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The Bible tells us that the stories of the Old Testament were recorded as examples to us (1 Corinthians 10:6 NIV84).
The Bible is a record of historical people, real events, and literal places. But it’s more than a history book. The specific lives and events recorded in Scripture were included by the inspiration of God for the purpose of advancing the plan of salvation. We read about the descendants of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob because it was through them and their families and descendants that the promised Messiah would come (Genesis 3:15).
But these historical accounts also hold many valuable object lesson applications to the larger plan of salvation.
Let’s unpack one of those lessons—the story of King David and the temple. Despite David being a man after God’s own heart, despite God promising him that one of his descendants would be the Messiah and reign eternally on his throne, God refused to let David build the temple in Jerusalem.
King David rose to his feet and said: “Listen to me, my brothers and my people. I had it in my heart to build a house as a place of rest for the ark of the covenant of the LORD, for the footstool of our God, and I made plans to build it. But God said to me, ‘You are not to build a house for my Name, because you are a warrior and have shed blood’” (1 Chronicles 28:2, 3 NIV84).
Why would God make this restriction?
The temple in Jerusalem is an object lesson for the true temple built by Jesus.
This is what the LORD Almighty says: “Here is the man whose name is the Branch [Jesus], and he will branch out from his place and build the temple of the LORD. It is he who will build the temple of the LORD, and he will be clothed with majesty and will sit and rule on his throne. And he will be a priest on his throne. And there will be harmony between the two” (Zechariah 6:12, 13 NIV84, emphasis mine).
What is this true temple that Jesus left heaven to build?
Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you? (1Corinthians 3:16 NIV84, emphasis mine).
Consequently, you are no longer foreigners and aliens, but fellow citizens with God’s people and members of God’s household, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, with Christ Jesus himself as the chief cornerstone. In him the whole building is joined together and rises to become a holy temple in the Lord. And in him you too are being built together to become a dwelling in which God lives by his Spirit (Ephesians 2:19–22 NIV84, emphasis mine).
As you come to him, the living Stone—rejected by men but chosen by God and precious to him—you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house to be a holy priesthood, offering spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ (1 Peter 2:4, 5 NIV84, emphasis mine).
There is the object lesson temple, a temporary sanctuary, a building made out of inanimate materials of stone, metal, and wood that David was not permitted to build— and then there is the true tabernacle, the one built by Jesus, and it is not made out of inanimate material; it is made out of living beings!
The point of what we are saying is this: We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven, and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by man” (Hebrews 8:1, 2 NIV84, emphasis mine).
But if this is so, why was David not permitted to build the object lesson sanctuary? Consider the symbolism, consider the message, consider how reality works!
The temple in Jerusalem is an object lesson for the temple built by Jesus out of living people restored into a unified body of believers, who have God’s law written upon their hearts and minds (Hebrews 8:10); they are people who have been honed, shaped, and fitted by Jesus to “fit” perfectly into heaven. They have been reborn and have been recreated in the inner person to be like Jesus in character; thus, they are unified in love and trust (at-one) with God again. And this transformation of heart and mind, the restoration of love and trust, cannot be achieved by physical might and power, by killing those who do not love and trust!
Not by might nor by power, but by my Spirit,’ says the LORD Almighty (Zechariah 4:6).
God cannot win people to love, trust, loyalty, devotion, and friendship by the exercise of might and power, by killing His enemies. God wins by the power of the Holy Spirit, which is the Spirit of truth and love that works on the inner person—the heart and mind.
This is reality! Love requires freedom and cannot be compelled, forced, or coerced. Thus, in reality, in truth, God cannot purge fear of Him and restore perfect trust in Him by using might and power and threatening to harm those who don’t love and trust Him. Only by love is love awakened, as Paul wrote:
God’s kindness leads you toward repentance (Romans 2:4).
David was not permitted to build the symbolic temple because, in reality, Jesus cannot build His true temple by bloodshed, by killing the rebellious, through the exercise of His infinite might and power! He wins by truth and love, which restores genuine trust.
Thus, Solomon, the man of wisdom, builds the temple, a powerful and accurate illustration of Jesus, who is Wisdom and the true builder of everything. Jesus is the builder of Creation:
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was with God in the beginning. Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made (John 1:1–3 NIV84, emphasis mine).
He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn over all creation. For by him all things were created: things in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or powers or rulers or authorities; all things were created by him and for him. He is before all things, and in him all things hold together (Colossians 1:15–17 NIV84, emphasis mine).
Jesus built reality, the universe, life, and it is only Jesus, God in humanity, who has the wisdom to rebuild, heal, fix, and save humanity back to God’s original ideal.
It is only Jesus who can build God’s true temple by the application of Wisdom: the truth (He is fully God living among us to reveal the Father), presented in love (His entire life was the lived-out manifestation of God’s law and character of love, including the voluntary sacrifice of His life to save us), while leaving us free (so free He let us reject and kill Him, proving that God does not use His power to force compliance or inflict punishment for rejecting Him!).
It makes perfect sense why David was not permitted to build God’s temple; how sad so many people miss this lesson and wrongly believe Jesus is a god of blood and does use His power to torture and kill. Jesus is waiting for people to reject these lies about Him, to truly trust Him, open their hearts to Him, and let Him shape them into loving stones perfectly fit for heaven. If you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to let Jesus heal, restore, and shape you back into His perfect design for humanity, a true image bearer of God, a living temple where He dwells by His Spirit!
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