Ark of the Covenant found! So what?

News broke this week that, according to declassified CIA documents, the Ark of the Covenant had been found in 1988.

This happened through the use of “remote viewing” (psychics), so it’s not the most credible operation, but let’s say they really found the gold-covered chest that contained the tablets of the Ten Commandments. My reaction is, so what?

Unfortunately, what most people think they know about the ark they learned by watching Indiana Jones find it in Raiders of the Lost Ark. While its appearance in that film was plausible, the movie contained several inaccurate myths about it. One character claimed that the Bible speaks of the ark “leveling mountains and laying waste to entire regions” — no, it doesn’t. While the ark did bring judgment on the Philistines when they captured it (1 Samuel 5), there’s no account of it shooting streams of fire, like in the movie. Probably the most significant misconception is that God dwells inside the ark; His “wrath” was unleashed when the Nazis opened it. But the presence of God was actually on its lid, called the mercy seat, between the facing cherubim (1 Samuel 4:4.

Related: What we can learn from the Philistines capturing the ark

But wherever God was, He’s not there anymore, and that’s why I don’t care about it. It’s just a lifeless box now, if it still exists. Don’t put God in a box!

The fate of the ark has been a mystery all these centuries because the Bible never tells us what became of it, at least on earth. The last historical mention of it in the Old Testament is in 2 Chronicles 35:3, when King Josiah orders it returned to the Holy of Holies in the temple — where only the high priest could enter through the veil once a year. Hebrews 9:4-5 describes the ark, but the author says, “Of these things we cannot now speak in detail,” as if it had disappeared by then. In the book of Revelation, John sees the ark in “the sanctuary of God which is in heaven” (11:19); that’s the only location that has any significance.

I think the Bible doesn’t reveal its earthly fate because it doesn’t matter. When Jesus died, the veil of the temple was torn asunder, from top to bottom (Matthew 27:51, which doesn’t say whether the ark was there or not). That represents the wonderful truth that the presence of God is no longer hidden from His people. The Spirit of God is now poured out on all the church, so that WE are the temple now. WE are the Ark of the Covenant now — the new covenant, established through Christ. God dwells with us.

In the Old Testament, the blood of sacrifices was sprinkled onto the mercy seat, but we are cleansed by the blood of Christ, sprinkled onto the cross, once and for all. The Greek word translated “propitiation” in the New Testament could also be rendered “mercy seat,” signifying that it pointed to Christ, the greatest mercy as our propitiation (1 John 2:2), all along. According to Hebrews 9, the ark was just a copy, a foreshadow of our great High Priest who would put away all our sin:

24 For Christ has not entered the holy places made with hands, which are copies of the true, but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us; 25 not that He should offer Himself often, as the high priest enters the Most Holy Place every year with blood of another — 26 He then would have had to suffer often since the foundation of the world; but now, once at the end of the ages, He has appeared to put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself.

Some Christians attach eschatological significance to the ark, believing its discovery will lead to the construction of the third temple in Jerusalem. I won’t comment on that other to say that the point of all eschatology is that we be ready at all times for Christ’s return. Likewise, the presence of God is with us at all times; we don’t need to find the ark because He has brought us near to Him by His blood (Ephesians 2:13).

We would do well to heed the prophecy of Jeremiah 3:16, set in the future glory of Zion:

“Then it shall come to pass, when you are multiplied and increased in the land in those days,” says the Lord, “that they will say no more, ‘The ark of the covenant of the Lord.’ It shall not come to mind, nor shall they remember it, nor shall they visit it, nor shall it be made anymore.”

We don’t need to remember the ark anymore, because even if Indiana Jones was real and actually handled it, we’re closer to the Lord than he ever was.