In II Samuel 7, King David made what seemed to be an extraordinary offer to the prophet Nathan, and it is understandable that the prophet immediately accepted the proposal that a temple would be built by the king. However, over night Nathan received guidance from the Lord that compelled a change of mind.
It seemed like an ideal time for David to take on this project. In II Samuel 5 he was finally recognized as the king of all Israel, having worked carefully to overcome the opposition of the northern tribes. At the end of that same chapter he decisively defeated the Philistines, thus reducing hostility from Israel's primary external threat. He followed that victory by bringing the Ark of the Covenant to Jerusalem, thus uniting the city as both the seat of government and the center of the worship of God. For centuries Israel had languished under the uneven rule of various judges and King Saul. Finally, everything seemed to be coming together. When David expressed regret that he lived in a fine house while the Ark of the Covenant moved about beneath a tent, he expressed a theme that would later be picked up by the prophet Haggai, who called for the post-exilic Israelites to repent of doing the same.
Yet, God told David that it was not time to build a temple.
It is common for modern preachers on this text to note the ongoing warfare associated with David and to focus on that theme as the reason for the temple being delayed to be built by Solomon. While this is not mentioned by either David or Nathan in II Samuel 7, it is stated as a reason later by Solomon, but it nonetheless is a mistake to stop there when thinking about reasons for the delay.
Why did God not let David build him a house? Why was Solomon's temple not David's temple?
It seems that the primary reason is that God delayed the building of the temple in order to prioritize the covenant that God was making with David in this episode. It is important to remember that all of the faithful temple building activity that we have looked at (in Genesis and Exodus) has been associated with covenant making and confirmation between God and his people. Now, David wanted to build a house for God, but temple building of this magnitude would be associated with a similarly magnificent covenant. David's request was to build a house for the Lord who could not be contained by all of the heavens, but God now initiated a covenant of a different nature. Rather than have David build a house for him, God would build a house for David. What would be the nature of this house? David's "house" would be a "throne...established forever."
This was a gracious covenant that God would fulfill even though David's descendants would "commit iniquity." In fact, there is a dual fulfillment in this covenant. Temporally, David would father King Solomon, and Solomon and his heirs would reign from Jerusalem for hundreds of years. However, hundreds of years does not equal forever, and ultimately the theocracy would fall in judgment from God for the nation's sins. However, the promises to David are ultimately fulfilled in his descendent and Lord, Jesus Christ, who would ultimately come and who now reigns over his kingdom, and who one day will reign in all of his glory. Because Jesus Christ unites the offices of priest and king (and prophet, though that is the subject of another post) he fulfills so much of what is looked forward to in the Davidic texts. He would be the King who reigns eternally on David's throne. He is the priest who offered himself as a sacrifice for our sins and who continually makes intercession for us. He also is the fulfillment of the typology of the temple, with Jesus promising that those who destroyed his body could not prevent his temple from being raised three days later. Because the true temple came in the person of Christ, that which was then standing became unnecessary and obsolete, so that a prayer in faith to remove "this mountain" could now be heard and answered by the Father.
All of this and more is wrapped up in the covenant promise made to David. Having promised to build David a house, God would then let Solomon build one for him.
2 comments:
You referred to the earth, the visible heavens and the invisible heavens. It is pretty well accepted by the physical science community that there is far more matter in the universe than that which is visible. It is called "dark matter" because it is not seen. No one knows what it looks like or what it is composed. You can get more information if you google dark matter.
The point of the temple building was to create a microcosm of creation as it would have been understood by people of the time. The information about dark matter is interesting, but it is not really relevant to the temple building project.
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