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The Daily Word of Righteousness
Perfecting the Church, #9
And David made him houses in the city of David, and prepared a place for the ark of God, and pitched for it a tent. (I Chronicles 15:1)
Perhaps the strongest of the Old Testament types that point toward the temporary division of the one Church into a firstfruits, and then a less mature group who are not part of the firstfruits, is the removing of the Ark of the Covenant from the Tabernacle of the Congregation.
Most readers may be aware that the Ark of the Covenant originally was located in the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle of the Congregation.
The Most Holy Place housed the Ark of the Covenant. But during the time of the Judges, the two wicked sons of Eli, the high priest, contrary to the Law of Moses, brought the Ark to the Israelite camp at Ebenezer. The Philistines, against whom the Israelites were fighting, won the battle and captured the Ark.
The Ark of the Covenant was removed from the Holy of Holies of the Tabernacle tent. If the Tabernacle tent typifies the Church of Christ, then we have a strong portrayal of a division of the one Church. The part bearing the Glory of God was separated from the remainder of the Church.
When David became king one of his first actions was to bring the Ark, which by that time was in Kirjath-Jearim of Israel, to Zion, the city of David.
David did not return the Ark to its proper abode in the Most Holy Place of the Tabernacle of the Congregation. This is surprising because David, like Abraham and Moses, was a man of strict obedience to the Lord. But David held the key of the Kingdom of God and God honored the decisions he made.
While the Ark was absent, perhaps for more than fifty years, the Tabernacle of the Congregation (with its empty Holy of Holies) had been moved from Shiloh to the "high place" at Gibeon. The high places had been centers of demon worship for the Philistines. Like the Christian churches of today, the Israelites apparently were attempting to make their worship understandable and acceptable to the nations around them.
David especially favored a suburb of Jerusalem named Zion. Zion had been a fortress of the Jebusites, from whom David captured Jerusalem.
Zion, the fortress, gradually came to mean all Jerusalem. So it is that the Lord's victorious saints will be one with all Israel as soon as Israel's "warfare has been accomplished" (Isaiah 40:2).
David did not bring the Ark of the Covenant up to the high place at Gibeon and put it in the Most Holy Place of the Tabernacle of the Congregation. Rather, David pitched a tent for the Ark in his city of Zion. Then he assigned priests and singers to the Ark in Zion, and also to the remainder of the Tabernacle in Gibeon (I Chronicles 16:37-42).
The Ark never was restored to the Tabernacle during David's lifetime. The Ark in its tent in Zion is termed in the Scriptures "the tabernacle of David" (Acts 15:16).
To be continued.