THE ARK OF THE COVENANT AT REST (SUMMARY OF AN ADDRESS)
THE ARK OF THE COVENANT AT REST (SUMMARY OF AN ADDRESS)
The work for the house of Jehovah being finished there was a suitable place for all the dedicated things. Solomon may be regarded, from one point of view, as representing those to whom much that is precious has come down. Many of us are in that position today. The dedicated things represent spiritual contributions which are entitled to have a permanent place “among the treasures of the house of God”. Hymns which have this character have come down to us, and there are many things which have accrued as the spoil of past conflicts, and which remain as permanent treasure to enrich the house and make it wealthy Godward. This is not a question of offering but of retaining things in their full value so that they are for the pleasure of God in His house. God would have it to be known that the assembly, viewed as His house, is a place where all that has been the fruit of devotedness in the past is treasured and may be added to. Dedicated things are wealth added to the house by the devotedness of God’s people; they are a permanent witness that His people love Him. The widow’s two mites, and Mary’s pound of ointment, come in on this line; they have been kept among the treasures until now. Every precious ministry that has come to us in power has produced some answer in dedication, and all this, according to the divine thought, is [p. 310] brought into the house as treasure. We could hardly value the dedicated things which others have brought in without being greatly moved to contribute something ourselves!
The principal thing in this chapter is the bringing up of the ark of the covenant of Jehovah “to its place, into the oracle of the house, into the most holy place”. The ark of the covenant is the most remarkable symbol to be found in Scripture, for, though it was a material thing, it was the actual seat of Jehovah’s presence amongst His people. He is repeatedly said to dwell between the cherubim, and He said to Moses, “There will I meet with thee, and will speak with thee from above the mercy-seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony, everything that I will give thee in commandment unto the children of Israel”, Exodus 25: 22. The ark is said to be God’s strength and His glory (Psalm 78: 61); and it is called “the ark of thy strength”, Psalm 132: 8. But the history of the ark shews us that the greatest privilege that can be conferred upon man only becomes the occasion to bring out the evil that is in man’s heart. When Israel had the ark in their midst they dishonoured it by their high places and graven images and yet they assumed that it would help them against their enemies! This only resulted in the ark itself being given into captivity. This shews that, apart from His sovereignty in mercy, the nearer God comes to men the more will He be dishonoured, and this was fully proved when He was manifested in flesh in the person of Jesus. If His glory and His thoughts of blessing are to be known He must undertake the whole matter Himself. And this is what He has done, and it is seen typically in the ark being protected and cared for, and, in due time, brought by David to a resting place in Zion.
There could be no place of rest for God in a world utterly gone astray from Him, and where sin and death reigned, the dreadful evidence of the power of the enemy.
[p. 311] But David came in, typical of Christ as the One able to do God’s will in meeting and setting aside the power of the enemy so that a place of rest might be secured for God and for the ark of His strength. Scripture suggests two distinct thoughts in relation to the securing of Zion. First, in Psalm 132, it is reached as the outcome of David’s “affliction”, and his unselfish devotion to “find out a place for Jehovah”. Then in 1 Chronicles 11 we read that “David took the stronghold of Zion, which is the city of David”. The seat of the enemy’s power became David’s stronghold as the result of his victory. In His devotion Christ has come in, at all cost to Himself, to secure a place for God in the very spot where the enemy held sway. He allowed no affliction or difficulty to turn Him aside from this purpose of His heart. On the other hand, He acted in victorious power to secure Zion by conquest. In the very place where “sin has reigned in the power of death” He so met and overcame all the power of the enemy that at the present time grace reigns through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord. The ark was brought to a place of rest in being brought to Zion, but it was there provisionally as being in “a tent”.
It is instructive to consider the difference between the place which David prepared for the ark in Zion and the place to which Solomon brought it in the most holy place in the house. The first was a provisional place of rest, but the house was a permanent resting place, for the staves being drawn out indicated that the ark was not to be carried again.
We learn from Psalm 132 that Zion contemplates need in man, for it is written, “I will abundantly bless her provision; I will satisfy her needy ones with bread”. “Life for evermore” comes in on this line as relieving men from the pressure of death. The true David has taken the stronghold of Zion, and made it His own city; He has overcome [p. 312] every power that stood in the way of God’s grace being made known to men. The kingdom is set up, and all its benefits are available; God can rest in what Christ has done, and in what He has brought in for men, and all this answers to Zion. It is made known in the glad tidings to men, and those who believe the glad tidings can be said to have come to mount Zion. It is an accepted time and a day of salvation, but it is provisional, and, alas, the majority of men do not come into the gain of it, though it is provided for them.
God desired a place of rest in relation to all that had come in here by sin and Satan’s power, and Christ has secured that rest for Him. David’s bringing the ark to Zion typifies how, when men had forfeited all title to blessing from God, He took up in the sovereignty of His mercy, through the Lord Jesus Christ, a position where He can be known as extremely favourable to men. Nothing can be added by either God or men to the grace that reigns now through the Lord Jesus Christ. God is in the attitude of forgiveness towards all men. Righteousness, life, salvation and every blessing that divine favour can bestow are available for men. God has left Sinai and come to Zion, and all there subsists according to what He is Himself as set forth in Christ. God does not look for anything in man, save repentance, but He is perfectly at rest in what He has set forth of Himself in Christ, and in what is available for men in Christ. There is not a feature of need in men which is not fully provided for by the all-blessing grace of God. It might be thought that none who knew this would hesitate a moment to turn to such a God, to boast and glory in Him for evermore! But such is the alienation of the human heart from God that nothing but the touch of sovereign mercy can bring about in that heart a true appreciation of God as dwelling in Zion. All must be of Himself, the abundantly blessed provision in [p. 313] Zion, and the begetting of men to enjoy it. “Of Zion it shall be said, This one and that one was born in her”, Psalm 87: 5. All those truly blessed of God are Zion’s children; they take character from the city in which they were born; they come into view as persons in whom the reign of grace has become effective. It is, indeed, a wonderful sight to see men freed from sin’s dominion, in whose hearts the works of the devil are undone, and in whom the kingdom is seen in its practical power. It is certain that amongst such persons Christ will ever be held in great honour. It was clearly so in the early chapters of the Acts; the principles of Zion were set up amongst men in the power of the Holy Spirit. Zion in a spiritual sense is found today when men as subjects of sovereign mercy, stand in God’s favour through the Lord Jesus Christ. Christ being held in supreme honour amongst such answers to the ark being brought to Zion.
Blessed as Zion is, it is not the culmination of God’s thoughts. David was right in desiring that the ark should not remain “under curtains”, for Jehovah said to him, “Whereas it was in thy heart to build a house unto my name, thou didst well that it was in thy heart”, 2 Chronicles 6: 8. But the house was to be built by one of whom Jehovah said, “I will be his father, and he shall be my son”, 1 Chronicles 17: 13. This was a prophetic declaration that the full thought of God could only be brought in and established by One in the relationship of Son to Him. The Spirit of God has greatly magnified, in recent years amongst the saints, the truth of the Lord’s sonship, and this has been in view of God’s great and blessed thoughts being brought out in their completeness and finality. Solomon bringing the ark up to its place in the house indicates typically that the full thought of God is reached. The ark being brought into “the oracle of the house” suggests the full revelation of God’s mind; it is very much Christ as seen [p. 314] in the gospel of John. For His body being spoken of as “the temple” in that gospel links on with what is before us in the type. Then Paul speaks of all the building as fitted together and tells us that it “increases to a holy temple in the Lord”, Ephesians 2: 21. This is a direct reference to the Scripture now before us, and it shews that the constructional work is proceeding. It cannot yet be said to be finished, but the complete thought is set before us in the type that we may understand what God has before Him.
Paul’s announcement of all the counsel of God in the epistle to the Ephesians answers in the New Testament to the ark being brought to its rest in the most holy place. For there is nothing beyond, or more holy than, what we have presented there. God is bringing the saints of the assembly by Paul’s ministry into the most blessed nearness to Himself with regard to Christ’s place before Him. For the ark in the “oracle of the house” is where God’s mind is most fully made known. Paul speaks of completing the word of God, and the full thought of the oracle is reached by the revelation of the mystery to him, and by his ministry of the assembly. Now the crowning point is to see Christ’s blessed place in relation to it all, and this seems to be typified by the bringing of the ark into the most holy place. This brings about that the saints are filled even to all the fulness of God. There can be no further movement beyond this; it brings us to the permanent resting-place of divine love; we touch what is eternal. So that we can but exclaim, “To him be glory in the assembly in Christ Jesus unto all generations of the age of ages. Amen”, Ephesians 3: 21.
In connection with bringing up the ark, “king Solomon, and all the assembly of Israel, that were assembled to him before the ark, sacrificed sheep and oxen which could not be counted nor numbered for multitude”. In bringing before us the highest and most glorious things that have place in His eternal purpose God would give us a [p. 315] very large apprehension of the death of Christ as the ground on which alone His great thoughts could be reached in all their fulness. The epistle to the Hebrews has in view boldness to enter the holiest, and there are no less than twenty-eight distinct references to the death of Christ in that epistle. Gentile saints are addressed in Ephesians 2 as having become nigh by the blood of the Christ. We could not be sanctified so as to be suitable for the holiest, or for the apprehension of what is there, on any other ground.
Personally He was the Ark of the covenant when here; and the ark being brought into the most holy place typifies the place which He has now as risen and exalted. In this chapter the house has been built, and the cherubim are seen as overshadowing the ark there. The ark as brought to its permanent rest in the house is covered by the wings of the cherubim. Christ, as He may be known today in the affections of the saints of the assembly, is the cherished Object of God’s delight. In the holiest we come entirely apart from the flesh and from the infirmities and limitations which attach to us as in the flesh and blood condition; we are privileged to contemplate Christ as in relation to the will and glory of God, and as having effectuated that will. We are, perhaps, little accustomed to contemplate things from that standpoint, but we do not really reach the blessed thoughts of God until we do.
It is evident that a work of God is necessary in the souls of His elect to prepare them to enter into these great and holy matters; they must go through the exercises of “the children” as partaking of blood and flesh; they must be of “the seed of Abraham” as having faith. But then they are privileged to view everything from the divine side, and to think of God as the One, “for whom are all things, and by whom are all things”, and as the One who is “bringing many sons to glory”, Hebrews 2: 10. “Glory” is the fruition [p. 316] of His purpose of love, and in order to bring it about He has made perfect the Leader of our salvation through sufferings. Christ as having passed through death, and now in glorified condition, is made perfect as the Leader of salvation. He leads into the condition of glory by being in it Himself. And the whole work of sanctifying which was needed was undertaken by Him; He is the Sanctifier; His saints are the sanctified. They are so identified with Him, so entirely the result of His own sanctifying, that He and they are said to be “all of one”. It is for this cause that “He is not ashamed to call them brethren”, Hebrews 2: 11. He can view them as entirely the result of His own sanctifying, and this is divinely perfect. Later on in the epistle we find that He came to do God’s will, “by which will we have been sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”, Hebrews 10: 10. It was the will of God that we should be sanctified, and it has been brought about by that wondrous offering, so that saints are now “all of one” with the Sanctifier, and He cannot be ashamed of them because they are what He has made them. And, viewed thus, they are suitable for the holiest, to contemplate there the ark in its own place as having brought in the will of God in its completeness. The holiest is a scene of infinite complacency for God because it is the climax of His own will and glory so far as it could be typically presented.
The wings of the cherubim are seen here in relation to the ark and its staves. The wide scope of things connected with the outward look of the cherubim is not mentioned here; it is simply “the place of the ark ... and its staves”. So that the thought of complacency predominates here;_ every attribute of God and His holy government is complacent in Christ and in what Christ has brought in. The staves are a reminder that the ark has been in other conditions than the most holy place to which it is brought to [p. 317] rest. It has been carried in service and testimony during a long period ever since the Lord ascended and the Holy Spirit came down from heaven. The apostles’ testimony to Christ as in relation to the will of God was a delight to God, and in so far as their testimony has been continued there has been delight to God. But as in the most holy place the staves are not in active service; they are there as the witness that the ark has been carried in testimony when it was not in rest. But now, as appears from J.N.D.’s note, they were drawn out, as though to mark the contrast. Even when the ark is viewed as in its permanent place of rest the carrying time is not to be forgotten, “The ends of the staves were seen outside the ark before the oracle; but they were not seen without. And there they are to this day”. At the moment contemplated here the carrying service had ceased, but it is not lost sight of within the holy place.
“There was nothing in the ark save the two tables which Moses put there at Horeb”. According to Hebrews 9, “the golden pot that had the manna, and the rod of Aaron that had sprouted” were also in the ark. That was the wilderness arrangement, for in the responsible life here we need both the inward sustenance of the grace of Christ and His priestly succour in things relating to God. But in the ark as brought to the most holy place in the temple there was neither, indicating to us that a point is reached typically when nothing remains to be considered but the will of God, and that will as brought to rest complacently as being fully accomplished. It is possible for us to reach such a point, and particularly as in assembly privilege, and to anticipate the eternal condition of things when all that the incarnation of Christ had in view will be brought to pass.
The will of God is viewed in different connections in Scripture. Sometimes it has reference to movements in service, and there are some passages in which it is applied to christian practice; there is also what God may will in [p. 318] regard to suffering on the part of His saints. But when we think of Christ as coming into the world to do the will of God it covers all that is now, and will be eternally, for the pleasure of God. In Hebrews 10, it is contrasted with the whole system of sacrifices according to the law. They were offered in recognition of the fact that men under law were sinners. But they did not establish the will of God, which was that His saints should be “sanctified through the offering of the body of Jesus Christ once for all”. We are set for God apart from the whole system of things which failed to give Him pleasure. Jesus Christ has been here in a prepared body, and that body has been offered once for all, and the result is that the will of God has taken effect; believers are sanctified and perfected for ever. Nothing can add to the completeness of this, for it is the will of God, and accomplished once for all by the offering of the body of Jesus Christ on the cross.
But saints of this present period are sanctified, and perfected in conscience, with a view to their being introduced into all the positive blessedness that is in the will of God. So in Ephesians 1 we read that God has acted according to the good pleasure of His will. He purposed in Christ before the world’s foundation that a vast company should be holy and without blame before Him in love, marked out for sonship through Jesus Christ to Himself, “to the praise of the glory of his grace, wherein he has taken us into favour in the Beloved”. This is the will of God as now seen in the ark in the most holy place. It is God having His own way, and Christ is in the most blessed nearness to Him as Man so that His will might be there as an accomplished fact. We are privileged to see Him there, and to learn that every part of what is in the will of God is brought to fruition in Him. His Person is the greatest wonder of all. The ark was greater than what it contained, but what it contained expressed God’s will, and that will at [p. 319] the present time includes all saints in its blessed eternal purpose. The will of God is brought in now in its completeness in Christ glorified, and its blessedness extends, and will extend, to all those chosen in Him. There is nothing else there, from the point of view of the wondrous type before us. Wilderness needs are not there, nor the grace that provides for them.
Then God has not only given us a most holy place before Him, and a relationship in love which answers to His pleasure in a supreme way, but as in that place of sonship and favour He has made known to us the mystery of His will. He gives us to know what He has purposed in Himself. The fulness of times is soon going to be administered, all things headed up in Christ. The saints cherish the mystery of God’s will which He has made known to them. It is all a present reality in the Ark in the most holy place, but it will very shortly be brought forth and publicly administered. It will no longer be the mystery of God’s will when all things are headed up in Christ, but it has the character of mystery now; it is only known to those who have been initiated into it. The saints of the assembly have the widest outlook; they embrace heaven and earth in their view.
And then we have obtained an inheritance in Christ. This is important as bringing out the great thoughts of God for His sons, and their wondrous and divinely conferred capability to take up what He has assigned to them. The Holy Spirit of promise is the earnest of our inheritance; He is an actual part of it. God is working all things according to the counsel of His own will, and He has secured in Christ everything that enters into His will, and according to His purpose His saints have obtained an inheritance in Christ. He is entitled to inherit all things, and the saints of the assembly will inherit with Him. At the present time we obtain it in Him. Hence it is of the [p. 320] utmost importance that we should contemplate Him as the Ark of the covenant in the most holy place. All God’s present and future will is as surely secured in Christ as it ever will be, and it is our privilege to know Him thus.
The hallowing of all the priests without observing the courses seems to intimate that a much more extended and expanded service is in view at this point. When the ark is brought into its place the idea of courses gives place to the general or universal service of the assembly. “All the saints” are brought in in Ephesians 3: 18, and the climax of all is glory to God “in the assembly in Christ Jesus”. This regards the assembly as moving Godward in its completeness and unity. This is the divine ideal, and it should be ever before us. It is seen typically when “It came to pass when the trumpeters and singers were as one, to make one voice to be heard in praising and thanking Jehovah; and when they lifted up their voice with trumpets, and cymbals, and instruments of music, and praised Jehovah: For he is good, for his loving kindness endureth for ever; that then the house, the house of Jehovah, was filled with a cloud, and the priests could not stand to do their service because of the cloud; for the glory of Jehovah had filled the house of God”.
This point being reached is very much like the prayer of Ephesians 3 being answered. If the saints of the assembly are “filled even to all the fulness of God” we can hardly think of official service continuing, for God fills all. There cannot be anything more for God than that He should fill all. Even temple service, wondrous as it is, does not rise to the blessedness of being where the Son is in His Father’s house. In the case of the younger son in his father’s house (Luke 15) we hardly think of him as serving there; we think of the blessedness of his being there, and the joy it was to his father to have him there. And when the Lord said, “Father, as to those whom thou hast given me, I [p. 321] desire that where I am they also may be with me, that they may behold my glory which thou hast given me, for thou lovedst me before the foundation of the world” (John 17: 24), we do not think of priests or temple service there. We are conscious that a point is reached which belongs to another and a different order of things. In the eternal state, when God is all in all, I apprehend the priests will no longer “stand to do their service”. They will be in the blessedness of their eternal place and relationship as sons.