Features Of Solomonic Temple Worship

The temple emphasized the presence of God in the midst of Israel. Worship was characterized by sacred symbols, sacred rituals, and a sacred ministry. This model had a great impact on the development of liturgical worship in the ancient church.

The temple emphasized the presence of God in the midst of Israel. For example, God spoke to Moses, saying, "Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them" (Exod. 25:8; 2 Chron. 6:7; ratification of god's covenant with Israel at Mount Sinai, Exod. 24). Also the temple was seen as an expression of the antithesis between Israel and the surrounding culture. Worship set the Israelites apart from the worship conducted by the pagans and accented their relationship with Yahweh (Deut. 12). Thus, the tabernacle and the temple became the visible and tangible signs of Israel's relationship to God.

A second feature of the temple was its symbolic character. It was characterized by a sacred sense of space, sacred rituals, and sacred ministers. A striking feature of these sacred symbols is that they were ordained by God. In the account of David's giving Solomon the plans for the temple, the writer explicitly says that "he gave him the plans of all that the Spirit had put in his mind for the courts of the temple of the Lord" (1 Chron. 28:12). All this was in writing, David said because "the hand of the Lord [was] upon me, and he gave me understanding in all the details of the plan" (1 Chron. 28:19). The implication is that the pattern of the temple itself was a symbolic communication of the relationship Israel sustained with God (Exod. 25:9). The temple was characterized by a symbolic use of space. The arrangement of the outer court, the inner court, and the Most Holy Place communicates the distance between the worshiper and God, who dwells in the Most Holy Place. All the pieces of furniture, such as the altar, the laver, the golden lampstands, the table with the bread of the presence, the altar of incense, and the ark, were laden with symbolic meaning as they depicted an encounter with God. Nothing in the temple furniture or layout was randomly selected or haphazardly placed. Furthermore, the temple was characterized by a number of sacred rituals. In addition to the general rules for making a sacrifice (presentation of the victim, placing hands on the victim, slaying the victim, sprinkling the blood, and burning the sacrifice), there were sacrifices for various occasions, such as the burnt offering (the daily offering of a lamb, entirely consumed to indicate complete consecration to God), the fellowship offering (a voluntary offering symbolizing communion and fellowship between persons and God), and the sin offering (offered for sins of commission). The important feature of these sacrifices is that they are visible and tangible expressions of the relationship of God's people with himself. They grow out of the act of ratification at Sinai, and they anticipate the sacrifice of Christ (Heb. 10). Finally, the temple was characterized by a sacred ministry. These ministers of the sacred ritual represented the entire nation. They were the mediators between Israel and God. Only the Levites could act as priests. They were called by God and consecrated to his service in an elaborate ceremony (Exod. 29), they wore garments fitting to their service (Exod. 28:40–43; 39:1–31), and they were given stringent requirements for holy living (Lev. 21:1–22:10). In the New Testament the temple is fulfilled in Jesus Christ (Mark 14:58; 15:29, 38; John 2:19–21), and the church, his body, becomes the temple, the dwelling place of God (1 Cor. 3:16–17; 6:19; 2 Cor. 6:16; Eph. 2:21–22). Nevertheless, the sense that there is a physical side to spiritual life and activity—a sense that came from the temple—continued in New Testament worship. New Testament Christians rejected the nonphysical spirituality of the Gnostics and continued to express their spirituality through physical means. For that reason the sense of sacred place (church buildings), sacred rituals (the Eucharist), and a sacred ministry (ordained persons) all have a vital connection with the impact made by temple worship on the development of Christian worship.