From the description it is clear that the Tabernacle is nothing other than a portable sanctuary. It is a tent that, if necessary, could be moved comparatively easily to...
From the description it is clear that the Tabernacle is nothing other than a portable sanctuary. It is a tent that, if necessary, could be moved comparatively easily to another place; for nomads such transportability was fundamentally important. The word "tabernacle" itself literally means "place of presence."
The point is God's presence, the very presence revealed to Moses at Sinai as a shining cloud, which from a distance he took for fire. It seems strange: how can God, even if the question is only of His presence, be contained in some human-made receptacles, whether the most splendid Temple, like the one that would later appear in Jerusalem, or the simplest tent? Pagan gods were another matter: they were neither omnipresent nor omnipotent; they were limited in space and time, remaining only a part of the universe, though a special part.
In essence, the gods and spirits of the pagans did not differ so radically from human beings, though their nature was entirely nonhuman. Such beings, limited in space and time, could very well have favorite places on earth or even dwellings where they lived; and if so, a person too could in a sense "tame" a god or spirit, "domesticate" them by offering them a house and food, that is, sacrifices, somewhere near his own home. But when the discussion turned to the God of Abraham and Moses, many questions immediately arose. How could God, even if we are speaking only of His presence, fit into any house built by human beings?
The only answer here can be what theologians usually call kenosis, God's self-emptying, by which He relates His fullness, His being, and His life to the dimensions and forms of human being and human life. God does not need a sanctuary, but a human being needs one, and therefore God is ready to fit within the limits created by a human being. With one condition, however: those limits must be created by the human being according to God's instruction, according to God's plan.
This is not only because God knows better what the place of His meeting with humanity should be, but also because the very building of the sanctuary under God's guidance prepares a person for the meeting with God and builds between God and the person those relationships without which no sanctuary will give a person anything. Without relationships, no techniques or methods by themselves bring a person closer to God; they remain only something like magic in religious form. The sanctuary is built in the process of building a person's relationship with God; only then does it have meaning.
26 Moses here receives instructions,
These particulars seem of little use to us now, yet having been of great use to Moses and Israel, and God having thought fit to preserve to us the remembrance of them, we ought not to overlook them.
26:1 The curtains were to be embroidered with cherubim, to intimate that the angels of God pitched their tents round about the church, Psa 34:7. As there were cherubim over the mercy - seat, so there wereround the tabernacle. There were to be two hangings, five breadths to each, sewed together, and the two hangings coupled together with golden clasps or tacks, so that it might be all one tabernacle, Exo 26:6. Thus the churches of Christ, though they are many, yet are one, being fitly joined together in holy love and by the unity of the Spirit, so growing into one holy temple in the Lord. This tabernacle was very strait and narrow, but at the preaching of the gospel, the church is bid to enlarge the place of her tent, and to stretch forth her curtains, Isa 54:2.
26:14 Badger skins - So we translate it, but it should rather seem to have been some strong sort of leather, (but very fine) for we read of the best sort of shoes made of it. Eze 16:10.
26:15 Very particular directions are here given about the boards of the tabernacle, which were to bear up the curtains. These had tenons which fell into the mortaises that were made for them in silver bases. The boards were coupled together with gold rings at top and bottom, and kept firm with bars that run through golden staples in every board. Thus every thing in the tabernacle was very splendid, agreeable to that infant state of the church, when such things were proper to possess the minds of the worshippers with a reverence of the divine glory. In allusion to this, the new Jerusalem is said to be of pure gold, Rev 21:18. But the builders of the gospel church said, Silver and gold have we none; and yet the glory of their building far exceeded that of the tabernacle.
26:31 The veils are here ordered to be made, one for a partition between the holy place and the most holy, which not only forbad any to enter, but so much as to look into the holiest of all. Under that dispensation divine grace was veiled, but now we behold it with open face. The apostle tells us, this veil, intimated that the ceremonial law could not make the comers thereunto perfect. The way into the holiest was not made manifest while the first tabernacle was standing; life and immortality lay concealed till they were brought to light by the gospel, which was therefore signified by the rending of this veil at the death of Christ. We have now boldness to enter into the holiest in all acts of devotion by the blood of Jesus; yet such as obliges us to a holy reverence, and a humble sense of our distance. Another veil was for the outward door of the tabernacle. Through this the priests went in every day to minister in the holy - place, but not the people, Heb 9:6. This veil was all the defence the tabernacle had against thieves and robbers, which might easily be broken through, for it could be neither locked nor bared, and the abundance of wealth in it, one would think, might be a temptation. But by leaving it thus exposed,