The Bible in a Year
“There I will meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat, from between the two cherubims which are upon the ark of the testimony.” (Exodus 25:22)
As we continue our year-long journey through Scripture, this single verse from Exodus opens a doorway into the heart of biblical fellowship. God does not merely instruct Israel where to place the furnishings of the Tabernacle; He reveals where communion with Him truly occurs. The Lord says, “There I will meet with thee.” Not just anywhere, not on human terms, and not by instinct or intuition, but at a place He Himself appoints—above the mercy seat. That detail matters. It tells us that fellowship with God is never casual or accidental. It is graciously given, carefully framed, and deeply redemptive.
The mercy seat was the covering of the ark, placed in the Holy of Holies, the most sacred space in Israel’s worship. Once a year, on the Day of Atonement, blood was sprinkled there by the high priest. This was not a random ritual; it was a visible declaration that sinful people could only draw near to a holy God through mercy. Fellowship begins not with human worthiness but with divine grace. That truth remains unchanged throughout Scripture. Salvation, prayer, worship, and daily communion with God are all grounded in mercy, not merit. When we forget this, we subtly turn fellowship into a performance rather than a gift.
The ark itself functioned as a type—a foreshadowing—of Christ. Inside it were the tablets of the Law, Aaron’s rod, and manna, all symbols of God’s covenant faithfulness and human failure. The mercy seat covered it all. In the same way, Christ fulfills the Law we could not keep and covers our failures with His righteousness. Jesus later declares this truth plainly: “I am the way, the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Me” (John 14:6). Fellowship with God is not possible apart from Christ. A theology that tries to speak of God while bypassing Jesus may sound spiritual, but it cannot lead to communion. It leads instead to distance, because God has chosen to meet humanity in His Son.
This brings us to the third condition revealed in Exodus 25:22—fellowship is not apart from the blood. The blood sprinkled on the mercy seat once a year pointed forward to Calvary. Hebrews makes this connection explicit, reminding us that the earthly tabernacle was a copy and shadow of heavenly realities (Hebrews 9:1–11). God does not overlook sin in order to have fellowship with us; He addresses it. “Without shedding of blood there is no remission” (Hebrews 9:22). That statement is not harsh; it is hopeful. It means God Himself has provided the means by which sin is cleansed and fellowship restored. “The blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin” (1 John 1:7).
Walking through this passage devotionally, I am reminded how easy it is to seek closeness with God while minimizing these conditions. We want intimacy without confession, spirituality without Christ, blessing without the cross. Exodus refuses to let us do that. God meets His people, but He meets them at the mercy seat. As John Stott once observed, “The essence of sin is man substituting himself for God… the essence of salvation is God substituting Himself for man.” Nowhere is that substitution clearer than at the mercy seat, fulfilled ultimately in Jesus.
This truth has daily implications for our walk. Fellowship with God today still begins with mercy. We come honestly, not pretending we are better than we are, but trusting that grace is greater than our failure. Fellowship continues through Christ. Our prayers, worship, and obedience are offered in Him, not alongside Him. And fellowship is sustained by the blood—not re-shed, but remembered. Each time we confess our sins, we are not reopening old wounds; we are reaffirming the sufficiency of Christ’s sacrifice.
As we move through the Bible this year, passages like this anchor us. They remind us that Scripture is not a collection of disconnected religious ideas, but a unified story of a God who desires to dwell with His people and who provides the way for that dwelling to be possible. The mercy seat in Exodus points us forward; the cross in the Gospels fulfills the promise; and our daily fellowship with God becomes the lived expression of that grace.
For further study on the mercy seat and its fulfillment in Christ, this article from Ligonier Ministries offers helpful background and theological clarity:
https://www.ligonier.org/learn/articles/mercy-seat
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