Passage: Exodus 26:15-30

The Big Idea

The tabernacle’s walls were upright boards of acacia wood overlaid with gold, picturing Jesus as fully man and fully God. But not one board touched the ground. Each stood on silver sockets cast from the redemption money every Israelite paid. Redemption is the foundation of our whole relationship with God, not our works, intentions or religion. The blood of Jesus is how we enter, and it’s how we abide.

Good News for Sinners

The gospel of Jesus is good news for sinners. It isn’t good news for people who think they’re good, or who see no need for God’s help (Mark 2:17).

The Boards (Exodus 26:15-30)

God told Moses to make upright frames (boards) of acacia wood, each ten cubits tall and a cubit and a half wide, with two tenons at the bottom. Twenty frames formed the south side and twenty the north, each frame standing in two silver bases, forty bases for each side. The west end had six frames plus two corner frames, for sixteen silver bases there. Acacia crossbars held the frames together, five on each side, with the middle bar running the full length. The frames and bars were all overlaid with gold, and the whole thing was to be set up according to the plan shown on the mountain (Exodus 26:15-30).

Wood and gold

The boards that held up the tabernacle were made of wood overlaid with gold: man and God.
That speaks of the two natures of Jesus that support our whole life with God.

In AD 451, church leaders gathered at the Council of Chalcedon to state clearly what Scripture teaches about who Jesus is. Their statement has been accepted ever since by the major branches of Christianity. In summary:

Jesus has two natures: He is God and man.
Each nature is full and complete: He is fully God and fully man.
The two natures remain distinct; they don’t blend into something else.
Yet Christ is one Person, not two.
What is true of either nature is true of the one Person, Jesus Christ.

Why does that matter?

Because Jesus is God, He can provide everything we need. He has limitless resources and limitless love. That’s grace.
Because Jesus is man, He could die as our substitute, and He can feel our weakness, so He loves us and provides exactly the grace we need.

“In Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9).

John says the Word became flesh and lived among us, full of grace and truth, and from His fullness we have all received grace upon grace (John 1:14, 16).

Our High Priest isn’t unable to sympathize with our weaknesses. He was tempted in every way we are, yet without sin. So we can come boldly to the throne of grace to receive mercy and find grace to help when we need it (Hebrews 4:15-16).

We are weak. If you don’t believe that, you’re being deceived, by the enemy cheering on your flesh.
But Jesus does more than show us what’s good. He supplies our weakness. His love is a providing love. He’s rich in grace, ready to pour out what we need, when we need it.

The Silver Sockets

Next we see that every board stood in silver bases (sockets).

Not a single board touched the ground. The only thing touching the desert floor was silver.
Silver is often linked with redemption.
Redemption is the central theme of Exodus. Remember the key verse: in His mercy God led the people He had redeemed, and in His strength He guided them to His holy dwelling (Exodus 15:13).
Mercy: God saw our need for redemption.
Strength: the power of the Redeemer.
Led: the way of redemption.
Holy dwelling: the new life and service of God’s people.

The silver in the tabernacle teaches us that redemption is the foundation of our relationship with God. God wants His people to understand that deeply.

Where did the silver come from?

God commanded that every man twenty years and older pay half a shekel of silver as “atonement money,” a ransom for his life (Exodus 30:12-16). Rich and poor paid the same. It was a confession: “I deserve to die, but God has saved me in His mercy.”

That silver was melted down and made into these very sockets (Exodus 38:25-28).

What if you didn’t have the silver? That’s a problem! What if you couldn’t afford to be redeemed? Then you’d need a friend to pay it for you.

That’s exactly what Jesus did. We receive the ransom money when we take hold of Christ by faith. Instantly our life is redeemed, because the price has been paid, and we present it to the Father: “Here’s Jesus, my redemption.”

Only those redeemed by the blood of Jesus are truly saved, not those who merely say they believe in Him.

Ask this: Satan believes Jesus exists (James 2:19). Why isn’t he saved?
Because saving faith is surrender. Not just believing facts, but trusting.
Like a bridge. You can believe it would hold you, but unless you actually walk onto it, you’ll never cross the canyon.

Everyone must either be redeemed from their sin, or die. And the only price a perfectly holy God accepts is the perfectly holy blood of a perfect sacrifice who never sinned. Jesus’ blood is freely offered to everyone in the world.

So why do so many refuse it?

Pride: “I don’t need help.”
Deceived by sin: “I like choosing my own life, doing what I want, even if it’s wrong. I reject the Lawgiver, so I don’t think I’m accountable.”
They don’t know: “Jesus was just a nice teacher who wanted people to be kind.”
They think they already have it because of some condition they’ve met: “I’m an American,” “I was raised in a Christian family,” “I’m a good person.”

But God is clear: only those who personally take hold of Jesus’ blood by faith are saved.

Paul says the word of faith is near us, in our mouth and in our heart: if you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised Him from the dead, you will be saved. Whoever believes in Him will never be put to shame. There’s no difference between Jew and Gentile; the same Lord is generous to everyone who calls on Him, and everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved (Romans 10:8-13).

Salvation is never by works.
Or by willpower.
Or by birth.
Or by anything we provide.
It’s only by redemption: a price paid. We owe a debt we can’t pay.
Faith in the kindness and goodness of Jesus, and the blood He shed at the cross, is our only hope.

Don’t believe the modern idea that people are basically good at heart and that’s what matters. It isn’t true.

Spiritually, apart from Christ, we’re dead (Ephesians 2:1). We’re spiritually bankrupt. Our hearts default to self and rebellion against whatever restrains us.

The Ten Commandments don’t justify us. They show how much we fail, and our only response is excuses or silence (Romans 3:19).

Why would God redeem us?

But God truly loves people. So He paid the price for everyone to be redeemed. Why?

David marveled that there was no nation like Israel, the one people God went out to redeem for Himself, making a name for Himself by doing great and awesome things (2 Samuel 7:23).

Because He is kind and compassionate, and He wants His love to spread through the whole world. He wants everyone to taste and see that He is good. It’s His kindness that leads people to repentance (Romans 2:4).

A Portable Foundation

These silver sockets are amazing.

Instead of digging a new foundation every time they moved, with great effort, Israel carried the silver with them. And the sockets were made from the ransom money paid for every person in the camp.

The price Jesus willingly paid for us is the foundation of every part of our relationship with God, wherever we go.

“I am the way, the truth and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6).

We can never base our relationship with God on any other foundation: works, intentions, logic or religion. Society accepts those things. God doesn’t. God accepts only the blood of His Son. The silver.

Hebrews says that when Christ came as High Priest, He entered the true, heavenly sanctuary, not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood, once for all, having obtained eternal redemption. If animal blood could make people outwardly clean, how much more will the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered Himself without blemish to God, cleanse our consciences from dead works to serve the living God! That’s why He is the Mediator of a new covenant (Hebrews 9:11-15).

When Jesus came, He gave His blood to redeem us from sin.
That’s the foundation of a new relationship with God.
But how do we abide with Him, grow, continue and serve Him?
Exactly the same way.
The blood that let us enter the house also holds up the house we live in.

What Does This Mean?

We’ll quickly become empty and confused if we build our fellowship with God on any other foundation. Our fellowship will feel broken.

Not “I feel holy today.” Not “I’m serving at church.” Not “I know my Bible.” Not “I’ve believed a long time.”

Nothing creates an atmosphere where we’re accepted, beloved and rejoicing before God except the blood of Jesus.

I’d rather speak five words about how Jesus redeemed me than twenty thousand about what I’ve done for Him (compare 1 Corinthians 14:19).
Everything done through our church, prayers, Bible studies or ministries happens only through Jesus. He must be the focus, the foundation, the power. He must receive the glory and our trust. He can’t be forgotten.
What are we doing when we aren’t trusting Him, when we aren’t waiting on Him alone to deliver, save and build up? Nothing that lasts.

Jesus said to abide in Him as He abides in us. A branch can’t bear fruit on its own; it has to stay connected to the vine. He is the vine, we’re the branches, and whoever abides in Him bears much fruit, because apart from Him we can do nothing (John 15:4-5).

Jonathan Edwards wrote that the redeemed depend on God for everything: wisdom, pardon, deliverance, acceptance, grace, holiness, comfort, happiness and eternal glory, all received through a Mediator. And that Mediator is God Himself. “God is both the purchaser and the price,” Edwards wrote, “for Christ, who is God, purchased these blessings by offering Himself as the price of our salvation.”

Arthur Pink, writing about the silver sockets, said they show “in language too plain to be misunderstood, that redemption is the basis on which Christ has become the meeting-place between the ineffably holy God and His inherently sinful people.” Had Christ not given Himself as a ransom, Pink noted, He would have remained alone (John 12:24).

This isn’t just theology. It’s personal hope, a lifeline to grab with everything in us.

Grace Takeaway

Every board in God’s house stood on silver, the ransom price of every redeemed life, and not one board touched the dirt. Your relationship with God stands on the same foundation: not your performance, but the blood of Jesus. It’s how you got in, and it’s how you stay. We’re sinners, and Jesus is the Lamb who was slain for sinners. Let’s each grab hold of Him for dear life, and stand on what He paid.

← The Tent over the Tabernacle: The Grace and Suffering of Jesus | All Exodus notes | The Veil: The Separation Is Real →

The Boards and Sockets: Redemption Is the Foundation