All this was plain, but in the tabernacle we have more than this
. In Exodus 26 Christ is set forth in various ways by the curtains – Christ in His human purity and righteousness – Christ in what was heavenly – Christ in His glory whether Jewish or extending over Gentiles also, with His judicial title asserted.
The goats’ hair would seem to speak of Christ in His prophetic separateness; the rams’ skins dyed red point to His absolute consecration to God; as the power which kept out all evil would appear to be meant by the badgers’ or tachach skins, which covered the tent above. The reference is to the fine linen and blue, and so forth, with the various coverings of goats’ hair and badger skins. All these, I have no doubt, have their own proper significance, as manifesting the character of Christ here below.
Exodus 26:15-3015And thou shalt make boards for the tabernacle of shittim wood standing up. 16Ten cubits shall be the length of a board, and a cubit and a half shall be the breadth of one board. 17Two tenons shall there be in one board, set in order one against another: thus shalt thou make for all the boards of the tabernacle. 18And thou shalt make the boards for the tabernacle, twenty boards on the south side southward. 19And thou shalt make forty sockets of silver under the twenty boards; two sockets under one board for his two tenons, and two sockets under another board for his two tenons. 20And for the second side of the tabernacle on the north side there shall be twenty boards: 21And their forty sockets of silver; two sockets under one board, and two sockets under another board. 22And for the sides of the tabernacle westward thou shalt make six boards. 23And two boards shalt thou make for the corners of the tabernacle in the two sides. 24And they shall be coupled together beneath, and they shall be coupled together above the head of it unto one ring: thus shall it be for them both; they shall be for the two corners. 25And they shall be eight boards, and their sockets of silver, sixteen sockets; two sockets under one board, and two sockets under another board. 26And thou shalt make bars of shittim wood; five for the boards of the one side of the tabernacle, 27And five bars for the boards of the other side of the tabernacle, and five bars for the boards of the side of the tabernacle, for the two sides westward. 28And the middle bar in the midst of the boards shall reach from end to end. 29And thou shalt overlay the boards with gold, and make their rings of gold for places for the bars: and thou shalt overlay the bars with gold. 30And thou shalt rear up the tabernacle according to the fashion thereof which was showed thee in the mount. (Exodus 26:15‑30) follows the account of the acacia boards with their tenons and bolts, the sockets of silver and the rings of gold.
Then we have the vail and screen. Now we know what these mean. Scripture is positive that the vail is His flesh, but then it is as manifesting the Lord as man here below. As long as this was the case only, man could not come to God. When the vail was rent (namely, by Christ dying as a man), man could go into the presence of God, at least the believer. I do not mean man as man, but that there was no bar to man. The way was now open into the presence of God.