What Does the Tabernacle Teach Us About Jesus? (Exodus 35-40)
Ever wonder why God asked for a tent? The tabernacle reveals his plan to dwell with us, and today, we are his temple, set apart for his glory.
Exodus 35-40
Today's Scripture Passage
A Few Thoughts to Consider
What does the erecting of a tabernacle teach us about God and ourselves?
After the Israelites renewed their commitment to God, they were commanded to build a tabernacle. As you read these chapters, you can’t help but notice the meticulous nature of this construction. It’s also evident these passages point to the creation narrative. Just as God finished his work in Genesis 2:2, “Moses finished the work” in Exodus 40:33. Peter Enns notes,
As we saw in 12:2, the Exodus inaugurated a new calendar in Israelite life: The month in which the Exodus took place would be the first month of the year. The deliverance of Israel from Egypt marked a new beginning for God’s people, a “new creation.” It is no surprise, therefore, that the tabernacle, itself a microcosm of creation, is also set up one year later on the first day of the first month. It, too, is a new creation.[1]
The tabernacle, and eventually the temple, were constructed for clear reasons. They weren’t just God’s means of working with an ancient, uncivilized population. “These institutions were, rather, symbols of a higher—and ultimately mysterious—reality. They were truly the means by which God and his people ‘connected.’”[2] “The tabernacle was an earthly representation of heavenly reality. It was a microcosm of the created order—hence, a microcosm of the only spotless point in creation, Eden.”[3] Enns writes,
The tabernacle, despite being built as a perfect rectangle, was never intended to be a “box” in which God, like the pagan gods around them, could be safely stored away and called upon to serve the people’s purpose. If anything, the many allusions to creation in the tabernacle’s construction reminded Israel of the exact opposite: The God worshiped within is Creator of heaven and earth.[4]
The tabernacle teaches us something remarkable about God, but it also teaches us something about ourselves.
A Meditation to PRAY
Praise | I praise you for being a God of new beginnings and a God who comes to where I am. Thank you for dwelling in me.
Release | I release my desire to give in to earthly cravings. I want to use my body for your glory.
Ask | Help me to discipline my body and treat it like the temple you made it to be.
Yield | I surrender myself to you. Show me any areas of my life that need to be changed. Conform me to your image.
A Challenge to Act Like Christ
This theme of tabernacle runs throughout the New Testament. John 1:14 tells us that Jesus came and tabernacled among us before going on to say, “We observed his glory, the glory as the one and only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth.” Jesus was God in the flesh.
Revelation 21:22-23 says there will be another temple one day where God will dwell with his people. Until then, now that Christ has ascended to heaven, we are God’s temples. Paul says in 1 Corinthians 3:16-17,
16 “Don’t you yourselves know that you are God’s temple and that the Spirit of God lives in you? 17 If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is holy, and that is what you are.” In 1 Corinthians 6:19-20, Paul says, 19 “Don’t you know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, 20 for you were bought at a price. So glorify God with your body.”
Here is the beauty of this. Enns writes,
With the spread of the gospel, God’s glory can now be seen in new temples everywhere, that is, wherever men and women repent and come to know God, wherever people gather together to worship. God’s sacred space is no longer restricted to a building in one part of the world. Nor is it embodied only in his Son, as it was for a brief time two thousand years ago. By the work of the Holy Spirit, God’s sacred space has spread over all the earth. Indeed, the redemption of the earth was his plan all along. As it was once before, the earth is now again God’s holy dwelling.[5]
We are God’s tabernacles and instruments to spread his reflection to this world. When we understand this, we can’t help but live differently.
[1]Peter Enns, Exodus, The NIV Application Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 552.
[2]Peter Enns, Exodus, The NIV Application Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 552.
[3]Peter Enns, Exodus, The NIV Application Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 553-554.
[4]Peter Enns, Exodus, The NIV Application Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 553-554.
[5]Peter Enns, Exodus, The NIV Application Commentary. Accordance electronic ed. (Grand Rapids: Zondervan, 2000), 554-557.
