Blood on the Mercy Seat
God tells us that “the blood is the life” (Deut. 12:23) and blood can atone for sins. The holy God instituted the ‘rite of atonement’ in the Old Testament (Exod. 30:10) so that sinful people would come to come to Him, “For the life of the flesh is in the blood, and I have given it to you upon the altar to make atonement for your souls; for it is the blood that makes atonement for the soul” (Lev. 17:11). The apostle Paul also emphasised that “according to the law almost all things are purified with blood, and without shedding of blood there is no remission.” (Heb. 9:22). Blood is regarded as the “the blood of the covenant" (Exod. 24:8). At the Last Supper before His crucifixion, the Lord Jesus said, “For this is My blood of the new covenant, which is shed for many for the remission of sins.” (Matt. 26:28)
The ‘rite of atonement’ established by God requires that once a year on the Day of Atonement in the Old Testament era, the High Priest must bring the blood of the sin offering into the Holy of Holies and sprinkle the blood on the “Mercy Seat" above the Ark of the Covenant. This is to atone for his sins and the sins of the people, so that their sins are forgiven by God (Lev. 16:14-15). Then, the High Priest must lay his hands on the head of a male goat and pass on all the sins of the people to the goat, “The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness” (Lev. 16: 20-22).
The atonement before the Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant showed God's love and justice to the people. The blood of the sin offering was used as the price to forgive the sins of the people. However, who would have thought that this atonement was a meticulous plan designed by God for His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to be the scapegoat for mankind, to personally bear all the sins of the world and to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins (Isa. 53:6,10). The Lord Jesus made One Sacrifice on the Cross, and with His own precious blood dripped onto the Mercy Seat, the sin-forgiving throne of God the Father, He removed the sins of the world once and for all (Heb. 9:11-12; 1 John 2:2), so that people no longer need to offer any sacrifices for sins (Heb. 10:14,18). What an amazing grace!
In Old Testament times, God told Moses to build a tabernacle so that God could dwell among the people (Exod. 25:8-9). The Ark of the Covenant (Exod. 25:10-11), encased in pure gold, was the most holy object placed in the Holy of Holies. On top of the Ark is the Mercy Seat (the original word for mercy is expiation), made of pure gold and covered by the wings of two cherubim angels. This is the place where God met with His people (Exod. 25:17-22). The Ark of the Covenant contained God's own engraved tablets of the Ten Commandments, the golden pot of manna, and the sprouted staff of Aaron the High Priest (Heb. 9:4).
The tabernacle foreshadows the salvation of Jesus (see the Covenant of Love on the Cross). Aaron’s budding rod, manna, and tablets of the law in the Ark of the Covenant all point to the salvation of Jesus. They foreshadow the resurrection of our great High Priest, Jesus Christ, who is the true Bread that gives life. The new covenant established by His precious blood on the Cross fulfils the Law of Moses. Jesus is our sin offering (Rom. 3:25) and our mercy seat, so that through Him we can all meet with God the Father freely, anytime, anywhere.
The Ark of the Covenant is the place of the glory of the holy God, and no one other than the anointed priests could come near it without being struck down by the power of the Ark due to their inherent sinfulness. God walked with the people of Israel in the wilderness for 40 years (Neh. 9:21), and the Ark of the Covenant was always placed in the Holy of Holies of the mobile tabernacle. Its incomparable power became a shield for God’s people and a weapon against their enemies. When the Israelites crossed the Jordan River, as soon as the priests carrying the Ark of the Covenant stepped into the river, the water parted, allowing the people to walk on dry ground (Josh. 3:13, 17), just as it had been when they crossed the Red Sea.
Later, King David's son Solomon built the Temple in Jerusalem and placed the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies of the Temple (1 Kgs. 8:6). It was not until 586 BC, when the king of Babylon besieged and conquered Jerusalem (2 Kgs. 25:8-9) and Judah was destroyed. The Ark of the Covenant then mysteriously disappeared, not being among the Babylonian spoils of war, nor on the list of all the sacred relics captured by Babylon that were sent back by the king of Persia 70 years later (Ezra 1:1-3, 7,11).
God told Moses that the tenth day of the seventh month of the year was the Day of Atonement, the most holy day of the year. "For on that day the priest shall make atonement for you, to cleanse you, that you may be clean from all your sins before the Lord."(Lev 16:29-30). Once a year, on this day only, the High Priest must bring the blood of the sin offering into the Holy of Holies, and ‘sprinkle it with his finger on the mercy seat on the east side; and before the mercy seat he shall sprinkle some of the blood with his finger seven times’ to make atonement for his own sins and for the sins of the people (Lev. 16:14-15), so that their sins are covered and cleansed before God, as the blood atoned for their sins (Lev. 17:11).
The high priest acts as a mediator between God and man, foreshadowing the role of Lord Jesus as our Mediator of the New Covenant. “But Christ came as High Priest of the good things to come, with the greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, that is, not of this creation. Not with the blood of goats and calves, but with His own blood He entered the Most Holy Place once for all, having obtained eternal redemption.”(Heb. 9:11-12)
After the high priest had offered the sacrifice and sprinkled the blood on the mercy seat in the Holy of Holies, he came out and laid his hands on the head of another male goat, confessed all the sins and transgressions of the people and put all the sins of the people on the head of this goat, and then sent it to the wilderness. “The goat shall bear on itself all their iniquities to an uninhabited land; and he shall release the goat in the wilderness.” (Lev. 16:20-22).
This sin-bearing scapegoat represents that the Lord Jesus bore all the sins of the world (Isa. 53:6), so that all who believe in Him will pass their sins onto Jesus, and have their sins wiped out and no longer counted by God. Jesus’ body was buried in the tomb and resurrected three days later (Matt. 28:5-6). Through His resurrection, all believers can overcome the power of death and receive eternal life in Christ (Heb. 2:14; 1 Cor. 15:20-22). In God the Father's eternal plan of salvation, the beloved Son was willing to be the scapegoat for all mankind (John 1:29), and the Holy Spirit raised Him from the dead (Rom. 8:11), revealing the Triune God's great love for mankind (John 3:16-17).
2,000 years ago, Satan, the devil, persuaded the Jewish leaders and elders to crucify Jesus, the Messiah they had been long waiting for. They thought they were wise, but they had no idea that this was a plan of salvation that God had designed for the world. “For the wisdom of this world is foolishness with God. For it is written, ‘He catches the wise in their own craftiness.’”(1 Cor 3:19)
What would we do to Him if we were in that place today? The Lord Jesus “has no form or comeliness; And when we see Him, there is no beauty that we should desire Him. ... He is despised and rejected by men, a Man of sorrows and acquainted with grief. And we hid, as it were, our faces from Him; He was despised, and we did not esteem Him. ...All we like sheep have gone astray; We have turned, every one, to his own way; And the Lord has laid on Him the iniquity of us all. ... He was taken from prison and from judgment, and who will declare His generation? For He was cut off from the land of the living; For the transgressions of My people He was stricken.” (Isa 53:2-3,6,8).
When the apostle Paul preached the gospel of the Lord Jesus, he said, "For the message of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God." (1 Cor 1:18), because "But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned." (1 Cor 2:14) “For since, in the wisdom of God, the world through wisdom did not know God, it pleased God through the foolishness of the message preached to save those who believe. ”(1 Cor 1:21)
In these last days, people still cannot know the infinite God and discern the truth, nor can they understand the work of God with their carnal mind and worldly wisdom. God chooses to use those whom the world despises as small, weak and foolish as vessels of His glory (1 Cor. 1:27-31), for "God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble." (Jas. 4:6). Only humble people can come before God and reveal the mysteries that God has hidden from the wise (Pro. 15:33).
As Paul said, “But we speak the wisdom of God in a mystery, the hidden wisdom which God ordained before the ages for our glory, which none of the rulers of this age knew; for had they known, they would not have crucified the Lord of glory. But as it is written: ‘Eye has not seen, nor ear heard, nor have entered into the heart of man the things which God has prepared for those who love Him.’ But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God.” (1 Corinthians 2:7-10)
Just as God chose to use brother Ron Wyatt, a devout Christian, to work with the Holy Spirit in his spare time to reveal many of God's mysteries that have been hidden from the wise since the creation of the world, such as Noah's Ark, Sodom and Gomorrah, and the miracle of Red Sea. Although most Christians accept his discoveries, they are rejected and discredited by experts in the archaeological field.
Let us praise God for His marvellous works and power through Ron’s amazing discovery of the Ark of the Covenant and the precious blood of the Lord on the Mercy Seat at the place where the Lord Jesus was crucified!
Discovery of the Ark of the Covenant
In 1982, inspired and led by the Holy Spirit, and with the authorisation of the Israeli government, Brother Ron Wyatt discovered the Ark of the Covenant, which had mysteriously disappeared more than 2,500 years ago. It was hidden in an underground cave at Calvary, where the Lord Jesus was crucified, and the blood of Jesus was also found on the Ark!
After 3 years of extremely difficult exploration and excavation, Brother Ron successfully dug into the underground cave where the Ark of the Covenant was secretly hidden. From inside, he saw cracks at the top of the cave, with traces of dried and black blood on them. He explored upwards along the cracks and found that the cracks were in the exact spot where they had dug from the top and found the pole hole of the cross with the earthquake crack! The earthquake that shook the earth at Jesus' death caused the crack.
“Now from the sixth hour until the ninth hour there was darkness over all the land. ...... And Jesus cried out again with a loud voice, and yielded up His spirit. Then, behold, the veil of the temple was torn in two from top to bottom; and the earth quaked, and the rocks were split.” (Matt. 27:45-46,50-51)
“But when they came to Jesus and saw that He was already dead, they did not break His legs. But one of the soldiers pierced His side with a spear, and immediately blood and water came out.” (John 19:33-34)
The precious blood shed by Jesus on the cross flowed through the cracks in the rock where the cross was placed, into the cave below where the Ark of the Covenant was secretly hidden, and dripped onto the Mercy Seat!
As mentioned before, the “Mercy Seat” is the place where God forgives the sins of the people through the sin offering. Only the High Priest can sprinkle the blood of the sin offering onto the Mercy Seat to atone for their sins (Lev. 16:15). The blood of bulls and goats can only cover sins, it cannot take sins away (Heb. 10:4). However, the Lord Jesus, our High Priest, offered Himself as a perfect atoning sacrifice, by pouring His own precious blood onto the Mercy Seat – the sin-forgiving throne of God the Father - and removed the sins of the world once and for all (Heb. 9:11-12), so that people no longer need to offer sacrifices for sins (Heb. 10:14,18)! Only our loving heavenly God the Father, who created the heavens and the earth, could have had such a perfect plan and power to accomplish this!
Jesus said, "Do not think that I came to destroy the Law or the Prophets. I did not come to destroy but to fulfil." (Matt. 5:17). God the Father designed the perfect plan of redemption and atonement (Rom. 3:25; Col. 1:20), passing all the sins of the world on to His beloved Son (Isa. 53:6). He personally presided over the birth and crucifixion of His Son Jesus. He hid the Ark of the Covenant in advance in a specific place, and caused a great earthquake at the time of Jesus’ death on the Cross, so that Jesus’ atoning blood could flow through the earthquake crack and drip perfectly onto the Mercy Seat, fulfilling God’s perfect righteousness and mercy. Jesus said, “For I have come down from heaven, not to do My own will, but the will of Him who sent Me.” (John 6:38).
Ron Wyatt discovered the lost Ark of Covenant in Jerusalem.
Medical experts know that all humans have 23 pairs (46) of chromosomes, 23 from the mother and 23 from the father. According to brother Ron Wyatt, the blood sample he took from the cave was tested and analysed by experts in a laboratory in Israel. The experts found that the blood is alive and that each cell contains only 24 chromosomes. There are 23 chromosomes from the mother and one Y chromosome, which indicates a male child, and no chromosomes from the father’s side of the human being. This testifies that the Lord Jesus was conceived by the Holy Spirit and born of a virgin (Luke 1:34-35; Mat. 1:21-23). When the Israeli experts asked Ron whose blood it was. With tears in his eyes, Ron replied, "It is the blood of your Messiah". Information about the discovery of the Ark and the blood test results is currently being withheld by the Israeli government. It will surely be revealed to the whole world at God’s appointed time. Ron's discovery on this subject can be viewed on YouTube on The Discovery of the Ark of the Covenant.
The Lord Jesus came into the world to fulfil all the prophecies about Him recorded in the Bible (Ps. 40:7-8), as we have seen in 'The Footsteps of Jesus’ (See Jesus’ Footsteps). Dear brothers and sisters, have you seen it? “Nor is there salvation in any other, for there is no other name under heaven given among men by which we must be saved.” (Acts 4:12) “For there is one God and one Mediator between God and men, the Man Christ Jesus, who gave Himself a ransom for all, to be testified in due time. ”(1Tim. 2:5-6)
The Ark of the Covenant represents the Lord Jesus, Emmanuel, who is with us (See The Tabernacle of God). Before His crucifixion, Jesus wept for Jerusalem and said, “for I say to you, you shall see Me no more till you say, ‘Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! ”(Matt. 23:39). Although the Ark of the Covenant has been found, it remains hidden until the fulfilment of God's appointed day. Then the Ark of the Covenant will appear again in the world, just as the Ark of the Covenant will appear in heaven in due course (Rev. 11:19).
