(George S. Merrian.)

I. IN BUILDING A CHRISTIAN TEMPLE WE EXPRESS OUR FELT CONNECTION WITH THE SPIRITUAL WORLD. All building may be regarded as the expression of some sentiment, instinct, or wish of human nature. Markets, senate-houses, theatres, hotels, have all risen as the effects, embodiments, and realisations of some principle in our common nature. But these are all for our material wants and interests. In building a house for God we declare that we have other relations than those that connect us with this material system, other wants than those of the body, other interests than the secular and the physical. We thus attest our connection with the spiritual universe, our relation to eternity, our moral obligation to the Infinite, our desire for communion with God.

II. IN BUILDING A CHRISTIAN TEMPLE WE EXPRESS THE IDEA THAT WE REQUIRE SPECIAL MANIFESTATIONS OF GOD. In the temple of nature God is portrayed in every object and proclaimed in every sound. But we feel that some other manifestation is required. In nature we can only see Him as the Almighty Creator and Absolute Sovereign; we want Him to appear in another relationship, one more suited to our fallen condition; we want Him to appear to us a redeeming God — one mighty to save. Had we not sinned we should need no such manifestations of God as we seek in the erection of temples. The temple of nature would suffice. There is no temple in heaven; God is seen in all, loved in all, worshipped in all.

III. IN BUILDING A CHRISTIAN TEMPLE WE ATTEST OUR FAITH IN THE GOSPEL OF JESUS CHRIST.

1. As a revelation from God intended and adapted to meet the condition of sinners.

2. As necessary to all men, through all times. We feel that while coming generations may not require our systems of philosophy, our ecclesiastical polities, our schemes of government, our codes of laws, they will require the gospel; and hence we rear a temple for its proclamation.

IV. IN BUILDING A CHRISTIAN TEMPLE WE EXPRESS OUR PHILANTHROPY. We are not building merely for ourselves, but for others; not even for our contemporaries, but for posterity. A Christian temple true to its mission is the greatest blessing to society. There the most soul-elevating ideas are proclaimed. Of all ideas to which men are subject none are so important as the religious. Other ideas will arouse certain faculties — some the intellect, some the imagination, some the emotions — but this the entire man. Other ideas act upon human nature as the rays of winter upon the soil; under its influence only a few germs will be evolved and a few plants will grow; but this, like the glowing beams of the vernal sun, will penetrate the deepest depths with its quickening energy, cause every seed-bud to burst into life and expand into fruitfulness. The mystic rod of Moses was not so mighty as the instrument the religious teacher wields. He lives nearest the heart of the world; he is up at the head springs, out of which proceed the issues of life. True religious ideas wherever proclaimed are the chief blessings of the world. In Christian temples such ideas are brought to bear with all their force upon the human mind; by them men are made to feel their obligations to be truthful, virtuous, benevolent, and Godlike; evil is subdued, hearts are changed, and souls are saved by these ideas. Christian temples are to society what tides are to the ocean, what the winds are to the atmosphere; they stir the mass and keep it pure.

V. IN BUILDING A CHRISTIAN TEMPLE WE EXPRESS THE IDEA THAT PUBLIC WORSHIP IS TO BE PERPETUATED BY HUMAN INSTRUMENTALITY. We have reason to thank God that He has left such work as the building of temples to us. Had the necessaries of life sprung from the earth, so as to require no labour, the physical energies of man would never have been developed. Had knowledge come into our mind without the exercise of our faculties, we should never have known anything of intellectual force. In like manner, had everything in religion been done for us, so that no demand would have been made upon our benevolent sympathies, we should have been beings of morbid religious sentiment, and without any force or greatness of character.

(Homilist.)

1. That man in this world needs a sanctuary, in which he may call on the name of the Lord his God. We are closely bound to the material globe, and the holiest affections. The most spiritual exercises naturally cling round some sacred spot where we have been accustomed to meet with God and with His people. Speaking of an old village church, Washington Irving says, "For my part, there are feelings that visit me in a country church, amid the beautiful serenity of nature, which I experience nowhere else; and, if not a more religious, I think I am a better man on Sunday than on any other day of the seven." This principle lies deep in human nature. Among the most sacred memories of life are the childhood recollections which carry us back to the old familiar church, which then seemed so grand and impressive, where with father and mother we reverently worshipped God.

2. We learn that toil and sacrifice enter into the building of these sanctuaries. God does not ask for that which costs us nothing. Sacrifice may not be needed by Him, but it is necessary for us, and without it human nature cannot attain its highest and best.

3. We learn not to neglect the sanctuary.

(E. B. Mason.)

II. THE BUILDING OF THE TEMPLE HAD A MORAL AND SPIRITUAL INFLUENCE ON THE PEOPLE. At the dedication they offered a sin offering of "twelve he goats, according to the number of the tribes of Israel." When once the temple was furnished, and the people saw all the appointments complete and an altar standing before them and in use, their sense of sin was aroused. The first sacrifice on that new altar was for their sins. With their new house they began a new life. The house of God in a community stands for a spiritual idea. The school-house and college stand for the intellectual needs of man. The moral and spiritual side finds its exponent in the church. These silent memorials of God's grace compel us for a moment to think of duty and the hereafter, and they are suggestive of the rest that "remaineth." A reverential soul can worship God anywhere, but a house dedicated to Him is an aid to such worship. While there we are released for the time from the distracting sights and sounds of outside life, and under the singing of hymns and the uplifting influence of prayer the mind becomes calmed for the consideration of truth.

III. THE HOUSE OF GOD IS THE HOME OF JOY. The Oriental expressed his feelings in most demonstrative ways. He shouted, clapped his hands, and danced when happy, and these extravagances were carried into his religious worship. Worship with the Jew was a natural channel for the display of feeling, while the Occidental suppresses his emotion in worship. We need more naturalness in the house of God. We come before God to express ourselves, not to suppress ourselves. The very truth proclaimed in God's house is fitted to produce the liveliest emotions. Mankind ought to be induced to come to the house of God because of the abundance of peace to be found there. The view of God should be the one fitted to draw all hearts to Him. A young man, homeless and lonely, wandered through the streets of one of our cities. He could get no work, and had had no food for some time. Despair had seized his soul, and in that frame of mind he entered a church and dropped into a back seat. The sermon was being delivered, and it presented such a view of God and emphasised certain elements of truth that it deepened his despair, and he rushed from the church and threw himself into the river. This ought not to have been. There are stem truths in the gospel, yet to give them undue prominence, and make them overshadow the obvious intent of the gospel is to deprive it of its essential quality of hopefulness. The house of God stands for the best and brightest and cheeriest in human life.

(Monday Club Sermons.)

I. GOD WAS WITH THEM. All along He had been predisposed in their behalf. We also are exhorted to work out our own salvation because it is God that worketh in us both to will and to do.

II. GOD WAS PLEASED TO COMMUNICATE WITH THEM THROUGH HIS ORDAINED SERVANTS. Haggai was an old man whose strength lay largely in admonition. Zechariah was younger, more inclined to the dreaming of hopeful dreams and the seeing of bright visions.

III. THEY WERE ENCOURAGED BY THE FAVOURABLE ATTITUDE OF TEMPORAL PRINCES. The dedication took place in the month Adar, "the month of splendour," so called because of the brightness of its suns and the beauty of its flowers.

1. A hundred bullocks, two hundred rams, and four hundred lambs were offered in sacrifice; "and for a sin offering, twelve he goats for all Israel." There is something pathetic in the mention of these he goats. Ten of the twelve tribes, having out themselves loose from their brethren, had little or no part in the building of this temple, but they were remembered, and a place in the sin offering was Sacredly reserved for them. It was as when mothers set vacant chairs for their absent, wayward sons on thanksgiving day. Whatever might happen, the religious unity of Israel must be preserved. In like manner the Church of Christ, however parted asunder by the controversies of the past, should be at one in the work of the kingdom and in the rejoicings of the triumph of Christ.

2. At this dedication the ancient order of service was restored. The assignments of the priests and Levites date back to the time of Moses (Numbers 3:6-10). It does not follow that because a custom is old it is obsolete. Prayer is as old as human want, like the air we breathe, and time can make no improvement upon it. It should be observed that the Feast of Passover was among the venerable customs which were revived at this dedication. It was a foreshadowing of the atonement of Christ, without which all other pomp and circumstance of service are a dumb show.

(D. J. Burrell, D. D.)

1. Because of the consideration of its being now completely finished.

2. Of their regarding it as a token of God for good, a demonstration at once of His faithfulness and favour towards them and of the delightful prospect which it held out to them of their enjoying with comfort and with advantage the public ordinances of religion.

II. BUT MORE PARTICULARLY THIS JOY AROSE —

1. From the consideration of their having been honoured and enabled to build a house to the Lord their God.

2. From the consideration of its being a means of promoting the glory of God.

3. From its being a means of securing the observance and extending the benefits of religious ordinances to future and succeeding generations.

(G. B. Brand.)

II. THE SERVICE WAS ONE FOR WHICH ALL WHO HAD TO TAKE PART IN IT HAD PREVIOUSLY PURIFIED THEMSELVES.

III. THERE WERE BURNT OFFERINGS AS A TOKEN OF THE CONSECRATION OF THE PEOPLE HEART AND SOUL AFRESH TO GOD.

IV. THERE WERE SIN OFFERINGS. In Divine worship there should always be a recognition of sin, and of Christ's having "put away sin" by the sacrifice of Himself.

V. THERE WAS THE OBSERVANCE OF THE PASSOVER. They loved God because God loved them; this is the order now, and we cannot reverse it (1 John 4:19).

VI. THE FEAST OF UNLEAVENED BREAD WAS KEPT JOYFULLY FOR SEVEN DAYS.

1. In token of national unity and fellowship.

2. In token of their desire to cultivate purity.

VII. The new national life thus inaugurated had far less of pomp and show about it than were seen in the days of Solomon. But there was more of spiritual power (Haggai 2:9).

(C. Clemance, D. D.)

1. Protracted labours brought to a close.

2. The honour offered to Jehovah their God.

3. The benefits which were likely to accrue to men through their sacred edifice and its worship.

II. DEVOUT GRATITUDE.

III. DEEP HUMILITY.

IV. APPROPRIATE ARRANGEMENTS FOR ITS FUTURE USE.

(William Jones.)

     4651   goat
     6648   expiation
     7435   sacrifice, in OT
     7444   sin offering

Ezra 6:16-17

     7422   ritual

Ezra 6:16-18

     7390   Levites
     8223   dedication

The New Temple and Its Worship
'And the elders of the Jews builded, and they prospered through the prophesying of Haggai the prophet and Zechariah the son of Iddo: and they builded, and finished it, according to the commandment of the God of Israel, and according to the commandment of Cyrus, and Darius, and Artaxerxes king of Persia. 15. And this house was finished on the third day of the month Adar, which was in the sixth year of the reign of Darius the king. 16. And the children of Israel, the priests, and the Levites, and the …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

The "Fraternity" of Pharisees
To realise the state of religious society at the time of our Lord, the fact that the Pharisees were a regular "order," and that there were many such "fraternities," in great measure the outcome of the original Pharisees, must always be kept in view. For the New Testament simply transports us among contemporary scenes and actors, taking the then existent state of things, so to speak, for granted. But the fact referred to explains many seemingly strange circumstances, and casts fresh light upon all. …
Alfred Edersheim—Sketches of Jewish Social Life

The Johannine Writings
BY the Johannine writings are meant the Apocalypse and the fourth gospel, as well as the three catholic epistles to which the name of John is traditionally attached. It is not possible to enter here into a review of the critical questions connected with them, and especially into the question of their authorship. The most recent criticism, while it seems to bring the traditional authorship into greater uncertainty, approaches more nearly than was once common to the position of tradition in another …
James Denney—The Death of Christ

Brave Encouragements
'In the seventh month, in the one and twentieth day of the month, came the word of the Lord by the prophet Haggai, saying, 2. Speak now to Zerubbabel the son of Shealtiel, governor of Judah, and to Joshua the son of Josedech, the high priest, and to the residue of the people, saying, 3. Who is left among you that saw this house in her first glory? and how do ye see it now? is it not in your eyes in comparison of it as nothing? 4. Yet now be strong, O Zerubbabel, saith the Lord; and be strong, O Joshua, …
Alexander Maclaren—Expositions of Holy Scripture

A Sermon on Isaiah xxvi. By John Knox.
[In the Prospectus of our Publication it was stated, that one discourse, at least, would be given in each number. A strict adherence to this arrangement, however, it is found, would exclude from our pages some of the most talented discourses of our early Divines; and it is therefore deemed expedient to depart from it as occasion may require. The following Sermon will occupy two numbers, and we hope, that from its intrinsic value, its historical interest, and the illustrious name of its author, it …
John Knox—The Pulpit Of The Reformation, Nos. 1, 2 and 3.

Ezra-Nehemiah
Some of the most complicated problems in Hebrew history as well as in the literary criticism of the Old Testament gather about the books of Ezra and Nehemiah. Apart from these books, all that we know of the origin and early history of Judaism is inferential. They are our only historical sources for that period; and if in them we have, as we seem to have, authentic memoirs, fragmentary though they be, written by the two men who, more than any other, gave permanent shape and direction to Judaism, then …
John Edgar McFadyen—Introduction to the Old Testament