God's Architectural Sovereignty Text: 1 Chronicles 28:11-19
Introduction: The War on Blueprints
We live in an age that despises blueprints. Modern man is a devotee of the ad lib, the spontaneous, the authentic feeling of the moment. He wants his art to be abstract, his morality to be situational, and his worship to be unstructured. The idea of a fixed, divinely-revealed pattern for anything, let alone for the worship of God, strikes him as stifling, legalistic, and frankly, a bit embarrassing. He wants a god who is impressed with his sincerity, not one who is concerned with his obedience to a pattern. He wants to "worship in his own way," which is simply another way of saying he wants to be his own god, thank you very much.
This impulse is not new; it is as old as the golden calf. It is the desire to fashion a god we are comfortable with, and to worship him in a way that we find appealing. But the God of Scripture will have none of it. From the very beginning, God has been in the business of revealing patterns. He gave Noah the pattern for the ark. He gave Moses the pattern for the Tabernacle. And here, in our text, He gives David the pattern for the Temple. This is not a suggestion box. It is a divine mandate, a set of architectural drawings from the sovereign Architect of the universe.
This passage is therefore a direct assault on the entire ethos of our age. It teaches us that God cares immensely about the details. He is not a vague, amorphous deity who is pleased with any old thing we throw His way. He is the holy, transcendent King who alone has the right to determine how He is to be approached. The central issue is authority. Who gets to decide what constitutes acceptable worship? The autonomous creature, consulting his own feelings and preferences? Or the sovereign Creator, revealing His will in His written Word? This text forces us to choose. There is no middle ground between building according to God's blueprint and building a monument to ourselves.
What we have here is not just a historical account of an ancient building project. What we have is a foundational lesson in the nature of God's authority, the necessity of revelation, and the pattern of all faithful service to the King. It is a lesson in what is called the regulative principle of worship, the doctrine that God is to be worshiped only in the ways He has commanded in His Word. If God is this particular about golden bowls and silver lampstands, how much more must we be careful to adhere to His pattern for the living temple, the Church of Jesus Christ?
The Text
Then David gave to his son Solomon the pattern of the porch of the temple, its buildings, its storehouses, its upper rooms, its inner rooms, and the room for the mercy seat; and the pattern of all that he had in mind, for the courts of thehouse of Yahweh, and for all the surrounding chambers, for the treasuries of the house of God, and for the treasuries of the holy things; also for the divisions of the priests and the Levites and for all the work of the service of the house of Yahweh and for all the utensils of service in the house of Yahweh; for the golden utensils, the weight of gold for all utensils for every kind of service; for the silver utensils, the weight of silver for all utensils for every kind of service; and the weight of gold for the golden lampstands and their golden lamps, with the weight of each lampstand and its lamps; and the weight of silver for the silver lampstands, with the weight of each lampstand and its lamps according to the service of each lampstand; and the gold by weight for the tables of showbread, for each table; and silver for the silver tables; and the flesh hooks, the bowls, and the jars of pure gold; and for the golden bowls with the weight for each bowl; and for the silver bowls with the weight for each bowl; and for the altar of incense refined gold by weight; and gold for the pattern of the chariot, even the cherubim that spread out their wings and covered the ark of the covenant of Yahweh. "All this," said David, "has been granted to me as insight in writing by the hand of Yahweh, all the details of this pattern."
(1 Chronicles 28:11-19 LSB)
The Meticulous Pattern (vv. 11-13)
The first thing to notice is the sheer scope and detail of the pattern David delivers to Solomon.
"Then David gave to his son Solomon the pattern of the porch of the temple, its buildings, its storehouses, its upper rooms, its inner rooms, and the room for the mercy seat; and the pattern of all that he had in mind, for the courts of the house of Yahweh, and for all the surrounding chambers..." (1 Chronicles 28:11-12a)
The word for "pattern" here is absolutely crucial. It is the Hebrew word tavnith, the very same word used to describe the blueprints for the Tabernacle that God gave to Moses on Mount Sinai. "According to all that I am going to show you, as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of all its furniture, just so you shall make it" (Exodus 25:9). This immediately tells us that we are not dealing with David's brilliant architectural innovations. David is not the architect; he is the draftsman. God is the architect. David's role is to receive the revelation and pass it on faithfully. Solomon's role is to take the revealed plans and build accordingly.
This establishes the proper hierarchy for all of God's work. God reveals, and man obeys. We do not get to be co-designers of the kingdom. We are builders, and we must build according to the Master's plan. To deviate from the plan is not creativity; it is rebellion.
Notice the comprehensiveness of the plan. It covers everything from the grand entrance ("the porch") to the most holy place ("the room for the mercy seat"), and it includes the mundane but necessary spaces like "its storehouses" and "surrounding chambers." In God's house, there is no division between the sacred and the secular. The storerooms where the grain is kept are just as much a part of God's holy design as the mercy seat itself. This is because all of it belongs to Him, and all of it is to be ordered according to His revealed will. The pattern even extends to the personnel and their duties: "for the divisions of the priests and the Levites and for all the work of the service of the house of Yahweh." God not only designs the building, He organizes the staff. He not only provides the architecture, He provides the liturgy. He is sovereign over the place of worship and the acts of worship.
The Regulated Materials (vv. 14-18)
If the scope of the pattern was not enough to make the point, the text then descends into what our modern, free-spirited worship leader would consider suffocating minutiae.
"...for the golden utensils, the weight of gold for all utensils for every kind of service; for the silver utensils, the weight of silver... and the weight of gold for the golden lampstands and their golden lamps, with the weight of each lampstand and its lamps..." (1 Chronicles 28:14-15)
This is God's sovereignty in grams and shekels. He does not just say, "Make some gold lampstands." He specifies the exact weight of gold for each lampstand and its lamps. He specifies the weight for the tables of showbread, for the flesh hooks, for the bowls, and for the jars. This is divine micromanagement, and it is glorious. Why? Because it leaves no room for human autonomy, which is the very essence of sin.
This is the regulative principle of worship applied to metallurgy. The principle states that whatever is not commanded in worship is forbidden. We are not free to add our own clever ideas. Here, God commands the exact weight of gold. This means that to make a lampstand one shekel heavier or lighter than the specification would be an act of disobedience. It would be to say, "I have a better idea than God about how much this lampstand should weigh." It would be to put man's wisdom above God's revelation. This is precisely the sin of Nadab and Abihu, who offered "strange fire" before the Lord, "which He had not commanded them" (Leviticus 10:1). They decided to innovate, and God consumed them. God takes His worship very seriously.
The list culminates with the most holy furniture: "the altar of incense refined gold by weight; and gold for the pattern of the chariot, even the cherubim that spread out their wings and covered the ark of the covenant of Yahweh." The cherubim formed the earthly throne of God. This was the place where God's presence was localized, the meeting point of heaven and earth. And man does not get to design God's throne. God Himself provides the blueprint for His own chariot-throne. This is the pinnacle of His authority. He dictates the terms of His own presence.
The Divine Source (v. 19)
Lest there be any doubt about the origin of these plans, David makes it explicitly clear in the final verse. This is the anchor that secures the entire passage.
"All this," said David, "has been granted to me as insight in writing by the hand of Yahweh, all the details of this pattern." (1 Chronicles 28:19)
This demolishes any notion that David was simply a pious and gifted architect. The pattern was not the product of his mind; it was given to him "by the hand of Yahweh." And it was given "in writing." This is divine, inscripturated revelation. God does not communicate His will in vague feelings or ambiguous spiritual nudges. He communicates with objective, propositional clarity. He writes it down.
The Holy Spirit who gave David this pattern is not a Spirit of chaos, confusion, or subjective whim. He is the Spirit of truth who inspired the written Word of God. The same Spirit who measured out the gold for the lampstands has measured out the words of Scripture. This is why we must bind our consciences to the Word of God alone. To appeal to some private "leading of the Spirit" that contradicts or goes beyond the written Word is to appeal to a different spirit altogether.
Furthermore, Yahweh "made me understand" all the details. Revelation requires illumination. God not only gives us His Word, but He also gives us the grace to comprehend it. This is why we pray for understanding before we open the Scriptures. We are utterly dependent on Him for both the blueprint and the ability to read it correctly.
The Gospel in the Blueprints
Now, why should we, as New Covenant believers, care about the weight of Solomon's flesh hooks? Because this entire structure, in all its glorious and meticulous detail, was a type, a shadow, a pointer to a greater reality. The Temple was a magnificent picture of a greater truth, but it was just a picture.
First, Jesus Christ is the true Temple. He told the Jews, "Destroy this temple, and in three days I will raise it up" (John 2:19). He was speaking of the temple of His body. He is the true meeting place between God and man. All the specified weights of gold and silver were but a dim foreshadowing of the infinite worth and perfect holiness of the Son of God. Every detail of the Temple's design finds its ultimate fulfillment and meaning in the person and work of Jesus Christ.
Second, the Church is now the temple of the living God. "Do you not know that you are a temple of God and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?" (1 Corinthians 3:16). We, as believers, are being "built up as a spiritual house" (1 Peter 2:5). And this new temple also has a divine blueprint. God is just as particular about the design of His Church as He was about the design of Solomon's Temple.
The blueprint for the Church is not written in measurements of gold and silver, but in the doctrines and commands of the New Testament. The pattern for the Church's leadership is not the divisions of priests and Levites, but the qualifications for elders and deacons. The pattern for the Church's worship is not animal sacrifices and incense, but the preaching of the Word, the administration of the sacraments, and the singing of psalms, hymns, and spiritual songs. The pattern is prescribed, and we are not at liberty to alter it.
Like Solomon, we are the builders. We have been given a great commission to build the house of God. But we are not the architects. Our job is to faithfully take the apostolic blueprints, contained for us "in writing by the hand of Yahweh" in the Holy Scriptures, and to build accordingly. The modern evangelical impulse to innovate, to add to the worship of God things that He has not commanded, to redesign the church to make it more appealing to the world, is the spirit of rebellion. It is the equivalent of Solomon receiving the divine blueprints from his father and saying, "This is a good start, but I think a fog machine and some laser lights would really enhance the cherubim."
Our task is to submit to the architectural sovereignty of God. We are to study His blueprints in the Word, and build His church, for His glory, according to His pattern. The work is immense, but the Architect who drew the plans has also promised to be with us, the builders, until the very end of the age.