I once had the joy of sharing 1 Kings 6:7 with a friend, a Danish medical doctor, now home in glory.  “The stone(s) finished ” portrayed the believer as a “finished” workmanship in Christ (Eph. 2:10), and my friend rejoiced as he saw himself in that position of rest belonging to the “living stones” that are under grace being built up spiritually (1 Pet. 2:9).  He reverted to that glorious truth several times.

For it is a glorious truth.  The Lord said, “I will build my church…”  (Mt. 16:18), and that job will be done.  On our solid Rock of salvation we are called to be His imperfect co-builders, but the perfect foundation is already there, Jesus Christ (1 Cor. 3:10-11). 

“No hammer or chisel or any iron tool was heard in the temple while it was being built”, and so we are being built and edified without the noise of legalistic tools.  On the other hand our call is not to edify others with “iron means”.  Margaret Thatcher, the British prime minister, was called “the iron lady”, but we are not called upon to be “iron believers”, but to minister the grace of Christ towards one another.

We sometimes forget that, don´t we?  And yet as we realize how gracious the Lord has been with us despite our blunders, it shouldn´t be too difficult to be gracious to sisters and brothers in Christ.

Finished was the work at Calvary.  Finished in Christ we are.  I frankly admit that I feel utterly unworthy of the coming glory, and yet, despite the feeling of being so incomplete, He has promised to complete His good work in us until the day of Jesus Christ.  Phil. 1:6.  And into that grace I´ve chosen to sink.

Then His “house”, i.e. His redeemed body of believers, His spiritual temple, will be “finished in all its details”  (1 Kg. 6:38).  You may sometimes visit a churchyard.  I do at least.  There´s one “churchyard” it´s so edifying to visit.  That is the “churchyard” of Hebr. 11.  There is the mentioning of many believers, but not of their faults.  Samson is mentioned, but not his blunders.  Why?  Because at this point the work is finished on the virtue of the finished work at Calvary.  So they are finished too.  In Christ.

Is that academic knowledge only?  No, it´s a source of joy and an incentive to “lay aside every weight and the sin which so easily ensnares us” and to press on and “run with endurance the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus…”  (Hebr. 12:1).

Remember the huge cloud of smiling witnesses surrounding us from that “churchyard” in Hebr. 11!

June 11, 2012 – jn