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.” Thesecond 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 norcome 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 soclothes 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 Deus, 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 Act_7:49 --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 (Heb_9:11). The human nature of Adam was, and so was thehuman 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 (Col_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.)
The true temple of God
1. The visible not to be despised (verses 46, 47).
2. The invisible not to be forgotten (verses 48-50). (K. Gerok.)
Composition Of The Church
God’s Church is not built of--
I. Gold and silver, i.e., worldly might and splendour.
II. Wood And Stone, i.e., external customs and dead works.
III. Parchment or paper, i.e., confessions of faith and forms of government.
IV. But of living hearts.
1. Founded on Christ by faith.
2. United to one another in love.
3. Growing up to heavenly perfection in hope. (K. Gerok.)
Heaven is My throne, and earth is My footstool. What house will ye build Me?--
The universal nature of Christian worship
These words of Stephen have sometimes been quoted as if they sounded the death-knell of special places dedicated to the honour and glory of God, such as churches are. It is evident, however, that they have no such application. They sounded the death-knell of the exclusive privilege of one place, the temple, but they proclaimed the freedom which the Church has ever since claimed; and the Jewish Church of the dispersion, by the institution of synagogues, had led the way in claiming--teaching that whatever true hearts and true worshippers are found, there God reveals Himself. But we must bear in mind a distinction. Stephen and the apostles rejected the exclusive right of the temple as the one place of worship for the world. They asserted the right to establish special places of worship throughout the world. They rejected the exclusive claims of Jerusalem. But they did not reject the right, and the duty of God’s people, to assemble themselves as a collective body for public worship, and to realise Christ’s covenanted presence. This is an important limitation of St. Stephen’s statement. The great end of public worship is worship, not hearing, not edification even, though edification follows as a necessary result of such public worship when sincerely offered. The teaching of St. Stephen did not then apply to the erection of churches and buildings set apart for God’s service, or to the claim:made for public worship as an exercise with a peculiar Divine promise annexed. It simply protests against any attemptto localise the Divine presence to one special spot on earth, making it, and it alone, the centre of all religious interest. (G. T. Stokes, D. D.)
A transcendent existence
I. An omnipresent existence. One whose throne is heaven, whose footstool is earth, and to whom all places are alike. One who fills heaven and earth not merely with His influence, nor indeed, as the Pantheists teach, with His substance; but One who is everywhere as a Personality, free, conscious, active. All created existences are limited by the laws of space, and those that occupy the largest space are mere specks in immensity. Concerning the stupendous fact of God’s Omnipresence observe that it is--
1. Agreeable to reason, although incomprehensible. The denial of it would be a contradiction. A limited God would be no God.
2. Essential to worship.
(1) To its spirit. Worship implies mystery. Take away God’s incomprehensibility and you take away the power to evoke in the soul all the awe and wonder which enter into the very essence of worship.
(2) To its constancy. True worship is not an occasional service confined to times and places, but an abiding attitude of the soul. “God is a Spirit,” etc.
3. Promotive of holiness. Let men realise the constant presence of God, and how strongly will they feel restraint from sin and stimulus to virtue.
4. Assurative of retribution. Who can hide himself from the Lord? No sin escapes His notice. There is no escaping therefore from punishment. “Whither shall I flee from Thy presence?”
5. Illustrative of heaven. There is nothing local or formal in heaven’s worship. “I saw no temple therein.” Then He is felt to be everywhere, and is worshipped everywhere.
II. A Creative existence. “Hath not My hand made,” etc. Because He made all, He owns all. Creatorship implies sovereignty, almightiness, and proprietorship. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
What is the place of My rest.--
The place of God’s vest
I. God revealing Himself. By the aid of figures God discloses His spiritual character. Everywhere we see pictures, suggestions of the Divine. The boundary sky, with its serene height of blue; the midnight sky with its myriad worlds; mountains piercing the clouds or hanging in frowning precipice; great floods of water rolling in their ceaseless tides; all compel us to say, “How marvellous are Thy works,” etc.
1. Heaven is God’s throne. A star in the far depths attracted the attention of an observer. It seemed to be but a single star, but a powerful telescope resolved into two which were really distant from each other five hundred times the distant between our earth and the sun. Who can conceive of such sublime spaces. What must He be whose throne rises higher than these stars, whose canopy is gemmed by myriad suns.
2. Earth is God’s footstool. Here the microscope comes to our assistance. This great earth, with its millionfold objects seen and unseen, is but a resting-place for God’s foot.
II. God appealing to man to find Him rest. We should never have dared to represent God as seeking rest. The marvel of His condescension is that He is independent of His creatures, and yet seeks rest in them. If God were only wisdom or power then His rest might be found in the works of His hands. But every being seeks rest according to his character. The infinitely pure One can only find rest in holiness; the infinitely loving in love; the eternal Father in His children.
III. Man vainly offering God rest in things. The first shrine for human worship was the open firmament of heaven. It was the only worthy one. The only befitting walls were the distant horizon and the everlasting hills; the only suitable roof was the illimitable sky. Yet from the first, through sin, this temple proved too vast and glorious for man to use. So he planted groves to circle God to a space; and consecrated mountain peaks to fix God to a point; and built temples and churches to narrow the infinite to human grasp. Too often man has offered his temples as a sacrifice in the vain hope that, satisfied with them, God would cease to ask for holier things. And even now men think to offer God rest in the beauty of our churches and the charm of our services, and give Him things instead of persons. And yet even we men cannot be satisfied with things; how, then, can we expect God to be. Our hearts cannot rest in the artistic fittings of our dwellings, the creations of genius, or the associations of culture. We want love; we must have persons. We are “the figures of the true.” He, too, puts aside the things we offer Him, be they temple, or gold, or work, and pleads with us, “My son give Me thy heart.” If we respond then He will accept our things, and things alive with holy love may find for Him the rest He seeks. (R. Tuck, B. A.)
