The Healing of a Broken Heart
The work of making the new furniture for the temple was a huge undertaking. God used a Gentile to make the furniture for the temple. In front of the temple porch was the brazen altar of sacrifice (2 Chronicles 1:5). On the east side of the “inner court,” right in front of the entrance, was the laver or “molten sea,” or simply “the sea” as it was called - a huge laver with a diameter of 10 cubits, 5 cubits high, with a perimeter of 30 cubits. This contained two or three thousand baths of water, more than 12,000 gallons. The laver stood upon a base of 12 figures of oxen, grouped in three and looking toward the four winds (1 Kings 7:23-26).
Besides that huge laver, ten more lavers of four cubits with a capacity of 40 liters were made of brass. Each one was set upon a quadrangular base, four cubits length by four cubits breadth and three cubits height (verse 38) with wheels. Each was finely decorated with figures of cherubims, lions, oxen, and palm trees (verses 27-37).
Ten candlesticks were made “according to their form,” following the original pattern. Their forms were after that of the candlestick of the wilderness, and they were placed in the holy place of the temple. Five were set up at the right, northward; and the other five at the left, southward (2 Chronicles 4:7). As ten candlesticks were made, so also ten tables were made. At the north was found the golden table of the showbread; and toward the east, in front of the inner veil that was separating the holy place from the holy of holies, was located the golden altar of incense.
After “seven years,” being precisely seven years and six months of constant labor (1 Kings 6:38), the building of the temple and all its furniture were ready. Then Solomon proceeded to inaugurate the temple, bringing to this beautiful structure the Ark of the Covenant and the other utensils of the tabernacle of the wilderness. And when the ark was introduced by the priests in the most holy place (1 Kings 8:6), “the glory of the Lord” “filled the house” in such a way that the priests were not able to enter to minister because the glory of Jehovah filled the temple (1 Kings 8:11). Then King Solomon addressed the people gathered and raised up an invocatory prayer after which, once again, another supernatural manifestation of God occurred: Divine fire came down out of heaven and consumed the burnt offering. Meanwhile the glory of the Lord continued filling the house. The manifestation of the shekinah in the most holy place was a token of the approval and pleasure of God for the temple built for Him. As the divine fire came down out of heaven, it was a sign of acceptance of the perfect sacrifices and prayers offered to Him. God was pleased and blessed His people.
This first temple, called Solomon’s Temple, was destroyed by the Babylonian army during the invasion that occurred under the reign of Zedekiah in the year 586 bc (2 Chronicles 36:19). At that time, the temple was burned, and the utensils of gold and silver were taken to Babylon.
After seventy years of captivity, a remnant went back to Jerusalem, and under the leadership of Zerubbabel, the rebuilding of the temple was carried out. This second temple was called the temple of Zerubbabel.
During the year 37 bc, Herod ascended to the throne, and some years later, around the year 20 bc, he decided to rebuild the temple after the old buiding had been taken down. It was a marvelous structure of white marble overlaid with gold, about 120 meters high. John 2:20 states that in the days of Christ the temple had already been under construction for about 46 years, and actually it was not completely finished till the year ad 66, just four years prior to the destruction of Jerusalem and the temple by the Roman armies in the year ad 70.
In that marvelous temple built by Solomon, restored by Zerubbabel, and later rebuilt by Herod, was the human temple portrayed. When God created Adam and Eve, the Lord made them temples of the living God; but because of sin, humanity became, by nature, “short of the glory of God” (Romans 3:23). Humanity ceased to be the living temple of God; but God promised to rebuild it through the plan of redemption based on the incarnation and saving work of His only-begotten Son.
During His ministry, our Lord Jesus Christ made plain this glorious truth when He prophesied: “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up” (John 2:19). The second Adam, the man Jesus, incarnated in a temple of flesh prepared for Him by the eternal Father after 4,000 years of degeneration of the fallen race. Entering into the world, Christ said: “a body hast thou prepared me” (Hebrews 10:5).
The eternal Word, the divine architect of the perfect and glorious human temple, had to incarnate in a human fallen temple in order to rebuild it after God’s character. So He became bone of our bones and flesh of our flesh in order to condemn sin in His flesh through a life of perfect and constant obedience to the law of God. Christ developed fully the perfect character that Adam had failed to develop because of sin. Then, as the eternal God and sinless man, He had to suffer death on the cross in order to set the cornerstone for the new human temple created after the pattern of His sinless spiritual nature and the life that He lived in human flesh.
It is by accepting Christ as our personal Saviour and partaking of His divine nature that we once again have the golden opportunity to become the temple of the living God.
In that glorious temple built by Solomon, the prophets and apostles saw portrayed the edification of the spiritual temple, namely, the church of Christ on earth. Read Amos 9:11 and Acts 15:14-17. Every Christian is “a lively stone” “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the chief corner stone; in whom all the building fitly framed together groweth unto an holy temple in the Lord” (Ephesians 2:20, 21). What a great privilege to be a stone in this spiritual temple that will endure for eternity!
“How thankful we should be that a way has been opened whereby we may each have a place in the spiritual temple! Will you, my brethren and sisters, think of these things, study them, talk of them? Just in proportion as we appreciate these things shall we become strong in the service of God, and so be enabled to comply with His requirements, and be doers of the words of Christ.”1
The great atoning sacrifice of our Lord Jesus Christ opened for humanity a living and new way to gain access to God. The typical temple and its services met the antitypical reality in the entering of our great High Priest, Jesus Christ, in a sanctuary or temple not “made with hands,” (Hebrews 9:24) that is, not of this creation. It is in fact “the true tabernacle, which the Lord pitched, and not man” (Hebrews 8:2). God is the Architect and builder of this temple. This heavenly temple is not heaven itself, but it is in heaven. John, the seer of Patmos, saw in vision when “the temple of God was opened in heaven,” and he saw there the Ark of the Covenant (Revelation 11:19). There, in that temple, the Ancient of days, the eternal Father, the Judge in the investigative judgment, sat down; and the books were opened; and there, in that heavenly temple, our only Advocate, was brought “near before him,” to intercede for us in the presence of God. In this great day of the antitypical atonement in which we are living, we have the privilege to enter into the heavenly places by faith to obtain mercy and grace from God (Daniel 7:13; Ephesians 1:3; 2:6).
There will also be a temple on the new earth.In Revelation we find a glorious promise for those who since 1844 will have overcome the world, the flesh, and the devil, and have reached the spiritual state of the church of Philadelphia: “Him that overcometh will I make a pillar in the temple of my God” (Revelation 3:12). To what temple is the Lord through John here referring? Since John “saw no temple” in the city of the new Jerusalem, because “the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it” (Revelation 21:22), obviously Revelation 3:12 refers to the temple that will be located outside of the city. Ellen G. White described her vision: “Mount Zion was just before us, and on the mount was a glorious temple, and about it were seven other mountains, on which grew roses and lilies. . . . And as we were about to enter the holy temple, Jesus raised His lovely voice and said, ‘Only the 144,000 enter this place,’ and we shouted, ‘Alleluia.’”2
Therefore, that wonderful earthly temple designed by David and built by Solomon was not just a type of the heavenly temple, nor just a figure of the human temple. Neither was it just a symbol of the church. By extension it also pointed to that glorious temple in which only the 144,000 will enter in the near future. Would you like to have the great privilege to enter that holy temple? Then, “let us strive with all the power that God has given us to be among the hundred and forty-four thousand.”3 Amen!