Solomon typifies the resurrected Christ, including Christ in His ascension and coming back. Just as Solomon completed the building, Christ is building His church in resurrection until His coming back.
The name Solomon means “peaceful.” As the king of peace who built the house of God in peace, Solomon typifies the resurrected Christ, who is building a dwelling place for God in the peace of His resurrection. On the cross Christ abolished in His flesh the law of the commandments in ordinances and made peace, and now in the peace of His resurrection He is building the Body of Christ (cf. Eph. 2:15-22).
Solomon typifies Christ, and Solomon’s building of the temple typifies Christ’s building of the church. The building of the holy temple was for God to have a dwelling place on the earth; likewise, this is the purpose of the building of the church (vv. 21-22). Whereas Solomon and the temple he built played the strongest roles and occupied a wide span in the history of Israel, Christ and the church as the unique building of God in the universe are the centrality, universality, and goal of God’s eternal economy.
The holy temple typifies Christ and the church because the church and Christ are one—Christ is the Head and the church is the Body. The Body is the enlargement of the Head to be the dwelling place of God.
The temple replaced the tabernacle as the dwelling place of God on the earth. They both signify the incarnated Christ as God’s dwelling place on the earth and the church (John 2:19-21; 1:14; Matt. 12:6), including all the believers, the members of Christ, to be the enlargement of Christ as God’s dwelling place on the earth (1 Cor. 3:16; 6:19; Eph. 2:21-22).
John 1:14 says, “The Word became flesh and tabernacled among us.” This indicates that Christ became flesh not only to bring God into man but also to be the tabernacle as God’s dwelling place on the earth among men. In John 2:19 the Lord Jesus told the Jews, “Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up.” Here Jesus spoke of the temple of His body (v. 21). These two verses clearly show that the incarnated Christ was both the tabernacle of God and the temple of God.
The Jews destroyed, that is, crucified on the cross, the body of Christ, which was the temple of God, but Christ raised it up in three days. Three days signifies resurrection, indicating that Christ builds up His body in resurrection to be God’s dwelling place for God to dwell in.