The Temple of the LORD
We have already noticed that the Tabernacle represented
God's temporary residence with the Israelites. Later on, the Temple was
substituted for the Tabernacle. Thus God indicated that He would later
abide permanently with His people.
King David, as we have seen, represented Christ during
this Gospel Age. He collected the materials for the Temple, but was not
permitted to build. The lesson is that the Divine arrangement complete is
not to be established by Christ in the flesh, but by the Christ of glory,
represented by Solomon.
The Temple of Solomon was destroyed in B.C. 606, but
later on King Herod, who was not a Jew, but a descendant of Esau, favored
the Jews by building a great Temple which was in its grandeur in Jesus'
day.
Those Temples were merely typical of the greater Temple
which St. Paul and St. Peter declared to be the Church. "The Temple
of God is holy, which Temple ye are;" and again: "Ye are built
up a Holy Temple, a habitation of God through the Spirit." St. Peter
declares all of God's faithful saints to be Royal Priests, living stones
in the Temple of God, through which, eventually, all the world shall have
access to God.
The stones of Solomon's Temple were shaped at the quarry
before being brought to the Temple site. Likewise its beams were prepared
in advance. The workmen put together the Temple "without sound of
hammer." Every piece was so thoroughly fitted that no force was
necessary.
This typified the building of the antitypical Temple,
the preparation of the Church in the present life and their construction
by and by as God's Spiritual Temple, by resurrection power. This is the
meaning of the trials, chiselings and polishings which all true Christians
must receive. The resurrection change will bring all these living stones
together without force or compulsion. Then the glory of the Lord will fill
the true Temple and the New Dispensation will begin.
