The Vision of the Tabernacle |
God's Economy in the Old Testament and the New Testament |
Adam and Eve were the first to have a vision of God's way of doing things. They saw that an animal, probably a lamb, was sacrificed in their place because of the sin they had committed. The animal's blood was for the forgiveness of their sin and the skin of the animal was made into a garment to cover their sinful nakedness, indicating that they were justified before God. No doubt, this typifies the redeeming death of Christ.
Surely the first married couple spoke about this to their sons Cain and Abel. As we will see later on, Abel understood God's way of doing things and acted according to God's way, unlike Cain. Later, when Enosh the son of Seth, the son of Adam, was born, men began to call on the name of the Lord (Gen. 4:26). Men, who were headed up by Adam, began to call because they realized they were fragile (Enosh means weak, fragile). This shows that Adam was aware of his situation and knew that it would make God happy to live by depending on Him. This is the result of having a vision.
Cain is a good example of someone who serves the Lord, but who does not have a vision - the result of this is always pitiful. From the human point of view, he was a very good person because he was a hard worker and he served God. Cain endeavored, by the sweat of his face, to plant and gather the produce of the earth in order to offer it to God. This indicates that he loved God and wanted to please Him.
Cain's brother, Abel, was a shepherd of sheep. A shepherd has to lead the flock to water, to pasture and to be in the sun. Since at that time man was not yet eating meat (cf. Gen. 1:29; 9:3), we have no doubt that Abel raised sheep only to offer them as sacrifices to God.
On one occasion, Cain brought the fruit of the ground as an offering to God and Abel, in turn, brought the firstlings of his flock and their fat. Abel and his offering were accepted, whereas Cain and his offering were not. Why not? Both of them loved God and wanted to please Him with their offerings. But the main difference between them was that Cain only brought the fruit of the ground, not the firstfruits, not the best that he had. It was as if he were giving God what was left over. Abel, on the other hand, brought the firstlings of his flock; he brought the best he had to offer to God.
The big difference between them was that Cain did not have a clear vision of how he should worship God. He may have been holding on to what God had said about cursing the ground because of man's sin, that by the sweat of his face he would produce the fruit of the ground (3:19), and thinking that he was capable of reversing God's curse, producing something out of the cursed ground that was pleasing to Him. Abel, however, paid attention to what he heard from his parents about the need of blood being shed for the forgiveness of sins and for God's satisfaction. He should have also remembered that after they had sinned, his parents tried to cover themselves with fig leaves, representing man's righteousness, which is of no value before God. Only the righteousness provided by God, which is represented by the coat made of the skin of a dead animal, could justify them before God.
The next example of someone controlled by a vision is Noah. He walked with God (6:8-9) and because of this God could call him to cooperate with Him. God told Noah that because of the corruption of mankind and the violence that filled the earth, He was going to destroy all flesh by means of a flood. Therefore Noah should build an ark in which He would save his family and pairs of every kind of animal (vv. 11-21).
Noah saw what God was about to do and began to work. It took him approximately one hundred years to build the ark (cf. 5:32; 6:8-10; 7:6). While he was building the ark, Noah was preaching righteousness (2 Pet. 2:5), warning people about God's coming judgment. However, the people did not believe him. They may have even mocked him saying, "Why are you spending all this time building such a big ark? Look, the skies are clear. Even if it rains, it will only last for a few hours and then it will stop. Come and drink with us!" (cf. Matt. 24:37-39).
Can it be that among all those people there was no one who loved God? Very probably there was. Then why did they not listen to Noah and go into the ark? Because they were short of the vision of God's will. Noah was controlled by this vision so he was not discouraged while he was building the ark, which was apparently useless, for a hundred years. Because he was faithful to the vision he had received, Noah was saved together with his entire house.
We can also mention several other men in the Old Testament who were led by a heavenly vision, such as Moses and David. Both of them were involved with building the house of God on earth, the place where God and man could meet. Moses was faithful to what he saw on Mount Sinai and built the tabernacle according to that pattern. Even though God stopped David from building the temple for Him, he prepared the plans for it and prepared for the ministry of the priests and Levites (1 Chron 22-27). In addition, he prepared the material and the riches for the building, delivering them all to his son Solomon. This indicates that these two men were acting according to the vision they had received from God.
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