2 Chronicles 3:6

And he garnished the house with precious stones for beauty.

Cost and beauty in Christian worship

The author of the history of the Jewish Church uses these words concerning the temple of Solomon: “As in the Grecian tragedies we see always in the background the gate of Mycenae, so in the story of the people of Israel we have always in view the temple of Solomon. There is hardly any Jewish reign that is not in some way connected with its construction or its changes. In front of the great Church of the Escuriel in Spain--in the eyes of Spaniards itself a likeness of the temple--overlooking the court called by them the Court of the Kings are six colossal statues of the kings of Judah who bore the chief part in the temple of Jerusalem--David, the proposer; Solomon, the founder; Jehoshaphat, Hezekiah, Josiah, Manasseh, the successive purifiers and restorers. The idea there so impressively graven in stone runs through all the subsequent history of the chosen people. Why was this temple built and what was the motive, especially of its enormous costliness and its unrivalled beauty? Solomon did not build and “garnish the house with precious stones and with gold of the gold of Parvaim” because he was ambitious as a king and a conqueror to outshine his neighbours or to immortalise himself, but because he was bidden to do so. The temple was not an exhibition of wealth or cleverness, or superiority on the part of man, its builder; it was man’s education in cost and sacrifice and unsparing labour on the part of God, its designer. There is just one principle that runs through all the teaching of the two Testaments concerning what men do for their Maker, and that is that God does not want, and cannot otherwise than lightly esteem, that which costs us nothing, and that the value of any service or sacrifice which we render for His sake is that, whatever may be its intrinsic meanness or meagreness, it is as from us our very best. This will let us see the insufficiency of the average explanations that are given of the motives that prompt to the enriching and beautifying of our sanctuaries to-day, such as--

1. Such things are necessitated by the inevitable rivalries of the day. It would be said that this is a time, especially in England and on the continent of Europe, of restorations. And what one Church has done, another cannot afford to be behind in doing also. The spirit of the age is the spirit of competition, and competition which is the life of trade is the life of religion too. If this is a very pitiful motive to be alleged for any such work, it is not an altogether surprising one. That competitive temper has so much to do with explaining our personal and social expenditures that it is not unnatural to seek in it the clue to expenditures that are sacred. Think for a moment how much money is spent for dress, for the furnishing and decoration of houses. Now, then, what is it that is sad about all this? its cost? No, but what is too often and too plainly its motive. If our banquets were always the symbols of our eagerness to please, of our desire to give of our best to those whom we love and honour, then their cost and splendour would only so much the more ennoble them. But it is because, too often, our dress, our houses, our entertainments, our equipages, are only so many means by which we strive to outshine and eclipse our neighbour that such expenditure becomes so largely not only the wasteful, but the truly contemptible thing that it is. And yet it is no wonder that so long as we allow such motives to influence us in things secular, we should infer or impute them concerning things that are sacred.

2. When changes are made in our social customs, in our habits of expenditure, and even in our modes of worship, we are often told that they are necessitated because we must “keep up with the times,” and those who are wedded by very sacred associations to things ancient, are often wounded in their tenderest feelings by being told that they must give up the old in order not to be behind the age. Well, the spirit of the nineteenth century, whatever else may be said of it, is not an infallible spirit, and in many respects it would be better if some of us were behind the age rather than so eagerly and unthinkingly in accord with it. But however this may be, the “spirit of the age” can never be the guide for the principles of worship or the law of sacrifice. Such cost and beauty is helpful to the instinct of worship and devotion. This motive is a perfectly valid and intelligible one. But the one sufficient motive for cost, and beauty, and even lavish outlay in the building and adornment of the house of God, is the consecrating to Him the best and costliest that human hands can bring. This is the very essence of the Cross of Christ. The power of the Cross over men lies in this, that it is the gift to men, by God, of His very best--“His well-beloved Son.” (Bp. H. C. Potter.).