God says,

“Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon. For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways,” declares the LORD (Isaiah 55:7–8 NIV84, emphasis mine).

The heart of God is love, and out of that love comes grace, forgiveness, and every good and life-giving element, including the gift of His Son Jesus Christ, given to us by the Father to save us from sin. Jesus is “the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” (John 1:29 NIV84).

Jesus came because God forgives and because God’s forgiveness, extended freely from His heart, is not sufficient to save us from sin. Why? Because God was never the barrier to salvation; sin in us is the barrier. It is absolutely true that if God were unforgiving, there would be no salvation, but God’s forgiveness alone does not restore the human heart and mind, which have been corrupted with lies, distrust of God, fear, guilt, shame, and selfishness, back to love and trust in God and cleanse them from the lies, fear, guilt, shame, and selfishness.

That is why Jesus came—to do in humanity what reality, as God created life to operate, requires in order for sinners to be restored to God. And reality requires something be done within sinners, not to God. And the Bible records God’s efforts to bring this truth to human hearts and minds throughout history. The Old Testament sanctuary service was part of God’s teaching tools, designed by heaven to bring truth to people, but not His first preference:

“This is what the LORD Almighty, the God of Israel, says: Go ahead, add your burnt offerings to your other sacrifices and eat the meat yourselves! For when I brought your forefathers out of Egypt and spoke to them, I did not just give them commands about burnt offerings and sacrifices, but I gave them this command: Obey me, and I will be your God and you will be my people. Walk in all the ways I command you, that it may go well with you. But they did not listen or pay attention; instead, they followed the stubborn inclinations of their evil hearts. They went backward and not forward. From the time your forefathers left Egypt until now, day after day, again and again I sent you my servants the prophets. But they did not listen to me or pay attention. They were stiff-necked and did more evil than their forefathers” (Jeremiah 7:21–26, NIV84, emphasis mine).

When God led them from Egypt to Sinai, He did not ask them for offerings and sacrifices, rituals and ceremonies. He came to talk to them directly, but the people were afraid of Him and did not want to talk to Him; they preferred someone to stand between them and God. When God came close …

They stayed at a distance and said to Moses, “Speak to us yourself and we will listen. But do not have God speak to us or we will die” (Exodus 20:18–19 NIV84).

God wants connection, but sin in the hearts of people causes us to prefer separation. The Israelites begged for distance from God, to be hidden from Him, for an intercessor to talk to Him instead of engaging with God themselves. Sadly, many people today seem to respond to God in the same way, preferring someone to stand between them and God.

God’s heart must have broken, like a loving father whose children don’t want to talk with him. But because He loved them, He responded, as any loving father would, by providing what they demanded to stay in touch. He had them set up the entire symbolic sanctuary system with its rituals and priestly intercessors to teach them in symbol the reality He longs for—the day when all of His children are healed, restored to unity, at-one with Him again, and will no longer be afraid to enter His presence.  

This was most potently revealed in the heart of that symbolic system by the “ark of the covenant.” Notice the name, the ark of the covenant—what covenant? This is the ark symbolic of the covenant of salvation, the agreement of the Godhead to save sinners from sin, the covenant the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit made among themselves in which Jesus would be the member of the Godhead to enter this world, be the “Seed” that crushes the serpent’s head (Genesis 3:15), and provide all that is needed to destroy sin, Satan, and purify sinners from sin.

Consider the rich symbolism of the ark. Paul used the name for the lid of the ark to refer to Jesus in Romans 3:25. The Greek word is hilasterion, which is translated as “propitiation” by the NKJV, “sacrifice of atonement” by the NIV84, and “mercy seat” by the NET.

Jesus is the lid of the ark of the covenant, which was made out of solid gold; pure gold represents the perfect sinless righteousness of Christ.

Above the lid were the cherubim, which symbolize the sinless heavenly host who are united to God through Christ:

For God was pleased to have all his fullness dwell in him [Jesus], and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether things on earth or things in heaven, by making peace through his blood, shed on the cross (Colossians 1:19–20 NIV84, emphasis mine).

And above the lid was the shekinah glory, with its light shining down and touching the lid. Jesus is the light of the world, God manifest in humanity, the mystical ladder that reaches down from heaven, from the Father, to connect and provide the way for fallen humanity to return to His presence.

And below the lid is symbolized fallen humanity, covered, protected, healed, and restored by Jesus—all of which is symbolized by the box and its contents. The box was made of acacia wood, a porous wood with holes, symbolic of our sin-damaged lives. But that wood was covered completely in gold, symbolic of Christ’s sinless life and perfect righteousness, which filled in all the defects.

The box of the ark represents the saved, sinful human beings who are perfected by Christ’s righteousness in reality. The box was literally covered in gold, and every hole filled with gold; likewise, when we trust Jesus, we receive a reality-based indwelling of the Holy Spirit, who fills our hearts and minds with the truth, love, and perfection of Christ. We are reborn with His life, His spirit, and are led day by day to ever-increasing advancements in holiness and “become the righteousness of God” (2 Corinthians 5:21).

Transformed in Reality

The process of our transformation is symbolized by what was placed in the box:

• The manna, symbolic of the bread of heaven, the Word of God, living and written. Jesus is the Word made flesh, and we must ingest Him, the truth, and be won to trust as the starting point in salvation (John 1:1–14; 6:53–55).
• Then, when we open the heart, after partaking of the Word, the Spirit comes, we are reborn with the life of Christ, and He writes His living law upon our hearts and minds (Hebrews 8:10). This was symbolized by the Ten Commandments being placed in the box.
• And then, we who were dead in trespass and sin are reborn and come to life and produce the fruits of the Spirit, the fruits of righteousness, symbolized by Aaron’s rod that came to life and budded and brought forth fruit, almonds.

This powerful object lesson puts the “ark of the covenant” in the Most Holy Place, symbolizing God’s most holy plan and desire to reconcile to Himself all things through Christ.

But as beautiful as this symbolic system is, it was added because of the people’s unwillingness to meet directly with God, who never wanted all the ritual, symbolism, and mediators. God wants a direct person-to-person connection with Him. That is why Jesus, God the Son, became human—to connect directly with us and heal us so we will be able to connect directly back to the Father through Christ.

This is not a new idea! This is what God was telling the Jews throughout their history, in all their symbols, through all their prophets.

“Return, faithless people,” declares the LORD, “for I am your husband. I will choose you—one from a town and two from a clan—and bring you to Zion. Then I will give you shepherds after my own heart, who will lead you with knowledge and understanding. In those days, when your numbers have increased greatly in the land,” declares the LORD, “men will no longer say, ‘The ark of the covenant of the LORD.’ It will never enter their minds or be remembered; it will not be missed, nor will another one be made” (Jeremiah 3:14–16 NIV84, emphasis mine.)

God calls His people back to Himself, those who have wandered, been faithless, who have not trusted Him, who have encoded error, been going after the false gods of this world, who have been raised up in the fraudulent penal/legal views of God. He tells them that He will provide shepherds (i.e., pastors), who will be after God’s own heart—and what will they do?

The pastors that God provides will lead the people into knowledge and understanding—of what? Of God, of reality, of truth. These shepherds will lead people away from an external system of symbols to the internal reality of healing and transformation of hearts and minds. They will present the truth of God as Creator, His laws as design laws, and lead the people to think and reason for themselves, to choose and encode truth, love, trust and to be transformed in the inner person.

By doing this, they no longer need to think about the symbols, the ceremony, the object lesson. They do not need the ark brought back, built again, focused on, or sought after. Why? Because of reality—because the living law of God has been restored to the place where it belongs, inside the hearts and minds of believers, and we are united, at one, with God and heaven again, which Jeremiah tells them later:

“The time is coming,” declares the LORD,  “when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them,” declares the LORD (Jeremiah 31:31–32 NIV84, emphasis mine).

It will not be a covenant of ceremony, ritual, or animal sacrifice. It will not be the covenant of imposed law, of rules, of added law and enforcement that was needed because they were so rebellious. It will not be a covenant that focuses on a temple made by people, a gold-covered box, and external performance, with intercessors keeping God away from the people; instead, it will lead them out of the theater, symbol, and enactment to reality—back to their own connection and living experience with God! How? Jeremiah describes in the next verses:

“This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time,” declares the LORD. “I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people. No longer will a man teach his neighbor, or a man his brother, saying, ‘Know the LORD,’ because they will all know me, from the least of them to the greatest,” declares the LORD. “For I will forgive their wickedness and will remember their sins no more” (Jeremiah 31:33–34 NIV84, emphasis mine).

God wants closeness, intimacy, for people to know Him for themselves. And He prophesied through Jeremiah how He would finish the work and prepare His people to meet Him in person. He is simply telling us, “I will send pastors who will teach the truth about me, my design law, and they will lead you with knowledge of truth into understanding how reality actually works!”

Life eternal is knowing God (John 17:3), being restored to intimate love and trust with our Creator. It is the restoration within human beings of God’s living law of love, truth, and trust. This restoration is accomplished through Christ and is the covenant, the agreement, the plan, intent, and mystery of God:

To them God has chosen to make known among the Gentiles the glorious riches of this mystery, which is Christ in you, the hope of glory (Colossians 1:27 NIV84, emphasis mine).

The covenant, agreement, of the Godhead has always been to purge from hearts and minds the lies, fear, guilt, distrust, shame, and selfishness and to restore in humanity God’s perfection, His love, truth, reality, to recreate us to be like Him so we bear His name and glorify His character. Then, when that is accomplished, no one will need to tell another to know the Lord, for all will know Him for themselves.

And God says, “When that happens, I won’t need to think about your sin-sickness anymore; I won’t need to focus upon defects, corruption, lies, errors encoded, because all sin, defect, corruption, and error will have been removed.”

This is reality. God longs to heal every single human being from fear, guilt, shame, lies, distrust, rebellion, corruption, and every defect from His perfect design of truth, love, and trust. But He can only do that as we choose to accept truth, surrender in trust to Him, and receive the Holy Spirit, who indwells us, bringing us the life of Christ that transforms us, recreating and cleansing us from within.

If you haven’t already done so, I encourage you to leave the legal fictions with their external legal adjustments behind and experience reality, the mystery of Christ within, and be renewed in heart and mind and become the righteousness of God (2 Corinthians 5:21).