Why go through all of this analysis of Paul’s sermon in
Acts? We did so because we needed to be able to have some perspective on
David, and the fact that David is not there held up as a model for emulation,
as we examine his desire to build the Temple. After expressing his desire
to the prophet Nathan, David hears it said to him by that same prophet: “You
should go and do whatever you have in mind, for the Lord is with you” (2 Samuel
7:3). However, it so happens that “That night the Lord told Nathan, ‘Go,
tell My servant David: “This is what the Lord says: Do you really intend to
build a house for me to live in? I have not lived in a house from the
time I brought the Israelites up from Egypt to the present day. Instead,
I was traveling with them and living in a tent. Wherever I moved among
all the Israelites, I did not say to any of the leaders whom I appointed to care
for My people Israel, ‘Why have you not built Me a house of cedar?’”’”
(7:4-7)
This now allows us to return to the issue of motivation, as
it is incumbent upon us not to place men like David on a super-spiritual level,
but to remember that they were people like us, with fears and insecurities,
prone to mistakes, and subject to the corrupting forces that shape any and all
interaction with this world. What’s more is that it is perfectly okay and
legitimate to do this, as in the end it gives us an even more amazing picture
of a faithful God---which seems to be one of the points of the Bible.
So what was the motivation to build a Temple? Through
Nathan, God asks David as much, when He says, “Do you really intend to build a
house for Me to live in?” It’s almost as if God was saying, “Is this for
Me or for you?” To answer that, we cannot separate David’s desire to
build a Temple from the relief from enemies that the Lord had given to His
people and their king, and it is unlikely that the God of Israel separated these
things from each other. What was it that was signified by the temple of a
god? Power. Prestige. Authority. Domination. This
was what Israel now had in their land. They claimed that their God had
given them these things. However, if other nations and other peoples were
to begin to look to Israel and to Israel’s God, which is precisely what the
Lord desired, where would they find Him? In a temple? No.
They would find Him (in a manner of speaking) in a lowly tent. This, of
course, was not troubling for God. However, in contact with many nations,
Israel knew that such was not the house of a powerful god. So not only
would this invite scorn upon Israel, but with the lack of a glorious display of
their God by a beautifully adorned temple, Israel’s position in the land could
come to be looked upon as something of a fluke. This would invite
attack. The tabernacle alone as the place of God’s dwelling could be
understood as a source of embarrassment for Israel, as well as an undermining
of their security.
Apart from all of this, one had to consider the items that
were to be found in the tabernacle. There were a number of precious
articles that were composed of gold and bronze, and yet, here they were housed
in a simple tent. This position, for a number of reasons, could be
understood as untenable, and we can sympathize with David thinking that it
needed to be addressed. Therefore, to rectify the shortcomings of the
house of their God, David proposed the construction of a Temple that would more
adequately convey, at least in His mind, the power of Israel’s God. It
would seem that the prophet Nathan even succumbed to this idea for a brief
period of time before God intervened to dissuade him, and David through him, of
what he had encouraged David to do.
As an aside, we here note that in the ancient world, the
temple of a god was understood to be the resting place of that god. The
God of Israel, the Creator of all things, did not need to dwell in an elaborate
temple, for the whole of creation was His Temple; and that was the Temple in
which He rested on the seventh day, according to the record of Genesis.
Ultimately, God would take up His dwelling in human flesh, and call that His
Temple.
When Solomon would take up the task of building the Temple, it
was not strictly because of a stated desire to do so. He was simply
following the instructions given to him by his father, as we find in the first
book of the Chronicles (22:7-10). There, we find David informing Solomon
about his desire to build a temple, God’s denial of that desire, the reasons
provided for that denial (David was a man of blood and war), and God’s
insistence that it would be Solomon himself that would build the Temple to
honor God (though this is never explicitly communicated in 2 Samuel---only that
David’s son would build a “house” for the name of the Lord). It is still
of great interest to note that, even there in the Chronicles, it is not God
that is demanding a temple to be built, but still only David.
The Scriptural record is clear, in that it is David’s wish
to build the Temple in Jerusalem, and this is probably due in large part to
David’s desire to consolidate power and increase Israel’s relative security in
its land, with an elaborate temple also serving as a witness of the divine
sanction of his rule before the people. So though this was not
necessarily God’s doing, God made sure that when His Temple was built---even
though David provided much of the supply, the building process would be carried
out by a man of peace, wisdom, understanding, and justice (though this last
term may be a pit problematic for Solomon in some cases). These are
epithets that are not given to David. We cannot help but elaborate on
this point, and say that the Temple of God that would come to be called the
Church of Christ is built by the one known as the Prince of Peace. It is
in such a Temple that God will dwell.
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