Rest isn’t the absence of upset; it’s the calm within when we know Christ is with us in the storm.
So the temple was finished, “and Solomon brought in the things which his father David had dedicated: the silver and the gold and all the furnishings. And he put them in the treasuries of the house of God” (2 Chron 5:1). Everything—except the ark—was in its place. What did it symbolize? Christ in incarnate glory! The indestructible acacia wood portrayed His sinless humanity, and the gold pictured the fact that He was “the brightness of His glory” [gold on the outside] and the express image of His person [gold on the inside]” (Heb 1:3). The solid gold lid (Heb, kaporet), called the Mercy Seat, was translated by the Greek word hilastērion, which also is used for Christ the propitiation (Rom 3:25). Propitiation speaks of God’s satisfaction in Christ’s full payment at the Cross. In addition, “Nothing was in the ark except the two tablets which Moses put there at Horeb, when the Lord made a covenant with the children of Israel” (2 Chron 5:10). Remarkable, isn’t it! Christ is, at the same time, the One who is the glory or Standard-Setter of God, before which we have all fallen far short (Rom 3:23), and He’s also the Covenant-Maker, with an agreement sealed by His own blood, in which He takes the full responsibility on Himself for saving and keeping us. And He declares, “I will be merciful to their unrighteousness, and their sins and their lawless deeds I will remember no more” (Heb 8:12). No wonder, then, that there was so much fanfare, sacrifice, and joy when “the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of the Lord unto his place, to the oracle of the house, into the most holy place, even under the wings of the cherubim” (2 Chron 5:7). God rests, and we rest, at the very same spot where “the glory of the Lord filled the house of God” (v 14).