There are two tabernacles of worship in the Old Testament. First of all, the Tabernacle of the Lord, which Moses the servant of the Lord had made in the wilderness... (1 Chronicles 21:29) contained the Ark of the Covenant, in which God made known His manifest presence. This tabernacle, prescribed by the Lord, allowed His children to worship Him and to find forgiveness of sin through the sacrifices and the mediation of the priests.

What did it look like?

What did Israelites see when they looked at the tabernacle so long ago? They saw a tent with two inner rooms and a yard outside. In the yard was the Israelite equivalent of a stove, namely a place where meat could be roasted on a fire. Unlike us they lived in tents, which was a home that could be taken up quickly and move from place to place.

God told them to make a tent for Him. It was to be a tent where God himself would dwell and meet with them (Exod 25:8, 22). In his tent he had rooms and a yard and a fireplace like thiers but, it was also unlike their own. The tent was majestic, covered with gold and blue. It was majestic and beautiful just like God is.

What God wanted was to come right down among them. He wanted to dwell along side of them. He too would travel to the promised land, as his tent was packed up by the Levites and moved to the next encampment.

The cloud of fire symbolizing God's presence was a more intensive, miraculous form of the same reality. God would be among them, right with them, "Immanuel" (see Matt. 1:23). A cloud of glory symbolizing God's presence accompanied the Israelites and came over the tabernacle after it was constructed (Exod. 40:34-38; Num. 9:15-23).

The tabernacle expresses another side to the character of God, namely that he is holy and inaccessible. The altar, several coverings, and two sets of curtains bar the way into his presence. No one can enter into the inner room, the most holy place, except the high priest, and even then only once a year in a special ceremony, where he is protected from his sin and the accusation of the law by the blood that he brings in and sprinkles on the mercy seat (Lev. 16). Death is threatened to transgressors of God's holiness (Exod. 19:12-13, 21-25). Even the priests may suffer death if they do not honor God (Num. 10:1-2; Lev. 22:9; 16:2; Exod. 30:21). They are especially in danger of death as they approach the inner rooms of the tabernacle. The high priest must take special care not even to see the atonement cover when he performs his actions in the most holy place (Lev. 16:13).

The tabernacle symbolism points to Christ. The same truths also embody a lesson concerning Christ's sacrificial death. God's holiness is so great that faults against him deserve death. Christ himself was perfectly holy. But when he bore our sins and "became sin for us" (2 Cor. 5:21), the Father had to put him to death. To this death he consented willingly, and went like a sheep to slaughter, because of his love for us and his hatred of sin's rule over us (1 Pet. 2:24; John 10:18).

Forever He Dwells With Us

Jesus had to die because there was no other way by which we might enter into the true tabernacle in heaven and enjoy the blessing of God's presence eternally Because Jesus died, the animal sacrifices are ended and we have access to God with freedom (Rom. 5:1-2). The veil barring the way to God's presence is taken away, or rather fulfilled in the body of Christ. Christ does not bar us out, as the veil did, but provides the way in. "We have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body" (Heb. 10:19-20). The veil has become the gate into the security of the sheepfold (John 10:7-9).