And they shall make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.
God had just brought Israel out of Egypt. The first thing He asks for is not a fortress or a monument, but a place to live among His people. Why now, and who is fit to host the presence of God?
God had come close to people before. He had never lived among them.
Again, it is only on the footing of redemption that God dwells with man. He did not dwell with Adam innocent, though He came down to him. He did not dwell with Abraham, though He visited him and ate with him. But when Israel came out of Egypt, God said He brought them to Himself "that I may dwell in their midst." And at once the tabernacle was built, and there was God's presence in the midst of His people.
So the dwelling is the goal of the rescue, not an extra. But God's holiness sets a condition on who may host Him:
The people honoured with this distinction must be a redeemed people. Otherwise it would be impossible for a God of holiness and righteousness to be in their midst... God sheltered them from the just judgment their sins deserved. He set them free from slavery in Egypt, brought them through the Red Sea, and delivered them from Pharaoh's power. Now they receive the highest distinction ever given to a people on earth.
One writer looks at the Hebrew root of the word for dwelling.
The word for "shall dwell" is from the Hebrew root "Shakan." The noun from that root, "Shekinah," was used to express the idea of the nearness of God to men.
A sanctuary is a holy place. One writer reads the verses around this one as a hint about the character God looks for.
In the verses immediately before Exodus 25:8 we have a collection of things which speak of priestly features... Would it not suggest that God is looking for such features of holiness to mark those among whom He desired to dwell?
The materials listed just before this verse are not decoration.
The first thing the Lord said to Moses is His gracious purpose to have a sanctuary, a holy dwelling place, in the midst of His people. Its materials point directly to Christ — His Person, His work, and the precious fruit of that work, seen in the light, the power, and the many graces of the Holy Spirit... Jehovah, whose majesty "the heaven of heavens could not contain," was pleased in His grace to dwell in a boarded and curtained tent. Those who longed to welcome His presence among them put it up for Him.
Every material came as a voluntary gift. One writer asks what that means for us.
God has revealed Christ to us in all His fulness. But if He is to have a dwelling-place among us, if we are to enjoy His presence in practice and have communion with Him, is it not in some way on the basis of a free-will offering of our own? It is no material offering now... but our hearts must be stirred and made willing to enter into what Christ our Lord is, and so bring it, as it were, to God.
Everything had to match the pattern God showed Moses.
How otherwise could it have represented what was in the mind of God, who always had Christ before Him? He was the great original in the mind of God. All that was given to Israel was only a shadow of what was to come; the substance is Christ. Any departure from the pattern shown to Moses would have falsified the picture of the ordered scene where God was pleased to dwell and reveal Himself.
God really lived in that tent. Still, the people could not come in.
Of old, God dwelt in the tabernacle in the midst of His redeemed people, and later in the temple which Solomon built for His name. But there was always distance between God and the people. The veil shut God in, and the people out... Not only is sin put away... but the Spirit of God has come down from heaven to form the church and to dwell in it.
One writer connects the tabernacle with what it pointed to:
It was always God's thought to surround Himself with His redeemed people. His tabernacle was a picture of the church, God's dwelling through the Spirit. The camp in the wilderness and the sanctuary in Messiah's glorious reign are only foreshadowings of the eternal state.
- Redeemed first. God dwelt with neither Adam nor Abraham; only a people brought out of Egypt could host Him.
- Dwelling as the goal. The sanctuary is not a reward tacked onto the rescue — nearness is what the rescue was for.
- Holy dwelling. The word is sanctuary: God looks for holiness in the people He lives among.
- Christ in the materials, willing in the giving. Every item pictures Christ, and every item came from a heart that offered it freely.
- Same desire, new address. Tent, then temple, then the Church by the Spirit, and at last God at home with His people for ever.
According to all that I shall shew thee, the pattern of the tabernacle, and the pattern of all the utensils thereof, even so shall ye make [it].
God has just asked Israel for a sanctuary — a tent where He will live among them — and now He tells Moses how to build it. Two questions follow: where did the design come from, and why did God leave nothing to the builders?
This is more than a building instruction. It sets a rule for how people handle anything God has revealed.
Verse 9 emphasises the importance of observing the word of the Lord. God Himself furnished the pattern of the tabernacle and all its details. The business of Moses and the people was to keep to God's pattern. They were not to turn aside from it and follow ideas of their own. Here is a broad rule for action. It holds good today for everything God has revealed, just as much as it did then. God sets out His thoughts in His instructions. They are perfect, and no one can improve them. The thoughts and ways of men can only spoil them.
"Exactly as I show you" points to something Moses saw with his own eyes. One writer explains what that was.
On the mountain Moses learnt about the sanctuary from God. More than that, he saw the pattern of it while he was up there with God. So, as Hebrews reminds us (9:24), the earthly tabernacle was not the original but the copy of the true one. Moses saw the heavenly one, the pattern to which the earthly one was to correspond. No one in the human race could have designed that structure unless God taught him, as He taught Moses. One must have known the pattern to have made the copy.
The forty days on the mountain are often remembered only for the law. One writer says Moses came back with far more.
When Moses went up into the mountain and spent those forty days with God, the people thought he was going to get the law. Not that alone. He had gone to get God's mind and to see lovely pictures of Christ. He received the tables of stone, but far better than that he saw many shadows of Christ. He walked through God's picture gallery… The tabernacle and all its furniture spoke of Christ in one way or another.
Israel had just come out of Egypt, a land full of temples. Some have claimed the tabernacle borrowed from them. One writer denies it.
This left nothing to the natural mind of Moses. Real or imagined resemblances between the tabernacle and Egyptian temples have no place here… Blessed be God, He has left nothing to the mind of fallen man. He has revealed everything fully in His Word — no longer a "pattern," but Him who is His very image. The "pattern" will be full of Him in its smallest details. May it be our desire in all this pattern to see the Lord; to say, "We wish to see Jesus."
Every part carried a meaning. So changing one part would have said something false about God.
All was to be according to the pattern shown to Moses. How else could it have represented what was in the mind of God, who always had Christ before Him? He was the great original in the mind of God. All that God gave to Israel was only a shadow of the things to come, but the body (or substance) is of Christ. Any departure from the pattern shown to Moses would have made that picture false. It was a picture of the ordered scene where God was pleased to dwell and reveal Himself.
God repeats this charge to Moses more than once. One writer moves from Moses to how believers order the life of the church.
Once again God warns Moses to do everything according to the pattern he had been shown in the mountain. It was truly to be a copy and shadow of heavenly things, and so there was no room for human thoughts or imaginations. Obedience was the part of Moses, and faithfulness in carrying out the heavenly design. So now God requires the same from believers about His church: faithfulness to His word, obedience to every part of it. Admit human rules and human authority, and the church stops being a true witness for God. God has now given this instruction three times, showing how much obedience matters to Him.
- Pattern, not preference. God supplied every detail; Moses and the people had only to keep to it and not turn aside to ideas of their own.
- Pattern from above. What Moses copied he had first seen on the mountain — the earthly tent made to correspond to the true one in heaven.
- Pattern full of Christ. Moses came down with more than the tables of stone. The tabernacle and its furniture spoke of Christ throughout.
- Pattern altered, picture falsified. Christ was the great original in the mind of God. Any change would have misrepresented the place where God dwelt.
- Pattern still binding. What obedience was to Moses, faithfulness to God's Word is now. Admit human authority into the church and it stops being a true witness.