1 Kings 6:8 “The entrance for the lowest story was on the south side of the house”
In the verse above from 1 Kings 6, we have reference to one aspect of Solomon’s temple that can be easy to overlook. It’s about the entrance or door to the “house.” And that’s just it – there was only one way into this dwelling place of God. In the ESV version, which is given above, we are told that this entrance was on the south side of the temple. Literally, the word means “right side” although the “right” side faced south. So what’s the significance to you and me? Is there any?
The answer is unequivocally “yes,” for God would have us to know that just as there was one and only one way into the physical temple which represented His dwelling place on earth, there is one and only one way into the place in which He dwells in heaven. Likewise, there is one and only one way into His dwelling place on earth now, which is the Church. And what is that way? It is Jesus Who is that Way, and no one ever comes to the Father except through Him (John 14:6). As He told us in John 10:9-10 “I am the door. If anyone enters by me, he will be saved and will go in and out and find pasture.” Furthermore, Jesus said this: “Truly, truly, I say to you, he who does not enter the sheepfold by the door but climbs in by another way, that man is a thief and a robber” (John 10:1).
There is only one way. Many purport that there are other ways. Many tell us that it doesn’t matter what one believes. They will tell us that “all roads lead to heaven.” They tell us that everyone worships the same god. But the only true God would have us to know that to believe this is to believe a lie. As He has showed us in the design of the temple and as He has showed us through the words He spoke there is only one way to ever enter the dwelling place of God. And lest there be any confusion, this entrance is from the right side.
So what does that have to do with anything, this orientation to the right? Again, lest there be any question, God is likely specifying that we look to the One seated on that right side of His eternal throne. Stephen saw this while those who thought His profession of Christ was inconsistent with the God Whom they thought they knew. As Stephen was explaining the one way into the Kingdom, we are told “Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him. But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the RIGHT HAND of God. And he said, ‘Behold, I see the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God’” (Acts 7:54-56).
For you see, there is only room at the right hand for One, and that is Jesus, the Savior of the World. It is only by His death on the cross that we are ushered into the very throne room of God. We are told that as Jesus breathed His last, “the curtain of the temple was torn in two, from top to bottom” (Matthew 27:51). And it is because of this and this alone that “through him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit” (Ephesians 1:18-22). And so, “Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need” (Hebrews 4:16).
So, have you entered God’s dwelling place by way of the door on the right side? There’s no other way by which to enter. There’s only one way in.
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