1714. The Mercy Seat
The Mercy Seat
"And thou shalt put the Mercy Seat above the Ark; * * and there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the Mercy Seat" (Exo_25:21-22).
The Mercy Seat is a picture exclusively of Christ and of His redemptive work.
1. The Mercy Seat was made from pure gold, the type of Jesus Christ, God's Son. The man who denies the virgin birth, and sets to one side the Deity of our Lord has no place of meeting with God.
The Lord said, "For if ye believe not that I am He, ye shall die in your sins" (Joh_8:24). A human Christ cannot save the sinner.
A so-called minister of the Gospel told us recently that he could not see any difference–it mattered not to him whether Jesus Christ was the son of Joseph, or whether He was the Son of God.
Another minister told us that we gained nothing in claiming the virgin birth; that, if Jesus Christ was born of Joseph and Mary, He was a whole sinner, and if He was born of God and Mary, He was half a sinner.
What blasphemy these words suggest!
The gold of the Mercy Seat proclaimed that Jesus Christ was God. The wood of the Ark covered with gold, proclaimed that He was the God-man.
The God-man, however, was God manifest in the flesh. He did not receive from Mary His nature; He received His nature from God.
2. The Mercy Seat was made from beaten gold. The beaten gold symbolizes the sufferings of Christ upon the Cross. Jesus Christ, the Son of God suffered the Just for the unjust, "He hath poured out His soul unto death" (Isa_53:12).
We remember, as a college student, we debated upon the theme, "Did Divinity Suffer?" How foolish to discuss such a theme. Was not Jesus Christ Divine? Divine, not in the sense that all men are Divine, but Divine in the sense that He was Deity? If He was Divine, then Divinity suffered.
The gold symbolized the Deity, and the gold was beaten gold.
3. Upon the Mercy Seat, the blood was sprinkled. The Mercy Seat was the place of propitiation. The Mercy Seat fitted on top, in the rim of the Ark, and covered it. Beneath the Mercy Seat and within the Ark were the Law, the manna, and Aaron's rod.
Above the Mercy Seat were the cherubims and there, God dwelt. God looked down at the Law, which man had broken, through the blood-sprinkled Mercy Seat.
All this suggests that Jesus Christ is our Daysman. He is our Go-between. God approaches us, in our sins, through Jesus Christ, and the Blood of His Cross; we approach God by the same method.
"God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself" (2Co_5:19).
God gave Christ to be "the propitiation for our sins;" that is, the Mercy Seat for our sins.
4. The blood was sprinkled once a year. This was because the blood of bulls and of goats had no power to cleanse. Their blood was merely typical, therefore it was often shed.
The Lord Jesus Christ, however, shed His Blood once for all, and entered into the Holiest of all where He ever lives our Mercy Seat.
Autor: R.E. NEIGHBOUR