SKENE 26: the Tabernacle of the Testimony (Rev 15.5)

This may explain why our next instance of ‘skene’ seems to be a reversion to antitype, as it were, to the earthly Tabernacle in the wilderness, though it is described as “the temple of the tent of witness in heaven” (15.5). God’s temple in heaven is referred to 14 times in Revelation (assuming that 3.12 is such a reference – and numerology, at least, suggests that it is !), but this is the only time it is equated with the Tabernacle (NIV’s translation “the temple, that is, the Tabernacle of the Testimony” is helpful here). In 11.19, as here, “the temple was opened”, so that John could see “the Ark of the Covenant”, which was, of course, a – if not the – central feature of both Tabernacle and Temple. Furthermore, on two occasions in chapter 14 (vv. 15 and 27) an angel “came out of the temple”, just as in 15. 5-6, where the temple opens so that “the seven angels having the seven plagues” could emerge. But only here is the temple associated with the Tabernacle. Why ? The first and obvious point to make is that it is to remind us that the Temple in Jerusalem always was, as it were, the adult version of the Tabernacle in the wilderness. But why is it here referred to as “the Tabernacle of the Testimony” ? This is one of the two titles given to the Tabernacle, the other being “the tent of meeting” (both ‘skene’). “The Testimony” is the phrase used to refer to the two tablets of the law brought down by Moses from Mount Sinai (Ex 34.29), and then placed in the Ark, so that the Ark itself became known as ‘the Ark of the Testimony’ (Ex 40. 20-1). This Ark was then placed in the ‘Holy of Holies’, the ‘second tent’. ‘The tent of meeting’ (as we saw earlier) originally referred to a tent Moses pitched outside the camp, where he could meet with the Lord and enquire of him, and where God’s glory could descend without harm to the people. When the Tabernacle was finally set up, this informal title was formally conferred on it, so that it became ‘the Tent of Meeting’ (Ex 40.1, and 8 other references in the chapter). From this we might infer that ‘the Tent of Meeting’ is used of the Tabernacle to express God’s loving desire to be with his people, while ‘the Tent of the Testimony’ expresses God’s awesome holiness, spelt out in tablets of stone – corresponding, perhaps, to the ‘first tent’ and the ‘second tent’ of Hebrews 9. It is appropriate, then, that it is out of this ‘second tent’, the ‘Tabernacle of the Testimony’, that the angels appear carrying the seven plagues and the seven golden bowls (literally, ‘phials’) of God’s wrath, so that a disobedient and rebellious world may drink the cup of God’s judgement. Much of Revelation describes the wonders of God’s love for his saints, but much of it, too, starkly reveals the terrors of his wrath visited upon the unrepentant, those who have not put their faith in the Christ who drank the cup of God’s wrath on their behalf (Matt 26.39). The God who is love is the same God as the God who is light, the God who cannot tolerate the darkness of sin. Maybe this is why there were two tents in the Tabernacle. The echoes of Exodus here are made even more explicit by verse 8: “the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from his power, and no one could enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed”. Almost the same words are used in Exodus 40. 34-5 when, at its consecration, the glory of the Lord filled the Tabernacle, so that not even Moses could enter it. We have seen, too, that much the same happened at the consecration of the Temple, when the priests could not enter to perform their duties. What all this reminds us is that, while in the heavenly tabernacle there is no veil to separate the first from the second tent, and that all the redeemed may gather before God’s throne to sing hymns of praise in his all-holy presence, on earth things are still very different, and the all-holy God may only be approached through the veil – which is Jesus.