The History Of The Tabernacle Series

The Tabernacle in the Wilderness # 2

The History Of The Tabernacle

By Pastor Jim May

Exodus 40:17 - And it came to pass in the first month in the second year, on the first day of the month, that the tabernacle was reared up.

God’s established His plan of salvation before He created all things. Everyone who approaches God must follow those principles, beginning with Abel, way back in the Book of Genesis who l offered his “excellent sacrifice” of a lamb from his flock, or the Israelites offering their sacrifices upon the Brazen Altar at the tabernacle in the wilderness. Since the coming of the Son of God, in the Person of Jesus Christ, every Christian has obtained salvation through God’s perfect plan as we place our trust in Jesus’ sacrifice for our sin upon the cross.

The tabernacle in the wilderness was a major part of God’s plan to reveal His principles and plan of Salvation to the human race, beginning with the Children of Israel. We owe so much to the nation of Israel. Jesus was born into the Jewish people and all of the prophets of the Old Testament were Jews, as were all but one of the writers of the New Testament.

Just a little note: Can anyone tell me who that Gentile New Testament writer was? Mark 3:14-19 gives us a list of the 12 disciples.

"And he ordained twelve…Simon he surnamed Peter; And James the son of Zebedee, and John the brother of James; and he surnamed them Boanerges, which is, The sons of thunder: And Andrew, and Philip, and Bartholomew, and Matthew, and Thomas, and James the son of Alphaeus, and Thaddaeus, and Simon the Canaanite, And Judas Iscariot, which also betrayed him..."

The only writer of the New Testament who was not a Jew, nor a disciple of Jesus during His earthly ministry, was Luke. Luke did have some great opportunities to acquire all the first hand information necessary for the two books of the New Testament that he wrote (Luke & Acts) because he was an intimate friend and traveling companion of the Apostle Paul. Luke was a Greek Medical Doctor. He stayed with Paul several years while Paul was in Rome, staying there until Paul’s execution. He wrote his books around 60 – 90 AD.

Even thought there are great differences between how God was worshipped in the Tabernacle in the Wilderness, and the way that we worship God today, under the New Testament Covenant, the principles that govern our worship are the same. They had to build and altar where the sacrifice was laid, and where blood was sprinkled, to have their sins pushed away. Today, we look to the sacrifice and shed blood of Jesus to wash our sin away.

Hebrews 9:8-15, "The Holy Ghost this signifying, that the way into the holiest of all was not yet made manifest, while as the first tabernacle was yet standing: Which was a figure for the time then present, in which were offered both gifts and sacrifices, that could not make him that did the service perfect, as pertaining to the conscience; Which stood only in meats and drinks, and divers washings, and carnal ordinances, imposed on them until the time of reformation. But Christ being come an high priest of good things to come, by a greater and more perfect tabernacle, not made with hands, that is to say, not of this building; Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us. For if the blood of bulls and of goats, and the ashes of an heifer sprinkling the unclean, sanctifieth to the purifying of the flesh: How much more shall the blood of Christ, who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without spot to God, purge your conscience from dead works to serve the living God? And for this cause he is the mediator of the new testament, that by means of death, for the redemption of the transgressions that were under the first testament, they which are called might receive the promise of eternal inheritance."

The conditions under the Law of Moses and the Old Covenant were the same as they are today in many ways but very DIFFERENT too. The most important difference is that the observance of rituals NEVER saved one soul. All of the sacrifices and rituals performed in the Tabernacle in the Wilderness only pointed ahead to the time that God would reconcile His people to himself. Everything that went on in the Tabernacle served as a tangible way that they could express their faith in the coming sacrifice that God would provide. They still had to walk in FAITH that God would make a way for them through the sacrifice of the Perfect Lamb of God, just as we do today.