From a children's book titled, In God's Name, a story about how after man named all of the animals, he went about searching for God's name.
"But will God really dwell on earth with men? The heavens, even the highest heavens, cannot contain You. How much less this temple I have built! Yet give attention to Your servant's prayer and his plea for mercy, O Lord my God. Hear the cry and the prayer that your servant is praying in Your presence. May Your eyes be open toward this temple day and night, this place of which You said You would put Your Name there." 2 Chronicles 6:18-20
We call it The Temple or, more specifically, Solomon's Temple. But over and over again in scripture, it is referred to as the House for My Name. What does that mean exactly? I'm sure there are Hebrew and biblical scholars who could certainly give an expert rendering of the meaning of that phrase. But what does it say to me? As a writer, I like the fact God appears to be a poet. And there is so much poetry in His book. His Son is the Word. God's name is I am. His temple, the House for My Name.
It strikes me that ours is a God who can't be contained in a name nor can his presence be completely contained by the earth, let alone a temple. He is bigger, in all, through all and above all. The lack of a more conventional name nags at that little place inside us that wants to simplify, quantify and label things. But God can't be nailed down. Think He's something or works some way and He surprises again and again.
God's poetry in describing the name of His Son, His own name and the name of His temple offers mystery and is imbued for me with the sense that ours is a God that can't be quantified or captured or named anymore than He can be represented in an Idol. He is the living God.
Certainly God kept more than His name at the temple. He fills it with His glory at the dedication and His presence is in the Holy of Holies, shielded by the wings of bowed cherubim on the ark.
So why say the Temple is the House for My Name?
Because our God is bigger and will not be contained and categorized and captured and quantified and labeled and reasoned out and rendered in oil and fresco and idolized and denominationalized and hermeneuticized and put in his place and met face to face and named and shut up in a house and made as small as our own mind. Our God is awesome and amazing and bigger than word or deed can capture.
It's like when you try to take a picture of some grand natural wonder, be it the grandest canyon or the simplest of sunsets -- you just can't do. Oh, you point the camera and take the picture. Only to disappointed and explain to others, "it just doesn't do it justice." A picture will never capture the experience or even what your eyes see. Nor will a name when it comes to God. Lord knows.
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