1 Kings 7/2 Chron 4: What's the Temple All About?

Have you ever been reading your Bible and found yourself bored at the long descriptions found about the temple? Perhaps you were reading Exodus and found yourself falling asleep reading about all of the lampstands, altars, cherubim, and everything else that went into building the temple. Or perhaps you find yourself reading where we are today about the construction of the temple, and find yourself bored again because of the lengthy descriptions. However, let me encourage you that there is a reason behind of these lengthy details, which I hope to observe today.

Yet before I get there, let me point out another interesting fact: very few people would actually ever see all of these interior elements of the temple. Only the priests had the privilege to enter the temple, remember? In fact, only the high priest had the privilege to enter the innermost part of the temple. So, you may ask, why are we spending so much time talking about it then? Well, I'm glad you asked.

First and foremost, we must recognize that all of these descriptions of the temple point us to the fact that God deserves our best. The temple, as we well know, was a "house" for God. It was the place where his glory was manifested and located among the people of God (Israel). If God was to be among his people, he had to dwell in a place of perfection, which we see in the building of the temple. God did not come down to live in a clay hut, he came down to dwell in the greatest of places man had ever constructed.

However, we must realize that there is much more than the above point in the descriptions of the inner temple furnishings. Theologians tell us that almost everything about the temple pointed back to the Garden of Eden. Now, this may be a foreign concept to you, let us think about it: what decorated the temple? Well, if you were to read 1 Kings 7 and 2 Chronicles 4, you would find great imagery of palm trees, pomegranates, gourds, lilies, and many other things resembling...oh...I don't know...a garden!??! Furthermore, we see statues and images of cherubim (which are a type of angel) in the temple, which certainly pointed to the angels that resided around the Garden of Eden. The temple could have been furnished and decorated with anything, yet God had it be decorated with imagery of a garden. Yet why is this important?

Well, you see, it all has to do with God's redemptive plan for his people. In the Garden of Eden, everything was perfect. Man dwelt with God, and God dwelt with man, apart from the presence of sin. Yet when sin entered the world, man was cast out from the garden, away from the presence of God. Yet even from Genesis 3, God had a plan to restore his presence with his people. We see a major step in this plan in the construction of the temple. The reason why the temple resembled the Garden of Eden so much was not because God liked flowers, but because the temple was a picture of the Garden of Eden--a place where man could dwell with God and God could dwell with man.

If we keep reading our Bibles, we find that God continued his redemptive plan in the person and work of Jesus Christ, who would in fact be God's living presence among us. As the story continues, God now dwells with us as his Holy Spirit lives inside of us, and someday soon we will dwell with him bodily in heaven. Praise the Lord! We serve a redemptive God who desires to dwell with man. The temple points us to that reality, and so does Christ.