Levites were God’s new Adams and Eves in the Eden Tabernacle and Temple.
Christ is the High Priest who keeps the Father’s word and guards us from the evil one by placing us in the new Eden and tabernacle of his body
Eden itself is the first temple
Flora and Fauna: The tabernacle

The tabernacle (and later the temple) also looked like Eden iconographically because there were numerous flora and fauna there
The message was unmistakable: this place is a paradise, a garden, an Eden, where God dwells amongst his people as of old.
Kings 6 and Exodus 25 tell of the intricate carvings and depictions of plants and animals.
All parts of the tabernacle/temple, in some way, partake of creation and anticipate the recreation given in the Messiah

Theoderm: The Tabernacle as the Skin of God

Altar—the axis of heaven and earth. The place of sacrifice. The cross
Wash Basin—priests washed their hands and feet herein, as NT priests are washed in baptism. Hebrews 10:22
Building itself—the body of Jesus. John 1:14 and 2:21
Lampstand: the illuminating tree of life in this new Eden, the image of the Holy Spirit and the churches. Revelation 1:4, 12, 20.
Bread of the Presence: the most holy bread which gave holiness to the priests as they ate it—a foretaste of the Eucharists

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