If you could live anywhere where would you live? We know God’s answer to that question: a tent (that’s His second choice) and a human body (that’s His first choice). In the Old Testament He chose to live in a tent (Ex. 25:8) and in the New Testament He chose flesh and blood (John 1:14). When the Apostle John tells us that “the Word became flesh and dwelt (literally, tabernacled or tented) among us,” he is clearly comparing the Old Testament tabernacle with the New Testament tabernacle (i.e. Christ). Let’s consider four areas of comparison in order to see the superiority of the new tabernacle over the old one.
Compare the Materials
The old tabernacle was made of wood, fabric, metal and precious stones. Multiple chapters in the Bible are devoted to prescribing and describing the building materials and the instructions for the large labor force required to build it. Although parts of the inside, especially the Holy Place and the Most Holy Place, were beautiful, only a few select priests saw that. From the outside, it was unattractive, covered with protective waterproof animal skins. All rather unimpressive, especially when compared with other contemporary structures such as the Egyptian pyramids and the Babylonian ziggurats. Israel was already being taught that God is willing to experience humbling circumstances in order to live with his people.
Compare that wood and fabric tabernacle with the flesh and blood tabernacle of the New Testament. Christ dwelt not in a tent, but in a human nature miraculously created by God without human hands. Although he possessed the glory of deity, this godhead was largely veiled by his flesh. His “tent” was unattractive from the outside – he looked just like an ordinary man. As Isaiah predicted, he was “as a root out of dry ground. He has no form or comeliness; and when we see him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him” (Isa. 53:2). The Word became flesh, just ordinary everyday skin, muscle, blood, brain, etc., and dwelt among us. God was willing to experience this humbling experience in order to live as close as possible with his people. He lived with us, like us, as us.
Despite all the similarities, there is one striking difference. The old tabernacle was a temporary tent-like structure that could be easily dismantled for traveling and which eventually disintegrated and disappeared. In contrast, Christ “was, and continues to be, God and man in two distinct natures, and one person, for ever” (Shorter Catechism 21). God lives in flesh and blood permanently.
Click through to the Christward Collective for three further comparisons.