Tonight we are looking at the building of the temple. Last time we saw that Solomon understood very well that God does not dwell in buildings.
Michael Wilcock comments on this passage that “Solomon would have his people approach God ‘in spirit and in truth'. They are to see the temple as a matter of convenience, ‘a place to burn incense'; man needs such a prop, because deprived of a place and form of worship he is in the nature of things only too likely not to worship at all.” (Wilcock, 129). Worship in spirit and in truth does not mean worship without form and place.
And the temple provides a place of worship that focuses on the problem of sin. The first thing you see when you walk into the temple is the bronze altar.
Without the shedding of blood, there is no remission of sins. The temple ritual would remind you day after day, year after year, of the necessity of the shedding of blood for sin.
Is there a danger that ritual can get monotonous? Sure. But there is a far greater danger!
Charles Williams once noted that “The Church…provides for a monotony of pardon. It used to be blamed for compelling its members ritually to declare themselves ‘miserable sinners' day by day, but it knew very well that if they did not do it ritually they would not do it at all.” (quoted in Wilcock, 129)
As we confess our sins every Sunday, we are forced to see ourselves the way God sees us. And the result should be that we confess our sins to God and one another more and more every day...
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