Question: "What is the Ark of the Covenant?"

Question: "What is the Ark of the Covenant?"
Answer: God made a covenant (a conditional
covenant) with the children of Israel through His
servant Moses. He promised good to them and
their children for generations if they obeyed Him
and His laws; but He always warned of despair,
punishment, and dispersion if they were to
disobey. As a sign of His covenant He had the
Israelites make a box according to His own
design, in which to place the stone tablets
containing the Ten Commandments. This box, or
chest, was called an “ark” and was made of
acacia wood overlaid with gold. The Ark was to
be housed in the inner sanctum of the
tabernacle in the desert and eventually in the
Temple when it was built in Jerusalem. This
chest is known as the Ark of the Covenant.
The real significance of the Ark of the Covenant
was what took place involving the lid of the box,
known as the "Mercy Seat." The term ‘mercy
seat’ comes from a Hebrew word meaning “to
cover, placate, appease, cleanse, cancel or
make atonement for.” It was here that the high
priest, only once a year ( Leviticus 16 ), entered
the Holy of Holies where the Ark was kept and
atoned for his sins and the sins of the
Israelites. The priest sprinkled blood of a
sacrificed animal onto the Mercy Seat to
appease the wrath and anger of God for past
sins committed. This was the only place in the
world where this atonement could take place.
The Mercy Seat on the Ark was a symbolic
foreshadowing of the ultimate sacrifice for all
sin—the blood of Christ shed on the cross for
the remission of sins. The Apostle Paul, a
former Pharisee and one familiar with the Old
Testament, knew this concept quite well when
he wrote about Christ being our covering for sin
in Romans 3:24-25 : "…and are justified by his
grace as a gift, through the redemption that is
in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a
propitiation by his blood, to be received by
faith." Just as there was only one place for
atonement of sins in the Old Testament—the
Mercy Seat of the Ark of the Covenant—so
there is also only one place for atonement in
the New Testament and current times—the
cross of Jesus Christ. As Christians, we no
longer look to the Ark but to the Lord Jesus
Himself as the propitiation and atonement for
our sins.