Read Time: 7 minutes1 Chronicles 28
David gathers all Israel and rehearses the whole matter of the house: he had it in his heart to build, but was told thou shalt not build an house for my name, because thou hast been a man of war, and hast shed blood. The choosing then runs down through the generations — Judah of the tribes, David’s father’s house of Judah, David of his father’s sons, and Solomon of David’s sons — until it lands where it always lands: I have chosen him to be my son, and I will be his father. The covenant Son of the whole month is named again, and the house is his to build.
The charge to Solomon is fastened to a condition: if thou seek him, he will be found of thee; but if thou forsake him, he will cast thee off for ever. The election is real and the promise is sure, but the standing is kept by seeking, not presumed. The same conditional thread runs through the New Testament’s warnings to the called — chosen, yet charged to hold fast to the end; secure in the covenant, yet never licensed to forsake it. The son who is owned must still serve with a perfect heart and with a willing mind.
Then David hands over the pattern — the tabnith of porch, houses, treasuries, courts, and the chariot of the cherubim — and names its source: All this, said David, Yahweh made me understand in writing by his hand upon me, even all the works of this pattern. The temple is not David’s architecture but a revealed design, given by the Spirit as the tabernacle pattern was given to Moses in the mount. The earthly house is the copy of a heavenly original; Hebrews will read the whole structure as the example and shadow of heavenly things.
And the pattern goes down to the weight of the spoons. David hands over the weight of gold for all instruments of gold, silver by weight for every vessel, gold by weight for the candlesticks and their lamps, even the weight for every bason — nothing sized by the builder’s eye. A design that specifies the grams of a snuffdish is a design its recipient is meant to execute, not improve.
The charge closes on courage and presence. Be strong and of good courage, and do it: fear not, nor be dismayed: for Yahweh God, even my God, will be with thee… until thou hast finished all the work. The God who gives the pattern gives the strength to build it and stays until it is done. The work is His before it is the builder’s — revealed by His Spirit, completed by His presence, and the builder’s part is only to be strong and not to leave off.
The house is a Spirit-given pattern, the work of the chosen Son — the election sure yet kept by seeking, the strength and the finishing both from the One who gave the design.
Ezekiel 37
The prophet is set down in a valley full of bones… and, lo, they were very dry, and asked the question only Yahweh can answer: can these bones live? At the word of prophecy the bones come together, bone to his bone, sinew and flesh and skin — but there is no life until the breath comes. Come from the four winds, O breath, and breathe upon these slain… and the breath came into them, and they lived. The breath that filled Adam’s nostrils — neshamah in Eden, ruach here — breathes again over the slain, and a dead nation stands up an exceeding great army. Life is the gift of the Spirit, not of the reassembled body.
Notice what the prophet is and is not shown. In the valley he sees no graves — only bones scattered on an open field, the bones of a people long since fallen where they stood. The opening of the graves comes in the interpretation, not the vision, and there it is the raising of a nation politically dead and buried among the Gentiles. The vision and its explanation are two registers of one power: the God who can stand a field of dry bones on its feet is the God who can bring a buried nation out of the ground, and neither figure empties the other.
The vision is interpreted as the raising of a buried people: these bones are the whole house of Israel… behold, I will open your graves… and bring you into the land of Israel… and shall put my spirit in you, and ye shall live. It is the revival of a scattered nation, and it is also, in plain terms, the opening of graves — the canon’s confidence that the God who can stand a valley of bones on its feet can raise the dead at the last day. The hope of the saint is exactly this breath over the dust.
The two sticks follow — Judah and Joseph joined in the prophet’s hand into one — and the divided kingdom is healed: I will make them one nation in the land… and one king shall be king to them all. The reunion has a single centre: David my servant shall be king over them; and they all shall have one shepherd. This is the antitypical David of Ezekiel 34 again, the one Shepherd-King over a flock no longer torn in two — the natural reunion of Israel foreshadowing the gathering of all the redeemed into one body under one Head.
The chapter ends on the goal that the whole month has been climbing toward. I will make a covenant of peace with them; it shall be an everlasting covenant… and I will set my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore. My tabernacle also shall be with them: yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. The sanctuary in the midst, God dwelling with men for ever — the temple of stone was always pointing here, to a presence that never departs.
A valley of dry bones stood up by the breath, the two kingdoms joined under one Shepherd-King, and the sanctuary set in their midst for ever — resurrection and reunion and indwelling, all by the Spirit.
John 2–3
The first sign is water made wine at the Cana wedding. John counts his miracles, and he counts this one himself — this beginning of miracles did Jesus in Cana of Galilee — opening a numbered series of seven that will close at a grave in Bethany. He does not report wonders as they come; he selects and numbers them, and the count is part of the argument. Here at the head of it he manifested forth his glory by turning the water of purification into the wine of the feast. The marriage setting is not incidental — the canon’s wedding song runs under it — and the lesson is transformation: the old water of ceremony becomes the new wine of the kingdom, the best kept until last. Then he cleanses the temple, and when challenged for a sign gives the one that gathers the whole arc: Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up. John adds the key — he spake of the temple of his body.
That word turns the month’s stone temple into flesh. The house on Moriah, the glory-filled sanctuary, the tabnith given by the Spirit — all of it was pointing to a body that is the true temple, torn down in death and raised in three days. The dry-bones breath of Ezekiel and the raised temple of John are the same hope: the Spirit that stands a valley of bones on its feet is the Spirit that raises the body of the Lord.
The failure that opens the sign is diagnostic: they have no wine. Wine is blood and blood is life, and a wedding that has run dry is the nation exactly — the religion still standing, the six waterpots of purifying still in place at the door with the man-number stamped on the count, and no life in any of it. He does not conjure the wine out of the air. The servants fill the pots to the brim with water and draw out and carry, and only they and his mother know where it came from. The water of the word poured into the vessels of the flesh comes out as the wine of the kingdom, and the men who did the carrying are the ones who saw it happen. It is the first miracle Israel has seen in four centuries, and it is worked at a wedding on the third day.
Nicodemus comes by night with a sentence that says more than he knows — no man can do these miracles that thou doest, except God be with him — the name Isaiah gave the child, Immanuel, El with us, laid on the man by a ruler who has not yet worked out what he is saying. He is told he must be born again — born of water and of the Spirit — or he cannot see the kingdom. The new heart and clean water and indwelling Spirit promised through the prophets are now the gate of entry: that which is born of the flesh is flesh; and that which is born of the Spirit is spirit. The same breath that raises the dead begets the living; resurrection and new birth are one work of one Spirit.
The chapter reaches back to the wilderness for its picture of the offering: as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, even so must the Son of man be lifted up. The bronze serpent on the pole was sin-in-the-flesh held up condemned, and those who looked lived. So the Son of man is lifted up bearing the very nature that needed condemning, the serpent-flesh nailed up in his own death, that whosoever believes might live — not a substitute punished in our place, but our own condemned nature borne and overcome by the one who shared it. The Baptist’s last word fits the whole: he must increase, but I must decrease.
The stone temple becomes the temple of his body, raised in three days; the dead are raised and the living are born again by one Spirit; and the serpent-flesh is lifted up and overcome in the Son of man.
Synthesis and Exhortation
The day is the work of the Spirit on the house — building it, raising it, breathing life into it. In 1 Chronicles 28 the temple comes as a pattern given by the Spirit and built by the chosen Son. In Ezekiel 37 a valley of dry bones stands up when the breath enters, the two kingdoms are joined under one Shepherd-King, and the sanctuary is set in Israel’s midst for ever. In John the house turns to flesh — the temple of his body, torn down and raised in three days — and the entry into the kingdom is to be born of water and of the Spirit. The pattern, the bones, the body, the new-born saint: one Spirit at work in all of them.
The thread is resurrection that is also new creation. The breath that raises the slain in the valley is the breath that begets Nicodemus from above; the Spirit that raises the Lord’s body is the Spirit that builds the living temple. The goal stated in Ezekiel — my sanctuary in the midst of them for evermore… I will be their God, and they shall be my people — is the same goal John names when the Word dwelt among us: God with men, the presence that does not depart. The stone house was always a shadow of a Spirit-built, Spirit-raised, Spirit-indwelt people.
So the exhortation is to be born of that Spirit and raised by it. The flesh, like the dry bones, can be reassembled into the shape of religion and still have no life; what stands the saint on his feet is the breath of Yahweh, the new birth from above. Look to the Son of man lifted up, bearing and overcoming the serpent-flesh; be born of water and the Spirit; and become a living stone in the sanctuary set in the midst for ever. The work is His before it is ours — revealed by His Spirit, raised by His Spirit, finished by His presence — and the builder’s part is to be strong, seek Him, and not leave off.
Be born of the breath that raises the dry bones, and look to the Son of man lifted up. The temple Yahweh is building is a body raised and a people re-begotten — and His sanctuary will be in their midst for evermore.