02.16. THE ARK OF THE COVENANT
THE ARK OF THE COVENANT THE Ark was what the Hebrew word signifies –a chest.
It was two cubits and a half long, a cubit and a half wide and a cubit and a half high.
It was made of incorruptible wood and covered with pure gold both on the inside and out.
It had a crown of gold running round the top. There were four golden rings at the corners, two on each side.
Through these rings were passed staves or bars of wood covered with gold.
These served as handles by which the Ark was to be carried.
These staves were never to be removed. (Exodus 25:10-16.)
It was called the “Ark of the Covenant” because it contained the tables of the law, the covenant into which the people entered at Sinai when they presumptuously repudiated the unconditional covenant of Abraham, the covenant of grace under which the Lord had brought them out of Egypt. It contained also the golden pot of manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded; as it is written:
“The ark of the covenant overlaid roundabout with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant.” (Hebrews 9:4.) “The Ark was God’s throne in the midst of Israel.
He manifested Himself in the shekinal light shining between the wings of the cherubim in the Mercy Seat; as it is written:
“The Lord reigneth: let the people tremble; he that sitteth between the cherubim.” (Psalms 99:1) The Ark was a perfect symbol of our Lord Jesus Christ as the enthronement of God in humanity. The incorruptible wood speaks of Him as the sinless one, sinless in conception, sinless in life and character. The pure gold above the wood—inside and outside -that nature which was above His humanity and yet resided in it—His Deity. The Ark with its two materials and yet, the one chest, repeats the continuous testimony, the two natures and the one, indivisible personality of our Lord. Our Lord was the throne of God in this world.
If He were full of sympathy and tender compassion, giving to those who sorrowed beauty for ashes, the oil of joy for mourning, the garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness, it was because He was real and actual man.
If He healed the sick, raised the dead, stilled the storm and did it all by a fiat word, it was because He was God in the flesh, because He made His impeccable humanity the throne of the Godhead; as it is written:
“In him dwelleth all the fulness of the godhead bodily.” (Colossians 2:9.)
All the forces of the universe were concentrated in that marvellous body; a body more resplendent in its essential glory than all the stars, the suns and systems in the endless spaces. All the operation of all the energy in the universe proceeded and came forth from that body. When He spoke it was with the same accent with Which in the beginning He had spoken the universe upon its course. The miracles He did were of the same ease with which He had hung the earth on nothing. Realize that He was the Creator of all things, and the fact that He raised the dead, trod the waters beneath His feet and held back the storm-flung waves of Galilee should neither amaze, nor be disquieting to the weakest faith.
“Ye believe in God,” He said “believe also in me.” That He was God alone explains Him; that He was the very throne of God descended to the earth makes all He did of divinest logic. The Ark had the law hidden in the heart of it. Our Lord Jesus Christ had the law hidden in His heart; as it is written:
“Sacrifice and offering thou didst not desire; burnt offering and sin offering hast thou not required.
Then said I, Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of me, I delight to do thy will, O my God: yea thy law is within my heart.” (Psalms 40:6-8.) He was born under the law, circumcised the eighth day according to the law.
He kept the law perfectly, perfectly toward God and perfectly toward man.
He loved God with all His mind and heart and soul and strength. He was full of the atmosphere of God. Every deed He did He did to glorify Him. Every word He spoke He uttered that He might exalt Him. His very breath distilled the idea of God, and the particular idea and concept of Him as the Father. If He spoke of sheep upon the hillside, it was as His Father’s sheep; if He described a lily it was that men might see His Father’s hand had fashioned and formed it.
If He loved God with all His being, He loved His neighbor as Himself. When on one occasion He was speaking and they came to Him and told Him His Mother and His brethren were outside desiring to speak with Him, He said:
“Who is my mother? and who are my brethren? “and stretching out His hands toward His disciples. He said all who should do the will of God were His mother and His brethren.
He received sinners and ate with them.
He was perfect in all the requirements of the law. In keeping the law He proved He was sinless. In His sinlessness under the law He unmasked the pretence of those who professed to keep the law; not only so, He demonstrated that the law had been originally given to make manifest the sin and helplessness of those who in their folly had asked for the law. He demonstrated and proved it by the fact that on the one side He was the concrete of the law and on the other that His sinlessness revealed their sinfulness and open transgression of the law.
If He had not had eternal life His obedience to the law would have earned Him the right to it.
He kept the law that He might demonstrate His ability to do the will of God; that the will of God was the supreme law and that He came into the world to do that will.
Continually He affirmed that this was His work-to do the Will of God.
He said: “I seek not mine own will, but the will of the Father which hath sent me.” (John 5:30.) “I came down from heaven, not to do mine own will, but the will of him that sent me.” (John 6:38.) “I do always those things which please my Father.” (John 8:29.) “My meat is to do the will of him that sent me, and to finish his work.” (John 4:34.) In all this He shows Himself to be of a distinct fibre from the natural man.
He shows it in the absolute and tremendously audacious claim:
“I came down—from Heaven.”
What honest man ever said that before.
What honest, self-respecting man would dare to say it today.
(And by the way, let it be asked if He came down from Heaven, by what logic do men with their unbelief keep Him from going back to Heaven. Does it not lie in the realm of indisputable logic that a being and personality who had power to come down from Heaven should have equal power to go back to Heaven; that a being who should have power to overcome what appears to be fixed law in relation to this planet would have equal power to rise above that law whether in life or death and go back to a world outside of this planet?) He showed Himself, indeed, distinct from all other men in this exaltation of the will of God in His life.
Listen to this utterance:
“Not my will, but thine, be done.”
What a blazing contrast to tile natural man whose whole inspiration and motive is the accomplishment of his own will. And what think you was that will that made Him keep the law of Sinai, and the will behind Sinai that made Him lay aside ‘His form and appearing as God and come down from Heaven to dwell among men? Is there any need to be in doubt about it? Is there any need to be in doubt about the work He came to do as the expression of the Father’s will?
Need we be caught at all in the snares of those who teach the will of God concerning Him was that He should just lead a sinaitic, law-abiding life as the saving example of men?
No! a thousand times—no!
Scripture makes it as clear as a cloudless sky.
God the Father found no satisfaction in the yearly Day of Atonement, in the sacrifices offered thereon. The sacrifice of bulls and goats could not take away sin and thus permit God to become the Saviour of men.
“In those sacrifices there is a remembrance again made of sins every year. For it is not possible that the blood of bulls and of goats should take away sins.” (Hebrews 10:3-4.) The living God wanted a sacrifice that would meet the demands of His law, His government and being. That was His desire. God’s desire is God’s will. The eternal Son of God at once responded to this desire, to this will.
He laid aside” the form of God,” came down from Heaven and entered the world to do the will of God, to be His perfect servant; as it is written:
“When he cometh into the world, he saith, Sacrifice and offering thou wouldest not, (that’ is the sacrifice of bulls and goats) but a body hast thou prepared me.” (Hebrews 10:5) God the Father was not satisfied with the bodies of bulls and goats offered Him in sacrifice. He wanted a better body than theirs.
Immediately the Son says:
“I come to do thy will, O God.” (Hebrews 10:7.) And that we may have no excuse for being in the dark and blundering about this will of God our Lord came to fulfill, the Apostle under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit writes:
“By, the which will we (who believe) are sanctified by the offering of the body (the prepared body spoken of in Hebrews 10:5) of Jesus Christ once for all.” (Hebrews 10:10.)
Here then beyond the need of discussion we are told, and told from headquarters, that our Lord Jesus Christ offered His prepared body as a sacrifice for sin according to the will of God the Father, that it was the will of God that He should become incarnate and offer Himself as a whole Burnt Offering and as a perfect Sin Offering. This was the will our Lord Jesus Christ came from Heaven to do.
He hid the law in His heart as it was hidden in the ark.
He fulfilled it to the letter.
It was that complete fulfillment which found its accent in His cry on the cross: “It is finished.” The Ark contained the Golden pot that had manna. Manna was the bread God sent down from Heaven to feed the Children of Israel on their way to the Promised Land. (Exodus 16:11-15.) The Manna was a symbol of our Lord Jesus Christ as the Bread of Life on which as Christians we are to feed as we journey through the world on our way to the great inheritance; for He Himself has said:
“I am that bread of life. Your fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead. This is the bread which cometh down from heaven * * * if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: and the bread I will give is my flesh which I will give for the life of the world.” (John 6:48-51.) The manna in the ark and the ark as the symbol of His incarnation, are symbols of the fact that He became incarnate that He might die, rise again, ascend to Heaven and from thence become the source of the new and spiritual life He should give. The golden pot that held the manna emphasizes the fact that He was divine as well as human. In the Ark was placed Aaron’s rod that budded. There was a revolt in Israel against Moses and Aaron.
They were charged with taking too much upon themselves. The Lord entered into judgment with the rebels and slew them. (Numbers 16.) That He might establish the priesthood of Aaron against all controversy He required that a rod should be taken from each tribe with the name of the head of the tribe written on it.
Aaron’s name was written on his rod as from the tribe of Levi. The Lord commanded the rods to be placed in the Tabernacle before the Ark. The man whose rod should blossom should be proven to be the man whom God had chosen and ordained to be priest. ‘ The next day when Moses entered in to look at them he found the rod of Aaron had budded; not only so, it had burst out into full blossom; not only that-it bore fruit of almonds.
It was thus in three stages: bud, blossom, fruit. It was full of almonds. The Almond tree is the first to bloom after the chill and death of winter.
It is a symbol of resurrection life. This living rod was not only an avouchment of the priesthood of Aaron, but a symbolic prophecy of the priesthood of our Lord.
He should be a priest after He rose from the dead. His priesthood should not be like that of Aaron’s, subject to change by reason of death. He should rise never to die again. He should ever live and make intercession; as it is written:
“But this man because he continueth ever, hath an unchangeable priesthood he ever liveth to make intercession.” (Hebrews 7:24-25.) The rod in the ark with its bud, blossom and fruit was a witness that the Son of God should become incarnate, bring the throne of God from Heaven to earth, that with omnipotent power He might offer Himself in sacrificial death, rise again and from Heaven be the continual source of life, strength and abounding hope to all who should believe in and trust Him as such. The Ark was made complete with a golden crown at the top. The border had the band and edge of a king’s crown. It was the consummation of the Ark.
It was a prophetic symbol that the incarnation of the Son of God should find its consummation in the office, the function and the glory of a king.
He was born a king. (Matthew 2:2.) He rode into Jerusalem and offered Himself as King. (John 12:13-15.) He was offered by Pilate to the Jews as their King. (John 19:14.) He was crucified as King.
God the Father took Him to Heaven as a rejected King, placed Him at His right hand and bade Him sit there till the hour should come to make His enemies His footstool. (Psalms 110:1.)
He is seen in Heaven as the Lamb that had been slain, and at the same time, as the Lion of the Tribe of Judah, and therefore as the King of the Jews in exile.
God the Father will yet set Him as a King upon His Holy Hill of Zion. (Psalms 2:6.) He is coming as King of kings and Lord of lords. (Revelation 19:16.) Thus in the Ark of the Covenant we have a picture of our Lord Jesus Christ and His varied glories. The enthronement of God in humanity-His perfect humanity. The concrete of the Law of Sinai. The Prepared Body. The Heavenly Bread. The Everlasting Priest. The King of the Jews. The King of Israel. The King of kings.
Immortal man.
Very God.