2 CHRONICLES 6 (SUMMARY OF A READING)
2 CHRONICLES 6 (SUMMARY OF A READING)
The Spirit, in causing these chapters to be written, had in mind a day which was then future, but which is now present. The house of God could only be set up here in spirituality through the incoming of Christ the Son, and His being glorified on the ground of having accomplished redemption. As a result of these immense realities the assembly is built as “a house of habitation” for God, a settled place for God to abide in by the presence here of His Spirit. God would have all His people to come into the intelligence and blessing of this. Solomon blessing the whole congregation of Israel intimates to us that very great blessing for all saints is connected with God dwelling here in His house.
But this requires that God shall be, as it is said in 1 John 1: 7, “in the light”. This is in striking contrast to dwelling in thick darkness. I believe there are fifteen references to Jehovah’s name in this chapter. God’s name refers to how He would be known by men as “in the light”. Whatever light there was as to God in the Old Testament was really anticipative of Christ; God could not be said to be “in the light” until the only-begotten Son in the bosom of the Father declared Him (John 1: 18). Conditions have now come about, through the great and blessed activities of divine love, which make it possible for God to be known by men, and for Him to dwell where He is known.
Solomon said, “I have built the house unto the name of Jehovah the God of Israel. And in it have I put the ark, wherein is the covenant of Jehovah, which he made with the children of Israel”. The house without the ark would have been destitute of its glory: Jehovah’s name would not really have been there. We could have no knowledge of God’s name apart from Christ. His name has been made known by His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, and it expresses all that He is in grace for men, notwithstanding their sinful condition, and it also makes known what He is in the purpose of His love for those whom He has chosen in Christ. It came out in the ministry of Christ on earth, though all that was made known then was really based on His death, and now that He is glorified it is opened out to us in the teaching of the epistles. That He gave His Son to die, that He raised up and glorified the Lord Jesus, that He is a Justifier and Saviour God for all men, that He is made known as the Father, is all included now in His name. He is to be known and worshipped as thus made known. Jesus said, “I have manifested thy name to the men whom thou gavest me out of the world” (John 17: 6), and, again, “I have made known to them thy name, and will make it known” (verse 26). The house is characterised by this, that God’s name is there.
Most of the departure that has taken place in the history of the church has come about by disregarding His name. How little is known in Christendom generally of the blessedness of the man to whom God reckons righteousness without works, or of the man to whom He will not at all reckon sin! How little does the Spirit of God’s Son in the hearts of saints, crying ‘Abba, Father’, appear in what is supposed to be Christian worship! Is there not more often a sense of sin and distance, and a cry for mercy? However commendable this may appear to be, it is really the proof that God’s name is not known. The fact is that most of Christendom is marked by the error against which our apostle contended so earnestly when it appeared in the assemblies of Galatia. Turning back to law and works, and [p. 336] seeking to establish righteousness in the flesh, is really a grievous offence against what is made known of God in the glad tidings: it is wholly inconsistent with the name by which He has made Himself known. It is as “the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ” that we know Him. This is indeed the full blessedness of His name as it is known in His house today, and bound up with it is the full and eternal blessing of His saints in Christ. So that the saints as “built together for a habitation of God in the Spirit” (Ephesians 2: 22) are a settled place for Him to abide in for ever in all the blessedness of His revealed name, and of what He has purposed in Christ. This is how He would be known as dwelling in His house.
The “house” is mentioned sixteen times in this chapter. The house is built unto the name, and the name is called upon the house. The result of God’s name being declared is that He has a house in which He dwells by the Spirit; it is composed of those who know His name and are indwelt by His Spirit. All departure and evil that have come into the christian profession have come about by disregard of the name or the house, for where one is disregarded the other will be also. Therefore in all cases of departure recovery can only come about by the recognition of these two great realities, and a return to them in true repentance. This is largely the burden of Solomon’s prayer.
There could not be a settled place for God to abide in for ever except on the ground that He is known, and an order of things set up which is in accord with Him. In the previous chapter we saw the ark brought to its rest in the most holy place; that set forth what is inward and spiritual; but the chapter now before us regards the house as set up here for God’s name; its outward and public position are in view. When the hundred and twenty disciples on the day of Pentecost were filled with the Holy Spirit it was publicly manifest that God had chosen a place, and that His [p. 337] holy name was there. We can say now that God does indeed dwell with man on the earth, and the true blessing of His people really depends on the recognition of that wondrous fact. If Christ has built the house (Hebrews 3: 3), and God’s name is there, the recognition of this is necessary if His people are to fully prove the resources which are available. We are very apt to forget that there is a house here built by Christ, and that God’s name is there, and that it is God, as known in His house, who is the resource of His people under all circumstances. It is true that the heavens are God’s dwelling place — Solomon refers to this repeatedly — but what is emphasised throughout this chapter is that there is a house on the earth where God dwells, and that this is to be recognised in every exercise and need of His people. He said Himself, “Now mine eyes shall be open, and mine ears attentive to the prayer made in this place; for I have now chosen and hallowed this house, that my name may be there for ever; and mine eyes and my heart shall be there perpetually”, 2 Chronicles 7: 15, 16. God is dwelling here in a habitation in the Spirit (Ephesians 2: 22), and if we disregard this, or think little of it, there will be a serious defect in our relations with God. The present state of confusion in the christian profession puts great difficulty in the way of realising this in a practical way, and hence many believers think only, or mainly, of their individual relations with God as in heaven. But if He has a dwelling here, and His name is here, we ought to be concerned to know about it, and to find our place in relation to it. The first thing is to recognise the presence of the Holy Spirit, and to be deeply exercised to have the gain of this wondrous reality. The result of God’s name being made known is that the Holy Spirit has come to indwell those who are in the faith of that name. Every one who forms part of the house of God has become such by the reception of the Spirit. If God’s people do not recognise [p. 338] the presence of the Spirit, or if they set Him aside practically by some human order, or by holding a sectarian position, they cannot be regarded as having “house” character. God would have every one of them to be concerned as to the truth of His house as formed here by the presence of His Spirit. It is the point of recovery all through this chapter. Whatever departure there is, whatever evil is occurrent, the remedy lies in recognising the house, and the resource that is there. All resource for us today lies in God’s name as known to us through the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the fact that He dwells here by His Spirit. All believers are responsible to walk together in the truth of the “name” and the “house”. If they did, they would appear publicly as unified by their knowledge of God, and by the indwelling of His Spirit.
Solomon has much before him that the people will need to have their sin forgiven. This makes clear that the house is viewed here as available in a time of failure, when the government of God has brought upon His people the consequences of departure from Him. It is not exactly the house as seen in Acts 2 and 4, before failure came in, nor does it typify the house as it will be in millennial conditions, for then there will be no such circumstances as are spoken of in verses 24 - 29 and 36 - 38. It is the house as a place of resource in conditions which represent figuratively the present state of things amongst the people of God. So that we have here what is very precious and comforting as shewing the practical gain to be derived in a day of departure from the recognition of the house as the place where God has set His name and where He dwells. This should, indeed, be the gain of all saints, but it will only be understood by those who see that God dwelling here in His house is a great spiritual reality, and that the recognition of it in a practical way is needful to keep us right, or to set us right when we have been wrong, or to [p. 339] give us power over what is adverse. Thank God, it is still possible for saints to walk together in the blessedness of God’s name as made known by His Son, and as recognising the presence of His Spirit. These precious realities become the standard by which we adjust our conduct, our associations, our service and our worship. When God gives us light we have to be consistent with it if we wish to retain a good conscience. But provision is made, as we see in this chapter, for recovery and restoration even if we have been inconsistent with the truth.
The first matter contemplated is, “If a man have sinned against his neighbour, and an oath be laid upon him to adjure him, and the oath come before thine altar in this house; then hear thou from the heavens, and do, and judge thy servants, requiting the wicked, to bring his way upon his own head; and justifying the righteous, giving him according to his righteousness” (verses 22, 23). This gives us to understand that where the truth of God’s house is recognised we may expect that His direct government will come into action when necessary. The first administrative action of the assembly referred to in Scripture has to do with this very thing, (see Matthew 18: 15 - 18). For such cases the Lord has laid down a definite order of procedure which would secure a righteous judgment in all such matters. But we have only to read the whole of Matthew 18 to see that the Lord never intended that every sin against a brother should be brought to the assembly. Peter was told to forgive “until seventy times seven”, and the end of the chapter shews how the Lord regards an unforgiving spirit. Most of the grievances that arise should be regarded as God-given opportunities for grace to display itself, for forbearance and forgiveness. But if a matter is so grave that it comes to the assembly on the testimony of two or three witnesses it is definitely settled: the wicked is requited, and the righteous justified. A true assembly [p. 340] judgment can never be set aside, for it is the mind of heaven, and heaven ratifies it. It derives its authority from the fact that the Lord is in the midst even of two or three who are gathered together unto His name.
Then the possibility is suggested (verses 24, 25) of God’s people being “put to the worse before the enemy, because they have sinned against thee”. This contemplates a general defection which exposes the people of God to inroads of the enemy whereby they suffer loss of their divinely given inheritance. The saints at Corinth and in the Galatian assemblies are examples of this. And it can hardly be denied that at the present time the principles of the world have so prevailed that the blessing in Christ is very little known or enjoyed. But the way is open to “turn again and confess thy name”. We are called by God’s name (chapter 7: 14), but we may give up the confession of it, and all manner of evil may come in for which He may have to chasten us. Recovery is brought about by turning again, and confessing the name we have sinned against. This is more than confessing our sins; we confess the positive excellence of the name that has been made known to us, and this leads to genuine repentance and turning from sin. It is in giving God’s name its true place that individual or collective recovery takes place. It is in thinking of Him, and of the wondrous way in which He is known to us through the Lord Jesus Christ, that we are recovered. It is possible deeply to regret past or present failure without getting relief or restoration. When we have sinned and are conscious of it the way back is to confess what God is notwithstanding what we have been. It is very suitable to confess how wrong we have been, but this does not bring power into the soul. In confessing what is positive we find the true power of restoration, and we pray differently when we return to God’s name.
Then prayer and supplication are to be “before thee in this house”. God looks that all His people should recognise that His Spirit is here, and that He has a house here. The great movement of recovery a hundred years ago was largely brought about by the recognition of the Spirit as dwelling here. This involved, not only that all saints were baptised into one body, but that, according to God, they were built together as His habitation. Outwardly things are broken up and in confusion, but if the Spirit is here the one body and the house are here too. If we recognise this we should speak of it, it should enter into our confession; then we might find that others are prepared to recognise it, and we might find a bond of association with fellow-saints which is according to the truth. It has been found practically by thousands of saints that as the truth of the house has been recognised and returned to there has been very great enlargement in the knowledge of what God has given to His saints in Christ. In this way God’s people have been brought again to the land given to them and to their fathers!
The next part of the prayer covers a wide range of God’s dealings with His people when they are in a state of departure from Him. The heavens being shut up denotes, in its application to the present day, a lack of spiritual ministry. It should cause great exercise when fresh and living ministry is lacking amongst the people of God. It is a clear proof that something is seriously wrong. Then pestilence is abroad when evil teaching obtains currency, as is often the case. Blight, mildew, locust or caterpillar are things which spoil the value of what is in itself good and nourishing. Excellent ministry may be blighted or eaten up by many apparently little things which would never get any footing if we were marked by abiding with the Lord. If you are conscious that you are not getting the good of the ministry, look round and see whether you have not some worldly literature about, or some companionship that is [p. 342] not helpful, or, perhaps, some personal feeling that ought to be judged as of the flesh. All such things should be regarded as an urgent call to self-judgment and prayer. Then enemies may besiege us; there are plenty of them about, influences of the world which curtail our spiritual freedom.
Finally, “whatever plague or whatever sickness there be ... every man his own plague, and his own grief”, comes down to the personal state and need of every individual. Whatever condition may have come in through our unwatchfulness and sin, there is the gracious possibility of deliverance from it by returning to the blessed God, and afresh confessing His name, and recognising that His house is here. Every form of sin is the evidence of departure in some way from God’s name as made known by our Lord Jesus Christ. For us God’s name and the name of our Lord Jesus Christ are inseparably bound up together. And if we get away from the name there will always be practical disregard of the house; that is, of the presence of the Holy Spirit dwelling here in the saints. But whatever the departure may have been grace makes it possible for us to return in heart and faith to these great realities, and then the prayers of God’s people can come before Him in an acceptable way, and He will teach them “the good way wherein they should walk”. It has been found so by many who have called upon Him. Plentiful rain has been given, and true hearts have been taught to fear Him, and to walk in His ways. They have found their place in that which has the true character of His house. For in considering this scripture, and all other typical scriptures, it must be remembered that no type presents the whole truth. Each type is complete as regards the particular teaching intended to be conveyed, but there may be much to be added from other parts of Scripture. We learn here that recovery will be granted to those who feel that they have [p. 343] been wrong, but who turn to God and recognise the house where He abides. But we learn from other scriptures that those who truly return will themselves be found here as the house where God dwells, and where His name is set.
Verses 32 - 35 are outside any thought of failure or chastisement as resting upon God’s people. They present what is normal and positive; first, in relation to what is evangelical, and then with reference to conflicts which become necessary for the maintenance of the truth and for the extension of spiritual territory. “The stranger also, who is not of thy people Israel” is represented here as coming “out of a far country for thy great name’s sake”. It is assumed that God’s great name will be made known, and that it will be known as in relation to His house, so that the stranger comes and prays “toward this house”, and he gets what he asks for. The end in view is “that all peoples of the earth may know thy name, and may fear thee as do thy people Israel, and may know that this house which I have built is called by thy name”. God’s great name is what He is for all men; it is the setting forth of what He is in grace and saving power (for His mighty hand and His stretched-out arm are spoken of), but it is definitely connected with His house. All peoples are to know that His house is called by His name. His name is there and nowhere else. It was clearly so on the day of Pentecost. The gospel went out from the place where God dwelt, and the converts were brought there. In the divine ordering of things there are no loose ends. No converts are left unattached or free to go where they like. According to the truth there is only one name and one house, and every convert is viewed by Solomon as linked up with the house where God’s name is set and where He dwells. It may be said that young converts do not understand this! But do we understand it? It is clear that if there is a place where God has set His name every convert should come there. At the beginning [p. 344] of our dispensation Peter might have asked any one, ‘Do you know God’s great name?’ And he would have been able to tell them what it was, and that it was set in God’s assembly, His house, and that it was continually praised there. How different it was from the present confusion of christendom with its many names and places! But we cannot accept that God’s arrangements are different now from what they were then. The confusion makes it necessary that we should return to what was at the beginning.
In a certain sense Jerusalem at Pentecost was not very different from what can be seen today. The “pious men, from every nation of those under heaven” might have included ritualists, scribes and Pharisees who could speak of antiquity and a successional priesthood and an order of service that had come down from David and Moses. There were also doctors of the law who stressed the importance of others doing good works. Then there were Sadducees, the modernists of that day, who exalted human reason above the Scriptures. And, no doubt, there were many disciples of John the Baptist, truly repentant and sincere according to their light, looking to be blessed through Christ and to be baptised with the Holy Spirit but not yet knowing God’s name as declared by His Son, nor the house where His name was set. The last is far superior to the other three classes and not far from the kingdom of God, but not actually in it. Those represented by these classes are all to be found today. But there was also in Jerusalem something entirely different from them all. There was a company of persons who knew God’s name as it had been made known by His Son, and who now, as having received His Spirit, formed His house. They could speak forth “the great things of God”, and those who received their words were added to them and also became the house. There was nothing else in Jerusalem to which [p. 345] the Lord would add.
Now in principle it is much the same today. The name that has been made known by the Son of God really sets aside all that the ritualist, the man of works and the modernist build upon. It brings to us the full outshining of God in grace. To be kept by the Father in His own name is the great characteristic blessing of the present period (John 17: 11). A company kept in the Father’s name is very suitable to receive the Holy Spirit and thus to have the character of the “house”. The assembly at the beginning was kept in the Father’s name and all were indwelt by the Spirit. Now if we return to this there will be great attraction for those who fear God. How blessed it would be if every preaching gave such an impression of God that the converts could not bear to think of allowing anything that was of man to come in! If the preaching were in the power of the Spirit, and the saints were all walking in the Spirit, it would be conveyed to the young converts that there is an order of things set up here characterised by the presence of the Spirit of God. The house is a spiritual house, and the only name that is great in it is God’s name and the name of the Lord Jesus Christ. We have to come back to this spiritually, to the name and the house as they were at the beginning. In spite of the terrible departure God’s mercy would bring us back to what has been made known of Him through the Lord Jesus Christ, and to the blessed reality of the Spirit’s presence here and what results from it. If even a few saints walk together in the blessedness of God’s revealed name, and walk and pray and serve and worship by the Spirit, and refuse all human innovations, there will be something recovered, amidst the general ruin, that has true house character. It should be the great exercise of all saints to be marked by the knowledge of God as made known by His Son and to be true to the character of God’s habitation in the Spirit.
There are times when God’s people have to go out to battle against their enemies by the way that He sends them. If they did not do so the truth would neither be maintained nor recovered when it was lost. Everything of spiritual value has had to be fought for and will have to be fought for to the end. The thought of this is not popular today; people go on amicably with what they know to be wrong under plea of what is called charity, but which is really Laodicean indifference. The Reformation would never have come about on that line nor the great revival of a century ago. In conflicts for the truth the whole scope of God’s will must be prayerfully kept in view. The city, the house and the name must be the base of operations in all spiritual warfare.
It is essential that “they pray unto thee toward this city that thou hast chosen, and the house that I have built unto thy name” (verse 34). The city represents what is universal; all saints must be in our view according to the way in which they are blessed in Christ and have a common portion in Him. Then the house speaks, as we have seen, of the presence of the Spirit here and its great and wondrous results. And the name sets forth what is made known of God by His beloved Son. All this is to be before us in going out to battle. We pray to God according to His universal thoughts and as in the truth of His house and of His great name which dwells there. Many who have contended for what was, in measure, true have not had the city and the house and the name sufficiently before them to keep them in the largeness of divine thoughts. Hence their warfare has not secured a result that is in keeping with those thoughts; it has resulted in what is sectarian. But even in a day of weakness and departure we can pray as having the city, the house and the name in view. Then, if we have conflict, it will be for something “right”, something that is in the largeness of the truth and God will [p. 347] maintain it. It will be manifest that we have gone forth by the way that He sent us. Those who get away in mind from the truth of the assembly cannot really fight the Lord’s battles.
The next section of the prayer (verses 36 - 39) has a very clear application to our day. It anticipates a day when, through the sin of God’s people, they are given up to the enemy and carried away captives unto a land far off or near. It would be wrong to assume that all who have been carried away captive are equally far away: Sardis is not so far away as Thyatira. But “the land of their captivity”, be it far off or near, is not “their land which thou gavest unto their fathers”. It would be good for all believers to challenge themselves as to this. Are we really enjoying “the fulness of the blessing of Christ?” Are we dwelling in the land as described in the epistle to the Ephesians? Or, to take a lower line, do our religious associations correspond with the fellowship and assembly order as seen in 1 Corinthians? And, as to our personal relations with God, are we standing fast in the liberty in Christ Jesus wholly free from the law of sin and death, or are we in captivity to something that is quite foreign to that liberty, something that is of the flesh or of the world? Whatever it is that is amiss, the first thing is to “take it to heart”, and repent and make supplication. It is open to all saints who are in captivity, and all human systems are really captivity, to return to God with all their heart and with all their soul. They can set their faces prayerfully toward the land and the city and the house that is built unto God’s name. His people have, indeed, a “right” to what He has given them, to the blessing in Christ, to the immense reality of the Spirit and His wondrous service, and to the blessedness of what God is as made known in His Name. And if they take to heart that they have been carried away from their divinely-given right, and repent, and return, and pray, such is the grace [p. 348] and mercy of the blessed God that He will “maintain their right” and forgive their sin. This is the way of recovery amidst all the departure of the last days.
After going over all the circumstances in which God’s people may be found and shewing how He would come in for them when His name and His city and His house were recognised and turned to, Solomon says, “And now, arise, Jehovah Elohim, into thy resting-place, thou and the ark of thy strength: let thy priests, Jehovah Elohim, be clothed with salvation, and let thy saints rejoice in thy goodness. Jehovah Elohim, turn not away the face of thine anointed: remember mercies to David thy servant”. It is very striking that Solomon goes over in anticipation the whole history of failure, and shews what the name and the city and the house can be as resource and as the point of recovery, before he calls upon Jehovah to arise into His resting-place. It seems to suggest that, through divine recovery being granted after terrible departure, conditions would be brought about in which there will be a resting-place for God and for the Ark of His strength. It is suitable to God that His priests should be clothed with salvation and that His saints should rejoice in His goodness. If He grants recovery it must be to such conditions, for what is less than His original thought could not be a resting-place for Him. So that we come back, at the end of the prayer, to Christ as Jehovah’s Anointed and to a sense of His acceptability in Davidic character. His “affliction” must be remembered, and what is due to Him.
It is very striking how Solomon returns to Psalm 132 and to what is said there of Zion, but he connects it now with the house. It needed the house to be built to give completeness to the thought of God’s rest, but when it was built the thoughts connected with Zion were brought up into it. Christ as David secured Zion; He set aside the whole legal system and brought in the reign of grace and if [p. 349] we are not established in this we shall get into some kind of legal bondage. But the house speaks of the saints as affording rest and complacency to God as the result of His Spirit’s work in them. It is composed of living stones; there is spiritual material there so that they are suitable to be God’s dwelling place. So He has an abiding place of rest which will continue even to eternity, but which has present existence where the conditions of the house are found. But the end of Solomon’s prayer, reverting as it does to David and Zion, reminds us that all is based upon Christ and upon what He has done, and that it is through sovereign mercy and grace that we have any part in it. That is why so much is made of mercy and grace in Ephesians 2 before the habitation of God is spoken of at the end of the chapter. We are to understand that, however blessed the work of God is in His saints, it is altogether on the line of His unmerited favour. The salvation with which His priests are clothed is altogether of God and of grace. The saints rejoice in God’s goodness. After all our consideration of the house we come back to the pure joy of knowing that all is unmixedly and eternally of God, and is expressive of His infinite favour to us.
It is all a question, too, of what is due to Christ. He has come in to glorify God in the highest possible degree, to overcome every hostile power and to set up the reign of grace in place of the reign of sin and death. Christ is God’s Anointed to bring all this about for Him, and to be in resurrection the expression of His victory over death. How can His face be turned away? Who can tell what is due to Him? He must see of the travail of His soul; “all his affliction” must be remembered for Him (Psalm 132). What He has done to find out a place for Jehovah must be remembered. It is He who, as the true David, has secured the assembly as the dwelling-place of God. “My faithfulness and my loving-kindness shall be with him”
([p. 350] Psalm 89: 24). It is a matter of God’s faithfulness to Christ that the reign of grace should be established here, and that God’s resting place should be secured in a house built by Christ as Solomon. In all our thoughts of the assembly it would help us to keep in mind what is due to Christ. Indeed, the whole system of eternal glory and the place men are to have in it is of God, and is the outcome of His unmerited favour and sovereign love. But from another point of view we may say that it is all due to Christ. His place in headship in relation to it all is due to Him because of who He is, and also because of His mighty victory in order to secure Zion, so that the house might be built. Solomon does not put himself forward here, he speaks only of David; for it is David’s affliction and devotedness that secure the resting place for Jehovah. David, it has often been said, is greater, as a type, than Solomon.