In the Old Testament, on the Day of Atonement the priest went into the Holy of Holies and sprinkled the blood of the sacrifice on the Mercy Seat. This was to make atonement for the sins of the people for the past year. When Christ died, "by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place, having obtained eternal redemption for us" (Heb. 9:12).
"Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us" (9:24).
Not only was Jesus Christ the atonement for our sins, the sin offering and trespass offering, but He was the fulfillment of the whole burnt offering as well. This was the offering which pictured doing God's complete will and fully satisfying a holy God. It was such an offering that God says is a sweet-smelling sacrifice to Him.
Finally, the Mercy Seat is the place of union and communion with God. Man can only meet God on His terms at the blood-sprinkled Mercy Seat. When the sinner comes by faith to the throne of grace and claims Christ's blood to satisfy God for his sins, he will immediately be born of God This brings him into eternal union with God. No longer is he seen as in Adam alone, for now he is in the second Adam, Christ. No longer is he "without God in the world" (Eph 2:12), but his body becomes the "temple of the Holy Ghost" (1 Cor. 6:19).
God also says it is from here that He will commune with men from above the Mercy Seat. The tabernacle had a veil which kept the priest from going into the very presence of God except once a year on the Day of Atonement. Now that the veil has been rent God says we have "boldness to enter into the holiest by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way, which he hath consecrated for us through the veil, that is to say, His flesh" (Heb. 10:19-20). Love you, ABC Sumner
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