Mercy Seat

And after the second veil, the tabernacle which is called the Holiest of all; Which had the golden censer, and the ark of the covenant overlaid round about with gold, wherein was the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded, and the tables of the covenant; And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercyseat; of which we cannot now speak particularly. (Hebrews 9: 3 – 5)

Oh, how we love mercy, especially when it is extended to us!

But have you ever considered God’s mercy? Have you sought to understand the conditions of that mercy?

It was just the other day God brought me to consider one aspect of the architecture of the tabernacle, the one pertaining to the mercy seat.

I used to wonder why the lid to the ark of the covenant was called the mercy seat for a long time as I know many Bible students have also wondered or still wonder.

Do you also ask why that box was called the ark of the covenant and not something more ‘spiritual’?

It is because the contents of the same is the document, or documents, that bind the worshiper to his God. That is the reason it is God Himself who wrote that covenant on those tables (tablets) of stone.

You remember that even after Moses broke the first tables because Israel had already broken their part of the covenant, he was ordered to carve other tables and then God would write the covenant on them?

The ark therefore contains the covenant binding us to God.

That is what the mercy seat covers.

Why mercy seat yet it was just a lid?

We need to ask ourselves another question to be able to answer this.

What was on the mercy seat?

It was the manifestation of God’s presence, signified by the cherubim of glory.

God’s presence was on that mercy seat.

You remember that was from where He spoke to Moses and where the cloud of His presence emanated.

We can comfortably say that God ‘sat’ on the mercy seat.

Why a seat?

A seat signifies rest. We do not sit when we are in a rush or under pressure.

We sit down to rest. We sit to experience peace. Sitting signifies an end to effort and exhaustion

It goes without say even in our experience that we can never extend mercy under pressure. We cannot extend mercy when we are stressed.

That is what the mercy seat signifies.

God is under no pressure to extend mercy to us. He does it as one expression of His rest and peace as we see Him seated on the mercy seat.

It is not our cries for help or screams for Him to intervene that drive Him to respond to us.

He responds to us from a position of rest, seated on the mercy seat.

Incidentally, the mercy seat in many ways resembles the blessing since nobody can bless under pressure.

As we see with Isaac, he needed good food, the kind that he liked, to be in the right state of mind to bless his son.

It is the same whichever culture you look at.

The old man (men are the source of blessing) has to be humoured when the time for blessing his children comes.

Some witty and sneaky children sometimes attempt, some even succeed, in rushing their father to blessing them by pampering him. I have never heard of anybody who used force of whichever nature to rush the blessing. He must be somehow convinced that he is at rest (seated on the blessing seat) and so in the best position to bless.

We see the same when the disciples confront Jesus in His sleep when their boat is getting swamped.

He simply stood up and took charge.

That is clear when we read Christ’s teaching on prayer. God is never rushed yet He is always in charge. Meaning that we better never let our rush get into our heads since we can never rush Him.

But there is another key aspect of the mercy seat I want us to appreciate.

What is God ‘sitting’ on? In other words, what does the mercy seat rest on?

It rests on the covenant that contains the commandments or the terms of our covenant with God.

The mercy seat seals the ark of the covenant, making the commandments secure.

Nobody can touch the commandments as long as the mercy seat covers the ark.

This means that nobody can tamper with the commandments as long as that mercy seat is at its place.

You have to unseat God to tamper with the tables of the covenant.

Remember what God told Moses?

… for I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiffnecked people: lest I consume thee in the way. (Exodus 33:3)

Disobedience unseats God from the mercy seat. And an unseated God is unable to extend mercy because the His seat has been removed.

It is important as New Covenant believers to realise that Jesus came to exemplify that aspect of the Old Covenant. He was the embodiment of that reality.

Look at these verses

Think not that I am come to destroy the law, or the prophets: I am not come to destroy, but to fulfil. For verily I say unto you, Till heaven and earth pass, one jot or one tittle shall in no wise pass from the law, till all be fulfilled. Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, he shall be called the least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, the same shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. For I say unto you, That except your righteousness shall exceed the righteousness of the scribes and Pharisees, ye shall in no case enter into the kingdom of heaven. (Matthew 5: 17 – 20)

What is Jesus saying?

I did not come to introduce another mercy seat but to ensure that it is never displaced.

How does He do that?

He enables us to keep the commandments without the lapses that would unseat God from the mercy seat. It is those lapses that made it impossible for the people of the covenant (Israel) to enjoy the rest God had promised them. It was those lapses that ensured that none of the adults who left Egypt reached the Promised Land except two.

Let me say something I have said innumerable times in my writing and preaching.

Ever wondered why there is not a single record of a Sadducee becoming a Christian? Why did so many Pharisees become Christians?

That is the work of that mercy seat.

The Sadducees had chosen the parts of the covenant to observe and believe. And that meant they had unseated God from the mercy seat. There was therefore no way for God’s mercy to reach out to them seeing they had God outside the mercy seat.

The Pharisees also had issues. But their issues originated from their strictness in observing those commandments blinding them from seeing God seated on the mercy seat. They therefore lacked the revelation that comes from the resting position of the mercy seat.

Once they received that revelation, they gladly flocked to Christ.

And it was the same with the scribes.

That is why Christ in these verses is saying that our righteousness should originate from the obedience (observance of the commandments) of the pharisees and scribes.

What am I saying?

God’s mercy seals and covers our obedience, even our genuine attempts at obedience, however feeble.

It is a fallacy to even imagine that God’s mercy is available for our disobedience.

That is why we have many people struggling with verses like these

For it is impossible for those who were once enlightened, and have tasted of the heavenly gift, and were made partakers of the Holy Ghost, And have tasted the good word of God, and the powers of the world to come, If they shall fall away, to renew them again unto repentance; seeing they crucify to themselves the Son of God afresh, and put him to an open shame. (Hebrews 6: 4 – 6)

You see, these have unseated God from the mercy seat and so disannulled His mercy.

For if we sin wilfully after that we have received the knowledge of the truth, there remaineth no more sacrifice for sins, But a certain fearful looking for of judgment and fiery indignation, which shall devour the adversaries. (Hebrews 10: 26, 27)

God outside of the mercy seat nullifies whatever covenant that may have existed before our disobedience because it has pushed God from that mercy seat.

God’s promise is as valid as our walking in obedience to it and not conditional to our believing or even claiming it.

And Ezekiel 18 also deals with that by plainly saying that it is only our current obedience that is of value to us and never any other, however potent it may have been.

Sin and disobedience are very different.

Explained simply, sin can be equated to falling into a ditch as you were running (to or from something). Rebellion is choosing to jump into the ditch to get the experience of it.

One is inadvertent while the other is by choice.

That is why grace covers over sin but not disobedience or rebellion.

Sin happens but disobedience is a choice, a deliberate choice.

I hope you now understand why the mercy seat is opposed to that independence (of choice) we love walking in.

But the main point of this post is to let us appreciate that the mercy seat not only represents a seated (at rest) God but also that it covers and seals the covenant that binds us to Him.

Again, it simply means that it covers a solid, vibrant and living relationship with God.

The mercy seat is not a once upon a time experience. It is not a once sealed ever sealed transaction.

You see, God is not seated because He is tired. He just wants us to appreciate the fact that He finds rest in our obedience. He enjoys to see us walking in His revelation. He finds rest in our soaking our spirits with His word.

And that is why the Pharisees and scribes were not far from Christ’s ministry. Because they had settled it in their hearts to know and obey the scriptures to the minutest detail.

They just needed an encounter with The Word Himself to seat God on that mercy seat

He did not waste any time with the Sadducees and Herodians because they used the scriptures to their convenience meaning that they did not entertain God being on the mercy seat. He therefore let them be as He had sought to do with Israel before Moses interceded.

And I will send an angel before thee; and I will drive out the Canaanite, the Amorite, and the Hittite, and the Perizzite, the Hivite, and the Jebusite: Unto a land flowing with milk and honey: for I will not go up in the midst of thee; for thou art a stiffnecked people: lest I consume thee in the way. (Exodus 33: 2, 3)

God’s mercy (Grace) dictates that He leaves us alone when we are not pursuing obedience through our soaking ourselves in His word in its totality.

That is why some revel in rebellion like the Sadducees because they have locked the mercy seat out of their lives.

And ye have forgotten the exhortation which speaketh unto you as unto children, My son, despise not thou the chastening of the Lord, nor faint when thou art rebuked of him: For whom the Lord loveth he chasteneth, and scourgeth every son whom he receiveth. If ye endure chastening, God dealeth with you as with sons; for what son is he whom the father chasteneth not? But if ye be without chastisement, whereof all are partakers, then are ye bastards, and not sons. (Hebrews 12: 5 – 8)

I hope you can see the presence and absence of the mercy seat in respective groups

When God is on the mercy seat, He deals with our sins as a father does to his children. When we get Him out of the mercy seat through our disobedience, He disowns us and leaves us to our devices.

A comfy Christian life could be an indication that we are illegitimate children since we have removed God from the mercy seat.

He therefore leaves us because His presence would mean our extermination as He told Moses.

It is our passion for His word (knowing and keeping it) that makes us candidates of His mercy since that word is the content that the mercy seat is covering and where His presence rests. Remember Ezra 7:10?

And that mercy reaches out to the whole wide world to anyone whose heart seeks to make that covenant a part of his life since God knows all the hearts of the people He has created.

That is how a person of opposing religion can access that grace, sometimes even without a witness, because God will not wait for a rebellious church to respond to His Great Commission so that the same person can be reached with the Gospel.

Others, as happened to Cornelius, are asked to invite a witness.

Yet others will meet a reluctant or even rebellious witness as happened to Nineveh.

Yet there is no short cut to our pursuit of revelation (scripture) and obedience. Those are the two indispensable elements of the presence of the mercy seat in our lives.

I have been writing about my study of rebellion and feel this is a good closure for the same

I didn’t think the message on the mercy seat was related to a study of rebellion. But God has a way of sealing a message in amazing ways.

In closing let me say that Christ is the Covenant since He sealed the same with His blood.

He is the Word of God as reported by the revelator.

In short, a close relationship with Christ as Lord is what makes the mercy seat a living reality for each of us who settles to abide by His rule.

Otherwise

Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven. Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in thy name? and in thy name have cast out devils? and in thy name done many wonderful works? And then will I profess unto them, I never knew you: depart from me, ye that work iniquity. (Matthew 7: 21 – 23)