Now let us look at the story of the temple. The light of the truths in the Scriptures always shines brighter and brighter as one proceeds through the Scriptures. It is the same with the matter of building. Beginning with Abraham’s life of pitching tents and building altars, the Bible reveals that God’s desire is for His people to build a place on the earth for them to worship Him. However, Abraham’s tents and altars were only a miniature of the building of God’s dwelling place. They were like a small seed that had been sown into the ground and had not yet sprouted or budded. Later, Abraham’s descendants multiplied, increased, and became the assembly of Israel. After they left Egypt and came to Mount Sinai, God revealed to them the pattern on the mountain through Moses. He wanted them to build a tabernacle and a bronze altar as well. This tabernacle and altar were much more concrete than the tents and altars that Abraham had built. Then when Solomon built the temple, the temple that he built was not only more concrete but also larger than the tabernacle raised up at the foot of Mount Sinai.
The tabernacle was ten cubits wide and thirty cubits long, and the temple was twenty cubits wide and sixty cubits long. Thus, the horizontal dimensions of the tabernacle were doubled in the temple. Furthermore, the tabernacle was ten cubits high, and the temple was thirty cubits high—three times higher than the tabernacle. Therefore, the temple was much larger than the tabernacle. Not only so, the temple was also more firmly fixed than the tabernacle. The tabernacle was movable. It was raised up by connecting the boards together, and it could be dismantled and moved at any time. Furthermore, when you looked upward from within the four sides of the tabernacle, what you saw was beautiful, but downward it was not good to look at. When you looked upward from within the tabernacle, everything that you saw was golden and very beautiful. However, if you looked down at the ground, what you saw was dirt because there was no flooring in the tabernacle. With the temple, however, the situation was different. The temple had huge precious stones as its foundation, so it was very stable, and its floor was made of cypress wood overlaid with gold, so it was also very firm.
This implies that as time goes on, the church will become larger and more stable. This has been the principle throughout the generations of church history. If we look back at the past thirty or forty years, we will see that the way that God took among us was also like this. Thirty years ago, our knowledge of the church somewhat had the flavor of Abraham’s life of pitching tents and building altars. Gradually, the light concerning the church strengthened among us, and our situation became like the situation when the Israelites came to the foot of Mount Sinai and built the tabernacle. In the last three or five years, I deeply feel that among us there has been a little taste of a situation similar to the one when Solomon built the temple.
We need to mention another point concerning the temple. Just as the Ark and the major parts inside the tabernacle were made of wood overlaid with gold, so it was with the interior of the temple. Wood overlaid with gold signifies the two natures—the human nature and the divine nature. I love these two phrases—oil poured upon the stone and wood overlaid with gold. The phrase oil poured upon the stone is the story of Bethel, and the phrase wood overlaid with gold is the story of the tabernacle and the temple. Both phrases speak of God coming to man to be mingled and joined with man as one. God’s coming to the church, on the one hand, is a story of the oil being poured upon the stone. The Holy Spirit’s descending on Peter and the rest of the believers on the day of Pentecost was truly a matter of the oil being poured upon the stone, resulting in the manifestation of Bethel, the house of God. On the other hand, God’s coming to the church is also a story of wood being overlaid with gold. Peter and his companions were like pieces of strong acacia wood, and when the Spirit of God came upon them, they became like wood overlaid with gold. Humanly speaking, they were still acacia wood, but what was expressed through them was glowing gold. They were full of the element of God.