Daily Rhema: FROM THE TABERNACLE TO THE TEMPLE

Acts 7:44 NKJV
“Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness in the wilderness, as He appointed, instructing Moses to make it according to the pattern that he had seen.

Old Testament characters, furniture and accounts have meanings which symbolically and prophetically have present day application to us as New Testament Christians today (Rom. 15:4).

In fact, details of the application of New Testament principles are hidden in the Old Testament (Luke 24:27; Heb. 10:1).

This is particularly true of the Tabernacle of Moses and the Temple of Solomon.

The tabernacle was a temporary, mobile dwelling place used for the worship of God by Israel during the forty wilderness years and 447 years in the Promised Land (1Kings. 6:1).

The temple was to be the permanent dwelling place of God in the Old Testament (of course in the New Testament God’s permanent dwelling place is His Church; 2Cor. 6:16-18).

Consequently, the Tabernacle typifies our experience as God’s dwelling place, with a deposit anointing limited in measure, with which the Holy Spirit ministers gifts through us in a transient manner as He wills. This is what we receive when we get born-again and filled with the Holy Spirit (Eph. 1:13-14, 4:7).

The Temple, on the other hand, typifies our experience as God’s dwelling place with a permanent anointing without measure, like the Lord Jesus had (John 1:32-33, 3:34).

How then do we make the transition from being a ‘tabernacle’ to becoming a ‘temple’?

To understand how to do this, we need to understand two fundamental differences between the Tabernacle and the Temple:

1. The Tabernacle had no foundation: it was a mobile tent.

2. The quality and quantity of the materials used to make the Temple were superior to that used to make the Tabernacle. In particular, the Tabernacle was made from reeds (wood), cloth and animal skins; the Temple was made with hewed stones.

The symbolic prophetic meanings of these two differences give us great spiritual insight into how to grow from a ‘tabernacle’ into a ‘temple’.

A ‘tabernacle’ is a born-again Christian filled with the Holy Spirit who speaks in tongues (Act. 2:4), and so can operate in the gifts of the Spirit, as the Holy Spirit wills (1Cor. 12:11).

However, he does not yet have:

(1) Revelation knowledge (2Cor. 4:6; Eph. 1.16-23) of the hope of his calling: the perfection and fullness of Christ;

(2) The riches of the glory of the inheritance of the Spirit without measure : the understanding, wisdom and instruction of how to operate in the fullness of Christ with the anointing without measure.

(3) The exceeding greatness of the resurrection power that raised Jesus from the dead, and gave him victory over all wicked spirits in heavenly places: how to release the power of the Spirit without measure to destroy all the works of the devil (1Jn. 3:8).

The ‘tabernacle’ is a ‘reed’ like Simon: unstable and easily bent (Luke 22:31-32); he must become a stable ‘rock’ like Peter who has revelation knowledge and so the gates of hell cannot prevail against him (Matt. 16:16-19; John 1:42).

A ‘temple’ is a ‘rock’ with revelation knowledge of perfection and fullness of Christ, and has begun to operate the anointing without measure, firstly by a ‘borrowed’ anointing and later, by inheriting the anointing without measure by spiritual growth.

Individual ‘reeds’ make up corporate ‘tabernacles’, while individual ‘rocks’ make up corporate ‘temples’.

For more on today’s study visit:
https://bit.ly/2X9zc4U

Follow Pastor Olubi Johnson on
Twitter: spcconlineoj
Facebook: spcconlineoj
IG: spccchurchonlineoj
YouTube: spcconlineoj
Web: www.spcconline.net