«　WEEK 8　DAY 3　»

　　2 Cor. 3:8-9 How shall the ministry of the Spirit not be more in glory? For if there is glory with the ministry of condemnation, much more the ministry of righteousness abounds with glory.

　　The first part of Exodus 25:22 says, "And there I will meet with you." This indicates that God met with His people in the propitiating Christ.

　　In verse 22 God also said, "I will speak with you from above the expiation cover, from between the two cherubim which are upon the Ark of the Testimony, of everything which I will give you in commandment to the children of Israel." This means that God speaks to His people from the glory expressed in the propitiating Christ as His testimony. (Life-study of Exodus, p. 1011)

　　We have seen that the cherubim signify God's glory shining out from Christ. Thus, for God to speak to His people from between the cherubim means that He speaks to us in the midst of His glory. God does not meet with His redeemed people in any place other than the midst of His glory. God cannot meet with us in any other place or in any other condition. Whenever God meets with us, that meeting must take place in the midst of His glory. We can testify of this from our experience. Whenever we meet with God, we sense that we are in the midst of glory, a glory like that signified by the cherubim on the cover of the Ark. On the day we repented and believed in the Lord Jesus, we were brought into a realm of glory. God never meets with us in darkness. On the contrary, He always meets with us in glory and speaks to us from between the cherubim of glory.

　　When we listen to someone speaking in a meeting, as long as that speaking is the word of the Lord, we should have the sense that we are in glory. Whenever the word of God is spoken in the ministry, we sense glory within us. Many preachers today are eloquent. But when you hear them speak, you do not have any sense of God's glory. You may admire their eloquence and appreciate their knowledge, but there is no sense of God's glory. However, when you listen to the genuine ministry of the Word, you are attracted, not by eloquence or knowledge but by a sense of God's glory. After you return home, the glory may follow you. Years later, you may still recall the glory you sensed in that meeting. From our experience we know that God meets with us in the midst of His glory and speaks to us in His glory. Even when God speaks to a sinner, God speaks to him in His glory.

　　The glory in which God meets with us and in which He speaks to us is the shining of Christ. The cherubim signify Christ shining.

　　What kind of Christ is this shining Christ? We have pointed out that the Ark was made of acacia wood overlaid within and without with gold. Acacia wood typifies Christ's humanity, and gold signifies His divinity. The expiation cover was made of pure gold; it did not contain any acacia wood. This indicates that the shining of Christ, who is the effulgence of God's glory, is divine. However, Christ's divinity is not the base for this shining. Rather, the base for His shining is the acacia wood used to make the Ark. It was not the gold which bore the acacia wood; it was the acacia wood which bore the gold. With His humanity as the base, Christ expresses divinity. In our experience today, we need the humanity of Jesus in order to express Christ's divine nature.

　　Exodus 25:17 tells us the length and width of the expiation cover, but it does not tell us the thickness of the cover. Therefore, we do not know the weight of the lid of the Ark. The fact that the thickness is not given and that the weight is not known indicates that the weight of Christ is immeasurable. No one can say how weighty Christ is. Experientially speaking, His weight is according to what we are able to bear....How heavy Christ is to us depends on how much of Him we are able to bear. I am concerned that some saints are able to bear only an extremely small amount of Christ. (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 1011-1013)

　　Further Reading: Life-study of Exodus, msgs. 86-87