I take, therefore, the cedar in this place to be a note of perfection, even the cedar with which this house was ceiled. For since it is the wisdom of God to speak to us ofttimes by trees, gold, silver, stones, beasts, fowls, fishes, spiders, ants, frogs, flies, lice, dust, &c., and here by wood; how should we by them understand his voice, if we count there is no meaning in them? 'And the cedar of the house within was carved with knops and open flowers; all was cedar; there was no stone seen' (1 Kings 6:18).
Knops and flowers were they with which the golden candlestick was adorned, as you read, Exodus 25:33, 35, 37:10, 21. The candlestick was a type of the church, and the knops and flowers a type of her ornaments. But what! must heaven be hanged round about with the ornaments of saints! with the fruits of their graces! Well, it is certain that something more than ordinary must be done with them, since they are admitted to follow them into the holy place (Rev 14:13); and since, it is said, they shall have a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory bestowed on them, for them in the heavens' (2 Cor 4:16,17).
'All was cedar; there was no stone seen.' Take stone in the type for that which was really so, and in the antitype for that which is so mystically, and then it may import to us, that in heaven, the antitype of this holiest, there shall never be anything of hardness of heart in them that possess it for ever. All imperfection ariseth from the badness of the heart, but there will be no bad hearts in glory. No shortness in knowledge, no crossness of disposition, no workings of lusts, or corruptions will be there; no, not throughout the whole heavens. Here, alas! they are seen, and that in the best of saints, because here our light is mixed with darkness; but there will be no night there, nor any stone seen.
'And the floor of the house was overlaid with gold' (1 Kings 6:30). This is like that of which we read of the New Jerusalem that is to come from God out of heaven; says the text, 'The street of the city was pure gold'; and like that of which you read in Exodus, 'They saw the God of Israel, and under his feet as it were a paved work of a sapphire stone, and as it were the body of heaven in his clearness' (Rev 21:21; Exo 24:10). All the visions were rich, but this the richest, that the floor of the house should be covered or overlaid with gold. The floor and street are walking-places, and how rich will our steps be then! Alas! here we sometimes fall into the mire, and then again stumble upon blocks and stones. Here we sometimes fall into holes, and have our heel oft catched in a snare; but there will be none of these. Gold! gold! all will be gold, and golden perfections, when we come into the holy place! Job at best took but his steps in butter, but we then shall take all our steps in the gold of the sanctuary.
LXI. Of the ark of the covenant which was placed in the inner
Temple.
In the Word I read of three arks; to wit, Noah's ark, that in which Moses was hid, and the ark of the covenant of God (Gen 6:14; Exo 2:3,5). But it is the ark of the covenant of which I shall now speak. The ark was made 'of shittim-wood, two cubits and a half was the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof.' It was overlaid 'with pure gold within and without,' and 'a crown of gold' was made for it 'round about' (Exo 25:10,11).
1. This ark was called 'the ark of the covenant,' as the first that you read of was called 'Noah's,' because as he in that was kept from being drowned, so the tables of the covenant were kept in this from breaking.
2. This ark, in this, was a type of Christ; for that in him only, and not in the hand of Moses, these tables were kept whole. Moses brake them, the ark keeps them.
3. Not only that wrote on two tables of stone, but that also called 'the ceremonial,' was put into the ark to be kept. The two tables were put into the midst of the ark, to answer to this—thy law is within my heart to do it. But the ceremonial was put into the side of the ark, to show that out of the side of Christ must come that which must answer that, for out thence came blood and water; blood, to answer the blood of the ceremonies; and water, to answer the purifyings and rinsings of that law. The ceremonies, therefore, were lodged in the side of the ark, to show that they should be answered out of the side of Jesus Christ (Exo 25:16,17; Deut 10:5; Psa 40:8; John 19:34; Heb 10:7).
4. The ark had the name of God put upon it; yea, it was called the strength of God, and his glory, though made of wood. And Christ is God both in name and nature, though made flesh; yea more, made to be sin for us (2 Sam 6:2; 1 Chron 13:6; 2 Chron 6:1; John 1:14; Rom 9:5; 2 Cor 5:21).