The Place of Atoning Speech Text: Numbers 7:89
Introduction: The Geography of Grace
We live in a casual age, an age that has forgotten the difference between the holy and the profane. We treat God as though He were an amiable buddy, a celestial co-pilot who is always available for a chat, preferably on our terms and according to our schedule. We have domesticated the Almighty, and in so doing, we have made Him small, manageable, and ultimately, irrelevant. Our prayers become little more than sanctified wish lists sent up to a divine concierge, and our worship is often just a thin veneer of religious sentiment painted over our own self-centered desires.
The book of Numbers, and this verse in particular, is a potent antidote to this modern malady. It reminds us that access to God is not a trivial matter. It is a blood-bought privilege, governed by His sovereign design, and located at a very specific place. God does not speak from everywhere in general, so that we might hear Him nowhere in particular. He establishes a place of meeting, a focal point of communion, and that place is drenched in theological significance. The entire sacrificial system, the intricate layout of the tabernacle, the consecration of the priests, all of it was designed to teach Israel one fundamental lesson: God is holy, you are not, and if you are to approach Him, it must be on His terms, at His appointed place, and through His provided means.
Numbers chapter 7 is a long and, to our modern sensibilities, perhaps a tedious chapter. It details the offerings of the twelve tribes for the dedication of the altar. It is a chapter of immense generosity, of orderly worship, and of covenantal faithfulness. But it concludes with this stunning verse, which serves as the capstone for all that has gone before. After all the gifts are given, after all the wagons and oxen are presented, after all the silver and gold is accounted for, we are shown what all of it was for. It was all to establish and furnish the place where God would condescend to speak with man. This verse is a window into the very heart of the Old Covenant, showing us the locus of God's authority, the nature of His communication, and the absolute necessity of atonement as the prerequisite for any fellowship with Him.
And as with all things in the Old Testament, this is a picture, a type, a shadow. It is a signpost pointing down the long corridor of history to the ultimate place of meeting, the final mercy seat, the Word made flesh. If we do not understand the grammar of grace laid out for us here, we will never be able to read the glorious gospel of John 1 aright.
The Text
Now when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with Him, he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim, so He spoke to him.
(Numbers 7:89 LSB)
The Tent of Meeting
The verse begins by setting the scene:
"Now when Moses went into the tent of meeting to speak with Him..."
The "tent of meeting" was the tabernacle, the portable sanctuary that God commanded Israel to build. This was not Moses's idea. God had given him the blueprints on the mountain with painstaking detail. Every cubit, every fabric, every piece of furniture was a divine prescription. This is because right worship is not something we invent; it is something we receive by revelation. God tells us how He is to be approached, and our first duty is obedience.
Moses goes in "to speak with Him." This establishes the relationship. This is not a monologue. This is a conversation. But notice the direction of the initiation. Moses goes in to speak, but what he finds is God already prepared to speak. Our prayers do not activate a silent God. Rather, our prayers are a response to a God who is always speaking, always revealing Himself. Moses, as the covenant mediator, has a unique access that the common Israelite did not. He goes into the very presence of God on behalf of the people. This is a picture of our great High Priest, the Lord Jesus, who has entered the true holy place, not made with hands, to intercede for us.
But the purpose is communication. The God of the Bible is a God who speaks. He is not the silent, impersonal force of deism or the mute idol of paganism. He is the living God, and life is communicative. The Trinity is an eternal fellowship of communication between Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. When God creates the world, He does so by speaking. When He redeems a people, He does so by giving them His law, His promises, His Word. A silent god is a dead god. Our God speaks.
The Location of the Voice
The text then gives us the precise location from which this divine speech originates. And the geography is everything.
"...he heard the voice speaking to him from above the mercy seat that was on the ark of the testimony, from between the two cherubim..."
The voice does not come from the corner of the tent, or from the lampstand, or from the altar of incense. It comes from one specific, highly charged location: the mercy seat. The mercy seat, or the kapporeth, was the solid gold lid that covered the Ark of the Covenant. The Ark itself contained the tablets of the law, the "testimony." So, inside the box, you have the righteous standard of God, the law that condemns every sinner. That law says, "Do this and live," and "the soul that sins shall die." It is a ministry of death and condemnation (2 Cor. 3:7-9).
But God does not speak from the law. He does not speak from inside the box. If He did, the only word we would ever hear is "Guilty." Instead, He speaks from above the law, from the mercy seat. This mercy seat was the place where the high priest, once a year on the Day of Atonement, would sprinkle the blood of the sacrifice. The blood of the substitute was placed between the holy law of God and the holy presence of God. The blood satisfied the demands of the law. The blood made mercy possible.
Therefore, God speaks to man only from a place of atoning blood. He speaks from a place where justice and mercy kiss. He does not set aside His law; He fulfills it through substitutionary sacrifice. This is the grammar of the gospel in gold and wood. Any approach to God that attempts to bypass the blood, that attempts to come to Him on the basis of our own merits, will find only the condemning voice of the law. But the one who comes by faith in the shed blood will hear the voice of mercy, the voice of fellowship, the voice of the Father.
And this all happens "from between the two cherubim." These golden cherubim, hammered out of one piece with the mercy seat, were guardians of God's holiness. It was cherubim with a flaming sword who guarded the way back to the tree of life after Adam's fall (Gen. 3:24). They represent the unapproachable majesty and holiness of God. Yet here, they are not barring the way; they are marking the spot. Their wings overshadow the place of atonement. They gaze down upon the blood-sprinkled lid. The very guardians of holiness now mark the place where a holy God can meet with sinful man because of blood.
The Divine Initiative
The verse concludes with a simple, powerful restatement that emphasizes God's sovereignty in this communication.
"...so He spoke to him."
Moses went in to speak, but the definitive action is that God spoke. God is the initiator. He is the one who reveals. He is the one who speaks grace and truth. Moses is the recipient. This is the fundamental posture of every believer. We do not bring our truth to God; we come to receive His truth. We do not dictate the terms of the conversation. We come to the place He has appointed, and we listen.
This is why the faithful preaching of the Word is so central to the life of the church. The pulpit, when it is functioning rightly, is the modern equivalent of this place. The preacher does not ascend the steps to offer his own clever thoughts or to share his latest therapeutic insights. He comes to declare, "Thus saith the Lord." He comes to herald a message from the throne of grace, a message that is always grounded in the atoning work of the cross. The power is not in the preacher's eloquence; the power is in the Word that he proclaims, the Word that proceeds from the true mercy seat.
Christ, Our Mercy Seat
As with all Old Testament ceremonies, this one finds its ultimate fulfillment in the person and work of the Lord Jesus Christ. This entire scene is a magnificent portrait of Him. The writer to the Hebrews tells us that Christ is our great High Priest who has entered the heavenly tabernacle (Heb. 9:11-12). But He is more than the priest; He is also the place of meeting.
The Apostle Paul makes this explicit in Romans. Speaking of Christ, he says, "whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith" (Romans 3:25). The Greek word for "propitiation" here is hilasterion. This is the very same word that the Septuagint, the Greek translation of the Old Testament, uses for the mercy seat. Jesus is our mercy seat.
Think about what this means. The law of God is not abolished in Christ; it is fulfilled. Jesus kept it perfectly. He is the living Ark, the one in whom the law of God is perfectly contained. And on the cross, His own blood was shed, satisfying the demands of that law on our behalf. He is the place where the justice of God against sin and the mercy of God toward sinners meet perfectly. He is the place where the cherubim of God's holiness gaze in wonder (1 Peter 1:12).
Because of this, we no longer need a tent made with hands. We no longer need a golden box. We no longer need an Aaronic priest. When we want to hear from God, we go to Jesus. He is the Word of God incarnate (John 1:1, 14). God, who spoke in various ways to the fathers by the prophets, has in these last days spoken to us by His Son (Hebrews 1:1-2). Jesus is the place of atoning speech.
When you pray, you are not shouting into an empty sky. By faith, you are entering the true Holy of Holies. You are approaching the throne of grace, the ultimate mercy seat, and you are doing so with confidence because the blood of Jesus has opened the way (Hebrews 4:16). The voice you hear in the Scriptures, the voice that is proclaimed from the pulpit, the voice that the Spirit applies to your heart, is the voice of the Father speaking to you from the finished work of His Son. It is a voice of pardon, a voice of adoption, a voice of fellowship. It is the voice from between the cherubim, and it speaks to you.