The Word for today: 2 Samuel 5:17 -- 6:23
mark this: 6:1-2
The ark was just a box--made of acacia wood and overlaid with gold inside and out.
The ark denoted the presence of God. But it became a hindrance to Israel because they looked upon it in a superstitious way. They thought there was some merit in that box, and there was not. It was just a symbol, a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was made of gold, which speaks of his deity; and of wood, which speaks of his humanity. It was not two boxes; it was one box. It was a wooden box; it was a gold box. It was both.
As such, it was a marvelously simple example of the complex theological idea of Christ's "hypostatical union." Hypostatical union means that Jesus was the God-man: very man of very man, and very God of very God. It was a wooden box. It was a gold box.
The ark was constructed with rings in the four corners. Poles were placed through these rings, and the ark was to be carried on the shoulders of the Levites, the tribe of priests. (1)
In just such a way God wants the gospel of Jesus Christ to be brought to the world today. God does not write the gospel in the skies. Jesus Christ has to be carried through this world on the shoulders of those who are his own.
You and I, God's redeemed children--his own, purchased at the price of the blood of Jesus Christ--will carry the Good News of Jesus Christ to a lost world, or it will not go forth at all.
That was God's way then, and it is God's way now.
The ark was just a box--made of acacia wood and overlaid with gold inside and out.
The ark denoted the presence of God. But it became a hindrance to Israel because they looked upon it in a superstitious way. They thought there was some merit in that box, and there was not. It was just a symbol, a picture of the Lord Jesus Christ.
It was made of gold, which speaks of his deity; and of wood, which speaks of his humanity. It was not two boxes; it was one box. It was a wooden box; it was a gold box. It was both.
As such, it was a marvelously simple example of the complex theological idea of Christ's "hypostatical union." Hypostatical union means that Jesus was the God-man: very man of very man, and very God of very God. It was a wooden box. It was a gold box.
The ark was constructed with rings in the four corners. Poles were placed through these rings, and the ark was to be carried on the shoulders of the Levites, the tribe of priests. (1)
In just such a way God wants the gospel of Jesus Christ to be brought to the world today. God does not write the gospel in the skies. Jesus Christ has to be carried through this world on the shoulders of those who are his own.
You and I, God's redeemed children--his own, purchased at the price of the blood of Jesus Christ--will carry the Good News of Jesus Christ to a lost world, or it will not go forth at all.
That was God's way then, and it is God's way now.
(1) Exodus 25:13-15; Numbers 1:51; Numbers 4:15,19; see Joshua 3
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