Exodus 25-27

Wow! "Let them construct a sanctuary for Me, that I may dwell among them." Exodus 25:8

Can you image?! The newly weds are going to live together! God among His people. God, the Creator of the Universe, willing to associate Himself with man, desiring to be known as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, being his idea to live with and among His people, making His very real presence known and felt in the tabernacle. That is amazing to me. God wants to dwell with us!

But within the same passage there is also reason for soberness and even mourning.

God does not come haphazardly. God has well thought out His new home. As I read, God reminded me how specific His perfection was. We could not create the blueprint for His dwelling place. It was to be in perfect accord with His requirements. God was coming to dwell with man, but always on His terms. Never were we in a position of worthiness. It was Him coming to us, choosing to abide by His own standards in our presence. We must be sober of our presence before our Maker.

And regrettably, even in His dwelling with man there was reason for sorrow. "...the veil shall serve for you as a partition between the holy place and the holy of holies." Intimate presence with God was still not available. There would need to be a partition, a divide, between man and His God. Even with their God close, they had no access into His very presence. The veil was a reminder of all that continued to be wrong with humanity. Sin's effects and consequences would not and could not be overlooked. God's holiness was at stake and His veil was the stark, in your face, reminder of humanity's inefficiencies and failures. As the veil served to remind the Israelites, there was still a need for separation from their God. Reconciliation had not yet been realized.

But thanks be to God that, by His own volition, He not only chose to dwell with man, but He even made way for man in return to dwell with Him. We are not left with that tall thick dark and ominous veil. Christ on the cross split the veil from top to bottom, reminding us that it was He who was the only one able to fix our problem. Through Christ, man, having been separated from God by his sin, is now reconciled to God. It was man who had been in error, never God. It was our sin that had broken relationship, and it was our sins for which we were unable to pay. But now Christ has come and for all who receive Him, He has become the mediator of a greater covenant, which allows for His people to enter with confidence to the very throne of grace. The barriers are removed in Christ, we have been accredited with His righteousness. We are now not only able to go before the Father, but to have His very life take up residency within us. The human body, now the tabernacle of God. Jesus took on flesh and dwelt among us that God might not dwell only in wilderness tabernacles, but within our very hearts.

And one day, we will physically see Him face to face, unashamed, without guilt or sin, but instead with joy and thanksgiving and no recollection of sin... all because of what He alone has done.

In the OT God could only foreshadow His eternal presence in and with His people. And He reminds us that it is only realized and made possible by His work through Christ at Calvary.