Friday – 2nd Chronicles 5 - The Arrival of the Divine

When the temple was completed, it was time to put it into use. So, the leaders in Israel were assembled, the ark was brought into its place, sacrifices were made... and God showed up.

At the time, Solomon had already been king for about 11 years (2^nd Chronicles 3:1- 2 & 1^st Kings 6:38). As such, God had been blessing him and his kingdom for a decade, so he and they were already VERY rich. Now, what does a man and a nation which is inexpendably rich give to God? Well, looking at 2^nd Chronicles 5:6 & 7:5 together, we realize that he and they gave so many animals for sacrifice that the local statisticians gave up and stopped trying to count them all. That's a lot of animals... perhaps hundreds of thousands. The blood was flowing in Jerusalem. And yet, according to Hebrews 10:4, even all of those many sacrifices... as honorable and pious as it was for the people to make them... all those sacrifices were ultimately not enough to make the people acceptable to God (Hebrews 10:6 & 8).

As the music played and the people worshipped Jehovah (2^nd Chronicles 5:13), the temple was filled with His glory... but wait, it was also emptied of people (2^nd Chronicles 5:14). Something more was still needed. Of course, when the great, final and sufficient sacrifice was made, God's glory and presence was made available to you and to me... not driving us out of and away from the temple, but converting us into living temples. Hallelujah, Jesus is SO MUCH better (see the entire book of Hebrews).