Exodus 25:17 – 22 “And you are to construct a mercy seat of pure gold, two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide. Make two cherubim of hammered gold at the ends of the mercy seat, one cherub on one end and one on the other, all made from one piece of gold. And the cherubim are to have wings that spread upward, overshadowing the mercy seat. The cherubim are to face one another, looking toward the mercy seat. Set the mercy seat atop the ark, and put the Testimony that I will give you into the ark. And I will meet with you there above the mercy seat, between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the Testimony; I will speak with you about all that I command you regarding the Israelites.”
God has already ordered the Israelites to construct an ark, a special wooden chest overlayed with gold, into which the tablets containing the Ten Commandments are to be placed. Of this arrangement, Dennis Prager comments “There is a powerful message in the placing of the Ten Commandments – the core document of ethical monotheism – in the ark, which is in the holiest part of the Tabernacle. It is a physical representation of a major Torah teaching: the holy protects the ethical. Ever since the French Enlightenment, Western man has believed ethics can survive without the holy, meaning without God. But the “death of God” along with the death of the holy inevitably leads to a moral collapse. It is an open question whether Western societies will survive “the death of God” (Nietzsche, 1882) and if those societies die, there is no reason to believe they will be replaced by something morally superior – and a great deal of reason to believe they will not.” (Dennis Prager, The Rational Bible: Exodus)
The mercy seat might be one of the most confusing objects in the entire tabernacle. Certainly, when Moses passed these instructions on to the artisans who were fabricating things, they must have said, “HUH???” The Israelites were used to Egyptian temples with huge statues of the Pharaoh or of an Egyptian god sitting on a special throne, but the mercy seat was something on which no person or statue was to physically sit.
Verse 17 in the Jewish Torah reads “You shall make a cover of pure gold,” rather than mentioning a “mercy seat.” Prager explains: “The Hebrew word for cover, kaporet, comes from the same root as the Hebrew word for atonement, kippur.” Later on in Leviticus 16, God commands Aaron as the first of the high priests on the rituals needed for atonement, both for himself and for his family and also for all the people.
Leviticus 16:1 “Now the LORD spoke to Moses after the death of two of Aaron’s sons when they approached the presence of the LORD. And the LORD said to Moses: “Tell your brother Aaron not to enter freely into the Most Holy Place behind the veil in front of the mercy seat on the ark, or else he will die, because I appear in the cloud above the mercy seat.”
God commands the Israelites to make annual sacrifices for the atonement of their sins and to sprinkle some of the blood of the bull and the goat offered as sin offerings on the mercy seat. Leviticus 16:11-16 describes what the High Priest is to do with the blood. Verse 16 says, “So he(Aaron, the high priest) shall make atonement for the Most Holy Place because of the impurities and rebellious acts of the Israelites in regard to all their sins. He is to do the same for the Tent of Meeting which abides among them, because it is surrounded by their impurities.”
God instituted a system of sacrifices for the Israelites; however, the blood of animals could never permanently pay for the sins of men. Those sacrifices had to be repeated each year. Only the blood of a sinless man who freely offered himself could serve as a sacrifice that did not need to be repeated. Jesus Christ came as the Son of God, born of a virgin woman, to offer himself as the sacrifice for the sins of the whole world. In so doing, Jesus made the ultimate sacrifice.
There was a heavy curtain placed at the entrance of the Holy of Holies to keep casual onlookers out; however, at the exact time Jesus was dying on the cross, the curtain in the huge temple in Jerusalem was torn from top to bottom. God tore that curtain; no human hands could have done so. God was demonstrating that Jesus had made a way to Him for all mankind by sacrificing himself.
The ark was to be placed in the Holy of Holies, and nobody was to approach the Holy of Holies casually. But God promised Moses that once the ark and the mercy seat were placed in the Holy of Holies, He would meet Moses there and instruct him. Moses met with God regularly, coming out each time with his face shining so brightly that he had to wear a veil over his face.
APPLICATION: Because of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we no longer need to sacrifice animals to make atonement for our sins. But we do need to meet with God regularly and we do need to allow the Holy Spirit to show us our sins. Once we realize where we have sinned, we need to seek God’s forgiveness. How can we do this?
PRAYER: Father God, we realize that we are sinners and that none of us can earn our way into heaven. Lord, please show us our sins. Help us to repent, to turn away from those sins and to learn your will for our lives. In the matchless Name of King Jesus. Amen.
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