"Only voluntary gifts were acceptable as materials for the Lord's house (25:2; 35:3, 21-22, 29), since love rather than compulsion is the basis of all truly biblical giving (2 Cor. 9:7)."431
Moses employed four different terms to describe the tabernacle each of which emphasizes one of its purposes.
1. Sanctuary (25:8) means "place of holiness"and stresses the transcendence of Israel's God as an exalted being different from His people. However this verse also states that such a God would "dwell among"His people.432
2. Tabernacle (25:9) means "dwelling place"and emphasizes God's purpose of abiding near His people.
"Just as they lived in tents, so God would condescend to dwell' in a tent."433
3. Tent of Meeting (26:36; 29:42-43; 35:21) also stresses the imminence of God. God met with Moses and the Israelites in this tent. The verb translated "meeting"means a deliberate prearranged rendezvous rather than a casual accidental meeting.434
4. Tabernacle (or Tent) of Testimony (38:21; Num. 9:15; 17:7, 23) indicates that the structure was the repository of the Law. Moses sometimes referred to the ark of the covenant as the "ark of the testimony"(25:22) that contained the "two tablets of the testimony"(31:18) on which were the Ten Commandments. The Ten Commandments are the "testimony."They were the essential stipulations of the Mosaic Covenant, the heart of the relationship between God and His people.
God designed the tabernacle structure and all its furnishings to teach the Israelites about Himself and how they as sinners could have a relationship with Him.
"The thoughts of God concerning salvation and His kingdom, which the earthly building was to embody and display, were visibly set forth in the pattern shown [to Moses]."435
"The tabernacle also provided a prophetic prefigurement of the redemptive program of God as focused in Jesus Christ. . . . [It] was a remarkable picture of the high priestly work of Christ both here on earth and His eternal work in the heavens."436
"Probably the conception of the tabhnith, the model' (Exodus 25:9), also goes back ultimately to the idea that the earthly sanctuary is the counterpart of the heavenly dwelling of a deity."437
