Passage: Exodus 25:10-16

The Big Idea

The ark of the covenant was the first piece of tabernacle furniture God described, because it’s the most important. It was the symbol of God’s presence with His people, and a picture of the person of Jesus: Immanuel, God with us. Made of wood overlaid with gold, it pictures Jesus as fully man and fully God. Inside were the law, a golden jar of manna and Aaron’s budding rod: Jesus fulfills the law, feeds us with grace and lives by resurrection power. Wherever we need help, we can look to Him.

God with Us

The ark was the symbol of God’s presence with His people: God with us. Immanuel.

It’s a picture of Jesus.
Jesus is God, so it’s a picture of God for us. Jesus reveals God to us, because He is God who became man.
When Israel walked through the desert, went into battle, faced a storm, got lost or confused, or faced any need, they could look to the ark, God with them, and know they could ask Him for help and receive it.

What do you look to when you need help?

The ark showed that God was available. God was on their side. God was for them, not against them (Romans 8:31).
They were united with God, just as we’ve been united with Christ.

So as we study the ark, its meaning is always the person of Jesus. And that matters to us, because Jesus is our life.

First Things First

Before describing anything else in the tabernacle, God focuses our attention on His beloved Son.

The ark was described first because it’s the most important.
Without the ark, everything else is pointless.
What good is serving God if you don’t know His Son?
Eternal life is knowing the Father and Jesus Christ whom He sent (John 17:3).
Paul counted everything as rubbish compared to knowing Christ (Philippians 3:8). He’d throw it all away to know Jesus.

Do you count knowing Jesus as the only treasure in life truly worth seeking? Every other treasure will rust, break and grow old.

That’s why the ark matters. Every other piece of the tabernacle pictures part of Jesus’ work. The ark pictures His person.

Even its names point to Jesus

The ark of the Testimony (Exodus 25:22): Jesus is God’s testimony to us.
The ark of the covenant (Numbers 10:33): Jesus is our covenant.
The ark of the Lord of all the earth (Joshua 3:13): Jesus rules the world.
The ark of God (1 Samuel 3:3): Jesus is God.
The ark of the LORD your God (Joshua 4:5): Jesus is your God.
The holy ark (2 Chronicles 35:3): Jesus is holy.
The ark of Your strength (Psalm 132:8): Jesus is your strength.

The Design (Exodus 25:10-16)

“Have them make an ark of acacia wood, two and a half cubits long, a cubit and a half wide and a cubit and a half high. Overlay it with pure gold, both inside and out, and make a gold molding around it. Cast four gold rings for it and fasten them to its four feet, two on each side. Make poles of acacia wood and overlay them with gold. Insert the poles into the rings on the sides of the ark to carry it. The poles are to remain in the rings; they are not to be removed. Then put into the ark the tablets of the covenant law, which I will give you.“

How the Ark Pictures Jesus

An ark saves

There are two other “arks” in Scripture, and both picture Jesus:

Noah’s ark, which carried his family safely through judgment (Genesis 6-8).
The little basket-ark that carried baby Moses safely through the waters of death (Exodus 2:3).

What do they tell us? Jesus is the vessel of salvation. Whoever is “in” Him is safe.

Two materials

The ark was made of two materials:

Wood, which grows from the earth.
Gold, a symbol of God’s glory.

Jesus is fully man and fully God, two natures united in one person. (Theologians call this the hypostatic union.)

He brings two things together and makes them one.
He is the perfect union of God and man, and so He’s the only way to bring God and man together.

The law inside

The law was placed inside the ark.

So with Jesus: “I delight to do Your will, O my God; Your law is within my heart” (Psalm 40:8).
Jesus never imitated the law or strained to keep it. It was in Him, part of who He is. The law simply describes how Jesus acts, because that’s who He is.

Blood on the lid

On the Day of Atonement, blood was sprinkled on the ark’s lid, the mercy seat (Leviticus 16:14-15).

That foreshadows the blood of the New Covenant in Jesus (Luke 22:20).
Hebrews explains that the law was only a shadow of the good things to come. The same sacrifices offered year after year could never make worshipers perfect; otherwise they would have stopped. Instead, they were an annual reminder of sins, because the blood of bulls and goats can’t take sins away. Every priest stood day after day offering the same sacrifices, which could never remove sin (Hebrews 10:1-4, 11).
But this Priest, after offering one sacrifice for sins forever, sat down at the right hand of God. By one offering He has perfected forever those who are being sanctified (Hebrews 10:12-14).
So since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, by a new and living way He opened for us through the curtain, His flesh, and since we have a great High Priest over God’s house, let’s draw near with a sincere heart and full assurance of faith (Hebrews 10:19-22).

Four golden rings

The ark was carried by poles through four golden rings.

I believe these can picture the four Gospels. Scripture has other fourfold images often associated with the Gospels: the four living creatures around God’s throne in Revelation 4, and the four faces of the creatures in Ezekiel 1.
The rings were how the ark was carried to the people. So the Gospels carry the truth about Jesus to all the people of the world. Someone reads a Gospel and meets Jesus, and gets saved.

What Was in the Ark?

Hebrews tells us the ark contained the golden jar of manna, Aaron’s rod that budded, and the tablets of the covenant (Hebrews 9:4).

Three things that show us how Jesus provides for His people:

The two stone tablets: the law fulfilled.
The golden jar of manna: grace.
Aaron’s rod that budded: resurrection.

The tablets: law fulfilled

Jesus didn’t come to abolish the law but to fulfill it (Matthew 5:17).
Through one man’s obedience, many will be made righteous (Romans 5:19).
Jesus met every requirement of the law for His people. He did everything it ever required.
You can’t add to what He did without taking away from it.
When we truly believe in the absolute sufficiency of Jesus’ work, then we can follow Him as disciples and be used to serve the Father.
We’re never adding to what Jesus did. We’re pointing to it.

The golden jar of manna: grace

The life and heart of Jesus are the bread His people eat.
God provides for every need of His people: our spiritual bankruptcy first, then our physical needs.
Interesting detail: in Exodus 16, it’s simply “a jar.” Hebrews 9:4 tells us it was a golden jar.
Why mention that? The Old Testament couldn’t yet fully reveal what the New Testament does: that the One who would feed them would Himself be God. They knew a Messiah was coming, but didn’t yet grasp that He’d be God the Son.
“The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld His glory… full of grace and truth” (John 1:14). The golden jar full of heavenly food: grace and truth.
Feed on your Savior’s grace. Feed on your Savior’s truth.
“From His fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” (John 1:16).

Aaron’s rod that budded: resurrection

Get ready for this one.

In Numbers 16, Korah and his followers challenged Aaron’s authority. They questioned who was qualified to be priest for the nation, who had the right to represent the people before God. They didn’t think Moses and Aaron were qualified.

After God’s judgments on the rebels, He settled the question clearly (Numbers 17). He had the leader of each of the twelve tribes bring a staff, with each name written on it, and they were placed before the Lord overnight. In the morning, Aaron’s staff, a dead stick, had come to life. It had sprouted, budded, blossomed and produced almonds!

So resurrection is the key to knowing who is qualified to represent the people to God and God to the people.

Jesus is our High Priest “by the power of an indestructible life” (Hebrews 7:16).
This may well have been one of the passages Jesus used on the road to Emmaus, when He showed the disciples from Moses and the Prophets that the Messiah had to suffer and rise again (Luke 24:27).

Where Will You Turn?

What was in the ark? Three things that show how Jesus provides for His people:

The tablets: law fulfilled.
The manna: grace.
The budding rod: resurrection.

Where will you turn when you need to measure up? To Jesus, who fulfilled the law for you.

Where will you turn when you need inner strength to serve God, or His peace and rest? To Jesus, the bread of life.

Where will you turn when you feel dead inside? To Jesus, the resurrection and the life.

Grace Takeaway

The ark stood at the very heart of the tabernacle, a picture of the very heart of our faith: the person of Jesus, God with us. Wood and gold, man and God. The law kept perfectly inside Him, the bread of grace stored up in Him, and resurrection life blooming from Him. May we make just one turn when we’re in need: look to Jesus simply, in faith, and wait for Him to rescue and provide.

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The Ark