Even as we consider the tabernacle of old, we see how God has made provision for our sin through the death and resurrection of Christ. Even at our best, we cannot behold His glory, but in Christ, we can reflect it to the world.
Who can approach your glory and live, oh Lord? Can oil and water erase the stain of sin?
Can any lampstand burn bright enough to snuff out the shadow of death? Is there any garment which can shield Adam’s children from your just wrath? Can any dust-made man, a creature doomed to the grave, stand before God in another’s place?
It is vanity, all vanity, without you, oh God.
But thanks to God through Jesus Christ! Absorbing sin, appeasing wrath, reconciling God and man, your plan of old, this mystery of salvation, has been revealed to us in Christ.
Aaron died, as did his children. No lamb or bull ever climbed off the altar. But death could not bind you, Jesus. No grave stone could conceal your righteousness. You rose and conquered death!
Were it not so, we should be pitied for the sake of vanity, but your resurrection gives a living hope to the lives of all who repent and believe.
Create an awe for your name and embolden our faith as we meditate on the narrative history of your grand salvation.
Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. And Moses was not able to enter the tent of meeting because the cloud settled on it, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Throughout all their journeys, whenever the cloud was taken up from over the tabernacle, the people of Israel would set out. But if the cloud was not taken up, then they did not set out till the day that it was taken up (Exodus 40:34-37).
