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Source: https://www.sermonindex.net/speakers/joel-portman/christ-pictured-in-the-fine-twined-linen/
Let's read our Bibles in Exodus chapter 27. Now, if you look at my notes, you'll know I have a very detailed outline. In reality, what I have, there he is. I was trying to get Frank to get up and speak, but he wouldn't.
If you've ever made any moves at 80 years old, you'll know that it's hard to prepare for a conference and have any sane, sensible thoughts in your head. But I have a few thoughts, and they may be scattered.
I don't know how well they're going to come out, but if you can follow my scattered train of thought, you might be able to get something. I've been speaking on the tabernacle. In fact, I don't want to think I'm a tabernacle specialist, but I've spoken broadhead on the tabernacle for two weeks, and now I just got done speaking for a week in Marian, so I'm still stuck.
But we'll look at the tabernacle just a little way, a little briefly, a thought that I've had since then. Nothing that I've spoken on before, but something that's sort of new, but really what I want to speak about is the Lord Jesus.
I think it's a good way to end a conference. But we'll read about some things in the tabernacle that I want to call your attention to. Exodus chapter 27. Thou shalt make the court of the tabernacle for the south side southward.
There shall be hangings for the court of fine twined linen of a hundred cubits long for one side. We have the same thing for the entirety of the surrounding courtyards except for one side. We have the courtyard described of fine twined linen entirely.
Now we'll go down to verse 16. For the gate of the court shall be a hanging of 20 cubits of blue and purple and scarlet and fine twined linen brought with needlework. Back down to chapter 26. Let's break in this chapter of verse 36.
I'm reading these in a particular order that I'm thinking about them, not in the order of the scripture. And thou shalt make it hanging for the door of the tent of blue and purple and scarlet and fine twined linen brought with needlework.
And then back to verse 31. And thou shalt make a veil of blue and purple and scarlet and fine twined linen of cunning work. Notice with cherubim shall it be made. And backing out up to chapter 26 in verse 1.
Moreover thou shalt make the tabernacle with 10 curtains of fine twined linen and blue and purple and scarlet with cherubim of cunning work shall thou make them. And then of course we have a description of them.
I want to call your attention to these five different elements of the tabernacle that all contain the fine twined linen. Along with in some cases, well in most cases, the blue and the purple and the scarlet.
Beautiful colors. I believe that when we study the tabernacle, one thing is that we should look for Christ. Every bit of it speaketh glory. I know it has many, many other applications and I've enjoyed its application to the house of God character, local assembly aspect.
But I want to call your attention primarily to that aspect that has to do with our Lord Jesus. I think these lovely colors speak of the Lord Jesus in a very distinct way. I think it's worth meditating on the fact that two of them mentioned the fine twined linen first.
The other three call our attention to the blue, which is a primary color. Now when you look at these colors, I think we could see Christ depicted in every one of them. Certainly the fine twined linen would speak to us of the unblemished, perfect life of our Lord Jesus.
I understand the word fine really is a word bleached. It was perfectly white, as white as they could make it. I don't know how they bleached it, I'm not interested in the process of the bleaching, but I know that it was supposed to be white.
And yet we look at in Luke chapter 17 and speaking about the Lord Jesus, when the three disciples saw him, his garments were white as no fuller on earth could ever make them. So the type falls down in relation to depicting the lovely perfection, the infinite perfection of the Lord Jesus.
A perfection that could never be equal by any man or any person, never could be attained to, never could be produced. Absolute perfection of holiness that is perfectly according to the mind of God and distinctly honoring to him.
Not only white, but fine twined linen expresses the highest quality that was available. Not a deficient kind of thing, something that was so perfectly woven together. I understand it was very desirable, a highly desired product from Egypt, made out of the very finest materials.
How it would speak to us so perfectly of the righteousness of Christ, a righteousness that exceeds every man. You take the most godly man that ever lived, the most holy person that ever walked this earth, the highest attainment of any man, even by the power of the Spirit of God, falls short of what he was.
One who was among men, who was like men, but it was different. One who was holy, harmless, undefiled, separate from sinners, made higher than the heavens. So we have the perfect righteousness of Christ that we ought to occupy our hearts with and appreciate more and more.
We have as well that this, these were marked by the blue, and we know that the word indicates that which is from heaven. It would draw our attention if the fine twined linen would remind us of the gospel of Luke, and the depiction of one who mingled amongst men, who moved in and out of those who would contaminate, touching the lepers, associated with harlots, the one who moved with the publicans and the sinners, never defiled it, never a touch, never a blemish, never a spot.
Here's one who is absolutely perfect for the very moment when the angel said to Mary, that holy thing that should be born of thee should be called son of God. Until the very moment when he laid that life down and all that sinless perfection at Calvary, it had to be if he was going to bear our sins and do our judgment.
But it was also blue because the blue speaks of the one who came down from heaven. I think if the white twined linen speaks of the Lord Jesus in Luke's gospel, certainly the blue would remind us of the gospel of John.
How many times he speaks about the fact I came down from heaven, not to do my own will, but the will of him that sent me. Again, he says, I came forth from the father and I go to the father, one who came in perfect delight to do the father's will, one who came to represent heaven and from heaven's viewpoint, he could come into this dark world and bring a ray of light into the darkness and shed it upon the life of sinners and show the reality that God had an interest in them.
And that God's provision for man in this world is not only a perfect man, but it's a heavenly man, a man who's come down from heaven's glory. It's also the purple. If the blue reminds us of John's gospel, certainly the purple would take us to what we've been hearing from the gospel of Matthew.
The one who has all power and all authority, the one who could command the disciples to go in all the world and preach the gospel to every creature, the one who will one day sit and judge the sheep and the goats, the one who will one day reign over this world, the one who is indeed the son of David, David's greater son.
He's the purple. He's the one that has regal authority and all the glory that's connected with him. Remember, it also speaks of grandeur. You remember the rich man in Luke chapter 16 was clothed in purple, scarlet.
It was one who was fared sumptuously every day. It speaks of opulence and all the grandeur that goes with it. So he speaks of the one who has the right to reign. But we look at the scarlet and we're reminded of one more gospel, and that is the gospel of Mark, the gospel that speaks of the servant, the one that stooped, the one who demonstrated a perfect identification with man, of the one who came that he might suffer, that he might shed his precious blood and endure the judgment of sin.
So we have these. I've not said anything about the garments of the high priest. There are the same elements in the garments of the high priest, the breastplate, the ephod, and all the rest of his garments, but there has a gold that's added to it.
And the gold would emphasize very strongly the deity of the one who is our great high priest and exalted at God's right hand, none like him. Feast your eyes on the Lord Jesus. If these elements of the tabernacle were beautiful, how much greater is the Lord Jesus Christ.
When you look at this, these five things, I've read them in an order I had in mind, because you think of the courtyard that was nothing but white, nothing to really attract. In fact, everything to repel, because when men looked at the righteous life of Christ as they moved to this world, they were repelled, they were condemned.
They felt themselves guilty. They knew they had fallen short. They knew they could never attain those religious Pharisees and those religious scribes and the doctors of the law and all of those who were so proud about their righteousness.
No, they found out they had sinned. And in fact, their righteousness failed to measure up in any way. Reminds us, doesn't it, that God's standard for righteousness is all seen in the person of Christ.
Paul could say that if you want to know anything about godliness, look at Christ. Great is the mystery of godliness. God was manifested in flesh. And so we have the one who surrounded that courtyard entirely white.
A man comes up against it and he thinks, I'll go into God's presence this way. No, you can't go in. The righteous standard of God stands as a barrier. A man is shut up. You can't come by way of convenience.
So much easier to go on the north or the other direction. No, no, no, you can't go that way. God has a standard. He says you can't enter on your own ground, achieving your own righteousness. You have nothing to present God.
And the sinner has to find that out. And God directs him in a repelling standard of infinite righteousness that no man can attain to. He says you've got to go into the right way. That white standard of righteousness represents the impeccable character of our Savior.
As you move to the defiling, contaminating world that you and I are in, it also expresses to some degree what you and I ought to be as well. We're not in this world to display our own righteousness, although we have to have a righteous life.
We're here to display the righteousness of Christ. Paul could say in Philippians chapter 3, that it might be found in him, not having my own righteousness, which is of the law, but the righteousness which is of Christ.
Thank God before God, we're seen in Christ perfectly. We ought to manifest it before the world that we're representing Christ before them. The local assembly in 1 Corinthians chapter 12, Paul says you are body of Christ.
You are body of Christ. He doesn't say you're the body because you're not, but they're in that area to represent Christ. And every assembly that God has established in any location is there to represent this blessed person.
And you and I are in this world as well that we might represent him, and that we might bring honor to his name. Even in our life, we ought to speak of Christ. We ought to manifest Christ. And that is what the Spirit of God involves us to produce.
I need to keep going. But you think about the perfect life of Christ. He says, you've got to come in by the way. The Lord Jesus could say, I am the way. There are three entrances in right to the very presence of God.
And some have linked them with a thought of what the Lord Jesus said in John chapter 14. I am the way, the gate. I'm the truth, the door. I'm the life, the veil. And that brings us right into the very presence.
No man can come to the Father, but by me. He's the entrance into God's presence. I'll say, first of all, that before I come to the gate, there's only one thing that has the fine twine knitted first, besides the outward courtyard.
That's the overhanging tabernacle. And we read about it in chapter 26. What does that tell me? The perfection of the wall and speaks of the righteousness of Christ that dispels any attempt of man's part to enter on his own ground, as Cain sought to do.
A priest looking up can see there's a man in the glory. And there's one who is there that was down here. There's one who is there still for us. He's still the same person. We read in Hebrews about him that Jesus has passed through the heavens.
There he is at the right hand of God for us. And there we can look up and we realize that the same one that was down here. But we find in chapter 2 of Hebrews that he might become and be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God.
He passed through this scene. He says, now he's up there. And the priest can look up and he can see the evidence of the man who was once here. But they're the cherubim as well. The holy standard of righteousness and the executors of God's divine presence.
And so the two things relate together. One is on the outside and one is on the inside. But we can occupy our hearts with Christ. May God help us to do so. But briefly, I'll say something about the other three.
Because every entrance progressively into God's presence, begins with the blue. It doesn't begin with a perfect manhood. It begins with a heavenly person. The only one that can provide access for a sinner into the presence of God to enjoy the blessing of the brazen altar and the sacrifice of Christ is one who has come down from heaven.
The only one who would have the capacity to make it possible for us to enter in had to be one who is the Lord from heaven. We read in 1 Timothy chapter one, I believe it is. I think it's 1 Timothy or 2 Timothy, but one of those two.
There's one God and there's one mediator between God and man. One God who has provided this intermediary. It had to be one from God because man could never provide it. It had to be one who had heavenly origin and heavenly authority and heavenly power.
He says the one who has provided the way in is one who is a man from heaven. I think that when you look at the gate, I do anyway. I think that if I'm pressed around and I'm brought to the east side of the tabernacle, I see it from the point of resurrection.
I see a man who is now glorified at God's right hand. And if the white linen of the courtyard would not attract me, how beautiful that gate must have been. You know, God wants to attract people to the Lord Jesus, first of all.
He wants them to realize he's a man I can trust. He's a man I can depend upon. I can be sure that his word is genuine. I'm sure that he's going to carry it out. I can depend on, I can trust him. And it seems to me that a person seeking to enter into God must come to realize I can depend upon the Lord Jesus.
And then they find out he's the one that did the work of the altar, just inside the gate. Brothers and sisters, we have a lovely person. We don't just trust in a work, we trust a person. We're not occupied just with what he did.
We worship a man who endured the cross and accomplished the work of our redemption. And so we have that entrance. You and I have found a place of security within the wall, a place of access, because not only the same colors of the gate, they're also seen in the door, the hanging of the door.
It's no longer wide, it's high. It's the same area. It tells us that that same one who was trusted to bring us in is the one who gives us the access as priests to be worshipers and occupied with the work of the interior.
You meditate upon that, I'm going to bring it to a close. But there's a way that we've been brought in, and I love to think of it. I think of the activities of those priests every day. They saw something that nobody else saw.
They saw the walls of gold. They saw the veil, the head, the blue, purple, and scarlet, fine twine linen, and a cherubim. Ever notice that the nearer they got to God's presence, more emphatic was the reality.
There's a holy God there. And they come into the holy place, and they have the cherubim above. They have the cherubim head, and over the ark there, the cherubim. The cherubim were the executors of God's righteous judgment.
They're always associated with the throne of God and carrying out the will of God. God is saying this, you don't approach unto God in a careless manner. I think of the two sons of Aaron, and how it staggers my mind to think they would come with strange fire and offer incense with those cherubim looking at them and looking down upon them and realizing we're not fit.
Sadly, they didn't realize it, and that condition deteriorated until in the days of Eli. It was degradation, degradation. Brothers and sisters, you and I have a lovely man, a perfect man, a glorious man, a heavenly man, one who endured the cross, who loved us, gave himself for us, brought rich blessing to our souls.
May our souls occupy ourselves with him. We can never, ever think too highly of Christ.