Throughout the changing ages, one fact remains unchanged: there is only one Savior.
“So all the work that Solomon had done for the house of the Lord was finished” (2 Chron 5:1). The simple tent, unadorned on the outside, had been replaced with a building “exceedingly magnificent, famous and glorious” (1 Chron 22:5). The holy furniture had been enlarged and custom designed for this new dwelling place of God on earth. There was the massive bronze altar and, nearby, the bronze sea. Inside the holy place was a corridor of light, provided by ten glorious lampstands, each fashioned like the tree of life. And, declaring God’s delightful hospitality, there were ten tables for the showbread. Almost at the conclusion of the journey was an exquisite gold altar from which ascended incense, mingled with the prayers of saints. The truth was the same as in the tabernacle, although expressed “at different times and in different ways” (Heb 1:1, CSB). But beyond the veil, the real destination of the soul, something was missing. Huram wasn’t instructed to make an acacia box, covered by gold without and within, nor to fashion a solid gold lid, called the mercy seat. The ark of the covenant, symbol of our Savior, was the one unchanged and unchanging piece of furniture, the only one shared by both tabernacle and temple. “Yesterday, today, forever, Jesus is the same, All may change, but Jesus never! Glory to His name” (A.B. Simpson). David expressed his desire: “I had it in my heart to build a house of rest for the ark of the covenant of the Lord, and for the footstool of our God” (1 Chron 28:2). Nothing like a footstool to make someone feel at home! It was time to finish the project, and God would only be at rest when that symbol of His Son, our Hilastērion (Rom 3:25), had His rightful place there in the Father’s House.