John H. Paterson
Then David gave to Solomon his son ... the pattern of all that he had by the spirit ...
All this, said David, the Lord made me understand in writing by his hand upon me,
even all the works of this pattern. 1 Chronicles 28:11, 12, 19.
THE tragedy of Solomon's temple is simply stated. Imagine a king setting out to erect for God the world's most beautiful building. Imagine him employing thousands of labourers in the construction. Imagine him, too, drawing upon all the resources of the known world for decorating and furnishing it, and then surrounding this building with other palaces and houses so [33/34] splendid that kings and queens came from far and near to see it all. As foreigners, they could never see the inside of the temple, but the splendour was such that they were astonished even by "the ascent by which he went up into the house of the Lord" (1 Kings 10:5), let alone by the buildings themselves.
Now, if you have imagined all that, you have a building more ornate than the Taj Mahal, better constructed than St. Paul's Cathedral, and containing more gold than the most richly-endowed medieval shrine! So, given all that expense and care, how long would you hope that such a building would last? Built to the glory of God and protected by the greatest king of his time, you and I would foresee for it, would we not, a long and glorious history?
Actually, it lasted for just 34 years! It was finished in the eleventh year of Solomon's reign. He had 29 more years to live and, in the fifth year of his successor, Rehoboam, the king of Egypt arrived at Jerusalem (1 Kings 14:25-6) and stripped the temple of as much of its gold and decorations as he could carry away. All that trouble and expenses for a mere 34 years of glory!
The tragedy, then, is clear. But it simply serves to raise a question mark or, if you like, to introduce the mystery of the temple, which is this: should it ever have been built in the first place? In attempting to answer that question, the bible student must take account of some curiously conflicting evidence. Here it is:
1. David had the idea of building God a house more permanent than the tent or tabernacle in which He had so far lived among His people (2 Samuel 7:1-2).
2. God responded to David's idea by asking what put such thoughts into his head, and saying that He had never mentioned any desire for such a house (vv.4-10). He added that, if it came to house-building, God would build David a house.
3. God then told David that a son of his might build the house that David had thought of (vv.12-13).
4. Much later on, David told Solomon that every detail of the house was dictated to him, in writing, by God Himself (1 Chronicles 28:19).
5. When the finished temple was dedicated, God filled this "unwanted" house with His glory.
At that point, I think that we are all entitled to feel a little confused! If God really wanted a house built for Himself, why did He respond in the way He did to David's idea? If He did not really want a house at all, why did He design it in every detail? Why, when it was finally built, did it so nearly reproduce the structure and shape of the tabernacle in the wilderness, which was the product not only of God's pattern, but also of God's initiative -- a house that He had asked for?
I fear that I am not in a position to answer any of these questions satisfactorily. Indeed, my only comfort in my ignorance is that, to judge by such literature as I know of, hardly anyone else has answers for them ether! We have books in plenty about the tabernacle, but almost nothing about Solomon's temple.
Not, of course, that there is any lack of broad hints that the temple's structure was significant, as also were the contrasts with the tabernacle. The single laver in the earlier structure was replaced by ten lavers and a "sea". The sanctuary in the temple was surrounded by a large number of lesser rooms; yet the record makes it particularly clear that the rooms were built in such a way that no part of these structures outside intruded into the sanctuary. All this is evidently rich in spiritual meaning, but the Epistle to the Hebrews, which throws so much light on the significance of the tabernacle, is silent about the temple. The mystery remains: should the temple have been there in the first place, or should it not?
Curiously enough, the same kind of mystery seems to surround Israel's other great institution of the same period: the kingship. You will remember [34/35] how unsatisfactory were its beginnings -- that Israel demanded a king for no better reason than that everybody else had one, and that God said to Samuel, "they have not rejected thee, but they have rejected me, that I should not reign over them" (1 Samuel 8:7). Thereupon He chose for them Saul, who was a disaster and, after him, David, "a man after my own heart", who has ever since been the epitome of kingship for Jew and Christian alike. If the whole idea of kingship was wrong, why David?
But let us return, for the present, to the temple. It is clear that, when the idea of building a house for God first occurred to David, his motive was to give it permanence. He had a house of cedar (2 Samuel 7:2), and it seemed to him quite wrong that God should have a mere tent. He was also determined that this house should be worthy of its Occupant: it "must be exceeding magnifical, of fame and glory throughout all countries" (1 Chronicles 22:5). And the house eventually built at Jerusalem fulfilled both these conditions. In fact, permanence takes on new dimensions when we realise that, even after repeated destructions, some of the stones of this house survive to the present day.
This same thought of permanence seems to have underlain, also, God's insistence that the temple should be built by Solomon and not by David. The reason He gave was that David had been a man of war, but that his son would be a man of peace. By the time Solomon came to the throne, the days of fighting and conquest were over; the kingdom had reached its greatest territorial extension. From this point of view, therefore, it should never be necessary for the house to leave its permanent site. Never again should there be anything to threaten its peace. Never again should the people of God have to move on. They were subjects of a kingdom existing in triumph and in peace, and their wandering days were over. Only under these conditions, apparently, would God consider lending His name and His presence to the house in Jerusalem.
So now let us ask ourselves: what were the advantages which the temple possessed over the tabernacle, and then what were the disadvantages ? Was this a good idea, or was it not?
The advantages, it seems to me, were twofold. One was that, in the temple, it was possible to construct a setting of much greater splendour than in the tabernacle. The tent in the wilderness was, after all, a relatively simple affair, suited to the life of a nomadic people and made, largely, out of materials which they had to hand on their travels. For the temple, David and Solomon scoured the world for treasures: it was built to the same ground plan as the tabernacle, but everything was grander, more impressive, more evocative of the greatness of the God who dwelt there.
The second was that a permanent building meant that everyone would always know where God was to be found. Even in the Promised Land, the tabernacle had evidently been moved from time to time, and the ark of God even more so. To find God it was therefore necessary first to ask where His home had moved to! But once He had chosen Jerusalem (2 Chronicles 6:6) as the location for what Solomon called "a settled place for thee to abide in for ever" (1 Kings 8:13), and once the house was built there, no further doubt was possible. Jerusalem was where He was to be found, and the place "whither the tribes go up" for the annual festivals.
To Israel, these were substantial advantages: to have a house worthy of their God, and appropriate to a people no longer nomadic, but settled in the land of promise. In what sense, then, can we possibly speak of the disadvantage of this arrangement?
The answer is, I think, simple but clear. The whole point of both tabernacle and temple was that they formed a point -- a unique point -- in space at which God was present. Furthermore, He could be seen to be present, because the cloud[35/36] of His glory hung over this place. It hung over the tabernacle and, when Solomon dedicated the temple,
come out of the holy place,
that the cloud filled the house of the
Lord, so that the priests could not
stand to minister because of the cloud;
for the glory of the Lord had filled the
house of the Lord. (1 Kings 8:10-11)
So far so good! But now, what if the cloud lifted? What if God moved this sign of His presence to somewhere else. Well, you will remember what Israel did with the tabernacle in the wilderness: they simply packed up and followed the cloud! In fact, the tabernacle was designed for this very process; it was portable, and we even know from our Bibles which family carried which piece. If the cloud moved elsewhere, cloud, tent and people could all be quickly reunited in some new location.
But there was no question of moving the temple: it was there for good. And once the house of God had been made permanent, it would soon become embarrassingly obvious whether God was "at home" or not.
He warned Solomon of this, after the temple was finished and dedicated. He warned that if king or people strayed from their allegiance to Him, He would remove His presence:
passeth by it shall be astonished, and shall
hiss; and they shall say, Why hath the
Lord done thus unto this land, and to this
house? And they shall answer, Because
they forsook the Lord their God.
So, if the glory of God departed from His house -- and you will remember that, many years later, Ezekiel had a vision of that happening (Ezekiel 11:23) -- there was absolutely nothing that His people could do about it. They were left with an empty house, and any of them with an understanding of the spiritual realities must have yearned for the old days, when God moved on -- and they could follow.
It was 34 years before the temple building suffered the first of its despoliations, but even less time passed before the glory of its dedication day was tarnished. David had spent half a lifetime gathering materials, and Solomon seven years on the construction, but it took hardly any time at all before Solomon's heart was turned away from God by his own ambitions and his foreign wives. Thereafter, there were only brief moments of glory in the 400-odd years before the final destruction of this house -- brief revivals like those under Hezekiah and Josiah. These men were kings after the model of David, who had first thought of building a house for God and it is, I think, significant that, in the reforms which they introduced, the Scriptures constantly refer to their efforts at getting back to doing things in David's way -- ceremonies, music and all (2 Chronicles 29:2, 25-27; 35:4).
But was it all worthwhile? Here, it seems to me, we have a question that recurs throughout both Scripture and experience. Since it does not seem possible that anything in which we humans are involved can ever retain its quality unchanged, was the whole dreary story of the kingship in Israel and Judah really justified by producing David as a model? Was the whole sad decline of the temple and its glory worthwhile just to produce that one brief, shining moment of its dedication; that single glorious hour when the Queen of Sheba came to visit Solomon and could not believe her eyes or ears? Was it simply God's way of showing what could be?
I do not know. I am using the author's privilege of asking questions, and leaving readers to answer them! But let me take a step in the dark and using such detail of the temple as we have, try to transpose all this into New Testament terms. The tabernacle appears to have been designed as [36/37] a parable of the way to God through the Lord Jesus Christ. If that is so, the temple seems to add to that an extra dimension; to present Christ in fulness (remember that "sea", and the ten lavers that replaced the single laver in the tabernacle!) The rooms that adjoined the temple sanctuary hint, too, at a multiplier effect, perhaps the kind of multiplier that Paul was referring to when he wrote in Ephesians 1:22-23 of "the church, which is his body, the fulness of him that filleth all in all." Evidently, Christ in fulness requires the presence of His people; what else is the Epistle to the Ephesians all about!
That is largely speculation, but let me now restate my earlier question in another way. If the best we can hope for, in our frailty and faithlessness, is an occasional glimpse of the temple glory of Christ in His people as God intended it to be, is that better than nothing? Were a few -- a very few -- occasions of evident blessing in Solomon's temple worth all those years in between, when men and women who came to Jerusalem seeking God found the cloud of glory missing and the house empty? For that matter, was David's reign as king worth more than that of half his successors in Judah and all 19 of the kings of breakaway Israel, every single one of them godless and evil?
I believe that God's answer to each of those versions of my original question is, "Yes: it was worthwhile." I take it that His initial reluctance to have His people enter upon the adventure of ether the kingdom or the permanent house was caused by His perfect foreknowledge that they were quite incapable of living up to the demands of either institution. I guess that He wanted to save them from the embarrassment of failure but that, since they were resolved on this course of action He said, in effect, "Very well: I will show how ideally this should work and, after that, it is up to you to keep it going!" The fact that it did work, once, briefly, showed what might have been; showed that it was not all a great illusion.
I think that there are at least two lessons here for us as God's people today. One of them is the danger of setting up institutions (let alone buildings) whose purpose is to make permanent a moment of spiritual blessing or breakthrough, as if the institution can protect or enshrine the blessing. After that great moment of Jesus' transfiguration on the mountain-top, Peter wanted to build three tabernacles (Mark 9:5), to give permanence to what had been the most transitory -- if also the most revealing -- of experiences. How embarrassing it would have been for Peter to return there, weeks or months later, alone with the emptiness after the Lord had moved on to other, and even greater experiences! Alas: the Church has a long record of leaving behind markers on empty mountain-tops.
The second lesson is one which emerges clearly from this Old Testament history, but is not too easy to express. Let me put it like this: in the spiritual life, the problems of attaining a position of principle are manifold, but they are nothing to the problems of maintaining that position, once it has been reached. Solomon's temple was long in preparation and planning, but eventually it came into being as a glorious symbol -- for a handful of years. The kingdom in Israel was born amid the multiple traumas of Saul's reign but eventually, after defeat and civil war, came the reign of David -- and after him, things went down-hill almost without interruption. Centuries earlier, for that matter, these same Children of Israel had battled their way into the Promised Land and, having arrived, deteriorated almost at once into lawlessness.
Must we expect this, and should we accept it? In a world dominated, for the time being, by evil I think that we must expect it. It is the object of God's enemy to oppose all His ideals. In any case, that enemy has so much history on his side. Think of the numberless ideal, "biblical", "New Testament" groups, churches or causes that we have known in our own lifetime; those that have deliberately set out to give expression to particular spiritual truths (and that may, alas, have become a little proud of their purity), and let us ask: how many of them have maintained themselves as true expressions of God's glory or rule, once the first flush of zeal, or joy, or enthusiasm was over?
This virtual certainty of failure has made some believers cynical: they expect failure. But I asked earlier: should we accept it as inevitable? And to that question the answer is surely: No! For neither in the short term nor the long term did[37/38] God give up His interest in these institutions of house and kingdom. There were moments of recovery. Ezekiel, it is true, had a vision of God's glory leaving the temple, but he also had a vision of it coming back (Ezekiel 43:2), and of rivers of life subsequently issuing from the house. It was possible to recapture some, at least, of God's thought for Jerusalem.
And in the long term the ideal will, of course, be realised. We now know that the temple of Solomon was only one of a whole series of "houses" for God, some of them -- Ezra's and Herod's temples -- real structures; others taking on new dimensions. The Word was made flesh, said John, and tabernacled among us (John 1:14). The house of God, said Paul, is the church of the living God (1 Timothy 3:15). There remains for the future a tabernacle of God among men in a new and heavenly Jerusalem (Revelation 21:2-3).
So, if it is clear that God has not given up, then neither must we His people. In the days when I did physical training in the army, the instructors used often to insist that, however badly we performed the exercises, we must always end by "showing the position"; that is, by demonstrating what we were supposed to have been doing all along! Never mind that we could not hold this position; without that brief glimpse of the ideal the exercise was not complete. I think that the same thing applies with spiritual exercises: no matter how likely the failure, or how swift the loss of the ideal, we must still strive to "show the position" which the house and the kingdom called for. And to do so, however briefly, is to bear witness to His intentions and ultimate goals.
However doubtful, however troubled, the beginnings of house and kingdom, God has no intention of letting these ideas drop. He is committed to establishing His eternal King, and to dwelling among men. And I have a joyful, if purely imaginary, vision of an end to this story when He will say to all His people, "Now stand back, and I'll show you how these things were supposed to work from the beginning!"
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