Week 20

Biblical Commentaries: from May 13th to 19th, 2024

The position of the faithful church and the unfaithful church

The two women in the text of I Kings 3:17-27 symbolize the two churches that exist in the world

I) A faithful

II) The other is unfaithful.

The child symbolizes the work, the project that God placed in our hands to take care of.

The unfaithful lay down on the child and killed him. She imposed her will, her reasons, her carnal humanity, and her material interests on the work and suffocated it, killing it. The other church slept (Mt 25: 1 and 5 Can't 3:1-2), and when she woke up she realized that if she continued to sleep spiritually, the work would be taken away from her. As the unfaithful church killed the work of the Holy Spirit in its midst, it wants to take the work of the faithful one to kill too. The one who will decide who should take on the work is the Holy Spirit, Solomon. He orders to bring a sword and divide the child, giving half to each of them. The unfaithful doesn't care if the work dies, because she has already lost her part. What will show who is faithful is the sword, the revealed Word. She is the one who discerns the thoughts and intentions of the hearts (Heb 4:12). The interest of the unfaithful church is to kill the work so that man is not saved. Her interests are in this life, and she opposes what belongs to Eternity. The faithful love the work of God and would rather suffer damage than see it divided. Whoever likes to cause divisions within the church must evaluate whether the work that the Lord gave him to take care of is not already dead in his heart and now wants to kill what is in the hearts of the faithful (Co 10:24; Jud 1:12–19).

The Mission of David (Jesus) and Solomon (Holy Spirit)

Two kings assumed the throne of Israel with a pre-defined mission as described in the book of Kings and the book of Chronicles.

i) David: Man of war. His mission was to defeat all enemies, establish the borders and prepare the material for building the temple;

ii) Solomon: Government of peace. His mission was to build the temple of the Lord.

David is a type of the Lord Jesus. The Lord said that he would not build the temple because he shed abundant blood (1 Chr 22:8). Jesus shed a lot of blood; all his blood to defeat all the enemies of man by his death; form the body of the church and send his Holy Spirit. Solomon is a type of the Holy Spirit. Man of rest (I Chr 22:9), who builds the church.

The temple was built with wood, stones, gold, silver, copper and iron. David said: “in my affliction I prepared for the house of the Lord gold, silver, copper and iron” (1 Chr 22:14a). The affliction here is the death of Jesus. His death resulted in much gold (power of God for salvation through the blood of Jesus); silver (operations of the Holy Spirit, which cannot be measured); copper and iron (God's judgments and righteousness in favor of man). These elements were prepared by the Lord Jesus. Two other elements were also made available, but much still needed to be added to complete the entire work: “... wood and stones I have prepared, and you will supply what is lacking” (I Chr 22:14c). Jesus left the early church, he left the apostles, the disciples. These are the wood and stones that He left to begin building the church. From then on, until today, the Holy Spirit will bring all the stone and wood to do the work. To supply the remaining material (stones and wood). Solomon does not use material existing in Israel, but orders it to be brought from Tire and Sidon, neighbors of Israel, but belonging to Phoenicia. Stones and wood brought from outside were part of the material used to build the temple, material that did not belong to Israel. This material was prophetically what God would do to the Gentile people. The church is predominantly made up of Gentiles, people who are not part of the nation of Israel. There is no one who knows how to cut wood like the Sidonians, representing the work of evangelization carried out by the church, capable of uprooting man from slavery, idolatry, religion, tradition, paganism, sin. This was the work of Hiram's servants:

a) Cut wood: evangelize;

b) Take them on rafts across the sea: the raft is the body. The sea is the dynamic of the work;

c) In the place you designate: the church;

d) There they will be untied: the first operation is liberation from the bonds of the world;

e) And you will take them, from then on they will be yours: the man becomes part of the Holy Spirit, and He will do whatever he wants with him.

Payment for work: Hiram told Solomon that he would do his will, but he wanted Solomon to also do his own, supporting his house. And Solomon fed him with wheat and oil. The church that works doing the Lord's will is sustained year after year, with wheat (bread: Jesus) and with oil (operations of the Holy Spirit) (I Kings 5:11).

The Holy Spirit (Solomon) wants to build our lives (I Kings 6:1-7)

Solomon was the only king of Israel who received the throne from his father, who was still alive. All other kings of Judah or Israel received the throne either by inheritance or by conquest. This fact symbolizes that King Jesus, after overcoming death, transfers the government of the church to the Holy Spirit, and he, the King of Kings, continues to live.

Verse 1 - After four hundred and eighty years of Egyptian captivity, the temple begins to be built.

Verse 2 - The dimensions of the temple are: 60 cubits long. The number six symbolizes man. The temple was made for man to have access to God and worship him. 20 cubits wide. The number two symbolizes communion with God and the church. 30 cubits high. The number three symbolizes the Trinity.

So the building of the temple means that the Holy Spirit takes man (stone), covers him with the power of the Blood of Jesus (gold), leads him into communion to reach Eternity with God.

Verse 7 - There was no sound of a hammer or screams in the building, but the stones were brought to size and fit into the designated place in the construction. The work of the Holy Spirit is not done with force or violence, but by the Spirit (Zech 4:6). The sound of hammer and scream was heard only once, when Jesus was nailed to the cross and shouted before dying, “It is finished”. The Holy Spirit performs a wonderful work in the lives of man and the church, but He works in silence. Each cut stone symbolizes the man who is cut out of the world and has his place in the work. If he doesn't fit into the Lord's work, there's no point in forcing him; you must return with it and remove what is excess. This arrangement is made outside the temple. The same happens with the man who is brought to work. He has a place determined by God—a place where he must fit perfectly. However, if there is excess, the Holy Spirit will deal with it outside the church, and then it will be brought back. If it still doesn't fit, he will return again until he is in the position that pleases the Lord. If it is found missing, it will hardly be used anywhere in the Work of the Holy Spirit. However, it can be prepared (also outside the construction site—the church) to be useful to the Lord. In all of this, there will be no shouting or hammer noise to make the necessary adjustments.