ROMANS UNWRAPPED 51

"Christ Jesus, whom God set forth a propitiation, through faith in His blood..." Romans 3v25.


This is the Godward aspect of the death of Christ. Propitiation is the basis of all the blessings which flow to the world from calvary; it satisfied all the demands of divine justice and enables God to reach out to men, no blessing could come to any of us without it. We should observe that when the bible refers to the blood, it is focusing on this GODWARD aspect. Divine justice in all it's demands was fully met in the death of Jesus, and so here he underlines "through faith in His blood". That's what it means in Romans 5v9 "much more then being justified in His blood we shall be saved from wrath through Him".

A picture speaks a thousand words, and here we have a lovely portrait of the work of Christ. The word used for propitiation is hilasterion . This occurs only once more in the N.T. in Hebrews 9v5 where it is translated mercy seat and casts us back to Exodus  & Leviticus etc.    A reading of these portions will tell us the story, the portrait is a beautiful one and we will look at it in detail.

 

• The mercy seat is of inestimable value through many thousands of years high profile figures have sought to find the ark with its mercy seat.   If it were found and sold at auction it would break every record for the sale of goods; however its material value is secondary to its spiritual value, which we are going to consider now.
• The mercy seat is an integral part of the ark; if the ark of the covenant portrays the Person of Christ, the mercy seat portrays the work of Christ.   His Person and His work can never be separated, the character of His Person gives value to His work.
• The mercy seat was made of pure gold -  pure gold represents that which is Divine, and only God could save the world.
• One with the mercy seat were the two cherubims of  gold- the first mention of cherubim was in Genesis 3v24  "God placed at the east of the Garden of Eden CHERUBIM, and a flaming sword which turned every way to keep the way of the tree of life."    Thus the cherubim speak of Divine justice.   In a few other places in the Bible there is mention made of "the God who dwells between the cherubims."   Therefor if God will deal with sinners, it will be on the basis of what the cherubim represent, namely inflexible justice.
• The mercy seat was sprinkled with blood  - according to Leviticus 16v14 the blood was sprinkled once upon the mercy seat and seven times before the mercy seat, once and once only for the eye of God, seven times referring to the fullness of the value of that sprinkled blood for all believers  " the blood of Jesus Christ God's Son cleanses us from all sin."   1st John 1v7   Divine justice as symbolised in the cherubim looks down upon the blood, and because of the eternal value of all that blood represents,  God is satisfied.
• The mercy seat is the meeting place with God   - "there I will meet with Thee and I will commune with thee, from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim which are upon the ark of the testimony."   Exodus 25v22   This is the only place sinful people can meet with God, the only way we can be reconciled to God.   God Himself has appointed the meeting place.
• The mercy seat is available to all people at all times -  back in Moses day this privilege was available only to two people, Moses & Aaron, and that only once a year.   Today in the language of Paul  "whom God hath set forth as a mercy seat."   God's mercy on the basis of the blood of Christ is offered to  seven billion people , or however many there are in the world, and is available at all times.

This is now been put into public view, there is a constant offer to all of a meeting place with God, to deal with the question of your sin.   There is no limit on who can come!   The life and death of Jesus Christ has answered every demand of God, has met every aspect of God's justice, and now God is able to make an astonishing declaration which we will look at tomorrow.