TABERNACLE

Matt.17:5 – But while Peter was still speaking, a radiant cloud composed of light spread over them, enveloping them all.

This event pretty much sealed everything for Peter, James, and John. As a matter of fact Peter wrote about this many years later in his second epistle, “For we did not follow cunningly devised fables when we made known to you the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but were eyewitnesses of His majesty. For He received from God the Father honor and glory when such a voice came to Him from the Excellent Glory: “This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And we heard this voice which came from heaven when we were with Him on the holy mountain.”

Peter saw this as a fulfillment of Old Testament types and shadows. Christ is the new tabernacle of God. The Lord tabernacled among us in the person of Jesus Christ. God has come to live among mankind. Here is how Bishop Ellicott described this verse.

“To the disciples this would, we cannot doubt, recall the “cloudy pillar” which had descended on the first tabernacle, the “cloud that filled the house of the Lord on the dedication of the Temple. It was, in later Jewish language, the Shechinah, or abiding presence of Jehovah—the very form of the word connects it with both the Hebrew (mishkan) and the Greek (skené) words for tabernacle—which was the symbol that He was with His people. The Targums, or Paraphrases, of the Law and Prophets which were then current, had used the word as a synonym for the divine name. Where the Hebrew text had had “I will dwell in thee,” the Targum of Jonathan had “I will make my Shechinah to dwell”. Its appearance at this moment, followed by the voice out or the cloud, was a witness that no tabernacle made with hands was now needed, that the humanity of Christ was the true tabernacle of God, and that it was in this sense true that “the tabernacle of God was with men”, and that He would dwell with them.”

For Moses the cloud came to the tabernacle and for Solomon it came to the temple. Beginning with Christ this cloud has come to live with us and in us. We don’t have to wait for anyone or anything else, the kingdom of God is here.