1 Kings 6
This chapter describes some of the details of the Temple. It appears to be a well-built and quite ornate palace, a fit dwelling place for the Lord and an appropriate center for Israelite worship. It seems to be much like pagan house of worship with one major difference: there is no image of the Lord God there. The only carved images were of cherubs on the walls and the two on the top of the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark contained the tablets of the Law that Moses received from the Lord on Mount Sinai. The Ark represented the throne of God specifically, the footstool. It was a reminder of the covenant that God had made and which He has always remained faithful to. Though we human beings fall and break covenant with Him, He never fails to keep His word. He can enable us to do the same.
We know that the Lord forbids idolatry, the worship of false deities or of material things other than God. We know also that he forbade carved images to be made of Him. Thus they were absent from His Temple. God is spirit and cannot be contained in any one place, any statue, or even the Temple itself. The Temple may have been the place He chose to meet with His people, but in actual fact it did not house or really fully contain Him. It stood as a reminder of the Lord’s sovereign rule over His people, as well as of His grace and salvation dispensed by the atoning sacrifice of blood and ultimately the sacrifice of atonement all the animal offerings prefigured: the death of Jesus on the cross.
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