The Tabernacle

It was God’s own mind from before the creation of the world to have a people and to dwell among them. After Adam’s fall in sin, mankind was driven from God’s presence, and the way of return was barred by Cherubim with flaming swords. But God’s plan of redemption was already set in place. He called a people to himself, made them great, and raised up Moses to deliver them from bondage. Taking them into the wilderness, God commanded Moses to build the Tabernacle according to His perfect and detailed instructions—a house for the great God of creation to dwell among his people. The key to understanding everything in the Tabernacle is the central Person of the entire Scripture, Jesus Christ. God intended this holy structure to be the most visual presentation of the glory of Jesus Christ. It’s really the gospel in the Old Testament.

A temple is a place where God dwells—God’s house. The theme of God dwelling among his people is all throughout the Scriptures. But the Tabernacle was not made like any other temple that was ever built on the earth. Ezekiel prophesied of an even greater temple. But Jesus refers to his own body in John 2:19, when he says, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” The temple theme continues in the epistles, where the church is described as “a holy temple in the Lord,” and the believer is told to keep his body pure, as “the temple of the Holy Spirit.” And finally, in Revelation 21:22 it says, “I saw no temple…for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.”

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Rev. A.T. Vergunst is minister of the Gospel in the Reformed Congregation of Carterton, New Zealand.