Passage: Exodus 25-40; John 1:14

The Big Idea

More space in Scripture is devoted to the tabernacle than to almost anything else: two chapters for creation, but many chapters for the tent where God would live among His people. Why? Because it’s a detailed, multi-layered picture of Jesus: His person and His work. John says the Word became flesh and “tabernacled” among us, full of grace and truth. Plain on the outside, filled with God’s glory on the inside, the tabernacle is God’s picture book of His Son, written for you.

Draw Yourself Without Words

Try this: draw a picture of yourself using only images. No words. Don’t even draw your face. Show who you really are in pictures.

That’s what God does in the tabernacle. He draws a picture of His Son.

A Dwelling Place

The word tabernacle translates the Hebrew mishkan, “dwelling place.”

Scripture devotes enormous space to it. Creation, God making the whole world fit for us to live in, takes two chapters. The tabernacle, a place where God would be pleased to live with His people, takes many chapters, much of them repeated as the instructions are given and then carried out.

Why? The tabernacle is a multi-level picture of the person and work of Jesus, for you.

Many people skip these chapters. Yet the New Testament, especially Hebrews, teaches that the way of Jesus can’t be fully understood without them.

The hard part is organizing so many pictures. It helps to see the tabernacle on three levels:

Heaven, where God dwells. The earthly tabernacle was a copy of heavenly realities (Hebrews 8:5; 9:23-24).
Jesus on earth, the meeting place of God and man. God, not the Israelites, designed the tabernacle, and it foreshadowed the Son of God living as a man in His “tent.” “A body You have prepared for Me” (Hebrews 10:5).
Jesus with His church, how He lives among His people and how God and His people meet. John heard a voice from the throne: “Look, God’s dwelling place is now among the people, and He will dwell (literally, tabernacle) with them. They will be His people, and God Himself will be with them as their God” (Revelation 21:3).

The key to understanding the tabernacle is always Jesus:

His person.
His work.
Each part describes some aspect of His character or ministry.
None of it was a waste of ink. It isn’t just Jewish history.
Every Christian can grow by knowing the tabernacle, because it simply shows us Jesus.
God often teaches with pictures before words. These pictures teach much of what Romans and Ephesians teach.

Full of Grace and Truth (John 1:14)

“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory, the glory of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.”

The word for “dwelt” literally means “pitched His tent” or “tabernacled.”

If the tabernacle describes Jesus, then it’s full of pictures of God’s grace and truth.
We want to know God’s truth, and this will help.
And we really want to know and experience God’s grace.

How do we approach studying the tabernacle?

With humility. God gives grace to the humble.
With faith. We access grace by faith (Romans 5:2).
If we come with teachable, humble hearts, believing that Jesus is the reality all of God’s Word points to, we’ll be blessed. We’ll receive the grace God longs to pour out on each of us.
Used rightly, this study is a relationship-building tool.

How’s your relationship with God?

Did you answer by thinking of outward measurements, things you’re doing?
Or do you see your relationship with God in terms of inward realities: humility before Christ and faith in Christ?

How the Section Is Organized

Chapters 25-31: the design of the tabernacle, given from God’s perspective.

The instructions begin at the center, the Most Holy Place, and move outward to the courtyard.
From the inside out.
That’s how God’s grace works: from the inside out. First He changes our hearts; then our actions follow.

Chapters 32-34: the people’s rebellion and God’s renewed mercy (the golden calf).

Chapters 35-40: the actual construction, from the human side.

Built from the outside in, from the courts toward the Most Holy Place.

How It Ends

“Then the cloud covered the tent of meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (Exodus 40:34).

The outside of the tabernacle wasn’t fancy. Plain animal skins.
But inside, it was filled with the glory of God.
Just like Jesus. He wasn’t impressive on the outside. Isaiah said He grew up like a tender shoot, like a root out of dry ground, with no special beauty or majesty to attract us (Isaiah 53:2). Yet all the fullness of God dwelt in Him (Colossians 2:9), full of grace and truth.

The tabernacle is one of the most perfect and enduring pictures of Christ the world has ever had.

God knew His people needed to know the coming Savior, but they didn’t yet have the categories to grasp Him.
So in love, God gave them a tabernacle, to show them the Savior who would one day tabernacle among them.

Ten Ways the Tabernacle Shows Us Jesus

It was temporary. The tabernacle served Israel through the wilderness years and into the land before the temple replaced it. It pictures Jesus’ first coming, a temporary dwelling in humility. The later temple, in its glory, can picture Christ exalted.
It was used in the wilderness. Jesus lived among us in our wilderness. He had “nowhere to lay His head” (Matthew 8:20).
It wasn’t fancy. Unlike Solomon’s temple, it pictures Jesus’ first coming, when His glory was veiled.
God lived there. God’s glory dwelt between the cherubim in the Most Holy Place, hidden deep inside where few could see. Jesus was filled with God’s Spirit and glory within.
People met with God there. Jesus is where we meet and commune with God. There’s no other mediator (1 Timothy 2:5).
The law was kept there, safe inside the ark. Jesus kept God’s law in His heart (Psalm 40:8). He came not to abolish the law but to fulfill it.
Sacrifice was made there. Sin was forgiven through blood shed there, just as with Jesus.
It was a place of worship. God was the center of everything, glorified by all that happened there, just as He’s glorified in His beloved Son.
There was only one door. Jesus said, “I am the door” (John 10:9), the only way to the Father.
The tribe of Judah camped at the entrance. Judah was stationed on the east side, by the tabernacle’s entrance (Numbers 2:3), a hint of the line Messiah would come from: the Lion of the tribe of Judah.

Now these words are even more beautiful: “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us, and we beheld His glory… full of grace and truth.”

It’s astonishing that the God of all glory would be pleased to spend some thirty years in a “dusty tent,” filling it with His glory and presence, His grace and truth.

It’s for You

All of this is written for you:

So you’d have confidence in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
So you’d grow in His grace as you humbly depend on His ministry as your High Priest.

Grace Takeaway

The tabernacle was plain on the outside and blazing with God’s glory inside, and so was Jesus. God drew His Son in pictures long before He sent Him in person, so that when He came, we’d recognize Him: the dwelling place of God, the meeting place, the sacrifice, the one door. As we study these chapters, come humbly and believingly. Every board, curtain and piece of furniture is a portrait of the One who tabernacled among us, full of grace and truth.

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