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The Tabernacle (cont.)
Exodus 25:8 – “And let them make Me a sanctuary, that I may dwell among them.”
John 1:14 – “And the Word became flesh and dwelt (tabernacled) among us.”
As we said earlier, there are so many things in which we could find some nugget of truth concerning the tabernacle, but we have only mentioned the main items. The last item we want to look at here in the Tabernacle is called the Ark of the Covenant. In Exodus 25 we read where God told Moses to make this Ark. It was just a simple box made out of acacia wood. The box was then overlaid with gold. On top of the box Moses was to put the Mercy Seat, which was made out of one solid piece of gold, with two Cherubim facing each other. Cherubim in the Bible represented several things: the Holiness of God, the righteousness of God, the judgement of God, etc. It was here on the Mercy Seat, between the two Cherubim that God said His presence would rest, and as Exodus 25:22 says, “And there I will meet with you, and I will speak with you from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are on the Ark of the Testimony, about everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel.”
We can mention several things here. First, the ark was made out of acacia wood. As one scholar said, acacia wood was the common wood they could find there in the desert. If God would have said to make it out of cedar wood, or out of oak or something similar, they would have had to travel a ways to find such wood. This scholar applied this: “So, likewise God did not send us His Son in the form of an archangel, or in some body belonging to another realm; rather, He sent His Son in the likeness of sinful flesh, to be as a man upon the earth. Instead of our having to go to Him, God came to where we are. Being as we are, Christ has known the sufferings, sorrows, and temptations which are the lot of our daily life. How wonderful it is to have as our Mediator One who has experienced the problems we constantly face!”
We will continue the discussion on the Ark of the Covenant next time, but we want to mention one more thing here: the Ark was overlaid with gold. Gold was a valuable commodity, still is. It spoke of preciousness, of costliness. It was a costly thing for God to send His only Begotten Son into this world to live as a man in the midst of men and women. We can’t even begin to imagine the costliness of it. It was so costly, that Jesus will forever, for all eternity, bear the marks of humanity. But He did it for us! And His sacrifice for us is the most valuable thing and the most precious thing we can imagine! I trust God will help us today to show Him how much we appreciate Him and what He did and is doing for us right now!