We go on with the next thing
about the ark, and that is the mercy-seat. There rested upon the
ark this solid plate of gold which was called the mercy-seat. It
is mentioned twenty-three times in the Old Testament, and in the
New Testament it is taken up as referring to the Lord Jesus. It
is so set forth in the Letter to the Hebrews. The mercy-seat on
the ark of the Old Testament is one other aspect of the glory and
greatness of the Lord Jesus Christ.
You notice that it is called
'the seat of mercy', and that word 'mercy' in the Old Testament
is a very rich and strong word. It means 'the loving kindness of
the Lord'. A new translation of the Bible has translated that
word 'mercy' into 'steadfast love', and that is the nearest
definition to the Hebrew word that we have. It is covenant love,
loyal love, a covenant of love made in the blood which was
sprinkled upon the mercy-seat. Because we are so familiar with
the old versions, which give this word simply as 'mercy', we love
that constant repetition of the statement: "His mercy
endureth for ever", or "How great is Thy mercy!",
or from the prophet: "He delighteth in mercy" (Micah 7:18).
Perhaps we do not easily take to a new translation, but when we
stay to think about it, the new translation is still richer.
Perhaps, as we come more deeply to understand it, we shall be
willing to accept this translation 'His steadfast love'.
It is a very impressive thing
that, right at the very centre and heart of this whole great
system of the Old Testament, represented by the tabernacle, is
the mercy-seat. Everything else pointed toward the mercy-seat,
and it gave its value to everything else. The mercy-seat governed
and gave character to everything. It is a wonderful thing to
think of that. Yes, the mercy-seat governs everything for the
people of God. We turn to a little phrase in Psalm 84. You know
that that Psalm is the Psalm of the House of God. It begins with:
"How lovely are thy tabernacles, O Lord of hosts! My soul
longeth, yea, even fainteth for the courts of the Lord". It
is sinful man saying that! This is poor, failing man who is
speaking. Why is it that the poor, sinful, failing man speaks
like that? Why is it that he so longs for the courts of the
Lord's house? The answer is found in this little phrase: "The
Lord will give grace and glory" (verse 11). The
throne of grace, the mercy-seat, was right at the centre of the
House of the Lord. The gold of the glory was there at the
mercy-seat, but it was not a throne of judgment; it was a throne
of grace.
We pass from the type to the
Lord Jesus Himself. We said that the Lord Jesus takes the place
of the mercy-seat in the New Testament. Now look at the Letter to
the Romans, chapter 3, verse 25: "Whom God set forth to
be a propitiation, through faith, by his blood". We can
understand the difficulty of the translators, but their
difficulty has deprived us of something very precious. It would
have been difficult for the translators to have put: 'God hath
set forth Him as a mercy-seat'. In the original it is not what
God has done, but what Christ is. In that literal translation it
would not be: 'God has set Him forth as a propitiation', but 'as
a propitiatory'. It is what He is, although it is also true of
what He has done. So it ought really to read: 'God hath set Him
forth to be the mercy-seat'. Jesus occupies the central place in
the whole scheme of redemption, and that place is the mercy-seat.
It was there at the mercy-seat that God met the people in the
representative person of the high priest. You will remember that
when Aaron, the high priest, went in to the ark, he had the
breastplate on him with the names of all the tribes of Israel, so
that in the person of the high priest all the people of God were
present, and there, at the mercy-seat, God spoke and made Himself
known to His people. Aaron went in with the blood of the
sacrifice and sprinkled it upon the mercy-seat, making an
atonement for the people, and by that covenant in blood God made
Himself known. It was a perpetual testimony to the grace of God.
In that regime it was every year. It was maintained throughout
all their generations, but with our Lord Jesus it is once and for
ever. All who come unto God by Jesus Christ stand on the ground
of His steadfast love, and for such people it is everlasting
love.
The Apostle Paul had a great
knowledge of these Old Testament types. He was perfectly
instructed in all the things of the tabernacle of old, and in
ways which we do not always recognize he was alluding to that Old
Testament system. I believe that those words which we love very
much, but understand very little, are an allusion to the
mercy-seat. Let us read them in the light of the mercy-seat, for
they will throw much light upon it.
"Who shall lay anything
to the charge of Gods elect? It is God that justifieth; who is he
that shall condemn? It is Christ Jesus that died, yea rather,
that was raised from the dead, who is at the right hand of God,
who also maketh intercession for us." That is the High
Priest who has gone into the heavenly tabernacle with His own
blood to make intercession for us. Now the next words explain the
mercy-seat, that is, the steadfast love: "Who shall
separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation or
anguish, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or
sword? ... Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors
through him that loved us. For I am persuaded, that neither
death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor things
present, nor things to come, nor powers, nor height, nor depth,
nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the
love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord" (Romans
8:33-35, 37-39).
That is the mercy-seat, the
steadfast love of God for His own. That is the greatness and
glory of Jesus Christ; and surely we can speak of that as grace
and glory. That is what Jesus Christ has been made unto us.
Are you not more and more
amazed at the steadfast love of God for Israel? You have only to
read that long record of their history in the Book of the Psalms
- Psalms 106 and 107. They are very long Psalms, but it is a
long, long story of the steadfast love of God, and that love is
set over against the long story of Israel's failures. Oh, how
those people disappointed the Lord! They never had one little
trouble but they turned against Him. It seems that they only
wanted some little occasion to grumble at Him. When we come to
the Prophets we are greatly impressed with the love of God for
Israel. Indeed, it was steadfast love. How loyal God was to His
people! His love for them often made Him close His eyes to their
wrong. When I remember what Israel was really like I am amazed at
those prophecies of Balaam. Balak, of Moab, called for Balaam to
come and curse Israel, and perhaps you might think that if there
were any people who ought to be cursed, those people were Israel!
Balaam came to try to curse Israel, but the curse would not come
out of his mouth, and he had to say: 'God has commanded me to
bless. How can I curse?' But what did Balaam say, or rather, what
did God say through Balaam's mouth? "He (God) hath not
beheld iniquity in Jacob, neither hath he seen perverseness in
Israel" (Numbers 23:21). Oh, what does this mean? There
was plenty of iniquity in Israel, but God says: "I have not
beheld iniquity in Jacob". Why did God speak like that? He
was looking at Israel through the mercy-seat, and was being true
to His covenant of steadfast love.
If you really love someone, you
usually make a lot of excuses for their failures. If someone else
points out the failures and the wrongs of the one you love, you
always say: 'Well, perhaps that is true, but... but...'. You
cover up the faults of the one you love because you are loyal to
them. Loyalty is a great virtue. I wish that we Christians were
more loyal to one another, simply because we are brothers and
sisters in Christ. We have to go a long way to be like God in
this matter. There is an old saying that love is blind. Don't you
believe that! Love sees everything, but love loves in spite of
everything, and that is like the love of God.
We are poor sinners and we
cannot accuse Israel. We are a very poor lot in ourselves, and
God knows all about that, and much more than we know about
ourselves, but with all His knowledge of us He loves us.
What do you think of this
world? What do you think about those Congolese people who have
done all that wicked work? They are only representative of
humanity. What do you think of this world? Well, we are saying
that this is a poor kind of a world. Man is a poor kind of
creature. Do you think God does not know anything about that? He
knows far more about man than you or I know, and yet it
still stands - "God so loved the world that He gave His only begotten Son", and
God has set Him forth as a mercy-seat. We shall never exhaust the
wonderful fullness of this mercy-seat! We find all the patience
and the long-suffering and the forbearance of God in the Lord
Jesus Christ.
This is not a low kind of love,
that is, a kind of love that does not care whether a person is
bad. That is why there are two cherubim over the mercy-seat, and
if you study the history of the cherubim you will see that they
always relate to one thing - the holiness of God. The first time
you meet them is at the gate of the Garden when man has sinned.
Those cherubim say: 'Man in his sinful state cannot dwell in the
presence of God. Something must be done about it.' When you get
to the end of the Bible you find redeemed man in the midst of the
Paradise of God. Yes, he is back in the Garden now, but God has
done something about it. The Mercy-Seat has attended to this
whole matter. The precious Blood has made a full atonement for
man's sin.
The point is that the cherubim
always speak of the holiness of God's love. The cherubim in
Isaiah's time are heard chanting: "Holy, holy, holy is the
Lord of hosts." His love is a holy love, and by the
mercy-seat He lifts us from our own unholiness to His holiness.
That blood on the mercy-seat always speaks of the great price
that God paid to redeem man from his unholiness.
Forget the mercy-seat and
remember Jesus Christ. He is all and more than ever the symbol
represented.
We said that this is just one
other aspect of the greatness and glory of Jesus Christ. May God
give us a new appreciation of our Lord Jesus as our Mercy-Seat!