The believer has little difficulty in recognizing the significance of the fact that the two tables of the law found a resting place in the ark of the testimony. They formed the sum total of God's requirements as to the life and conduct of the people toward Himself and to each other. They were the conditions of the covenant under which Israel was to enter into the land and dwell there, and leave it for an inheritance to their children after them. The holy oracles were in this way committed to them as the people of God, and made binding by the sprinkling of blood. But inasmuch as they were a sinful people and totally incompetent to observe that holy law (in spite of their solemn professions that all that Jehovah hath spoken we will do), setting forth as it did the terms or conditions of their covenant relationship with Jehovah, the ark was made specially to contain it For if the throne of God was to be established upon earth for the government of His people and “righteousness and judgment are the habitation of His throne” (Psa. 97:2) it could not be otherwise.
We know not at what time or in what way “the golden pot that had the manna” and “Aaron's rod that budded” disappeared from the ark in which they had been put, but we do know that when Solomon had finished all the work of the house of Jehovah, and the priests brought in the ark of the covenant of Jehovah into its place there was nothing there but the two tables of stone.
The necessities of a people passing through the wilderness had been fully met, in the riches of God's grace, by those things which witnessed to His faithfulness and goodness, and which also brought blessing to the people. The circumstances were now no longer the same. The son of David reigned in Zion, and righteousness must characterize his kingdom. “He that ruleth over men must be just, ruling in the fear of God.” So shall it be in millennial days when David's Son and Lord, the great Antitype of Solomon, shall reign in righteousness, and bring the nations into, at least, outward or feigned obedience (2 Sam. 22:45).
The ark of shittim wood overlaid with pure gold, containing the testimony, was indeed a striking type of Him who was manifest in flesh, and in whom divine and human righteousness met. He alone could say, “I delight to do thy will, O God; yea thy law is within my heart.” The righteousness of God finds its full and perfect expression in that Blessed One risen from the dead and now glorified in heaven. He who in grace came forth from God to seek man, is the one who has gone back to God after accomplishing the work of atonement, and is in Himself the full display of divine righteousness. “If any man sin we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the Righteous one.” Such is the blessed provision for the child of God, who, though confessedly weak and oft-times failing, has, nevertheless, the Holy Spirit, the power for good (Gal. 5:16-25), and the written word to guide, in order that we may not sin (1 John 2:1). Satan is ever ready to act the part of accuser before God and may find, alas, too many an occasion in my walk here, yet am I represented on high by the righteous Advocate against whom he can bring nothing. “The blood of Jesus Christ, God's Son, cleanses from all sin.” I do not try to hide or extenuate my sins, but sorrowfully confess them, with the result that “He is faithful and just” (He cannot be otherwise) “to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (1 John 1:7-9).
Such truths as these (so good and necessary for us to know as walking in the light as He is in the light) were but dimly foreshadowed by these patterns of heavenly realities, yet were they there in type. True, Israel could not, and were not expected to, enter into their full spiritual meaning. We, in the light of the New Testament, can look back and see clearly enough that God found His own deep joy in all that pointed to Christ's coming into the world, and in this scene where man had fallen, and God was dishonored, recovering in grace what man had lost in disobedience, and above all glorifying God in the holy judgment of our sins when on the cross he was made a sacrifice for sin.
It were well to glance briefly at the circumstances in which Moses placed the testimony within the ark at Horeb, the more so as the Spirit of God has been most explicit in recording the circumstance for our instruction, but has given no historic record of the placing of the other two objects within the ark. Thus, were it not for Heb. 9:4 we could not have certainly known that they were actually within it. If we read carefully Ex. 25:10-22 (particularly noticing vers. 16, 21, 22), we shall find that from the beginning God's purpose was that the ark should be prepared for the reception of the testimony. He well knew that His people were incompetent even to receive it, but it was necessary that Moses, faithful servant as he was, should learn this by sorrowful experience, for with what anguish of soul must he have listened to the revelation of the people's sin, from the lips of God Himself (Ex. 32:7-10); and how bitterly must he have realized the awful nature of that moral catastrophe which had exposed them to the wrath of Jehovah, and the curse of a broken law, before even they had seen it! Yet had they not been made acquainted with its requirements? and with a light heart accepted it and promised to fulfill all its conditions (Ex. 24:3)? When Moses came within hearing and view of the profane revelry which witnessed to the apostasy of Israel, can we wonder that his anger waxed hot, and that, in sight of the evil-doers, he brake the two tables of stone casting them out of his hands at the foot of Horeb? Surely it must have been fatal to the whole nation to have brought them into the idolatrous camp! There was then no ark to receive them—this handwriting of the finger of God.
The whole history of God's way with His servant and His guilty people, as set forth in Ex. 32 is deeply instructive, as illustrating the principles of mediatorship, of God's sovereignty in mercy, and of His call to separation from evil, for such as sought the Lord outside the camp. Deut. 10:5, however, shows us (what Exodus does not), that the solemn crisis which had arisen made it imperative for Moses to prepare the ark, before returning to God, so that immediately on his return to the people he might place the two tables of stone there. Perhaps, it was not then overlaid with gold; that remained for Bezaleel to complete hereafter (Ex. 37:2). However, that may be, it appears clear, from a comparison of the two scriptures, that the ark was prepared for the reception of the law, in the interval between Moses' first descent from the mount and his going up the second time, so that on his return it was there for the reception of the testimony.
(Continued from p. 170)
(To be continued)