THE TABERNACLE OF DAVID IN BIBLICAL PROPHECY
Kenneth R. Cooper*
TUCKED INTO WHAT IS ALMOST AN APPENDIX to Amos’s prophecy lies a brief passage (9:11–15) offering a tiny glimmer of hope peeking out from devastating judgment—a glimmer of hope not only for Israel but also for a select portion of Gentiles, those called by the name of the Lord. These last few verses contrast so distinctively from the rest of the book that many scholars regard them as a later addition by either a writer during the Babylonian Exile or a postexilic writer.1 They say he added the message of hope to encourage his contemporaries, as well as to make the message applicable to Judah during or just after the Exile.
Others regard these final verses as integral to the message of Amos because (a) this places Amos and his prophecy in the mainstream of eighth-century prophets, (b) it is an appropriate ending to a word from God full of judgment, (c) there are no compelling reasons for denying Amos’s authorship of this passage, and (d) it is consistent with the literary coherence of the entire book.2 Amos “is a highly structured unity.”3 The Minor Prophets consistently balanced judgment and blessing as well as destruction and restoration in their prophecies. In Amos 9:11–15 the Lord predicted a future hope for Israel, reflected specifically in the restoration of the tabernacle of David (“I will raise up the fallen booth [tabernacle] of David,” v. 11). It also included the fruitfulness of the land (v. 13) and the establishment of the people of Israel both in the land and in the true worship of God (vv. 14–15). The reference to the tabernacle of David raises a few questions.
The one mention of the tabernacle of David in the New Testament adds more questions to the discussion. At the Jerusalem Council (Acts 15:16–18), the issue was what to do with Gentiles who were being saved. After listening to the testimonies of Peter, Paul, and Barnabas about what God was doing among the Gentiles through their ministries (vv. 7–12), the apostle James rendered the Council’s decision, supporting it by reference to Amos’s prophecy of the tabernacle of David. James quoted Amos’s prophecy to substantiate the fact that God has a work among the Gentiles. This article examines the issue of the tabernacle of David in Acts 15 and Amos 9 to determine its meaning and its significance in biblical prophecy.
ACTS 15 AND THE TABERNACLE OF DAVID
Mauro believes that James was saying that when the Gentiles became believers at the house of Cornelius under Peter’s ministry and in the province of Galatia under the ministry of Paul and Barnabas, this was a fulfillment of Amos’s prophecy.4 But James did not say that these Gentile conversions fulfilled the prophecy of Amos. He merely noted that what the apostles had reported was in agreement with the prophets. As Kaiser observes, “It was ‘the words’ of the prophets that ‘were written’ and ‘were in conformity with the fact’ (toutō) just summarized.”5 Kaiser is arguing for one people of God from this context; nevertheless his point agrees with the thesis of this article, namely, that Gentiles coming to Christ was not a fulfillment of the prophecy in Amos 9. Their conversion was part of God’s plan since He promised Abraham “in you all the families of the earth will be blessed” (Gen. 12:3) and “in your seed all the nations of the earth shall be blessed” (22:18). From the beginning God intended that His redemption be available to all people; so He made provision for it in the promise to Abraham. So when James acknowledged the conversion of the Gentiles, he merely declared that God was keeping His promise to Abraham and that the prophets agreed with this conclusion.
What did James mean by his reference to the fallen tabernacle of David? And what light does his reference shed, if any, on the identity of the tabernacle of David? James said, “Simeon has related how God first concerned Himself about taking from among the Gentiles a people for His name. With this the words of the Prophets agree, just as it is written, ‘After these things I will return, and I will rebuild the tabernacle of David which has fallen, and I will rebuild its ruins, and I will restore it, so that the rest of mankind may seek the LORD, and all the Gentiles who are called by My name” (Acts 15:14–17).
Mauro, along with several other authors, says that James declared that the tabernacle of David prophecy was fulfilled not only in the conversion of the Gentiles but also in the New Testament church itself. Lenski noted, “Amos writes, ‘in that day,’ i. e., when Israel’s punishment will have been inflicted, in that day when the Messianic kingdom will be founded, in the day of the Christian Church.”6 Lenski then argued that the tabernacle of David cannot apply to the descendants of David. He correctly noted that the tabernacle was what David constructed to house the ark of the covenant until Solomon could build the temple. Since Israel worshipped God at this tabernacle during the interim, Lenski reasoned that this tabernacle symbolizes the church. More specifically Lenski identified this tabernacle with the church of Israel which by this time had fallen into sad disarray and was greatly in need of restoration. To this “church of Israel,” God was adding Gentiles to fulfill that part of the prophecy referring to “the remnant of Edom” (Amos 9:12, called by James, “the rest of mankind”). Since in the church, “There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free man, there is neither male nor female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus” (Gal. 3:28), Lenski considered that James’s description identifies the church of this present age.
Also Bruce argued that James applied Amos’s prophecy to the present church age. According to Bruce the tabernacle of David that was fallen refers to the household of David which will be restored. But, Bruce observed, James quoted from the Septuagint of Amos and applied that prophecy to the church as the new Israel. “The primary sense of the MT [Masoretic text] is that the fallen fortunes of the royal house of David will be restored and it will rule over all the territory which had been included in David’s empire. But James’s application of the prophecy finds the fulfillment of its first part (the rebuilding of the tabernacle of David) in the resurrection and exaltation of Christ, the Son of David, and the reconstitution of His disciples as the new Israel, and the fulfillment of its second part in the presence of believing Gentiles as well as believing Jews in the Church.”7 According to Bruce, James interpreted “the remnant of Edom” (Amos 9:12a) to mean “the rest of mankind” (Acts 15:17a), and the “nations who are called by My name” (Amos 9:12b) are interpreted as “all the Gentiles who are called by My name” (Acts 15:17b). At first glance this may seem to reinforce the view that the tabernacle of David is the church, that is, the New Israel assimilating Gentiles into it.
THE CHURCH AND ISRAEL ARE SEPARATE ENTITIES
What Bruce and others fail to notice, however, is that Old Testament believers preceded the church and essentially were not a part of it. In fact up until the time of the New Testament the church was nonexistent. It was a “mystery,” a previously unrevealed truth (Eph. 3:3–9; Col. 1:26–27). Therefore the church could not be the New Israel. The church and Israel are separate entities. A few years after the church had begun, Paul referred in 1 Corinthians 10:32 to three separate groups: Jews, Greeks, and the church of God. “Interestingly this reference to Jews separate from the church shows that the New Testament church did not replace the Jewish nation.”8
If the Old Testament saints became the church in part or in whole, the words of Jesus would be meaningless when He said to Peter, “Upon this rock I will build My church” (Matt. 16:18, italics added). Nothing in either Testament indicates that God had been building a church in Israel. At the time of Christ, the church was an entirely new concept and was still a future entity; and James and the apostles were only beginning to learn what it was and how it was to function. And since there had been no church up to that time, the rebuilding of the tabernacle of David could not possibly equate with the building of the church.
When James cited the words of Amos and applied them to the immediate problem confronting the church (viz., what to do with the Gentiles who were coming to Christ), James did not state that the tabernacle of David is the church. As Walvoord noted, “By no possible stretch of the plain meaning of this passage can the ‘tabernacle of David’ be made to be an equivalent of the New Testament church. The prophecy concerns the rebuilding of that which was fallen down. The ‘ruins’ are to be rebuilt ‘as in the days of old.’ The nature of the blessings are earthly, territorial, and national, and have nothing to do with a spiritual church to which none of these blessings have been promised.”9 Walvoord then stated that James was referring to a timeline in the plan of God, that is, God intends to bless Gentiles as well as His people Israel and to bless them each in their own order.10 James affirmed that God had planned to visit the Gentiles first “to take out of them a people for his name” (Acts 15:14, KJV). The ministry of Peter in the house of Cornelius and the ministry of Paul and Barnabas among the churches of Asia Minor establish this point. Through these men God was taking out of the Gentiles “a people for His name.” James agreed with the reports given and also drew on Old Testament prophetic teaching to support them.
THE TABERNACLE OF DAVID AND THE TIMELINE OF PROPHECY
When the Gospel writers referred to fulfilled prophecy in the life of Christ, they often wrote that “these things were done to fulfill the words of the prophets.”11 But James said, “With this the words of the Prophets agree” (Acts 15:15, italics added). The conversion of the Gentiles at that time was consistent with the teaching of the prophets. After Jesus’ resurrection He commissioned His Jewish disciples to make disciples of all the nations, Jews and Gentiles alike (Matt. 28:19–20). Although the disciples at first resisted taking the Word of God to the Gentiles, they finally came around and proclaimed God’s Word to Gentiles in the various cities, as reported by Peter, Paul, and Barnabas. As Walvoord wrote, “The context of the passage [Amos 9:11–15] deals, then, with Israel’s judgment. After this period, which is the period of Gentile opportunity, God will raise up the tabernacle of David, give Israel supremacy over Edom and the nations, bless their crops, regather Israel, restore their cities, and assure them that they will never again be dispersed. The entire passage confirms that the ‘tabernacle of David’ is an expression referring to the whole nation of Israel and that in contrast to the Gentile nations.”12 Walvoord further noted, “The passage [Acts 15:14–17], instead of identifying God’s purpose for the church and for the nation of Israel, established a specific time order.… God will first conclude His work for the Gentiles in the period of Israel’s dispersion; then He will return to bring in the promised blessing for Israel.”13
Gaebelein suggested that James outlined several stages in the timeline of God’s plan.14 The first stage, the starting point according to Gaebelein, is God’s visitation of the Gentiles currently taking place, and which began with Peter at the house of Cornelius, and which was carried on by Paul and Barnabas (Acts 15:7–14). The second stage in the divine plan, Gaebelein suggested, is Christ’s return in power and glory to His people Israel after “the times of the Gentiles are fulfilled” (Luke 21:24; Rom. 11:25). Gaebelein says the third stage will be the restoration of the tabernacle of David, which he identified as David’s kingdom. “The [millennial] Kingdom will be established as promised in the Davidic Covenant.”15 Gabelein noted that all the prophets predicted Christ would establish His kingdom in glory in connection with His visible return to the earth. At that time virtually all Gentiles will seek the Lord and come to know Him (Isa. 2:2; 11:10; 66:23). Gaebelein identified this final outcalling of the Gentiles as the fourth stage in this timeline, based on James’s observation that after the millennial kingdom is established “the rest of mankind may seek the Lord” (Acts 15:17).
Zimmerman noted that James used the words of the prophets to point out the sequence of events in God’s future program for all humankind. “There is to be a taking out of the Gentiles into the church according to the present economy. ‘After these things’ the Lord will return and build again the Davidic dynasty. The prophecy will be fulfilled in a proper time sequence; namely, in the future Messianic kingdom.”16 Zimmerman noted that Amos proclaimed that God will restore the tabernacle of David “in that day,” obviously a reference to “the day of the Lord,”17 which will be characterized by both judgment and blessing. “Here [in 9:11–15] Amos moves beyond the judgment to the blessing which will come after that judgment. When there is ruin, then mercy and God’s power will bring the people back to the land again (9:14).”18
THE TABERNACLE OF DAVID AND REPLACEMENT THEOLOGY
Some scholars teach a “replacement theology,” that is, a theology that declares that the church has replaced national Israel in the plan of God. As Wagner explains this theory, “Israel (the Jewish people and the land) has been replaced by the Christian Church in the purposes of God, or, more precisely, the Church is the historical continuation of Israel to the exclusion of the former.”19 Wagner notes further that this theology originated early in church history and has affected the church for almost nineteen hundred years. In recent years replacement theology appears in the writings of covenant theologians. For example Ridderbos states that the church is “a continuation of Israel, as the elect, called, holy people of God.” Ridderbos then notes of the New Covenant, “On the one hand, in a positive sense it presupposes that the church springs from, is born out of Israel; on the other hand, the church takes the place of Israel as the historic people of God. This means a new definition of the people of God, and likewise a new concept of Israel.”20
Although Mauro does not use the term “replacement” regarding Israel and the church, he does teach a form of replacement theology. He argues that the tabernacle of David denotes not the kingdom of David or the dynasty of David, but the people of Israel, who by Amos’s day had fallen and were essentially in ruins as a people. Then, discussing Amos’s statements about the tabernacle of David, Mauro says, “It was Israel that God purposed to ‘raise up again’—not, of course, the natural Israel, but the spiritual Israel, the true ‘Israel of God,’ a people composed of the saved remnant of the natural Israel, with whom are incorporated into one body, forming one spiritual house, the called from among the Gentiles.”21 Mauro devotes an entire chapter to the topic “Building Again the Tabernacle of David” to seek to prove that the present-day church is the tabernacle of David. To develop the idea Mauro combines Amos’s phrases “the remnant of Edom” and “all the nations who are called by My name” to indicate the incorporation of the Gentiles into the remnant of believing Israel to become the “Israel of God.” He seeks to reinforce this argument by referring to Acts 15. According to Mauro, James “refers back to the words ‘to take out of them a people for His Name’ [Acts 15:14], which further serves to show that the prophecy of Amos has its fulfillment in God’s present-day visitation of the Gentiles.”22 Some years later Mauro revisited the subject in a journal article. However, he added nothing substantially new to the discussion; he merely reiterated what he had previously advocated in his book. “The tabernacle of David was a passing type, foreshadowing the congregation of God’s redeemed people on earth during the present era.”23
To develop further his interpretation that the tabernacle of David is fulfilled today in the church, Mauro leans heavily on the writings of George Smith, who wrote in the middle of the nineteenth century. Devoting an entire chapter to the tabernacle of David, Smith argued that according to certain Old Testament prophecies, “The shekinah, resting over the cherubim in the sanctuary of Mount Zion [the tabernacle of David in Smith’s context], typified the reign of Christ in the Gospel Church.”24 Smith then gave a long, tedious description of how the tabernacle of David became the model appointed by God for all Christian practices and institutions, particularly the practice of worship. However, there is a significant difference between a model after which behavior is to be patterned and an actual fulfillment of prophecy. The tabernacle of David may be a model to some extent, but it also has an eschatological reality that Mauro and Smith have overlooked in their zeal to make the tabernacle equal to the church, which they say has replaced Israel in the plan of God.
Identifying the church as the Israel of God or as the New Israel may seem to establish the unity of the Old and New Testaments by describing one people of God continuing throughout the ages. This also explains how the New Covenant can apply to the church and why the New Testament writers also applied Old Testament imagery to the church. However, replacement theology has a number of flaws that bring it into serious question. Kaiser discusses five such problems.
There are at least five fatal flaws in the thinking of those supporting the replacement covenant thesis: 1) The “New Covenant” was made with the house of Israel and Judah. God never made a formal covenant with the Church; 2) The failure of the Jews, like the failure of the Church, was calculated in the plan of God (Rom 11:8); 3) The New Testament clearly teaches that God has not cast off disobedient Israel (Rom 11:1, 25–26), for they are the natural branches into which the Church has been grafted; 4) The “eternal” aspect of the promise of the land is not to be equated with the “eternal” aspect of the Aaronic priesthood (1 Chr 23:13) or the Rechabite descendants (Jer 35:19); and 5) Paul’s allegory of Galatians 4:21–31 does not teach that national Israel has been replaced by the Church; it teaches that the quest for justification by works leads to bondage whereas justification by faith and grace leads to freedom and salvation.25
And Sunukjian writes, “James was not saying the church fulfills the promises to Israel in Amos 9:11–12. He was saying that since Gentiles will be saved in the yet-to-come Millennium, they need not become Jews in the Church Age.”26 The fallen booth will be restored, and God will “raise up a Descendant” after David “and establish His rule forever.”27
As Motyer explains, “Booth is mostly used in the Old Testament in connection with the Feast of Booths [or Tabernacles] … a feast at which the king took a central place … as middleman between the Lord and the people.… Along the line of thought, the raising up of the booth of David signifies the bringing in of the perfect royal Mediator … a king [who] will reign.”28
CONCLUSION
Historically the tabernacle of David looks back to the tent David erected for the ark of the covenant. But even then it symbolized God’s kingdom in Israel represented by the kingdom of David, a kingdom that involved both secular and sacred elements—the throne and the altar. The prophets saw a restoration of a political entity that will encompass not only Israel but also the surrounding territory (“the remnant of Edom” and Moab, to name a few) and a large part of the Gentile world (“all the nations who are called by My name”). Since it will occur as part of the Day of the Lord (“in that day”), it is reasonable to conclude that it will encompass the entire world in its scope and is yet to be fulfilled. The King from the household of David will sit on a throne inside the tent of David, according to Isaiah 16:5, and will execute mercy, judgment, and righteousness. That King can be none other than Jesus, the Messiah, since the angel told Mary, “The Lord God will give Him the throne of His father David, and He will reign over the house of Jacob forever, and His kingdom will have no end” (Luke 1:32b–33).
The church is not rebuilding the tabernacle of David. That relates specifically to the kingdom of David yet to be rebuilt. Therefore as a symbol of the kingdom or even the reality of the kingdom, the tabernacle of David awaits rebuilding and the prophecy of David’s tabernacle awaits fulfillment.
When it is fulfilled, the Jewish nation will be restored to its land, and other Gentiles will be converted and all the nations will be worshipping before the Lord. “The restoration of the Jewish nation, at the very time that God will ‘raise up the tabernacle of David that is fallen’ and ‘will build it as in the days of old’ (Amos 9:11–15), is followed by the rebuilding of the waste cities, the perpetual occupation of the land, and the possessing ‘the remnant of Edom and all the heathen’ who shall then be converted. In Rev. 15:4 (comp. Rev. 14), after the gathering out of a select number, i.e. the elect, we are told that the fearful plagues which follow down to the ushering in of the millennium are not designed to exterminate the race remaining, but to bring them into obedience, ‘for all nations shall come and worship before Thee; for Thy judgments are made manifest.’ ”29
