Solomon and his Temple prefigure Christ and his Church

Image: The Visit of the Queen of Sheba to King Solomon, by Edward Poynter (1890) See full resolution here

When I read the prophecy about David’s son in 2 Samuel chapter 7 I can’t help but think it refers to two different sons: Solomon and Jesus. And when I think about Solomon and the Temple he built I also think about Jesus and the church he built. It seems as though the early rein of king Solomon and the Temple prefigures the coming of our Lord Jesus and his church.

Have you ever wondered why God didn’t allow king David to build the Temple because he was a man of war who had blood on his hands? King Solomon was allowed to build the Temple because he was a man of peace. Being a man of peace enabled king Solomon and the Temple he built to prefigure Jesus, who is the Prince of Peace (see: Isaiah 9:6), and the church he would build.

When Jesus teaches that we are to be perfect even as our Father which is in heaven is perfect and that, like him, we are to be loving and kind to both the just and the unjust, to both the good and the evil (see: Matthew 5:43-48), he is revealing to us far more than that which was revealed, to those who lived during Old Testament times, through Moses, the prophets, and the Psalms (although hints of this fuller revelation can be found in the Old Testament).

Solomon and the Temple are the pinnacle of the Old Testament revelation and religion, and they prefigure (or, point to) the coming of Christ and his church. Jesus Christ gives us the full and final revelation of God, and his church is full and final religion.  

“The Lord’s method in dispensing the covenant of mercy was to clarify his teaching more and more the closer the day of full revelation approached. That is why, in the beginning, when the first promise was made to Adam, there was no more than a glow, so to speak, of a few small sparks. After that the light gradually grew and intensified day by day, until the Lord Jesus Christ, the Sun of righteousness (Mal. 4:2), putting every cloud to flight, fully illumined the world.” (John Calvin, Institutes of the Christian Religion 1541 Edition (p. 446)

Nathan the prophet tells king David that his son will build the temple and that his kingdom will be established forever

“And when thy days be fulfilled, and thou shalt sleep with thy fathers, I will set up thy seed after thee, which shall proceed out of thy bowels, and I will establish his kingdom. He shall build an house for my name, and I will stablish the throne of his kingdom for ever. I will be his father, and he shall be my son. If he commit iniquity, I will chasten him with the rod of men, and with the stripes of the children of men: But my mercy shall not depart away from him, as I took it from Saul, whom I put away before thee. And thine house and thy kingdom shall be established for ever before thee: thy throne shall be established for ever”  (2 Samuel 7:12-16).

David a man of war; Solomon a man of peace

Then he called for Solomon his son, and charged him to build an house for the LORD God of Israel. And David said to Solomon, My son, as for me, it was in my mind to build an house unto the name of the LORD my God: But the word of the LORD came to me, saying, Thou hast shed blood abundantly, and hast made great wars: thou shalt not build an house unto my name, because thou hast shed much blood upon the earth in my sight. Behold, a son shall be born to thee, who shall be a man of rest; and I will give him rest from all his enemies round about: for his name shall be Solomon, and I will give peace and quietness unto Israel in his days. He shall build an house for my name; and he shall be my son, and I will be his father; and I will establish the throne of his kingdom over Israel for ever (1 Chronicles 22:6-10).

Construction of the Temple completed. God’s promises and warnings

“And it came to pass, when Solomon had finished the building of the house of the LORD, and the king's house, and all Solomon's desire which he was pleased to do, 2That the LORD appeared to Solomon the second time, as he had appeared unto him at Gibeon. And the LORD said unto him, I have heard thy prayer and thy supplication, that thou hast made before me: I have hallowed this house, which thou hast built, to put my name there for ever; and mine eyes and mine heart shall be there perpetually. And if thou wilt walk before me, as David thy father walked, in integrity of heart, and in uprightness, to do according to all that I have commanded thee, and wilt keep my statutes and my judgments: Then I will establish the throne of thy kingdom upon Israel for ever, as I promised to David thy father, saying, There shall not fail thee a man upon the throne of Israel.

“But if ye shall at all turn from following me, ye or your children, and will not keep my commandments and my statutes which I have set before you, but go and serve other gods, and worship them: Then will I cut off Israel out of the land which I have given them; and this house, which I have hallowed for my name, will I cast out of my sight; and Israel shall be a proverb and a byword among all people: And at this house, which is high, every one that 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, who brought forth their fathers out of the land of Egypt, and have taken hold upon other gods, and have worshipped them, and served them: therefore hath the LORD brought upon them all this evil” (1 Kings 9:1-9).

1 Kings chapters 9-10 records the completion of the Temple as well as the incredible wealth and wisdom of king Solomon, which was so fabulous that the queen of Sheba heard of his fame and traveled to visit Solomon and prove him with hard questions (see: 1 Kings 10:1-13).

This brief period was the pinnacle of the entire Old Testament religion. It was all uphill to this point and it’s all downhill after this point, until Jesus comes into the world in order to fulfill all that was spoken of him in the writings of Moses, the Prophets, and the Psalms (see: Luke 24:36-49). 

By 1 Kings chapter 11 king Solomon had disobeyed the Lord and his downfall had begun (see 1 Kings 11:1 and following).

King Rehoboam makes cheap imitations to replace Solomon’s golden shields

“So Shishak king of Egypt came up against Jerusalem, and took away the treasures of the house of the LORD, and the treasures of the king's house; he took all: he carried away also the shields of gold which Solomon had made. 10Instead of which king Rehoboam made shields of brass, and committed them to the hands of the chief of the guard, that kept the entrance of the king's house” (2 Chronicles 12:9-10).

The Temple destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon

“And in the fifth month, on the seventh day of the month, which is the nineteenth year of king Nebuchadnezzar king of Babylon, came Nebuzaradan, captain of the guard, a servant of the king of Babylon, unto Jerusalem: And he burnt the house of the LORD, and the king's house, and all the houses of Jerusalem, and every great man's house burnt he with fire” (2 Kings 25:8-9).

Jesus speaks of the Temple as his body

The Temple that existed during Jesus day was the second Temple, construction of which began when the Jews returned to Jerusalem from exile in Babylon around 516 BC. This Temple underwent extensive renovations during the reign of Herod the Great from 20-10 BC and was referred to as Herod’s Temple. This second Temple was a poor imitation of the first Temple, Solomon’s, which had been destroyed by the Babylonians more than 500 years before Christ was born.

“Then answered the Jews and said unto him, What sign shewest thou unto us, seeing that thou doest these things? Jesus answered and said unto them, Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. Then said the Jews, Forty and six years was this temple in building, and wilt thou rear it up in three days? But he spake of the temple of his body. When therefore he was risen from the dead, his disciples remembered that he had said this unto them; and they believed the scripture, and the word which Jesus had said” (John 2:18-22).

Jesus foretells the destruction of the second Temple

“And as some spake of the temple, how it was adorned with goodly stones and gifts, he [Jesus] said, As for these things which ye behold, the days will come, in the which there shall not be left one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down (Luke 21:5-6).

The second Temple was destroyed in 70 AD

“The Roman legions surrounded the city and began to slowly squeeze the life out of the Jewish stronghold. By the year 70, the attackers had breached Jerusalem's outer walls and began a systematic ransacking of the city. The assault culminated in the burning and destruction of the Temple that served as the center of Judaism.

“In victory, the Romans slaughtered thousands. Of those sparred from death: thousands more were enslaved and sent to toil in the mines of Egypt, others were dispersed to arenas throughout the Empire to be butchered for the amusement of the public. The Temple's sacred relics were taken to Rome where they were displayed in celebration of the victory.” (The Romans Destroy the Temple at Jerusalem, 70 AD, EyeWitness to History (2005)

The Church as the body of Christ

“For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another (Romans 12:4-5).

“Now ye are the body of Christ, and members in particular” (1 Corinthians 12:27).

“And that he might reconcile both [Jews and Gentiles] unto God in one body by the cross, having slain the enmity thereby” (Ephesians 2:16)

“And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence” (Colossians 1:17).

The Church as the Temple

“Now therefore ye are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellowcitizens with the saints, and of the household of God; And are 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: In whom ye also are builded together for an habitation of God through the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:19-22).

“To whom coming, as unto a living stone, disallowed indeed of men, but chosen of God, and precious, Ye also, as lively stones, are built up a spiritual house, an holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:4-5).

“For the time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God: and if it first begin at us, what shall the end be of them that obey not the gospel of God?” (1 Peter 4:17).

Jesus mentions Solomon, twice

It's interesting that Jesus mentions Solomon, his wealth, and his wisdom. By doing so he is pointing to Solomon and his early reign, before his fall into sin, as the pinnacle of the entire Old Testament. He also mentions the queen of Sheba. 

“And why take ye thought for raiment? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not, neither do they spin: And yet I say unto you, That even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. Wherefore, if God so clothe the grass of the field, which to day is, and to morrow is cast into the oven, shall he not much more clothe you, O ye of little faith?” (Matthew 7:28-30).

“The men of Nineveh shall rise in judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: because they repented at the preaching of Jonas; and, behold, a greater than Jonas is here. The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here” (Matthew 12:41-42).

True theological science

Image: Erasmus of Rotterdam, by Albrecht Dürer (1526)

“True theological science consists in defining nothing which is not prescribed in Scripture, and these instructions should be set forth in simplicity and in good faith… One will not be condemned for being ignorant of whether the procession of the Holy Spirit is single or double, but one will not avoid damnation if one does not try to possess the fruits of the Spirit, which are love, joy, patience, goodness, sweetness, faith, modesty, continence…”

Desiderius Erasmus, Letter to the Archbishop of Palermo (published at Basel in 1523 as the preface to his edition of the works of Hillary)

That theological authoritarianism which Erasmus feared

Image: Desiderius Erasmus (1466-1536)

Frequently the excuse is made for him [Erasmus] that this skill [editing texts] was unknown in his time, but someone used it in preparing the text of Colines’ Greek New Testament; and the Christian Hebraists of Alcala de Henares prepared after some years of effort the Hebrew text of the Old Testament in the Complutensian Polyglot Bible, which is still of interest to scholars. Erasmus might have created a thirst for better scholarship through the potent attraction of his name and of his edition of the New Testament, so that younger men could have done better what he had done imperfectly, if it had not been for the fact that both Catholics and Protestants, locked in an exhausting and inconclusive struggle to demonstrate each other’s errors, ended by mid-century in that theological authoritarianism which Erasmus feared would develop from Luther’s protest. In this situation there could be little scholarly advance; what was achieved was greater precision but with narrowed insights. The excessive caution shown by Beza in his edition of the text of the Greek New Testament (when he had the Western text before him to show him new possibilities) demonstrates this in the second half of the century.

Basil Hall, Humanists and Protestants (p. 66)  

The Renaissance Bible translator

Image: William Tyndale (1494-1536)

“While the Renaissance Bible translator saw half of his task as reshaping English so that it could adapt itself to Hebraic idiom the modern translator wants to make no demands on the language he translates into... The basic distinction between the Renaissance and the modern translators is one of fidelity to the original. Partly the loss of faith in the Hebrew and Greek as the definitive word of God has led to the translators’ loss of contact with it, but more responsibility lies in the belief that a modern Bible should aim not to tax its readers linguistic or interpretive abilities one bit. If this aim is to be achieved then it seems clear that a new Bible will have to be produced for every generation---each one probably moving us further away from the original text, now that the initial break has been made.”

Gerald Hammond, The Making of the English Bible (pp. 3, 12)

Theological Reflections on the Canonical Witness

Image: Brevard Childs (1923-2007)

We should now like to attempt some theological reflections that go beyond the descriptive task of Biblical Theology, and use as the context the witness of the whole Christian canon. It is interesting to recall the other recent theological attempts to develop an understanding of God from a different context. One thinks especially of Tillich’s ontological approach from "the ground of being," of Bultmann’s existential stance that cannot talk of God except through the medium of anthropology, of Altizer and the "death of God" theologians who speak of the God of the Old Testament dying with Jesus to signal a freeing of man from superstition, and of the "new left" who identify God with service toward one’s fellows and the humanizing of the structures of society. Perhaps the only things held in common among these various contemporary alternatives is their failure to take the Biblical canon seriously.

What does it mean to interpret the New Testament in the light of the Old? First, the Old Testament witness to the God of Israel provides the matrix in which the Christological statements of the New Testament are made. We cannot understand Jesus Christ apart from what God was doing as creator of the world, convenanting with Israel, guiding and directing the nations in judgment and mercy. The faith of the Christian church is not built upon Jesus of Nazareth who had a Jewish background, but its faith is directed to God, the God of Israel, Creator of the world, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. The Old Testament testimony to God serves the church, not as interesting background to the New Testament, nor as historical preparation for Christ’s arrival, but as the living vehicle of the Spirit through which it continues to confront God.

Secondly, the Old Testament witness to God as the context from which to understand the New Testament guards the Christian against any truncated interpretation of God’s work in Christ that would separate the physical world from the spiritual, the objective action from the internal motivation, the people of God from the individual believer, and commitment to a covenant from authentic existence. Most of the heresies of the Christian church stem from a distorted emphasis of the New Testament that has been cut adrift from its Old Testament moorings.

Thirdly, the Old Testament witness to God continues to provide the primary witness to dimensions of God’s nature and purpose which, far from being corrected, are sustained and reiterated in the New. The righteousness of God is not bypassed but fulfilled in the cross. The holiness of God is not reduced by the incarnation but radicalized. The unity of God is not endangered by the Son but confirmed. The mystery of God is not made obvious but projected to new dimensions of wonder and praise.

Conversely, what does it mean to interpret the Old Testament in the light of the New? First, the New Testament testifies to the failure of Israel in its response to the covenant will of God. The Old Testament does not present a history of growing obedience or increasing illumination, but ends in dissidence and uncertainty. The easy continuity expressed in the phrase "the Judeo-Christian heritage" is opposed by the New Testament’s witness to Jesus Christ, which testifies to his suffering, rejection, and death at the hands of the chosen people. The New Testament remains an offense because it lays claim to the Scriptures of Israel and hears in them the testimony to the rejected Messiah of God.

Secondly, the New Testament’s witness to Christ as the context for understanding the Old Testament points to the fact that there is no aspect of the old covenant’s testimony which is unaffected by the Lord of the church. The New Testament confesses Christ as Creator, Eternal Wisdom, Redeemer of Israel, and Judge. There is no body of Old Testament teaching that stands by itself and is untouched by the revelation of the Son. This means that frequent appeal to the term "Christomonism" raises a false issue, which has failed to understand the dynamics of Trinitarian theology.

Thirdly, the New Testament’s witness to Christ provides the context from which to understand the tensions within the Old Testament’s witness to God. His justice and his mercy find a unity in the death of Jesus, his transcendence and immanence in the incarnation, and his Kingship over heaven and earth in the reign of his Christ. The claim for a unity within the Old Testament is a theological confession that views the promise from the perspective of its fulfillment.

Fourthly, the New Testament’s witness to Christ guards the Old Testament from distortions to which it is vulnerable when isolated from its whole context. The God of the Old Testament is not the God of Israel alone, but of all the nations. The physical blessings of this world -- life, land, the people -- are an inheritance that points to the ultimate reward which is God himself. Man’s worship, his deeds of charity, and search for God are vain and worthless strivings without the Spirit of God who breathes life into dead forms.

Lastly, what does it mean to interpret the Biblical witnesses to God in the light of God’s reality, and his reality m the light of the witnesses? First, the Scriptures are pointers to God himself. To know about God is not the same as knowing God. "Let him who glories glory in this, that he understands and knows me." (Jer. 9:24.) The God of the Bible is not a theological system, but a living and acting Lord, the one with whom we have to do -- now. We are confronted, not just with ancient witnesses, but with our God who is the Eternal Present. Prayer is an integral part in the study of Scripture because it anticipates the Spirit’s carrying its reader through the written page to God himself. Again, obedience is the source of the right knowledge of God. Peter said to Jesus: "Lord, what about this man?" Jesus said: "What’s that to you? Follow me." The Christian is led from faith to faith, but in the context of faithful response to God and his people. Finally, the Christian interpreter strives to learn to use the language of faith that he reads in the Bible. The ancient medium becomes a living vehicle into the presence of God only insofar as it becomes the witness of each new generation. He cannot ape the past, but he can be instructed by the prophets and apostles toward the end that he learns himself to speak the language of faith for his age.

Brevard Childs, Biblical Theology in Crisis (pp. 216-19)

God has made us able ministers of the new testament

Image: Law and Gospel, Lucas Cranach the Elder (1529)

Notice:

The tables of stone are old
The fleshly tables of the heart are new
The letter is old
The spirit is new
The letter killeth and is old
The spirit giveth life and is new

Ministers of a New Covenant

“Do we begin again to commend ourselves? or need we, as some others, epistles of commendation to you, or letters of commendation from you? Ye are our epistle written in our hearts, known and read of all men: Forasmuch as ye are manifestly declared to be the epistle of Christ ministered by us, written not with ink, but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tables of stone, but in fleshy tables of the heart.

“And such trust have we through Christ to God-ward: Not that we are sufficient of ourselves to think any thing as of ourselves; but our sufficiency is of God; Who also hath made us able ministers of the new testament; not of the letter, but of the spirit: for the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life” (2 Corinthians 3:1-6).

Notice:

The ministration of death is old and its glory done away
The ministration of the spirit is new and is glorious
The ministration of condemnation is old and was glorious
The ministration of righteousness is new and now excels in glory
The old which is done away was glorious
The new which remains is glorious
The old is that which is abolished
The new is liberating and changes us into the image of the glory of the Lord

The Glory of the New Covenant


“But if the ministration of death, written and engraven in stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not stedfastly behold the face of Moses for the glory of his countenance; which glory was to be done away: How shall not the ministration of the spirit be rather glorious? For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth. For if that which is done away was glorious, much more that which remaineth is glorious.

“Seeing then that we have such hope, we use great plainness of speech: And not as Moses, which put a vail over his face, that the children of Israel could not stedfastly look to the end of that which is abolished: But their minds were blinded: for until this day remaineth the same vail untaken away in the reading of the old testament; which vail is done away in Christ. But even unto this day, when Moses is read, the vail is upon their heart. Nevertheless when it shall turn to the Lord, the vail shall be taken away. Now the Lord is that Spirit: and where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty. But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord” (2 Corinthians 3:7-18).

"The protection of our life is in the hand of God."

Image: John Calvin (1509-1564)

“And fear not them which kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul: but rather fear him which is able to destroy both soul and body in hell” (Matthew 10:28).

“But I will forewarn you whom ye shall fear: Fear him, which after he hath killed hath power to cast into hell; yea, I say unto you, Fear him” (Luke 12:5).

Matthew 10:28. And fear not those who kill the body To excite his disciples to despise death, Christ employs the very powerful argument, that this frail and perishing lift ought to be little regarded by men who have been created for a heavenly immortality. The statement amounts to this, that if believers will consider for what purpose they were born, and what is their condition, they will have no reason to be so earnest in desiring an earthly life. But the words have still a richer and fuller meaning: for we are here taught by Christ that the fear of God is dead in those men who, through dread of tyrants, fall from a confession of their faith, and that a brutish stupidity reigns in the hearts of those who, through dread of death, do not hesitate to abandon that confession.

We must attend to the distinction between the two opposite kinds of fear. If the fear of God is extinguished by the dread of men, is it not evident that we pay greater deference to them than to God himself? Hence it follows, that when we have abandoned the heavenly and eternal life, we reserve nothing more for ourselves than to be like the beasts that perish, (Psalm 49:12.) God alone has the power of bestowing eternal life, or of inflicting eternal death. We forget God, because we are hurried away by the dread of men. Is it not very evident that we set a higher value on the shadowy life of the body than on the eternal condition of the soul; or rather, that the heavenly kingdom of God is of no estimation with us, in comparison of the fleeting and vanishing shadow of the present life?

These words of Christ ought therefore to be explained in this manner: "Acknowledge that you have received immortal souls, which are subject to the disposal of God alone, and do not come into the power of men. The consequence will be, that no terrors or alarms which men may employ will shake your faith. "For how comes it that the dread of men prevails in the struggle, but because the body is preferred to the soul, and immortality is less valued than a perishing life?"

Luke 12:5. Yea, I say to you, Fear Him This is an emphatic, repetition of the statement. Christ must be viewed as saying, that when we give way to the dread of men, we pay no respect to God; and that if on the contrary we fear God, we have an easy victory in our hands, so that no efforts of men will draw us aside from our duty. The experience of every age shows the great necessity of this exhortation to the ministers of Christ, and likewise to all believers in general: for there never was a period when men did not rise furiously against God, and endeavor to overwhelm the Gospel. All are not armed indeed with equal power to hold out to believers the dread of death, but the greater number are animated by that savage ferocity, which discovers itself as soon as an opportunity occurs. Frequently, too, Satan brings forward giants, in whose presence the servants of Christ would fall down lifeless, were it not that this doctrine fortifies them to maintain unshaken perseverance.

The two clauses being very closely related to each other, it is an incorrect view which some unskilful persons take, by reading separately this clause, Fear them not For Christ, (as we have already said,) in order to cure that wicked fear of men, which draws us aside from the right path contrasts with it a devout and holy fear of God: otherwise the consequence would not follow that, if we fear God, who is the Lord of body and soul, we have no reason to fear men, whose power goes no farther than the body. With regard to the statement that men have power to kill the body, Christ made it by way of concession. God allows wicked men to enjoy such a degree of liberty, that they are swelled with confidence in their own power, imagine that they may attempt any thing, and even succeed in terrifying weak minds, as if they could do whatever they pleased. Now the proud imaginations of wicked men, as if the life of the godly were placed at their disposal, is utterly unfounded: for God keeps them within limits, and restrains, whenever it pleases him, the cruelty and violence of their attacks. And yet they are said to have power to kill by his permission, for he often permits them to indulge their cruel rage. Besides, our Lord's discourse consists of two parts. First, in order to instruct us to bear with composure the loss of the bodily life, he bids us contemplate both eternal life and eternal death, and then arrives gradually at this point, that the protection of our life is in the hand of God.

John Calvin, Commentary on Matthew 10:28