Tracing Yeshua’s Blood From the Cross to the Ark – Part 1

For the Feast of Unleavened Bread, I spent time with the Father every day imagining myself in the tabernacle. I’ve done this for several years because there’s a pattern of it commanded in Leviticus 8, where the priests are being consecrated for service. They eat unleavened bread and spend seven days at the entrance of The Holy Place. I wish I had seven days, but I spent several hours there that week. Most of that time I was face down, imagining YHVH’s presence

over the ark of the covenant behind the curtain in the Holy of Holies.

The Feast of Unleavened Bread ended on a Wednesday, and on the following Sunday I was sitting at my computer working on a project. YHVH interrupted me with his presence, calling me to him, so I went to my prayer chair where I meet with him.

Pretty soon he brought up The Holy of Holies – not The Holy Place, where I had been all week, but The Holy of Holies where the ark is. He asked me what was in The Holy of Holies. I went through everything from the curtain, the ark, the ark cover with the cherubim, then items inside of the ark – the jar of mana, Aaron’s rod with its flowers and almond, the tablets with the Ten Commandments, and even the book of commandments that sits beside the ark.

And then the Father said, “What else?”
“Maybe the poles for the ark?”
“What else?”

I had to think hard, and finally I said, “Oh, the blood, there’s blood on the ark.”

The Question

Then he took me back to a teaching Yeshua gave me earlier in which he showed me very specific things about his crucifixion. Yeshua had taken me up to the point where he said, “It is finished”. The teaching did not include anything after he died, such as his side being pierced or his burial. It was only about him being on the cross.

And now YHVH asked me, “How did the blood get from Yeshua on the cross to the ark?”

The blood on the ark is how we are atoned for. He was asking me to think about how Yeshua’s blood was put on the ark. Wow, I guess maybe I had never asked that exact question. He said “I want to show you that.” And he started showing me some things I had never realized before.

In this and the next two blog posts I will show you what he showed me, including:

What happens to the blood at Passover?
Is the blood on the ark?
How are our sins covered?
What else is Yeshua’s blood for?
What are the goats for on the Day of Atonement?
How the blood covers the ark and us

Righteousness & Justice, Mercy & Truth

I want to first set our minds on Psalm 89:14, “Righteousness and justice are the foundation of the Lord’s throne.” I really appreciate that about the Lord. I so love that he is righteous and just.

The next sentence of that verse is, “Mercy and truth go before his face.” This is so important. Righteousness and justice without mercy would mean none of us would be here right now. The Father is absolutely holy and righteous, but he sees us as though through a screen of mercy that is ever before his face. That is so incredible and loving. He would not have to do that.

This aspect of the Father’s character really came through clearly in what he showed me. He does every single thing according to his law, but he does it with mercy. He’s so perfect!

Yeshua’s Blood Shed at Passover

We started at the cross with Yeshua’s death. I thought about the fact that the commandment for the Passover lambs is to slaughter them at your own home. We had just read all of the instructions in our congregation at Passover the week before (Exodus 12). The blood of the Passover lamb is put on the outside of the doors of our homes (symbolizing the door of our lives.)

Those instructions were never changed in the Bible after they came out of Egypt. In Yeshua’s time, those were still the instructions, and in fact is what Yeshua did, ate the seder meal at a home. Remember, he told his disciples to follow the man carrying water to a house and ask the owner, “Where is the guest room where we can eat the Passover?” He told them to prepare it there. There’s no mention of the blood. They were not still putting it on the doorframes apparently. But there is no commandment in the instructions for Passover that the blood of the lamb is to be put on the ark or brought to the temple at all.

There is a commandment that at least the men of the family were to go to Jerusalem for the Feast of Unleavened Bread, which starts the night Passover ends and is a Sabbath. So they would arrive before Passover, so that they were not traveling on the first day of Unleavened Bread, the Sabbath. Consequently, they would end up celebrating Passover in Jerusalem and then be there for the Feast of Unleavened Bread as per the commandment.

Obviously many thousands of people were coming from out of town for the Feasts, and they didn’t try to bring a perfect, unblemished lamb all that way. They would buy them when they got there. This is what Yeshua was so angry about. Not only were the sellers likely fleecing the people who were trying to buy their offerings for the Feasts, but they were selling them in the Lord’s house, the temple courts, making it “a den of robbers” as Yeshua called it.

People would buy their perfect lamb when they got to Jerusalem. They might bring it to the priests at the temple to slaughter, then take them to their tents to eat. Presumably, the blood of the lambs was drained at the altar, but it was never taken into The Holy of Holies, on to the ark. There’s no instruction to do that at Passover. The priest could only go into The Holy of Holies once a year at Yom Kippur/The Day of Atonement, which is in the Fall.

Now, here we are with Yeshua as our Passover Lamb, slaughtered for our atonement, yet there’s no pattern or instruction to follow that puts that blood on the ark at Passover.

What Happened to Yeshua’s Blood?

Some will argue that after he rose from the dead, and before he started appearing to his disciples and others, he went into heaven and that’s when he put his blood on the heavenly ark. Paul talks about Yeshua going into the heavenly temple.

Let’s look at Hebrews 9 and 10. This is where Paul explains how Yeshua’s blood atones for us. Skim through and watch for where it says Yeshua entered The Holy of Holies and put his blood on the ark.

Hebrews 9:1-12

Now the first covenant had regulations for worship and also an earthly sanctuary. 2 A tabernacle was set up. In its first room were the lampstand and the table with its consecrated bread; this was called the Holy Place. 3 Behind the second curtain was a room called the Most Holy Place, 4 which had the golden altar of incense and the gold-covered ark of the covenant. This ark contained the gold jar of manna, Aaron’s staff that had budded, and the stone tablets of the covenant. 5 Above the ark were the cherubim of the Glory, overshadowing the atonement cover. But we cannot discuss these things in detail now.

6 When everything had been arranged like this, the priests entered regularly into the outer room to carry on their ministry. 7 But only the high priest entered the inner room, and that only once a year, and never without blood, which he offered for himself and for the sins the people had committed in ignorance. 8 The Holy Spirit was showing by this that the way into the Most Holy Place had not yet been disclosed as long as the first tabernacle was still functioning. 9 This is an illustration for the present time, indicating that the gifts and sacrifices being offered were not able to clear the conscience of the worshiper. 10 They are only a matter of food and drink and various ceremonial washings—external regulations applying until the time of the new order.

11 But when Christ came as high priest of the good things that are now already here, he went through the greater and more perfect tabernacle that is not made with human hands, that is to say, is not a part of this creation. 12 He did not enter by means of the blood of goats and calves; but he entered the Most Holy Place once for all by his own blood, thus obtaining eternal redemption.”

Aha. Verse 12 reads, “Neither by the blood of goats and calves, but by his own blood he entered in once into The Holy Place, having obtained eternal redemption for us.” Some translations say “The Holy Place” in verse 12; some say “The Most Holy Place” or “the Holy of Holies.” So there’s a discrepancy here. The Holy Place and the Most Holy Place are two different places.

Now look at verse 9:24, “For Christ did not enter into the Holy Places made with hands. Which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, to appear in the presence of God for us.” Some translations say “The Holy Place;” some say “The Most Holy Place” or “the Holy of Holies.”

I want to show you this in the Greek. The word for Holy Place is Hagia, #G39. The word for the Holy of Holies is Hagia HagiOn, #G39 + #G39 with “On” added to the end to render it “Of holies.” This isn’t hard, it’s very obvious in the Greek – you either have one Hagia or two.

Verse 9:3 uses Hagia HagiOn – the Holy of Holies. Both verses 12 and 24 only have Hagia – one word, meaning The Holy Place.

So Paul is telling us that Yeshua entered The Holy Place, not the Holy of Holies. Furthermore, Paul is likening this to the Day of Atonement, when the priest enters the Holy of Holies. He’s not referring to Passover.

There’s no mention of the ark or the mercy seat in the heavenly temple. We see that Yeshua became the high priest and entered the heavenly tabernacle by his own blood. But it doesn’t say that he presented the blood or applied the blood or that someone else applied the blood to the ark. I couldn’t find any reference to his blood being put on the ark cover or the mercy seat.

The Second Question

So far we have two points:

There’s no blood put on the ark at Passover.
On the Day of Atonement (in Hebrews 9-10) there’s no reference to Yeshua entering the Holy of Holies.

But isn’t that what pays our penalty? Isn’t that how we are atoned for? If there’s no blood on the ark, how are we atoned for right now? How is Yeshua’s blood covering us?

There are documentaries you can look at that tell you they’ve found the ark and it has blood on it from Yeshua’s cross.

But the earthly ark is only a replica of the ark in heaven. Paul tells us here that Yeshua went into the heavenly places – that’s where the blood has to be, that’s the only place that will matter. The earthly ark likely has animal blood on it from the priests sprinkling it year after year. Would Yeshua’s holy blood be mixed with that?

In the next two blog posts, we will answer: