“The glory of Lebanon shall come unto thee, the fir-tree, the pine-tree and the box together, to beautify the place of My Sanctuary; and I will make the place of My feet glorious.” Isaiah lx. 13.
1 Every attentive reader of Scripture must be aware what stress is there laid upon the duty of costliness and magnificence in the public service of God. Even in the first rudiments of the Church, Jacob, an outcast and wanderer, after the vision of the Ladder of Angels, thought it not enough to bow down before the Unseen Presence, but parted with, or, as the world would say, wasted a portion of the provisions he had with him for the way, in an act of worship. Like David, he did not “offer unto the Lord of that which cost him nothing;” but like that religious woman at the opening of a more gracious Covenant, though he had not “an alabaster box of ointment of spikenard very precious,” yet he did “what he could;” making a sacrifice less than hers in its costliness, greater in his own destitute condition, for he “took the stone that he had put for his pillows, and set it up for a pillar, and poured oil upon the top of it.” [Gen. xxviii. 18.]
What Jacob did as a solitary pilgrim, David as a wealthy king, Mary as a private woman, is pressed upon us both in sacred history and in prophecy, as fulfilled under the Law, as foretold of the Gospel. The Book of Exodus shows what cost was lavished upon the Tabernacle even in the wilderness; the Books of Kings and Chronicles set before us the devotion of heart, the sedulous zeal, the carelessness of expense or toil, with which the first Temple was reared upon Mount Sion, in the commencement of the monarchy of Israel. “Now have I prepared,” says David, “with all my might for the house of my God, the gold … and the silver … and the brass … the iron … and wood … onyx stones, and stones to be set, glistering stones, and of divers colours, and all manner of precious stones, and marble stones in abundance. Moreover, because I have set my affection to the house of my God, I have of my own proper good, of gold and silver, which I have given to the house of my God, over and above all that I have prepared for the Holy House.” And he “rejoiced with great joy,” and “blessed the Lord,” because the people also “offered willingly, because with perfect heart they offered willingly to the Lord.” And Solomon, when he came to use these costly offerings, sent to another country for “a cunning man,” “skilful to work in gold, and in silver, in brass, in iron, in stone, and in timber, in purple, in blue, and in fine linen and in crimson; also to grave any manner of graving, and to find out every device which should be put to him, with the cunning men in Judah and in Jerusalem.” [1 Chron. xxix. 2, 3, 9, 10. 2 Chron. ii. 7, 14.] Such was the outward splendour of the Jewish Sanctuary; nor were the glories of the Christian to be less outward and visible, though they were to be more spiritual also. The words of the Prophet in the text are but one instance out of several, of the promise of temporal magnificence made to that Covenant which was to be eternal. “The glory of Lebanon,” says Isaiah, addressing the Gospel Church, “shall come unto thee, the fir-tree, the pine-tree, and the box together, to beautify the place of My Sanctuary; and I will make the place of My feet glorious.” Again; “For brass I will bring gold, and for iron I will bring silver, and for wood brass, and for stones iron; thou shalt call thy walls Salvation, and thy gates Praise.” And again; “O thou afflicted, tossed with tempest, and not comforted, behold, I will lay thy stones with fair colours, and lay thy foundations with sapphires. And I will make thy windows of agates, and thy gates of carbuncles, and all thy borders of pleasant stones.” [Isa. lx. 17, 18; liv. 11, 12.] Now if it be said that some of these expressions are figurative, this may be true; but still the very fact that such figures are used in the prophecy, would seem to show that the materials literally denoted may be suitably used in its fulfilment, unless, indeed, such use is actually forbidden. They do not cease to be figures because they are actually present as well as spoken of. Real gold is as much a figure in the Church, as the mention of it is such in Scripture; and it is surely in itself dutiful and pleasant thus to make much of the words of inspired truth; and moreover, the mere circumstance that, when the Gospel came, Christians did thus proceed, and sanctified the precious things of this world to religious uses, looks like the fulfilment of the prophecy, and is of the nature of an authoritative command.
However, it may be objected that every attentive reader of Scripture will be familiar with this circumstance also, that such outward splendour in the worship of God is spoken of in terms of censure or jealousy by our Lord and Saviour. Thus He says, when enumerating the offences of the Pharisees, “Woe unto you, Scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! for ye make clean the outside of the cup and of the platter, but within they are full of extortion and excess.” And again, “Ye are like unto whited sepulchres, which indeed appear beautiful outward, but are within full of dead men’s bones, and of all uncleanness.” And when His disciples pointed out to our Lord the great size of the stones of which the Temple was built,—a Temple, let it be noted, thus ornamented by the impious Herod,—He answered abruptly, “There shall not be left here one stone upon another, that shall not be thrown down.” [Matt. xxiii. 25, 27; xxiv. 2.]