What does "something greater than Solomon is here" mean (Matthew 12:42)?

Some have had difficulty about a greater than Solomon through not reading it carefully. I remember a brother asking me about it, contrasting the glory of Solomon with the lowliness of Jesus. I pointed out to him, she did not come to see the glory of Solomon but to hear his wisdom. It is not glory here but wisdom. When the Lord referred to the glory of Solomon He contrasted it with the lily of the field (Matt. 6:29). It does say about the fame of Solomon it was "concerning the name of the LORD". So Christ was here concerned with the name of God and all that was due to Him.

But more than this: "a queen of the south" and "men, of Nineveh" are brought before us in another way to condemn the Jews of that day.

"A queen304 of the south shall rise up in the judgment with the men of this generation, and shall condemn them; for she came from the ends of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and, behold, more than Solomon is here." This showed her earnestness of purpose to hear the wisdom of Solomon. The wise and wealthy son of David was not the vessel of the Word of God in his ordinary speech as the Lord Jesus was: yet she came without a single miracle to attract her, without a sign to guide or confirm, and heard the wisdom of Solomon: "and, behold, a greater than Solomon is here." Then, again, men of Nineveh themselves, that great city which had been given up to destruction at last — "men of Nineveh shall stand up in the judgment with this generation and shall condemn it; for they repented at the preaching of Jonas."305 They were willing to own their own evil, their sinfulness, their forgetful ignorance of God, and this at the preaching of Jonas — a prophet comparatively unfaithful, who strove to escape from the mission on which God sent him, "and, behold, more than Jonas is here." But where were the men of this generation, and what? Did they repent? No more did they repent than they showed what was seen in a queen of the south — earnestness of heart in listening to the wise man of her day. Thus there was a double testimony against them; Gentiles, high or low, at one time or another, rose up to condemn the men of Jerusalem.

Similarly, the queen of Sheba would witness against them in the judgment, a Gentile coming from a long distance to hear the wisdom of Solomon (not to see a sign); get here among them was One infinitely wiser than Solomon, and their religious pride blinded them into unreasonable prejudice against Him. In the case of the men of Nineveh, repentance is foremost: in the case of the queen of Sheba, faith stands out beautifully. In Israel both repentance and faith were glaringly absent, in spite of the pure grace and truth manifested among them in Him who had all the credentials of the Messiah.

Solomon's wisdom was greater than that of all men, but its brightness pales before the excellence of the divine wisdom manifested in the Son of God. All the hard questions that the queen of Sheba asked were answered by Solomon, but there were questions asked, both in the Old and New Testaments that could not have been answered by Solomon, but which were answered by the Lord Jesus Christ. The question asked by Agur the son of Jakeh in Proverbs 30:4, "What is His Name, and what is His Son's Name, if thou canst tell?" is answered in the Person of Jesus, who revealed the Father's Name.

I suppose you are referring to the sign of the prophet Jonas. There are three "greater" passages in this chapter, "greater than the temple" (v. 6); "greater than Jonas" (v. 41); and "greater than Solomon" (v. 42). He was "greater than the temple" because the revelation of God was shining out from Him at that moment. The display of light is the thought in the temple. "Greater than Jonas" relates to the effect of His death, and "greater than Solomon" to the glory that resulted as the fruit of His death.

When the Lord Jesus had been rejected by His earthly people, in replying to the request for a sign by certain of the scribes and Pharisees, He said, "The queen of the south shall rise up in the judgment with this generation, and shall condemn it: for she came from the uttermost parts of the earth to hear the wisdom of Solomon; and behold a greater than Solomon is here" (Matt. 12:42). Solomon's divinely given wisdom "excelled the wisdom of all the children of the east country, and all the wisdom of Egypt, for he was wiser than all men; than Ethan the Ezrahite, and Heman, and Chalcol, and Darda, the sons of Mahol; and his fame was in all nations round about" (1 Kings 4:30-31).

Not a question brought to Jesus on earth perplexed Him: the wisdom of the True Solomon, the Greater than Solomon, could meet and answer every hard question. Nor is it different now, for Christ, risen from the dead, and glorified in heaven, "has been made to us wisdom from God" (1 Cor. 1:30). There is not a question that the troubled, anxious sinner can bring to Him but what He will answer in wisdom and in grace. Every difficulty of the saint of God, whether in relation to his individual life, his service for the Lord, or connected with the exercises of the assembly of God, can he brought to Him to resolve. Christians do not require the help of the wise men of this world, for God has said, "I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, and will bring to nothing the understanding of the prudent" (1 Cor. 1:19.) All wisdom for the Christian is in Him in whom "dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily," and we are "complete in Him, which is the Head of every principality and power" (Col. 2:9-10).

Christ as the greater than Jonah has secured this for us, and now He lives as greater than Solomon, the One to whom we may turn for all direction in life, the very wisdom of God for us, who can solve all our hard questions, as Solomon solved the Queen of Sheba's, and who can so entrance our hearts by His personal greatness and glory that we desire nothing apart from Him.

The blessed One, who called Himself "greater than Solomon," is surely "here." Christ as King of kings, clothed in all regal dignity, and reigning in righteousness, with full universal and enduring dominion, as in the millennium or times of restitution and refreshing, is presented here. (See Ps. 45; 2 Sam. 23:1-4; Isa. 9, Isa. 11, Isa. 32; Jer. 23:5-8) This is the time of which it is said, "The Lord shall be king over all the earth: in that day there shall be one Lord, and His name one." (Zech. 14:9)

It is true that the church is mentioned for the first time in Matthew 16. And before the Lord says anything about the church, He discourses about the kingdom of the heavens. The Lord Jesus came from God to set up that kingdom, which should be like the kingdom of David His father, only better and more stable than that of the son of Jesse; but the people would not receive Him. He was in the midst of the Jews, a greater than Solomon, and He would have given them a dominion greater than Solomon's, wisdom greater than Solomon's, power and riches greater than Solomon's, but they would not receive Him. Have you ever heard of a kingdom in existence without a king? If a king is not acknowledged by his subjects, where is his kingdom? It must remain in abeyance.