2 CHRONICLES 2 (SUMMARY OF A READING)
2 CHRONICLES 2 (SUMMARY OF A READING)
The purpose of Solomon “to build a house for the name of Jehovah, and a house for his kingdom” now comes into view, so that things are evidently on a different spiritual level from what we read in chapter 1. The description of the house as built by Solomon is amongst the things “written before” which “have been written for our instruction”; there is much to be learned from it as to the present mind of God. There is instruction in the fact that so many strangers were employed in the building. We learn from chapter 8, verses 7 and 8, that they were of the Hittites, Amorites, Perizzites, Hivites and Jebusites. They were of the nations doomed to destruction in Joshua’s time, but now under Solomon they were made tributary and laboured in the building of the house.
This signifies how God takes up those who were once subject to His judgment, and brings them under the subduing power of Christ so that they become serviceable for the work of His house. This is one blessed result of Christ being in supremacy. Those who come under His influence become bondmen for the house, however unworthy and obnoxious they were before. Indeed, none come to labour for the house save on the terms that they deserve nothing — “We also all once ... were children, by nature, of wrath, even as the rest”, Ephesians 2: 3. “For we were once ourselves also without intelligence, ... living in malice and envy, hateful, and hating one another”, Titus 3: 3. It is that class of people who are rendered tributary until this day. Every one of them is expressive of the gracious power of Christ to [p. 274] subdue contrary wills and objectionable features. The epistle to the Romans shews how this is worked out under grace.
Then Solomon sending to Huram King of Tyre typifies the Gentile being brought in as contributing skill and material for the building. The house of God could not take its present form without the Gentiles. The great supper of Luke 14 and the younger son’s coming in in Luke 15 shew how the Gentile gets a place in the house. So that the truth of the mystery is hinted at in this chapter. In Romans 16: 25 Paul speaks of “the revelation of the mystery”, and this great matter is developed in Colossians and Ephesians. It is something far greater than God’s ways in connection with Israel, and something far greater than all promises or prophecies; it was “hidden throughout the ages in God”, Ephesians 3: 9. The word “mystery” does not mean that it cannot be known, but that it is known only to those who are initiated into it. But when known it works out practically in the body and the house.
The house as seen typically in chapters 2 to 5 of 2 Chronicles is wholly for the pleasure of God. It is something quite apart from formal profession, and from the mixed multitude which passes as being christian. It is where God is served according to what He is as a Spirit, and therefore every feature of it bears the mark of “spirit and truth”, John 4: 24. It is very suggestive that Solomon should be able to speak so freely and fully to Huram about the house and the service that would be carried on in it. He evidently regarded Huram as able to follow intelligently the matters of which he spoke, and to take them up as contributing to them in a practical way. It is thus that the Gentiles are regarded in the ministry of Paul. (See Ephesians 2: 11 - 22; Ephesians 3: 1 - 12; Colossians 1: 24 - 29). By the calling and work of God the Gentiles are brought in to have part in His wondrous purpose, and to be “built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit”. It is to Gentile believers that Paul says, “Do ye not know that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?”, 1 Corinthians 3: 16. The Gentiles, as indwelt by the Spirit, are capable of understanding what is in the mind of God and they are capable of taking part in the practical working out of it. Indeed, it is mainly amongst the Gentiles that the truth of the house is being worked out today. This challenges us as to whether we are like Huram, able to appreciate what may be made known to us concerning the house and its service.
There are three things particularly mentioned by Solomon here: the burning of incense, the continual arrangement of the shewbread, and the burnt-offerings. He has before him mainly the thought of what was to be presented to God, and the three things mentioned largely cover the service of the house Godward. They bring out how the saints, as the holy priesthood, minister to God. The burning of incense refers, I believe, to how we approach God with prayers and praises, not as having in mind our personal needs and exercises, but God’s wondrous thoughts with regard to us in Christ. We need to be furnished with God’s thoughts as to His saints so as to be able to present them to God as having intelligently entered into them. It is as we are maintained in ability to do so that we can “burn before him sweet incense”; we can speak to Him as bringing the holy fragrance of what is for His pleasure and glory. We can understand what sweet incense there was in the Lord’s wondrous prayer in John 17, and the recorded prayers of the apostle Paul are full of fragrance as bringing out what is in the mind and heart of God concerning His saints. Then the praises that are rightly found in the house of God are all suitable to the golden altar; they bring to God the fragrance of His wondrous thoughts in Christ as now known in the hearts of His [p. 276] saints, and brought back to Him for His pleasure and glory.
Then “the continual arrangement of the shewbread”, or, as it is literally, ‘the bread of the presence’, speaks of how the saints can be viewed of God as in the life of Christ, and thus wholly apart from the flesh, and in a spiritual order that is delightful to God. The result of reconciliation is that the saints can be presented holy and unblameable and irreproachable before the fulness of the Godhead (Colossians 1: 22). This is how the saints appear in the holy place; Christ is their life, as represented in the “fine wheaten flour” of which the cakes of shewbread were made. The “bread of remembrance” as it is called in Leviticus 24 is said to be “an offering by fire to Jehovah”, and “most holy unto him of Jehovah’s offerings by fire”. This shews that it is regarded as wholly acceptable, and apart from anything that would not bear the fullest testing by God. It is intended to bring to our minds that, on the ground of the death of Christ, and in virtue of His work in them, God is able to view His saints according to what Christ is, who is their life. They are thus before Him for His eternal pleasure, for it is “an everlasting covenant” and “an everlasting statute” (Leviticus 24). And saints, as divinely illuminated, can think of themselves thus as yielding pleasure to the heart of God. It is part of the service of the house that they can be thus presented.
But this is on the ground of the burnt-offering. We have an entirely new and blessed ground of acceptance in Christ, and that is the fact that He has “delivered himself up for us, an offering and sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour”, Ephesians 5: 2. In the service of the house this is never forgotten. It has its place “morning and evening”, and “on the sabbaths and on the new moons, and on the set feasts of Jehovah our God”. That is to say it is carried on continuously as the essential basis of all the [p. 277] holy service.
Solomon communicated to Huram his sense of the greatness of God, and that the house must be correspondingly great: “The house that I will build is great; for great is our God above all gods”. This must ever be in our thoughts in regard to the house; we cannot think of anything small or unimportant in the house of One so great. Therefore great skill is required for the working out of what pertains to the house. And the fact that Huram is called upon to send a skilful man suggests that it was in the will of God that spiritual skill should be found amongst the Gentiles for the working out of those great thoughts which were to take form in His house. Consideration of Paul’s epistles to saints in Gentile assemblies will shew us what has to be worked out. The following chapters in 2 Chronicles give us in a typical way much instruction as to this.
The large food supply in verse 10 shews us what is available for those who labour in connection with the house. Spiritual food of the finest quality is provided in abundance; I suppose there has never been so much brought before the saints in ministry since apostolic days as there has been during the last hundred years. And one cannot doubt that one great divine object has been to strengthen the people of God for labour in connection with His house. He intends that His house shall be built and finished before this present period closes. It has been frequently remarked that the books of Chronicles were written after the return from captivity. They were specially intended for remnant times so that saints in such times might be encouraged to bring what is in God’s mind to completion, even though in a small and feeble way outwardly. We shall not be feeble spiritually if we feed on such food as is typified in verse 10 of this chapter. But we shall be feeble if we do not feed, and it is to be feared that this is the case with most of those who profess to know [p. 278] God. But the remedy is at hand if we have any heart for the work of the house.
“Twenty thousand measures of beaten wheat, and twenty thousand measures of barley, and twenty thousand baths of wine, and twenty thousand baths of oil”. The wheat and the barley are for bread by which man’s heart is strengthened (Psalm 104: 15). Even according to nature man’s strength comes by food, and it is so in the realm of grace. I think Scripture suggests to us that wheat typifies the product in men of God’s operations in grace. John the baptist said of the One who should come after him, “whose winnowing fan is in his hand, and he shall thoroughly purge his threshing-floor, and shall gather his wheat into the garner”, Matthew 3: 12. “The seed is the word of God”, and it fructifies in those “who in an honest and good heart, having heard the word keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience”, Luke 8: 15. God’s testimony of grace in Christ is the producing cause of all that is suitable to be brought into His granary, and the condition of men’s hearts is revealed by how it acts upon them. If their hearts are “honest and good” — and this must be by God’s working in them, for no man naturally has “an honest and good heart” — there is a result for God such as marks the feast of Pentecost, which is now running its course. For “the feast of weeks”, that is Pentecost, is “the first-fruits of wheat-harvest”, Exodus 34: 22.
But “beaten wheat” indicates that it has passed the threshing-floor; there has been a beating out of the grain, and a winnowing away of the chaff. The Lord does this in His threshing-floor, and we are reminded of this when we read of the house being built “in the place that David had prepared in the threshing-floor of Oman the Jebusite”, 2 Chronicles 3: 1. Threshing-floor experiences he at the very basis of any constructive work in the house of God. There must be the separation of what is precious from what is [p. 279] worthless. This is a great object in the divine ways with us, and the result is “beaten wheat” which can be fed upon. God has brought into our souls something that is entirely new and of Himself and of grace, and which morally displaces everything else, so that there may be something which is suitable for His garner. Abstractly, as in Christ, we are suitable, but the beating process of the threshing-floor is very necessary in a practical sense. The beating and winnowing are still in progress with us all, but God helps us by engaging our hearts with the pure result which is before Him to bring about. We can feed upon what has come in from God, which is entirely apart from fallen man, and which is now our true self as we identify ourselves with the new and in mind and heart refuse the old.
The “barley” brings before us Christ as the First-fruits for God after having been in death on account of all that we were and had done. The “barley-meal” in Numbers 5 brought “iniquity to remembrance”, but it was typical of Christ as bearing the judgment of Israel’s unfaithfulness. Barley-harvest is prominent in the book of Ruth when the remnant, represented by Ruth and Naomi, returned to Bethlehem. When we have wandered and experienced restoring grace it is very sweet to find that Christ has borne what we deserved, and that He is the First-fruits of an order in which there will never be any failure.
It may be noticed that barley is not mentioned in Kings as given by Solomon to Huram, but in Chronicles, which is written for the returned remnant, it is mentioned. This is a peculiar touch of grace specially given for a time of recovery after great departure. Those who feel the departure and unfaithfulness which have marked the Christian profession can feed upon Christ as having borne in suffering love even what is due to that unfaithfulness. This is most touching, and it is on this ground that those who repent of the unfaithfulness can depart from iniquity and return to God’s original thoughts. In John’s gospel, written especially for the last days, we read of God being glorified in the Son of man, and this reaches out in its bearing to everything that has dishonoured Him, and it is therefore inclusive of the sin of the christian profession. Christ risen is the Firstfruits of a new order of man which will be eternally for God’s pleasure. All this is, indeed, food for us in view of there being spiritual strength to labour for the house in such days as these.
Then the wine and the oil here, as elsewhere, typify the Spirit as the means of stimulation and joy, and as the inward source of all that is spiritual in the souls of saints. Through infinite grace all this is fully available for us today if our hearts move us to go in for it. It is presented to us here typically as that which has to be drunk. Scripture speaks of drinking of one Spirit (1 Corinthians 12: 13), alluding probably to the cup in the Lord’s supper, as the “one body” in the same verse alludes in a spiritual way to the bread. There is such a thing as drinking into a blessed satisfaction which has its spring and power in the Spirit. Many christians who walk in an orderly way have not much spiritual joy or power. They move in relation to the things of God, and value them, but do not know much of the wine and oil as within them. But these things are there in great volume to be appropriated. A vast amount of beaten wheat and barley and wine and oil is provided by the true Solomon, but it is only what we feed upon that will strengthen us. Mere listening or reading does not impart strength. If believers really fed upon what they have heard or read how strong they would become to labour for the house! What we feed upon becomes part of ourselves; in a spiritual sense what I feed upon becomes my true self.
All this is most important as preparatory to our taking up service in relation to building the house.