Of Wood and Stone

No expense was spared. Only the finest materials were used, and only the most skilled craftsmen were allowed to do the work. It was extravagant beyond words.

All of this was necessary, because they were building a house in which the Living God would abide! 

The general contractor was King Solomon. God had given Solomon’s father, King David, the dream of building the temple, and had even begun to pass down the instructions. But as is so often the case—and should be a lesson for all of us as we endeavor to live in community with fellow Jesus followers—the dream that God gave to King David was actually to be accomplished at and by the hands of another—King Solomon.

So the king went to the ends of the known world to gather the best, most luxurious, and most coveted building materials, decorations, and furnishings known to man. When the job was finished, King Solomon proclaimed:

“The Lord has said that he would dwell in a dark cloud, I have built a magnificent temple for you, a place for you to dwell forever” (2 Chronicles 6:1-2).

God had instructed the building of a house in which His presence would abide, and therefore King Solomon’s construction of the temple was an act of obedience that God honored. Can you imagine what it was like to have a building in which the presence of the Living God was so thick that nobody but those designated by God could enter? What a reassurance it must have been to lay eyes on the temple and know that God was there!

But amid the overwhelming blessing of God’s presence filling the temple, there were warning signs of the sinful nature of mankind. Notice how King Solomon takes credit for himself (“I have built”). Notice also how he asserts of his own volition that God will live there “forever.”

The king was, of course, getting way ahead of himself. The power and the blessing to build the temple had come from only from God, and while God desired a place to abide among His people, the plan was never that it would be a permanent home.

It is far easier for you and me—living on this side of Jesus the Messiah’s finished work on Earth—to grasp, but the permanent home for God’s spirit was never intended to be one made of wood and stone. Instead, God’s temple was to be composed of flesh and bone! He had always planned to send His spirit not just to live nearby in the community, but to actually live in you!

The apostle Paul said it this way: “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in your midst?” (1 Cor. 3:16)

There’s more: When God was looking for material with which to build this forever temple, He chose only the finest and most extravagant materials available!

Don’t believe me? In Genesis 1, we read that God created out of nothing for six days. We read repeatedly that He was pleased with the outcome, and that He deemed it “good.” But then we come to the creation of you. To the forming of mankind, the entity that would become His permanent dwelling. Upon finishing the creation of that final work of art, God distinguished the quality of that work from all the rest by calling it “very good!”

You, my friend, are made up of the finest material. It is that way not so you can boast or take credit, but in order that you would be a fitting temple in which the Living God can abide forever!

Wood and stone are but for a moment. But flesh and bone infilled by the Spirit of God becomes a soul that lives forever!