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The society that became Tabernacle Baptist Church began on February 8, 1852, as a mission Sunday school organized by a few members of the Strong Place Baptist Church. The Sunday school met in a small hall over a stable in Hamilton Avenue, midway between Union and President Streets. In the next few years the school rapidly increased in numbers, and in May 1857, it was moved to a hall on Columbia Street, near Summit, where in two years, its numbers were doubled, requiring even larger accomodations. Lots were purchased on the corner of Hicks and Rapelyea Streets, on which a 50 by 100 foot building was erected, The new building had suitable infant, library and conference rooms, and could hold one thousand students. It was first occupied on the sabbath school anniversary, May 1860, and dedicated on June 10th of the same year. On June 26, 1862, the Strong Place Baptist Church granted letters of dismissal to fifty-five brethren and sisters, and these members were organized into a separate church under the name of the Tabernacle Baptist Church, Brooklyn. The Rev. T. Edwin Brown, a graduate of Washington College, D. C., was called to be the first pastor and, on the November 13, 1862, was publicly ordained, at which time, the congregation was formally recognized by its sister churches.

Tabernacle Baptist continued to increase and prosper, and in 1862 lots were purchased on the southwest corner of Second Place (Avenue) and Clinton Street (extending through to Third Place), on which a new house of worship was erected in 1875.

Beginning in 1891, a long series of troubles developed between the pastor, Rev. D. C. Potter, and the trustees, led by John D. Rockefeller, who was also the mortagee of the property. The church was sold under foreclosure proceedings in December 1896. Litigation was discontinued in November 1899.

The congregation disbanded or merged in the 1920s. In July 1927, the property was sold to the Bond of Trinity Church of the Syrian Orthodox Diocese of the Antrochian Church.