Exodus 25:8

We have to consider the Divine presence, the abiding of God with men, how it is accomplished and what it involves.

I. The dwelling of God among us in Christ Jesus, when it is a reality, and not merely an idea or a phrase, imports and of necessity secures the passing away from us of the things we have most reason to fear. When God comes to dwell among us, which can only be by dwelling in us individually, sin goes from us, in its guilt and its predominating power.

II. God comes thus to dwell with men for the development of character and for the nourishment of all goodness. The putting away of sin is but the negative part of salvation. The presence in its place of truth and duty and love and obedience—this is what makes a saved man.

III. For how long does God dwell with men? Deep philosophy as well as high faith sanctions the conclusion that the God of grace, who makes covenant with man and dwells with him, is "our God for ever and ever," and that He "will never leave us and never forsake us."

A. Raleigh, Sermons Preached at the Dedication of Union Chapel, Islington, p. 158.

Notice:—

I. God makes Himself dependent on the will of man—"Let them make Me." This is true, not only of material wealth, but of man's nature. God may be thwarted by man.

II. In this Divine conception of the Church there is a place for the rich. It is not impossible for rich men to be good men. God has given their offerings a place. "This is the offering which ye shall take of them: gold."

III. Labour has its place. There was a great deal of timber required; trees had to be cut down and brought to the spot.

IV. Woman has her rights here. We read in Exodus 35:24-25, of women that were wise-hearted, who did spin with their hands.

V. There is room for genius. Precious stones are required.

VI. The meanest is acceptable if it is the best that we can bring.

VII. Our best and our all is of no avail without the atonement of Christ.

T. Champness, New Coins from Old Gold, p. 32.

References: Exodus 25:15.—S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for a Year, vol. ii., appendix, p. 19. Exodus 25:21 (with Revelation 11:19.).—Parker The Ark of God, p. 1, and vol. ii., p. 205.

Exodus 25:21-22It was a leading and distinctive feature of Jewish worship that no image was to represent Jehovah, and yet the Jews were taught that the omnipotent God resided specially in the tabernacle, or temple, of their nation, and special rites and prohibitions guarded it, as if the great King were indeed there.

I. The Jewish Holy of Holies was empty of any image of Deity, and was entered by the high-priest alone, and by him only once a year. The centre of interest in the room was the ark of God, a chest of acacia wood, about four feet long and two feet six inches broad and deep. It contained the tables of testimony, the written agreement or covenant between God and the people of Israel.

II. That was not all. The lesson taught at Sinai was not all that the Jewish ark taught, for the ark had a lid or covering known as the "mercy-seat." Inside the ark and below was the law; above and upon the ark was that vacant space associated, through the sprinkling of blood, with the covering or forgiving of the people's transgressions; and with this seat of mercy and pardon above, rather than with the seat of law below, the presence of God was associated. The material arrangements taught the Jews great spiritual lessons: (1) that the law had been broken; (2) that mercy prevails over law; (3) that the mercy-seat needed to be sprinkled with blood.

T. M. Herbert, Sketches of Sermons, p. 98.

Exodus 25:22All the time that the history of the Jews was going on, the mercy-seat and the cherubim that covered it were still witnessing to the children of Israel that God was in the midst of them. So the words, "There I will meet with thee," stood from generation to generation.

The New Testament, like the Old, is written to explain these words. The New Testament declares that He for whose appearance the Jewish worshippers longed has appeared. The New Testament tells us that in His Son God has met men and has reconciled them unto Himself. The lessons of the New Testament take up all the words and lessons of the Old Testament, all that is written about the cherubim and the mercy-seat. They say, "All this is now, not for Israelites, but for men, for men in the farthest ends of the earth." If you turn to the last book of the Bible, you will find the Book of Genesis appearing again there, a nobler tree of life than that of the garden of Eden, which is not guarded by angels, but the fruit of which all are invited to taste. You will find the Book of Exodus again there. You will hear of the tabernacle of God being with men, and of His dwelling with them and being their God. You will find some of the latest words in the book those which have gone through the whole of it,—"Worship God." Worship means that God is meeting us and drawing us to Himself, that He has sent His Spirit into the world and established His Church in the world for the very purpose of bringing all to Him. This is the message that the Bible has brought to men in past ages; this is the message that it brings to them now.

F. D. Maurice, The Worship of God and Fellowship among Men, p. 127.

I. To the Jews God set apart one special place for sacrifice, one special place for closest communion, and he who wanted some direct oracle from God must go to that spot to get his answer. The oneness continues, but it is not now oneness of spot; it is oneness of path. All the oneness of the Mosaic types goes to make the oneness of the Lord Jesus Christ.

II. It was upon the mercy-seat that God said, "I will meet thee and commune with thee." According to our views of Christ, according to our nearness to Christ, so will be our experience of communion with God.

III. There could be no true throne of God in the world if mercy were separated from justice. But now it is just in God to be merciful because of all the deep things that that ark tells us. The sin has been punished in Christ, and therefore God can be just and the Justifier of them that believe in Jesus.

J. Vaughan, Meditations in Exodus, p. 46.

Exodus 25:31-37I. This light shines because it is light, without effort, spontaneously. If the lamp is kindled, it will shine; and so this emblem has its beautiful felicity in that it points, as the highest definition of all Christian men, to the effortless, spontaneous irradiation and streaming out from themselves of the fire that lies within them. Like a light in an alabaster vase, that shines through its transparency and reveals the lovely veining of the stone, so the grace of God in a man's heart will shine through him, turning even the opacity of his earthly nature into a medium for veiling perhaps, but also in another aspect for making visible, the light that is in him.

II. The light was derived light; and it was fed. We have a Priest who walks in His temple and trims the lamps. The condition of the light is keeping close to Christ, and it is because there is such a gap between you and Him that there is so little brightness in you. The candlestick was really a lamp fed by oil; that symbol, as Zechariah tells us, stands for the Divine influence of God's quickening Spirit.

III. The light was clustered light. The seven-branched candlestick represented the rigid, formal unity of the Jewish Church. In the New Testament we have the seven candlesticks, diverse, but made one because Jesus Christ is in the midst of them. In this slight diversity of emblem we get the whole difference between the hard external unity of the ancient Jewish polity and the free variety in unity and diversity of the Christian Church, with its individual development, as well as with its binding association.

A. Maclaren, Contemporary Pulpit, vol. iv., p. 253.

References: Exodus 25:40.—Phillips Brooks, Sermons Preached in English Churches, p. 1; A. Rowland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xx., p. 140. 25—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iv., p. 125; Preacher's Monthly, vol. ii., p. 303. 25-27.—Parker, vol. ii., p. 2221 25-31.—W. M. Taylor, Moses the Lawgiver, p. 232; J. Monro Gibson, The Mosaic Era, p. 105. Exodus 26:6.—H. Macmillan, The Olive Leaf, p. 15; H. Downton, The Sunday Magazine, 1877, p. 490. 26—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., pp. 113-115.