The Ark & the Mercy Seat

“And thou shalt put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark thou shalt put the testimony that I shall give thee.”Exodus 25:21 · KJV

“And there I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony, of all things which I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel.”Exodus 25:22 · KJV

“And he shall take of the blood of the bullock, and sprinkle it with his finger upon the mercy seat eastward; and before the mercy seat shall he sprinkle of the blood with his finger seven times.”Leviticus 16:14 · KJV

The law was inside the box. The blood was on the lid. “There I will meet with thee,” God said, above the mercy seat (Exod 25:22), where the cherubim looked down on sprinkled blood and not on broken tablets (Lev 16:14).

The Greek Old Testament’s word for the lid is hilastērion, and Paul uses that exact word for Christ: “a propitiation through faith in his blood” (Rom 3:25). He is not saying Christ is like the mercy seat. He is calling Him the mercy seat, the place where God meets man over blood that covers the law. And Hebrews, having listed everything in the holy of holies, stops short: “of which we cannot now speak particularly” (Heb 9:5). The writer had more to say about this lid than one letter could hold.