John 1:14 — the Greek
"And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth."
The Greek: καὶ ὁ λόγος σὰρξ ἐγένετο καὶ ἐσκήνωσεν ἐν ἡμῖν — kai ho logos sarx egeneto kai eskēnōsen en hēmin.
The verb at the center of the sentence is eskēnōsen (ἐσκήνωσεν) — he tabernacled, he tented, he pitched tent. The verb is the aorist active indicative of skēnoō (σκηνόω), which is the verb form of the noun skēnē (σκηνή) — tent, tabernacle, dwelling.
The Septuagint uses skēnē as its standard translation of the Hebrew mishkan (מִשְׁכָּן) — the Tabernacle. The two words are joined at the root in the bilingual hearing of every Greek-speaking Jew.
When John writes eskēnōsen, he is not writing katoikēsen (the standard verb for to dwell). He is writing the tent-word. The disciples did not just see a man dwelling among them; they saw the Word tabernacling among them. The verb is the deliberate echo of Exodus 25:8 — "And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them" — and Exodus 40:34, "the cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the LORD filled the tabernacle."
John 1:14 is the New Testament's most theologically loaded one-word echo of the Tabernacle.
The glory — doxa
"And we beheld his glory." The Greek is doxan — accusative of doxa (δόξα). Doxa is the standard LXX translation of the Hebrew kavod (כָּבוֹד) — weight, glory, manifest presence. Kavod is the word the Old Testament uses for the Shekinah glory that filled the Tabernacle (Exodus 40:34, with doxa in the LXX).
When John says we beheld his glory, he is not using a religious adjective. He is naming the same glory that filled the Tabernacle, the same glory that filled Solomon's Temple, the same glory that departed in Ezekiel's vision. The disciples saw it — in a body, walking, eating, sleeping, weeping, dying. The glory had returned.
"The glory as of the only begotten of the Father" (doxan hōs monogenous para patros). The Tabernacle's glory was given — descended on a tent. The Incarnate Word's glory is his own, "as of the only begotten." The shadow's glory was loaned; the substance's glory belongs to him.
John 2:19–21 — the temple of his body
"Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body."
The author of John (writing in the late first century, with the Temple already destroyed and the church having reflected for decades) gives us the inspired interpretation: Jesus was speaking about his body.
The Tabernacle → Temple → Body of Christ chain is now made explicit by the evangelist. The dwelling place of God on earth has progressed from a tent to a stone temple to a person. The destruction of the Temple in AD 70 only confirmed what John 2:19–21 had already declared: the body of Christ is the true Temple, the place where God dwells with men. "For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily" (Colossians 2:9).
The body, the church, the New Jerusalem
The Tabernacle word does not stop at the Incarnation.
- The believer — "What? know ye not that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which ye have of God" (1 Corinthians 6:19). The Tabernacle has become the body of the Christian.
- The church — "Know ye not that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwelleth in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16). Plural pronoun. The corporate body of believers.
- The New Jerusalem — "And I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it" (Revelation 21:22). When Christ is fully present, the shadow is not needed.
The biblical theology of God's dwelling traces a single line: Tabernacle → Temple → Christ → the Spirit-indwelt believer → the Spirit-indwelt church → the New Jerusalem where God himself is the temple. John's eskēnōsen is the hinge.
Commentary
John Chrysostom, Homilies on John (PD), is extensive on John 1:14 and the Tabernacle echo. Chrysostom draws the connection between the eskēnōsen word and the Old Testament tabernacle without hesitation; he treats it as the obvious reading. John Calvin, Commentary on John (1553, PD), reads John 1:14 as the moment the entire Old Testament tabernacle-economy resolved into Christ. The earthly Tabernacle had been God dwelling among men; the Incarnation is God becoming man and dwelling among men.
→ Cross-link: The Shekinah Glory (the doxa word) • The Heavenly Pattern • The Three Zones (zones collapsed in the body).