When the people of Israel began their journey through the desert after having been delivered from the bondage of slavery in Egypt, God gave Moses instructions for the building of a tabernacle where the people were to come before God to worship, and where the priests were to perform their priestly functions of sacrifice and offerings. But when the people were settled in the Promised Land, God commanded that a permanent temple be built for worship. And to King David’s son Solomon, God gave the privileged task of building this temple.
It was to be an elaborate and beautiful structure where no expense was spared with gold, silver, bronze, iron, cedar wood, marble and precious stones used in abundance. Solomon also commanded that no tools be used at the temple site to fashion the stones from the quarry. Stone cutters and artisans had to precisely cut and fashion the stones so that they fit exactly with one another when they were delivered to the work site. This was a remarkable achievement!
We know however that this temple in all its beauty and grandeur was never meant to be a permanent structure. Years later, the Babylonian army under King Nebuchadnezzar destroyed it along with the city of Jerusalem itself. It would be rebuilt when the people were allowed to return to the land after their captivity and exile in Babylon, but it would never be what it once was during the days of Solomon. Even Herod’s renovated version of it would be utterly demolished by the Roman armies in 70 AD. At best, it was only a shadow and a type of a greater temple to come.
The temple to come would not be made of stone and precious metals, but people! In writing to God’s people, the Apostle Peter wrote, “You also, as living stones, are being built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ” (1 Peter 2:5). True believers, individually (“Do you not know that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit who is in you” 1 Corinthians 6:19), and corporately are the temple of God Himself! This dwelling of God with His people is the ultimate reality of what the tabernacle and Solomon’s temple could only model.
Now, the fashioning of the stones at the quarry site in Solomon’s day gives us a picture of deeper meaning. Is not this cutting and fashioning what God is doing with His people in this life for preparation for the life to come? God, as Spurgeon described it, cuts us from the quarry of this world with saw of the law, bringing us under conviction for our lawbreaking so that we humbly seek an antidote for our lost and fallen condition. He then fashions and burnishes us with the gospel as He points us to Jesus Christ as the One who did what we didn’t do by perfectly obeying God, and who also undid what we did do in our rebellion by paying the debt for our sin.
But there’s more! The Holy Spirit then begins the great work of renovation through our sanctification. When we are “cut” from the quarry of this world, we are given new hearts with new desires and affections for God. As we come under the divine influence of the Word preached and taught, our minds are transformed so that we are no longer conformed to this world (Romans 12:2). The Holy Spirit helps us in our prayer life such that we commune and fellowship with God (Romans 8:26). And God providentially orders our lives such that whatever happens, it’s with a loving goal of driving us from sin so that we pursue a life of holiness.
In this way we can be assured indeed that, “All things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose,” and that purpose for us is “to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren” (Romans 8:28, 29). Now all that happens to us in this life is well worth it! What a calling, to be living stones, perfectly fit on that Day to be part of a great living temple where God dwells with His people forever! “Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He will dwell with them, and they shall be His people. God Himself will be with them and be their God” (Revelation 21:3).