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- The Consecration-Services (1 Kings 8:1-21). - These commenced with the
transference of the Ark and of the other holy vessels from Mount Zion, and of the
ancient Mosaic Tabernacle from Gibeon. The latter and the various other relics of those
earlier services were, as we have suggested, placed in the chambers built around the
new Sanctuary. In accordance with the Divine direction, the whole of this part of the
service was performed by the Priests and Levites, attended by the king, "the elders of
Israel, the heads of the tribes, and the princes (of the houses) of the fathers of Israel,"
who, as representatives of the people, had been specially summoned for the purpose.
As this solemn procession entered the sacred courts, amidst a vast concourse of people,
numberless offerings were brought. Then the Ark was carried to its place in the
innermost Sanctuary.^125 As the priests reverently retired from it, and were about to
minister in the Holy Place,^126 - perhaps to burn incense on the Golden Altar - "the
cloud," as the visible symbol of God's Presence, came down, as formerly at the
consecration of the Tabernacle (Exodus 40:34, 35), and so filled the whole of the
Temple itself, that the priests, unable to bear "the glory," had to retire from their
ministry.
But even here also we mark the characteristic difference between the Old and the New
Dispensations, to which St. Paul calls attention in another connection (2 Corinthians
3:13-18). For whereas, under the preparatory dispensation God dwelt in a "cloud" and
in "thick darkness," we all now behold "the glory of God" in the Face of His
Anointed.^127
This was the real consecration of the Temple. And now the king, turning towards the
Most Holy Place, filled with the Sacred Presence, spake these words of dedication,
brief as became the solemnity, "Jehovah hath said, to dwell in darkness - Building, I
have built an house of habitation to Thee, and a settling-place for Thy dwelling ever!"
In this reference to what Jehovah had said, it would not be any single utterance which
presented itself to Solomon's mind. Rather would he think of them in their connection
and totality - as it were, a golden chain of precious promises welded one to the other,
of which the last link seemed riveted to the solemnity then enacting. Such sayings as
Exodus 19:9; 20:21; Leviticus 16:2; Deuteronomy 4:11; 5:22 would crowd upon his
memory, and seem fully realized as he beheld the Cloudy Presence in the Holy House.
Thus it is often not one particular promise or prophecy which is referred to when we
read in Holy Scripture these words, "That it might be fulfilled," but rather a whole
series which culminate in some one great fact (as, for example, in Matthew 2:15, 23).
Nor should we forget that, when the king spoke of the Temple as God's dwelling for
ever, the symbolical character alike of the manifestation of His Presence and of its
place could not have been absent from his mind. But the symbolical necessarily implies
the temporary, being of the nature of an accommodation to circumstances, persons, and
times. What was for ever was not the form, but the substance - not the manner nor the
place, but the fact of God's Presence in the midst of His people. And what is real and
(^)