"Make an atonement cover of pure gold---two and a half cubits long and a cubit and a half wide. And make two cherubim out of hammered gold at the ends of the cover. Place the cover on top of the ark and put in the ark the Testimony, which I will give you. There, above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the Testimony, I will meet with you and give you all my commands for the Israelites." Exodus 25:17,18,21,22
The ark of the testimony was a symbol of the throne of God, and is a picture of Jesus. The ark had a crown of gold and inside the ark were the tables of the law, which Israel had broken. The broken law demanded judgment and death for the transgressors. The law could not save; it could only reveal sin. It could not give life to the sinner; it could only kill the transgressor. The law could not even spare Jesus after He took our sins upon Himself and became our sin bearer. The law killed Jesus because of the sin which He bore for us. This law lay in this ark, the throne of God. The ark by itself was a throne of judgment, condemning the sinner, demanding his death and eternal banishment from the presence of God. The veil in front of the ark barred the Israelite from coming to God, and the broken law threatened death to all who should dare to approach.
A provision had to be made whereby sin could be removed before man could escape the condemnation of death, and the judgment of a broken law. And this was done through the mercy seat that God instructed Moses to make. It was to be placed over the ark, above the broken law, between it and God, who came down upon it in the shekinah pillar of holiness and fire.
The mercy seat is a perfect picture of Jesus in His redemptive work. This mercy seat was made of beaten gold. Jesus became our mercy seat by the beating of Gethsemane and Calvary, and shed His blood to reconcile us to God by meeting the demands and the penalty of the broken law. Over this mercy seat, with out-stretched wings, stood the cherubim, symbols of the holiness of God. Without the mercy seat they would look down upon the broken law of God and God's holiness would demand the death of the sinner. But the mercy seat was placed between God and the broken law. On this mercy seat, which was the cover of the ark, was sprinkled the blood from the slain animal on the altar of burnt offering in the court of the tabernacle. Once a year the high priest, after offering a sacrifice for himself, and for the sins of the people, took the blood in a basin, entered the holiest of all, behind the veil, and sprinkled this blood on the mercy seat, over and above the broken law which called for the judgment of death. And now, when God came down in the shekinah cloud over the ark, instead of seeing the law which Israel had broken, He saw the blood of atonement, and God could not exercise the judgment of death and of the law, for He Himself had promised: "When I see the blood, I will pass over you" (Exodus 12:13).
That blood upon the mercy seat was taken from the burnt offering, where an innocent substitute had died and shed its atoning blood, and the penalty of the law had been met in the substitute, and God had now been reconciled. The ark, without the covering of blood and revealing God's holy law was a throne of awful judgment for Israel. By the addition of the mercy seat sprinkled with the blood of a sacrifice, it becomes a throne of grace instead.
All of this was only a type of the work of Him who was still to come. This sprinkling of blood on the mercy seat had to be repeated each year by the high priest on the day of atonement. But the blood of bulls and goats could not pay the price of sin; it could only cover sin, but never put it away. It must be fulfilled in the person of the Lamb of God, and by His precious blood. All of this was just a shadow of Jesus who was yet to come.
"The law is only a shadow of the good things that are coming---not the realities themselves. For this reason it can never, by the same sacrifices repeated endlessly year after year, make perfect those who draw near to worship. If it could, would they not have stopped being offered? For the worshipers would have been cleansed once for all, and would no longer have felt guilty for their sins. But those sacrifices are an annual reminder of sins, because it is impossible for the blood of bulls and goats to take away sins. But when this priest had offered for all time one sacrifice for sins, he sat down at the right hand of God." Hebrews 10:1-4,12
The Old Testament priest had to minister continually standing on his feet. He could not sit down even for a second, because the work was never done so there were no chairs provided in the tabernacle at all. But when Jesus said, "It is finished," He went to heaven, and "sat down." Nothing can be added to the work of Jesus, no works, ordinances, religion, education or human merit of any kind.
