2 Chronicles 5:13, “…when the song was raised…‘For He is good, for His steadfast love endures forever,’ the house—the house of YHWH—was filled with a cloud…”
YHWH’s goodness and steadfast love (covenant faithfulness) are on full display in this passage. What is the Lord’s goodness but His giving of Himself to His people? And what is the Lord’s steadfast love except His unswerving pursuit of the end that He should be His people’s God and they should be His people? And in the moment that YHWH descends on the temple such that it is filled with the cloud of His presence, His goodness and His steadfast love are manifest to His people.
More than this, the goodness and steadfast love on display in YHWH’s descent into the temple anticipates the supreme instance of His steadfast love and faithfulness, the enfleshment of God in Jesus Christ (understanding the crucifixion and resurrection as the climax of the single work of Christ’s incarnation). Yes, YHWH’s dwelling in Solomon’s temple of wood and stone and His filling of that house with glory anticipates His dwelling in the temple of flesh and bone, the temple of the True Son of David, of the Jesus of Nazareth, in whom the glory of YHWH is definitely known.
When all Israel stood around the Solomonic temple and saw it filled with the cloud of glory, that was a dim and far off anticipation of the day when re-gathered Israel would stand around the cross and, with eyes illumined by the Spirit, recognize in the crucified man from whose side poured a stream of water, the True Temple of YHWH (cf, Ez. 47:1ff) , the true Dwelling Place of God’s Name, the True House of the Lord, filled with the glory of YHWH Himself—the glory that is grace and truth; steadfast love and faithfulness.
Yes, the condescension of YHWH to fill the earthly temple with His glory anticipates the true condescension of YHWH to dwell perfectly and fully as the Son in our human nature…to be God with us in our darkest night…and—in bringing the Temple of His incarnate presence into the exile of our sin—to obliterate the dividing wall and make cast off rebels into covenant children.
