There are 48 boards, the product of 4 x 12. Four is the number of testing, trial and tribulation, and twelve times tribulation brings man to perfection.

I Peter 1:7, “That the trial of your faith, being much more precious than of gold that perisheth, though it be tried with fire, might be found unto praise and honor…”  That which binds us as part of the building of God, as lively stones built up as a spiritual household, is described in the tabernacle as FORTY SOCKETS OF SILVER. These sockets are on both sides, and hold twenty boards upright on each side. These boards are joined together by FIVE RODS OF SHITTIM WOOD OVERLAID with gold. The WEST SIDE of the tabernacle has EIGHT boards set in SIXTEEN SOCKETS OF SILVER.

TWENTY is the number of redemption, and FORTY is the number of tribulation and testing and the end of flesh. It is the FORTY sockets of silver which keep the TWENTY boards upright. Thus silver, having the same symbolic meaning as the number twenty – REDEMPTION – is that which keeps us in our place with God in the body of Christ. The two tongues represent the Spirit and the Word.

Vs. 7 continued: “… and glory at the appearing of Jesus Christ.”

These boards were overlaid with gold, which signifies that all flesh, and all that is of man, must be completely and permanently hidden in Christ. The only outward manifestation to the eye is the gold, which signifies the NATURE OF GOD-LOVE.

SHUT IN

These boards constitute the second enclosure of God shutting man in. They were TEN cubits tall. This is the symbol of government – divine order. They were ONE AND A HALF cubits broad, which is half of the divine fulness. This signifies that no one man is going to come up to this fulness all by himself. He needs the others to make a tabernacle.

“Till we all come… unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ.” Ephesians 4:13.

ONE PERSON CANNOT BE THE FIVEFOLD MINISTRY. This life represents only half of the circle of perfection.

BODY MINISTRY

The word “body” means an organization that is comprised of organisms. The very use of the word in a spiritual sense makes it a unique operation. It is a SPIRITUAL body with PHYSICAL machinations. It is a machinery of human organisms with a SPIRITUAL HEAD, moving many humans by one mind and one Spirit.

THE GLORY

The glory of this lies in the fact that the humans are not automatons or robots working under a super-lord, as is the case of a man taken by the devil. BUT humans, who by their own free will and volition, their love of God, their deliberate intentness, even by their hard striving upward in Godliness, HAVE USED THE TOOLS OF GOD, AND HAVE OVERCOME THE ENEMY WITHIN, and the enemy without. By their diligent effort and dedication, they have re-created themselves into SONS OF LIGHT, which they will forever be BECAUSE THEY WANT TO BE.

OUR MOORINGS

That which binds us as part of the building of God, as lively stones built up as a spiritual household, is described in the tabernacle as FORTY SOCKETS OF SILVER. These sockets are on both sides, and hold twenty boards upright on each side. These boards are joined together by FIVE RODS OF SHITTIM WOOD OVERLAID with gold. The WEST SIDE of the tabernacle has EIGHT boards set in SIXTEEN SOCKETS OF SILVER.

TWENTY is the number of redemption, and FORTY is the number of tribulation and testing and the end of flesh. It is the FORTY sockets of silver which keep the TWENTY boards upright. Thus silver, having the same symbolic meaning as the number twenty – REDEMPTION – is that which keeps us in our place with God in the body of Christ. The two tongues represent the Spirit and the Word. See the picture of the sockets:

REDEMPTION THEREFORE is that which keeps us standing in Christ; but that which keeps us from leaning each in his own way are the five rods of WOOD overlaid with gold.