Acts 7:44, commentary and pictures

Our fathers had the tabernacle of witness with them in the wilderness and carried it with them through their journey. It was appointed by God, who spoke to Moses directing him to make it according to the fashion or pattern that had been shown to him. The earthly sanctuary built from that divinely revealed design was a copy of the heavenly sanctuary, teaching truths about the heavenly sanctuary and Christ's work for humanity.

The verse belongs to Stephen's review of Israel's history and God's dealings with the people, given as his final testimony whose full significance depends on its occasion and setting. In that testimony he uses the Old Testament, including Israel's worship and ceremonies, the history of the temple, and the words of the prophets and patriarchs, to show that they pointed to and revealed Christ. Paul later used Stephen's historical presentation as a model for presenting evidence from prophecy that Jesus is the Son of God.

As part of that history Stephen recounts the temple's history and shows that God does not dwell confined to temples made by human hands, but has His highest place of worship in heaven. Honoring outward religious forms and the temple cannot excuse rejecting Christ, who was foretold by the prophets, so those services that had value as representations of the Savior become valueless if He is rejected.

Jesus Christ is our tabernacle of witness for heavenly things, the greatest medical missionary who ever walked the earth. In the perils of the last days, God's people are therefore to watch unto prayer, put entire trust in God, glorify Him, and daily learn lessons from Christ. Christ will not accept a commercial spirit brought into medical missionary work, nor the self-satisfied condition in which the work does not fulfill its name, fails to prepare a people with a sound, healthy experience that will stand in the judgment, dishonors God, and belittles His work that should be a praise in the earth.