THE LATTER AND THE FORMER GLORY
‘The glory of this latter house shall be greater than of the former, saith the Lord of Hosts.’
The old men, whose memory could stretch back some seventy years, saw in their fond imagination the wonderful pile of Solomon’s Temple shining in gold, which borrowed richer hues than its own from the heart that had treasured during all these years the holy vision. How poor and prosaic and shrunken the walls of the new Temple seemed to them! Yet God assures them that the glory of the latter house should far exceed that of the former. As regards material splendour that would never be. Even regarding sacred relics and symbols, the second Temple would never approach the glory of the first. Where was now the ark with its wondrous treasures? Where the Shechinah and the Urim and the Thummin? All have passed away; and yet, says God, ‘The glory of the latter house shall be greater than of the former.’
I. The latter house recorded a fuller history of God’s working than the former.—The latter house was heir to all the stirring and wonderful memories of the former, and had its own great repository besides. The songs which were sung within its walls not only celebrated the Exodus and the other great deliverances for which their fathers praised the Lord, but the sorrows and hopelessness of Babylon, followed by the glorious restoration which filled their hearts with laughter, and their tongues with melody. And as the ages rolled over them, a richer accumulation of God’s wonderful works to His Chosen People inspired the praises of the sanctuary. The ‘latter house’ is ever in this respect more glorious than ‘the former.’ Of what a history of God’s providence and grace are we who live in these latter days cognisant! With what wonder and trust and joy should we, beyond all former ages, praise the Lord for His goodness, and for His wonderful works to the children of men!
II. The latter house was the house of a purer worship than the former.—One great sin the Jews were cured of by their captivity in Babylon; that was the sin of idolatry. Before that time they were ever lapsing into it; and reformers, such as the good King Josiah, had to purge the very Temple itself of idols and idolatrous altars. God has said that His glory He will not give to graven images; and as a small cloud can hide for a time the glory of the sun, so the dark sin of idolatry obscured to a great extent the glory of God in His own house. When we serve God, Who is a Spirit, in spirit and in truth, the humblest cabin in which we may worship is lighted by purer and richer glory than the first Temple in its palmiest days.
III. The latter house received a greater Guest than the former.—The house is honoured by those who dwell in it and visit it. The poorest cottage is an incomparably more sacred and honoured place than the most celebrated and costly structures reared for any creatures other than man. In the former house more powerful kings, and grander choirs of singers, and more richly attired priests with costlier sacrifices, worshipped and served than in the latter; but the Lord, Whom true worshippers had ever sought and longed for, suddenly came to it, and so gave it a glory which the former had never known. A greater glory still may be ours. What! know ye not that ye are the temples of the Holy Ghost? Not as a casual guest does Christ seek to enter our hearts; He seeks to come in and abide with us—to be with us always, even to the end of the world.
IV. The latter house resounded with a clearer and grander message than the former.—In the former the worshipper spelt out the message of reconciliation and restored communion with fallen man by the help of bleeding victims and emblematic feasts; in the latter, the Saviour Himself cried—‘If any man thirst, let him come unto Me and drink.’ And the apostles went thither and ‘preached all the words of this life.’ And to us of these latter times is the word of this salvation sent; and this is a message which makes the rudest barn more truly glorious than the first Temple in all its magnificence.
Illustration
‘There must have been something connected with the former Temple as compared with the latter Temple, constituting it a more fit representative of the Church of Christ. The cardinal distinction must have consisted in the more spiritual character which life, and faith, and worship assumed in the best times of Judaism after the Restoration, the Temple being of course understood to represent then, as of old, the theocratic community of which it was the centre. Rites and ceremonies retired more into the background; and prayer began to assume its true place in public worship. The religious knowledge of the people was kept up through the regular public reading and distribution of the Scriptures, which were early collected into their present canonical form. Synagogues were established, the people having learnt at Babylon that God’s Presence might be enjoyed in their assemblies in any place or circumstances. Thus there was kept alive throughout the nation a higher and purer type of religion than it had known in the days when the first Temple with its outward splendour and gorgeous ritual excited the admiration of the people, but too seldom led their thoughts to the contemplation of the truths it expressed and prefigured. These we regard as some of the characteristics of the second Temple, which on the one hand exalted it above its predecessor, and on the other assimilated it to the Church of Christ, of which it thus became the fit representative in the Divine promises. This was the true glory of the second Temple.’