Acts 7:47-50 But Solomon built him an house.… Scripture divides the Divine dispensations into the Patriarchal, the Jewish, and the Christian. We read of three creations, or three classes of heaven and earth. The first is physical creation: "In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth." The second is Judaism. "Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also heaven." Evidently the heaven and earth there alluded to are the ecclesiastical and civil polity of the Jews. The third creation is Christianity: "Behold I create a new heaven and a new earth; and the former one will not be remembered nor come into mind." I shall examine these three creations, with a view principally of pointing out the successive dwelling-places of God. I. THE FIRST CREATION OF NATURE. "Heaven is My throne; and earth is My footstool. Hath not My hand made these things?" Abraham reared altars and offered sacrifices in the open fields. He had the earth for a floor and the sky for a canopy. The universe is a temple. Many people, I am aware, convert it into a warehouse, or a den of thieves. Alas I where are the worshippers? Nature is exceedingly beautiful; but go where you will, the buyers and sellers and the exchangers of money are there before you. God is present in Nature. The ancients saw Him in everything and law in nothing; We moderns have swung to the other extreme. But the true Christian view is to perceive God in law and through law and above law. God still works in Nature, not capriciously but methodically. The roses of this year are the embodiment of His freshest ideas. The rose is not a part of God, but God is in it as the source of its vitality and the principle of its beauty; and as long as it is a living rose, God will be its God, "for God is not the God of the dead but of the living." "For God so clothes the grass of the field." The great heart of eternity may also be felt throbbing in the wild flowers along the hedgerows. This spring God is creating a new heaven and a new earth. The earth looks as new to-day as if she were born only yesterday. The curtain of heaven looks as blue and clean to day as if it came from the factory only this week. But however magnificent the ancient temple of nature, God expresses His dissatisfaction with it. "Where is the place of My rest'? Hath not My hand made these things?" The first creation does not afford rest to the Almighty — it is only a preparation for a better creation to follow. Nature hides more glory than it reveals, and God's noblest glory it cannot reveal at all. A second creation was needful. II. THE SECOND CREATION OR JUDAISM. 1. The first creation divides itself into two parts — matter and laws, substance and truths. But in the second creation God created only laws. He did not add to the matter, but He did add to the laws of the universe. The laws of Judaism again divide themselves into laws which are necessary and therefore eternal, and laws which are contingent and therefore temporary. The Lord delivered the Ten Commandments, those commandments are in a certain sense necessary and eternal. God did not make them — He only spoke them. But as for laws touching civil and ecclesiastical government, God made them. The splendid fabric of ritual with its tabernacle and sacrifice and priesthood was the creation of God — not of His arm like matter, but of His mind. 2. The second creation is therefore of an order superior to the first. Inasmuch as spirit is nobler than matter. It is more difficult to preserve a spirit than a planet in its right orbit. It is harder to keep the peace in the commonwealth of men than in the commonwealth of stars. In the first creation God was legislating for dead, inert matter; in Judaism He was legislating for free, living spirits. In every soul there is a heaven and an earth; aye, and if we do not mind there will be a hell there too. But originally there is a heaven — formed of love, imagination, and pure reason. There is an earth there also — the propensities which qualify man for social intercourse and worldly avocations. And to make laws for the heaven and earth of the spirit such as you find in the religious and in the civil code demanded more care and wisdom than to establish the earth and garnish the heavens. 3. As Judaism is thus an advance upon the system of nature, so God became more visibly and palpably present in the former than in the latter. He was pleased to concentrate the symbol of His presence in one special locality. Stephen speaks of God as the "God of glory," referring probably to the Shekinah. God under the Old Testament was manifesting His presence in a cloud of dazzling light. The name therefore by which He was known was the Brilliant or Shining One. It was long supposed that God etymologically meant good. But further investigation seems to point out that the English God, the Latin Dens, the Greek Theos, the Welsh Duw — all come from an old Aryan root signifying to shine. Men thought of God, and to what could they compare Him? To nothing else than the shining splendour of the light. "God is light." A kind of natural correspondence, therefore, subsisted between the Shekinah and God — the shining cloud and the shining One. During the Patriarchal dispensation the glory-cloud wandered up and down without a fixed habitation. But on the establishment of Judaism it found a convenient abode in "Tabernacle of witness." But this tabernacle was small in size and mean in appearance; therefore David desired to build a temple, and what David conceived, Solomon was privileged to execute. So far progress marks the history of religion among the Jews. The Shekinah thenceforth dwelt in the Holy of Holies — a visible symbol of the invisible God. 4. In what then did the fault of the Jews consist? In supposing that the Divine presence was restricted to the temple, and that there could be no Divine worship unless connected with the Jewish ritual. The local and temporary character of Judaism they entirely overlooked, which character Stephen in his oration forcibly urges on their attention. As God was worshipped acceptably before the building of the temple, so will He be worshipped acceptably after its demolition. The temple, however spacious and costly, could not afford God a permanent and congenial rest. "The hour cometh when ye shall worship the Father neither in this mountain nor yet at Jerusalem." God is a Spirit, and what satisfaction can He find in mountains of dust, and what rest can He find in bricks and mortar however skilfully put together? Not that we would disparage a material temple — the House of God demands our profoundest reverence. "Keep thy foot when thou goes to the House of God." So long as God is pleased to dwell in it, it deserves our reverence; we drift, however, into error the moment we exalt the temple and its ritual above God Himself. Stephen therefore was not guilty of blasphemy. The temple on Moriah was only a stage in the onward march of the Divine economies. III. THE THIRD CREATION OR CHRISTIANITY. Evidently Stephen's argument does not properly conclude with ver. 49 — he is only paving his way to make a transition to Christianity. Neither do the prophet's words end there he points to a temple nobler and more spiritual and more pleasing unto God. "To this man will I look, even to him that is poor and of a contrite spirit, and trembleth at My word." In these creations a certain gradation is observable, and corresponding with them, we read of three creative words. The first is the word "Be" in Genesis, corresponding with the material creation. The second is "I am" in Exodus, corresponding with the Jewish creation. The third is "Immanuel," corresponding with the Christian creation. In the physical universe is seen the Word of His might; in the Jewish the Word of His oath; in the Christian the Word of His essence. "Therefore, even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth." Truths are of two kinds as we have seen necessary and eternal, contingent and temporary. That one is the first figure in numeration is necessary — God could not create a figure less than one. But that the earth revolves round the sun in twelve months is not necessary, it might be fourteen months quite as well. Christianity is a system of new truths, of truths which have been made. The Incarnation was not a truth always; it was not a truth in the days of Adam, of Abraham, or of Moses. But it is a truth to-day, a truth however which has been made. And the truths God has made are in a sense more wonderful than the truths He has not made. But what is it that principally differentiates the new creation of Christianity from the two preceding? The words of the text answer — "God dwelleth not in temples made with hands; hath not My hands made these things?" We have here come upon a very important phrase — "made with hands," which suggests to us its opposites "not made with hands." They are the Scripture synonyms for the terms, "natural" and "supernatural" in modern theology. The first heaven and earth, and Solomon's temple were made with hands; and therefore God declined to acknowledge them as the place of His rest. Christianity is described as a "stone cut out of the mountain without hands," and is thereby elevated to the realm of the supernatural. 1. The body or rather the human nature of Jesus Christ was not made with hands (Hebrews 9:11). The human nature of Adam was, and so was the human nature of his posterity. But the human nature of the Saviour was radically different. It was not as the apostle explains — "of this building," "of this creation." Christ is in it, but not of it. He was not produced by the intervention of the established laws of the world; He was the supernatural effect of the supernatural operation of God. "The Holy Ghost shall come upon thee," etc. That is, therefore, the reason why He is in a pre-eminent sense the temple of God. "All the fulness of the Godhead dwelleth in Him bodily." "It pleased the Father that in Him shall all fulness dwell." In Jesus Christ He finds a temple "not made with hands," a temple therefore more akin to His own eternal nature, and in Him He deigns to dwell for ever. "This is My beloved Son in whom I am well pleased." 2. The regenerate heart is not made with hands (Colossians 2:11). That to regenerate a man does not belong to the old system of things. No forces in the first universe, whether of mind or matter, can effect the spiritual renewal of our nature. And therefore is the second birth designated "a new creation." The spiritual circumcision of the heart belongs emphatically to the realm of the supernatural. No amount of intellectual light or moral influence can effect it. The natural man is said not to understand the spiritual; and no wonder — they do not belong to the same universe. They may be living in the same house, attending the same church; but, after all, they are separated by the width of a whole creation. "Know ye not that ye are the temples of God," etc. "Will God of a truth dwell with man on the earth?" Yea, answers St. Paul, He will not only dwell with man, He will also dwell in man on the earth. It has now been made clear to us that God's proper temple is holy humanity, and under the Christian dispensation He has found the temple He so earnestly coveted. In the first creation we see me works of Nature; but God declares He cannot rest therein. In the temple of Solomon we see the works of art; but God again declares He cannot find in it the place of His rest. However magnificent, therefore, is the temple of Nature, God is not satisfied with it, for it is the work of His own hands. However splendid the temple of art, God is not satisfied with it, for it is the work of man's hands. But in Christianity — in Christ first, and in the Christian afterwards, He has a temple reared by His grace, a temple not made with hands, a temple in which He vouchsafes to dwell for ever. The temple of nature, the temple of art, the temple of grace, these three; but the greatest of these is the temple of grace. (J. Cynddylan Jones, D. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: But Solomon built him an house. |
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