Translation
I kept on watching and I saw that in heaven,
Go to footnote numberthe inner sanctuary of the
tabernacle of the testimony
was open.
Paraphrase
I kept on watching and I saw
the real, original, personal and intimate space inside the dwelling place where God displays the visible evidence of who He is and what He is like which was accessible to all.
Footnotes
1
That which is in heaven is the real thing, while that which is on earth is only a copy or shadow of what is in heaven. While I do not believe there will be an actual temple in heaven, for we will be surrounded by God’s presence always, the principles and realities expressed by an earthly temple are even more real in heaven. The reference to heaven in connection with the Tabernacle or the Temple would have called to mind, for a Jew of John’s day, the way God required that the tabernacle be made according to the pattern of things in heaven.
“The Sanctuary of the Tabernacle of the Testimony”
In Greek this verse is cumbersome and challenging; it literally says, “The temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven was open.” One common way to translate this is to use the second noun, “tabernacle” as an explanation, or a more specific description, of the first noun, “temple.” The English for this option reads thus: “the temple, that is the tabernacle of the testimony, in heaven was open.” The other option is to consider at least one of the terms “temple” or “tabernacle” to be different than the usage we have become accustomed to. “Temple” can refer to the inner sanctuary, or even the inner room of a home, and tabernacle is really the word for “tent.”
I favor seeing this as a different use of the word “temple” with a focus on its meaning of an inner sanctuary or inner room, i.e. the Holy of Holies. The English for this approach could sound like this: “the inner sanctuary of the dwelling place of [God’s] testimony.” The reason I favor this translation is that the option that reads, “the temple, that is, the tabernacle of the testimony,” assumes the Greek construction in use here is one in which the second noun plays the same role as the first one, simply in a more specific way. For this to be true we would expect both nouns to be in the same Greek form (called a “case”). But that is not what we find. The one is the form used for the subject of the sentence and the next one is used to show possession, usually translated in English by “of.” The Greek literally reads, “The temple of the tabernacle of the testimony in heaven.”
Therefore, the term “temple” may refer here to the inner chamber, which in turn is a picture of intimacy, of closeness, of a private and personal relationship, and the phrase “tabernacle of the testimony” points inescapably to the way God placed on display (in the ark of the covenant) the proofs of His interaction with mankind.
In either case the “temple” is a picture of God’s dwelling among men, thus His desire to be close to us, and the “tabernacle of the testimony” points to the evidence of God’s interaction with us.