What is the ark of the testimony?

This is also called 'ARK OF THE COVENANT,' 'ARK OF THE TESTIMONY,' 'ARK OF JEHOVAH.' The sacred chest belonging to the Tabernacle and the Temple. It was made of shittim wood, overlaid within and without with pure gold. It was 2-1/2 cubits long, 1-1/2 cubits in breadth, and the same in height, with a crown or cornice of gold. On each side were rings of gold in which were inserted the staves by which it was carried. Its lid, on which were the two cherubim made wholly of gold, was called the MERCY-SEAT, q.v. The ark was typical of Christ, in that it figured the manifestation of divine righteousness (gold) in man; the mercy-seat was Jehovah's throne, the place of His dwelling on earth. In the ark were placed the two tables of stone (the righteousness demanded by God from man), and afterwards the golden pot that had manna, and Aaron's rod that budded. For the place of the ark and the manner of its being moved see the TABERNACLE.

God’s Testimony in the Law

As we have said, this was given to Moses at Sinai. It was the moral law which was preserved in the ark and in the tabernacle. These therefore were afterwards called the ark of the testimony and the tabernacle of testimony. The ark, with the mercy-seat of gold above and the golden cherubim, formed the throne of Jehovah on the earth. The law within the ark—“the testimony,” was the moral foundation of that throne. The Lord said to Moses, “Thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee” (Ex. 25:16). Although constantly overlooked, a little meditation upon this will give us to see the great importance of this testimony. The previous one had to do with providence; this with government; the third with grace. Here was to be found the foundation of right relations with God. But because man was a sinner, the law necessarily condemned him—righteously so; and all the world comes under judgment to God. By the works of the law no flesh could be justified. It gave the knowledge of sin, and stopped every mouth; so that, if God had not found redemption for us in Christ Jesus, we must have remained under judgment eternally. But, through that redemption, He now justifies freely by His grace all those who believe in Jesus.

The ark of the covenant occupies the leading place in the divine communications to Moses. Its position, too, in the tabernacle was most marked. Shut in within the veil, in the holiest of all, it formed the base of Jehovah's throne. Its very name conveys to the mind its import. An ark, so far as the word instructs us, is designed to preserve intact whatever is put therein. An ark carried Noah and his family, together with all the orders of creation, in safety over the billows of judgement which covered the earth. An ark, at the opening of this book, was faith's vessel for preserving "a proper child" from the waters of death. When, therefore, we read of "the ark of the covenant," we are led to believe that it was designed of God to preserve His covenant unbroken, in the midst of an erring people. In it, as we know, the second set of tables were deposited. As to the first set, they were broken in pieces, beneath the mount, showing that man's covenant was wholly abolished — that his work could never, by any possibility, form the basis of Jehovah's throne of government. "Justice and judgement are the habitation of that throne," whether in its earthly or heavenly aspect. The ark could not contain within its hallowed enclosure, broken tables. Man might fail to fulfil his self-chosen vow; but God's law must be preserved in its divine integrity and perfectness. If God was to set up His throne in the midst of His people, He could only do so in a way worthy of Himself. His standard of judgement and government must be perfect.

"And thou shalt make staves of shittim wood, and overlay them with gold. And thou shalt put the staves into the rings by the sides of the ark, that the ark may be borne with them." The ark of the covenant was to accompany the people in all their wanderings. It never rested while they were a travelling or a conflicting host. It moved from place to place in the wilderness. It went before them into the midst of Jordan; it was their grand rallying point in all the wars of Canaan; it was the sure and certain earnest of power wherever it went. No power of the enemy could stand before that which was the well-known expression of the divine presence and power. The ark was to be Israel's companion in travel, in the desert; and "the staves" and "the rings" were the apt expression of its travelling character.

There are several things to be considered in connection with the typical significance of the ark. It was on the one hand a manifestation of God in Christ, and on the other the place of His throne and government in Israel.

First, then, the ark may be viewed as a figure of the person of Christ. This is seen from its composition. It was made of shittim-wood, overlaid with pure gold. The shittim was a kind of acacia, a wood said by some to be imperishable. Be this as it may, it is a type of what is human; and if a wood, as some affirm, that would not rot, incorruptible, it was a most suitable emblem of the humanity of our Lord. The gold is always a symbol of what is divine. The structure of the ark, therefore, figures the union of the two natures in the person of Christ. He was "very God, and very man." "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God." Thereafter we read, "And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld His glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth." (John 1:1-14.) He was thus God and man, God manifest in flesh. The contents of the ark are also significant in this connection: "And thou shalt put into the ark the testimony which I shall give thee." (v. 16.) That is, the two tables of stone, with the ten commandments written thereon, were deposited in the ark, and hence it is frequently termed the ark of the covenant (Num. 10:33; Deut. 31:26, etc.), because it contained the law on which the covenant was founded. But it points in a marked way to Christ. Speaking thus in the Spirit in the Psalms, He says, "Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy Law is within My heart." (Ps. 40:7-8.) The testimony in the ark, therefore, exhibits the law of God in the heart of Christ; setting forth, first, that as born into this world, being of the seed of David according to the flesh, He was "made under the law" (Gal. 4:4); and secondly, that He obeyed it perfectly. The law within the heart, indeed, brings before us the perfection of His obedience — the fact that God found in Him, and in Him alone, truth in the inward parts, a full and complete answer to all the requirements of His holiness, so that he could ever rest in Him with perfect complacency, and, as He beheld Him always doing the things that pleased Him, expressing the delight of His own heart in the words, "This is My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased." (Matt. 3:17.)

1906 185 The believer has little difficulty in recognising 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" (Ps. 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 ark of the covenant was the throne where God manifested Himself, if any could go in in righteousness, and as the seat of His sovereignty over every living man — the God of the whole earth. It was also, however, the throne of relationship with His people. The law — the testimony of what He required of men — was to be placed there. Over it was the mercy-seat, which covered it in, which formed the throne, or rather the basis of the throne, as the cherubim (formed of the same piece), which were its supporters, did its sides. In itself it seems to me a marvellous connection of the human and divine righteousness in the Lord Jesus. The law was hid in it, and, in divine government of man on earth, this formed the perfect rule; it was the measure of responsibility of man as a child of Adam, in its abstract foundations, which the Lord adduces — the perfection of creature relationship with God; and we know that the law was in Christ's heart. He was perfect in human obedience and love to His Father. He lived perfectly up to the responsibility of man according to God in His inner man. But He also glorified God — all that God is in love, divine righteousness, truth, majesty. All God is was glorified by the Son of man, and not only the Son of man goes righteously into the glory of God, but God is fully revealed as the place of access for us in that character: righteousness is proved by His going to His Father. The shittim-wood and the tables of the law are there, but all is clothed with the gold — God's own righteousness is there too. It is with this communion is,* only as yet the veil hid it within. The character as yet was a judicial throne. At that time man (save Moses owned in grace) could not go in, and God did not come out. Now He has come out in grace, clothing Himself in humiliation that He in perfect grace may be with us; and man is gone into the glory according to the title of an accomplished redemption.

The ark, then, as a whole, is the throne of God in Israel, in righteousness, yet in mercy, through the blood of sacrifice; and Christ is shown in it as the One through whom alone such a throne can be set up among men. He is indeed God's righteous mercy-seat. Within the ark is to be put the testimony, the tables of the law; which cannot but remind us of Him who said, "Lo, I come: in the volume of the book it is written of Me, I delight to do Thy will, O My God: yea, Thy law is within My heart." (Ps. 40:7-8.) But if thus within His heart, magnified and made honorable by His own subjection to it through His life, and in His taking upon the cross its curse upon sin, — it is none the less shut up from man, the curse removed from him. In that which we are considering there is as yet only the shadow, not the substance; but the shadow even shows that not by man's fulfillment of responsibility, but by atonement only could God have His place among men. The purely legal covenant was not that under which man could really abide at all, and in God's mind it was already set aside.

What a marvelous thing is this ark of the Lord! First of all, the ark is God's throne, His governmental presence in the midst of His people. Next, it is characterized by the mercy seat, symbol of Christ's work, the place of approach for a sinner received in grace and justified. Lastly, considered as a whole and considered in detail, it is the image of the person of Christ Himself. As the ark contained the tables of the law, so Christ said: “Thy law is within My heart.” Like the ark of testimony, the Lord here on earth was the witness and the expression of all God's thoughts. As in the golden pot that contained the manna, in Him we find the union of perfect humanity — the bread come down from heaven in the wilderness — with divine glory. He was the mercy seat toward which the faces of the cherubim of glory were turned so that they might contemplate it, overshadowing it with their wings. Thus the ark was, above all, the image of Christ Himself, the Son of God and the Son of Man in a single person.

Note the law was never in itself put into the hands of man. God spoke the ten commandments out of the midst of the fire on Mount Sinai to the people. Moses coming down from God, without direction from God, finding the golden calf made, breaks the Tables at the bottom of the mount - how introduce indeed the law of God into a camp where it was already broken and another god set up? When Moses goes up again, he is told to make a chest to put it in - God and His law are alike hidden, though given as a rule of life. That which has led me to this, is that when the throne of God was set up in the midst of Israel, the faces of the cherubim who constituted the throne - "He sitteth between the cherubim" - looked not to the ark, but to the mercy-seat which was over it, and covered it. The law was not slighted or enfeebled surely, it was placed in that holy receptacle, which indeed represented Christ, but it was hidden there. All that constituted the throne, the attributes of God, though perhaps governing men as a present judgment of conduct as to it, yet, as regards the covenant, looked at the mercy-seat. Now that was divine righteousness, the cover of pure gold - and the blood of atonement was sprinkled on and before it - with that, the faces of the cherubim were in connection, at that they looked. The law was deposited and honoured there, but the power of the throne dwelt with the mercy-seat. No doubt clearer blessings in unveiled light are for us, but this was not simply law; it was, as to government, a throne of grace according to the name proclaimed to Moses.

The expression, "The Ark of the Testimony," has been sadly perverted by some to mean exclusively the testimony of a body of believers, who profess to be faithful to the truth amid general unfaithfulness. Such will use the ignorant and arrogant expression, "The Ark of the Testimony is with Us." The Ark of the Testimony typifies Christ, and no body of believers can appropriate Him as their exclusive possession, any more than any country can claim the sun as their exclusive possession, as it marches across the sky. The worst form of heresy in the early Church was seen in some saying, "I [am] of Christ" (1 Cor. 1:12), claiming Christ for a party, and His name and presence in their midst as a distinguishing feature in contradistinction to other Christians.