Gold: A Mercy Seat

EXODUS 25:17-19

“You shall make a mercy seat of pure gold; two and a half cubits shall be its length and a cubit and a half its width. And you shall make two cherubim of gold; of hammered work you shall make them at the two ends of the mercy seat. Make one cherub at one end, and the other cherub at the other end; you shall make the cherubim at the two ends of it of one piece with the mercy seat.

We know — do we not — that gold in the Bible speaks of God Almighty, The Divinity, The Most High. Study of Exodus and God’s word about the building of His House — The Tabernacle — tells us that clearly and unambiguously. In the natural realm, gold is unique. Here is what I found from research some years ago.

“if you shrink gold down to a nanoparticle, its properties change dramatically. Its colour changes, it becomes a very good catalyst, and is no longer a metal - instead it turns into a semiconductor.
Even today, ultra-thin gold is being used on buildings and aircraft windows - thin film of gold displays some unusual characteristics.

“When processed in ultra-thin sheets, gold becomes transparent. It allows green light waves to pass through, but reflects infra-red light. Windows coated with gold admit light but reflect heat. Therefore, the cockpit windows of modern aircraft are coated with gold, as well as the windows of many new office buildings.

“On the nanoscale, gold becomes a potent catalyst, exhibiting new and surprising, chemical, mechanical, electrical and magnetic behaviour, which could not have been extrapolated or predicted on the basis of our knowledge about this substance in the bulk form.”

WE didn't know, but GOD knew! He knows what He is doing with gold. All this is very technical, but it reveals to us now that gold is a uniquely exceptional substance.

However, the real point here is that gold is used for the Mercy Seat. Exodus describes it and the Cherubim as ‘of one piece’ and made of ‘pure gold’. ‘Hammered gold’ is gold that is thinned out by bearing, so the strange elastic properties of gold were well understood at the time.

But all this is background to the heavenly reality of what is expounded here, which is that our Lord and God is a God of mercy at the very heart of His divinity. The gold of the Cherubim and the Mercy Seat speaks of the nature of God in a way that no other thing of the earth can do. There may be rarer substances, but nothing has the divine heaviness, elasticity or warm brilliance of gold.

In the same way, no-one but Our Lord God has the same depth, power or awesome ability which infinitely exceeds our understanding, and yet touches each one of us in the innermost parts to save, heal, uplift and perfect in His Grace and Mercy. Here is the real gold in scripture — the picture of the reality of God, which is Christ within you, the hope of glory.

Therefore, having these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of the flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God.
2 CORINTHIANS 7:1

THE MERCY SEAT — Vicki Yohe

When the eyes of the soul looking out meet the eyes of God looking in, heaven has begun right here on this earth.
A W TOZER

---

#537 COMING NEXT… THOSE WHO WAIT UPON THE LORD