Thou shalt also make a table of shittim wood: two cubits shall be the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof, Exodus 25:23.
One of the great attributes of the King James Bible is its exactness for study. As a young preacher, my pastor insisted that we understand the Tabernacle. I spent many long and productive hours carefully drawing little stick drawings (I'm a terrible artist) of the Tabernacle itself and of its several components. I remember an instance at about 2:00 AM when I had been frustrated for hours over not being able to grasp a point in Leviticus chapter 4.
As I groaned with weariness and looked at the clock I resigned myself to being exhausted when I had to go to work in the next few hours. A thought entered my head. It was a verse reference. I quickly turned to Leviticus 6 and read. My understanding opened. I flipped through verse after verse in various contexts and understood what I read. Then I had another thought; "Where had that key verse come from?" It just popped into my head.
I dropped onto the floor and lay on my face. God had spoken in my heart. He had spoken with the words of a King James Bible. A verse came to me unbidden. It unlocked a secret that had been hidden from me in plain sight. I laid on the floor of that little trailer and worshipped the most high God who made himself known to me through the indwelling of the Spirit of God in tandem and in perfect harmony with the bible in front of me.
I encourage all of my people to do their own study of the Tabernacle and the Levitical offerings. What amazes me is that no matter who starts doing the study, and no matter how much or how little they know of the word of God beforehand, they invariably contact me with a question that I have never heard of or thought of before. I explain to them that God gave them that question and that I am eager to hear the answer when they find it. God teaches far more through questions than through pat answers.
Dimensions are important. My little stick drawings would have made anyone laugh. Nevertheless, a cubit could be represented by an inch on a piece of paper and my drawings gave me a sense of proportion. When I drew the table mentioned in our opening verse, it would be two inches long, and inch wide and one and a half inches tall. Three dimensions are easy to work with.
My problem came when I read Ephesians 3:17-19; That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God. There were four dimensions. I couldn't visualize it. It seemed to me to be some strange Einstein type of measurement wherein a mystical fourth dimension was added.
Then one day I was reminded of a phone call that I had received from one of my more diligent students. (Dale Morey if you really must know.) He had been trying to picture the Millennial Temple of Ezekiel 40-48. He called me to tell me that the measurements given made no sense unless the person reading it pictured himself in the doorway of the temple. From the perspective of the door of that future temple, all of the measurements fell into place.
I marvelled at that little insight that the Lord had revealed to a babe in Christ. Jesus Christ is the door. From within him come all of the answers of life. From within Jesus Christ things in the bible fall into place. I applied that to Ephesians 3:18 and its four dimensions. My problem was that I was viewing it from the outside. I climbed inside and looked at it again. The breadth measured what I would measure with my arms stretched to the left and right. The length measured in front of me and behind me. The height measured above my head, and the depth measured beneath my feet.
To be in Christ is to understand his love. From the outside it makes no sense. There can be no comparison of the depth of insight and knowledge that a reader and believer of the King James Bible can gain. It speaks God's language. The Holy Ghost whispers its verses into the hearts of those who trust it. The Holy Ghost opens the understanding of believers who hear its words.