The Ark and the Mercy Seat: God’s Plan to Dwell with Man – The Tabernacle through the Eyes of Christ
From the get-go it was God’s plan to dwell among us. And as you travel through the Scriptures, you, you see it’s not, this tabernacle wasn’t really a new thought. It may have been a new way in expressing God’s prescribed method with man, but not new in the concept of dwelling among Him. ♪ ♪ ♪ We are investigating and going through the tabernacle and I probably may even go back to a couple of areas that I was very generic on, because I’m now seeing that more people are catching on when I’ve told you to go back and read how it changes the reading. When you’re looking at, instead of looking at very bland instructions of constructing or materials, and you start seeing all of this, it tells you God had a plan.
There were shadows and types prefiguring and pointing to Christ. Exodus 25:8 basically says, “Build me a tabernacle that I may dwell among them.” So I want you to stop there for a minute, because this is all familiar territory and I really want you to think about this. And I’m even going to go so far as to say to my Jewish listeners, please listen to what I’m saying, because I think there are people out there in the sound of my voice that know what I’m saying is true, but your traditions, Jew or Christian, make void the word of God.
So it’s pretty staggering when you start to think that God from the beginning wanted to dwell with man. Just kind of pretend you just are not going to think about anything else except the concept that God from the beginning; I’m not talking about the beginning of building a tabernacle, I’m talking about from the beginning when He said, “Let us make Adam.” And Genesis 3:8 and 24, Genesis 3:8 and 24 both express that God was with Adam in the Garden. So from the get-go it was God’s plan to dwell among us. And as you travel through the Scriptures, you, you see it’s not, this tabernacle wasn’t really a new thought.
It may have been a new way in expressing God’s prescribed method with man, but not new in the concept of dwelling among Him. The same is true of Noah, the same is true of Abram, the same is true of Isaac, the same is true of Jacob. When we see the close proximity, you know, we, we tend to read God spoke to these patriarchs, but think about it. Whether it was a voice that came from wherever or whether it was an appearance of Christophanies or Theophanies, pre-incarnate, sometimes referred to as the “angel of the LORD,” which is a hard thing to pin down because some people believe that could be Michael or Gabriel, or that could be Christ Himself pre-incarnate, as I said, a Christophany. Nevertheless, God was repeatedly manifesting Himself to these people. So the plan of dwelling among the people, we read it in Exodus, but it’s not new. And in fact, think about this. This is what’s so heartbreaking. You start to look at the Bible. If you’re going to investigate this book, God starts out wanting to dwell among man, knowing, by the way, giving man the free will to make his own decisions, to not listen, to disobey.
And what you end up with, eventually, the proximity that was designed, the space goes and increases more. As sin increases, the greater the distance between God and man and the dwelling portion, if you will. So it’s kind of sad, but in this, there’s this beautiful concept that God is saying, if you read and study the tabernacle, you’ll see that God was always saying, “I want to dwell with My creation, but My creation now is so stained with sin that there must be a prescribed way to approach that we may be able to reconcile and still be together.” The revelation to Moses takes up many chapters in the book of Exodus. You’ve got, and by the way, you have that same pattern right there with God speaking to Moses; think about this, at the burning bush and then repeatedly up in the mount. If that doesn’t tell you that God still desired to dwell among His people, you see the same thing later with David, but here’s the interesting thing. God says to David when David desires to build a house for the Lord, He says basically, “No.” But David, who’s called a man after God’s own heart, He says, rather, “I will be with thee wherever thou goest.” To Solomon who has the idea to build the temple, we have the glory of the Lord that settles in.
And then, of course, after that, we’ll call it prophecy of the divided kingdom, we see no more of this for a time. But the point, the clarity is when you start reading the New Testament and you realize over and over again, but specifically the opening portions of John make it clear that God had to come; God was in Christ, taking up a tent of human flesh. Again, the Greek word there in John’s Gospel when it says the eternal word or “The word was, or became, flesh and dwelt,” more specifically, that Greek word eske-, eskenosen, which if you look that up, Strong’s 4637, “to have one’s tent,” or “to tabernacle,” God was in Christ tabernacling among us. So we have what was being alluded to, prefiguring, being pointed to, now realized, made in the flesh in Christ in the New Testament. So it’s important when I say study the tabernacle, because not only do you see God’s design, you can really find yourself. As I’ve said, the way of approach, if, if we were being honest, if I think about my real eyes-open approach some, how many years ago; 25, 30, more than 30 years ago, really in reality trying to understand God, it made me see the white boards, the holiness of God, and made me almost say, “How could I approach?” The same thing is true by these people as they were living around the tabernacle, camped around the tabernacle, constantly reminded of God’s holiness by those outward walls that basically were a constant reminder of what was inside.
So just to recap, I made a list here; of course, on my list I have chapter and verse, so this one just has a list somewhat in order. But you can see kind of the order that God gives for the things that were important to Him, as I said before. And if you think about that, He starts with offerings and materials to be brought by the people. And that is directly said in the opening of Exodus 25, “Speak to the people.” He doesn’t say, “Demand it; manipulate them, make them feel bad.” God says to the ones that will “bring it with a willing heart,” and God has not changed that. But here’s the interesting thing. I just, before I get too far into this, I want you to think about this. God being God could have created all of this tabernacle without the resources, without anyone bringing, without anyone lifting a finger. I’m not saying that God’s a magician per se, but if He had created the heavens and the earth and all the creatures and everything that’s in it, He could have surely made a tabernacle without the help of human hands, without the help of human resources.
You think? (Yes ma’am.) So it’s interesting that He didn’t, and that’s the starting point. And I’m going to keep repeating this, because I think there are some people just waking up to this fact. So it bears; it’s a worthy endeavor for me to keep repeating this. You can, you can rationalize or justify however you want your approach to God, but when God says, “This is the way of approach,” and He starts with this, “Speak to the children of Israel, that they bring me an offering.” And interestingly enough, if you really think carefully about this, those words read in the Hebrew can only be translated one way, “My offering,” God’s offering; never anyone else’s offering, nothing that the people actually possessed. If you think about it, as they came out of Egypt, they possessed nothing. It was what they took along the way that became their possessions. And so it’s, these are the things that I think are very important, God giving these instructions, a necessary step to begin building. And then from there, God goes immediately, the first place, if you look on that list right there, to the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat.
He doesn’t say, “Build Me a door, or make Me a curtain, or make boards.” He says: ark and mercy seat. Why? Because that was going to be the place where God would make His presence known and dwell among the people. So it’s kind of very interesting. You go down the list and you, you can kind of see a level of importance, and then bookends because God starts with where He’s going to dwell and the final reading in; between Exodus and Numbers is that God’s glory settles down to reside. So, “Build Me a tabernacle where I may dwell; mercy seat, ark of the covenant,” and the final place is God’s glory, chapter 40, I believe, in the book of Exodus. So it, it is relative to the study to understand this. There’s nothing that is accidental. And when man would approach what, I’ve said this before, what God started with, that was, think about this, the last thing that, except for the, by the way, only the high priest would get to go into the Holy of Holies.
But think about where God started; ark of the covenant, only the high priest would get to go in. So think of it this way, what He started with that was most important to Him would be the least likely to be seen by the congregation; they couldn’t. So that’s kind of interesting. Now when we start, as I say, we start in the outer area looking at the white boards.
So God is gracious to show us what’s important to Him first. And then, when He lets us approach, He knows our frame and He gives us basically the furthest point away to start our journey inward. There’s a very interesting imagery that one could draw upon, which I’m sure I’ll, I will maybe go to in the next message or two, but it’s interesting to see that if you really see the whole tabernacle in a bird’s-eye view, it is the way of salvation in its entirety. It spells it out from start to finish. So what we’re going to look at today will be mostly around the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat. The designated high priest would approach the ark of the covenant as God’s representative.
The special area called the Holy of Holies basically curtained off another partition to keep it separate. And so when you are inside the tabernacle, now you’ve come in the door, you would actually not even see the ark of the covenant, because it was behind a curtain. So if you were even allowed to come in and do service, only the high priest would go behind that special veil. That special veil has a particular Hebrew name, pârôketh, “separation” or “partition,” only used for this particular veil, because you’ll see reading the King James sometimes can be a little bit confusing.
You’ll have references to actually two different veils, but in the Hebrew they are two distinct words. One should be properly more translated, “curtain,” the other one, “veil.” And this veil, actually the concept of the veil and the Holy of Holies becomes very important to understand as we, future perhaps, may look at the temple, because in the New Testament it describes that the temple veil was torn from top to bottom. And that has a very important representation, which in the tabernacle is still represented but could not have the same application. There is a reason for this that I may again get to. But everything within that pârôketh, within that special veil required blood, and without the blood no one entered in, or if the high priest did so, he entered at peril of death, which was certain. The veil that partitioned off the Holy of Holies basically was the ultimate symbol of God’s holiness and the inability of any person, not cleansed by the blood, consecrated and cleansed by the blood, to be able to even approach.
I want you to think about that because every step of this message and all of these messages keep saying the same thing. How can you approach Christ if you’re not willing to look at what happened at Calvary and the shed blood that He spilled? The writer of Hebrew spells it out so eloquently, but you’ll see people who are, they don’t want to talk about the blood of Christ, it repulses them. Well I’m sorry, friend, if it repulses you, then you’re not interested in God’s prescribed way which is the, the picture is here, it’s graphic, it’s terrible to see animals being slaughtered and death, but this is the way God was painting a picture to say, “This is the way of salvation,” which will ultimately end in the final sacrifice of the Lamb of God, who as the book of John says, “taketh away the sin of the world.” So the, the writer of Hebrew says, “Having therefore, brethren, the boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us, through the veil, that is, his flesh.” So understanding the veil, even as I said, even though it is not 100 percent the perfect type, which it will be in the temple, signifies something about Christ’s finished work, so just kind of note to self, the body of Jesus, if you want to put it this way, was a veil that hid the inner glory of His deity, because He was all-man and all-God.
For it was the Father’s good pleasure for all fullness of the deity to dwell in Him. At a later time, as I’ve referenced already, how the veil was torn symbolizes something about the flesh body of Christ completing its ultimate and final work here on earth for the time prescribed. I’m not talking about future return, I’m talking about in the work that was needed at that particular time that He came to do. So the veil we would say is symbolic of the incarnate life of Christ, but more specifically the flesh body, the tearing of the veil, His death on the cross. His death opened up a new and living way, as I just quoted from Hebrews. And what is important for us is that we no longer need a veil or a cloaking or a way of approach, because He provided it.
This is a difficult thing I’m going to say, but I’m going to keep repeating it, because people misconstrue, and they selectively hear what I’ve been saying. If you really; Jew or Christian, if you’re really reading this book, you’re going to see something with great clarity: God brought an end to the old dispensation. And you can say, “Well, there, there are people still celebrating.” I have many friends who still celebrate their Jewish faith. And that is, I mean, no disrespect, but the reality is if, if this is the pattern and the prototype, then it’s like saying people are still going out to slay saber tooth tigers when they’re extinct. You’ve heard that before, right? Yeah. So just to put that in perspective- and it becomes important, not, you know, people say, “Well, yeah, are you a person who is anti-Jewish or anti-whatever?” No, I’m a person looking at this and understanding that even people that came before me.
I was reminded by something that the staff handed to me a week or two ago concerning this particular subject of the tabernacle, because I’ve been saying Old and New, you can’t understand one without the other, nor could you actually live in the mindset of simply the Old Testament. It lacks every fulfillment. It’s like saying, “Yeah, I’m only going to wear the right shoe today.” Go out there and walk, brother. So, back on the inside, the veil itself, five cubits in height, five if you remember, the number of grace, and also speaks of the fullness of Christ. So at some point I’ll, we’ll prepare a chart of the numbers for those of you that are not familiar with the numbers and the dimensions, because I think that becomes important as a study tool. But the area of this enclosure, we’re talking about the Holy of Holies and what is in the Holy of Holies today, ten by ten by ten; I know that’s a strange number, but a thousand cubits more or less.
And I, I have absolutely no doubt in my mind that that concept of a thousand cubits is represented in a thousand-year millennial, if you want, reign of Christ. There is something connected, which we’ll see, but obviously the foursquare concept that is presented in not only Ezekiel, but Revelation is presented right there in the Holy of Holies.
It’s kind of another important piece that we would want to look at. You cannot study this without seeing God did not leave any details out. So I’ve already talked briefly about the ark, box if you will. The Hebrew word is ‘ârôwn, meaning “chest” or “ark.” And there are different arks mentioned, of course, in the Bible. The most, we’ll call them the most common, well-known, obviously Noah’s ark, different from the basket that carried the Moses child, which is also referred to in some translations as “ark.” But the box, or I’m sorry, the basket for Moses was called têbâh, in Hebrew; not the same as the word I just referenced, meaning the “ark of the covenant.” But they all served a purpose, a same or similar purpose to save or to preserve. And some people may not understand that just yet because you’ll hear me reference later that at a later time the lid being moved off of the ark seems to kill people, because people who don’t understand why will go, “Wow, God was really sadistic.
He just killed people.” No, it’s called; it’s like a traffic law out there, you know, the speed limit says 35, you want to go 75 in a 35, you’re probably going to have a consequence attached to that. It may not be death. In some cases it might be. You might kill somebody, okay? But there’s a reason for prescribed things, and God’s way was no different. He said this was how it’s going to be. So of course, let me go back a little bit.
God tells Noah to build an ark that he and his family would live and they would find safety in the ark. Moses, the same thing, was preserved in that ark. So we know what was placed inside the ark, which I’ve referenced before. The ark itself made of shittim wood, acacia wood overlaid with gold. And again, the number four appears everywhere on that ark. I reference the number four as meaning the four corners of the earth; the whole earth being covered. The items placed inside: the unbroken tables of stone, and it’s important to repeat this part, “upon which the Ten Commandments were written,” representing God’s truth; the pot of manna showing us the way; and Aaron’s rod that budded overnight showing us the life.
So if you want to call it “the truth, the way, and the life” right there, preserved within that ark. No matter what fallen man would do, these things would be safe and preserved within the ark. So there’s again that attachment. We see the ark to preserve life. This would actually preserve our lives if we understand how these are all in Christ. So let’s look at the covering that would, the lid that would cover the ark of the covenant called the mercy seat.
On the mercy seat, the blood of the sacrificed bullock would be sprinkled. Leviticus 16, “The LORD spake unto Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they offered before the LORD, and died. The LORD said unto Moses, Speak unto Aaron thy brother, that he come not at all times into the holy place within the vail before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark; that he die not: for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat.” Again, you know, how many of you feel this way? You read something and you’re familiar with it, but when you really start to try and put all the pictorial sense and bring it to life, it has such a deeper meaning, because now you’re looking at this in a sense like I just explained. God is speaking, which means He’s amongst men, He’s giving the instruction, and He says basically to “not come at all times into the holy place within the vail before the mercy seat, which is upon the ark; that he die not: for I will appear in the cloud upon the mercy seat.
Thus shall Aaron come into the holy place: with a young bullock for a sin offering, and a ram for a burnt offering.” And I will probably go through the offerings at a future time, but right now, just stay with what’s being said here. “He shall put on the holy linen coat, he shall have the fine linen breeches upon his flesh, shall be girded with a linen girdle, a linen miter,” he shall be attired this way, “these are holy garments; therefore shall he wash his flesh in water, put them on. He shall take of the congregation of the children of Israel two kids of the goats for a sin offering, one ram for a burnt offering. Aaron shall offer his bullock of the sin offering, which is for himself, to make an atonement for himself, and for his house.” So before he could even deal with the rest of the congregation, he had to deal with his sin and the sin of his household.
And this is why I categorically reject all of these people who do not read and understand, don’t just go, “Oh, that’s Old Testament.” Every priest, every pastor, every minister is no different than any parishioner. We have all sinned. There isn’t a one, I don’t care if you’re wearing a white suit with a white beanie on your head. You are as much a sinner as I am, brother or sister, whatever you are, whatever your pronoun is. And don’t try and make it otherwise. It’s, it, these are the things that I look at. People say, “Oh, well, you know, a person of God.” Still sinning flesh, not perfect.
I make mistakes, they make mistakes; sinning is part of every person’s lot. Put a period there. So I like the fact that God includes this, that he has to make an atonement for himself first, for his house, before he can even deal with the great Day of Atonement for the congregation and the camp. “He shall take two goats, present them before the LORD at the door of the tabernacle of the congregation. And Aaron shall cast lots upon the two goats, one lot for the LORD, the other for the scapegoat.
Aaron shall bring the goat which the LORD’S lot fell upon, bring him as the sin offering. But the goat, which the lot fell on to be the scapegoat, shall be presented alive before the LORD, to make an atonement with him, and let him go for a scapegoat in the wilderness.” And I leave that there because there’s a whole bunch of other instructions here, but the one that probably needs to be repeated so that it’s abundantly clear, because you can keep reading down, but there’s a mention of the blood, and it’s repeated over and over again. “And he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward; and before the mercy seat he shall sprinkle the blood with his finger seven times.” Again, numbers have value and have reason, not just because, “Because seven is my lucky number today.” No, there was reason, okay? It’s a perfect completed act.
“Then,” he goes on to say, “he shall kill the goat of the sin offering. That’s for the people.” So if he’s dealt now with himself and his house, now we’re going to deal with the people; it’s for the people, “and bring his blood within the vail, and do that,” which he did with the other blood, basically the same thing. “And he shall make an atonement for the holy place.” Again, everything that is touching the things of the Lord and His people will be covered or sprinkled by the blood, and there’s no escaping that. And anybody who says, “Well, I just can’t deal with that,” I don’t think you really want to deal with what God’s saying here that is the prescribed method, which again brings you right back to our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. Now in Leviticus 17, the blood is then called “sacred.” And a particular verse there, which unfortunately over time has been misquoted, which is 17:11, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood: and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls: for it is the blood that maketh an atonement for the soul.” So it’s very important to see God’s method with man, the approach, the blood, the mercy seat.
So the mercy seat then, we’re talking about how it fit and covered the ark. And I’m going to come back to the blood and some other aspects, but this at least gives you the, the bullet points that are needed for this. The mercy seat that covered the ark was the same length and breadth as, we’ll call it the box. But the top lid or covering was made of pure gold; there was no wood in the lid at all. And I love this. You’ve got the two cherubims at each end, basically facing each other, wings folded inward, almost like everything’s pointing to, like two fingers going “This way,” right? And what I think is important here is you can always look for symbolism and numbers. Here you’ve got the two cherubim, which is adequate witness of God’s presence, and their faces basically looking down towards the lid itself, which is important, because these are not, like some have said, “Whoa, are the angels on the lid to be; were they meant to be worshiped?” No, they were guardians and heralders, and they’ve always been that in the Bible.
So, you know, people say, “Well, how do you make a distinguish; how do you distinguish between Aaron building or making the golden calf and God prescribing this on the lid?” They were two very different things. One was at the behest of the people’s impatience to wait on Moses to worship something they made with their hands versus something God said, “You make this, and I’m going to be there, and you will worship Me there.” So, you know, don’t, don’t homogenize or mix things up.
But I love the fact that if you go and you read through Scripture, once more, you go back to Genesis, and you find when God basically gets them, first parents, Adam and Eve out of the Garden, He puts a cherub there with a flaming sword to, to guide the way, to protect the way. And again, there are different ways to understand this, if you want to look at and say, “One that stood watch,” but it is definitely progressive revelation as you go through the Scripture that you can see these cherubim, these angelic beings.
And some of them are called cherubims, regular wings, some of them are seraphims with multiple wings, some of them are called “angelic ones,” “messengers of the LORD”” But what’s important is they are usually heralding or announcing. Sometimes it’s good news; sometimes it’s not such good news, right? If you remember in Genesis 19, they were dispatched to get Lot out of Sodom. And I’m not sure that I’d call that good news or not because, if you know the story, maybe Lot should have stayed there. Leave that one alone. In Genesis 28, you’ve got them, the angelic beings are communicating to Jacob as he slept. So messengers with purpose, sometimes guardians of the way, and I think on the ark itself, I think they were doing double duty there, guarding the way, if you will, as a symbolic meaning.
Remember there was also cherubim on the veil itself, embroidered into the veil itself. So it’s almost like we’re going to keep repeating this. You’re, if you were approaching maybe the, the design of the cherubim on the curtain would, was the heralding announcement, if you needed one: “You’re approaching God’s presence,” or “You’re approaching something sacred and holy,” but certainly definitely guarding the way that no ordinary person would enter in. All right, so some other things that are interesting here. Moses had gone into the tabernacle of the congregation to speak with God. It is then that he hears the voice of one speaking to him off the mercy seat, I think that’s equally interesting, that was upon the ark of the testimony from between the two cherubim.
Sounds strange, unless we know the original promise: “Build Me a tabernacle that I may dwell among you.” So if you didn’t read that part, you’d say, “Well, that’s strange that God’s only going to be heard in that little area.” But God’s prescription was that He would meet him there, and commune with him there. That is also part of Exodus 25:22: “I will meet you there, commune, commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony.” And put a period right there. It, it’s not like God said, “And if you don’t meet Me there, I’ll catch up with you over here,” right? These are the things we tend to do, we like to kind of fudge things and maybe, maybe, you know; no.
This is what God said. A similar thing is stated, by the way, in Psalm 99, “The LORD reigneth: sitteth between the cherubim.” And what I would like you to just take note of is we, sometimes in the New Testament, we mention something called “the throne of God; to approach the throne of God boldly.” I want you to think about this because God said He would speak to Moses there from that particular place, which is called the mercy seat, for which no man ever sat upon. Yet when we read the New Testament, we talk about the throne of God. This is the depiction, the shadow, if you will, of the reality of God’s throne. Again, I don’t care how you do this, you’re going to be confronted with every picture here points back to the same place. That’s why I love it. And it’s important to study these. The dimensions, by the way, of this furniture, and I’m now talking about the base, two and a half by one and a half cubits; again, the numbers, and they’re repeated on both sides, basically 5 and 3.
If you’re taking the numbers and making them whole, 5 and 3; again 5, the number of grace and the fullness of Christ, and 3, the number of divine manifestation, which is what you would get if you were to be able to approach and see or hear God speaking. So I think there’s a beautiful design right there. If you remember, three items placed inside, as I just referenced them. So think about this, and then the lid is placed on there, and no human eye is to basically see these items again; that kind of sounds strange. They would be discerned in a spiritual way. Now the people, the children of Israel would not have that capacity, but we do, knowing what these embody. Remember Christ said that He came to fulfill the law, and the law was fulfilled in Him.
But prior to Christ coming in the flesh, and this is what’s really important, there’s a story, if you remember in the Old Testament, after the death of Eli, which happens in 1 Samuel, I believe the fourth chapter, where we read how the Philistines took the ark, and they took it from Ebenezer, which is being translated “the stone” or “the rock of help” unto Ashdod to bring it into the home of Dagan, the heathen idol worshiped, carved, little whatever it was made with hands. 1 Samuel 5:7; let’s see if we can find that passage. It might be a little bit more helpful if I can read it to you or show it to you.
So 1 Samuel, I think it’s 5:7; yep. So it’s, I’m going to pick up here to show you something. People often talk about this incident that happened. It says, I’ll start in verse 6, “The hand of the LORD was heavy upon them of Ashdod, and he destroyed them, and smote them with emerods, even Ashdod and the coasts thereof. And when the men of Ashdod saw that it was so, they said, The ark of the God of Israel shall not abide with us,” and get this thing away from us, right? “For his hand is sore upon us, and upon Dagan our god.” Because if you remember, if you go back and read that, that little carved god keeps somehow falling on the floor. If it was me, I would have just been pushing it off, but it just kept falling on the floor, right? Hey, at least I’m honest.
That’s what I would have done. “They sent therefore and gathered all the lords of the Philistines unto them, and said, What shall we do with the ark of the God of Israel? And they answered, Let the ark of the God of Israel be carried unto Gath. They carried the ark of God of Israel about thither. And it was so, after they had carried it about, the hand of the LORD was against the city with a very great destruction: he smote the men of the city, both great; small and great, they had emerods in their secret parts,” whatever that means. “Therefore they sent the ark of God to Ekron. It came to pass, as the ark of God came to Ekron, that the Ekronites cried out, saying, They have brought about the ark of God, of the God of Israel to slay us and our people.” They recognized that.
Now, if you remember, there is the passage. Ultimately these people, they want to “Send the ark back to the children of Israel, get it away,” because it, there was destruction everywhere. But you remember, they had it in their possession. If you read this whole story, they had it in their possession for seven months, and they decide to send it back towards Beth-shemesh. If you remember that, they lifted the lid. And that’s probably the most important thing that people get wrong, because they say, “Well, God’s sadistic. He wiped these people out for lifting the lid”” or they caricature it like Raiders of the Lost Ark. There was a purpose, do not look inside the box. And that purpose is so abundantly clear, the law, the tables of unbroken law, that we know no human being could keep, not a one. What does the New Testament say? The New Testament says, “For sin comes death.” So someone not covered by the blood already and then looking to the law: death, “For the wages of sin is death.” The law acted directly upon them.
Don’t think that because they just merely glanced in; the consequences of being exposed to the law brought death. And this is what Paul explains, by the way, so brilliantly in Galatians. The law could never bring life. It could only bring death. So when people say, “Oh, well, God’s pretty sadistic; He wiped those people out for looking inside.” Yep. But think of the purpose and really go, don’t look at the pot of manna or those are secondary items, the most important one, because the rod that budded was an emblem of the resurrected life.
But it was the law and that exposure to the law, direct exposure to the law would bring death. And still to this day, if you think about it, the tables of stone do not make up the whole law as we know it. The whole law is 316 do’s and don’ts. But if you split the Ten Commandments in half and the relationship between man and man, and God and man, I’d say there is a very good likelihood that no one in the sound of my voice, including yours truly, could live if that’s all we had, could stay alive if that’s all we had. And now, you might say, “Well, how could something like ‘Honor thy mother and thy father’ or, well” think about what’s on those stones, but then translate them into everyday life, and then you’ll realize, if that’s all you had, we’d all be dead. So don’t be too harsh on God wiping these people out.
And I often think this one story in the Old Testament helps clean up and clarify what most people do not understand about God. The apostle Paul said, “I through the law am dead to the law, that I might live unto God.” Even he understood that. Now, why is it? Talk to people who don’t understand these concepts. I remember talking to somebody who said, “Oh, I, I love the law. The law is good.” Well, you may love the law, but that’s like saying, “I like to have a noose around my neck,” because that’s what it, if you really understand it, that’s what it means because no one can live to those standards. Even the most simplistic man-man or God-man relation, no one can live to those standards, not a one. And as I’ve said repeatedly over the years, Jesus raised the bar. So let’s talk about “Thou shalt not kill, which some people want to parse and say, “Well, is it kill? Or is it murder? Or how would you describe that?” Jesus said, “If you hate in your heart, you’re as guilty as a murderer.” So don’t parse the words of killing or murdering.
Just put a period on that. And then Jesus says, “And if you hate,” okay, I hate to do this. Don’t put a camera on anybody. How many of you have ever hated somebody? Okay? So that’s what I’m saying to you. And that’s the importance of studying this to see if you really, really understand it the Old Testament could not ever be a complete book to follow. You want the canonized version of it. If you understand what I’m saying, the prescribed method could not have represented the fullness of God’s desire for humankind ever. So it would take the shed blood sprinkled upon the mercy seat to change what was judgment towards man and upon man into grace. And even there, this is the remarkable thing, people say, “Oh, well, the God of the Old Testament – there’s no grace there.” Of course there is. Just in that one act of letting the priest go in and sprinkle the blood that would cover the whole congregation, that’s an act of grace in and of itself, because, if you think about it, without that blood being applied, they would have died.
In fact, you’ve got the same application. You don’t like this one? Go back to the children of Israel in Egypt’s bondage. And God says, “Apply the blood and my avenging angel, when he sees the blood, he shall pass over.” But failure to apply that blood meant death; pretty simple. So God’s holiness and mankind’s sinfulness could not meet unless the blood was authenticated, validated in that sacrificial death that had to take place, and then God’s wrath ceased. People don’t even like to talk about the wrath of God. And that’s another disturbing thing. Again, you have ever heard people say, “Oh, I just can’t read the Old Testament. You know, God, God’s an angry God.
I like the God of the New Testament.” Like somehow God said, “Excuse me, bear with Me”” I; bear with me, I don’t mean to be blasphemous, “but I’m, I’m going to be trans-testamental.” (Laughter.) I’m just going to slip into something a little bit more comfortable for you all in the New so that you can all appreciate it. God has not changed. Just God has not changed. So it’s no different in type, as I’ve said, if you cover to cover, see what God did, whether it is the Passover, where, whether it is the slaying of animals to clothe Adam and Eve, or through and through even, as I’ve mentioned, the cord that Rahab hung out the window to save her and her family. Through, cover to cover, you find this concept of blood and God’s way with fallen man.
So to reconcile man back to God, we read of the effects: the finished work of Christ. Therefore, let us come boldly unto the throne of grace. We can now approach! The veil is now open. We can approach. There’s no more fear that if we approach without covering, we shall surely die. And so it’s kind of interesting. Covered in Christ’s sacrifice, we no longer fear the wrath of God. I think, try and make the application now to a Scripture, again, I’ve quoted abundantly over the years, Romans 8, “There is therefore now no ultimate condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.” Think of “ultimate condemnatio”” as judgment, wrath; all the things that would have been poured out, now covered in the finished work of Christ. There is no more.
There are remaineth no more. So what the Old Testament could not accomplish in full, we see it in the New. So again, every concept is going to come back to one thing here, Exodus 25 where God says, “And there I will meet thee and commune with thee.” If that’s been God’s intent since day one; this is why I feel sorry for some people who are stuck in an old dispensation and don’t understand this. If that was God’s desire for man from day one, and basically Adam and Eve messed it up, and along the way God is showing us it’s still His desire, think about what God gave us in this new dispensation to, to basically commune with Him, to be at one with Him. Not only first and foremost the death of Christ, the death and Resurrection of Jesus Christ, but remember when Jesus said, “It’s expedient that I go away. If I go another way, I cannot send you the Holy Spirit.” So the Holy Spirit has sent to us for all the reasons I’ve said, but also to dwell with us, part payment.
So it’s like God’s saying, “I’m no longer going to dwell with the people as I originally proposed. I’m going to dwell with them all in fullness as they come to Me in faith.” So I’m going to ask this question again, because I, I’m repeating it, but I’m trying to nail something down here. If you only had the Old Testament, could you actually understand God’s desire for humankind? With, (no ma’am) right, without Christ and without the finished work of Christ, you’d be left with half of a picture and honestly quite confusing one at that.
Not that the words themselves or the book is confusing, but the fact that you’re left with an incomplete picture, and it’s incomplete in so many ways. Even if you want to go down to, as I said, materials, the numerology, everything here speaks and points in the direction that I’ve been pointing to you. And so it’s, it’s very clear what was made possible by God through the blood is the gateway, if you will. The picture is clear. As I said earlier, this is why Jesus is called “the Lamb of God who taketh away the sins of the”- this is mind boggling. Think of now everything I’ve said and pretend for a second you never heard this book. You never heard anything about this except for the descriptions I’ve given you regarding the tabernacle. And here are these people early on in the first and second chapter of John, Jesus doesn’t say, “I am the Lamb of God.” They say, “Behold the Lamb of God who taketh away the sin”” It’s kind of, if you really think about it, it was God’s prescribed way.
These people in Christ’s time were Jews, knew the Old Testament, which was the only Testament. So even that declaration, see, we’re familiar with it so it doesn’t have the same impact, but if you, if you really could try and not be so familiar you’d realize that even that in itself, that declaration is pretty staggering. That somebody did not recognize this in the flesh by themselves. God had to open up the eyes and give the declaration to be uttered to say, “That’s Him.
No longer the blood of bulls and goats, but that’s Him. That’s the one that’s going to do it.” And all the names of God even that we’ve covered over the years, the “with us God,” the “all sufficient God”; these all are tied up in Him. So I just feel really terrible when I hear people say, “Well, but you know,” and I, as I said, I have a lot of Jewish friends. “You know, I, I just can’t, can’t read the New Testament.” Well, I feel sorry for you because you’re missing out. Like I said, you’re only wearing one shoe. Go run a marathon. So the other thing that becomes clear is that not only how Paul declares in Romans 3:25 and 1 John about the word “propitiation.” He was not only our Reconciler and Propitiation and Propitiatory, both the essence of what was needed to reconcile, the Reconciler and actually the place of reconciliation all in one, which is again back to the mercy seat, so every detail in this work that we’re looking at to try and figure this out, it keeps revealing over and over again concepts, and they all are materialized in Christ.
Then you’ve got passages, for example, like Luke 18:13, where you’ve got the publican saying, “Be merciful to me, a sinner.” And if you read that again, it would be very easy to see the publican saying, “Be mercy seated to me,” the way it is written in the Greek. All of these, again, we’re, we’re reading a New Testament where they were still primarily a Jewish community. So even these words to them would have been staggering to hear somebody say, “Be mercy seated to me,” but this is exactly what we see.
So last but not least here, let me just say it this way, the most oft repeated Scripture. You go to these big gatherings, sometimes I’ll see it on the back of a truck somewhere, John 3:16, “God so loved the world,” and you know the verse of Scripture. When it says “he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” what should be understood by that as well is that had God not given His only begotten Son, where exactly, I want you to think about this, because this is why Paul wrote a certain thing about “if Christ be not risen, our faith is vain.” I want you to think about what that would mean living in a world where there was no ultimate sacrifice.
And the ongoing sacrifices, at some point, I said this to you, ceased. Why did the, why did the old way cease? Now people say, “Well, because they; Jerusalem was destroyed. The people were expelled, or they were put, they were deported.” But if this was so that they believed that this was the only way of salvation, even if they didn’t have a high priest, but they believed this was the only way of salvation, don’t you think they would have still been practicing it? (Yes ma’am.) Right. So it leads me to some conclusion about something, and I know when I say this, people will take what I’m saying out of context. So if you do, that’s your problem because the spirit in which I intend to be meant.
There is no way that God intended this ceremony, sacrificing, and the rituals to continue. No, there’s no possible way. And in fact, a closer examination of some of the Hebrew words, and in the New Testament, some of the Greek words really hit that home to the point of asking the question. So how could people still be steeped in something that technically no longer was meant to exist? And this is why I use all these Scriptures frequently, but they all tie together. This is why when it says, “They will look upon Him whom they have pierced,” because it’s the same people perpetuating the same customs, the same traditions that make void the word of God, who also perpetuate that Christ did not live or that He was a mere prophet or that He was not the Messiah.
And these will be the same people where it says, “They will look upon Him whom they have pierced, and they will mourn,” because they will recognize that the whole time that they were perpetuating ceremonial concepts, no longer carried out and actually slaughtering animals and applying the blood, but in conceptual concepts, but the whole time they were doing that, God was here, Emmanuel, God, the with us God, showing us that that dispensation came to a close and is no more. Now, why build that temple for the future? Why? Because that temple in the future will teach people who Christ is who did not know Christ. That temple in the future to be built will point in every dimension. You know, I, I’ve talked about this both here and on Festival, about the red heifer, about all these special tools that they’re trying to make, but the bigger point is being missed which will be revealed, but it will not be revealed until Christ reveals Himself.
And that’s the part that I just want to kind of pause here right now to bring this all to a close to say, you and I may not live perfect lives, and we don’t, and we can’t, but we look unto Him who is the Author and Finisher of faith. He’s shown us the way. He’s shown us as I taught last week and spoke about the resurrected life, that all of that is encompassed in the finished work and that there is no need to go down this ceremonial trail. And to people in other, we’ll call them dimensions of the quasi-Christian faith who, who are insistent on ceremony plus Christ, people who are still, by the way, eating the body of Christ or drinking Christ’s blood, again, you’ve made void the word of God; these traditions, or if they are religious traditions or traditions of man. And I do challenge some of my listeners out there who may be, you be in total disagreement with me, that’s fine.
I’m not asking you to just nod your head and go along with me. I’m asking you to go back and reread the passages that we’ve looked at so far, and you tell me how they could ever be complete; complete for the person of that day, complete in this day and age or at any other time because I go back to one thing that still looms large over this whole populace that insists on those traditions: the law. You want to live by the law? You’re going to die by the law. You want to live by faith, you’ll have eternal life in Christ. And these two, I’m sorry, you say, “Well, but the law is good.” Yes, but what does Paul say? The law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ. That comes out of the mouth of the most zealous Jew that ever lived: the law was a schoolmaster to bring us to Christ.
So if you understand that and every other thing that Paul wrote about, saying, “Cursed is anyone who hangs on a tree.” Well, the curse fell on, the curse being the curse of the law, fell on Him, and because of what He did, we pass out. We are no longer exposed, lid open, looking at the law. The law, the curse fell on Him, we get to walk out from under it, and because of His work, we live. And we don’t just live in the now, we have eternal life. So to all of my listeners and particularly people out there that say, “This is, it’s very simple.” It’s also very complicated, because if you’re not willing to leave your baggage and your traditions at the door, none of this is going to make sense even though it’s so simple. Furthermore, as I’ve said, and I appreciate the messages that you’ve communicated with me, to go back and to reread, even just portions of the mercy seat, portions of Leviticus 16 and 17 now, with Christ in mind and with all of these various depictions in mind, and see that God was always saying one thing, “I want to commune with you.
I want to dwell with you, and I want us,” that’s what Christ said in His high priestly prayer, “to be one.” Well, that oneness will not occur at the moment, but the part payment has, the deposit of the Spirit has, and we will be one with Him in eternity. So the messages will, we’ll see if we continue on in the tabernacle, but I hope this is helping people fill out some of the areas and recognize you are incomplete with just one Testament, but you put the two together and you see the big picture.
And the big picture is pretty incredible, because God from the beginning was saying, “I want to be with My creation”” Now sin, sinning man and free will messed that up, but God said, “I’m going to give you the door. I’m going to give you the way and the truth. And it’s no longer the truth that is the law that kills, but the truth that’s in Christ. And I’m going to give you the way, which is the manna, the bread from heaven, no longer gathering it up daily, but basically, if you want feasting on it, ‘Taste and see that the LORD is good.’ And I’m going to give you the life.
Aaron’s rod that budded, symbolizing the resurrected life; I’m going to give you that too, in My Son Jesus Christ, who is the First Goer.” And if you call yourself a Christian, you’re a follower of Christ; you follow after Him in that same way. So I can’t see how anyone would not want to look at the whole picture and say, “That’s where I’m going to stand, the complete picture, all fulfilled in Christ.” For right now, that’s my message, possibly to be continued, but that’s my message. (Applause.) You have been watching me, Pastor Melissa Scott, live from Glendale, California at Faith Center. If you would like to attend the service with us, Sunday morning at 11am, simply call 1-800-338-3030 to receive your pass. If you’d like more teaching and you’d like to go straight to our website, the address is www.PastorMelissaScott.com.
