CHERUBIMS

The Cherubims of Glory Part 1 of 8 Pastor Gary Garner

Hebrews 9:1-5 Verse 5 (key)

And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercy-seat; of which we cannot now speak particularly.

Interlinear Greek Translation (re: cherubims) - …concerning which it is not now the time to speak in detail.

Phillips Translation …all this is full of meaning, but we cannot enter now into a detailed explanation.

Genesis 3:24 (after the condition of death was lodged in the spirits of Adam and Eve) So he drove out the man; and he placed at the east of the garden of Eden Cherubims, and a flaming sword which turned every way, to keep the way of the tree of life.

Cherubims were put at the east of the garden to keep the way of life; that's why we study them. They were not there to keep people out; they were there to keep the way into it. The Garden of Eden was a spiritual place. It did not go anywhere when Adam fell; Adam went somewhere, but the garden did not go anywhere. The Garden of Eden speaks of a spiritual condition that every person in the world can in time experience. It is not a natural place on this planet or any other planet; it is a spiritual place. It is the world of the spirit, where people are in perfect union with Christ. This was a place where God came in the cool of the day (the word cool means "wind or spirit" ) and walked and talked with man, and man was perfectly comfortable in that. But when man transgressed, he left that place of spirit and began to walk in the natural. He didn't even know he was naked, because he was conscious of the things of the spirit more than the things of the natural. When he sinned, which world is more powerful, the physical world or the unseen world? The unseen world. There are laws and principles in that spirit kingdom that never change. Adam went from a spiritual place to a natural place.

When we get to the end of the book (Revelation 21 & 22), we see a condition in this new Jerusalem that has all of the characteristics of the place at the beginning of the Bible. The Bible is really God's revelation of restoration. It is how He restores us to the original pristine concepts of God; how, through the death, burial, and resurrection of Christ, He brings people into a consciousness of their union with Christ in the Spirit. We are returning to that original place that Adam brought us down from, and Jesus restored us to. How do we get there? Go through these Cherubims and the flaming swords, which speak to us of God's Word (Hebrews 4). So the study of Cherubims then becomes vitally important. If we are being brought back, and the way to wherever we are going is through or by or being kept by these cherubims, we'd better study that. They hold a prominent position through scripture, and they are never spoken of as our traditional idea of angels. They are not angels, not winged creatures. Angels are a real force, but cherubims are never called angels. We find them on the ceiling of the Tabernacle of Moses in the Holy Place, and it links us to Colossians 3 that says, "If you then be dead with Christ, seek those things which are above." If you were in the Most Holy Place and you looked above, you'd see cherubims embroidered in that ceiling material in that linen cloth on the roof. By the time you get to the Book of Revelation, you find cherubims or living creatures around the throne. So from the Book of Genesis to the Book of Revelation, this subject of cherubim is vitally important.

Today we are going to begin to lay a foundation to identify what these cherubims actually point to. This is the next mention after Genesis 3:24. In Exodus 25, God revealed to Moses the pattern for building His house. The first piece of furniture was the ark of the covenant and the mercy seat.

Exodus 25:17,18

And thou shalt make a mercy seat of pure gold: two cubits and a half shall be the length thereof, and a cubit and a half the breadth thereof. And thou shalt make two cherubims of gold, of beaten work shalt thou make them, in the two ends of the mercy seat.

We see here that the cherubims were in the mercy seat.

Exodus 25:19,20

And make on cherub on the one end, and the other cherub on the other end: even of the mercy seat shall ye make the cherubims on the two ends thereof. And the cherubims shall stretch forth their wings on high, covering the mercy seat with their wings, and their faces shall look one to another; toward the mercy seat shall the faces of the cherubims be.

The cherubims were in the mercy seat and were made of the mercy seat. Three things that I saw in this that I want to bring out:

They were said to be in the mercy seat;
They were said to be of the mercy seat;
They were said to be constantly be facing toward the mercy seat.

Let's identify the typology of the mercy seat. The mercy seat was the lid of the ark of the covenant. The glory of God came to dwell in the midst of those cherubims on the mercy seat. The little box (the mercy seat) spoke to us typically of the presence of God that does reside somewhere today.

Hebrews 9:5

And over it the cherubims of glory shadowing the mercy seat.

The word translated mercy seat is the same Greek word translated in Romans 3:25 propitiation.

Romans 3:25

Whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood…

This tells us the typology and reveals to us by the spirit the typology of the mercy seat, because it is saying that Jesus is who God has set forth to be a mercy seat. Jesus is our mercy seat. If you went behind the veil and saw the mercy seat, what was on the mercy seat? The blood of the slain offering. Through the shedding of His blood we have redemption.

When we look at the construction of the mercy seat, we discover that cherubims were in the mercy seat. Cherubims were of the mercy seat. Cherubims looked at the mercy seat. They covered the mercy seat, and the mercy seat is Jesus. We are trying to understand what the cherubims are. First of all, cherubims could not be angels, because angels are not in Christ. People are in Christ.

2 Corinthians 5:17

If any man be in Christ, he is a new creature.

If you studied Ezekiel 1:7, you will find that these living creatures had the appearance of a man. These cherubims do not point to some kind of angelic creature; they point to a kind of man. They point to people in-Christed.

What do we mean by the term "in Christ?" To be born again means that God places you by His spirit in Christ. You become in-Christed as opposed to being in Adam. God only views two men in the earth today: Adam and Christ. Romans 5 says that by one man (Adam), sin entered into this world, and death by sin, so death passed upon all men …the margin says "in whom all have sinned." You are born of your natural parentage in Adam, the man that sinned. The inheritance of Adam and the consequences of his sin are passed into all the world, just as if we would have done those sins. Why? Because we were in the one who did those sins. We were in Adam.

The other man God views today is Christ. When you are born again, you are placed out of Adam and into Christ. The Bible uses several words to describe it: being engrafted into Him. 2 Corinthians 5:17 Amplified says "if any man be engrafted into Christ…" It means to be part of Him. How can you be "in" somebody and not be part of him? The church is called the Body of Christ, and we call that a mystical union. Well, it's not that mystical; it just simply means that He is the head and we are the Body, and we are part of Him. We are incorporated into Him; we lost our own identity when we became one with Him. These cherubims were in the mercy seat, and believers are in Christ. It is not something you try to do or grow into; it is something you are born into.

When you go to your concordance and try to find out what the name "cherubim" means, you have a problem, because it is defined as angelic creatures. It will say "traditionally known as angelic creatures." I want to know what the name of that means. Ezra 2 is where I found out what the name "cherub" means.

Ezra 2:59

And these were they which went up from Telmelah, Telharsa, Cherub, Addan, and Immer; but they could not shew their father's house, and their seed, whether they were of Israel.

It names Cherub here as a city, a place. If you look up this word , you will find that it has a Strongs Concordance number. It says it is the exact same word which is another number that is translated cherubim all over the Bible. But here in Ezra 2, it says that this word cherub means "blessing," which means that these cherubims are blessings. They are in-Christed, or they are in the mercy seat, and they are blessings. Cherubs are blessings.

In Genesis 12, God called Abram out of Babylon and gave him some promises. In Galatians 3 we are called the seed of Abraham.

Galatians 3:29

If you be Christ's, then are you Abraham's seed and heirs according to the promise.

Genesis 12:1,2

Now the Lord had said unto Abram, Get thee out of thy country, and from they kindred, and from thy father's house, unto a land that I will shew thee; and I will make of thee a great nation, and I will bless thee, and make thy name great, and thou shalt be a blessing.

Cherubs are called blessings. It doesn't say that cherubs were called "blessed ones;" they were called "blessings." God told Abram, "I'm going to make your seed a blessing." How is He going to do it? By blessing you. You cannot be a blessing until you have been blessed.

Genesis 22 is the picture of Abraham taking his son up into the mountain, offering him as a type of God the Father offering His Son. After this was completed, God again initiated this blessing principle.

Genesis 22:15-18

And the angel of the Lord called unto Abraham out of heaven the second time, and said, By myself have I sworn, saith the Lord, for because thou hast done this thing, and hast not withheld thy son, thine only son: that in blessing I will bless thee, and in multiplying I will multiply thy seed as the stars of the heaven, and as the sand which is upon the sea shore; and thy seed shall possess the gate of his enemies; and in thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed; because thou hast obeyed my voice.

When we think of being a blessing, we may think that the seed of Abraham has the ability to bless the neighbor, and that is how it begins. But the promise of being a blessing to Abraham's seed was that "in thee shall all the nations of the earth be blessed." All the families of the whole earth would be blessed. The scripture says that there will come a time when the seed of Abraham will affect the whole planet. Every nation, every family. The age which you and I are about to be birthed into is commonly referred to as the kingdom age. It is an age, this next thousand years, in which the whole planet eventually worships the Lord Jesus as King of kings and Lord of lords.

Look at it another way. Let's look at Genesis 14. Have you ever looked at it in the study of Melchizedek?

Genesis 14:18-20

And Melchizedek king of Salem brought forth bread and wine: and he was the priest of the most high God. And he blessed him, and said, Blessed be Abram of the most high God, possessor of heaven and earth: and blessed be the most high God, which hath delivered thine enemies into thy hand. And he gave him tithes of all.

Was Melchizedek a blessing? He was a blessing, because he blessed Abram and he blessed God.

Hebrews 7:1,6

For this Melchisedec, king of Salem, priest of the most high God, who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings, and blessed him; …But he whose descent is not counted from them received tithes of Abraham, and blessed him that had the promises.

This Melchizedec is a blesser. Who does he bless? He blesses those that have the promises. What has been going on in the earth today? For years and years, we have been taught and taught and taught, and it has spread over the entire known Christian world, that we should adhere to the promises, believe the promises, and walk in the promises; but the problem is that there has been no birthing of the Son. Melchizedec is a blesser of those that have the promises.

Cherubims means to be a blessing. This is all simple foundational truth, but God has created a people to be a blessing. To be a blessing to who? We have got to enlarge our vision to realize that God's intention is to touch this planet with the redemptive work of His Son. We are not waiting for anything; it starts today. It has already begun; it has already been initiated, that God wants us to be a blessing.

Here is the third thing. I have lots of material by a man named Kevin Conner, who has a large printing and study material source in Portland, Oregon. He is highly regarded. He has written books on The Tabernacle of Moses, The Tabernacle of David, The Temple of Solomon, etc. Brother Conner, who has a lot more Hebrew sources to study from, says that the word translated cherubim also means "to be grasped or to be held firm." So these are not only in-Christed ones; these are not only blessings; but they are "grasped or held tight ones." Does that sound anything like being gripped?

The Apostle Paul in Philippians chapter 3 says that he was apprehended by something. He was grabbed by it; he was grabbed by a truth that was so powerful in his own life that it changed everything he did from that moment forth. It is likened unto the curious girdle, which is simply a tie-down of the high priest, that took the third layer of garments and tied them down. Ephesians 6 says that we are girded around the loins with truth. There is a truth that grabs Christians. It is more than just sitting in church; it is more than just coming and getting great revelation. Something so gripped the Apostle Paul, who said he was an apostle born out of due season. If you will look that up, it doesn't mean that he was born late. It means that he was born premature. In other words, the Apostle Paul was an apostle who had a message that was born way before his time, not late, but way early. At the end of this age (and we are not going to take time to get into this) we are about to see a birthing of a ministry that is right on time.

Who are the cherubims? They speak of in-Christed ones who have become blessings and have been gripped. I think of the Shunamite who was taken to the banqueting house and passed out in the arms of One that was bigger than her. She passed out in His arms. She wakes up and she is being held by Him.

I am so thankful for what God is saying to us today, but in the midst of all that, I am so aware that it isn't being heard by a lot of people. I am not really talking about people in other churches. My greatest fear is that this is not being heard by us. We are at the end of this age of doing things. I am concerned that this voice is not being heard by us.