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The Tabernacle cross. We deserved the death penalty, everlasting separa- tion from God. But, by His grace, He kept the law un- broken for us, and died in our place, bearing "the iniquity of us all" in His "own body on the tree." The blood of the animal sacrifice, sprinkled upon the mercy seat, was a mere shadow or type of His own precious blood. And Israel's faith in the promised Redeemer enabled God to forgive their sins-as it were, on a credit, looking forward to the one perfect, all-sufficient Sacrifice. The Scofield Reference Bible has a helpful footnote on this matter, in connection with the verse we have just read in Rom. 3:25; we quote a part of it here: "In fulfillment of the type, Christ is Himself ... 'that which propitiates' ... and 'the place of propitiation'- the mercy seat sprinkled with His own blood-the token that in our stead He so honored the law by enduring its righteous sentence that God, who ever foresaw the cross, is vindicated in having 'passed over' sins from Adam to Moses (Rom. 5: 13) and the sins of believers under the old covenant ... and just in justifying sinners under the new covenant. There is no thought in propitiation of placating a vengeful God, but of doing right by His holy law and so making it possible for Hirn righteously to show mercy." Because the mercy seat was of pure gold, it was a further type of our Lord; for the "pure gold" of His deity and glory shines forth from His very Being, as well as from His mighty works and profound teachings. It is to Him that we go with our prayers-before the very "throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need" (Heb. 4:16). 4. The Mercy Seat-The Throne of a Holy God. God 1:old Moses to make the two cherubim of gold upon the
The Tabernacle sat down, to wait until His enemies should be made His "footstool." 2. Not a Throne of Judgment, but a "Throne of Grace." "Mercy reigned" in the Holy of Holies. And "mercy" signifies grace bestowed upon the unworthy and the undeserving. It is unmerited favor. Man had sinned. He had broken God's holy law. Even while Moses was in the mount, Israel was dancing, naked, around a golden calf, in gross idolatry-all this in spite of the fact that it had been only a little while since God had miraculously redeemed His people from Egyptian bondage! Israel had broken the very first commandment, to say nothing of the others. Beneath the mercy seat were the tables of stone. Above it was the Shekinah Glory. God's righteousness demanded death of the guilty sinner; for "the wages of sin is death" (Rom. 6:23). But, because of the sprinkled blood, His ju ~ent throne had become a "throne of grace," a veri- ta!::l,, .wrcy seat; for the sprinkled blood was but a fore- sh~r JWing of the cleansing blood of Jesus, "the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world" (John 1:29). 3. Christ-Our "Mercy Seat." That Christ Himself is the true Mercy Seat, is found in the fact that the very term means "place of propitiation" (Heb. 9: 5. R. V.). And in Rom. 3:24, 25 (cf. Rom. 3:21-26) we read that we have been- "... justified freely by his grace through the re- demption that is in Christ Jesus: whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past, through the forbearance of God." Christ Himself was our propitiatory Sacrifice on Calvary's
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