1 Kings 6:38

REFLECTIONS

PAUSE, Reader, over this chapter, and while beholding the vast design of Solomon's temple and the greatness of the work in the accomplishment of the building, behold that a greater than Solomon is here. Was it not, dearest Jesus, upon the foundation of infinite love that thou with the everlasting Father and the Holy Ghost, didst lay the foundation of the temple, which is thy body, and reared and completed the whole work of our redemption? Not indeed in temples made with hands; not in the limitation of time in seven years, or seventy times seven; but from everlasting. Yes! Lamb of God, who wast intentionally slain from before the foundation of the world: thou hast built the temple of the Lord, and thou hast borne, and must forever bear, all the glory. Everlasting praises to thy dear name for the unspeakable mercy.

While I behold the temple of Solomon, and figure to my view the piles of cedar and the wedges of pure gold! oh! lead my soul beyond these outward adornings, and these outward things, to the contemplation of all that inward glory which thou hast, by thy one glorious undertaking in redemption, wrought out and accomplished for all thy people. Thy person, thine offices, thy righteousness, thy gifts, thy graces; all precious Jesus which are thine, and of thee, and in thee; these are the true temple both of Jew and Gentile, both of bond and free; both of the church militant and the church triumphant. Here in thee may my soul find a temple eternally to dwell in, and do thou, dearest Jesus, from an union with thee by thy Spirit, make me a living temple in which Jesus may everlastingly dwell, until the building of this house shall be taken down, and my soul shall be called to the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. And oh! thou blessed, holy, gracious Jesus, when thou shalt have brought me home with all the church to fill thy courts above, and to surround thy throne, there shall I behold the streets of the city of the new Jerusalem of pure gold, infinitely surpassing all the splendour of the golden floor in Solomon's temple. There cherubims will not be of ornament, but of reality. And there the workmen will forever have ceased from their labours, and have entered into their rest, as our God hath done from his. But chiefly, and above all, Jesus himself will be there with God our Father, and the Holy Ghost; and no temple will be needed there; for the Lord God Almighty, and the Lamb, are the temple of it. In the glorious expectation of this great day of God, do thou, blessed Jesus, give me daily to be beholding my sure foundation in thee, and my soul's complete resting upon thee, that as a lively stone in the spiritual building of thy church and people, I may be growing up unto an holy temple in the Lord, for an habitation of God through the Spirit.