1 Kings 8:27

"But," Solomon adds, "will God indeed dwell on the earth?" David realized that God's dwelling in the darkness of the holy place did not in any way mean that God was confined there. In fact, "heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain You" (v.27). God is infinite (unlimited) and omnipresent (present everywhere). Yet in pure grace He specially marked out the temple as the place of His dwelling. This was to concentrate Israel's thoughts on Him as the Centre of all Israel's interests.

What a vivid idea Solomon gives us of the infinity of God in that expression! All created things are finite, however unlimited the spaces they occupy may appear to us. Heavens stretch beyond heavens in what seems endless succession. Yet by their very nature they are limited. Not so God; He is infinite.

While confessing that the heaven of heavens could not contain Jehovah, the king asks Him to grant every prayer offered to Him in this house. God granted that request (chap. 9:3). So the house became the throne of the God of heaven upon earth — the place where He revealed Himself, and where He had put His name.

Solomon, knowing these things, asks God that His name might be there. To faith, this name represents His very person. He asks God to hear from His dwelling place in heaven when the king, His servant, and His people Israel turn toward His house. At the same time he feels that both king and people will need forgiveness: "And when You hear, forgive."

Here then, thought the Jew, Jehovah must restrict Himself to that splendid palace of His holiness. For unbelieving man must have an idol somewhere... Treating the temple with superstitious awe takes away from the glory of Him who gives it all its distinctive grandeur. Jehovah did stoop to make it holy and glorify it, so that the priests could not stand to minister because of the cloud... But Solomon himself had admitted this at that solemn dedication. Heaven and the heaven of heavens cannot contain Him — much less the house he had just built!

Solomon felt that it was wonderful that God should stoop to dwell with men on earth... Solomon's Temple has gone, but a more wonderful thing has taken its place. The Church, made up of sinners drawn from among Jews and Gentiles, is now His Temple (1 Cor. 3:16); His house (1 Tim. 3:15); His habitation (Eph. 2:22). No mere glory cloud fills this; the Holy Spirit has come from heaven to form the building and to take up His home in it.

The highest place in heaven is honoured by the presence of Him who yet stoops to make the lowly heart His throne... The God whom the highest heavens cannot contain is the God we may make our Guest. But we do this only by getting down ourselves into the lowest and lowliest place. So if we have never met Him, it is because we have never got down that low. He is found in grace at the level of self-judgment.