James Nisbet's Church Pulpit Commentary
1 Kings 8:27
GOD’S DWELLING PLACE
‘Behold, the heaven and heaven of heavens cannot contain Thee; how much less this house that I have builded?’
I. Every one will recall the scene of Solomon, the master-mind stored with all the learning of the day, dedicating the Temple to God.—He was speaking to a nation naturally given to idolatry and to the localisation of worship, to a nation exclusive in their religion and almost incurable in their low, semi-materialistic ideas of God, speaking, too, at the moment of dedicating their most magnificent Temple to their national God; and yet he rises far above—nay, he cuts clean across—all their national prejudices, and in these sublime words reveals that God is infinite, not to be comprehended in temple or shrine. It was a stage in the revelation of God given to the world through Solomon, the great student of His works, a further revelation of the immensity, the inconceivability, of God. And yet Solomon dedicated the Temple to become the centre of the passionate religious fervour of the nation, to be deemed for a thousand years the most sacred spot in all the earth. How shall we regard this? Was it in Solomon a hypocritical condescension to popular superstition, and in the people an unconscious or forced inconsistency, or was it not rather in both a flash of anticipation of the great truth that every form of worship is inadequate and even misleading until we see its inadequacy?
II. We also have to learn this lesson, that all opinions about God, all systems of theology, are provisional, temporary, educational, like the Temple.—They are not the essence of truth. It is the deepest conviction, not of philosophers only, but of the pious congregations of our land also, that the harmony, and co-operation, and brotherhood of Christians is the will of God concerning us, and that it is not to be sought for in unity of opinion, and can never be obtained as long as opinion is held to be of primary importance in religion. It is to be sought for in some far deeper unity of faith in Christ and service to Him. In the ideal Christianity which Christ taught opinion is nothing, and purity of life, charity, and the love of God are everything. Let us, each in our own little circles, try to assist in this glorious transformation of Christianity by the steady subordination of opinion to the practical service of Jesus Christ.
—Canon J. M. Wilson.
Illustrations
(1) ‘We have here a striking description of the immensity and omnipresence of God. We have frequent expressions in Scripture of God being “in heaven”; the meaning of which is, not that He Who is in all places can be confined to any, or that any proper habitation can be ascribed to Him, Whom, as Solomon declares, the “heaven of heavens cannot contain”; but they are intended to represent His amazing height and dignity, not in place, but in power. Another reason of the expression of God’s being “in heaven,” is to signify that, though of His real, actual presence there is no confinement, yet of His glory and majesty there is in the heavens a particular manifestation. There it is that His glory is declared, and there the righteous shall see His face, and be blessed with the peculiar manifestation of His power and majesty. In like manner here upon earth; in those places where He has been pleased more particularly to manifest His glory, to place His name, and to receive the homage of His servants, there God, in Scripture phrase, is said to be. Thus in the Temple at Jerusalem, He, Whom the “heaven of heavens cannot contain,” did at this time deign to dwell, having appointed there to receive His tribute of worship.’
(2) ‘ Heaven of heavens is a Hebrew superlative, like holy of holies, servant of servants, king of kings, song of songs, and denotes the highest heavens, the supreme place of the Divine abode (cf. 2 Corinthians 12:2). The immensity of God’s being is such, that He cannot be limited to any locality however vast or glorious (cf. Isaiah 66:1). In building a house for God, therefore, Solomon had no gross or materialistic conception of the Most High. He was fully aware of Jehovah’s infinity, spirituality, and omnipresence; but he hoped and prayed that there might be a special manifestation of God’s presence in this house to His worshipping people.’
(3) ‘Solomon was not afraid to pray because some one might see or hear him do so. He would not have gone to prayer-meeting every week for thirty years without ever opening his lips.
Solomon prayed with his voice, his hands, and his heart—with all of himself. So does every wise man who prays wisely.
Solomon prayed because he had something to pray for, and not because it is customary to have two prayers before the sermon and one after, or because there were yet fifteen minutes before the time to close the meeting, and that quarter of an hour must be occupied somehow.
Solomon did not address the Lord as an equal; neither did he patronise the providence of God. He could be the richest man in the Church and still be a Christian.
Solomon did not hesitate, however, to assume that he had a claim upon the Lord. Every believer has such a claim—else what would be the signficance of the Divine promises?’