Jesus Christ is the Ark of the New Covenant. He is our place of atonement, our mercy seat. He puts a lid on the righteousness that might otherwise condemn us by offering his very self in our stead on the cross.
A somewhat intimidating feature of the Book of Exodus is figuring out what to do with its liturgical minutiae. From a certain point of view, Chapters 25 through 30 contain the heavenly blueprints for what’s known as the Tabernacle or the Tent of Meeting, and God spares no details. He’s meticulous about every rivet, seam, and socket, going so far as spending twenty-odd verses offering exact recipes for the anointing oil and the incense (Exod. 30:22–38).
But when approaching the tedium of this portion of Scripture, preachers are often tempted to offer some rather unhelpful ways to navigate it. Most blatantly, some just skip over it, seeing it as little more than a contractor’s work order. Other homileticians painstakingly walk through every loop on every edge of every curtain in order to show you how all of it is a callback, or a call-forward, to Jesus. I know this might come as a shock coming from a preacher like me who insists that “all Scripture is pure Christ,” but when you make every curtain hanger or every wood frame an analogy for Jesus, you end up saying nothing in particular about Jesus at all.
The point is, God’s instructions to Moses regarding how to construct the Tabernacle aren’t a “Where’s Waldo?” manual that puts each of us on a quest to “find Jesus” in every linen thread or every bronze fitting. There’s a better way to understand these Scriptures, one that’s more enthralling and more fulfilling.
The Aim and Heart of God
After the spellbinding revelation of God on Sinai, Moses is summoned further up the mountain to receive even more revelation (Exod. 24:12–14). More specifically, this thick cloud of fire and light was “tabernacling” there as a preview of what will be explained to Moses over the next “forty days and forty nights” — that among Yahweh’s sincerest desires is to be among his beloved (Exod. 25:8).
Ours is a God who is keen on drawing near to his people, and they to him, and the Tabernacle brings that inclination into physical space. The entire structure was a vivid object lesson of what God’s name, Immanuel, means: God with us. Jesus, of course, brings this to bear in the truest and fullest way imaginable. As St. John explicitly says, “The Word became flesh and dwelt [or tabernacled] among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth” (John 1:14).
Jesus, in other words, is the Tabernacle in skin and bone. It is in the tent of his flesh where God ultimately meets us. Thus, we don’t have to invent or dream up ways to “find Jesus” in the Tabernacle minutiae. The whole thing is about him! So instead of forcing allegories that just aren’t there, it’s far more meaningful and impactful to see him where he wants to be found.
The Unavoidable Altar
The first piece of furniture that would greet you as you entered the Tabernacle was the Bronze Altar (Exod. 27:1–8), an eye-catching furnishing standing roughly four and a half feet tall by seven and a half feet wide, made of acacia wood and covered entirely in bronze.
There was no avoiding or going around the Bronze Altar. Right there, front and center, was the bloody and unglamorous sight of sacrificial death. And every day, twice a day, the priests were charged with bringing lambs to the slaughter there (Exod. 29:38–41). And it was there, in the middle of all that smoke and blood, that the Lord wanted to be found (Exod. 29:42–43, 46).
Just as there was no entrance into that tent apart from the altar, there was no fellowship or relationship with God without blood. And this, to be sure, is still true for the church as well. We were brought into a relationship with God because of blood, and we stay in that relationship because of that same blood. It is God’s Son who reconciles us and brings us near to himself, the apostle Paul tells us, by making peace for us “by the blood of his cross” (Col. 1:20; Eph. 2:13).
We Still Need the Blood
There’s a tendency nowadays to shy away from conversations about blood. Plus, isn’t the God of the Bible supposedly a God of peace and love and compassion? How does the violent imagery of the blood of lambs and goats streaming over the sides of altars jive with that? Well, it won’t if you don’t think you’re that bad. To the degree that you diminish the monstrosity of your sin, you’ll downplay the necessity of the blood and imagine another way to be rescued.
But, you see, your sin isn’t merely a mistake that can be remedied with time or effort. It’s fatal. Each of us enters this life spiritually “dead in trespasses and sins” (Eph. 2:1). That isn’t a diagnosis we can mend on our own. We need something on an altar, taking our punishment for us, something better than a lamb or a bull. And the good news is that something is a “someone” named Jesus.
God’s promise to meet with his people at the altar is realized at the cross, where, as both Priest and Sacrifice at the same time, Jesus offers himself for your sake (Heb. 10:10–14). And this is why the message of “Christ crucified” persists, since that’s where God has promised to show up: in blood that’s been shed for us. Therefore, whenever we walk across the threshold into church, we do so knowing that blood paves our way.
Behind the Veil
As one ventured further into the Tabernacle, one was brought closer and closer to God’s presence, which became more and more apparent as the gold furnishings became more abundant and the reverence more demanding, culminating in the Holy of Holies. This innermost chamber of the Tabernacle remained a lifelong mystery to most, as only the high priest could venture behind the veil, and even then, his access was limited to a yearly event called the Day of Atonement (cf. Lev. 16).
But within the Holy of Holies sat one item: the Ark of the Covenant, the God-ordained emblem of his very presence (Exod. 25:10–16). The Ark was essentially a box, approximately three and three-quarter feet long, two and a quarter feet wide, and two and a quarter feet tall, and every surface of it was covered in a layer of pure gold, inside and out.
The most eye-catching feature of the Ark, though, was its lid, often referred to as “the mercy seat,” a title, I must confess, that’s always confused me. Even as a young boy in Sunday school, I couldn’t wrap my brain around this seat of mercy, especially since every picture of it never included a chair.
Nevertheless, perched on top of the Ark was a slab made out of pure gold, with the form of two cherubim hammered out of it (Exod. 25:17–21). “Cherubim,” of course, are angelic beings that are often closely associated with the throne of God (Ps. 80:1; 99:1). They’re the ones whom God stations at the entrance to Eden “to guard the way to the tree of life” (Gen. 3:24). Similarly, their position atop the Ark signals their role as champions of God’s holiness, with their wings overshadowing the Ark’s lid, guarding “the testimony” of God (Exod. 25:16, 21).
This “testimony” was none other than the Decalogue, which, among other things, revealed who God is in all his blinding perfection. Indeed, the Ark was God’s throne in miniature — a place of truth, justice, and perfection. And right there, “between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony,” God promises to meet with and speak with his people (Exod. 25:22).
The Lid That Saves
Okay, but how? How could the Lord promise to meet them in a place so blisteringly holy when his people were anything but that? Well, in and of itself, the Ark didn’t convey much in the way of “good news.” No one could approach it, let alone touch it, or they’d die on the spot. On its own, this was the most fearful fixture of the Tabernacle, a fact that the bad guys in Raiders of the Lost Ark learn way too late. But the point is that the Ark wasn’t left open. It was sealed; it had a lid on it.
Properly speaking, the “mercy seat” is the “place of atonement,” that is, the place where God’s wrath due to our sin is appeased and satisfied. The testimony of God’s righteousness that God’s people could never measure up to, that they had already violated, was sealed by mercy extended to undeserving sinners. This is what the annual “Day of Atonement” signified when the high priest would cover the whole lid in blood (Lev. 16:13–16). In other words, what should’ve condemned every person in the covenant community becomes the place where God communes with them.
This promise still holds true for the church. The place where God communes with us is the place where God’s steadfast love and faithfulness meet, where “righteousness and peace kiss each other” (Ps. 85:10). We meet him on the ground of mercy, but mercy in the form of a Man who feels everything we deserve so that he can give us all that he has. Jesus Christ is the Ark of the New Covenant. He is our place of atonement, our mercy seat (Rom. 3:24–26). He puts a lid on the righteousness that might otherwise condemn us by offering his very self in our stead on the cross.
And whereas sin exiled us “East of Eden,” and drove us out of God’s presence (Gen. 3:24), the Tabernacle was an open invitation for those exiles to come home, with its doors facing due east (Exod. 27:13). Put differently, the further you ventured into the Tent of Meeting, the further west you went, against the grain of the exile. This is what Jesus does and is for us. He is the Forgiver of sin, the Restorer of the exiles, and our Living Tabernacle, the place where God and sinners finally meet.
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