Alright, now that our time is consecrated, I'm really excited to do lesson 7 here with you. Lesson 7 is called the Theology of Solomon's Temple or God's Temple. So what I planned ahead on this, and so what we did in last lesson, lesson 6, is look at 2nd Chronicles chapters 1 through 9, which was a bit of material, right? That was a lot of stuff.
Looking at Solomon's reign effectively, right? All the chapters were pretty much dedicated to him, his kingdom, and of course his great duty and task, which is to build a temple. So we saw a lot of the narrative and a lot of the little bits of theology and typology that came through, naturally, looking backwards towards other covenants. But what I decided to do, especially, is to take lesson 7 and just look at the theology and the typology of the temple and kind of wrap everything together.
Because this is the high point of all the salvation history so far. This is the high point in the summation of all of the various covenants so far. So we can easily spend an hour, probably more, just looking at all this great theology. And this is really exciting.
It's probably going to be my favorite lesson of this entire 10 part series. And then next week we'll go back to the text and pick up where we left off in chapter 10, looking at really the downward slope as things really get ugly. Solomon's gone, Ray of home, his son is the exact opposite of Solomon. He's not wise at all.
And you have all these wicked kings starting to come onto the throne, which is a big problem. But we'll talk about that ugly stuff later on. Let's just have a lot of fun looking at this lesson. So we still have your Bible.
If you're listening great, if you had your Bible in front of you, we're going to be flipping around looking at a few verses here and there. But I'm really going to rely on the notes because there's a lot of content here. So the first thing I want to share with you is kind of a linchpin or kind of a hinge, I should say, between everything we saw in the last lesson and what we want to talk about this lesson, is just take a step back and try to appreciate how important the temple is. Because in the Old Testament the Jewish people were the Segullach.
That's the Hebrew word, Segullach is special people who use chosen amongst all the nations of the earth to be the light to the nations, to be the first born son of all nations, to bring God's wisdom to all the nations. And so to be a Jew in the Old Testament was to be rooted in God, right? That was your whole identity. And so the temple is the center of all of that.
I mean, you can look at all the geopolitical conversations about Israel and trying to maintain peace in the land and to prosper and to grow. And all of that is dependent on fidelity to God and to covenant, right? There's blessings for the obedience to the covenant and curses for disobedience. And we'll talk more about that in the last three lessons here as things aspire out of control like I was saying.
So to be God's people, dwelling in the land means that you are worshiping God and especially in the temple. Prior to this point, it was the tabernacle, as we've discussed before. So the temple is the center of all aspects of Jewish life because it's rooted in worship. So if you want to prosper economically, socially, politically, you want all your crops to prosper, everything is going well, you need to be in a right relationship with God.
And I dare say that's something that still is true, right? If we, even in the new covenant, the church is the new Israel, the church is the new chosen people, Judaism is fulfilled in Christianity and in Jesus Christ and Messiah. There's a lot to learn from this. If we want everything to prosper, and not just materially, although that's part of it, certainly spiritually, we need to worship God.
And the more we worship God and follow the commandments and put God first and worship first, but our liturgy, our mass, the sacred mysteries of the mass, the sacrifice of the mass, if we put those things first, then we will prosper as well. So I'm kind of on a slight tangent, but it's not really a tangent. Everything that we're going to talk about with the theology of the temple is now transferred to the theology of our church, our physical churches, our places of worship, the center of which of course is the altar. So don't forget that as we go through all this stuff.
So why is the temple so important? Just a few things to keep in mind. As we talked multiple times in the past number of lessons going all the way back honestly to Deuteronomy chapter 12, if you remember, God said I'm going to select a place, this is Deuteronomy chapter 12. I'm going to select a place where I'm going to make my name dwell.
So the temple is the place in really Jerusalem is selected as the city, then the temple mount, which was the threshing floor of Ornn in the Jebusite as we talked about in 1st Corinthians 21. And then there God selected one of the whole mountain chain of Jerusalem and Mariah. This is where my temple is going to be built. And this is where I'm going to dwell especially amongst my people.
So where God's name is is where he is. We talked about this in the last lesson because he can't really separate the two of them, right? Because God is his name. Yachwe means he is who he is.
I am who I am, different ways to look at that. And that's just talking about his, feeble of an attempt as it is for our human p-brains to grasp this reality, this great mystery, God simply is existence. His essence, his being is existence. He just is.
He always has existed. He always will exist. He possesses all of his perfections totally and completely perfectly for the, sorry, the redundancy there. He possesses his perfections perfectly.
Well, there's some truth to that. He knows it sounds redundant. He can't change. Right?
There is no process of motion and he just is. So where his name is, that's where he is. And so the temple is where in a very unique way, he wants to dwell amongst his people. Now, I should clarify, of course, obviously in Psalm, in Psalms, it is twice, as a matter of fact, he said this to the king of Tyre, Huram.
He also said in his great prayers and consecration of the temple as well, that heaven of heavens cannot contain God. So we're not to think that this box that they be as beautiful as it was, this bricks and mortar temple is going to be the place where God dwells. Well, he does dwell there in the thick cloud, in the shecky, nachg, glory cloud, which is the only visible sign of the presence because he's pure spirit. But as Solomon said, heaven's and heaven can't contain him.
So in a very unique way, God condescends, he descends from heaven to be amongst his people, to be that visible sign of his love for his people. All right. So based on that, then, if God is dwelling in the temple amongst his people, then this is where heaven and earth meet, in a very real way, right? So God is in heaven, we are on earth, but if God condescends to earth to dwell amongst his people, heaven and earth meet there in the temple because of his presence.
And again, you'll, if you flip ahead to the notes, as you listen to this lesson, I could have spent another two pages, another half hour, 45 minutes, talking about all the liturgical connections, which I just don't have time to do. Maybe another study for another time, we can do that. But heaven and earth met at the temple and heaven and earth meet in our sacrifice of the mass. If our eyes were to be opened, it would be pretty amazing that we'd actually pass out.
We'd literally faint from just utter amazement and fear and awe and wonder. But if our eyes were to open at the moment of consecration, especially, we would see like, I don't know, maybe we can get an image in AI or like an AI movie or something like that, where the veil of time and space are torn apart and heaven and earth converge together because God has descended onto the species of bread and wine, where the sacrifice of Jesus Christ on Calvary is represented to us. So heaven and earth converge in our liturgy as well. And the temple is a foreshadowing of that.
All right, a lot more can be said on that, and we just don't have the time, but just keep that in mind too. All right. So the next final point is, if God's presence is in the temple and where he's dwelling in a specific, unique way amongst his people and heaven and earth are converging in this place, then that means that there are what you can call converging or not so much converging. But like, think of this, think of a stone thrown into a pond.
All right, classic analogy, you throw your stone into a pond and you got the ripple effect, right? You've got these circles that emanate outward, right? From where that stone hits. Think of that with the temple.
The temple is God's presence on earth amongst his people whom he loves. And from that epicenter outward, you've got kind of this emanation of holiness of God's presence that reverberates throughout the world. So of course, Holy of Holies, first and foremost, then it goes out to the holy place, then the outer court, then Jerusalem, then Judea, then Samaria, then all of the tribes, then all of the world, you can even go on from there to outer space, right? Just this, you think of it as like a 3D ripple effect, right?
You think of a pond, you know, you just kind of got the one plane right there. But imagine from the Holy of Holies going out throughout the globe, out into outer space, there's God's presence reverberating throughout the world that originates in the Holy of Holies. All right, so that's what's kind of going on here, just to put it simply in these, you know, 10 minutes of what we're going to build upon. Now from that reality, we're going to understand what the purpose of the temple is.
So why does God want to dwell amongst his people? It's because he want really the underlying theme here throughout this whole lesson is we want to restore creation. When when Adam and Eve were created in the Garden of Eden, and I'm going to explain all of creation was this big macro temple, the Garden of Eden is the Holy of Holies, things were obviously good. God created Adam and Eve in a state of justice and righteousness with pre-natural gifts and they had their test of obedience, which of course we know they failed.
And then from that point on, all of salvation history is this desire or this drama of how do humans, how does the human race get back to intimacy with God? How do we get back to the garden? How do we get back to paradise and friendship with God walking with him in the cool of the garden? That's the whole purpose.
And so all of the covenants, especially if you took my salvation history course, we talk about this, it's one of the themes that goes throughout it, but I'm going to reiterate that here in this lesson, all of these successive covenants from Adam, so those Adam, then Noah, then Abraham, then Moses, then David, then of course Christ fulfills everything in himself. And you know, he fulfills all those covenants in his own unique way. But all of these covenants are seeking to accomplish that task of getting back to the garden and getting back to paradise. Okay.
So we're going to see that here actually in Roman numeral three. But before we get there, I'm a little ahead of myself. I want to just talk about the general theology and typology of the temple, specifically in two respects, first the Trinitarian imagery that's in the tabernacle first of Moses, and then of course in the temple, which we just discussed in the last lesson. Alright, so think about this.
If Moses, which he did, okay, so when Moses, I shouldn't say if when Moses went up to the top of Mount Sinai and received the heavenly divine blueprint for the tabernacle, where God is going to dwell amongst his people. So God gives instructions to Moses. And I kind of like to joke in my mind and be like, Moses is up there on this big old rock and the unflural, the big old scroll, this blueprint and God is giving him instructions. This is what you got to do.
Here are your measurements, you know, here are all the furnishings and ornamentations that you got to do, all that stuff. It's a divine blueprint because the tabernacle's a participation in the heavenly liturgy. The same thing is true of the temple. David received a divine blueprint as well.
We don't have the details of that, but it's certainly building upon the tabernacle 100%. So if this blueprint is heavenly, because worship on earth is a participation in the worship in heaven, then you have to ask the question. Alright, well, if you look into heaven, right, the worship of heaven, whom are you going to see? Well, you're going to see angels, obviously, right, you're going to see all these beautiful, perfect spiritual beings created by God, but ultimately you're going to see God, aren't you?
If you're looking into heaven, the first person you're going to expect to see or want to see is God himself. So it's no accident then that is you glimpse into the heavenly plan and blueprint of the tabernacle and the temple, you're going to see vestiges or hints or signs of God, and not just his singularity, but also his Trinitarian nature. God is one God, three persons, and all three persons, Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, and they all share the perfections and attributes of the Godhead perfectly and completely without division. It's not like you've got a pie, and each person shares that divinity, like they each get one third of the slice of pie.
They all have their own pie, it's the one and only pie, and the only thing that separates them are their possessions and their persons. Everything else is united in the Godhead. Well, so it's kind of cool, actually, as you glimpse into the you glimpse into the tabernacle and the temple, you're going to see the Trinity, and where do we see the Trinity? All right, well here I have it broken down into your notes.
Now actually before I do this, remember, this is going to be important to recall user imagination, or actually, you know, I gave you those charts at the end of the last lesson, these kind of cutouts or, you know, just kind of snapshots of the temple itself, Solomon's temple, you got a cross section here where you can see the general structure of the temple, and there's a cross section where you can see inside where you have the artifacts and the holy place and the holy of holy and all that kind of stuff. So I mean, there's a lot of places you can get images of the temple, you don't have to look at mine, you can find them anywhere. You may even have some images in the back of your Bible, depending on your edition. So in the case, the broad structure here, remember, is you have the holy of holies and inside the holy of holies, predominantly is just the Ark of the Covenant.
Now Solomon, of course, made those two gigantic cherubim that kind of overshadowed the Ark, but just focus on the Ark of the Covenant in the holy of holies, where God descends in the thick, shekinach glory cloud, where cloud where his presence is, right, in the holy of holies. And then right outside, of course, you got the holy place inside the holy place, you have the table of the showbread or the bread of the present, we got the various loaves for representing the 12 tribes of Israel. You also have the golden lampstand or candelabra with its seven flames, which is perpetually lit before God's presence. So you perpetually have bread there in the holy place and you perpetually have the seven flames of the candelabra, but then you also have in the middle of that the altar of incense and the priests themselves descend from Aaron go into the holy place twice a day, making sure that the bread is still there, although every single Sabbath they swap the bread out, they put in fresh loaves, and then the priests would eat the sacred consecrated bread.
That's really important, you can't see the bread of the presence. In fact, it's called the bread of the presence, you know what I mean? The presence of what? It's the presence of God.
That's all you can risk. I believe I talked about that a lot when we did our Exodus Bible study. All right, but then you have the altar of incense where again twice a day priests would come in and offer the prayers of the people. They show the incense represents the people.
And then you go outward from there, you have the outer court. That's where you have the gigantic molten sea, which is where sacrifices were prepared or priests would also wash themselves in preparation for receiving the people sacrifice. The people can come into the outer court and present their offerings and all that stuff. So that's the broad structure, remember, of the tabernacle first, and then it's, you know, taken to the nth degree with Solomon's glorious temple.
All right, so if all of this is a glimpse of the heavenly liturgy, where do you see the Trinity? Well, first you're going to see the presence of God the Father most obviously represented in the ark, the ark of the covenant. This is the footstool. It's the throne of God himself.
The cloud descends upon it and rests in the holy of holies. So you can see in the ark of the covenant, the presence of God, symbolizing God, God the Father, I should say. Then where are you going to see the presence of God the Son? Well, show bread is the bread of the presence.
Jesus said in John 6 and there's so many other passages to consider, you know, I am the bread of life. Jesus is the bread that came down from heaven. And his, the host, the consecrated host is the actual presence of God the Son. So Jesus is represented there in the bread of the presence.
And then of course the holy spirit, where do you see the holy spirit? Well, that's going to be the candelabra, the seven flames of the candelabra symbolized, represent typify God the Holy Spirit. So as you glint into heaven, you're going to see the triune God. And sure enough, you glint into the tabernacle in the temple.
And there's the triune God, the Father symbolized by the ark, the Son symbolized by the bread of the presence, and the Holy Spirit symbolized by the golden candelabra with the seven flames. I should say really quickly here why seven flames? This is interesting because there's a couple of things to consider. All right, number one, seven is covenantal.
We'll talk a lot about sevens in this lesson as we have before. Seven is very, very covenantal, right? So when the gift of the Spirit is sent from the Father and the Son, this is because the Spirit proceeds from the Father and the Son. At Pentecost, the Spirit is sent to the church, right, to animate the church and to give birth to the church.
And that's all very covenantal, right? We're made children of God through the action and power of the Holy Spirit. So therefore, you've got seven flames. That's one thing to consider.
Another thing is that church fathers will say, the seven flames represent the seven gifts of the Spirit. If you were to go quickly look at, I'm not going to go there right now, but if you were to go look at Isaiah chapter 11, the first three verses, I think it is two or three verses, I think you've got this idea of the Messiah being anointed by the Spirit and you get the various gifts of the Spirit that are there, you know, fear of the Lord and wisdom and knowledge and piety and all that stuff, right? So the seven gifts of the Spirit are given to us to really uphold the covenant, right? To be spiritually faithful to the covenant.
And then I would also point out one other little thing that comes to mind is the book of Revelation, chapter one, the beginning of chapter one verse four, I believe, where John has this vision of God, God the Father, God the Son, and then it says the seven spirits of God, which is kind of confusing because like, well, hold on a second, I thought there's only one Spirit and there is only one Spirit, but it's depicted as the seven spirits because it's echoing the covenant, it's echoing the gifts of the Spirit, as well as you continue to read on the book of Revelation, you've got the seven churches that the Spirit is guiding. So there's a lot of overlap and connections there, but clearly the Spirit isn't seven, the Spirit is one. But when you consider the covenantal aspect of the Spirit and the gifts of the Spirit, that makes a lot of sense. So I just wanted to clarify that here really quickly.
So that's where you see the Trinity as well you should. It's a heavenly blueprint. So of course, the Catholic belief and the general Christian belief of the Triune God is very biblical. And so it's really awesome to see.
And there's a lot of other examples that we can go to where you see these glimpses and hints of the Trinity, even in the Old Testament, which of course comes to the fulfillment, the fullness of Revelation and the disclosure, right? So Revelation means the revealing of who God is through Jesus Christ in the Gospels. So there's some Trinitarian thoughts for you as you look at the temple and the tabernacle, but there's some other spiritual connections as well. What I say here in the note, spiritual typology or spiritual theology.
So remember that you've got a tripartite structure of the tabernacle slash temple. And you've got this progressive advancements of holiness as you go towards the Holy of Holies. So you can say progressive advancements towards God. You know, all the people can be in the outer courts.
Only the priests can go into the holy place to offer up prayers at the altar of incense. Oh, you know what? I just mentioned the altar of incense. I need to go back really quickly and then clarify one other cool thing.
So if you're about the whole Trinitarian stuff, if you are looking in the heaven and you see the presence of the Trinity and the ark, the bread of the present, the candelabra, there's one more artifact in the holy place, which is the altar of incense. So what does the altar of incense represent in heaven? Well, that's the faithful. That's the prayers of the faithful.
That's the worship of God. So you even see an image, which is so beautiful, you even see an image of the church in this blueprint of heaven surrounded by the Trinity because in the heart of the Trinity, well, you could, I was going to say kind of poetically, you know, the heart of the Trinity is God's people. And there's some truth to that. There's some spiritual truth to that.
I mean, obviously from all time, you know, the Trinity cannot be added to or taken away from it. The Trinity is perfectly sufficient unto it, unto itself, right? The Godhead cannot change anyway, but still in a poetic, beautiful way, you see the redeemed the church, the redeemed bride of Christ there in heaven, worshiping God and praying to God as well. So that's pretty awesome stuff.
So I almost forgot that, but my angel reminded me here. So there you go. There's one more little tip inside for you. So back to the spiritual stuff here.
So you got the tripartite structure. So what I was saying a moment ago was people in the outer court offering sacrifices, priests go into the holy place every day twice a day at 9 AM and 3 PM. And then only the high priest goes into the holy of holies, as you probably know, on Yom Kippur, he goes in very, very quickly to say his prayers to put the blood of the sacrifice in the four corners of the ark and he gets out of there as quickly as possible as fast as he possibly can because you don't want to make a mistake and die in the holy of holies. That would not be good.
So you've got this progressive, progressive advancement towards God and God's holiness that's reflected in that tripartite structure. All right. Well, a few things to consider. Actually, I have three major things to talk about with that progressive advancement towards God's of God's holiness or towards God's presence.
Hey, this is Dr. Nick. Thank you so much for listening to this course sample. If you enjoyed it and want to listen to the entire lesson, please become a student over at scripture and tradition.com where you can listen to this entire course, but also all the other courses that we have available in the S&T audio library where you can listen to them on demand, however, and whenever you want.
So thank you so much. God bless you and keep setting your Bible.