The Tabernacle Heart of God

In the Garden

Rays of sunlight filtered through the trees and diffused across the landscape as daybreak dawned on the perfect garden. As the first pair awoke to their new reality, Adam’s fresh and only memories were of the past 24 hours. His first conscious input was the eyes of his Creator, full of love and care, gazing into his. By the close of that day he had experienced more than anyone will experience in a lifetime. First, he became intimately acquainted with each of the creatures that had preceded him into the verdant new world. Soon after, he was put to sleep through divine anesthesia, underwent unilateral rib resection, and awoke to the most stunning product of creation he had yet encountered. His heart was full of adoration and love for the One who had placed him in this garden filled with unending opportunities for learning, cultivating, and connecting to this new creation. And this was all infused with much greater meaning through the physical presence of the One who had brought it all into existence—the Creator whose chief joy is to be intimately close to His creation! For the first time, we read that His work was “finished” (Gen. 2:1). The fullest week this world has witnessed was complete. But there was something yet to come.

As he awoke, Adam’s mind was undoubtedly filled with the memory of naming each of the animals and of meeting his bride. Just 12 hours before, the Creator had ordained this day as a holy time, set apart from the previous six days of fruitful labor, culminating with the emphatic conclusion: “And God saw every thing that he had made, and, behold, it was very good” (Gen. 1:31, KJV). He followed this declaration by designating a space in time as the vehicle for connection with the beings He had created. This was their time to be together to rest and revel in what, before their first spark of consciousness, had been made for them. In the tabernacle of the Garden of Eden Adam and Eve spent the first Sabbath in intimate fellowship with their Creator.

In the Wilderness

As creation was thrown into groaning under the weight of sin, Christ was again in the position of initiator and was the first to act for their redemption. As “the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world” (Rev. 13:8) He came in search of Adam, who through transgression had opened a chasm between himself and his Creator. This was reflected in his actions as he ran and hid himself among the plants of the garden. But Christ came in search of him and called him by name. Soon the perfect garden witnessed the first sacrifice and the first reflection of what Christ would provide through His own life and death. Christ was fully committed to saving this race in rebellion from the eternal separation at the end of the path they had chosen.

Sin brought about another separation as well. The garden tabernacle, where Adam and Eve had communed with their Creator, was closed off to them. The access to the tree of life was barred, guarded by an angel with a flaming sword, stationed at the east gate.

In the story of the Israelites in the wilderness, we see God’s continued action in support of His covenant of love. “In all their affliction He was afflicted, and the angel of His Presence saved them; in His love and His pity He redeemed them; and He bore them and carried them all the days of old” (Isa. 63:9). His presence in the tabernacle guided them, manifested before them in the cloud by day and pillar of fire at night.

His purpose was made clear in the plan laid out to Moses when He said, “Let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them” (Ex. 25:8). God’s heart yearned for the relationship with His children that sin had broken.

We see a shadow of this yearning when we experience broken relationships or the death of a loved one. But how often do we stop to contemplate the broken heart of the infinitely loving Creator who, since the Fall, is constantly yearning for His lost children?

Through the service of the wilderness tabernacle, the Israelites were to share this knowledge with the world.

Christ wants to be with us! Christ is pleading through His Spirit today. He stands at the door and knocks.

“The children of Israel were to occupy all the territory which God appointed them. Those nations that rejected the worship and service of the true God were to be dispossessed. But it was God’s purpose that by the revelation of His character through Israel men should be drawn unto Him. To all the world the gospel invitation was to be given. Through the teaching of the sacrificial service Christ was to be uplifted before the nations, and all who would look unto Him should live. All who, like Rahab the Canaanite, and Ruth the Moabitess, turned from idolatry to the worship of the true God, were to unite themselves with His chosen people. As the numbers of Israel increased they were to enlarge their borders, until their kingdom should embrace the world.”[1]

Desolate

How stark the contrast when the Word incarnate declared: “Your house is left unto you desolate” (Matt. 23:38, KJV). For two millennia Christ had borne with His chosen people. They were set up to be a light to the world. Their borders were to encompass the world as they spread the knowledge of Christ and the plan of salvation through the sanctuary. But now He has come. The object and substance of the whole tabernacle is here. Yet the very cornerstone of the entire structure is rejected by the very ones He came to save. “He came unto his own, and his own received him not” (John 1:11, KJV). The Israelite nation cannot accept this reality. They are too focused on the systems they have built for their honor and glory. The great object of all the types and symbols is lost on them.

Yet, through their crowning act of rejection by crucifixion, Christ accomplishes the very solution to their selfishness and sin. He says again, “It is finished.” From this proclamation, He enters the tomb, alone and rejected by the ones He came to save. He “could not see through the portals of the tomb.”[2] Yet by faith He saw the harvest of creation and the reunion of the lost race He came to redeem.

This is the faith of Jesus.

“He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us that we might become the righteousness of God through Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). He was taken outside the camp—he suffered outside the gate (Heb. 13:12). Shane Rosenthal puts forward the idea, based on geography, that Jesus was taken out the East Gate of Jerusalem to Golgotha, where He was crucified.[3] Based on information in the Mishna,[4] which describes the location where the red heifer was slaughtered, it can be seen that Christ was sent out toward the east, where the Israelites had historically performed capital punishment. This is also consistent with where sin took Adam and Eve as they left Eden, and where Cain was banished after the murder of his brother Abel (Gen. 4:16).

What is clear is that Christ experienced the same pain of separation that sin has caused for each member of the human race. He was God with us—Emmanuel. And He became like us. “Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto his brethren, that he might be a merciful and faithful high priest in things pertaining to God, to make reconciliation for the sins of the people” (Heb. 2:17. KJV). This is the substance of our hope—the means by which He has brought us back together and reconciled us to Himself (cf. Rom. 5:10). By experiencing the separation of sin for us and as us, He has reconciled us to Himself with the ultimate purpose of bringing all things together in Christ once again (cf. Eph. 1:10).

Of the Heart

Through His death Christ accomplished the reunion of God and humans—the atonement bringing the disparate parts together. Through the Holy Spirit He pours out the gift of His life into ours. Through His sacrifice His divine life was given to each one through the Holy Spirit to enable all to embody the closeness that was lost. The temple is now made up of each member. We are called the temple of God, repositories for His Spirit (1 Cor. 6:19), which is pledged as the surety of the promise until the final redemption (Eph. 1:14). “Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5).

Eternal

Scripture is replete with stories of separation and longing; from Joseph’s sojourn in Egypt to the exile of the Israelites in Babylon, the separating effects of sin are evident. In the Gospels we read the ultimate account of separation in the words of Jesus: “My God, my God, why hast thou forsaken me?” (Matt. 27:46, KJV). Yet this separation was undertaken to affect the reunification of the fractured family of God. The Incarnation reflects the yearning of the heart of the Father and of Jesus for the day the tabernacle will be restored, the day connection and relationship will be forever unbroken. This is the sublime story and undergirding purpose of the whole of Scripture.

Christ wants to be with us! Christ is pleading through His Spirit today. He stands at the door and knocks. While the Laodicean affliction affects us all, rendering us seemingly impervious to the knock, there is a remedy. We can heed the message of the True Witness and awaken to our poverty. We may receive the remedies of gold tried in the fire, white raiment, and eyesalve. Just as the priests of old were prepared for their ministry in the earthly tabernacle of the wilderness, we have been given provision, in Christ, to join the priesthood of all believers (1 Peter 2:9). And as ministers of reconciliation, we are called to go forth to the hurting world to welcome them to the new tabernacle (2 Cor. 5:17).

Our High Priest is coming, and He brings His rewards with Him. We will be placed back into communion with the great I Am and will eat the fruit of the tree of life in the tabernacle of the earth made new, in a city where there is no need of the sun and where there is no death, crying, or parting ever again. May this be our heart’s all-consuming desire.

Israel failed in their mission to reveal Christ to the world, but this reality will yet come to fruition. The word of the Lord is sure. “I saw another angel come down from heaven, having great power; and the earth was lightened with his glory” (Rev. 18:1, KJV). May we take part in this grand revelation of Christ, as living stones of the temple through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, so that many will join us in the eternal tabernacle and spend eternity in the presence of the Lamb. May the character of Christ be revealed in and through us by His indwelling presence.

“And I heard a great voice out of heaven saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people, and God himself shall be with them, andbe their God” (Rev. 21:3, KJV).

[1] Ellen G. White, Christ’s Object Lessons (Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Pub. Assn., 1900, 1941), p. 290.

[2] Ellen G. White, The Desire of Ages (Mountain View, Calif.: Pacific Press Pub. Assn., 1898, 1940), p.753.

[3] Rosenthal, Shane, “Where Was Jesus Crucified?” The Humble Skeptic, July 2, 2025, https://www.humbleskeptic.com/p/where-was-jesus-crucified#footnote-6-112514131.

[4] Parah 3:6-9.