7th August, 2010       And behold, I propose to build a house for the name of the LORD my God, as the LORD spoke to my father David, saying, “Your son, whom I will set on your throne in your place, he shall build the house for My name.   (1 Kings 5:5)       He was speaking of the temple of His body.   (John 2:21)       David and Solomon: Two Images of Jesus     About three thousand years ago, there lived in Israel, a man by the name of David. He reigned as king of Israel for forty years, and then Solomon succeeded him as king. We have already taken a close look at the events in the lives of these two people in previous passages from the Bible. If we examine carefully the experiences these two men went through and the details of the circumstances of these events, we can see that they explain the course of events that we must go through as individuals.     David is a shadow of Jesus in His suffering. Why was that suffering necessary? In the letter to the Hebrews it says, “For we do not have a High Priest who cannot sympathize with our weaknesses, but was in all points tempted as we are, yet without sin” (Hebrews 4:15). David’s son, Solomon, may have stumbled in that, through the Gentile women with whom he associated, he came to worship Gentile gods, and yet he remains a person who throws some light for us upon Jesus when He comes in His glory. It was because David existed that it was possible for Solomon to come into the world, and by Solomon completing the work of building the temple for which David had made all the preparations, Solomon paid the debt for the 70 years of David’s life. We should not simply think of these two people as a father and his son; first we need to understand how they came to be connected and in what way each of them testifies of Jesus.     Why did David shed so much blood? Why did he fight so many battles? And why did he go through so much suffering? It is because he lived a life that testified of Jesus who suffered in this world for the sake of sinners even before He was crucified and suffered on the cross itself. Adam sinned, disregarding God’s word and eating the forbidden fruit, and this sin has been passed on down to the whole of mankind. Thus, it became the fate of all mankind, including us, to be born as sinners and, inevitably, live our lives in this world as sinners. So it was for us that Jesus went through all that suffering. He was born into this world as a human being just like us. He took upon Himself all of our infirmities in the course of His life, and He died on the cross for our sins. King David was expressing such life of Jesus Christ.     Through the words of the Bible, we can realize first of all what kind of beings we are as we have been living our lives in this world. We were living as sinners, unable to avoid this fate, but as we drew near to the Bible, we came to know the blessing that has been given to us, and in that blessing we found peace. As it says in Romans chapter 8, God raised Christ from the dead, and He who raised Christ from the dead will also give life to our mortal bodies (see verse 11). We also live with hope in the resurrection, when our mortal bodies will some day be raised from the dead through the spirit that Jesus has planted in each of us individually. The day will come when we will meet the One who will receive us in the air, the One who was first raised from the dead in a new body and is even now seated at the right hand of God. When He comes in the manner in which the Jews have longed for Him to come, in other words, when He returns to this earth, we will come with Him.     Through David and Solomon, we can see these two different images: Jesus in His suffering and Jesus when He comes in His glory. We cannot separate these two images and say that one Jesus is more precious than the other. The blood in our bodies flows through the arteries came out of the hearts and flows into the capillaries whence it supplies oxygen and nourishment to the cells before returning to the heart through the veins. There is the blood that flows to the cells and the blood that flows from the cells back to the heart, but we cannot say that either one of these is more precious than the other. Actually the many activities that take place in our bodies all occur according to God’s laws. We have been created in the image and likeness of God. The fact that we are living our lives, we move around and breath, we eat food, and energy is produced in our bodies, is all due to the laws of life that God has ordained and which exist in our bodies. These two images are to be found in various places in the Bible. We can also find this in our individual lives and within the relationship between David and Solomon which we are now examining.     Let’s consider now the greater significance of all this. David was a king, but he was also a soldier who shed a lot of blood and went through a lot of suffering. And he was also attacked many times by enemy forces, also his son, Absalom, betrayed him, as did some of his retainers. At that time, many thoughts must have arisen in David’s mind. This was the case throughout David’s life. This life of David also represents an image of us as we had no choice but to accept Jesus who came into this world in order to suffer.     It is the same when it comes to the tabernacle. There was no temple at the time of David. There was simply the Ark of the Covenant inside tent curtains. The inside of the tabernacle was covered in gold. The inner walls were made of acacia wood, which was inlaid with gold. Most of the utensils used inside the tabernacle were also made of gold. The outside of the tabernacle, however, was covered with animal skins. Following God’s commands, the tabernacle was made of materials that would be easy for the Israelites to move as they wandered in the wilderness, in a way that would be easy for them to erect and with materials that would easily withstand the wind and sands of the desert. Also, the Ark of the Covenant was at the center of the lives of the Israelites.     When we consider the historical significance of all this, we cannot help but wonder why the tabernacle made an appearance within the history of Israel. Why did the twelve tribes of this nation have to serve God centered on this tabernacle, which looked so shabby in certain respects with its covering of skins? Also, why did they have to slaughter an animal? Why did the priest have to shed the blood of the animal in the course of the sacrifice? Would the Levites and the priests who carried out this task and the other twelve tribes surrounding them have known the significance of all this?     This all bears witness of the Messiah who was to come in the flesh for the sake of all of us who live as sinners in this world. Jesus came to this world because of our sins, because of Adam’s disobedience, and in order that we who have been born into this world having inherited the blood of disobedient Adam might be changed and renewed. As we consider this image of David, the soldier who shed so much blood and who suffered affliction from within and without, it is a chance for us to reflect on our own lives and the life of mankind. Through the life of David, we can find ourselves and think about Jesus who was born in the same image as we were.     Also, in the image of Solomon with which we are presented in the Bible, we have a shadow of Jesus when He comes again at some point in time along the path of history that we are walking. We were born into the world as sinners, but we were born again and found peace through the words of the Bible, and so here we also have an image of ourselves when we come in glory along with Jesus when He returns to this world.     Such are the lives of David and Solomon. There were many kings in the history of Israel, but when the kingdom was established there were only David and Solomon. King Saul was not the king that was prophesied by Jacob, and at the time of Rehoboam, Solomon’s son, God divided the kingdom into Israel in the north and Judah in the south. The only time when the twelve tribes were united as one kingdom was during the reigns of David and Solomon.     The Temple that David Prepared and Solomon Built     Bearing in mind what we have looked, we need to consider what significance the temple, which Solomon was intent on building, holds for us: the significance of the fact that it was Solomon and not David who built the temple; the significance of the fact that 150,000 Gentiles were mobilized to construct the temple; and the significance of the fact that the wood used to build the temple was not from amongst the trees of Israel, but brought from Lebanon, a Gentile nation. We also need to consider carefully what all this means for us, as Gentiles living in the age of the Church. This is not a simple matter that we should take lightly.     Let’s take a brief look at John chapter 2.       “Now the Passover of the Jews was at hand, and Jesus went up to Jerusalem. And He found in the temple those who sold oxen and sheep and doves, and the money changers doing business. When He had made a whip of cords, He drove them all out of the temple, with the sheep and the oxen, and poured out the changers’ money and overturned the tables. And He said to those who sold doves, ‘Take these things away! Do not make My Father’s house a house of merchandise!’ Then His disciples remembered that it was written, ‘Zeal for Your house has eaten Me up.’ So the Jews answered and said to Him, ‘What sign do You show to us, since You do these things?’ Jesus answered and said to them, ‘Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.’ Then the Jews said, ‘It has taken forty-six years to build this temple, and will You raise it up in three days?’ But He was speaking of the temple of His body. Therefore, when He had risen from the dead, His disciples remembered that He had said this to them; and they believed the Scripture and the word which Jesus had said.”  (John 2:13-22)       This is the very first passage we should consider when we study the temple in the history of Israel. And the first thing we need to know is the reason the temple exists within the history of Israel, and what God is trying to tell us through the temple.     We acquire an intellectual knowledge of the Old Testament regarding the offering of sacrifices, the tabernacle and the temple as they appear in the historical books of the Bible, we make comparisons, and we analyze. Yet, when it comes to the process of passing from the tabernacle to the temple, the sacrifices offered up in the tabernacle and in the temple, the sinful deeds carried out within the temple, and the many other incidents instigated by the kings, many of these matters are explained when we bring in what it says in John chapter 2 verse 21: “But He was speaking of the temple of His body.” When it comes to all the matters mentioned above, if the central figure is omitted, we may continue to study these matters for as long as we like, but we will just go round and round in circles, never finding any answers. We would know the details of these events that occurred within the history of Israel purely from an academic point of view; we would not be able to acquire the wisdom that God wishes to impart to us through these events.     Jesus referred his body as the Bible says, “He was speaking of the temple of His body.” The temple tells of the flesh of Jesus, and the letters to the Corinthians, the Ephesians and the Colossians tells us that the Church (which was revealed after that and has continued to grow over the past almost two thousand years until now) is His body. The Bible says, “From whom the whole body, joined and knit together by what every joint supplies, according to the effective working by which every part does its share, causes growth of the body for the edifying of itself in love” (Ephesians 4:16), and “In whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2:22). Many such verses have been recorded in the New Testament. First, let’s consider Jesus when He came in the flesh, the One who has become Lord of our lives. Then, let’s also consider the Church which is expressed as one “man” and which has been growing for the past almost two thousand years. These images are presented to us in a historical sense in the Old Testament.     It was Solomon who built the temple, but he would not have been able to do this without David. the two are tied together inseparably.       “Now Hiram king of Tyre sent his servants to Solomon, because he heard that they had anointed him king in place of his father, for Hiram had always loved David. Then Solomon sent to Hiram, saying: ‘You know how my father David could not build a house for the name of the LORD his God because of the wars which were fought against him on every side, until the Lord put his foes under the soles of his feet.’”  (1 Kings 5:1-3)       Here we have a record of a conversation between two people of that time. Solomon told Hiram, King of Troy, that his father David had not been able to build the temple of God because of his constant battles which were fought against him on every side. Thousands of years have now passed since that time, and the history of the Church has unfolded over that long period, Jesus has already died on the cross and said, “It is finished,” and we are able to read the Old and New Testaments together. As a result, we are able to explain many points very simply. Yet the method of explanation of those directly concerned here is closer to the actual events. Solomon was saying that his father had spent his life fighting continual battles from every direction and therefore, in the midst of such a life he had not been able to build the temple. We may also understand this as meaning that he was only able to make the preparations and he died without actually carrying out the task.     These were words that were able to be spoken at that time by David who lived this kind of life and Solomon who succeeded him to the throne. If we look at this text from First Kings alone, we might think this means that David could not build the temple because he was busy fighting in battles. Yet, in this passage it says, “wars which were fought against him on every side.” He was not able to build the temple because of battles in every direction.     Then when I read, “the Lord put his foes under the soles of his feet,” there’s similar words in the New Testament. Let’s turn to Hebrews chapter 2.       “But one testified in a certain place, saying: ‘What is man that You are mindful of him, or the son of man that You take care of him? You have made him a little lower than the angels; You have crowned him with glory and honor, and set him over the works of Your hands. You have put all things in subjection under his feet.’ For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him. But now we do not yet see all things put under him. But we see Jesus, who was made a little lower than the angels, for the suffering of death crowned with glory and honor, that He, by the grace of God, might taste death for everyone. For it was fitting for Him, for whom are all things and by whom are all things, in bringing many sons to glory, to make the captain of their salvation perfect through sufferings.”  (Hebrews 2:6-10)       When we read passages like this, we can consider how the Old Testament explains Jesus’ coming to this world in the body of a man and suffering. The writer of letter to the Hebrews is explaining in a condensed form the victory on the cross and events that will happen in the future. He wrote, “You have put all things in subjection under his feet,” and, “For in that He put all in subjection under him, He left nothing that is not put under him,” and “But now we do not yet see all things put under him.” Clearly, God has put all things in subjection under His feet, and He has left nothing that is not put under Him, but it is simply that we cannot see this right now. This is explaining what still remains to take place in the course of history.     First Corinthians chapter 15 talks about the subject of resurrection. Also, in the books of the prophets, in the book of Revelation and in the Gospels, we are given some idea of when Jesus will return to this world as King of kings and the kind of events that will occur at that time. These books also talk of the end times, in other words after the millennium, when all matters of state and authority will be destroyed and all things will be offered up to God the Father. These historical events have yet to take place. In Colossians it says that Jesus won this victory on the cross. Events such as these are being revealed to us through history. And they are revealed through the life of David, and Solomon, too, who fulfilled the many plans that David had made in his lifetime, spoke directly about these matters.     But now the LORD my God has given me rest on every side; there is neither adversary nor evil occurrence.  (1 Kings 5:4)       When it says here, “there is neit

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