Broken Bread
Daily Devotions from the Daily Light
by Evan Hopkins
June 18
Thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark . . . and there i shall meet with thee.--Exod. 25:21, 22
"There I will meet with thee." Let us consider the place that God has chosen--the place where he had appointed to meet with His people, in the person of the high priest. It was "from above the mercy seat." The mercy seat was the golden lid that covered the Ark. It was a cover--not a cover in the ordinary sense, but a propitiatory covering. The same word is translated in the New Testament "propitiation." "He is the propitiation for our sins" (the mercy seat): and again: "Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation" (mercy seat) (1 John 2:2; Rom. 3:25). Again it was "upon the ark of the testimony." The Ark or chest formed the basis of God's throne. It was on this the mercy seat rested. What did the Ark typify? As the golden lid pointed to Christ in His propitiatory sacrafice, so the Ark itself was a type of His complex nature--the fine wood pointing to His humanity, the pure gold to His deity. Taken together--the mercy seat and the Ark of the covenant--they are but types of the Person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ.