Reading: 1 Kings 4:1,7,20-34;
10:1-9; Matthew 12:42.
Some of the passages which have
provided the background for our meditations have referred very
definitely and precisely to the excellence and exceeding
greatness of the Lord Jesus. One basic passage of tremendous
implication is that which came from His own lips: "...no one
knoweth the Son, save the Father..." That is a declaration,
in other words, that only the Father knows the Son, knows who the
Son is and what the Son is; only the Father knows all that the
Son means. Along with that we have the profound statement of the
Apostle Paul: "...it was the good pleasure of God... to
reveal his Son in me..." That relates to the beginning of
his life in Christ Jesus, and it was a revelation which was
destined to become so full that after all his years of learning,
after all his discovery of Christ, at the end he is still to be
found crying from his heart, "...I count all things to be
loss for the excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord:
for whom I suffered the loss of all things, and do count them but
refuse, that I may gain Christ..." (Philip. 3:8). It
indicates clearly that even at the end the Apostle recognised
that there was a knowledge of Christ still available to him which
was beyond anything that had yet come to him, and such knowledge
was more precious and more important than all other things. We
often sing in one of our hymns, "Tell of His excellent
greatness;" - "Behold, a greater than Solomon is
here."
Our difficulty always will be
to comprehend, to grasp, to bring that excellent greatness, that
transcendent fulness within the compass of practical every-day
life and experience. Yet it is necessary that this should be, and
our approach to that fulness must be of such a kind as to render
it of immediate value to us; for all that vast range of power and
fulness, although so far beyond our comprehension, is yet for our
present good and advantage. There are some features in this
account of Solomon's greatness which foreshadow this greatness of
the Lord Jesus, a greatness which, as we have said, is for our
present benefit.
(1) Supreme
Dominion
We mark that it is said of
Solomon that he was king over all Israel and that he had dominion
over all the region beyond the river; and a greater than Solomon
is here. The first feature, then, is this of his supreme
dominion, his excelling lordship, kingship, sovereignty. That is
of tremendous practical value. It operated, as we see, in two
realms; He was king over all Israel, and he had dominion over all
the region beyond the river.
Those statements suggest that
the Lord Jesus is not only King within the compass of those who
acknowledge Him as Lord, His own saved ones, but that, in spite
of what may seem, He is King in a far wider sense. We are moving
much in the realm of Ephesians in our consideration, and in
Ephesians it is the universal sovereignty of the Lord Jesus that
is brought before us, not only His relation to the Church. He is
Head over the Church which is His Body, He is Lord there, but He
is, in addition, far above all rule and authority, principality
and power. He is now universal Lord. It does not appear
like it; everything would seem to contradict the fact; but we
need to be given sight to see that the kingship, the lordship,
the universal dominion of the Lord Jesus at this present time
does not necessarily mean that all are enjoying that lordship,
nor that for all within the universe is it a beneficent reign.
But even if that be the case, it does not alter the fact. There
are other things which also point to the fact in a very positive
way.
Of course, our trouble is that
we take such short views. We are children of a span of time, and
that span of time is of such great importance with us that our
view of things is so narrow. If we could but take the long view,
and see things from God's standpoint, how different would be the
result in our own hearts. In saying that, we have in mind the
wide-spread denial of the kingship, the lordship, the sovereignty
of the Lord Jesus Christ. This period of the world's history is
called the day of His rejection, and there is a verse of a hymn
that commences thus:-
"Our Lord is now
rejected,
And by the world disowned".
But it is not so easy a matter
to put the Lord Jesus aside. Men may reject, nations may reject,
may seek to put Him out, deny Him a place, repudiate His rights,
refuse to acknowledge His claims and His lordship, but that does
not get rid of Him. God has set His king upon His throne. Of the
Son He has said, "Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever..."
(Heb. 1:8). Nothing can upset that. The attitude of men, the
attitude of the world, cannot interfere with that, cannot depose
the Lord Jesus. It may be said: That is a statement, but how will
you prove it? Well, there are evidences. We have evidence that He
is Lord, that He is holding things in His own sovereign hand,
that nothing can take His place.
The Witness
of History
Look at history and see what
has tried to take the place of the Lord Jesus in sovereignty;
tried to do what only the Lord Jesus could do; tried to bring
about a state of things, to accomplish which is put into the
power of the Son alone, and see how far those efforts have
succeeded. Anything which seeks to bring about a state of things
which the Lord Jesus alone can establish is doomed. You can see
it repeated through history again and again. World dominion has
been sought by one and another. Things which were ideals,
magnificent conceptions for the world, have been attempted, and
they have all failed, all broken down. Kingdoms and empires,
despots, dictators, monarchs, have risen to a tremendous height,
some of them having great sway, but the empire has broken and
passed, the reign has broken down. So you have these things
coming and going all the way through history; and, mark you, the
whole matter is related to the Lord Jesus.
Read the book of Daniel again,
and you will perceive the realm in which we are moving. There you
have the prophetic unveiling of world empires; Babylonia, the
empire of the Medes and Persians, then that of the Greeks, and
on to the great Roman empire; they all pass in review, and pass
away. The lesson of the book of Daniel is this, that there is but
One whom God has appointed to be universal Lord,
and that no one else can hold that place. Others may go a long
way, but they can never gain that place, and so they must pass.
We may yet see great powers coming into being, vast ranges of
territory under one sway, but all this will pass. The matter is
held in the hands of the Lord Jesus. All this endeavour is doomed
from its birth to go so far, and then pass out. The Lord Jesus
alone can have world dominion. He alone can bring universal
peace. He alone can bring prosperity to all nations. That is held
in reserve for Him and His reign. Till then there will be
fluctuations and variations in world fortunes, but it will all
pass.
This passing, this breakdown,
this confusion, this dead-lock is all because the course of
things is in His hands, and He is holding it all unto Himself. He
is King! He is Lord! It is a tremendous thing to recognise that
the very course of the nations, the very history of this world,
is held in the hands of the Lord Jesus unto His own destined end.
God has for ever set His Son as the only one to be full,
complete, and final Lord of His universe, King of kings and Lord
of lords, with a beneficent sway and reign over all the earth.
Peace and prosperity is locked up with the Lord Jesus, and He
holds the destiny of nations unto that. Men may attempt it of
themselves, and they may go a long way to usurp His place, but
the end is foreseen, foreshown. He must come whose right it is,
and of His kingdom there shall be no end. It has
commenced in heaven; it is already vested in Him and held in His
hands. That is how we must read history. That is how we must read
our daily papers. That is how we shall be saved from the evil
depression and despair that would creep into our hearts as we
mark the state of things in this world. All is being held by Him
to a certain end. The meaning is that nothing can take the
place of the Lord Jesus.
You can apply that in various
ways, and in different directions. It explains the history of the
so-called church, the history of Christendom. Why is it that what
professes to be of Christ, but in reality is not, breaks down,
continually breaks down all the way through history? Simply
because it is something assuming the place of Christ, which is
not of Christ. Failure is written upon it from the beginning.
Everything that is not of Christ is going to break down; and it
does break down. Though a thing may begin with Christ and
evidence a measure of Christ, immediately it moves beyond the
range of Christ and becomes of man, its end is in view.
That is the explanation of
things which God has raised up in relation to His Son, things
which were pure and true, but of which, because of the blessing
resting upon them, men have taken hold. Whenever this has been
done the end of these things has come into view, that is, as a
spiritual force. Why is this? It has gone beyond Christ, it has
gone outside of Christ, and nothing can take the place of Christ.
Oh, how necessary it is to abide wholly in Christ, to be wholly
of Christ, according to Christ, governed by the Holy Spirit. He
operates His sovereignty against the success, the prosperity, the
final triumph of anything and everything that is not of Himself,
and if we want the sovereignty of the Lord Jesus on our side,
then we have to be utterly on the side of the Lord Jesus;
otherwise that sovereignty works against us. The world confusion,
and the world trouble, and the world despair, is all a mighty
evidence that Jesus is Lord, because it is a world that is trying
to get on without Him, but cannot do so. No! He says it cannot be
done. He says: I am essential! I am indispensable! If you would
have it otherwise, then you must learn that without Me it cannot
be!
We could spend all our time
considering Solomon's dominion and kingship. He was king over
Israel, and had dominion over all the land beyond the river. But
we must pass on to consider another feature in which Solomon
foreshadows the excellency of the Lord Jesus.
(2) The
Bounty of Solomon's Table
"And Solomon's provision
for one day was thirty measures of fine flour, and three score
measures of meal; ten fat oxen, and twenty oxen out of the
pastures, and a hundred sheep, beside harts, and gazelles, and
roebucks, and fatted fowl". That is a great day's feast for
Solomon! What does this speak of, if not of the bountifulness of
Solomon. This is no mean fare, no starvation diet! "A
greater than Solomon is here".
When by the Holy Spirit we
really come into the knowledge of the Lord Jesus, there is no
need to starve spiritually. Oh, the tragedy of starving
believers, with such a King! The tragedy, the unspeakable grief
of children of the Lord spiritually starving! The fact is there
is a fulness for His people which far excels that of Solomon.
Read the Gospel by John again
with this one thought in mind, and you will see how the truth
receives confirmation from the earthly life of the Lord Jesus.
Take chapter six, with its great incident of the feeding of the
multitude, all leading up to the spiritual interpretation:
"I am the bread..." His disciples broke down in faith
at one point, and He was amazed: "Do ye not yet perceive,
neither remember the five loaves of the five thousand, and how
many baskets ye took up? Neither the seven loaves of the four
thousand, and how many baskets ye took up?" (Matt. 16:9-10).
He was amazed at their failure to understand that in Him was not
only enough, but abundance. There is something wrong with us if
we have not discovered it to be so. The fulness of Christ is for
our spiritual satisfaction. There is abundance of food.
Again, consider not only the
pathetic tragedy, but the wicked tragedy of starvation. What is
it that is keeping the Lord's people out of fulness? Very largely
it is prejudice, the Devil's trick of putting up the barrier of
prejudice between the need and the supply. Oh, the wickedness of
the Devil in coming in by these works of blinding to starve the
Lord's people. There is bread in Christ. He is an inexhaustible
fulness for the spiritual life. We know that we shall come to the
same position as Paul, when he cried, "...that I may know
him..."; that is, to a consciousness of there being a
knowledge beyond anything that we have yet attained unto, and
where everything is counted as nothing compared with that. This
is not mere words, it is true. There is bread in the Lord Jesus;
there is bread in His house. This is where He is superior to
Solomon. There is bread for a mighty host, a company capable of
doing greater justice to His fare than ever Solomon's household
could do. If they had sat down to his bounty, they could have
gone so far and no farther, but our appetite will go on. We have
a spiritual capacity which is growing, and growing all the time,
unto the fulness of Christ. Solomon's bounty, then, is another
feature by which He foreshadows the excellent greatness of the
Lord Jesus. We touch but briefly on a third.
(3) The Glory
of Solomon
The glory of Solomon is
proverbial. Even the Lord Jesus spoke of it as being so:
"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil
not, neither do they spin: yet I say unto you, that even Solomon
in all his glory (and they knew what his glory was) was not
arrayed like one of these." (Matt. 6:28,29). But what was
Solomon in his glory compared with the Lord Jesus? What is the
glory of the Lord Jesus? Inclusively it is the revelation of the
fulness of God, the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ.
That may not sound very
practical, but let us mark that this glory of Solomon was closely
associated with his wisdom; his wisdom indicated the nature of
his glory. There was something beyond the glory. This glory was
not mere tinsel, or mere show, but was the fruit of a great
wisdom that God had given him. It was the wisdom of Solomon that
issued in his glory and his fame. What may be said of his wisdom?
He spoke three thousand proverbs, he wrote many songs; he spoke
of trees, and of beasts, and of birds, of creeping things, and of
fishes. They are all very practical things. How did he speak of
them? He invested everything in the creation with a meaning. If
he speaks of trees, he will give you a secret, give a meaning to
the trees, from the cedar in Lebanon (trees in the Word of God
all have a significance) to the hyssop that springeth out of the
wall. We know of what hyssop speaks as we first meet with it away
back in Exodus and Leviticus. We know what the cedars of Lebanon
stand for, and all the trees in between the two equally bear a
meaning. Solomon gave the secret significance, the Divine
meaning. Then he spoke of beasts, and we know that the Bible
speaks of many beasts, and they all have a significance. He spoke
of fowls also, and of creeping things, and of fishes. He unfolded
the secrets of the creation, and invested everything in the
creation with a deeper meaning. To be able to do that is proof of
no mean wisdom.
Wherein is the Lord Jesus
superior? Well, after all, Solomon's was only poetic wisdom in
those realms. The Lord Jesus has practical wisdom; in this sense,
that everything is laid hold of by Him in relation to His
purpose, and made to serve that purpose. Oh that we could see and
believe that at all times in our experience! So many things come
into our lives. What a diversity! What a range! How mysterious
some things seem to be! How strange it is that the Lord's own
people have so many more experiences, both in number and variety,
than anyone else. It seems that almost anything that can happen
to a person, happens to a believer. You wonder sometimes, if
anything else is possible. Have we not exhausted the whole store
of possible experiences? That is how we question. There is not
one thing in the life of a child of God but what is controlled
and governed by a deeper meaning in relation to His purpose. We
recall Paul's statement: "And we know that to them that love
God all things work together for good, even to them that are
called according to his purpose." (Rom. 8:28). The more
accurate translation is, God worketh in all things good. God
invests everything with a meaning, for those who love Him, and
are the called according to His purpose. The wisdom of God lays
hold of everything and gives to it a value. It may be that only
eternity will reveal to us the value of some things, but, we must
believe that, inasmuch as our lives are wholly under His
government, there is nothing without a meaning, nothing without a
value. His wisdom is governing everything.
It is when we come to realise
that, to accept and believe it, that we find rest in our hearts,
and find ourselves on the way to gain rather than loss. When we
revolt against these things, then we are in the way to rob
ourselves of something. But when we come into line with the Lord
in these things we find, firstly, rest in our hearts, and then
the discipline produces something of value. It is gain, not loss;
it is good, not evil. This is wisdom. That is better than having
so many poems; it is practical. A greater than Solomon is here!
That is the glory of the Lord Jesus. How does His wisdom work out
to His glory? You and I go through a painful experience, a
mysterious experience; we can see no good in it; we can only see
harm in it. We are led to look to the Lord, to believe that
although we cannot see, cannot understand, He knows; and we trust
Him. We come through the trial, and our eyes are enlightened
about the purpose of it, and we worship. Oh, we never saw that
such a thing as that, could produce this! We never, never
imagined that this value could result from it. The thing which
seemed to be for our undoing is the thing that has brought us
into a greater fulness of the Lord. That is His glory.
Remember that His wisdom is
governed by His love. That is a great point with Solomon. It was
the heart of Solomon which was behind his wisdom. It was a wise
and understanding heart (not brain). Now look at Solomon. Two
women bring a babe to him. Solomon is watching. For what is he
watching? For something that he knows out of his own experience.
Read the story of Solomon's birth. Read that little clause about
his mother's special love for him. Solomon was the darling of his
mother's heart, and Solomon knew what mother love was. He knew
what the love of a mother for her babe was, and he watches these
two women. He has the keen eye of a mother for her child upon
those two women, and he says to one at his side: Take this sword
and divide the child in two. That does not sound very much like a
mother heart; but he is watching. Then he sees the mother heart
leap, and hears her cry: No! I had rather that the other woman
had the child than that you should hurt it! And Solomon knew who
was the mother of that child. That is the wisdom of Solomon which
is actuated by his love.
Supremely does this
characterize the Lord Jesus. Oh, it seems at times that the way
He goes to work is hard, but it is actuated by His love. It may
be strange and mysterious, but love is in it; there is a great
heart behind it all.
When at the direction of
Solomon the Ark was brought into the sanctuary, and set there in
its appointed place, speaking of the Lord coming into His rest
and satisfaction, we are told that this symbolic realisation of
the Lord's end in rest was attested from heaven, and that Solomon
turned his face to the people and blessed them. God has come into
His rest in His Son, into full satisfaction, and then the Son, in
whose face is the glory of God, turns to us in blessing:
"...the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ." (2
Cor. 4:6). A greater than Solomon is here.
The Lord give us a new
apprehension of His Son.