The Appointed Place
In order to set a definite appointed time there must be a designated place on earth over which the heavenly time markers pass, (“come to pass”), as the movement of the heavenly time markers is constant. In other words a time must be designated with reference to some place.
For example, the earth is now divided by the meridian of Greenwich, known as the prime meridian. This arbitrary line is used conventionally to mark the passing of one day into another for purposes of telling time.
In ancient Israel the Temple, and perhaps more precisely, the Holy of Holies, served to mark the prime meridian for time reckoning. The meridian was marked in reference to the pole star, the equatorial line being established from the equinoctial rising of the sun, the zenith being perpendicular to the Temple. In this relationship we see how the lights of the heavens are the prime, established points of which earthly establishments are only the secondary images or witnesses. The mapping of the heavens corresponds to the mapping of the earth extended into space.
The Temple As A Time-Piece
The magnificence of the Temple, therefore, was not in its material construction but in its relationship to Light and its ability to internalize Light. Materially it was quite an ordinary structure compared to the buildings of the Greeks, Romans, Babylonians, and Egyptians. Its glory lay in quite another realm. It was “beautiful for situation;” that is, it was oriented to the Lights of the Heavens. God had placed His Name there.
Solomon’s Temple was dedicated on the day of the spring equinox, (as was the Tabernacle of Moses), and was so oriented that the first rays of the rising sun on that day shone from the Mount of Olives through the Eastern Gate, then through the doors of the Temple all the way through into the Holy of Holies, striking the mercy seat. The gold plated cherubim and the gold lined inner walls would have made a display of reflected light that was indescribably beautiful.
Portals For The Entrance of Light
There were other orifices, windows or portals through which light entered, as an instrument of time-reckoning. No doubt the zenith would have been marked by a path for light to enter from directly above as has been found in other temples. This ray may have entered in such a way as to strike the brazen sea so that the light reflected through the water would have created a rainbow of color, the water acting as a prism.
The important components of time reckoning, the equinoxes, solstices and the points of the moon’s movements were probably marked by portals so arranged that the entrance of the significant ray of light would create its own unique display. The gold plated interior and instruments would have acted somewhat as mirrors, but with a softer, diffusing golden glow.
The Glory of God
This beauty was symbolic of the glory of God that fills ones being when his life is properly oriented to the Light of God. The ultimate reflection of God, as Light, was in Man himself, “Ye are the temple of the living God.” The glory is not in the material outward Man, but in his internalization of the Light, Jesus Christ. Ultimately, our bodies are the Temple, but the greater glory comes from the Light we reflect, the image of God. Just as the physical structure of the Temple was a time-piece, Man’s intellect was the reason for that time-piece; without the intellect, the time-piece would have neither meaning nor value, indeed would not exist.
The visible glory of the various displays of Light within the Temple was indescribable; yet, as a human experience, it served as an analog by which the spiritual visions of God could be related in words, insufficient though they might be. (See “Visions of God,” page 165 in my Commentary on Revelation 1:11-20.)