Jesus Christ our Mercy Seat. Pretty long:)

Believers, Paul said in 2 Corinthians 3:7-8 -"But if the ministry of death, written and engraved on stones, was glorious, so that the children of Israel could not look steadily at the face of Moses because of the glory of his countenance, which glory was passing away, 8 how will the ministry of the Spirit not be more glorious?"

The only part of the law that was written and engraved on stones is the Ten Commandments. Paul calls this the ministry of death! Believers in Christ, we are not given this ministry! Verse 4 of the same chapter says the Lord has "...also made us sufficient as ministers of the new covenant, not of the letter but of the Spirit; for the letter kills, but the Spirit gives life."

Living life under the law (trying to keep the Ten Commandments and doing "righteous things" to get right with God) only brings death. Trying to keep the law to get right with God has the effect of cutting one off from Christ:

"For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace." Galatians 5:4.

Grace is higher than law. To go back to the law as a means of attaining righteousness is to fall from Grace who is personified by our Saviour Jesus Christ. We see this represented in the way the Lord God ordained the building of the Tabernacle (in which is the Ark of the Covenant) and the work of the priests within:

"They serve in a system of worship that is only a copy, a shadow of the real one in heaven. For when Moses was getting ready to build the Tabernacle, God gave him this warning: “Be sure that you make everything according to the pattern I have shown you here on the mountain.”" Hebrews 8:5.

Inside the Ark of God were the two tablets of stone (Ten Commandments representing man's rebellion against God's law;) Aaron's rod which blossomed and brought forth fruit (representing man's rejection of God's appointed leadership;) and the golden pot of manna (representing man's rejection of God's provision.)

All of these were put inside the ark and covered with the mercy seat. As long as God's eyes saw the mercy seat with blood that the high priest sprinkled on it to make atonement for Israel, He did not execute well-deserved judgment on the Israelites. This is why God did not observe iniquity in Jacob nor did He see wickedness in Israel when Balaam tried to curse them, even though they had been rebellious against the LORD since they left Egypt. See what Moses said to them in Deuteronomy 9:6-7, after Balaam failed in his bid to curse them and as they were about to cross the River Jordan into the Promised Land –

“6Therefore understand that the LORD your God is not giving you this good land to possess because of your righteousness, for you are a stiff-necked people. 7Remember! Do not forget how you provoked the LORD your God to wrath in the wilderness. From the day that you departed from the land of Egypt until you came to this place, you have been rebellious against the LORD.”

The children of Israel were rebellious and stiff-necked throughout their journey in the wilderness, including their time in Moab when Balaam tried to curse them, yet the Lord did not observe iniquity or see wickedness in them! This is a shadow of our life in Christ today! God sees us as righteous apart from works because His Son and our Saviour Jesus Christ shed His blood to save us. But He does not leave us to continue to wallow in sin. Anyone who receives His abundance of Grace and His gift of righteousness to us in Christ gets to live in triumph over sin and death through Jesus Christ and never by human effort.

Remove the mercy seat or stop the sprinkling of blood and God's eyes would see the items of man's rebellion against Him and remember their sins (even the tiniest one and "all have sinned.") Judgment must follow. The mercy seat, sprinkled with blood was what stood between God's wrath and the people, no matter how "good" they were and no matter how hard they tried to obey the law, "For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are." Romans 3:20.

Same thing for the believer in Christ today. All sinners are destined for God's wrath. But all have sinned; we who believe are saved from His wrath through Christ. See Romans 5:9-

"And there is still much more to say of His unfailing love for us! For through the blood of Jesus we have heard the powerful declaration, “You are now righteous in My sight.” And because of the sacrifice of Jesus, you will never experience the wrath of God."

The mercy seat sprinkled with blood for the Israelites is a shadow of Christ who shed His blood for us to be righteous and saved from wrath. The difference between the two covenants is in Hebrews 10-

11 "Under the old covenant, the priest stands and ministers before the altar day after day, offering the same sacrifices again and again, which can never take away sins. 12 But our High Priest offered Himself to God as a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time. Then He sat down in the place of honor at God’s right hand."

The old covenant priests needed to sprinkle the mercy seat with blood "year after year" and offer sacrifices for sins each time someone sinned, but Christ's sacrifice for our sins is "a single sacrifice for sins, good for all time."

In the Greek Old Testament, the word for “mercy seat” in Hebrews 9:5 is "hilasterion" which is translated from the original text of the Greek New Testament to “propitiation” in our English bibles. In the New Testament Christ is designated as our “propitiation” in Romans 3:25-

"God presented Him as a propitiation through faith in His blood, to demonstrate His righteousness, because in His restraint God passed over the sins previously committed."

See the TPT: "Jesus’ God-given destiny was to be the sacrifice to take away sins, and now He is our mercy seat because of His death on the cross. We come to Him for mercy, for God has made a provision for us to be forgiven by faith in the sacred blood of Jesus. This is the perfect demonstration of God’s justice, because until now, He had been so patient—holding back His justice out of His tolerance for us. So He covered over the sins of those who lived prior to Jesus’ sacrifice."

Jesus Christ is our Mercy Seat. In Him, we are not under law but under the new covenant of Grace where the Holy Spirit testifies to us in Hebrews 10:17-

“And their sins and their lawless deeds

I will remember no more.”

To get to the Ten Commandments and the other items of man's rebellion against God that are inside the Ark of the Covenant, the mercy seat (a picture of Jesus Christ) needs to be removed. Today, the mercy seat is removed when a person looks to the law - relying on his own obedience to gain right-standing with God, instead of looking to Jesus by whose obedience we are made righteous. Romans 5:19 says "By one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous."

Looking to the law gives one liberty to boast in the flesh (human effort at doing right.) In many places of worship, the Mercy Seat- Jesus Christ- has been removed. This is why, in many places of worship, we hear things like: "God blessed me financially because I fasted/paid tithes/washed church toilet/gave to the poor/don't sin, etc." These ones have no idea that the reason why we are not committing particular sins is because we have not been tempted beyond what we can bear in those areas. The potential to commit heinous crimes is in everybody. God sees this potential and how favourable circumstances can make some people think that they can obey the law and that some sins are beneath them. The arm of flesh will fail.

Notice there is no Mercy Seat (Jesus Christ) in the equation but such reach into the Ark for the law and try to obey it, an effort in futility according to Romans 3:20. For such, the blessing comes because of what THEY do and not what CHRIST has done. 2 Corinthians 8:9 says:

"For you know the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, that though He was rich, yet for your sake He became poor, so that you through His poverty might become rich."

But many believe that they are rich because they paid their tithe, sowed seed and obeyed the law. The Mercy Seat has to be removed to get to the law.

In Christ, we don't GIVE to GET; we GET to GIVE. We get filled with blessings so much that we are so filled to overflowing that we cannot help being a blessing to others. We get to flow with the unforced rhythms of Grace. At all times, we know that we are presentable in and out before God because of Christ's blood and not because of our puny efforts at obeying the law. Romans 3 says of God:

26"...and He makes sinners right in His sight when they believe in Jesus. 27 Can we boast, then, that we have done anything to be accepted by God? No, because our acquittal is not based on obeying the law. It is based on faith. 28 So we are made right with God through faith and not by obeying the law."

Boasting in tithes paid and one's ability to keep the Ten Commandments shows that one does not believe that they are made right with God and blessed because Christ paid the price for our salvation. Such believe that it is their works that does it all, hence the propensity to boast in human effort at oedience, fasts and tithes. Believers, let's not be found here. Christ did it all.

Removing the mercy seat and beholding the Law has direct repercussions as seen in 1 Samuel 6:19 which tells us what happened when the people of Beth Shemesh looked inside the ark of the covenant:

"Then He struck the men of Beth Shemesh, because they had looked into the ark of the Lord. He struck fifty thousand and seventy men of the people, and the people lamented because the Lord had struck the people with a great slaughter."

Believers, the letter (law) kills but the Spirit gives life. In order to get to the law inside the Ark of the Lord, the mercy seat (Christ) has to be moved out of the way. Just looking in was what killed so many Beth Shemesh men in one fell swoop! They moved the mercy seat away and the law cried out against them because none can be made righteous by law-keeping! No wonder Paul said in Galatians 5:4 -"For if you are trying to make yourselves right with God by keeping the law, you have been cut off from Christ! You have fallen away from God’s grace." Fallen from the higher ground of the mercy seat (Christ) and into the Law.

We can't mix law and grace. This is the "neither cold nor hot" that Christ spoke of in Revelation 3. By His grace, keep your eyes on Christ for your righteousness and not your own ability to keep the law. This way, you will not continue to sin, "For sin shall not have dominion over you for you are not under Law but under Grace." Romans 6:14. Sin rules over those who are trying to keep the law in order to get right with God. Many satanic ministers posing as pastors are aware of this; such teach the flock to do their best to obey the law in order to be godly in a bid to keep the flock locked down under sin's dominion.

The letter kills but the Spirit gives life. Those who try to keep the law in order to be right with God have no idea how much God hates sin, so much that even the tiniest sin is enough to undo an entire lifetime of keeping the Ten Commandments! These ones that He loves have been cut off from Christ and are subject to the full wrath of the law. No wonder many believers still live in oppression and in fear of judgment; a judgment that Christ took for us at the cross.

There is a better way to get right standing with God, enjoy His rewards and do His will. A new and living way freely given to all who believe- the blood of Jesus. See Hebrews 10 19-25(MSG)

"So, friends, we can now—without hesitation—walk right up to God, into “the Holy Place.” Jesus has cleared the way by the blood of His sacrifice, acting as our Priest before God. The “curtain” into God’s presence is His body.

22-25 So let’s do it—full of belief, confident that we’re presentable inside and out. Let’s keep a firm grip on the promises that keep us going. He always keeps His word."

Romans 5:17 tells us that "...those who receive abundance of grace and of the gift of righteousness will reign in life through the One, Jesus Christ." This "reign in life" covers reigning over sin, acts of sin and addictions, sickness, shame, disgrace, oppression, all earthly ills and death. See the NLT:

"For the sin of this one man, Adam, caused death to rule over many. But even greater is God’s wonderful grace and His gift of righteousness, for all who receive it will live in triumph over sin and death through this one Man, Jesus Christ."

Believe Right and you will Live Right.