More on the hidden ministry of Christ.

Recently, I studied the Tabernacle for a sermon series. I became intrigued by the character of Bezalel as a type of Christ.

We are used to the pictures of Jesus as :

• A prophet like Moses,
• A king like David,
• A priest like Joshua and Melchizedek,

and

• The Suffering Servant of Isaiah.

However, large parts of His life and ministry are not covered by these types. Jesus was a prophet for three years. His priestly ministry started in Gethsemane and continues in Heaven. He was the Suffering Servant on the Cross and in the way He lived. He will return as King.

Bezalel, covers the hidden years as a builder in Nazareth  and Capernaum, but also His hidden ministry, via the Holy Spirit, of building the Church.

Whenever, you learn something really new to yourself and key to the scriptures, it begins to change the way you look at the whole of scripture.

For example, The Feasts of the Lord, are a major prophetic key and change  our understanding of prophetic events. They also help in dating His life.

You get sensitised to scriptures that relate to the new insight - as long as it is Biblical and of the Lord.

Bezalel is a craftsman. We should expect to see this in the work of Christ, but just during His earthly ministry.

Let us see Christ dealing with sinful Adam. It can't have been the Father, for no man has seen him and Adam would have been destroyed. Once Manhood was taken into Godhead then Jesus is a bit like Dr. Who's Tardis. He's bigger on the inside and He can go anywhere in time and space.

The so-called 'pre-existent Christ' is still Jesus. His body, like the Tabernacle and the Temple, protects from the consequences of an encounter with God.

In Genesis 3:21, God makes clothes for Adam and Eve. The more rational commentators, Jewish and Christian, point to this as the origin of the concept of sacrifice. The Pulpit Commentary, if you follow the previous link, is very helpful.

Suddenly, I could see Jesus giving lessons to Adam and Eve in the preparation of skins, making of tools and threads of sinew, gut  and leather; and then sewing the garments they now needed. 

They would not be crude affairs as imagined and attributed by many to early man. See below a still from One million Years BC. Wrong on so many levels. God was covering nakedness.

I can't see God doing crude and shoddy work. What I see is a loving Father clothing His aberrant children. He will fix what they have broken in His good time. There are consequences to their actions. The universe will no longer function as it was designed to. In the meantime, He clothes them.

Since then, the Lamb of God has died, we are justified by His Blood and we put on His clothing which, currently, is the whole Armour of God.

There, as they are cast out of Eden, I saw a revelation of His love for us. So often we miss this, but the Bezalel ministry of Christ was being revealed making things better.