Read: 1
Kings 10.
In this chapter Solomon sets
forth the greatness of Christ in three respects—in his
riches, his food and his wisdom. Again we are brought back
to this governing consideration: why all this detail and
elaboration? Why is all this space in the three
books—Samuel, Kings and Chronicles—occupied with
setting out in a very minute and thorough way the greatness of
Solomon, and especially in these three directions? There is
a double answer. The first part is that which we have
already suggested: that he was sovereignly chosen to bring into
view Divine thoughts concerning the greater Son of David, and the
real meaning of sonship according to God’s heart. The
second is not another, but only a part of the first: that the
purpose was to bring the glory of God into view; in other words,
to glorify God.
His Riches
(a) To display the
Glory of God
You remember how David led up to
this. He gathered together all the wealth, the gold for the
things of gold, the silver for the things of silver, the metals
and the precious stones, and then he added his own great treasure—and
great treasure it was!—and passed it over to the Lord for
His house (1 Chronicles 28 and 29). It is a great
description, very full and almost overwhelming. But then
David suddenly seems to collapse before it all, and as you read
you feel something of an anticlimax. After having risen in
eloquence about the dedicating of it all to the Lord and the joy
in doing it, suddenly, in another voice, soft, hushed, subdued,
he says: ‘But, after all, what have we done? Of Thine
own have we given Thee. It is all Thine own; it is not our
wealth, it is Thine.’ “Thine, O Lord, is
the greatness, and the power, and the glory, and the victory, and
the majesty: for all that is in the heaven and in the earth is
thine.” After all, it is the Lord’s glory, not
ours. And David passed that all on to Solomon his son; the
son took it all up and brought that glory of God, that wealth of
God, into an embodiment of expression—the house of God for
the glory of God; for the house “is not for man, but for the
Lord God,” and “it must be exceeding magnifical”
(1 Chronicles 29:1, and 22:5).
The thing which is governing all
this description, and explains the care taken to give every
detail in fulness, is the glory of God. So the riches are
the riches of His glory. Solomon’s riches and glory
have passed and are gone; but with the greater Son, the
Only-begotten of the Father, the true riches—the
imperishable wealth that never passes—are stored up and
brought over, as we shall see later, for setting forth in the
Church. But for the present we note that they are firstly
gathered up into Christ.
So the answer to our opening
enquiry is this, finally and supremely: this great, full
presentation of Solomon’s wealth is to lead us to glorify
God, to lead on to a worshipping people. For that is
exactly what happened—the revelation of the glory of God in
a man (but what a man!) resulted in a worshipping people.
(b) For the Enrichment
of His People
The Queen of Sheba came to see
because of the Name of the Lord (1 Kings 10:1); and the Name of
the Lord is that which is involved in this. The Name of the
Lord is bound up with the fulness of Christ, and the glory of God
depends upon how Christ is seen and known as the Divine
fulness. It must come to this—we cannot keep away from
it—that the Lord is only glorified as His real fulness is
brought into practical revelation in Christ in the house of
God. While the first and all-governing thing is this
glorifying of God—and it all traces back to God, for God
gave Solomon riches and power and wisdom—the thing which
immediately issues is the enrichment of God’s people.
The Divine bounty was never intended to be limited to Solomon as
a solitary individual, for there to be this one man walking by
himself as an isolated unit in his kingdom, spending all his
wealth upon himself, and, like one of his peacocks, strutting
about in his own glory, turned in upon himself—like
Nebuchadnezzar: “Is not this great Babylon, which I
have built...” (Daniel 4:30). There is nothing like
that here! You notice that immediately it turns out to the
people of God and it is for them, for their enrichment. It
is not for personal and self-centred interests but for Israel;
and the Queen of Sheba puts her finger upon that: “Because
the Lord loved Israel for ever, therefore made he thee king”
(1 Kings 10:9).
When we turn to the Letter to
the Ephesians we have that remarkable and mysterious little
phrase in Paul’s prayer for a spirit of wisdom and
revelation in the knowledge of Christ—“that ye may
know... the riches of the glory of His inheritance in
the saints” (Ephesians 1:18). What does that mean?
Well, in the mystery of God it may mean that Christ has something
in the saints which is His inheritance, something which
He—and He alone knows how it can be—regards as worth
having, something for His own satisfaction, by which He Himself
is enriched. I do not know how that can be, but I do see
this: that Christ’s inheritance is received from the Father,
all the fulness of God is lavished upon Him and stored up in Him,
and He brings it into the Church—His inheritance is brought
into the saints. Whether that is a true exegesis or not I
do not know absolutely; but I believe that there is truth in
this—that Christ brings into the Church the wealth which He
has inherited as the Son, just as Solomon brought into the house
of God and into Israel this great wealth which had been given by
God. It was Christ’s inheritance in the saints, not
for Himself. He had it without ever coming here: “...the
glory which I had with Thee before the world was...” (John
17:5). He had it all, for He created all things, but now He
has brought His fulness here, and “of His fulness we all
received, and grace for grace” (John 1:16); “In Him ye
are made full” (Colossians 2:10). It is wealth for His
people. So the glory of God works round that way.
Dear friends, it is not to the
glory of God that any child of His should be in spiritual
poverty, or that His Church should be lacking in spiritual
wealth. God’s thought, and what He is anxious to do,
is to make His Church wealthy beyond its own dreams in the riches
of Christ. Paul saw and knew something of this: “O the
depth of the riches...” (Romans 11:33); and again: “The
riches of His grace” (Ephesians 1:7). It would take a
long time to dwell upon the separate riches of Christ, on all the
riches of grace. We can only make the statement. My
difficulty is to keep these things apart. I see that the
greatness of the Church is something which has to be dealt with
by itself, but here we overlap at once. The fulness, the
riches, the bounty of Christ, all that is stored up in Christ, is
Churchwise, not individualwise; it is corporate,
collective. It will take the whole Body to be the adequate
vessel of the fulness of Christ. Having said that, let us
come back here. The glory of God is to be found in a people
who have come into, and are daily living in, the good of the
riches of Christ.
(c) For Distribution by
His People
That wealth is for their
stewardship and distribution—that they have enough, and
plenty to give away. Have you plenty to give away?
What about your stewardship? Is it a hard, hard labour of
collecting enough to meet demand, or have you a margin for
others? We are thinking in the realm of the Letter to the
Ephesians—the “stewardship of the mystery”
(Ephesians 3:9), something committed to us. But we have to
see, ‘the eyes of our heart must be enlightened, that we may
know the hope of His calling, the riches of the glory of His
inheritance in the saints, the exceeding greatness of His power
to usward who believe’ (Ephesians 1:18,19). We have to
see and know, for in order to fulfil a stewardship it has to come
from the inside. All this was in Solomon for his household
and for the nation, and the fulness of Christ is for His people,
for the Church, as a stewardship. I trust that this is not
something that is strange to you and you do not understand, but,
even if it is, let it be stated with great emphasis that this is
God’s thought and intention for us: that we should fulfil a
stewardship of the riches of Christ. And that will be our
vindication, our justification for existence, the Divine
certificate for our ministry. There is no other
ground. Have we got the goods? Can we meet spiritual
need? Will what we have solve the problem of spiritual
weakness and limitation? The test of our stewardship is when
people are in desperation, and when people become conscious of
their need, then should be the vindication of all our
claims. Have we what is needed? This is the will of
God concerning us, for it is all for us in Christ, the greater
than Solomon.
His Food
(a) The Satisfaction of
His People
We touch on this matter of
food—Solomon’s provision for one day. Living daily in
an apprehension, a consciousness, a realization, of how full
Christ is—that is where God’s glory is. This is
not just a statement of fact, but God’s thought and
will. Those who have really come to the place where Christ
occupies the position which God has appointed for Him—have
come there individually and in relationship with other
believers—know very well that they have been delivered from
spiritual limitation, and there is plenty, there is wealth, there
is abundance, there is an open heaven, and the Lord is not
restrained. He is giving and giving and giving. These
things of Christ are all of a piece and cannot really be
isolated. You have to have the greatness of the Cross in
order to know the wealth of Christ. You have to have the
greatness of the Church in order to express the wealth of
Christ. But, given that the Cross has a large enough place
objectively and subjectively, the heavens are open. Jordan is
accomplished, and the heavens are opened upon Him Who is the
beloved of God, this greater Jedidiah, “Beloved of the
Lord,” and the attestation is made: “My beloved...”
(Matthew 3:17). And “He hath made us accepted in the
beloved” (Ephesians 1:6). It is all of a piece.
Jordan, the Cross, is very necessary; but, given that, the
Lord’s thought for you and for all is that you should be in
the land of plenty, not struggling to make ends meet spiritually
and worrying about where the next bit is coming from. One
thing that the Lord would teach us is that we can count upon His
supplies. It is wonderful! We may seem to have come to an
end very often, but that is just the Lord’s way of telling
us that it is a new beginning and there is more yet. These
are not just statements: they are facts. I do not know how
much you really know of this. Those of us who minister
considerably do know something about it. There seems to be
nothing left; then comes a new demand and a new fulness; and it
goes on. The Lord would have it like that in His
Church. Oh, the spiritual starvation! There are
people going about saying: ‘I cannot find any spiritual
food. There is no meat and everything is so
poor!’ Oh, how dishonouring that is to the Lord, and
how contrary to His mind! How it sets Christ at
nought! What a little Christ that implies! No!
God is glorified when the experience of His people is Christ in
His fulness, just as Israel were experiencing the wealth of
Solomon.
Food is intended to result in a
satisfied people. Solomon’s food was for the satisfaction,
not only of himself, but of those dependent upon him. And
this wealth of Christ, this fulness of Christ, this food that is
in Christ, is firstly to make us satisfied people. I
suppose that, in the days of Solomon’s glory, to have walked
up and down the land would have been to see people who were well
content; and God is glorified when He has a people content with
Himself and with His Son. Is that true of us? If it
is not so, there is something wrong. We have no testimony
and no challenge whatever unless that is true. We have no
power and no authority. When others look upon our faces as
Christians, what do they see? Starvation? Or do they
see satisfied people? Are we talking to people out of
doctrine and out of Scripture, or out of our own hearts and
experience? Dear friends, this is one practical challenge
of the Word of God to us. Are you contented deep down in your
heart with the Lord? Are you satisfied? Is He all
that you want, and more? That is simple, but it is
testing. The glory of God is bound up with our being
satisfied.
(b) The Maturing of His
People
Secondly, food is for growth
unto maturity. Are you growing? The proof of growth
is this: that the fulness to you is something inexhaustible, and
beyond your present immediate need. It has met you here,
but you realize that there is something very much more. You
have come into the realm where you need not go and glean in any
other field, for you have all you want here and you are
appropriating it and growing thereby. Is that true? A
people growing is a people that glorifies God, for they are
attaining unto all the fulness and the stature of a man in
Christ.
His Wisdom
(a) Divine Principles
Disclosed
There are several passages that
speak of the wisdom of Solomon. There is that one which
tells us that “he spake of trees, from the cedar that is in
Lebanon even unto the hyssop that springeth out of the wall”
(1 Kings 4:33). How did he speak of trees? Was he
just a naturalist, describing trees and flowers, their beauty and
so on? No, he showed that trees were symbols. It was
not just botany. Certain men of education will make anybody
wise in that respect, but not in the sense that Solomon was
wise. God gave him wisdom, and he saw Divine
principles through the trees. What is the cedar which is in
Lebanon? It is the very symbol of nobility, of spiritual
greatness. In the Old Testament, trees are types of men,
and here in the trees there are characteristics hidden and Divine
thoughts embodied. Solomon was getting through the outer
structure to the inner meaning and was unveiling the wisdom of
God in the creation. In a word, Solomon was showing that
everything that God makes is not just something made and
something in itself, but that it embodies a Divine thought.
All the ordinances of the heavens, all the heavenly bodies and
all the forms of nature embody some Divine thought and principle,
and the wisdom of Solomon was in disclosing the Divine principles
in nature.
(b) Divine Secrets
Apprehended
“He spake three thousand
proverbs: and his songs were a thousand and five” (1 Kings
4:32). What are proverbs? Well, they are statements with a
hidden meaning. The same word is used of the speech of the
Lord Jesus. Our word ‘parable’ is only another
word for ‘proverb.’ “He spake... in
parables” (Matthew 13:3, etc.), that is, statements with
hidden meanings; and the wisdom of Solomon was in bringing out
hidden meanings. And songs—instruments of worshipping
and exaltation. You remember what the Apostle says about
the Lord Jesus: “...in Whom are hid...”
(Colossians 2:3). The Lord Jesus does not talk to us merely
about trees and nature in parables, but He says: “It is
given to you to know the mysteries of the kingdom” (Matthew
13:11). In the Lord Jesus there is, by the Holy Spirit, the
disclosing of Divine secrets by which the very creation will
realize its destiny. Do you see that the way to the realization
of God’s eternal purpose is the way of discovering the
secrets of the Lord? Take the inclusive thing, the
Church. The word “mystery” relates to it
(Ephesians 3:3, etc.). It is God’s mystery, His
secret. Before the world was, God conceived it and
projected its eternal vocation to serve Him in high purpose
through the ages of the ages. It is the deep secret of
God. How, then, will you and I realize our very destiny
according to God’s eternal choosing and appointing?
Only as the Holy Spirit reveals to us the secrets of God.
“Things which eye saw not, and ear heard not, and which
entered not into the heart of man, whatsoever things God prepared
for them that love Him. But unto us God revealed them
through the Spirit” (1 Corinthians 2:9,10). What I am
getting at is this: it is not good enough just to read the Bible
and take it as it stands on the surface. It is necessary
for the Holy Spirit to disclose to us God’s hidden things as
they are summed up in Christ. Christ is the wisdom of God, the
fulness of Divine knowledge, the embodiment of all that by which
we are coming to the realization of that great destiny and purpose
for which we are chosen in Christ, but there has to be a work of
the Holy Spirit to disclose what is in Christ to our
hearts. It has to be along this line and after this
kind—that the Spirit shows us something in Christ and we
say: ‘I have never seen that before!’ It comes
with the power of a revelation which changes us from that time
and makes all the difference to us. There is something more
in that than just reading a passage of Scripture. You may read a
passage a thousand times and know it by heart, and then the
Spirit says something and that old familiar portion lights up,
and you are brought to a new place in consequence.
But remember that all this must
be practically expressed. I know that it is said that the
Queen of Sheba heard of the wisdom of Solomon, and the
Lord Jesus said that she came to hear his wisdom, but it
also says that she saw the wisdom of Solomon: “And
when the Queen of Sheba had seen all the wisdom of Solomon, and
the house that he had built, and the meat of his table, and the
sitting of his servants, and the attendance of his ministers, and
their apparel, and his cupbearers, and the ascent by which he
went up into the house of the Lord...” (1 Kings 10:4,5).
This was wisdom to be seen, and not only to be heard. The
greatness of Christ is not just something to be listened to; it
is something to be seen, to be manifested, in those who circle
round Him. The Church is to show forth the excellencies of
Him Who called you out of darkness into His marvellous light (1
Peter 2:9); to show forth the wisdom, and to make the wealth to
be seen. We have already spoken of the need for manifesting
the satisfaction which we have in Christ. Let us see to it
also that our apprehension of the Divine thoughts does not remain
only in the realm of our understanding. And even if, after
all that we have been saying about the greatness of Christ, you
do not really grasp its significance and have nothing more than
just the impression that Christ is much greater than ever you
thought He was, that will do to begin with. But ask for
something more than that: that this may become an inward reality
and a working factor in your life. “Oh, what a
Christ have I!”