“There I will meet with you, and from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubim that are on the ark of the testimony, I will speak with you about all that I will give you in commandment for the people of Israel.”
– Exodus 25:22
This is interesting. This is God talking to his people about how they can meet with him. He’s basically describing how through the Tabernacle, and we’ll see this at different points in Exodus and then into Leviticus, we see God prescribing the ways that people can meet with him, hear from him, and receive mercy from him. He talks about I’ll meet with you from above the mercy seat. It’s a reminder to us that the only way we can meet with God is, number one, according to how God prescribes it and, two, by his mercy.
Exodus 25:22 Describes How God Gave the Israelites Access to His Mercy
Don’t forget God is holy. He is perfect, righteous, and just. Sinners in his presence deserve to be cast out forever. That’s the picture of eternal punishment, hell that we see in scripture. Yet, God in his mercy has made a way. What he’s doing here in Exodus 25:22 is making a way for sinners to be able to be in his presence by his mercy according to the way he prescribes.
Now, all of this depiction in the Old Testament is really a shadow of what’s to come in the New Testament in Christ. Even the construction of the Tabernacle and the way it’s all designed is intended to point us to our need for a full and final sacrifice in Jesus. What Jesus did when he went to the cross was he paid the price for sinners to be able to be in the presence of God.
Jesus is Now the Gateway to God’s Mercy Seat
Jesus took in his sinlessness our sin upon himself as a sacrifice for us. In doing so, he opened the way for you and I to come to the mercy seat of God and meet with him, follow this, according to the conditions God sets. No sinner can just prance into the presence of God. Or, just walk up and start speaking to God. We deserve to be separated from God. But this is the beauty of the whole Bible. It’s here in Exodus. It’s in the New Testament. In Christ, God has made a way for you and me as sinners to come to him and find mercy.
Thanking God for His Mercy
Let this reality as we hear about it in the Old Testament inform our perspective when we pray. Even right now, oh, God, we come to you on your terms. There is no way we could be in your presence right now. We could be speaking to you apart from your provision. Apart from you providing the way through sending Jesus to die on the cross for us. And we are only in your presence right now. We’re only praying because of your mercy because your mercy is real. It reaches down into our lives. You saved us from our sins through what Jesus did on the cross. We praise you for your mercy that makes meeting with you right now possible. We worship you, we praise you, and we pray to you.
God, beyond this few-minute podcast episode, help us to live and continue a prayer to you. Just like the author of Hebrew says, let us approach the throne of grace with confidence for there we find mercy to help us in our time of need. God, we need your mercy in so many ways. We praise you for the mercy you’ve poured out. We need your mercy in so many other ways. In this or that facet of our life and this or that struggle we have. And we plead for mercy for others.
Interceding for Others to Receive God’s Mercy
We intercede for your mercy so, God, make us men and women of prayer who are constantly coming before you, this seat of mercy in prayer and experiencing communion with you, experiencing mercy from you and crying out for mercy for others. Help us to pray in light of Exodus 25:22. In Jesus’s name we pray. Amen.
David Platt serves as a pastor in metro Washington, D.C. He is the founder of Radical.
David received his Ph.D. from New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary and is the author of Don’t Hold Back, Radical, Follow Me, Counter Culture, Something Needs to Change, Before You Vote, as well as the multiple volumes of the Christ-Centered Exposition Commentary series.
Along with his wife and children, he lives in the Washington, D.C. metro area.
