(REFLECTIONS ON 1 Kings 6:1-38)

In today’s Scripture, we read the details of Solomon building the temple, the house of the Lord. If we read it through carefully and in detail, we will find that we have a hard time visualizing what the house of the Lord actually looked like.

There are a lot of details that don’t make spatial sense because we don’t read the description with the actual temple in front of us to examine. However, what do we do in this circumstance? Just read it, close the Bible, and then complain that we don’t understand what is going on?

Or do we read it again, search online for things that we don’t understand, meditate on it, read into the details, and let the text become an image not only in our minds, but on our hearts?

As I was reading today’s Scripture, at first it was just a mess of details that I couldn’t understand. I spent a long time just trying to understand verse 6, where the walls of the house got wider and wider as the structure went up. Usually, we think that walls get narrower and narrower as we go up, or stay the same size, rather than getting wider and wider.

I kept reading, kept researching, kept trying to visualize and understand, and it led me to tears. No, not out of frustration, but tears because I realized that this temple is us, the church. Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 3:16,

“Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”

In the description of the temple, there was a beautiful image on the walls of the house of the Lord,

29 Then he carved all the walls of the house round about with carved engravings of cherubim, palm trees, and open flowers, in the inner and outer sanctuaries. 30 He overlaid the floor of the house with gold, in the inner and outer sanctuaries.

While I was reading it, it made me think of the Garden of Eden. The Garden of Eden was the place where God placed His creation, that is, mankind, to dwell in relationship with Him. It is the home and place where we were to be in fellowship with God, in His presence.

The Garden of Eden, symbolically engraved into the walls of the house of the Lord, speaks of this restored fellowship, presence, and life with God. It is a place of peace, fellowship, growth, and fruitfulness. And that is what the temple of the Lord was to represent.

Then it hit me! If we are the temple of God and the Spirit of God dwells in us, then isn’t the reality that the Garden of Eden pointed to also in us? Doesn’t this mean that God is in us and we are in Him? That is, we should be a place of peace, fellowship, growth, and fruitfulness with God and in the world. Yet, the reality is that as the church, we are often not those things in ourselves nor to the world.

This then led me from tears of realization and understanding, to tears of the reality over our faith in this world. However, there is also a message of hope found in today’s Scripture. We read in today’s Scripture that gold was used to overlay on the wood, walls, and sculptures of the temple giving the impression of pure gold, but it was only a covering. It reminded me that the temple was only a shadow and copy of what is in heaven (Ref. Hebrews).

However, in Revelation 21:18, we read that New Jerusalem will be made of pure gold, like clear glass. The tree of life and the river of life will be there, and it will be the Garden of Eden restored, with God and His people in worship together. Isn’t that our hope? Isn’t that the end game?

And so, we realize our wrongs and our shortcomings, and as the temple of God, we continue to trust and depend on God and the Holy Spirit to be a place of peace, fellowship, growth, and fruitfulness, even though it is a daily struggle and we often fall short. No matter how much we fall and how many times we fail, let us get back up with the healing power of the Holy Spirit and continue to move forward in Him walking with the Lord in hope of the Garden of Eden restored.

Pastor Michael Lu
Enduring Word Bible Commentary: 1 Kings 6