Theology Thursday: God Is Into the Details (Exodus 25-30)

Welcome to Theology Thursday! Theology is the study of God, his relation to the world, and our relation to him. I hope these newsletters help enhance your faith and deepen your love for God and his people, the church.

Today's topic:
The God of details (Exodus 25-30)

Pastor Brady's thoughts:
One of the challenging bits of Old Testament literature - for me at least - is the several chapters in Exodus (25-30) that lay out in painstaking detail God’s instruction for how the Israelites are to construct and prepare their house of worship and the various elements that contribute to it. God has very specific demands for these items, down to the exact color hue of priestly garments and where the fat is to be removed from the slaughtered ram used to create a sacred offering.

Take Exodus 27:9-12, for example: “Make a courtyard for the tabernacle. The south side shall be a hundred cubits long and is to have curtains of finely twisted linen, with twenty posts and twenty bronze bases and with silver hooks and bands on the posts. The north side shall also be a hundred cubits long and is to have curtains, with twenty posts and twenty bronze bases and with silver hooks and bands on the posts.

“The west end…you get the idea.

Or Exodus 30:1-6: “Make an altar of acacia wood for burning incense. It is to be square, a cubit long and a cubit wide, and two cubits high—its horns of one piece with it. Overlay the top and all the sides and the horns with pure gold, and make a gold molding around it. Make two gold rings for the altar below the molding—two on each of the opposite sides—to hold the poles used to carry it. Make the poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. Put the altar in front of the curtain that shields the ark of the covenant law—before the atonement cover that is over the tablets of the covenant law—where I will meet with you."

It’s tempting to gloss over these passages. They built a tabernacle, they made an altar, they prepared sacrificial offerings; we get it. But remember one of the foundational questions of Bible study: Why is this in the Bible? Why did God inspire his writers to include this?

We won’t always know the answers, but asking it and thinking about it often does lead us to a deeper appreciation and understanding of the whole narrative of Scripture.

In the case of Exodus 25-30, God’s attention to detail reveals that he is a detailed God, concerned with order and precision. He doesn’t do things by accident, and if his hand is in it, we can be confident there is a purpose for it (even if that purpose isn’t clear or obvious to us).

God’s orderliness helps us trust him as we journey through Scripture and arrive at stories or commandments that make us question his providence or his goodness. Recognizing this aspect of God’s character even helps us trust him with our lives. If God is interested in the finest details, he isn’t going to miss or mess up the big stuff.

But there’s an even deeper layer to this particular section of Exodus.

Amidst the intricate details about the tabernacle, the ark of the covenant, the table, the lampstand, the courtyard, the oil, the priestly garments, the ephod (a ceremonial apron), the breastpiece, the altar for burnt offerings, the altar of incense, washing basins, and the consecration processes, there’s a through line pointing to one distinct truth:

God wants to dwell with his people. He wants to be where his people are. He wants his people to be with him. "...where I will meet with you."

We don’t worship a distant and standoffish God; our Father God so desires a relationship with his adopted children that he provides a step-by-step manual for consecration (the process of being made sacred and declared for a holy purpose) so he can. For the Israelites in the Old Testament, that looked like anointing oil and sacrificial lambs. For new covenant Christians from Paul to us, it looks like faithful followership of the sacrificial Lamb of God, Christ Jesus.

These chapters in Exodus display God’s love for and effort on behalf of even the sinful and the faithless. These are people who doubt him at every turn and forget everything he does for them as soon as they get hungry or thirsty again (sound familiar?). And yet, he gives Moses instructions for how the Israelites can be cleansed and deemed worthy to enjoy the presence of their God.

What do we see when we read God’s activity in Exodus? And what do we see when we read the gospels and the rest of the New Testament?

First, God wants to be with us.

Second, our sin makes that impossible. God cannot be in relationship with sin and corruption.

And third, we cannot cleanse ourselves, but God has provided a way for us to be cleansed of our sin and for our relationship with him to be healed.

Even the washing basin in Exodus 30:17-21 speaks to this idea of a purposeful, detailed God. Aaron and his sons (“and his descendants for generations to come” - v. 21) cannot approach God in the tabernacle until they have washed their feet in the basin. Fast forward to John 13 and we get a very similar symbolic scene: Jesus washes his disciples’ feet to represent his role as their savior, as the new bridge between sinful man and perfect God.

I don’t know exactly why God specified that the tabernacle curtain must be made of blue, purple, and scarlet yarn and hung on gold hooks (Exodus 26:31-32), but maybe it was to demonstrate to his people then and now that he knows what he’s doing, that he’s interested in the details, that he has a plan and it can be trusted, and that he will keep his promises.

Speaking of details, this is a neat catch from teacher Tara-Leigh Cobble in a recent episode of The Bible Recap podcast:

“A lot of the layout of the tabernacle parallels what we saw in the Eden: an east-facing entrance, guarded by a cherubim, the burning lampstand symbolizes the tree of life, and the law (or the testimony) symbolizes the Tree of the Knowledge of Good and Evil.

So when God begins telling them all these details, and tells them he’ll come there to dwell with them, it’s a step toward restoring paradise and all that was lost in the Garden of Eden. We won’t see the fulfillment of this until Christ returns and we have a new heaven and new earth, but here in Exodus we see God’s advancement in that direction: to dwell with his people forever.”

TO KNOW GOD AND TO MAKE HIM KNOWN!
- Pastor Brady

Have a question for Theology Thursday? Send an email to office@minierchristian.org and we'll respond, or we'll include in a future Theology Thursday Buffet.