The Temple in 2nd Chronicles
– Its Typical Teaching
Ministry by C. A. Coates
– Part Three

G.A.R.

“And this was Solomon's foundation for the construction of the house of God”.

• What Solomon did in connection with the house was foundational, and it is to be observed by all who would labour rightly in the building of the house today.

• All construction of the house must conform to Solomon's foundation.

• God would have us to keep in mind the thought of a foundation; it stands in contrast with the changing thoughts and opinions of men. Paul said,
  • “As a wise architect, I have laid the foundation, but another builds upon it. But let each see how he builds upon it. For other foundation can no man lay besides that which is laid, which is Jesus Christ”, 1 Corinthians 3: 10-11.

• The foundation abides; it is permanent, and the stability of the structure depends upon it.

• The habitation of God today is
  • “built upon the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ himself being the cornerstone”, Ephesians 2: 20.

• That foundation includes all the teaching of the apostles, and whatever the outward departure may be, as foretold in 2 Timothy,
  • “the firm foundation of God stands”, 2: 19.

• Solomon's foundation appears to include all that he did for the construction of the house; it is to be observed as fundamental instruction by all who take any part in building the house, and this should include all saints.

• If His house is God's chief interest on earth who that loves Him would wish to have no hand in building it?

Certain dimensions are given in verses 3 and 4 which are intended to help us to understand the proportion in which things stand to one another in the mind of God.

• The width of the house appears to suggest what is adequate for the setting forth to men of what God is as dwelling here, for the house is primarily where God dwells so as to be known by men.

• When the Lord was here His body was the temple, and there was the perfect declaration of God to men in Him.

• But He was not the house in the sense in which it is typified by the house built by Solomon. It is He who, as glorified, builds the house.

• Things have now taken an extended form, requiring that the Gentiles shall be brought in as a constituent part of the house; we might say the principal part of it. This was not possible while the Lord was on earth.

• The divine thought is that a permanent structure should be set up here in which God dwells, and in which He is expressed.

• This is brought about as the result of the Spirit being here, and He would not be here if Christ had not gone to the Father.

• There is a wonderful extension of things now. One of the first things we need to learn is how things are proportioned.

• The length of the porch is the same as the breadth of the house and each is equal to the length and to the breadth of the holiest; the holiest and the brazen altar are equal in breadth and length to one another.

The most holy place sets forth in a typical way the most intense presentation of holiness possible.

• The most holy is the thought of holiness in the highest possible degree, but the altar is equal to it; indeed, “most holy” is really ‘holy of holies’, and
  • this intense form of expression is applied to the altar as well as to the most holy place. Ex. 29: 37.

• Christ at the cross sustained the glory of God in relation to sin in such a way that divine holiness has come fully into view before the whole moral universe,
  • but it is God glorified in holiness so that He may be presented to men in the supremacy of His grace.

• The length of the porch is the same as the length and width of the holiest and of the altar. However we may know God in the holiest and at the altar it is all brought into the public testimony of His grace.

• The porch being four times as high as the rest of the building is to shew that the presentation of God in grace to men is intended to be the most conspicuous feature of His house.

• The elevation of the testimony of grace will hardly be understood unless we see that it was rendered at the beginning by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven.

• The one hundred and twenty on the day of Pentecost were the most prominent objects in Jerusalem at that moment. How they towered high above the temple and all its ritual!

• Of course in principle the porch is a permanent feature of the house; it sets forth to men what is presented to them of God as a Saviour-God.

The greater house is double the size of the most holy place, which seems to indicate that there is enlargement of what is for the pleasure of God as we move outwards.

• The shewbread, which had its place in the greater house, is, as it were, an extension of Christ in His saints for the pleasure of God.

• The candlesticks symbolise the present light maintained by the Spirit in the house.

• How it expanded in the early days from the ministry of the twelve to that of Paul, and then, long after, the writings of John were given specially as light for the last days of the assembly!

• And it has been so in the recovery of the truth; all that was in the Lord's mind did not come out at once. Things came out, and were developed with increasing light, as the saints were spiritually able to bear them.

• The Lord had in mind that there would be great enlargement on the part of His saints as the result of the coming of the Comforter, and then the action of His gifts as ascended had in view that all saints should
  • “arrive at the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, at the full-grown man, at the measure of the stature of the fulness of the Christ”, Ephesians 4: 13.

• It is not that divine things become greater in themselves but they become greater in the apprehension of saints and as spiritual formation and growth go on there is an enlarged sphere in which God can find pleasure.

“The greater house he boarded with cypress-wood”.

• It is noticeable that neither cedar nor olive is mentioned in 2 Chronicles in connection with the building of the house, nor is stone mentioned in this description.

• Cedar and olive and stone would suggest excellent quality in the material used, and its stability and permanence. These things would have reference to what the saints are viewed as God's elect,
  • “called according to purpose”,

• and hence they are prominent in Kings which gives the heavenly side.

• But cypress-wood, alone being mentioned in the chapter before us, indicates, I believe, that the Spirit of God, in this connection, would emphasise the thought that it is men who form the house.

• God makes use of that order of being, He can use men as He could not use angels; it is a time of His
  • “good pleasure in men”, Luke 2: 14.

• Men have a wonderful place in the mind of God; He has made it possible for all men to be saved and to have a place in His house.

• Attention is called in Chronicles to what is put upon the material used rather than to the choiceness of the material itself.

• From the viewpoint of grace there are wonderful possibilities for men, and none in the human family is shut out from them.

If men are to have a place in God's house they must have His Spirit, and so take on an entirely new character. I think this is set forth in the cypress-wood being

• “overlaid with fine gold”.

• There are certain antecedent movements in the soul leading to repentance and to the belief of the glad tidings,
  • but the Spirit being given as the seal is the definite marking off of persons for God, and it is from that point that true spiritual formation proceeds.

• This is, in us, a continuous work so long as we are here. We have in the type the complete divine thought, and it is reached in the measure in which we are spiritual.

• Believers are to take character from the presence of the Spirit, to give place to Him so that the flesh is practically set aside and what is of God comes into evidence. This is how the overlaying with fine gold is brought about.
  • “Palm-trees and chains”

• were set upon it, which speaks of overcoming and of being held.

• The measure of the Spirit's work in those who have the Spirit is largely indicated by their ability to overcome the power of the flesh and of the world. And we only do so as we are held by the love of Christ.

• The Bridegroom in the Song speaks of His heart being ravished by one chain of the spouse's neck. He is held by her attractiveness.

• And in 1 Kings the oracle was shut off with chains of gold, suggesting that it was retained as the peculiar place for the Ark of the covenant.

• In this chapter there are chains on the top of the two pillars carrying a hundred pomegranates;
  • that is to say that the public testimony carries the evidence of fruit being secured for God on the principle of captivation.

• The greater house carries the mark of this.

“He overlaid the house with precious stones for beauty”

• is a feature which is not mentioned in Kings;

• it is an added thought of beauty to enhance the house in our estimation in a day of departure and recovery.

• Along with spirituality there will always be precious and distinctive apprehensions of Christ, coming out in their result as spiritual beauty in the saints.

• The house being “overlaid” with precious stones suggests a complete covering – the divine thought being that nothing is seen but features of Christ.

• The body exists that features of Christ may come out in it for the pleasure of God, and the house is beautified as those features cover it.

• In these types we see the full divine thought that our exercises and desires and prayers may take character from it, so that it may be worked out in a practical way.

• Things are all, as yet, in the constructive stage, and the type is given to show us to what end we are working.

“The gold was gold of Parvaim”.

• It is significant that the kind of gold should be specified, even as we read in the next chapter of
  • “pure gold” and of “perfect gold”.

• It seems to suggest that there may be gradations of purity and excellence even in that which, in a general way, is spiritual in character.

• There are “spiritual manifestations” in the assembly, but it does not follow that they are all of equal value.

• Gifts are all spiritual in character, but some are greater than others, and are to be earnestly desired. But, having spoken of gifts, the apostle adds,
  • “And yet shew I unto you a way of more surpassing excellence”, 1 Corinthians 12: 31.

• That way is the way of love; it answers to the “gold of Parvaim” with which the house was covered.

• Even love may have its gradations, for the Lord spoke of loving much and loving little.

• But the divine thought is that in the house of God the divine nature shall be everywhere in evidence, and in the highest degree of excellence.

• God would have spirituality of the highest degree, love of the most surpassing excellence, to mark His saints as composing His house.

• And cherubim being engraved on the walls intimate to us that where spirituality exists all will be in harmony with the government of God.

As regards “the house of the most holy place”, verse 8,

• it is very striking to notice the immense amount of
  • “fine gold” used to cover it – “amounting to six hundred talents”.

• The nearer we come to God the more essential is spirituality of a refined order.

• The object of all God's chastening is that we may partake of His holiness, and holiness is to be perfected in His fear.

• As having to do with “the most holy place” holiness and love are required in large measure. It is only as
  • “partakers of the divine nature”

• that we could have any suitability for that place.

• But six hundred talents suggests not only a partaking of that nature but a large formation in it. It suggests richness and maturity in Christ, the result of growing up to Him in all things.

• It is the complete divine thought, given to us in the type for consideration, though we may have to own that we have not yet reached this in spiritual stature.

• But it is what the saints may come up to as divinely wrought, and I think this is what is in view in the type rather than what they are abstractly as in Christ.

• Nails are only mentioned in this book in connection with the most holy place, and their weight is given in
  • “shekels of gold”.

• They seem to convey the thought of saints being held together in relation to the most holy thoughts of God.

• Those thoughts are infinitely precious in themselves, but the divine pleasure is enhanced by the saints taking them up as firmly held together in a spiritual way.

• The epistle to the Ephesians shews how God would have His saints held together in relation to the most holy thoughts of His love. Nails imply firmness and fixedness so that nothing is held in a loose or uncertain way.

• The oneness of the house as secured by the nails reminds us of the Lord's prayer,
  • “Holy Father, keep them in thy name which thou hast given me, that they may be one as we”, John 17: 11.

• Such is the divine thought, and it is for us to see that it comes into evidence in a way that testifies to the reality of it, even though in remnant conditions.

• Thank God!, it is possible for saints today to have to do with His most holy thoughts collectively, and in absolute unity of heart and mind.

• Many would say that such a thing is practically impossible, but, on the other hand, many witnesses could be found to testify that it is possible, and that they have known it in spiritual reality.
  • No christians should dismiss it from their minds as a thing impossible to be known down here.

• Why should not saints be held together in oneness in relation to Christ as the Ark and the Mercy-seat and the Revealer of God as the Father? Why should they not all be practically in the unity of the Spirit?

• Human thoughts have come in to hinder this, but they are such as cannot be carried into the most holy place.
  • If we value what is there we shall be glad to let them go.

The upper chambers are mentioned along with the most holy place.

• Of the three floors of side-chambers which are spoken of in 1 Kings 6 only the upper chambers are mentioned here.

• This suggests that things are viewed here on a high level, as in John's gospel where Jesus speaks of
  • “part with me”,

• and of preparing a place in His Father's house for His own,
  • “that where I am ye also may be”.

• In Paul's teaching the high level comes out in Ephesians 2, where the saints are spoken of as
  • raised up together and made to “sit down together in the heavenlies in Christ Jesus”.

• The upper chambers are spoken of here by the Spirit of God as if they were identified in His mind with the most holy place.

• They are highly spiritual in character, and can in no way be entered upon by man as in the flesh, or by the natural mind. The most holy place can only be entered by going through the veil.
  • The flesh of Christ, carrying with it the thought of His death, is the way in.

• We can only go in on the ground that all connected with ourselves as in the flesh has been ended in His death, and that where we were ended the love of God was revealed.

In the knowledge of God revealed in love there is

• “the new and living way” by which we have “boldness for entering into the holy of holies by the blood of Jesus”, Hebrews 10: 19.

• “The veil” has a place in this description though it is not mentioned in Kings.

• If we think of the saints from the standpoint of the epistles to the Colossians and Ephesians we do not think of a veil, and Kings corresponds with that.

• We are reconciled by the Fulness of the Godhead
  • “in the body of his flesh through death; to present you holy and unblamable and irreproachable before it”; that is, before the Fulness. Col. 1: 22.

• As thus presented there is perfect suitability for the most holy place.

• In Ephesians we are seen as taken into favour in the Beloved, and seated in Him in heavenly places. We cannot bring in the thought of a veil in that connection.

• From the standpoint of the epistle to the Hebrews we need to go through the veil to enter the realm of the most holy things, and it is from that point of view that the veil is introduced in Chronicles.

• We cannot enter the holiest, or know the privilege of the upper chambers, apart from going through the veil.

“And in the house of the most holy place he made two cherubim of image work, and they overlaid them with gold”.

• This is an added feature, which had no counterpart in the tabernacle.

• The faces of these cherubim were
  • “toward the house”;

• that is, they faced outward in contrast with the faces of the cherubim which were made
  • “out of the mercy-seat”, Exodus 25: 19.

• The faces of the latter looked inward and downward
  • “toward the mercy-seat”,

• representing the divine government as infinitely complacent in the mercy-seat, and in the blood that was sprinkled upon it.

• But the two cherubim in the temple looked outward; they represent the government of God in its universal outlook, but as it is known in the most holy place rather than in its public action.

• The wings are specially prominent, being mentioned eight times in three verses, clearly suggesting the thought of protection. We are told in chapter 5: 7, 8 that when the ark was brought to its place it was
  • “under the wings of the cherubim; and the cherubim stretched forth their wings over the place of the ark, and the cherubim covered the ark and its staves above”.

• But it will be remembered that the length of the ark was two cubits and a half, while the wings of the cherubim extended over twenty cubits.

• So that, while the ark and the mercy-seat came under their protection, a much wider range of things was in view, including the whole width of the house.

• God would have us to know in the most holy place that His government protects all that is of Himself as set forth in His house.

• Outwardly, what is spiritual, including the testimony of the glad tidings, may seem to be weak and defenceless; it seems to have no power to stand up against great and hostile powers;
  • but it is all the time protected in a secret way by the government of God.

• The outward look of the cherubim embraces all nations, and their mighty outstretched wings are all the time protecting what is of God.

• Men outside have no idea of this, but it is known for the comfort of God's elect in the most holy place. The unseen government of God is always acting for the protection of what is of Himself.

• It is not always publicly manifest that it is so, for He has often allowed His saints to be persecuted and even killed.

• But in nearness to Him it is understood that the wings of His government are outstretched in protection over what is precious to Him.

• But for this everything that is of God would have disappeared long ago from the face of the earth.

• Faith knows the secret, though at the present time it is not apparent to men. The government of God is veiled, but it is known to be a great reality by those who have access to Him.

The fact that there are two cherubim in the most holy place would hardly refer to testimony, for testimony is not rendered there.

• I think the two may suggest divine government acting in a combined or co-operative way, so that a full result is reached in divine operations.

• In relation to God's protective government there is often a combination of forces working together to bring about the end that is before Him. We see this illustrated in the book of Esther.

• God breaks up man's combinations, as at Babel, but His combinations destroy the power of what is hostile to His thoughts and purposes. Two, when seen on God's part, confirm a thing.

• We have probably little idea how far-reaching have been the movements of divine government in favour of what is of Himself spiritually, or how effective they have been.

• It is a comfort to be reminded and assured of this, and especially at a time when so many powerful forces seem to be working adversely to what is of God.

Then in the last section of the chapter we have two pillars, Jachin and Boaz, which stand

• “before the house”.

• They represent what is set up here in public testimony. Jachin means, ‘He will establish’, and Boaz means, ‘In Him is strength’. God has established a witness for Himself here, and He is the strength of it.

• The testimony is to what God has established, and to the fact that the source of strength is in Him.

• The pomegranates on the top of the pillars would speak, I think, of the attractiveness which God would put upon His saints as they bring forth the evidence that they have come under the reign of grace, and find their strength in Him.

• Romans is the great epistle of establishment – Romans 1: 11; 16: 25 – and in chapter 16 we have a list of persons in whom fruit appeared in an attractive way.

• God establishes His saints in Christ, and then He becomes their strength so that fruit comes out in them which is worthy of God and attractive to all who fear Him.

There are aspects of the love of divine Persons which are not sacrificial: for example,

• God's electing love which chose us in Christ before the world's foundation, and the love which gave us the place of children and sons.

• Then Christ chose us out of the world in His love, and called us, and He loves His own as given to Him by the Father.

• The Spirit in the book of Kings had in mind those aspects of divine love which are not sacrificial, for the altar is not mentioned in the description of the house there.

• But here in Chronicles it has its place, and is seen to be of large dimensions. In a day of recovery God would give the altar a very large place.

• Each kind of offering, the burnt-offering, the oblation, the peace-offering, the sin and trespass-offering, was brought to the altar,
  • and the altar itself spoke of the capability and strength of Christ, by reason of what He was personally, to sustain the action of fire in such a way that the whole of His offering, and every part of it, yielded fragrance and glory to God.

• The altar is a place, too, for our sacrifices to be brought, and we shall be rich to offer if we really appreciate Him as the great Offerer, and that it is by Him that we offer.

The altar and the other things mentioned in this chapter as being made of brass had their place in the court.

• They have to do typically with the assembly as seen in the place of responsible witness here; that is, as seen in 1 Corinthians.

• The Lord's supper has its place in that connection, and its having been restored in these last days to its place in the assembly has led to a much deeper appreciation of divine love as expressed sacrificially.

• The loaf and the cup speak of the love of Christ and of the love of God as expressed sacrificially, that is, in a way that involved sacrifice on the part of Christ and of God.

• We call to mind the One who gave His body and whose blood was poured out. His wondrous offering is past, and we now eat His supper to call Him to mind who is forever beyond all suffering.

• Indeed, it is evident that when in the midst of His apostles He instituted the Supper He was in spirit and mind beyond death. For, having all the import of the loaf and the cup before Him, He gave thanks.

• It was all, to His mind, accomplished. Of course, this was anticipative, like other utterances of the Lord, particularly as the end of His course drew near.

• The service of the Supper has its place in the court, and it is preparatory to our entering the holy place. It corresponds with the position of the altar.
  • The more we enter into it the more offerings will there be on our part.

• Of course, in giving thanks for the loaf and the cup we address the Lord, for it is His supper,
  • but every right word that is addressed to Him goes up as sweet odour to God. We are an odour of Christ to God in that part of the service.

• But it belongs to the court; it stands in relation to the public position in which the saints are found here as the assembly of God.

The molten sea comes next in the description and it is evident that it contemplates conditions in which there is need for purifying.

• The sea was for the priests to wash in and none of us can suitably take up priestly service in the house of God without washing at this sea.

• And God would impress us with the very large provision which He makes for purifying;
  • “in capacity it held three thousand baths”.

• The whole of “the word” is available for purifying, and it is applied by the patient, persistent service of Christ,
  • typified by the three hundred oxen which encompassed it round about,

  • and also by the twelve oxen on which it stood, which looked north, west, south and east.

• The three hundred were “ten in a cubit”; they were relatively small, and suggest how Christ serves us in regard to purifying in detail. He would not have us to be careless about what seem to be small matters.

• Without His purifying service in detail we should be very apt to let something pass which would have a disqualifying effect in regard to priestly service in the house of God.

• A tender conscience and a priestly heart would not wish to be disqualified, and would ever welcome the service of
  • “washing of water by the word”.

• It would seem that the priests were responsible to wash before they served. We all have a responsibility as to washing one another.

• It is an essential part of the service in the court, the service of Christ being extended and taken up by all His own.

• In view of all that is coming on this world Peter exhorts us to
  • “be diligent to be found of him in peace; without spot and blameless”, 2 Peter 3: 14.

  • This is incumbent on us as in the responsible pathway here, but how much more when the holy service of God is in view!

• The twelve oxen with their universal outlook suggest purification with respect to defilements which are widespread.

• We cannot look in any direction without being made aware of things which really disqualify for holy service according to God's pleasure in His house.

• The Lord has shown many of His saints that no such service can be carried on
  • where a human ordering of things prevails,

  • where a sectarian position is maintained or

  • where a clerical system quenches the Spirit.

• If believers do not purify themselves from vessels to dishonour, by separating from them, they cannot be vessels to honour in God's house, or be qualified for His holy service.

• All these things call for purifying in a very extensive way, but
  • it is requisite if the service of the house is to go on in purity, and in suitability to Him whose house it is.

• It is not a matter of legal requirement, but of suitability to God on the part of those who love Him.
  • “He set the sea on the right side eastward, over against the south”

• suggests a very favourable position which would lead us to regard purifying as most desirable and a divine favour to be fully taken advantage of.

• As seeing it to be the provision of divine love our hearts should be alert to get the full benefit of it, so that we may be personally suitable for priestly service.

Then it is said of the ten lavers that

“they rinsed in them what they prepared for the burnt-offering”.

• Not only do the priests need to be washed, but each offering must be rinsed. In the service of the house of God each contribution must be purified. For we can only serve or worship by the Spirit of God.

• Nothing fleshly, or that is of what we are naturally, can have any acceptable part in the offering service; it is an intrusion and an offence.

• Christ must be the substance of the offering, and the Spirit must be the power by which it is offered.

• It must be the personal exercise of those who offer that nothing shall go forward to the altar without being rinsed.

• There is no element of bondage in this; it is the only way of true liberty in the service of God. The ten lavers suggest that this is a matter which we are responsible to attend to as we serve.

The sea and the lavers stand connected with what is spoken of later as

• “the purification of the sanctuary”, 2 Chronicles 30: 19.

• We shall have no need to wash in heaven, so that the sea there is one of glass, a crystal pavement on which some stand who have no longer need of purifying.

• The priesthood of Christ supposes, I think, that His saints are where it is not easy to maintain holy conditions; they need His priestly grace to enable them to do so.

• Priesthood in the saints implies a surrounding condition which is unholy; it will not go on eternally but will merge in headship and sonship.

• Priests need the sea now because there are defiling influences about. It is very favourably placed, and in a sense of this we are attracted to make use of it.

• The washing now is particularly that we may have part with Christ, that we may be suitable to Him. It meets every intense desire of lovers of Christ.

The things seen in this chapter as made of brass have their places in the court.

• As we consider them I think we shall see that they have to do with moral things; that is to say, some question of good and evil is involved, of righteousness or sin.

• In Romans and 1 Corinthians the brass is mainly in view.

• The two pillars referred to in verses 12-13 appear to represent the saints as set up in testimony here, which is the aspect of the assembly as seen in 1 Corinthians.

• What was made prominent on each pillar was a globe covered with a network which held two hundred pomegranates. The pomegranates were held in unity by the network, and all covered the globe.

• Without attempting to say that it is the strict interpretation of the type one may say that
  • the underlying truth in 1 Corinthians 12: 13 is the unity of the body, into which all saints have been baptised in the power of one Spirit.

• The saints are also seen as held in a certain fellowship or communion which determines their associations here; all saints are called to the fellowship of God's Son, and are entitled to have their part in the fellowship of His blood and His body.

• This is a very practical reality, as may be seen by reading 1 Corinthians 10; it held the saints together as apart from any association with the idolatrous world around them.

• We find at the beginning that all that believed
  • “persevered in the teaching and fellowship of the apostles, in breaking of bread and prayers”, Acts 2: 42.

• They were held together in that way; none thought of breaking away from the fellowship; they would have been lawless if they had done so.

• In every believer sealed by the Spirit there is some fruit for God, as set forth in the pomegranates, but the fruit is never seen in its true setting until it is held in the network of the fellowship.
  • It is essential to the testimony of God that it should appear in that setting.

• If saints disregard the fellowship they are really on the line of scattering and not of gathering.

• How could anyone who had known the happiness of walking in the fellowship ever think of breaking away from it? And yet we see this done sometimes, to the soul's great loss, and to the Lord's dishonour.

The pots, and the shovels, and the forks, and all their instruments would be connected with service in the court.

• Everything there, even to the smallest detail, is to be morally suitable. We read,
  • “Let all things be done comelily and with order”, 1 Corinthians 14: 40.

• Anything out of order is unworthy of God, and
  • it is to have no place “in all the assemblies of the saints”, 1 Corinthians 14: 33.

• That all these vessels of brass were made by Huram intimates that God intended to work out what is typified in these things mainly amongst the Gentiles, as it is at this day.

Huram acted under the authority of King Solomon in making the things of brass,

• but when the golden vessels are spoken of they are said to be made by Solomon.

• Certain things connected with the service of God belong to the sphere of lordship; they are matters of authority and commandment.
  • “If any one thinks himself to be a prophet or spiritual, let him recognise the things that I write to you, that it is the Lord's commandment”, 1 Corinthians 14: 37.

• But the more advanced and spiritual part of the service stands in relation to the headship of Christ; this answers to the vessels of gold which were found in the holy place.

The one candlestick in the tabernacle was, no doubt, typical of Christ as sustaining light by the Spirit in the house of God.

It was evident that manna was the provision of grace for the wilderness, and we all know how essential that is from day to day;

• and the rod that budded was the token of Christ's blessed priesthood, and we know our need of it, especially in any service Godward, for we could not possibly do without it.

• But the Spirit of God suggests a point when they both go out of sight and there is nothing but the will of God secured in complacency and eternal restfulness in Christ and through Christ.

• The passage suggests that point being reached by us, not the mere abstract thought that it is so but that the saints come to the blessed reality of the moment
  • when all that belongs to divine grace in the wilderness is left and another scene entered which is filled with something more blessed than anything belonging to the wilderness.

• I suppose it is normally reached in assembly privilege. There is a moment reached when the priesthood of Christ merges in His headship.

• In the millennial day He will be a Priest upon His throne, but there is no thought of His priesthood continuing in eternity, because priesthood contemplates contrary conditions where priestly support is needed.

• Of Aaron it was said,
  • “That he may serve me as priest”.

• There is a moment when what is official ceases and what is permanent as to Christ remains.

• The moment is reached typically when priesthood ceases to function and the glory intimates that God is there in the supreme satisfaction of His love.

• God's will is love and He is determined to have His own way and to have a universe dominated by the will of God; and all that is going to fill that universe is a living reality to the saints at this moment.

• The saints are privileged to go in and see Christ in this relation, which is in relation to God, the pleasure of God being established eternally.

• It is the highest point of assembly privilege, and I would not say that it cannot be touched by lovers of Christ individually, but it is seen in connection with the temple, that is, with assembly privilege.

• It works out in God filling everything. We are held by headship, by the apprehension of Christ in headship; and if it is only reached for a brief moment it is none the less real.

The object in reading Hebrews 10 was to show how God detaches us from all that system of things that does not answer to His pleasure;

• while the passage in Ephesians 1 shows what were the purposes of good pleasure that lie in the will of God, into which we are brought by grace.

• The two put together give us an apprehension of what is the will of God.

It would help us, I feel, to consider that the incarnation stands in connection with the will of God.

• “Wherefore coming into the world he says, Sacrifice and offering thou willedst not; but thou hast prepared me a body. Thou tookest no pleasure in burnt-offerings and sacrifices for sin. Then I said, Lo, I come (in the roll of the book it is written of me) to do, O God, thy will … He takes away the first that he may establish the second; by which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”.

• It is the blessed result of the will of God brought in in its completion.

• It is not the will of God in connection with our circumstances (though the Scriptures do speak of that),
  • or in relation to our movements in service and our practical conduct, what it is to suffer and so on;

• all that enters in incidentally and provisionally but the will of God brought in by Christ refers to something far greater.

The first thing secured is the setting free of believers from the old system according to the law,

• the system of sacrifice with which the Hebrew believers as the people of God were familiar,

• and from every question connected with sins or sin.

• The will of God effectuated by the Son set us completely free from all that:
  • “by which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”;

• it is an accomplished thing. And it is by the will of God – every christian should accept that.

• We are set entirely apart from every kind of religious system that does not please God; and we are perfected for ever.

• These things are in the will of God, and they have been effective in relation to the saints, so that we might be at liberty to be in the enjoyment of another scene which is filled with the blessedness of what is the outcome of the will of God.

• The allusion to Horeb reminds us of the time when God first made Himself known.

• It is good for us to assure our hearts of our footing with God – that we are on the footing that His will has been carried into effect by something outside ourselves altogether;
  • it happened through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all, and nothing can come upon our consciences. That is the christian position.

• Coming into manhood He brought in the will of God, not in demand, but by securing the satisfaction of His will in love.

In Ephesians there are three marvellous statements:

• “the good pleasure of his will”,

• “the mystery of his will”, and

• “the counsel of his own will”.

• So we are brought in Ephesians 1 to what is typically set forth in 2 Chronicles 5: 10.

• There is nothing left but the will of God fully established in Christ and through Christ.

We have been considering the ark as setting forth the greatness of Christ personally, and in considering the tables which were in it we are brought to see what is in Him.

• He is greater than all He contains.

• It is really only the saints of the assembly who can look upon Christ in the holiest and see the will of God established in Him; so it belongs particularly to the present time – as we are seeking to know it now.

It is indeed “the surpassing glory”.

• The glory as seen in Ephesians goes back before the foundation of the world, and is connected with the saints being chosen in Christ.
  • “That we should be holy and blameless before him in love; having marked us out beforehand for adoption through Jesus Christ to himself”.

• But I am a poor sinner, you say. But this is the will of God; you must have what God is pleased to give, or nothing!

• The ten commandments are the necessary claim of love, and now the truth is clear; we find it is in the will of God to satisfy His own love,
  • and what He purposed before the world was to have a vast company before Him holy and without blame, in love.

• That is the will of God, and nothing can alter it.
  • “The love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord”

• – that gives us the ark.

• And this great thought of sonship is
  • “according to the good pleasure of his will”.

• Taking us into favour in the Beloved is a question of His will. What is His will? He wills that.

• In Christ and through Christ He has secured what He wills.

“The mystery of his will” refers to what is yet future.

• It belongs to a wider range than what is proposed in the good pleasure of His will, which has to do with the holy conditions of the saints.
  • “Holy and blameless before him in love”

• – it is not what they ought to be, but what God's will is that they should be –
  • “marked … out beforehand” for sonship, “taken … into favour in the Beloved”;

• all that is the will of God and has actually come into effect.

• It is our privilege to see Christ in the holiest as having secured this for the good pleasure of God's will and looked at apart from anything else.

• We turn now to the mystery of His will, a much wider range of things. People are very stupid to call believers narrow-minded; there is nothing narrow here, but vast.

The mystery of His will comes out in verses 8-10. That is, we get an inner circle first, upon which the will of God has put a most blessed impress;

• “holy and blameless before him in love”, and “marked … out beforehand” for sonship.

• Then there is a wider circle which takes in everything in heaven and on earth.

• That is the mystery of His will; it is millennial; it is the administration of the fulness of times, not eternity. There is going to be a wonderful administration.

• Figures known on the world's stage today are passing shadows; that is, they are things only here for a moment and they are going out.
  • But Christ is going to be the Centre in whom all will be headed up.

• It is a mystery now, because only the saints know it, but it is well known to them because God has made it known to us. Verse 8 supposes that the greatest capacity of intelligence belongs to the sons.

• If we are in this most blessed relationship, He looks for capacity in the sons so that His own wisdom and intelligence can be communicated to them – a wonderful thing!

• Paul prayed that the saints might be equal to it. It is one thing to see it, another to be equal to it. We can only arrive at that through prayer.

In Revelation 10: 7 we read that

• “the mystery of God also shall be completed”,

• referring to the time when God's will will be completed publicly. When things are manifested, they are no longer in mystery.

• We are privileged to go into the most holy place to see this all secured in Christ as much as it will be in a coming day – but only there can we see it.

Then, finally, there is “the counsel of his own will”, which refers to the inheritance.

• “In whom we have also obtained an inheritance, being marked out beforehand according to the purpose of him who works all things according to the counsel of his own will”.

• He has taken away the first; all this is connected with the second.

• The whole will of God is now brought in; the place of the saints, then their immense outlook, and all things to be headed up in Christ, and lastly the thought of the inheritance.
  • “We have … obtained an inheritance”.

As far as I observe, believers are not so much taken up with the inheritance as they ought to be. We should have far more dignity about us if it were so.

• The inheritance shows us what we can be trusted with.

• The Holy Spirit is the earnest of it, and if He had His way He would make the inheritance a great reality to us.

• Seeing the inheritance would impress us with the wonderful blessedness of it, for we are to share with Christ what He is going to inherit.
  • “The good pleasure of his will”

• puts us into happy relations with God our Father who is above us;
  • but the inheritance is beneath us, what we are put in possession of but are capable of taking up as joint heirs with Christ.

• All this great range of things is connected with the will of God and it must stand.

• It brings out the greatness of Christ that He is able to bring into this world all the blessed will of God and secure it on the ground of His death, so that the saints come into it and give God the praise and glory.

There is a moment when you are absorbed in the blessedness of the will of God; the Priest and the manna are no longer in view.

• Hebrews 10 really liberates us in order to come into this wonderful scene of divine pleasure, which brings the whole universe in as the inheritance of the saints.

• May we be enlarged, not only in the greatness of Christ, but in what He contains – enlarged as to what is in the Ark!

The principal thing in this chapter is the bringing up of the ark of the covenant of Jehovah

• “to its place, into the oracle of the house, into the most holy place”.

• The ark of the covenant is the most remarkable symbol to be found in Scripture, for, though it was a material thing, it was the actual seat of Jehovah's presence amongst His people.

• He is repeatedly said to dwell between the cherubim, and He said to Moses,
  • “There will I meet with thee, and will speak with thee from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, everything that I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel”, Exodus 25: 22.

• The ark is said to be God's strength and His glory – Psalm 78: 61; and it is called
  • “the ark of thy strength”, Psalm 132: 8.

• But the history of the ark shews us that the greatest privilege that can be conferred upon man only becomes the occasion to bring out the evil that is in man's heart.

• When Israel had the ark in their midst they dishonoured it by their high places and graven images and yet they assumed that it would help them against their enemies! This only resulted in the ark itself being given into captivity.

• This shews that, apart from His sovereignty in mercy, the nearer God comes to men the more will He be dishonoured, and this was fully proved when He was manifested in flesh in the person of Jesus.

• If His glory and His thoughts of blessing are to be known He must undertake the whole matter Himself.

• And this is what He has done, and it is seen typically in the ark being protected and cared for, and, in due time, brought by David to a resting place in Zion.

There could be no place of rest for God in a world utterly gone astray from Him, and where sin and death reigned, the dreadful evidence of the power of the enemy.

• But David came in, typical of Christ as the One able to do God's will in meeting and setting aside the power of the enemy so that a place of rest might be secured for God and for the ark of His strength.

• Scripture suggests two distinct thoughts in relation to the securing of Zion.

1. First, in Psalm 132, it is reached as the outcome of David's “affliction”, and his unselfish devotion to “find out a place for Jehovah”.

2. Then in 1 Chronicles 11 we read that “David took the stronghold of Zion, which is the city of David”.

• The seat of the enemy's power became David's stronghold as the result of his victory.

1. In His devotion Christ has come in, at all cost to Himself, to secure a place for God in the very spot where the enemy held sway.
   • He allowed no affliction or difficulty to turn Him aside from this purpose of His heart.

2. On the other hand, He acted in victorious power to secure Zion by conquest. In the very place where

• “sin has reigned in the power of death”

• He so met and overcame all the power of the enemy that at the present time grace reigns through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.

• The ark was brought to a place of rest in being brought to Zion, but it was there provisionally as being in “a tent”.

It is instructive to consider the difference between the place which David prepared for the ark in Zion

• and the place to which Solomon brought it in the most holy place in the house.

• The first was a provisional place of rest,
  • but the house was a permanent resting place, for the staves being drawn out indicated that the ark was not to be carried again.

We learn from Psalm 132 that Zion contemplates need in man, for it is written,

• “I will abundantly bless her provision; I will satisfy her needy ones with bread”.

• “Life for evermore”

• comes in on this line as relieving men from the pressure of death.

• The true David has taken the stronghold of Zion, and made it His own city; He has overcome every power that stood in the way of God's grace being made known to men.

• The kingdom is set up, and all its benefits are available; God can rest in what Christ has done, and in what He has brought in for men, and all this answers to Zion.

• It is made known in the glad tidings to men, and those who believe the glad tidings can be said to have come to mount Zion.

• It is an accepted time and a day of salvation, but it is provisional, and, alas, the majority of men do not come into the gain of it, though it is provided for them.

God desired a place of rest in relation to all that had come in here by sin and Satan's power, and Christ has secured that rest for Him.

• David's bringing the ark to Zion typifies how, when men had forfeited all title to blessing from God, He took up in the sovereignty of His mercy, through the Lord Jesus Christ, a position where He can be known as extremely favourable to men.

• Nothing can be added by either God or men to the grace that reigns now through the Lord Jesus Christ.

• God is in the attitude of forgiveness towards all men. Righteousness, life, salvation and every blessing that divine favour can bestow are available for men.

• God has left Sinai and come to Zion, and all there subsists according to what He is Himself as set forth in Christ.

• God does not look for anything in man, save repentance, but He is perfectly at rest in what He has set forth of Himself in Christ, and in what is available for men in Christ.

• There is not a feature of need in men which is not fully provided for by the all-blessing grace of God.

• It might be thought that none who knew this would hesitate a moment to turn to such a God, to boast and glory in Him for evermore!

• But such is the alienation of the human heart from God that nothing but the touch of sovereign mercy can bring about in that heart a true appreciation of God as dwelling in Zion.

• All must be of Himself, the abundantly blessed provision in Zion, and the begetting of men to enjoy it.
  • “Of Zion it shall be said, This one and that one was born in her”, Psalm 87: 5.

• All those truly blessed of God are Zion's children; they take character from the city in which they were born; they come into view as persons in whom the reign of grace has become effective.

• It is, indeed, a wonderful sight to see men freed from sin's dominion, in whose hearts the works of the devil are undone, and in whom the kingdom is seen in its practical power.

• It is certain that amongst such persons Christ will ever be held in great honour. It was clearly so in the early chapters of the Acts; the principles of Zion were set up amongst men in the power of the Holy Spirit.

• Zion in a spiritual sense is found today when men as subjects of sovereign mercy, stand in God's favour through the Lord Jesus Christ.

• Christ being held in supreme honour amongst such answers to the ark being brought to Zion.

Blessed as Zion is, it is not the culmination of God's thoughts. David was right in desiring that the ark should not remain “under curtains”, for Jehovah said to him,

• “Whereas it was in thy heart to build a house unto my name, thou didst well that it was in thy heart”, 2 Chronicles 6: 8.

• But the house was to be built by one of whom Jehovah said,
  • “I will be his father, and he shall be my son”, 1 Chronicles 17: 13.

• This was a prophetic declaration that the full thought of God could only be brought in and established by One in the relationship of Son to Him.

• The Spirit of God has greatly magnified, in recent years amongst the saints, the truth of the Lord's sonship, and this has been in view of God's great and blessed thoughts being brought out in their completeness and finality.

• Solomon bringing the ark up to its place in the house indicates typically that the full thought of God is reached. The ark being brought into
  • “the oracle of the house”

• suggests the full revelation of God's mind; it is very much Christ as seen in the gospel of John. For His body being spoken of as “the temple” in that gospel links on with what is before us in the type.

• Then Paul speaks of all the building as fitted together and tells us that it
  • “increases to a holy temple in the Lord”, Ephesians 2: 21.

• This is a direct reference to the Scripture now before us, and it shews that the constructional work is proceeding.

• It cannot yet be said to be finished, but the complete thought is set before us in the type that we may understand what God has before Him.

Paul's announcement of all the counsel of God in the epistle to the Ephesians answers in the New Testament to the ark being brought to its rest in the most holy place.

• For there is nothing beyond, or more holy than, what we have presented there.

• God is bringing the saints of the assembly by Paul's ministry into the most blessed nearness to Himself with regard to Christ's place before Him.
  • For the ark in the “oracle of the house” is where God's mind is most fully made known.

• Paul speaks of completing the word of God, and the full thought of the oracle is reached by the revelation of the mystery to him, and by his ministry of the assembly.

• Now the crowning point is to see Christ's blessed place in relation to it all, and this seems to be typified by the bringing of the ark into the most holy place.

• This brings about that the saints are filled even to all the fulness of God. There can be no further movement beyond this; it brings us to the permanent resting-place of divine love; we touch what is eternal.

• So that we can but exclaim,
  • “To him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages. Amen”, Ephesians 3: 21.

In connection with bringing up the ark,

• “king Solomon, and all the assembly of Israel, that were assembled to him before the ark, sacrificed sheep and oxen which could not be counted nor numbered for multitude”.

• In bringing before us the highest and most glorious things that have place in His eternal purpose God would give us a very large apprehension of the death of Christ as the ground on which alone His great thoughts could be reached in all their fulness.

• The epistle to the Hebrews has in view boldness to enter the holiest, and there are no less than twenty-eight distinct references to the death of Christ in that epistle.

• Gentile saints are addressed in Ephesians 2 as having become nigh by the blood of the Christ. We could not be sanctified so as to be suitable for the holiest, or for the apprehension of what is there, on any other ground.

Personally He was the Ark of the covenant when here;

• and the ark being brought into the most holy place typifies the place which He has now as risen and exalted.

• In this chapter the house has been built, and the cherubim are seen as overshadowing the ark there. The ark as brought to its permanent rest in the house is covered by the wings of the cherubim.

• Christ, as He may be known today in the affections of the saints of the assembly, is the cherished Object of God's delight.

• In the holiest we come entirely apart from the flesh and from the infirmities and limitations which attach to us as in the flesh and blood condition;
  • we are privileged to contemplate Christ as in relation to the will and glory of God, and as having effectuated that will.

• We are, perhaps, little accustomed to contemplate things from that standpoint, but we do not really reach the blessed thoughts of God until we do.

It is evident that a work of God is necessary in the souls of His elect to prepare them to enter into these great and holy matters;

• they must go through the exercises of “the children” as partaking of blood and flesh;

• they must be of “the seed of Abraham” as having faith.

• But then they are privileged to view everything from the divine side, and to think of God as the One,
  • “for whom are all things, and by whom are all things”, and as the One who is “bringing many sons to glory”, Hebrews 2: 10.

• “Glory” is the fruition of His purpose of love, and in order to bring it about He has made perfect the Leader of our salvation through sufferings.

• Christ as having passed through death, and now in glorified condition, is made perfect as the Leader of salvation. He leads into the condition of glory by being in it Himself.

• And the whole work of sanctifying which was needed was undertaken by Him; He is the Sanctifier; His saints are the sanctified.

• They are so identified with Him, so entirely the result of His own sanctifying, that He and they are said to be
  • “all of one”.

• It is for this cause that
  • “He is not ashamed to call them brethren”, Hebrews 2: 11.

• He can view them as entirely the result of His own sanctifying, and this is divinely perfect.

• Later on in the epistle we find that He came to do God's will,
  • “by which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”, Hebrews 10: 10.

• It was the will of God that we should be sanctified, and it has been brought about by that wondrous offering, so that saints are now “all of one” with the Sanctifier, and He cannot be ashamed of them because they are what He has made them.

• And, viewed thus, they are suitable for the holiest, to contemplate there the ark in its own place as having brought in the will of God in its completeness.

• The holiest is a scene of infinite complacency for God because it is the climax of His own will and glory so far as it could be typically presented.

The wings of the cherubim are seen here in relation to the ark and its staves.

• The wide scope of things connected with the outward look of the cherubim is not mentioned here; it is simply
  • “the place of the ark … and its staves”.

• So that the thought of complacency predominates here; every attribute of God and His holy government is complacent in Christ and in what Christ has brought in.

• The staves are a reminder that the ark has been in other conditions than the most holy place to which it is brought to rest.

• It has been carried in service and testimony during a long period ever since the Lord ascended and the Holy Spirit came down from heaven.

• The apostles' testimony to Christ as in relation to the will of God was a delight to God, and in so far as their testimony has been continued there has been delight to God.

• But as in the most holy place the staves are not in active service; they are there as the witness that the ark has been carried in testimony when it was not in rest.

• But now, as appears from J.N.D.'s note, they were drawn out, as though to mark the contrast. Even when the ark is viewed as in its permanent place of rest the carrying time is not to be forgotten,
  • “The ends of the staves were seen outside the ark before the oracle; but they were not seen without. And there they are to this day”.

• At the moment contemplated here the carrying service had ceased, but it is not lost sight of within the holy place.

“There was nothing in the ark save the two tables which Moses put there at Horeb”.

• According to Hebrews 9, “the golden pot that had the manna, and the rod of Aaron that had sprouted” were also in the ark.

• That was the wilderness arrangement, for in the responsible life here we need both the inward sustenance of the grace of Christ and His priestly succour in things relating to God.

• But in the ark as brought to the most holy place in the temple there was neither, indicating to us that
  • a point is reached typically when nothing remains to be considered but the will of God, and that will as brought to rest complacently as being fully accomplished.

• It is possible for us to reach such a point, and particularly as in assembly privilege,
  • and to anticipate the eternal condition of things when all that the incarnation of Christ had in view will be brought to pass.

The will of God is viewed in different connections in Scripture.

• Sometimes it has reference to movements in service, and there are some passages in which it is applied to christian practice; there is also what God may will in regard to suffering on the part of His saints.

• But when we think of Christ as coming into the world to do the will of God
  • it covers all that is now, and will be eternally, for the pleasure of God.

• In Hebrews 10, it is contrasted with the whole system of sacrifices according to the law. They were offered in recognition of the fact that men under law were sinners.

• But they did not establish the will of God, which was that His saints should be
  • “sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”.

• We are set for God apart from the whole system of things which failed to give Him pleasure.

• Jesus Christ has been here in a prepared body, and that body has been offered once for all, and the result is that the will of God has taken effect; believers are sanctified and perfected for ever.

• Nothing can add to the completeness of this, for it is the will of God, and accomplished once for all by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ on the cross.

But saints of this present period are sanctified, and perfected in conscience, with a view to their being introduced into all the positive blessedness that is in the will of God.

• So in Ephesians 1 we read that God has acted according to the good pleasure of His will.

• He purposed in Christ before the world's foundation that a vast company should be holy and without blame before Him in love, marked out for sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself,
  • “to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has taken us into favour in the Beloved”.

• This is the will of God as now seen in the ark in the most holy place.

• It is God having His own way, and Christ is in the most blessed nearness to Him as Man so that His will might be there as an accomplished fact.

• We are privileged to see Him there, and to learn that every part of what is in the will of God is brought to fruition in Him.

• His Person is the greatest wonder of all. The ark was greater than what it contained, but what it contained expressed God's will, and that will at the present time includes all saints in its blessed eternal purpose.

• The will of God is brought in now in its completeness in Christ glorified, and its blessedness extends, and will extend, to all those chosen in Him.

• There is nothing else there, from the point of view of the wondrous type before us. Wilderness needs are not there, nor the grace that provides for them.

Then God has not only given us a most holy place before Him, and a relationship in love which answers to His pleasure in a supreme way,

• but as in that place of sonship and favour He has made known to us the mystery of His will.

• He gives us to know what He has purposed in Himself.

• The fulness of times is soon going to be administered, all things headed up in Christ.

• The saints cherish the mystery of God's will which He has made known to them.

• It is all a present reality in the Ark in the most holy place, but it will very shortly be brought forth and publicly administered.

• It will no longer be the mystery of God's will when all things are headed up in Christ, but it has the character of mystery now; it is only known to those who have been initiated into it.

• The saints of the assembly have the widest outlook; they embrace heaven and earth in their view.

And then we have obtained an inheritance in Christ.

• This is important as bringing out the great thoughts of God for His sons, and their wondrous and divinely conferred capability to take up what He has assigned to them.

• The Holy Spirit of promise is the earnest of our inheritance; He is an actual part of it.

• God is working all things according to the counsel of His own will, and He has secured in Christ everything that enters into His will, and according to His purpose His saints have obtained an inheritance in Christ.

• He is entitled to inherit all things, and the saints of the assembly will inherit with Him.

• At the present time we obtain it in Him. Hence it is of the utmost importance that we should contemplate Him as the Ark of the covenant in the most holy place.

• All God's present and future will is as surely secured in Christ as it ever will be, and it is our privilege to know Him thus.

The hallowing of all the priests without observing the courses seems to intimate that a much more extended and expanded service is in view at this point.

• When the ark is brought into its place the idea of courses gives place to the general or universal service of the assembly.
  • “All the saints” are brought in in Ephesians 3: 18, and the climax of all is glory to God “in the assembly in Christ Jesus”.

• This regards the assembly as moving Godward in its completeness and unity. This is the divine ideal, and it should be ever before us. It is seen typically when
  • “It came to pass when the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one voice to be heard in praising and thanking Jehovah;

  • “and when they lifted up their voice with trumpets, and cymbals, and instruments of music, and praised Jehovah: For he is good, for his loving kindness endureth for ever;

  • “that then the house, the house of Jehovah, was filled with a cloud, and the priests could not stand to do their service because of the cloud; for the glory of Jehovah had filled the house of God”.

This point being reached is very much like the prayer of Ephesians 3 being answered.

• If the saints of the assembly are
  • “filled even to all the fulness of God”

• we can hardly think of official service continuing, for God fills all. There cannot be anything more for God than that He should fill all.

• Even temple service, wondrous as it is, does not rise to the blessedness of being where the Son is in His Father's house.

• In the case of the younger son in his father's house – Luke 15 – we hardly think of him as serving there; we think of the blessedness of his being there, and the joy it was to his father to have him there.

• And when the Lord said,
  • “Father, as to those whom thou hast given me, I desire that where I am they also may be with me, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world”, John 17: 24,

• we do not think of priests or temple service there. We are conscious that a point is reached which belongs to another and a different order of things.

• In the eternal state, when God is all in all, I apprehend the priests will no longer “stand to do their service”. They will be in the blessedness of their eternal place and relationship as sons.

For more than a hundred years the oracle had been empty; or perhaps it would be more correct to say that there had been no oracle at all, for when the ark was taken by the Philistines,

• God “forsook the tabernacle at Shiloh, the tent where he had dwelt among men”, Psalm 78: 60.

• There was no spot upon earth where God could rest – where His glory could dwell –
  • and from which He could make Himself known, and communicate His mind.

• The whole order of things connected with Sinai had come to grief; the system which was set up in connection with the responsibility of men whose blessings depended upon the way in which that responsibility was discharged, had ended in total failure.

• But God had begun a new order of things in connection with David and Zion, in which the source and spring of everything was grace.

• The great characteristic of grace is that it brings in what is of God; and everything depends on God, and therefore there is no flaw in it.

• To be established with grace is to have the heart brought into a circle of things which is entirely filled with perfection – that is, with Christ.

Here we get the oracle restored. The glory, which departed when Ichabod was born, comes back. But when?

• When “the ark of the covenant of Jehovah” was brought in “to its place, into the oracle of the house”.

• When the priests had retired, and the ark alone remained in the holy of holies, the house was filled with the cloud of glory.

• That glory which greeted the ark to its place in the oracle of the house was a glory which excluded man in the flesh.

• The place was found at last concerning which faith could say,
  • “Arise, Jehovah, into thy rest; thou, and the ark of thy strength”;

• and concerning which Jehovah could say,
  • “This is my rest for ever; here will I dwell, for I have desired it”, Psalm 132; 8, 14.

• A place where every perfection of God's nature, and every attribute of His Being, could repose in profound satisfaction, and
  • from whence He could make Himself known, and communicate His mind and pleasure.

• But what occupied that holy oracle? The ark of the covenant alone.

• It was the presence of the ark, and the absence of everything else, which made that holy oracle a resting-place for the divine glory.

• Take away the ark, and you might write Ichabod on Solomon's splendid sanctuary as plainly as it was written on the deserted tent at Shiloh.

• Introduce any other person, and that glory must necessarily have proved his destruction.

• The ark alone could fill that holy oracle, and make it the resting-place of the Shekinah.

What does this present to our hearts, my brethren? Does it not remind us of what we surely desire never to forget –

• that there has been but one Person on earth in whom the glory of God could find its rest?

• God created man for His own satisfaction, but from Genesis 3 ‘Ichabod’ was written on Adam and his race, and there was no place of rest or satisfaction for God in man or in man's world.

• The oracle was empty; the glory was departed. But God never gives up one of His thoughts, and
  • in due time He brought One into the world who could fill the oracle with perfection, and make a home on earth for the glory of God.

I have no doubt you have often lingered over the wondrous scene which is brought before us in Luke 2.

• The birth of that holy Child, who was
  • “called Son of God”,

• brought perfection into this world for the first time since the fall, and at once we have
  • “the glory of the Lord”

• greeting Him, and the heavenly host sounding forth the blessed fact that there was
  • “glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace, good pleasure in men”.

• It was, in truth, the bringing in of the ark
  • “to its place, into the oracle of the house”.

• The natural eye could see nothing there but a babe whose nativity was encircled by circumstances of unparalleled lowliness; but the presence of that Babe on earth made a home here for the glory of God.

• His presence was the pledge that every desire of God's heart as to man should have its perfect answer.

• For God and for heaven – and, we may add, for faith – the true Ark of the covenant was at Bethlehem; there was the oracle, and there appeared the glory-cloud.

Now let us pass for a moment from Bethlehem to the Jordan. Luke 3: 21-22.

• The time had come for that blessed One to take His place amongst men as the vessel of grace, and God would not suffer Him to enter on His ministry without a further and glorious testimony to His Person.

• The Ark is again seen in its place in the oracle of the house. The opened heaven, the descending Spirit, the Father's voice unite to proclaim Him as the object of God's delight and love, and the place of God's rest.

• There was perfection in this world in a Man, and the glory of God could find its perfect satisfaction and rest in Him. Before His service began His personal perfections were a place of rest for the divine glory.
  • Notice the words, “There was nothing in the ark save the two tables which Moses put there at Horeb”.

• At other times there had also been the priestly rod that budded, and the golden pot of manna.

• These things indicated what Christ is in priestly grace and service, and as food to sustain His people.

• But here it is not what He is in grace or service for His people, but what He is in His personal perfection for God, the One who could say,
  • “Behold, I come, in the volume of the book it is written of me – To do thy good pleasure, my God, is my delight, and thy law is within my heart”, Psalm 40: 7-8.

Then if we move onward to the holy mount – Luke 9: 28-36 – we find Him at the end of that day of service which began at the Jordan.

• The only thing remaining for Him on earth was the decease to be accomplished at Jerusalem, which formed the theme of holy converse on that mount of glory.

• And here again we find the Ark filling His place in the oracle, and the glory resting there.

• It may be said, and rightly so, that Moses and Elias appeared in glory as well as Jesus.

• But how instructive to observe that when Peter would have regarded and retained them all in equal honour, it is expressly told us by the Spirit that he knew not what he said;
  • and immediately thereupon the cloud of excellent glory appeared

• – the same cloud as of old filled the house of the Lord – and that glory would own and greet but One.
  • “There was a voice out of the cloud, saying, This is my beloved Son: hear him. And as the voice was heard Jesus was found alone”.

In connection with that word, “hear him”, I think we get the thought of the Oracle.

• The One in whom God can rest is the One who can make known all His mind. God said to Moses concerning the ark,
  • “There I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee”, Exodus 25: 22, Authorised Version.

  • “God having spoken in many parts and in many ways formerly to the fathers in the prophets, at the end of these Gays has spoken to us in the person of the Son”, Hebrews 1: 1-2.

• God has been perfectly declared in this world, and all His mind expressed there, in and by that blessed One; He has filled the oracle.

One lovely touch must not be passed over.

• “And the staves were long, so that the ends of the staves were seen outside the ark before the oracle; but they were not seen without”.

• The staves were those by which the ark was carried, and I think God would remind us thereby that the One who filled the oracle, and in whom all His glory found its perfect satisfaction, was carried along in perfect dependence at every step.

• If we think of Him at Bethlehem we are reminded of His words by the prophetic Spirit –
  • “Thou didst make me trust, upon my mother's breasts. I was cast upon thee from the womb”, Psalm 22: 9-10.

• If we look at Him at Jordan we find Him praying. If we view Him on the holy mount He is praying there.

• We see “the ends of the staves”, but we must be near Him in the sanctuary to understand this, and to know how perfectly He kept the place of the dependent One – “they were not seen without”.

We noticed that the glory which greeted the ark excluded everybody from the sanctuary.

• If God can rest in the perfections of Christ He must refuse everything that is not Christ.

• If this be so, a solemn and deeply important question arises at once. It is this.

• If God has brought in perfection for His own heart in Christ how can all our imperfection be dealt with and removed according to His glory, so as to leave Him free to bless us according to the perfection of Christ?

• That question can only be answered – thank God! it is answered perfectly – by the altar.

• If Christ, in His holy life as Man upon the earth, filled the oracle, in His sufferings and death He has also filled the altar.

Before I touch upon what is specially brought before us in 2 Chronicles 2: 7 in connection with the altar I am constrained to say a few words on what may be called our side of the work of the cross.

• Perhaps I am speaking to some timid and doubting soul who has never known what it was to have divine peace.

• It may be you have analysed your feelings and reviewed your experience again and again with the greatest earnestness and sincerity, but you have never been able to find in yourself any evidence or token that would impart the longed-for peace.

• You have been looking altogether in the wrong direction. The Spirit of God, who has made you anxious, would now turn your eyes away from yourself, and even from His operations in you, to the work of Christ for you.

• Let me read you some precious words as to the object and efficacy of that work.
  • “Himself bore our sins in his body on the tree”, 1 Peter 2: 24.

  • Jesus our Lord, “who has been delivered for our offences and has been raised for our justification”, Romans 4: 24-25.

  • “Having made by himself the purification of sins, set himself down on the right hand of the greatness on high”, Hebrews 1: 3.

  • “But he, having offered one sacrifice for sins, sat down in perpetuity at the right hand of God, waiting from henceforth until his enemies be set for the footstool of his feet. For by one offering he has perfected in perpetuity the sanctified. And the Holy Spirit also bears us witness of it … their sins and their lawlessnesses I will never remember any more”, Hebrews 10: 12-17.

• The sins of all believers were remembered at the cross, and dealt with there in holy judgment according to the divine glory; and God has testified by His Spirit in the Scriptures that He will remember them no more.

• What a complete expiation! What perfect peace and assurance for the believer!

Then another one may say, ‘But my difficulty is not that. It is not what I have done that troubles me so much as what I am. All my efforts to improve myself have failed; and though I thought I was converted, I find myself as bad as ever, and I am disgusted with myself’.

• You are finding out what attached to you as a child of Adam, what it is to belong to a race that will not do for God, and you are discovering something of what
  • “sin in the flesh” is, and of the nature of “the mind of the flesh” which is “not subject to the law of God; for neither indeed can it be”, Romans 8: 7.

• For you I will read Romans 8: 3 –
  • ”For what the law could not do, in that it was weak through the flesh, God, having sent his own Son, in likeness of flesh of sin, and for sin, has condemned sin in the flesh”.

• The thing which is through grace so trying and hateful to you is not less hateful to God; but it has received its full judgment at the cross.

• Sin in the flesh has received its just desert at the hand of God – it has been “condemned”.

• Sin, as well as sins, the root as well as the fruit, was brought before God at the cross, and there dealt with in unmitigated judgment.

• God has been as fully glorified about what you are as He has about what you have done. What a relief and joy to know this!

Now, if you look at 2 Chronicles 7: 7 you will notice that three things are mentioned there, the burnt-offerings, the oblations and the fat of the peace-offerings.

• That is, everything is looked at from God's side.

• If we begin by learning the perfection of the work of Christ, in bearing our sins and putting away sin, we must not stop there, or limit our apprehension of that wondrous work to the side of it which meets our need.

• It is an immeasurable loss to us if we do not go on to learn what the work of the cross has been for God.

• In connection with the burnt-offering we may read Ephesians 5: 2 –
  • “The Christ loved us, and delivered himself up for us, an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour”.

• The Lord Jesus came here to take up the whole question of sin, and the glory of God in respect of sin.

• Think of that scene of judgment, when all that God was, and must be, against sin, came out and was expressed as it never can be expressed again throughout eternity.

• All that sin was in the presence of the holiness, majesty, and glory of God came out there.

• But as you think of that scene of darkness and judgment and death, in which the glory of God was maintained and vindicated to its utmost bound as to all that sin was before Him, remember that
  • there was something greater at that cross than the darkness and the judgment and the death – something greater than the sin in respect of which God was so eternally glorified there.

• May God give each of our hearts a deep, adoring apprehension of that greater thing.

• I refer to the infinitely perfect affections of the heart of that blessed One, the obedience and love in which He was there, the devotedness of the holy Victim which made every part of that unspeakable self-sacrifice a sweet-smelling savour to God.

• Have those words, almost His last ones, never thrilled your heart?
  • “That the world may know that I love the Father, and as the Father has commanded me, thus I do. Rise up, let us go hence”, John 14: 31.

  • “On this account the Father loves me, because I lay down my life”, John 10: 17.

• Never again can the Son so express His love to the Father as it was expressed at the cross when He gave Himself to maintain the divine glory in respect of sin.

• Well may He speak of that death as a motive for the Father's love to Him, for never were His perfections of obedience and love so wondrously displayed before.

Then there was the oblation. It was due to God that in the very place where man had so dishonoured Him there should be found a Man to honour Him in unfaltering devotedness to His will.

• I believe the oblation offering sets forth the Lord Jesus in His personal devotedness to God; as Philippians 2: 8 expresses it,
  • “obedient even unto death”.

• Nothing could move Him from the path which, ‘uncheered by earthly smiles, led only to the cross’.

• His devotedness was tested in every way – in private life, in public service, and in that hour of darkness preceding and including the cross.

• There was at last One found in all the circumstances of man who would take the very lowest place in obedience to God's will, and who would die rather than swerve from the path of devotedness to God.
  • He “resisted unto blood, wrestling against sin”.

• He would carry out the will of God at all cost to Himself.

“And the fat”. It is blessed to know that there are depths and riches of personal excellence in Christ beyond all that we know or can know.

• “All the fat shall be Jehovah's”, Leviticus 3: 46.

• All the personal excellence of that blessed One, as only God can know and estimate it, has come out at the cross to the eternal satisfaction and gratification of the heart of God.

• So that whether as to the glory of God in respect of sin, or as to personal devotedness in Man, or as to the excellence of the holy One who was thus devoted,
  • Christ fills with absolute perfection everything which the altar demanded.

• So that the place of sin and judgment and death is the very place above all others in the universe where perfection has been displayed.

In connection with this, notice the words – so richly significant –

• “the brazen altar which Solomon had made was not able to receive the burnt-offerings and the oblations and the fat”.

• I think this serves to show how every type and figure fails to express the greatness of Christ and the cross. The perfections of that Person and work are infinite.

• There can be no measurement of the glory of God, of the devotedness of the Sufferer, or of His personal excellence. May God enlarge our hearts to apprehend all this a little more fully.

If Christ filled the oracle and the altar He also fills the throne, and this brings us to His present place on high.

• The thought connected with the throne is administration.
  • “Blessed be Jehovah thy God, who delighted in thee, to set thee on his throne, to be king to Jehovah thy God! Because thy God loved Israel, to establish them for ever, therefore did he make thee king over them, to do judgment and justice”, 2 Chronicles 9: 8.

• Solomon was set on Jehovah's throne to administer everything for God to the people.

• Christ, having filled the oracle and the altar, now fills the throne; He is exalted to administer everything for God.

• No other but the One who is the perfect Object of satisfaction and delight to the heart of God could fitly administer all the grace and blessing of that heart to men.

• What an exalted view, and what a divine measure, does this give of the greatness of christian blessings!
  • “Because thy God loved Israel, to establish them for ever, therefore did he make thee king over them”.

• The greatness of God's love, and of His gracious purposes, is expressed in the greatness and glory of the Person who administers it all to us from God.

• There is not a single christian blessing which is not administered now by and through Christ in glory.

• All the blessings of divine grace are administered by and through an enthroned and glorified Saviour:
  • the remission of sins – Acts 2: 36-38,

  • salvation – Acts 4: 11-12,

  • justification – Acts 13: 38-39,

  • peace with God – Romans 5: 1,

  • access into favour – Romans 5: 2,

  • reconciliation, and joy in God – Romans 5: 11,

• are all administered to us through a risen and glorified Saviour.

• The ministration of righteousness is from Him – 2 Corinthians 3,
  • and in His face shines the light of the knowledge of the glory of God – 2 Corinthians 4: 6.

• We get no right estimate of the character and greatness of our blessings until we see them in living connection with Christ in glory.

How much we may learn from this Gentile queen who

• “came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon”, Matthew 12: 42.

• She heard of the fame of the one who was set on Jehovah's throne to administer everything for God to the objects of His love, and nothing would satisfy her heart but, as coming to that glorious person, that she might see in his presence the reality of that greatness of which she had heard in her own land.

• My brethren, is there no such journey for our hearts to take today? Indeed there is. For the satisfaction of the heart it is not enough to hear the report; the soul must reach the company of the One of whom it has heard.

• It is a supremely blessed moment when the heart is so attracted by the fame and the glory of the true Solomon that it turns away from man and from present things to travel outside the whole sphere of sight and sense into the company of the glorious Person who fills the throne.

• In His company, in conscious nearness to Himself, there is not, there could not be, an unsatisfied desire in the heart.

• The reality was beyond the report, and beyond all the greatest expectation of the queen's heart.

• Not only was all her need met and all her enigmas solved but she found herself in the circle of Solomon's greatness and glory; every detail in that circle expressed his wisdom and the perfections and grace of Jehovah, on whose throne he was set.

• What a journey for the heart! To leave our own land, the place of need, and unrest, and unsatisfied longing, where self is the great centre and object,
  • and to come to One who has a perfect answer for every question of the heart,

• and who brings us into His own circle and fills our hearts with His own greatness and glory.

• May every one of our hearts be so attracted to Himself that we may be prepared to leave in spirit everything that is here to reach His presence and have His company.

The great object which God has in view is to attach our affections to Christ; and I trust He may use the ministry of His word tonight to this end,

• so that the blessed Person of Christ, who has filled the oracle and the altar, and who now fills the throne, may truly fill each one of our hearts. Amen.