Being Encamped in Array in God’s Sovereignty with Christ and the Church as our Center

In Numbers two we see how the children of Israel were encamped in array as an army, each tribe by its own standard, all facing the center.

After the numbering in ch. 1, the children of Israel were put in an array around the tabernacle – this is God’s first step of formation of the army to fight for His interest.

God is the top military strategist, and we may think we know how to arrange an entire people so that they would become an army but God definitely knows better. Only God could array His people around the tabernacle facing the center, in a particular order.

This is how God wants His people to move and engage in the battle.

The way God had His people encamped as an army around the tabernacle is both wonderful and awesome, for it points to the New Jerusalem.

When Balak asked Balaam to come and curse the children of Israel and took him on a mountain to see their encamping and their tents, as Balaam looked at the people he was inspired by the Spirit three times to not curse them but to bless them (Num. 23:24).

When he saw how they were encamped in an array, Balaam said that this is a people who dwells alone, there is no iniquity found in Jacob, and his dwelling is so fair and beautiful.

As we prayerfully study the matter of the encamping of the children of Israel to apply it to our Christian life, we need to see the design God used to arrange His people, and we need to be inspired.

This is God’s design for His people to be encamped in array together, and this reveals His thought from eternity to eternity, a perfect thought.

This array will be the actual condition in the millennium (see Num. 24:5, note 1). Whatever we say about the condition of God’s people at that time, whatever our condition is, God’s design, His way of encamping His people in an array, points out to the situation that will be in the coming New Jerusalem.

Such an array, such an encamping, depicts the coordination and building up of the Body of Christ in oneness today.

The warfare we are talking about and are preparing for is a warfare that we fight in the Body. We need to live in the Body, be coordinated together in oneness, and be built up together, and in this building and coordination in oneness, we are positioned to fight the spiritual warfare.

Not only is such an array showing us the coordination and the building, but it also connects us to eternity, and to the new Jerusalem being revealed in the new heaven and the new earth.

Being Encamped in Array as God’s Army showing that Everything is out of God’s Arrangement

In Numbers 2:2 Jehovah said to Moses and Aaron, “The children of Israel shall encamp each by his own standard with the ensigns of their fathers’ households; they shall encamp facing the Tent of Meeting on every side”.

In this matter of encamping in array, there was no human choice; whichever tribe an Israelite was born of, he had to encamp by the standard of that tribe; he was not allowed to have his own choice (cf. 1 Cor. 12:18).

The tabernacle was in the middle, and all the twelve tribes were encamped around it.

On the north there was Merari (from the tribe of Levi), Dan, Asher, and Naphtali. To the right there was Moses and his family, Aaron and his sons, Judah, Issachar, and Zebulun. To the south there was Kohath (from the tribe of Levi), Reuben, Simeon, and Gad.

To the left there was Gershon (from the tribe of Levi), Ephraim, Manasseh, and Benjamin. To the right Judah took the lead, to the south Reuben took the lead, to the left it was Ephraim, and to the north, Dan; this is how God arranged the twelve tribes.

The tribe of Levi was separated, not counted among the twelve tribes, so that they would serve with the tabernacle; they were located around the tabernacle. However, God arranged that Manasseh and Ephraim, the two sons of Joseph, would be tribes in Israel, thus completing the twelve tribes.

Every person needed to be encamped by the standard of his tribe – there was no personal preference allowed. Whichever tribe one was born in, that’s where he had to go and enroll, and that’s where he belonged; there was no choice – each had to be with his tribe.

All the tribes of Israel were arranged around and faced toward the center, that is, toward the Tent of Meeting, the Tabernacle of the Testimony. Two million people were encamped in an array around the tabernacle, facing not the outside or the back but the center, the Tabernacle of the Testimony.

And God’s testimony in the tabernacle faced all the directions on all four sides; God’s testimony was not just for one direction or for one people, but to all directions and to the whole earth, to all the peoples of the earth.

The sequence of the encamping was according to the order of the condition of life of God’s people, not according to birth. Judah was not the firstborn but the fourth, but he was a kingly tribe, and according to Jacob’s blessing in Gen. 49, he was like a young lion hose hand is at the neck of the enemy.

Judah was strong, and Christ came from Judah – He is even called the Lion from the tribe of Judah. So Judah was placed at the front, taking the lead and guarding the entrance to the tabernacle.

The way God designs His people to be encamped in array around the tabernacle is not according to natural birth but according to the condition of life.

Furthermore, the twelve tribes were arranged in a three times four formation, three tribes on all the four sides, which signifies that God in His Divine Trinity is mingled with the created man to form a unit of eternal and perfect government for His move on earth.

The spiritual significance of the encamping in array of the people of Israel is that in the coordination of the church, the believers are not allowed to have their own choice; rather, their coordination must come absolutely out of God’s ordination and arrangement.

God in His sovereignty has placed every member where it pleased Him. In our natural man we like to exercise preference and choose a different locality to meet with, for we may not like the saints in our church but prefer other saints who seem better, more perfect, and more proper.

But praise the Lord, God doesn’t allow us as His people to exercise our own preference; He placed us with a certain set of saints, and this is His how He wants to have us encamped in an array for battle.

This is a basic lesson to learn in living the Body life; there’s an order in the Body, and everything is arranged by God in His wisdom and sovereignty.

God chose what family we’re born in and what church we meet with – this is His desire; we shouldn’t try to get out or change that but rather live under God’s sovereign arrangement and ordination, and learn to be fitted in the Body of Christ.

Thank You Lord Jesus for placing us as members in Your Body according to Your sovereign arrangement. Thank You for “encamping us” with the saints with whom You have placed us according to Your desire. Lord, may we learn this basic lesson in living the Body life by respecting the order in the Body and learning to be fitted with the saints in the Body of Christ. Amen, Lord Jesus, grow in us, knit us together, and save us from our own choice and preference in practicing the Body life in the local churches!

Christ and the Church is our Central Goal; the Testimony of God is our Center

There were twelve standards among the Israelites (three on each of the four sides of the Tent of Meeting), but there was only one central goal; they took the Tent of Meeting and the testimony of God as their center.

As the children of Israel were encamped in array, there were twelve tribes, but they all took the Tent of Meeting as their center, facing it.

In our Christian life and church life there has to be a center; as we’re being arrayed for the warfare, God doesn’t want us to face any other direction but Christ and the church, the center.

We may think that the children of Israel may not be able to defend themselves if they face the enemy with their back, but it is actually the Lord who fights for them, and their responsibility is to face the testimony of God.

Do we have a center in our Christian life? We may think that we need to balance our life, for we have children, a demanding job, and we’re needed in the church also…but actually, there’s no need for us to try to allocate a percentage to the church, the family, and our job, but simply hold Christ as the center.

As long as we hold Christ and the church as the center, everything will be balanced; but if we don’t have a center, even when we try to balance things out according to our figuration, it won’t work out.

When the center is established, we know how much time we should spend with our family, doing business, and in the church life. The center is crucial.

As God’s people we should be arranged and face the center, living for the center, and having our whole life around the center.

For the meeting of God’s people with God, the tabernacle was called the Tent of Meeting (Lev. 1:1); it was the place where God’s people met with God and God met with them.

The church life is a meeting life; all are very busy, and we may want to streamline our meetings for we think we meet too much…but we need to realise we don’t meet for the sake of meeting, but we meet together to meet with God!

Every meeting is a meeting with God and with His people, and we do not neglect our assembly together, for we meet not to chat or talk but to meet with God and with His people.

For the testimony of God, the tabernacle was called the Tabernacle of the Testimony (Num. 1:50, 53). The law in the Ark was called the testimony, and so the ark became the Ark of the Testimony and the tabernacle became the Tabernacle of the Testimony.

The testimony of God is the very meaning and characteristic of the tabernacle. The center of our being and our living should be Christ and the church, the testimony of God. As God’s people we are encamped in array around the testimony of God to uphold and protect God’s testimony on earth.

Our life on earth is for the testimony of God, so that God would be testified on earth. We come together not just to meet with God and enjoy His presence, but for God’s testimony to be expressed and testified in this universe.

In the New Testament both Christ and the church, the enlargement of Christ, are the reality of the tabernacle in these two aspects; the meaning of our life here on earth is Christ and the church.

If we don’t live for Christ and the church, our life is meaningless, not having a purpose. The real center of our living on earth, whether we are students, professionals, working saints, or stay at home moms, is Christ and the church, the testimony of God.

Amen, Lord, we take Christ and the church as our center in our Christian life and church life. We want to hold Christ and the church as the center so that we may be encamped in array as an army to fight for God’s interest on earth. May our whole life, work, and activities be centered on God’s testimony on the earth, and may we live a life and do a work for the protection of God’s testimony. Oh Lord, cause us to really see that Christ and the church is the meaning of our life and our center in all we are and do!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by James Lee for this week, and portions from, Collected Works of Witness Lee, 1960, vol. 1, “Synopsis of Numbers,” ch. 2, as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallisation-Study of Numbers (1), week 2, Israel’s Encamping in Array Typifying God’s Redeemed People Being Consummated as the New Jerusalem.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # By His mercy, we’re selected, / Ours a glorious destiny. / Not by running, nor by willing, / But through God’s own sovereignty. / Once we were wild olive branches, / Now the root and fat partake, / Grafted in, rejoice together, / Growing for the kingdom’s sake. (Hymns #1203)
  # Fight the battle in the Body! / By the virtue of the Head; / Standing firmly with the Body, / Into vict’ry you’ll be led. (Hymns #885)
  # Home, home in the church; / Yes, it’s here that we’ve ended our search; / And through all our days / We will shout to His praise, / “Hallelujah for Christ and the church!” (Hymns #1233)