Wednesday night at sundown, the Feast of
Tabernacles drew to a close. This feast is my favorite to
study because of the symbolism that speaks to the Lord’s person and ministry,
who came and tabernacled with
us. The reason I love examining the feasts, is to
celebrate the Christology in them and the fulfillment of them in Christ. I do
not “keep” the feasts, but I study them to gain an understanding of end-time
events. Not all of the feasts have been fulfilled. The fall feasts, (The
Feast of Trumpets, The
Feast of Tabernacles, and the Day of
Atonement), speak to future events.
“Nothing that has yet taken place, answers to this season of festive joy; its answers are to be found in the future day of glory when Christ and His risen saints shall fill the heavens above, reigning and rejoicing over the world.” [1]
“Nothing that has yet taken place, answers to this season of festive joy; its answers are to be found in the future day of glory when Christ and His risen saints shall fill the heavens above, reigning and rejoicing over the world.” [1]
For believers in Christ, He is our atonement, but there is coming a day when all Israel will look upon Him who
they pierced {see Zech. 12:10} and receive Him as the Messiah.
Leviticus 23
describes the Lord’s command for the Feast of
Tabernacles. The people are
to build temporary tents, or as The NASB renders it, Booths; it is the
Lord’s appointed time to remind the Israelites of their season in the
wilderness, of living in tents, and how the Lord sustained them (Lev. 23:33-44). It is also a
time to celebrate in awe and wonder that the Creator
of the universe came to dwell with His people.
God spoke to us in His Word through the Tabernacles of Moses, David, and the Temple of Solomon.
They all speak to the life, work, and ministry of Jesus Christ. The Gospel of John
uses the Feasts
of Israel to demonstrate that Jesus is who He claimed to be—the Messiah,
and the fulfillment of all the symbolism they contain.
On the close of the of the first day of Tabernacles,
worshipers descend to the Court of Women where great preparations for the feast
are made.[2] In the
court there were four large golden menorahs (lampstands)
each with four bowls. Four young men of priestly descent, climbed ladders with
a pitcher of oil to fill the bowls. The
Gemara (rabbinical commentary on the Mishnah) on this passage says, the menorahs
were seventy-five feet high (Sukkah 52b).[3] “There was
not a court in Jerusalem that was not lit up by the light of the ‘house of
water-pouring.’”[4]
This is the ceremony of the Illumination of the Temple, and the lampstands
could be seen throughout Jerusalem.
It is in the sight of these large lampstands
that Jesus heals a man born blind. Jesus is the fulfillment of the symbolism in
the Feast of
Tabernacles as the Light of the world. When
He saw the blind man He said, “As long as I am in the world, I am the light of
the world” (Jn.
9:5). Jesus applies mud to the man’s eyes and instructs him to wash in the Siloam pool; the man followed Jesus’ instructions
and was healed. It is no accident that water, blindness, and joy are symbols in
the feast and in the ceremonies, and that they correlate with the events in
Jesus’ ministry.
Just before the
lighting of these lampstands the priest announces, “He who has not seen
the joy of the place of water-drawing has never in his life seen joy.”[5] The ceremony was a time of great joy and
celebration, and it happened in the light of the Temple court. “The Levitical
orchestras cut loose, and some sources attest that this went on every night of
the Feast of
Tabernacles, with the temple
area shedding its glow all over Jerusalem.”[6] This is the context for Jesus’ declaration,
“I am the light of the World (Jn.
8:12). John, at the beginning of
his testimony, declared Jesus to be the light of men (Jn.
1:4). The light has Old Testament
allusions of the glory of the very presence of God in the cloud that led the
people in the wilderness. This may have other allusions as well:
“That Jesus offers his light to the whole
world, to all the nations, may suggest an allusion to Isaiah 42:6; 49:6.
Walking in darkness (cf. Jn. 9:4; 11:9) is a natural metaphor for stumbling
(Is. 59:10; Jer. 13:16), falling from the right way (Jer. 18:15; Mal. 2:8) or
being destroyed (Ps. 27:2; Jer. 20:11).”[7]
The light may be an
allusion as well to the Shekinah glory that filled the Temple (1 Kgs. 8:11).
John uses this symbolism to testify to Jesus’ christological claim to be the
light of God to the world. Jesus is the very embodiment of this feast.
The idea that Jesus
is our Tabernacle, is support throughout Scripture. John 1:14 states that Jesus
came and tabernacled (dwelt among us). Peter and Paul both encourage us that
our bodies are tabernacles as well {2
Pet. 1: 13-14; 2
Cor. 5:1-5}. Acts 7:44 and Heb.
9:2-8 affirm that the Tabernacle
of Moses was a tent of habitation {Acts
7:44; Heb.
9:2-8}, but that Jesus is a Tabernacle not made of men {Heb. 8: 1-6}.
Why was the Tabernacle
of Moses built? Because God
desired for them to make Him a sanctuary so that He can dwell among us (Ex.
25:8). He instructed the building of the tabernacle in order to establish
and foster the covenant relationship between Him and man. The Ark
of the Covenant, which rested inside the Holy of
Holies, was where God’s glory dwelt. This also speaks of the ministry of
Christ as He is the glory of the Father {Heb.
1:3}.
At the dedication of Solomon's temple during the festival of
Sukkot, Solomon asked, “Will God indeed dwell on the earth?” (1
Kings 8:2, 27) This was fulfilled when Yeshua became flesh and dwelt
(tabernacled) among us (John
1:14). At His first coming, He came to earth and dwelt among men for more
than thirty years. He dwells in us now through the Holy Spirit. When He comes
again, we will dwell with Him forever.
The Feast of
Tabernacles came to be associated with
eschatological hopes (cf. Zech.
14:16-19).”[8]
Jesus was the fulfilment of the feast,
however, it holds future eschatological implications as well. This Feast
“represents the completed or finished work of God in both this present age in
which we live and the lives of individual believers.”[9] The Feast of
Tabernacles represents the Lord’s shelter in His future Tabernacle during the Kingdom
Age. He will establish His Tabernacle in Jerusalem (see Ezek.
37:26), and the world will appear
before Christ and worship Him (see Zech.
14:16-17). “Tabernacles is the one
Old Testament feast that is specifically singled out for observance in the
eschatological context of the testament of peace.”[10]
The Tabernacle of David
How then does this relate to the Tabernacle of
David? Of the two tabernacles mentioned in Scripture (Moses and
David), only one of them will be rebuilt. The Tabernacle of David.
Old Testament reference:
“‘In that day I will raise up the fallen booth of
David, and wall up its breaches; I will also raise up its ruins and
rebuild it as in the days of old; That they may possess the remnant
of Edom and all the nations who are called by My name’ Declares
the Lord who does this” {Amos
9:10-12}.
New Testament reference:
“After they had stopped speaking, James answered,
saying, ‘Brethren, listen to me. Simeon has related how God first
concerned Himself about taking from among the Gentiles a people for His
name. With this the words of the Prophets agree, just as it is written,
‘After these things I will return, And I will rebuild the tabernacle
of David which has fallen, And I will rebuild its ruins, And I will restore it,
So that the rest of mankind may seek the Lord, And all the
Gentiles who are called by My name,’ Says the Lord, who makes these
things known from long ago” {Acts
15: 13-18 NASB}.
“Woman, believe Me, an
hour is coming when neither in this mountain nor in Jerusalem will you
worship the Father. You worship what you do not know; we worship what we
know, for salvation is from the Jews. But an hour is coming, and
now is, when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and
truth; for such people the Father seeks to be His worshipers. God
is spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and
truth” {Jn.
4: 21-24}.
The rebuilding of the Tabernacle of David is not only speaking
of the expansion of the Kingdom to the Gentiles, but also to a revival of the
kind of prayer and worship that existed when David’s Tabernacle stood in
Jerusalem.
The verse in Amos
9:10-12 tells us that
God will reestablish David’s tent over both the Northern and Southern Kingdoms.
David’s reign had been a protective covering (tent) over all the
people of Israel. It fell with the split between the ten Northern tribes and
the two Southern tribes {1
Kgs. 12}. The “tent” had been broken in two, but God promised to unite the
two kingdoms again under David’s rule {Jer.
30:3-10; Ezek.
37:15-28; Hosea
3: 4-5}. This means the Jews and the Gentiles. The “remnant
of Edom” and “all the nations who are called by My name,”
directly reference the Gentiles.
“The united kingdom under its Davidic King will then become
the source of blessing to all Gentiles. Edom, a nation perpetually hostile
toward God’s people {cf. Num.
20:14-21; Ps.
137:7; Obad.
1}, and therefore representative of all Israel’s enemies, will become a
sharer in the promises to David: Israel will possess the remnant of Edom {cf. Obad.
19}. In fact, all…nations will be brought under the dominion of the Davidic
King, for they too bear God’s name.”[11] David was
a symbol and type of Christ; the Davidic Kingdom speaks to the Kingdom of
Christ.
The Feast of
Tabernacles is the one feast
that the Bible declares that the remnant of all the nations that went against
Jerusalem will celebrate in Jerusalem, “Then it will come about
that any who are left of all the nations that went against Jerusalem
will go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of
hosts, and to celebrate the Feast of Booths” {Zech.
14:16 NASB}.
The depth and richness of the
theological implications of the Tabernacle of David cannot be treated in one
blog entry. Nor can the Tabernacle of David. The connection between the Feast of
Tabernacles and the Tabernacle
of David are remarkable to me. I have
spoken before about eventually discussing the Tabernacle of David, and
the Temple of Solomon, now that we are finished with the Tabernacle
of Moses. More on the tabernacles will come.
[1]
John Ritchie, Feasts Of Jehovah: Foreshadow Of Christ In The Calendar
Of Israel (Grand Rapids: Kregel Classics, 1982), 67.
[2]
Alfred Edersheim, The Temple: It’s Ministry And Services As They Were In The
Time Of Christ (Peabody: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1994), 224.
[3] David H. Stern, Jewish New Testament Commentary
(Clarksville: Jewish New Testament Publications, Inc., 1992), 182.
[4]
Edersheim, 224.
[5]
D.A. Carson, The Gospel According To John (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans
Publishing Company, 1991), 337.
[6]
Ibid.
[7]
Craig S. Keener, The IVP Bible
Background Commentary (Downers Grove: IVP Academic, 2014), 271.
[8]
Andreas J. Köstenberger,
Encountering John, 2 ed., (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013),
90.
[9] Richard Booker, Celebrating
Jesus In The Biblical Feasts (Shippensburg:
Destiny Image Publishers, 2009), 141.
[11]
John Walvoord and Roy Buck, eds., The Bible Knowledge Commentary: Old
Testament (Colorado Springs: David C. Books, 1985), 1451.
