indirect
grows out of · a garden sanctuary
Eden's features reappear in the tent: gold, cherubim guarding the way in, an eastward entrance, a tree of light. The tabernacle is a portable attempt to get back to the garden.
direct
points forward to · a copy of the true
Moses was told to build 'according to the pattern shown you on the mountain'. Hebrews takes that instruction seriously: the tent was a scale model of a heavenly reality Christ has now entered.
direct
points forward to · the barrier inside
The veil is the tabernacle's honest admission: God is here, and you may not simply walk in.
direct
points forward to · the throne within
Everything in the tent is arranged around the ark, the footstool and throne of the unseen King.
direct
points forward to · occupancy
Exodus ends not with a finished building but with a cloud settling on it. The point of the construction was residence.
direct
points forward to · tent into stone
Solomon builds on the same plan at double scale, and the same glory-cloud fills it at the dedication.
direct
points forward to · he pitched his tent
John's word for 'dwelt among us' is literally 'tabernacled', and he immediately adds 'we have seen his glory' — the two things Exodus 40 puts together.
direct
grows out of · not in houses made by hands
Stephen retells the tent and the temple to argue that God's presence was never contained by either — which is what gets him killed.
direct
grows out of · the dwelling of God
'Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man.' The whole tabernacle project ends with no temple in the city, because God and the Lamb are its temple.