(Read 1 Chronicles 17.)
THERE is a distinction between the Tabernacle and the Temple. In the account given us of the Tabernacle, we shall find that God begins with the ark, but in the account of the Temple He begins with the altar. What is the Tabernacle the type of? The Church on earth in the wilderness. In looking at the Church down here God’s Tabernacle what is the first thought connected with it? The person of the Lord Jesus Christ. The ark represented the Lord Jesus Christ as the center of gathering to the people of God.
“Where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the midst of them.”
But when you come to the Temple the ark is not the first thing mentioned, it is brought in the last of all. The account of the Temple begins with the altar, sacrifice, the burnt-offering ascending up before God. The site of the foundation of the Temple was to be where sin had been visited by judgment, and judgment had been met by sacrifice, and the sacrifice accepted by God himself.
I will call attention to one thought as connected with this, and I hope to revert to it again and again. It is this, the apparent discrepancies of Scripture turning out to be divine perfections and inlets to fuller truths. I will point you to one of these apparent blemishes and contradictions in the Word of God, for they are but apparent. We read in verse 25―
“So David gave to Oman for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.”
But in 2 Samuel 2―
“So David bought the threshing-floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver.”
There is an apparent contradiction. In Samuel it is fifty shekels of silver, in Chronicles six hundred shekels of gold.
Let us look at the accuracy of the Divine Word and we shall see the enigma solved.
According to Samuel, David bought the threshing-floor and the oxen for fifty shekels of silver, that was their value and that he gave. He said, “I will not accept it as a gift, I will buy it at its full value.” But in Chronicles we see that David “gave” not “bought.”
“David gave to Oman for the place six hundred shekels of gold by weight.”
In one place it is price paid―the full value―in the other case, it is what David gave of his royal bounty.
I want to make this an illustration of another thought, silver and gold. They are suggestive words. What is the thought connected with silver? Redemption and redemption price, and communion on the ground of redemption accomplished. We saw that just now in Exodus 30., the souls were redeemed with pieces of silver. So the Lord Jesus Christ has paid down the redemption price in His own most precious blood. He has satisfied all the demands of divine justice, so the full price has been paid.
But, then, do the wonders of redeeming love cease there? No. What does gold represent? What is the thought suggested? Divine righteousness and glory―that which is divine, divinely precious and divinely glorious. Christ in the work of the atonement has paid redemption’s price to the full, but he has not stopped there. Oh, if He had redeemed our souls from hell by His precious blood, He would have done much, we would have blessed and praised God forever for redeeming grace and love, but He has not stopped there. That atoning work of the Lord Jesus has not only satisfied justice, not only redeemed our souls from eternal woe, it has done infinitely more! it has glorified God in the highest. Divine grace has not stopped with taking the beggar from the dunghill; it has put him among princes and made him inherit the throne of glory.
We want to realize not only what we are redeemed from, but what we are redeemed to. Now, I believe these two thoughts are suggested by what David paid in shekels of silver, and what David gave in shekels of gold. I just throw that out as a thought by the way. How these apparent blemishes in Scripture when they are examined let us into fuller and larger unfoldings of the divine thoughts, the riches of divine grace.
“David built there an altar unto the Lord, and offered burnt-offerings and peace-offerings, and called upon the Lord, and He answered him from heaven by fire upon the altar of burnt-offering” (vers. 26, 27).
The sacrifice is offered and accepted, and what comes next? The Lord commanded the angel, and he put up his sword again into the sheath thereof.
“And David lifted his eyes, and saw the angel of the Lord stand between the earth and the heaven, having a drawn sword in his hand stretched out over Jerusalem.”
We have seen the sword stretched out. Then we have seen the demands of justice typically met, and divine grace glorified. And now what do we hear? By the command of Jehovah Himself that sword is put up again into the sheath thereof. To every soul that has come by faith in the Lord Jesus Christ under the shadow of that atoning blood, what a sweet thought that is—The sword is sheathed, and that by the command of Jehovah Himself. “Put up the sword into the sheath thereof.” When that sword had taken effect―
“Awake, O sword, against My shepherd, and against the man that is My fellow, saith the Lord of Hosts,”
―when that sword had done its work, what is the next word? “Put it up unto the sheath thereof.” How precious that is to the soul!
If we are nominally numbered amongst the people of God, and yet not redeemed by the precious blood of God’s beloved Son, there is the sword stretched out―the sword of divine justice, of divine wrath. We are reminded of Egypt here. The sword of the destroying angel passing through the land, and every firstborn in that devoted country not under the sheltering blood of the paschal lamb coming under the stroke of the sword, and that is true of every soul that is not under the shelter of the blood of the Lamb―it is under the unsheathed sword.
Have you not read that account given us of a certain king inviting a person to a feast, and suspending over his head as he sat at the table, which was spread with the choicest viands, a naked sword, hung from the ceiling by a single hair? That is a striking figure of every soul that is not sheltered by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus. How could that man feast happily upon those viands, though it was the king’s own table, furnished and spread worthily of a king, with a naked sword suspended over his head?
That is exactly the condition, I say, of every unsaved soul in this land. They are in a land of privileges where God Himself has spread the table with the richest blessings, the largest, richest privileges. Yet if they are not sheltered by the precious blood of the Lord Jesus, the sword, the naked sword of divine justice―the unsheathed sword―is suspended by a single hair, as it were, over their head, and one of the ten thousand accidents of life may plunge them into eternal woe.
When the soul flies for refuge to the precious blood of the Lamb and realizes redemption through faith in that precious blood, what does faith hear? The voice of God Himself, saying, “Put up the sword into the sheath thereof.” It is God’s own word―God’s own command. He Himself says, “Put it up,” just as He said when the atoning price was paid, “Deliver Him” (see Job 33:23-2823If there be a messenger with him, an interpreter, one among a thousand, to show unto man his uprightness: 24Then he is gracious unto him, and saith, Deliver him from going down to the pit: I have found a ransom. 25His flesh shall be fresher than a child's: he shall return to the days of his youth: 26He shall pray unto God, and he will be favorable unto him: and he shall see his face with joy: for he will render unto man his righteousness. 27He looketh upon men, and if any say, I have sinned, and perverted that which was right, and it profited me not; 28He will deliver his soul from going into the pit, and his life shall see the light. (Job 33:23‑28)).
That was the place for God’s Temple to be built where sin was visited by judgment, judgment met by sacrifice, the sacrifice accepted, and the sword sheathed. David said―
“This is the house of the Lord God, and this is the altar of the burnt-offering for Israel” (chap. 22:15).
That is the place, that is the ground fixed by God Himself.