Hebrews 9:4

Hebrews 9:4

The Holy Chest.

"Of which we cannot now speak particularly," said the author of the epistle. If he had gone into particulars further exposition would have been needless. What was the lesson taught by this wonderful article of tabernacle furniture? Are we not to look upon it as a picture of Christ?

I. Let us consider the outside. What do we see? A chest most likely about three feet long, by eighteen inches wide, and eighteen inches deep. It is a box made of common wood, but covered with fine gold. And is not our Jesus both human and Divine? Both are there, and you cannot separate them; just as the ark was not perfect, though the right shape and size, till it was covered with fine gold, so Christ could not be Jesus without the gold of divinity. The Jews stumbled here; they were ready to receive a human Messiah, but they would not have anything to do with the Divine element. Still we do not overlook the wood, though it is covered with gold. It is sweet to know that Jesus shares our nature. He passed over the cedar of angelic life, and took the common shittim, the tree of the wilderness. (1) At each corner there is a ring of gold to receive the staves by which the Levites carried the ark on their shoulders. The people were safe if they went where the ark went. It would be a blessed thing if the Church of God would be persuaded to go where Christ would have gone. (2) At each end of the ark are the cherubim, the representatives of the angelic world. They gaze with interest upon the mercy-seat. Is it not Jesus who links heaven to earth? As the cherubim gazed on the blood on the mercy-seat, so in heaven the Saviour is the centre of attraction, "a Lamb as it had been slain."

II. We will now look inside the ark, and what do we see? (1) "The golden pot" filled with manna. Does not this teach that in Christ we have spiritual food? (2) The rod that budded convinced the people that Aaron was chosen priest. So Christ has the true, God-chosen, God-honoured, God-prevalent priesthood. (3) The tables of the covenant, the new, unbroken tables, remind us that in Christ we have a perfect law. He is our righteousness. (4) Wherever the ark went it meant destruction to the foes of the Almighty; so if Jesus be with us we shall win the day. And in the last struggle, when we cross the bridgeless river, we shall need Christ as the Israelites needed the ark when they crossed over Jordan.

T. Champness, New Coins from Old Gold,p. 45.

References: Hebrews 9:4. Expositor,1st series, vol. vi., p. 469. Hebrews 9:6. R. W. Dale, The Jewish Temple and the Christian Church,p. 186.