Exodus: The Lord and His Pilgrimsনমুনা

A colourful scene

I am sure that every item of the tabernacle has a message to tell (cf. Heb. 9:5). Sometimes the symbols are explained; sometimes we apply our best thought and imagination to fathom their meaning. The essential thing is to understand symbols only illustrate and clarify truths plainly stated elsewhere in the Bible. 

So what about the colours used in the tabernacle? They run right through our verses today, don’t they? Yes, but not haphazardly. The curtains covering the whole tabernacle are blue, purple and scarlet, plus the white of fine linen (26:1), which are the colours used to express the identity of the whole dwelling. The same colours mark the way in – the door of the court (27:16), the entrance of the tent (26:36), and the curtain into the Holy of Holies (vv. 31–33) – and finally the distinctively priestly garment (28:4–5), the ephod (v. 6) and its associated woven band (v. 8) and breastplate (v. 15). 

Each of these items is a whole study in itself, but, standing back from the whole, we can follow the clue given in Hebrews 10:20: ‘the veil, that is, His flesh’. As one chorus puts it well, the Lord Jesus Christ is the ‘way back to God from the dark paths of sin’ and ‘a door that is open and you may go in’. Through him we come into his courts. Just as priests enter the tabernacle, we, through the rent veil of Jesus’ flesh and by his priestly work, are welcome into the Holiest place itself. At the instant, split-second of his death, the veil was torn from top to bottom (Mark 15:37– 38). All this the tabernacle expresses in the symbolism of its colours: the door of the court, the entrance of the tent and the tent itself are overshadowed in blue, purple, scarlet and white linen, together with the lovely veil of the Holy of Holies, now torn in two through Jesus’ sacrificial death, who is the Great High Priest himself who ‘obtained eternal redemption’ for us (Heb. 9:12). He alone, in the unity of one perfect Person, is the blue of heavenly origin, the purple of royal lineage and dignity, the scarlet of the atoning sacrifice for sin, and the white linen of unstained purity and moral majesty. 

Reflection

Stand in the tabernacle and look up: Jesus is over us, but also those coloured curtains are all around us: we are ‘in Christ’, where we find redemption (Rom. 3:24); no condemnation (Rom. 8:1); inseparable love (Rom. 8:35); status as a child of God (Gal. 3:26); every spiritual blessing (Eph. 1:4); and our life is hid with Christ in God (Col. 3:3).