God's Tabernacle with Moses

Read Text – Ex. 25:8-9 & Ex. 40:34-38

Introduction:

Last time I preached on how the Garden of Eden sets the “divine blueprints” for how God dwells with mankind. We learned that the garden was a divine cosmic temple, an intersection between God and man. However, with sin entering into the world through Adam, access to God’s presence was limited and there suddenly became a chasm between God and man. But God promised Adam and Eve that He would be faithful and send a redeemer that would crush the head of the serpent. Flashing forward to Exodus, God has kept His promise to Abraham to make his descendants a great nation. God has led the Israelites out of Egypt and through the wilderness to Mt. Sinai, where God made a covenant with Israel and gave them His law.

Question: At first, I was thinking about writing this sermon around the question of “How can a Holy God dwell with sin sick sinners?”, but God is almighty and can do anything, so this question misses a particular emphasis. Rather I think we should frame it as “How can we, as sinners, have any hope to dwell with a Holy God”?

            Like Eden, the tabernacle is a cosmic meeting place where God dwells with His covenant people, and where sinful man can have limited access to God.

1. God’s Intent to Dwell

2. God’s Design Plans

3. God’s Continued Promise

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God’s Intent to Dwell – Ex. 25:8; Ex 29:45-46

· Just as God dwelled with Adam and Eve in the Garden, so too God declares His desire to dwell with Israel.

· Shows God’s desire is to be amongst His covenant people and that God desires deep relationship with His people.

· While being a simple point, it is an amazing truth, that a Holy God would even desire to live amongst a rebellious people. This shows God’s love and His purposes for achieving our redemption.

God’s Design – Ex. 25:9; Ps. 78:69; Heb. 8:5

1. Accordingly to Heavenly Design

a. Psalm 78:69 – is a sort of commentary on the Solomonic temple, being a copy of the heavens

b. In our passage there is a similar idea that the tabernacle is to be built according to the pattern that God will show Moses on Mt. Sinai. While our passage doesn’t explicitly call it a heavenly pattern, we can rightly infer as mountains signify a cosmic meeting place between heaven and earth.

i. Also, Heb. 8:5 claims that the things of the law (priesthood, sacrifices, tabernacle) served as copies and shadows of heavenly things, then quotes Ex 25:40, showing that the tabernacle was not just something random but a copy of a heavenly blueprint

2. Design Features – Ex. 25-31:11; 35-39:43

a. While I’ve listed the relevant passages that talk about the different furniture of the temple, I won’t be reading these passages, as I will more briefly survey and summarize them.

b. First off, the tabernacle was constructed in a 3-fold scheme, increasing in holiness and becoming more and more exclusive. Meaning, that all of the Israelites were allowed in the courtyard, but only the priests were allowed inside the Holy Place, and only the High Priest was allowed into the Holy of Holies.

c. Tabernacle furniture

i. Shows necessity for atonement & cleansing

ii. Symbolic of cosmic meeting place – for the purpose of showing that YHWH is God and ruler over the whole universe.

3. Cherubim Guarding Access to God

a. Gen 3:24 –

b. Ex. 25:31 –

God’s Continued Promise – Ex. 40:34; Ex. 6:7

1. Ex. 6:7 – God’s promise to be Israel’s God and His claim over them as His people

a. Even though Israel had broken the covenant they had just made (Ex. 24) by making the Golden calf (Ex. 33)

2. Because of this promise and God’s promise to Moses to restore the covenant, God confirms and fulfills this promise by consecrating the temple with His divine presence (Ex. 40:34)

3. So even though Israel had broken the covenant, proving their lack of faithfulness and righteousness, God still keeps His promise and renews the covenant with Moses. Thus, the tabernacle is God’s Holy System for dwelling with sinners. Through covenantal mediators (Moses and the priests) the people can have access to God and learn about His will and His character, so that they can learn to be righteous themselves via the law.

Application:

· So what does all this mean? What are some practical applications we can learn from this, especially since we are in the new covenant?

· For the Israelites, the tabernacle gave them assurance of God’s presence. If an Israelite ever wondered if God was with them, then they were able to just step outside of their tent & see the cloud over the tabernacle.

· Well again, we don’t have a tabernacle that has a visible manifestation of God’s presence, so how can Christians know that God is with us?

o John 1:14 – We can know God is with is, because Christ incarnated and dwelt [tabernacled] among us.

o By participating in the Lord’s Supper, which God gives grace to us through and the participation in Christ’s body emphasizes our union & communion with God.

o We can know God is with us by reading His Word and believing, by faith, His promises to be with us.

§ Matt 27:51; Rom 8:38

· So though we walk by faith and not by sight, we can know God is with us because He has promised us.