It is so enlightening to realise that the place where we meet with God, as typified by the propitiation place, is Christ Himself; whenever God meets us and speaks with us, Christ is present, and He’s the redeeming and shining Christ.
It is not a small thing for us to know how to come to God and be in His presence. God created us in His image and according to His likeness, but due to the fall, we have departed from God, and we had no way to contact Him, be with Him, or receive Him.
But praise the Lord, God Himself became a man – the Lord Jesus Christ, and this God-man was God mingled with man, He lived a perfect human life, and through His death and resurrection He opened a new and living way for us to come forward to God.
In our prayerful study of the matter of God speaking to Moses from above the expiation cover and between the cherubim we realise that God speaks to us in the propitiating Christ and in the glory expressed in this propitiating Christ as His testimony.
God wants us to come back to Him, fellowship with Him, enjoy Him, be in His presence, and receive His speaking; therefore, He came and made a way for us to come to Him.
The way that God ordained is Christ Himself; Christ came and fulfilled all the requirements of God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory, and through His blood shed on the cross we can come forward to God, being cleansed of our sins and having the standing to be in His presence.
When we exercise our spirit and apply the blood of Christ through faith, God is faithful and righteous to forgive us of our sins and cleanse us from any unrighteousness, and we have the right standing to be in the presence of God and receive His speaking.
Christ offered Himself as the propitiatory sacrifice, and as the High Priest He carried out the action of propitiation; now in His ascension He is the very place where propitiation is applied, and whenever we exercise our spirit and contact Him, His blood is applied, and we can stand in Christ and on Christ to meet with God. Wow, Hallelujah!
God wants us to come to Him and be with Him, and He Himself can now come to us, be with us, and speak to us without violating His government or His righteousness, holiness, and glory, for He sees the sprinkled blood and is satisfied, and all His requirements are covered and fulfilled by Christ, who is our unique stand before God. Hallelujah!
We can Apply the Blood of Christ and Fellowship with God to have His Speaking
The place of propitiation, the expiation cover, with the cherubim is nothing less than our dear Lord Jesus Himself, whom God has set forth as a propitiation place for us to meet with God (Rom. 3:23). The place where we meet with God is a person – Jesus Christ Himself!
Whenever God meets with us and speaks with us, this precious Christ is present, and based on His blood we have access to God.
When we apply the blood of Christ, we enter into God’s presence; here we have no sin-consciousness or self-consciousness but we are filled with Christ-consciousness, God-consciousness, and eventually Body-consciousness and army-consciousness.
When we are one with the Lord to apply the blood of Christ and fellowship with God, we are no longer conscious of our sins, failures, or mistakes but of God, Christ, the Body of Christ, and the army that He wants to form on earth.
Here, in the Holy of Holies, we are one with the Lord, one with His heart, His intention, and His move; all the negative things are gone, and we receive mercy and grace to believe not in our failures or weaknesses but in the blood of Christ which gives us a standing before God.
May we receive God’s mercy not to believe in our sins, failures, weaknesses, or mistakes more than in the blood of Jesus Christ!
His blood satisfies all the requirements of God’s righteousness, holiness, and glory; through His blood we can come to God and fellowship with Him. Through the blood of Christ we overcome the accusation of the enemy; we overcome the accuser by the blood of the Lamb (Rev. 12:11).
Also, when we apply the blood of Christ, we are cleansed in our conscience; 1 John 1:7 clearly says that, if we walk in the light – as He is in the light – the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from every sin.
When we exercise our spirit to apply the blood of Christ by faith, this blood continually cleanses us from every sin – all the time and in every situation!
The blood that Christ shed on the cross was brought by Christ the High Priest into the heavenly Holy of Holies and applied before God to open the way for us to come to God.
In the Old Testament only the High Priest could enter the Holy of Holies, and he could do so only once a year; now we all can enter the Holy of Holies all the time!
Entering the Holy of Holies is quicker than switching on the light to have the light shining, for there is NO space between our spirit and the Holy of Holies!
When we believe in the blood, we are here, in our spirit as the reality of the Holy of Holies! Here, in the Holy of Holies, we can testify that, no matter how many failures we had and how many mistakes we made, the blood of Jesus gives us the right to be here.
When we are conscious of our sins, we confess them, and God is faithful and righteous to forgive us of our sins, and the blood of Jesus cleanses us from every sin!
Hallelujah, when we confess our sins, we apply the blood of Christ and we are cleansed from every sin – whether this sin is one we remember or we forget, one that is great or small, every sin!
And in the Holy of Holies we are not conscious of ourselves or our failures – we simply live in another realm, the realm of fellowship with God to have His speaking!
Lord, we come forward to God through the blood of Jesus Christ to enter the Holy of Holies, be in God’s presence, and receive His speaking! Amen, Lord, we believe not in our failures, mistakes, or sins – no matter how real they may be – but in the blood of Christ which was shed for our sins. We confess our sins, we apply the blood of Christ, and we come to fellowship with God, be in His presence, and have His speaking! Hallelujah, the blood of Jesus cleanses us from every sin, and based on this blood we have access to God, we can be in His presence, and we can receive His speaking!
Meeting with God in the Redeeming Christ in His Humanity and the Shining Christ in His Divinity
The place where God met with His people in Exodus and Numbers was the expiation cover sprinkled with the blood and between the cherubim.
We are not told how tall or big the cherubim were, which shows that Christ’s glory is in-explainable and immeasurable, but we are told that they had faces and wings and they were living creatures.
The place where we meet God is the redeeming and shining Christ – in His humanity He redeems us (as shown by the blood sprinkled on the cover) and in His divinity He shines on us (as signified by the cherubim on the lid of the ark).
When we meet with God, we have the sense, on one hand, that we are washed and cleansed by the blood of Christ, and on the other hand, that we are under the glory of God, and this glory is living.
The glory in which we meet is the very Christ Himself; the glory in which we meet God and have His speaking is the shining of Christ, and this shining is living.
We need to have the Lord’s light to understand this portion of the word and apply it to our experience in a proper way; apart from being enlightened by the Lord, we may read these verses again and again without seeing anything of their significance.
But when the Lord shines on us and we realise that we meet God in Christ and upon Christ, and this Christ is a redeeming and shining Christ, we will praise the Lord!
Whenever God meets with us and speaks with us, this precious Christ is present; it is on the redeeming Christ and in the shining Christ that God meets with us and speaks with us.
If we see this, we will thank the Lord, praise Him, and apply Him to meet with God in His glory.
The lid of the ark was made of pure gold, with no acacia wood, but the blood sprinkled on this lid came from His humanity; this shows us the redeeming and shining Christ, the God-man Christ, who is our unique way and place for us to meet with God and have His speaking.
As God, Christ shines in His divinity, and as man, He accomplished redemption in His humanity. As God, He is full of glory which emanates from His divine nature; as man, He has blood for our redemption.
The expiation cover with the blood of the sacrifices sprinkled on it portrays the redeeming Christ in His humanity (with His judicial redemption) and the shining Christ in His divinity (with His organic salvation) as the place where fallen sinners can meet with the righteous, holy, and glorious God and hear His word (Lev. 16:14-15, 29-30).
The cherubim on the expiation cover signify Christ’s shining with His divinity, and the blood sprinkled on the cover signifies His humanity for redeeming;
Hallelujah, we and God can now meet together and talk together in the redeeming and shining Christ!
Praise the Lord, the redeeming Christ in His humanity has opened a new and living way for us to come forward to God and meet with Him, and the shining Christ in His divinity is the place where we can meet with God! Thank You Lord Jesus for Your judicial redemption through the blood in Your humanity and Your organic salvation through Your shining in Your divinity. Hallelujah, now the holy, righteous, and glorious God can meet with us, sinners, and talk to us in the redeeming and shining Christ! Praise the Lord!
Read this article / blog post in Romanian – puteți citi acest articol și în limba română la următorul link – Ne întâlnim cu Dumnezeu în Cristosul răscumpărător și strălucitor prin aplicarea sângelui lui Cristos.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Ron Kangas for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus, msgs. 88-89 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallisation-Study of Numbers (1), week 8, God’s Speaking from between the Cherubim of Glory.
- Hymns on this topic:
# Pray to fellowship with Jesus, / Fully opened from within, / With thy face unveiled, beholding, / Single, pure, and genuine. (Hymns #784)
# In the holiest place, live before His face, / Light of glory thru me will shine; / In the holiest place, live before His face, / Light of glory thru me will shine. (Hymns #770)
# We come forward unto our God, / Who is sitting on the throne; / He has paved the way to glory / By His blood and cross alone. (Hymns #1217)
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