The LORD said to Moses, "Speak to the people of Israel, that they take for me a contribution. From every man whose heart moves him you shall receive the contribution for me. And this is the contribution that you shall receive from them: gold, silver, and bronze, blue and purple and scarlet yarns and fine twined linen, goats' hair, tanned rams' skins, goatskins, acacia wood, oil for the lamps, spices for the anointing oil and for the fragrant incense, onyx stones, and stones for setting, for the ephod and for the breastpiece. And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst. Exactly as I show you concerning the pattern of the tabernacle, and of all its furniture, so you shall make it.
Exodus 25:1-9
The position which the Tabernacle takes in the historical development of Israel is important. First of all the Law was given them, then the Tabernacle. This was all part of the necessary teaching God had to give His people, in the long preparation for the coming of the Redeemer from the stock of Israel. By the law comes the knowledge of sin, and knowledge of sin leads to the consciousness of the need for a Saviour. In the experience of Israel the law was meant to bring them to an end of themselves, and the institution of the Tabernacle was an act of mercy to reveal how men guilty and defiled by sin could enter into fellowship with a holy God. Seen thus, the construction of the Tabernacle is a necessary next step after the law; and this order, it may be noted, is followed by Paul in his exposition of the gospel in the Epistle to the Romans - first the sin of man, as revealed by the broken law, then the grace of God, setting forth Christ as the only sacrifice for sin.
The Tabernacle, we are told (2) was to be made from the willing offerings of the people. This may in fact be a testimony to the truth that atonement for sin, if it is to be real and effective, must come from man's side; for it is man that sins and man must make amends. On the other hand, however, sin presents such an infinite problem that only God could ever deal adequately with it. It is the mystery of the Incarnation that God, as man, in the Person of the God-man, should for man make atonement and effect an eternal reconciliation, restoring man to fellowship with Him. In the fullness of the time, the Word was made flesh, and tabernacled among us!