The Tabernacle and Us

I had the privilege to give a talk to our churches teenagers last Friday night on the tabernacle in Exodus. By coincidence, a friend of mine had just recently posted on his blog, Stretch Theology, some stuff on the tabernacle. I ended up stealing a few of his pictures for a powerpoint slide to go with this talk, they were originally from here. I did think about showing this video, but for the sake of time chose not to.

There were three readings before this talk, Exodus 25:1-9, 39:32-43 and 40:34-38.

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The story so far

We are nearly at the end of the book of Exodus, in fact, that chapter 40 reading is the end of the book. Tonight, we are trying to cover about 11 chapters of detailed description of the tabernacle. This bit tends to get skipped over in Exodus presentations.

The story of Exodus is one of an epic rescue fit for a Hollywood movie. The funny thing about what Hollywood and the average Sunday school person knows about Exodus ends at chapter 14 or 15 with the red sea and then maybe skips over to chapter 20 with the ten commandments. But that is only half the book! Exodus goes for 40 chapters. Do you remember watching the Prince of Egypt in week five? They stopped at the Red Sea[1]! We do like a rescue story, they are good and inspiring, but we forget what Israel has been rescued to. They weren’t just freed to fend for themselves, they were rescued for a purpose. And their purpose for rescue is the same purpose for everyone, to be in relationship with God. We were made to be with God.

Israel was in slavery, and God heard their cries, saw their plight, remembered his promises and rescued his people. God revealed Himself and his name to a hesitant Moses to lead the people out of Israel so that they could worship the Lord.

God speaks to Moses and the community from Mount Sinai giving them instructions on how they are now to live under Him. God gives detailed instructions on his portable dwelling place with them. This is called the tabernacle, which was really just a fancy pants tent. It was like a portable Mt Sinai[2], as you travelled through it, the place got more holy, to the inmost part where God was. Hopefully, this isn’t deeming the tent, but the tabernacle was how God went glamping with His people.

Have you been camping? Do you like it? Every year I go camping with Hannah’s side of the family for about a week. I winged about all the extra work you have to do with cooking and cleaning since you don’t have a dishwasher, plumbing or wifi. When we go camping, we have to prepare in advance. Things need to be found in the shed, and we sometimes pack the car and trailer the day before. There are checklists of food and cooking and sleeping gear to be made.

The Tabernacle

From Exodus 25 to 31, we have six chapters, three times as many as the Passover, of detail instructions of the tent and gear God wants in his tent. God instructs Moses in Chapter 25 to make a sanctuary for Him, for the reason to dwell among them. Underline that bit. We will get back to that. They were to make the tabernacle in accordance with God’s instructions which go on for the next six chapters. Then there is a minor break in the story, which we will look at next week, and then from chapter 35 till the end we have five more chapters explaining how the Israelites did “as the LORD commanded Moses”.

We get a summary of all this in Exodus 39:32-42. There lists all the gear they made, to some pretty detail instructions from by God.

And this is good. They did it. Israel had followed the instructions of the Lord to build His tabernacle. And then the climax of the book, not the rescue, here at the very end, we finally have God coming down to the camp of Israel. This is our chapter 40 passage [verses 34-38]. Here we have the sovereign Lord, who has rescued His people from slavery and oppression, who has saved them to be a new nation under Him, He finally comes down to them. This is epic. This is heartwarming, like when a lover is separated from their beloved and they meet again at the airport. God finally comes down to His beloved people. Twice in two verses, we see that “the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle”. Don’t miss it.

The Lord comes down, fills the tent and he guides them where they are to go. When they are to set up camp and when they pack up to leave. No longer is God up a mountain, but he is with His people, in the tent that is in the middle of their tent city.

Did you notice anything strange here in this chapter 40 passage? Moses, the guy who played middle man between God and Israel couldn’t come into the tent. After all this, Moses still can’t enter. He is not holy enough. He can’t go in. No one goes in. Later people will be able to enter this tent, but not after sacrifices[3]. And the high priest could only go right inside once every year. While they were God’s people, they still could not just hang out with God like their mate, they aren’t casual with Him. He is still the sovereign Lord. He is there, but also clouded.

God dwelling with his people

God dwelling with His people is a long-running theme in the Bible[4]. God was with Adam in the cool of the day in the garden of Eden, but since then, since the fall, since sin, there has been a barrier. Sinful people cannot dwell with God. It is a big deal just to get to this tent, which is why there is like 10 chapters devoted to this place on Earth where God would dwell. Solomon later builds a temple, a permanent building for God to dwell in. There are another 3 or 4 chapters describing that temple building project at the start of 1 Kings. Israel sold off the temple gold to invading armies and even put up their own idols inside the temple, and that temple got destroyed. At the end of the book of Ezekiel, there are eight more chapters describing another temple. The book of Ezra is about how Israel rebuilt the temple, but it wasn’t as grand as before and in Revelation, we get a vision with a long description of a city with no temple, for that whole city is the dwelling place of God.

Don’t miss this, and all its detail. In the Bible, we see that God wants to dwell with His people and that God did dwell with his people. Not only that God even became one of His people. In the first chapter of John’s gospel, it says:

The Word of God became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We have seen his glory, the glory of the one and only Son, who came from the Father, full of grace and truth. (John 1:14) 

Notice the "he made his dwelling among us" line? Would it blow your mind if I told you it literally says God “tented”, or “encamped”, or get this, “tabernacled” with us[5]? Jesus dwelt with us. He was a better temple; He was able to walk among us and we could see him and not die. Jesus came in a greater and more perfect tent, not made with human hands (Heb 9:11). Copies of the heavenly things needed to be purified over and over again (Heb 9:23), but Jesus was no copy, he was the real deal. In Jesus, we have a better covenant than Moses (Heb 8:6). Moses couldn’t enter, but we know that Jesus from eternity past was present with God the Father. He could enter the presence of God in a way that Moses could not.

Church: the dwelling place of God

And you may be thinking, well this is great. God wants to dwell with his people. There was a tent and a permanent building a temple in the past, then Jesus came and dwelt with his people for like 30 years, and there is this great future city/temple. In the past you could ask where God and a Jew could point and say[6] “God is in the tabernacle. He is there, right in the middle of our campsite”. Or later they could say, “God is in the temple, in Jerusalem”. A first century Jew could say “God is there, eating with his disciples” or “There God is, teaching from a boat” or “God is eating with that tax collector”. But what about now?

Is God only in heaven? I know there is this future city coming, but what about now? Is God trying not to get His hands dirty with us sinful people now?

No, not at all. If you are a Christian God dwells in you. Your body is a temple. Not metaphorically, but literally, God dwells in you. Paul tells the Corinthians:

Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who is in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your bodies. (1 Cor 6:19-20)

Peter says that Christians are:

like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5)

If someone is to ask where is God here on earth, we should be able to point to the church and say, “there is God. Here is there, in the believers”. As we gather together, we can say “here is God, in Christians, in those who follow Jesus”. Isn’t that crazy? If you thought it was crazy that God could live in a tent, what do you make of God living in His people today?

This is a huge topic, and we will spend 4 weeks next term looking at this. But for tonight, I want you to see that God wants to dwell with His people. God saved Israel from slavery for the purpose of being with them. God wants a relationship with His people. God sent Jesus to save you from judgement and sin and death, but for a reason, which is so that He can be in relationship with you. So that He can dwell in you now, and so that you can be with Him forever and ever.

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[1] I had a little rant off the cuff about how the movie is full of songs, and yet when the text literally has a song in after the Red Sea crossing they don’t do that one…

[2] I got this idea from a few people, mostly Peter Enns (2000), Exodus (The NIV Application Commentary) and Matthew Payne, The Theology of the Tabernacle (http://stretchtheology.com/the-theology-of-the-tabernacle/)

[3] The Bible Project guys go on to say this is what Leviticus is for and why it is immediately after Exodus

[4] I had a leader afterwards say this isn’t just a theme of the Bible, but it is the main story of the Bible. I agree.

[5] Greek word ἐσκήνωσεν (https://biblehub.com/greek/4637.htm)

[6] The pointing and saying idea I took from Paige Benton Brown, In the Temple: The Glorious and Forgiving God (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kgYk7fuCZeE)