THIRD QUARTER 2025
SABBATH SCHOOL INSIGHT #13
SEPTEMBER 27, 2025
"THE TABERNACLE."

 

This quarter’s study has been an amazing journey through the book of Exodus. This week’s lesson concludes the quarter’s study with a detailed description of the making of the earthly tabernacle (Exodus 35-40) as directed by God (Exodus 25-30).

God said, “Let them make me a sanctuary that I may dwell among them” (Exodus 25:8, NKJV). And He again said, “I will dwell among the children of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them up out of the land of Egypt, that I may dwell among them. I am the LORD their God” (Exodus 29:45,46).

As it was originally God’s purpose to write his law upon their hearts, so likewise it was God’s original purpose to dwell within His people as His living temple.  But because they were indeed a "stiff necked people” He had to write His law on stones, and He had them make a temple made with inanimate objects by the work of their own hands.  Nonetheless, this temple was constructed from a detailed pattern of heavenly things.  Everything was directed to be done with utmost precision and care because it represented the heavenly realities, the very path of their spiritual Exodus to restore the law and indwelling presence of God to its rightful place.

The following is a paraphrase and adaptation of a selection from Ellet J. Waggoner (The Present Truth United Kingdom, December 8, 1898) that takes us on a journey through the word of God clearly articling God’s original and ultimate plan for His presence:

“When Israel went out of Egypt, the house of Jacob from the people of strange language, Judah was His sanctuary, and Israel His dominion” (Psalm 114:1–2, KJV). The psalmist here testifies that the purpose of God’s deliverance was not merely freedom from bondage, but that His people might become His holy dwelling. As Moses declared, “The Lord’s portion is His people; Jacob is the lot of His inheritance” (Deuteronomy 32:9). God’s desire has always been to make His people His home.

Wherever God is, there holiness abides. The bush in the desert burned with fire but was not consumed, and Moses was told, “Put off thy shoes from off thy feet, for the place whereon thou standest is holy ground” (Exodus 3:5). The same was spoken to Joshua before Jericho (Joshua 5:15). At Sinai, the mountain trembled with the descent of the Lord, and the whole mount was holy (Psalm 68:17). Thus the sanctuary is not confined to wood and stone, but wherever the living God makes Himself known, that place becomes holy.

Paul reminds us, “Ye are the temple of the living God; as God hath said, I will dwell in them, and walk in them” (2 Corinthians 6:16). The Most High does not dwell in temples made with hands (Acts 7:48–49; 17:24). Even Solomon, who built the temple, confessed, “The heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee; how much less this house that I have builded?” (1 Kings 8:27). God dwells “with him also that is of a contrite and humble spirit” (Isaiah 57:15).

Therefore, the true house of God is not built of dead stones but of living ones. Christ is the living Cornerstone, and all who come to Him are “as living stones… built up a spiritual house” (1 Peter 2:4–5). In Him, “all the building fitly framed together groweth unto a holy temple in the Lord… for an habitation of God through the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:21–22). Each believer is personally a temple of the Spirit (1 Corinthians 3:16–17; 6:19), and when Christ abides in the heart by faith, His word sanctifies, making the believer God’s sanctuary (John 14:23).

Ezekiel’s vision lifts the curtain on the heavenly sanctuary (Ezekiel 1). God’s throne is not lifeless but composed of living creatures, burning with the Spirit, moving wherever His will directs. “Whithersoever the Spirit was to go, they went” (Ezekiel 1:12). God’s dwelling, whether in heaven or in human hearts, is marked by responsiveness to His Spirit. When He thinks, His temple moves; when He directs, His people obey. This is heaven’s pattern: “On earth as it is in heaven” (Matthew 6:10).

God brought Israel out of Egypt that they might be His sanctuary people: “Ye shall be unto Me a kingdom of priests, and an holy nation” (Exodus 19:5–6). Yet because of unbelief they did not yield their bodies as God’s temple, and so He permitted a sanctuary of stone to be erected as a witness among them (Exodus 25:8; Acts 7:44). But the true sanctuary was meant to be their hearts, with His law written there by the Spirit (2 Corinthians 3:3).

That earthly sanctuary was purified with blood (Leviticus 16), pointing to Christ, whose blood cleanses the living temple of our bodies moment by moment. “Christ loved the church, and gave Himself for it, that He might sanctify and cleanse it… that it should be holy and without blemish” (Ephesians 5:25–27). Thus the cleansing of the heavenly sanctuary (Daniel 8:14) is inseparably joined with the cleansing of God’s people on earth, preparing a people in whom the life of Jesus is fully manifest (2 Corinthians 4:10–11).

God’s purpose is that His church, the called-out ones, should be “a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, an holy nation” (1 Peter 2:9). As Christ was the perfect temple of God, so His life is to be reproduced in His followers. This is not impossible, for the new birth restores us to the same position He held in humanity—dependent upon the indwelling Spirit. “In His temple everything saith, Glory” (Psalm 29:9). So when Christ fills the heart, the believer becomes a living witness of His glory (Matthew 5:14–16; Isaiah 12:6).

The promise still stands: “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of My God” (Revelation 3:12). God calls us, as He called Israel, to be His inheritance, His sanctuary, His throne upon the earth. The question for us is—will we yield fully, that He may dwell in us and shine through us?

Even so come Lord Jesus. 

 

~ Kelly Kinsley