Each Israelite was initiated into God's war against flesh when they were circumcised at eight days old. God's war against flesh is extended through deeper commitment to this Abrahamic people through whom God will save the world. This commitment has to do with, basically, marrying Israel, and moving in with her.
As with any marriage, promises are made. God makes promises and so does Israel. They move in together in the form of a tabernacle. God comes down to live, move, and travel with Israel in the most holy place. The tabernacle, and later the temple, is comprised of three areas: the courtyard, the holy place, and the most holy place. The picture of the tabernacle corresponds to Mount Sinai, where Israel camped at the foot of the mountain (the courtyard), elders waited midway up the mountain (holy place), and Moses met with God at the top (most holy place). Even so, the most holy place contains God's law, the ten commandments, and God himself dwells there in the form of his glory cloud, by which he guided Israel through the wilderness. The high priest would go in to the most holy place once a year on the Day of Atonement.
Now, even in our contemporary marriages, we don't fulfill these promises by our natural strength, but rely chiefly upon the Lord, and also rely upon the community of people around us for help. It's not easy. The marriage between God and his people is no less fraught, because although God is perfectly able to keep his promise, Israel is not. The Israelites may be circumcised. But they are also still flesh, like all human beings. Even though they are initiated into God's war against flesh, they are still prone to the boasting and vanity of flesh. Torah, or God's levitical law, does not make perfect justice. It does not kill flesh. It re-enforces distance between God and his people as much as it relaxes it. But it still allows for a real though limited access for Israel to meet with God.
While the world was already under the curses of Eden and Babel, God built the tabernacle and instituted it under Moses' brother Aaron and his sons. As Leithart writes, "the building of the tabernacle and later the temple did not create the conditions of exclusion and distance. In fact, the sanctuary was a countermovement to the curse of Eden. Yahweh drove Adam and Eve out of the garden; he invited Aaron and his sons in."
Notice the way Leithart links the Tabernacle and Eden. We'll explore this more tomorrow, but yes, the symbolism of the tabernacle and all that fills it conveys a sense of hope that God's people will one day re-enter the garden. The tabernacle is a place of hope, not despair; happiness, not sadness. More Leithart: "For the first time since Adam, holy men walked on holy ground, with only a veil embroidered with cherubim between them and Yahweh. The tabernacle was still holy space, but the boundaries of holy space had become porous. Yahweh expelled Adam from the garden in wrath, and put Adam under wrath. In the tabernacle system, Yahweh went out into the howling waste to find his unfaithful bride and bring her back home. He went outside Eden to give a taste of Eden to Adam's children who lived east of Eden." (95)
Here, we have a sense that the union between God and Israel is already in a sense a vow renewal between God and the bride who had been unfaithful to him in Eden. We also have the sense that the whole tabernacle structure is more about hospitality than it is about intimidation. It is more about granting real access than it is about limiting it. It's double-sided. There is a limiting factor. God imposed purity regulations upon his people. Only clean persons were permitted to enter the court of the sanctuary. This "no" to impurity though, does not reflect God's preoccupation with keeping us out of his presence, but rather reflects his determination to make a way for us to draw near. The ultimate end of the rules is the removal of impurity and the closure of distance.
Ezekiel 16 helps here. Ezekiel 16 is an allegory of Judah's promiscuity and harlotry. As God cares for her, he adorns her with cloth, porpoise skin sandals, bracelets, gold, silver and linen, and feeds her with the goods of the land - flour, honey and oil. This picture of God's care follows an ordination sequence - washing, anointing, and clothing - using tabernacle materials. (see Delivered, 96) The ordination and priestly imagery doesn't follow a symbolism of distance, but rather a deeply romantic symbolism meant to suggest nothing less than marital bliss, the throes of passion and sensuality. Thus Leithart can write: "The tabernacle curtains and adornments were bridal adornments, and the tabernacle was the bridal tent where Yahweh and Israel had their appointed meetings. It was a tent of meetings, a tent for trysts, a place for communion of Yahweh and Israel, not for the self-isolation of Yahweh." (96-97) Holy convocations like the Sabbath, Passover, the Festival of Weeks, and more (Lev. 23 provides a list) were a married couples' schedule of romantic rendezvous.
Once again, the access is limited. Purity regulations teach Israel to distance themselves from flesh, to put flesh to death, in order to draw near to God. This pertains to how Israel was to deal with blood, which animals they ate, childbearing, emissions from the body, skin diseases. Flesh spreads pollution. Sanctuary defilement differs from land defilement. Land defilement can be expelled only by being sent out into the grave of exile to rise again to a new inheritance.
God rigorously and thoroughly excludes the pollution of flesh from his house, so the access of a fleshly people is and always would be limited. But it is real. The blessings and gifts God would convey upon his people will be the blessings to the world. This is because, in his tabernacle, God is giving his people a foretaste of, and giving them a hopefulness for, re-entry into the Garden of Eden.
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