2 CHRONICLES CHAPTER 8 (FROM C.A.C.'S NOTES)
[p. 362] 2 CHRONICLES CHAPTER 8 (FROM C.A.C.’S NOTES)
2 Chronicles 8: 1 - 18; 2 Chronicles 9: 1, 2
Building characterised the dominion of Solomon. God is said to have built all things (Hebrews 3: 4), and Christ has built the house: He builds the assembly. So that this is in a special way the time of divine building. Men are building too, but their building is on the principle of casting away Christ as worthless. We are all building, some on sand and others with poor material. Building supposes a plan and carefully selected material. The saints are God’s building. It is very encouraging to find something that is of God definitely built in souls and that is going to remain in the city which He is building. Edification is to be sought and everything in the assembly is to minister to it. What spiritual thought has become part of me today? Paul said that he wished to see the Roman saints, “that I may impart to you some spiritual gift to establish you”, Romans 1: 11.
The Canaanites represent those who need to be subjugated under Solomon, so they have tribute service imposed upon them. It is with them a matter of contrary wills being subdued and of the power of Christ triumphing over all that is adverse, such as was seen in Saul of Tarsus who was a blasphemer, persecutor and so on. “A necessity is laid upon me; for it is woe to me if I should not announce the glad tidings”, 1 Corinthians 9: 16. There is refractory material to be subdued.
But the children of Israel represent the dignity of saints who are viewed as children of promise, taking up service in liberty so that there is personal qualification to take up positions involving energy and leadership. Some have to [p. 363] be constrained to serve; they are conscripted and cannot get away from the sense of obligation. Others move forward in the liberty of free affections to do what they are qualified to do. The two kinds of service may intermingle practically in each one of us.
In 1 Kings 3 Pharaoh’s daughter is brought into the city of David; she thus becomes a most interesting type for it speaks of those who are brought into the fruit of Christ’s victorious power who have no personal title to occupy such ground or any title through promises made on God’s part. She is a higher type in Kings than in Chronicles. In the former she is seen representing the assembly as brought to Mount Zion in pure grace to have her place according to the will of God and according to the love of Christ.
Here in 2 Chronicles 8 Solomon is thinking of what is suitable to the ark; from verse 11 it would seem that he was getting an increased sense of the holiness of the ark and of the places to which it had come. An Egyptian princess in the city of David was anomalous. She had been there provisionally until Solomon “had ended building his own house, and the house of Jehovah, and the wall of Jerusalem round about”, 1 Kings 3: 1. The house of David was not her place neither was the city of David nor did she appreciate the holiness of the ark. Solomon now brings her up out of the city of David to her own house which, from this scripture, would seem to be regarded as less holy than that which she occupied provisionally in the city of David where the ark was.
We make a wrong use of grace if we plead it as an excuse for admitting what does not suit the ark or the holiness of the place where it rested.
The service was carried on to its completion as seen in verse 16: every day, sabbaths, new moon and set feasts as in Numbers 28 and 29. For us it includes the complete [p. 364] service of the assembly, the full appreciation of Christ, acceptance, divine rest, new experiences of the shining of Christ. Then the feast of unleavened bread, the state in which the Supper is eaten. The feast of weeks is first fruits, as they bring the two wave-loaves as being the matured exercises of Christ being known as risen and crowned by the gift of the Spirit. Then tabernacles would be for us the full thought of God in Jesus glorified. Then the priestly and levitical services are all ordered according to David. All is governed by the presence and holiness of the ark.
Then the wealth of the Gentiles comes in, what God has wrought in Gentile hearts. This is a peculiar enhancement of things specially connected with Paul’s ministry, not calling attention to the poverty of the Gentiles but to their wealth. The Queen of Sheba comes in, not as having a burden of guilt but as having her heart full of enigmas which needed to be explained. She had acquired much that had divine value, but most of all in having capacity to appreciate Solomon and all that he had surrounded himself with. She comes in as a complement to Solomon and as one able to draw out what was in him, (chapter 9: 1, 2.)