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The Ark of the Covenant
The Ark of the Covenant was also called the Ark of Testimony (Exodus 25:10-22). God had Moses set up the tabernacle with the Ark of the Covenant as a testimony to His people and to the world. Hebrews 9:3-5 mentions the contents of the Ark of the Covenant with the view that the Old Testament type has a New Testament reality for believers today. The spiritual significance of the Ark of the Covenant is profound and not well understood by believers because the revelation of its reality requires us to have many deeper spiritual experiences that match the contents of the Ark.
One quick note is that the Ark was made of acacia wood covered with gold. This signifies that God's divine nature is mingled with Christ's humanity. In the Old Testament, God was divine. In the New Testament God became man. So, Christ is the God-man, fully divine and fully human. He is the basis of God's attributes being expressed in humanity.
CONTENTS OF THE ARK
 The Golden Pot with the Hidden Manna
The golden pot with the hidden manna is mentioned in Exodus as a memorial for the children of Israel after their exodus from Egypt (Exodus 16:32-34). God chose a golden pot, signifying His divine nature. This manna is "hidden" because it represents much deeper spiritual experiences of the Lord. Exodus 16 speaks of the initiation of manna in the Bible. The children of Israel had complained to God within a few days of leaving Egypt because they had no water. The Lord miraculously took care of their thirst just as He so marvelously brought them out of Egypt. Then, they almost immediately began to complain about no food ... as if God didn't know and had forgotten them ... after what He had just accomplished.
The Lord sent "manna" to the children of Israel as a daily supply for them. Manna meant, "what is it" because no one knew what it was, but they certainly could enjoy it. It looked like a coriander seed, white in color, and it tasted like honey cakes (Exodus 16:15, 31). The children of Israel were to get up before the heat of the day in order to collect the manna for that day. If they waited too long into the day, the manna was no longer any good (16:16-21). This is a beautiful picture of how we need to come to the Lord early EVERY day for His provision and supply of our spiritual food.
The Lord has given us Himself as our daily supply, our manna, in the New Testament age. He expects us to cooperate with Him by coming to Him each and everyday to touch Him as our spiritual bread (John 6:35, 48), our spiritual food (1 Corinthians 10:3-4, 11). The Old Testament reality of manna for the children of Israel is a type, a figure of how we New Testament believers should "eat" of the Lord each day. 1 Corinthians specifically mentions that the examples of manna is for us (1 Corinthians 10:11).
The Lord desires us to have even deeper experiences with Him. However, the deeper experiences only come once the normal, daily experiences are fulfilled. If we are not spiritually nourished day by day, we can rarely ever experience the deeper things of God. And even if God blesses us with some profound spiritual experience we would not be able to sustain our spiritual health ... unless we cooperate in our daily lives.
The hidden manna is just that: hidden. It is contained in the "golden pot." Gold in the Old Testament usually signifies God in His divine nature. The hidden manna is contained in God's divine nature. This again implies that we are being supplied daily by Him so that we are not only touching His divine nature, but we are partaking of it regularly (2 Peter 1:4). As we partake of God's divine nature, it is constituted into our inner being. This lays the proper foundation for the "hidden" manna. The hidden manna is the deep spiritual experiences that often are related to great suffering. Because we have experienced God in our daily lives, we are able to experience Him in our depths rather than just give up (as the children of Israel always did).
The hidden manna was placed in the Ark of the Covenant as a testimony of God's provision and supply to His people (Exodus 16:34). Therefore, we must see that the the hidden manna, the deeper experiences of Christ, issue forth in God's testimony. One crucial aspect of God's testimony is related to His corporate Body on the earth. The Body of Christ is God's testimony on the earth. Oneness among God's children is the highest testimony that the world can observe. How can unbelievers truly know God? John 13:35 says, "By this shall all men know that you are my disciples, if you have love one for another." In today's age, oneness among believers in Christ is a rarity. Believers are divided among countless denominations, non-denominations and independent groups. Why? Because so few among God's children experience Him as the hidden manna. We are still too much like the Corinthians believers: immature, fleshy, carnal (1 Corinthians 3:1; Hebrews 5:12). The Lord Jesus prayed at length just before He went to the cross (John 17). His entire prayer was for the oneness of His believers because that would show the world and His believers who God is (17:3, 21, 25-26).
 Aaron's Rod that Budded
Once again, another item of the Ark of the Covenant was established due to the rebellion of the flesh against God. The manna arose from the people's lack of trust that God would provide their every need ... despite the phenomenal exodus from Egypt. [This shows how our flesh never depends on the Lord. It is always skeptical, always anxious, never able to believe in the unseen. Only our spirit can grasp the faith that God imparts and instills into our inner being.] Now, the children of Israel were caught up by ambition and presumption. A group of Israelites thought that they could "run the ship" better than Moses. What they did not realize was that they were actually criticizing God Himself. Moses was God's servant who unveiled all that God told him. When Korah and his band stood against Moses' leadership, they were actually rebelling against God's leadership (Numbers 16).
Korah's Rebellion
Korah was most likely a very capable man with natural leadership ability. The problem is that God is not interested in our natural abilities. No matter how "good" any of our natural abilities and talents are, they are as filthy rags before the Lord (check out Romans 3:9-23; Isaiah 64:6). Korah used natural logic to imply that he was as holy (set apart) as Moses and therefore, could lead the children of Israel as well as Moses. Moses responded to Korah's arrogance by falling on his face ... another indicator that Moses was not for himself as Korah was. Moses had a vibrant relationship with the God of the universe while Korah had his own talent, ability and high admiration of himself. Moses and God were intimate with one another to the point that God called Moses his friend! Korah, on the other hand, could muster up other accomplices like Dathan and Abiram who would share the same fate as Korah and all of his family.
God quickly came in to vindicate His servant Moses. He as usual performed something never seen before by the children of Israel. God is expert at bringing us into new things. This again is the life of faith. Moses told the children of Israel that if God did not do something new to Korah, Dathan and Abiram then God indeed was not with him. Probably by the time Moses finished speaking, the earth began to shake and so did Koran, Dathan and Abiram and their league of rebels, 250 in all. Too late for repentance. The earth opened up and swallowed them along with all their family. Wow!
But did the children of Israel really learn who God was? Not on your life. Flesh is flesh. It cannot be trained to love God nor follow God. The people went to Moses and complained that he and God had killed "people of Jehovah." God again quickly vindicated Moses and Himself by sending a plague which wiped out 14,700 people within minutes.
Why all this background prior to Aaron's budding rod? It is important to see that the flesh profits nothing, only the Spirit gives life (John 6:63). How do we crucify the flesh so that it does not usurp God's authority? Many would say we need to follow the authority God places over us. On one hand, this is true. But the real authority is based on God Himself in our spirit. We must follow Him! If He tells us to submit to a certain person, then we submit. But our submission is always to God and God alone. The outworking of that submission may be toward another human being. God set apart Aaron among the tribes of Israel using 12 pieces of wood. Aaron's staff was made of an almond branch (Numbers 17). God told the children of Israel that His authority rests upon the man whose staff budded.
Aaron's Budding Rod Signifying Authority Comes Through Resurrection
Aaron's budding rod was a testimony to the children of Israel of God's authority. Aaron's rod consisted of almond buds while other eleven rods were made of another type of wood. Almonds bud earlier than other woods, signifying Christ's resurrection life. Whereas, wood in the Old Testament often signifies man's fallen humanity. What a picture! God's authority always rests upon resurrection. God's authority always issue forth in resurrection. And God's authority only exists in resurrection. Man's authority depends on fallen human nature. Man's fallen humanity is never fully reliable. Man's fallen humanity is never able to accomplish God's economy or plan. And man's fallen humanity is NOT to be the object of our submission. Please take me correctly, we are not to submit directly to any man or woman in our lives. We submit to God and He leads us to submit to others.
Too often believers submit to their priest, their pastor, their minister without resurrection life as the base of their submission. This is why so many divisions exist. This is why so much confusion exists. This is why believers fight with one another rather than love one another. Believers eventually give their allegiance to a fallen man or woman rather than to the resurrected Christ in their spirit. The human tradition, culture, history and practice takes precedence over a life of faith in resurrection, in the realm of the unknown.
The New Testament reality of Aaron's budding rod is that we take Christ in resurrection as our authority. We follow Him! Apart from resurrection, nothing we do counts before God because resurrection follows death which spilled the redemptive blood of Christ. Without the blood we cannot come before the Lord. Without resurrection we cannot live before the Lord. And without living in resurrection we cannot possible follow the Lord's authority.
Once again, Aaron's budding rod, as with the manna, was placed in the Ark of the Covenant. This is another aspect of God's testimony on earth. God's authority is always through resurrection. What a wonderful truth! Imagine if all believers would take Christ in resurrection as their sole authority. We would live differently, and the bottom line is we would live in oneness. This would produce God's testimony on the earth.
Two Tablets of the Testimony
The final item God told Moses to place within the Ark of the Covenant were the two tablets of the Testimony. Of course, these two tablets were the "Ten Commandments" written by God's hand on Mount Sinah after yet another rebellion by the children of Israel. The first time Moses received the Ten Commandments, he was on the mountain for forty days and nights. The children of Israel got scared, got impatient, and then got dumb: they decided to act on their own. They talked Aaron into making a golden calf so they had something visible to worship (Exodus 32). Doesn't this sound familiar. How many so called churches have all kinds of outward adornments, outward rituals, outward practices that they insist help us in our "worship of God." God defined worship in John 4:23-24, "The true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truthfulness, for the Father also seeks such to worship Him. God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truthfulness." The Lord Jesus made clear to the Samaritan Woman that worship is not based on a place nor a bunch of outward history, culture or practices. No. True worship is in our innermost being, our spirit and it is in truthfulness or reality ... which is Christ Himself operating to shine forth in us, through us, out of us.
After God dealt with the children of Israel for the golden calf incident, He personally wrote the Ten Commandments on two tablets of stone for the second time (Exodus 31:18; 34:1). What a picture! God wrote His law on stone. This has great spiritual significance to us today. Firstly, God's law represents Himself. And secondly, stone signifies the uplifted humanity we have in Christ as we mature in Him. 1 Peter 2:5 states that God's children are the living stones with which God will build the New Testament tabernacle, His church, His Body. Paul wrote in 2 Corinthians 3:3, "Since you are being manifested that you are a letter of Christ ministered by us, inscribed not with ink but with the Spirit of the living God; not in tablets of stone but in tables of hearts of flesh ..." Just as God personally wrote His Ten Commandments on stone in the Old Testament, so now, in the New Testament, God is writing Himself as the Spirit into us, His living stones, possessing an uplifted humanity that can contain God.
The Ten Commandments are a direct testimony of who God is. He is supreme. He is holy. He is righteous. He is unique. He alone is worthy of our worship, our praise, our adoration, our allegiance, our faith, our trust and our entire being. He is our source. But the Ten Commandments also display the richness of the divine attributes expressed in human virtues. God is love. God is pure. God is kind. God is truth embodied. God is compassionate and full of sympathy towards His children. The picture God gave us in Exodus of the Two Tablets of Stone signifies God's desire to work Himself into our uplifted humanity as a testimony of who He is.
Paul clearly knew this as he wrote Colossians 3:12-17. "Put on therefore, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, inward parts of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, long-suffering; bearing one another and forgiving one another, if anyone should have a complaint against anyone; even as the Lord forgave you, so also should you forgive. And over all these things put on love, which is the uniting bond of perfectness...." When we allow God to work Himself as the Spirit into our uplifted humanity (resurrected life), His divine attributes begin to form within our humanity. What a testimony this is! Imagine living out this kind of humanity before each other and before the world. How could they not love God! In the Old Testament God wrote on two tablets of stone. In the New Testament God is writing in our minds. Hebrews 8:10 says, "I will impart my laws into their mind, and on their heart I will inscribe them."
God's Testimony Lived Out
God's desire for us, His believers, is to experience Him as the hidden manna, the deeper supply of the divine life so that we can be constituted with His divine nature. As we grow in Him, we will recognize, enter into and follow His divine leadership in resurrection, signified by Aaron's budding rod. The more we know His authority as the Chief Shepherd (John 10:14; 1 Peter 5:4), the more we live in resurrection. This prepares our once fallen humanity to die and be resurrected into a newness of spirit (Romans 7:6). As Paul said in 2 Corinthians 4:16, "Our outer man is decaying, but our inner man is being renewed day by day." This is how we can have our minds renewed (Romans 12:2). Now, our vessels are prepared to receive God's divine inscription of Himself into our being. He inscribes His Person into us. Wow! The once totally depraved, fallen man is put to death and resurrected into an image of God just like He intended in Genesis 1:27 when He made man in His image and after His likeness.
 The Cherubim
The Lord didn't leave any detail out of His revelation to man. He desires us to know Him fully. The Ark of the Covenant signifies a precious revelation of God related to His people. There were three items in the Ark: 1) the hidden manna in a golden pot, 2) Aaron's budding rod, and 3) two tablets of stone on which the Ten Commandments were inscribed by God's own finger. As we have seen, these items represent the deepest spiritual experiences of God we can have. However, God's revelation did not stop there. There is the fact that the Ark of the Covenant was covered, surrounded by, two Cherubim. This signifies that the deepest experiences of God are protected by God's holiness and righteousness. The Cherubim are divine protectors. They insure that God's righteousness and holiness are not offended.
The Cherubim were placed with wings spread so that the wing of one Cherubim touched the wing of the other. The wingspread of both Cherubim spanned the Holy of Holies chamber. So, basically, when the high priest entered the Holy of Holies once a year, he would observe the Cherubim overshadowing the Ark of the Covenant. The only way to the Ark was through the Cherubim and nothing unholy or unrighteous was permitted. The Cherubim represented God's wrath and retribution upon anything unholy or unrighteous. The Holy of Holies which contained the Ark signifies God's very presence. God cannot tolerate sin or anything other than Himself. He must destroy sin and unholiness.
So how can we be allowed in the Holy of Holies as Hebrews 4:15-16 tells us? Through the shedding of the blood of a perfect lamb. This why the mercy seat of the Ark was covered in blood. As the Cherubim looked down upon the Ark, they saw the redemptive blood and did not have to destroy the man. We are allowed by God to experience Him, even to enter His very presence, through the blood of the Lamb, Jesus Christ. The Cherubim are an ever present reminder that God is righteous and holy and that we, in ourselves, have no right to enter His presence apart from the blood of His Son, Jesus. We can never be presumptuous in this matter. God will not tolerate our fallen nature apart from blood. In a real sense, the Cherubim represent our renewed conscience, renewed intuition and renewed fellowship towards Christ. We have an inner sense that we need to be cleansed moment by moment. This drives us to repent and confess our sins as 1 John 1:9 states, "If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness."
In the garden of Eden (Genesis 3), the Lord used Cherubim to seal off the garden after Adam and Eve were ejected. The sin Adam and Eve brought into the garden caused God to take action. He set His Cherubim at the entrance of the garden with flaming swords to destroy anyone who would enter. Why? God could not allow man to partake of the Tree of Life in themselves. Until the Lord's death and resurrection the Tree of Life was closed to man. After the Lord had shed His blood for the world, His resurrection life is now available to man; the Tree of Life is now open to man again. We see this in Hebrews 10:19-20 and in Revelation 21-22. Again, the Cherubim, our conscience, intuition and fellowship, constantly speak to us about our condition and the need for the Lord's blood not only at our regeneration, but each and every day, each and every moment.
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