the Week of Proper 28 / Ordinary 33
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Bible Dictionaries
Tabernacle
Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance And Dictionary
or Various are the significations of this word in Scripture. Sometimes it is intended to mean the place of worship the Israelites had in the wilderness. At others, is meant no more than a common dwelling place. Thus, Eliphas adviseth Job to put away iniquity from his tabernacles. (Job 22:23) But in a much higher sense than every other, Christ's human nature is said to be the true tabernacle which "the Lord pitched, and not man." (Hebrews 8:2) And as this view of the word tabernacle throws aside the consideration of every other; so doth the contemplation of this furnish a subject of everlasting pleasure and delight.
The Holy Ghost by the apostle informs the church, that this tabernacle of the human nature of Christ was the dwelling place of JEHOVAH. "In him dwelleth all the fulness of the GODHEAD bodily." (Colossians 2:9) Not as the Holy Ghost dwelleth in the bodies of his people which are said to be his Temple, (1 Corinthians 6:19) but substantially, personally, permanently, and for ever. So the GODHEAD fills the human nature of Christ. For that nature being filled with the divine, receives the same effect as iron heated in the fire is made fiery, like the fire which is filled by it. So the GODHEAD dwells bodily in the manhood of Christ. What a blessed soul-refreshing view of the Lord Jesus as JEHOVAH'S Tabernacle, is this!
And what endears it yet more is, that the Holy Ghost immediately adds in the following Scripture, concerning the church's interest and completeness in him, "And ye are complete in him." (Colossians 2:10) Founded in his marvellous person, the church hath her Tabernacle in Christ Jesus, her resting place, her sure portion for grace here, and glory for ever.
Pause, I beseech you, reader, over the soul-transporting subject. Behold Jesus, (yea thy Jesus, if so be united to him by the Holy Ghost) in his mediatorial fulness as the Tabernacle of JEHOVAH. Here to this one glorious individual person, the Christ of God, JEHOVAH communicates his personality, his subsistence, or to use the words of Scripture: "in him dwelleth all the fulness of the GODHEAD bodily." And by virtue of Christ's human nature, to which his whole body, the church, is united; all, and every individual member, the weakest and humblest, as well as the strongest and the highest, have their completeness in the justifying righteousness of his person to bear them up, and bring them on before JEHOVAH, in grace here, and to bear them home, and bring them in before JEHOVAH in his three-fold character of person, Father, Son, and Holy Ghost, in glory for evermore. Oh, the blessedness of that tabernacle, "which the Lord pitched, and not man!"
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Hawker, Robert D.D. Entry for 'Tabernacle'. Hawker's Poor Man's Concordance and Dictionary. https://www.studylight.org/dictionaries/eng/pmd/t/tabernacle.html. London. 1828.
