God Moves In

Read it: Exodus 25; Exodus 40; Leviticus 16

Think back to the first pages of the Bible. In the garden, God was with the people He had made, and nothing stood between them. Then came the day everything broke. Adam and Eve were sent out of the garden, and cherubim, mighty angelic guards, were posted to block the way back. Ever since, the story has carried a huge question: can a holy God and sinful people ever live together again?

The book of Exodus gives the first big answer. Israel has been rescued from Egypt and has met God at Mount Sinai, where He gave them His Ten Words. Now, while Moses is up on the mountain, God tells him what He wants next. Not a statue. Not a palace. A tent. “And they are to make a sanctuary for Me, so that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8).

A tent in the middle of the camp

Picture a camp of hundreds of thousands of people spread across the desert of the Sinai peninsula. Right in the centre, God wants a tent of His own. It is called the tabernacle (an old word for a tent or dwelling) or the Tent of Meeting. It could be taken down and carried, because God intended to travel with His people.

The instructions in Exodus 25 to 31 are full of measurements, metals and colours, and they can be hard going. But the detail is the point. God is showing Israel how a holy God can live among people without destroying them, and nothing is left to guesswork: “You must make the tabernacle and design all its furnishings according to the pattern I show you” (Exodus 25:9).

Imagine walking in. First comes an outer courtyard, fenced with linen curtains, with a bronze altar where animals were sacrificed and a basin where the priests washed. Then the tent itself, divided into two rooms. In the first, the Holy Place, stood a golden lampstand, a table with twelve loaves of bread, one for each tribe, and a small altar for burning incense. Behind a heavy curtain called the veil was the second room, the Most Holy Place. It held one thing: the ark of the covenant, a gold-covered wooden chest containing the stone tablets of the law. Its lid was called the mercy seat, and two golden cherubim faced each other over it with their wings spread. God said, “I will meet with you there above the mercy seat, between the two cherubim” (Exodus 25:22).

Notice those cherubim. In Genesis they guarded the way back to God. Here they are hammered onto the ark and woven into the curtains. The way back is being opened, but only a little, and only carefully.

The day the glory came

Before the tent was even built, Israel nearly lost everything. While Moses was on the mountain, the people made a golden calf and worshipped it (Exodus 32). God could have walked away. Instead, after Moses pleaded for them, He renewed His covenant, and the people poured their gold, cloth and skill into making His dwelling.

Exodus ends with the moment it was all for. Moses set up the tabernacle, and “the cloud covered the Tent of Meeting, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle” (Exodus 40:34). The glory was so heavy that even Moses could not go in. From then on the cloud by day, and fire by night, rested over the tent, and whenever it lifted, Israel packed up and followed. The God of the universe was camping with a nation of former slaves.

One day a year

But a problem was built into the tent itself. The closer you came to God’s presence, the more dangerous it was. Ordinary Israelites could enter only the courtyard. Priests could enter the Holy Place. The Most Holy Place was for one man, the high priest, once a year, and never without blood. Leviticus 16 begins just after two of Aaron’s sons had died for approaching God carelessly, and God warns Aaron “not to enter freely into the Most Holy Place behind the veil” (Leviticus 16:2).

That one day was the Day of Atonement. “Atonement” means making things right between God and people: at-one-ment. The high priest washed, dressed in plain linen and offered a bull for his own sins. Then two goats were brought. One was sacrificed, and its blood was carried behind the veil and sprinkled on the mercy seat, right above the law Israel had broken. Over the other goat the high priest laid both hands and confessed “all the iniquities and rebellious acts of the Israelites” (Leviticus 16:21). Then it was led away into the wilderness, never to come back. That is where our word “scapegoat” comes from.

Two goats, two pictures: sin paid for by a death, and sin carried far away. And a promise: “on this day atonement will be made for you to cleanse you, and you will be clean from all your sins before the LORD” (Leviticus 16:30).

All this can seem strange and bloody to us. But it teaches something we easily forget: sin is not small to God, and nearness to Him is not cheap. “The life of the flesh is in the blood” (Leviticus 17:11), and forgiveness cost a life. Yet it also shows God’s heart. He wanted to live among His people so much that He Himself provided the way for them to be forgiven.

Still, every year the high priest had to do it all over again. The veil stayed in place. The way into God’s presence was open only a crack, and the story was waiting for something more.

Where Jesus is in this

John opens his Gospel with words that point straight back to this tent: “The Word became flesh and made His dwelling among us. We have seen His glory” (John 1:14). The Greek word for “made His dwelling” literally means “pitched His tent”. In Jesus, God moved in again, this time not in a tent of goat hair but in a human body, and His glory was seen in a Person.

The letter to the Hebrews explains the Day of Atonement through Jesus. Animal sacrifices had to be repeated, “because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins” (Hebrews 10:4). But Jesus “entered the Most Holy Place once for all by His own blood, thus securing eternal redemption” (Hebrews 9:12). He is both the high priest and the sacrifice, and it never needs doing again. That is why, at the moment Jesus died, “the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom” (Mark 15:38). Top to bottom: torn from God’s side. The way in is open. “Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus ... let us draw near with a sincere heart” (Hebrews 10:19, 22).

Think about it: The high priest could come near God only once a year, and with fear. Through Jesus you are invited in any day. What would change if you really believed you are welcome?

Go deeper: The Way Into the Holiest by F. B. Meyer — Meyer walks you through the tabernacle piece by piece, from the bronze altar to the lampstand, the bread, the torn veil and the ark with its blood-sprinkled mercy seat, and shows how each one speaks of Christ. Start with chapter 21, “The Heavenly Things Themselves”.