Tabernacle: A Tent

 •  1 min. read  •  grade level: 14
The first tabernacle was Moses’ own tent (Ex. 33:77And Moses took the tabernacle, and pitched it without the camp, afar off from the camp, and called it the Tabernacle of the congregation. And it came to pass, that every one which sought the Lord went out unto the tabernacle of the congregation, which was without the camp. (Exodus 33:7)), for the tabernacle proper was not yet made. The tabernacle itself was the one place of worship for the Jews, and was a pattern of things in the heavens (Heb. 9), every part of it spoke of Christ in His varied glories. Its foundations, boards, coverings, curtains, all tell us of Himself or His work. Its inner veil, between the Holy and most Holy, is Christ’s flesh (Heb. 10) The various contents are deeply instructive. The brazen altar where God and the sinner could meet in virtue of the atoning sacrifice, the laver where defilement was washed away, the Holy place, typical of heaven, containing the seven-branched candlestick—the church in testimony (Matt. 5 and Rev. 2. and 3.), the golden Cable bearing up the twelve loaves—Israel’s twelve tribes, and the golden altar of incense,—Christ through whom all our prayers and praises ascend, and lastly the most Holy now separated by no veil (it being rent from top to bottom when Christ’s flesh, which it typified, was also rent on the cross), typifying the very presence of God, containing the ark, Christ in all His perfection and the atoning blood, and into which all believers now have access (Heb. 10). The body is a tabernacle (2 Cor. 5).