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 26:15-30 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.