Witness looms large on the Church’s mind. Jesus’ last words before leaving earth were, “You will be my witnesses in Jerusalem and in all Judea and Samaria, and to the end of the earth.” In some “tribes” of Christendom evangelism is paramount, signs and wonders in others, and with some works of justice and loving your neighbor. All undoubtedly are noble, biblically based perspectives. My theology has been that Jesus is actively involved in all because He indwells His body, but often times my eye has been trained more on the gifted evangelist, preacher, missionary, etc. than on Him. More recently, the Lord surprised me to see Him vividly by faith in all witness that goes on in the world in His name. All this from an unexpected corner of the Old Testament. This heightened perception that it is the Lord Jesus Himself at work through His people has been so reassuring! My faith in Jesus has exploded in “seeing” Him express His authority through His people to this world, and even in mine, though I be just a molecular entity in His universal kingdom.
It was to be a day of celebration. Unforgettable. The new capital city of Israel, Jerusalem, bustled with throngs of joyful, expectant worshipers. Recently crowned king, David sought to usher in the sacred ark of the covenant. The bands were playing uproariously for the ark slowly being paraded towards the royal city. Ever since the time of Moses, the ark, that golden chest featuring two beautifully sculpted golden angels perched on its lid, had been a symbol of the presence of the LORD, whom this new administration was committed to seek, unlike those dark days of King Saul. The celebration continued to mount as the oxen pulling the ark along its wagon gradually ascended to Jerusalem. Then, unexpectedly, everything came to a sudden, screeching halt. The oxen stumbled. Uzzah, a Levite from the family who tended to the ark for twenty years, made a fatal mistake.
And the anger of the LORD was kindled against Uzzah, and he struck him down because he put out his hand to the ark, and he died there before God.
1Chronicles 13:10 ESV
Shock waves reverberated through the stunned masses. Even David became angry, then fearful. Why had God acted this way? What had Uzzah done so wrong that warranted an instant death sentence?
Having had time to reflect upon the whole incident and search the Scriptures, David concluded that Uzzah was not the only guilty party. “Because you did not carry it the first time, the Lord our God broke out against us, because we did not seek him according to the rule” (1Ch 15:13). David’s knee jerk reaction attributed God’s anger against Uzzah, even naming that place Perez-uzza—”outburst against Uzzah.” Now he understood that God broke out “against us.” The Lord was angry against the whole group; Uzzah simply represented them. Absolute justice demanded that all should have died. So Uzzah expresses God’s mercy far more than His judgment. Mercy triumphs over judgment (Jas 2:13)! By examining God’s word, David learned from his mistakes, which ultimately prospered not only his relationship with God but the entire nation’s. May we likewise be students of the word to discover that which pleases the Lord.
What really triggered the Lord’s anger? Remember, the Jesus we observe in the New Testament is the same person here in the Old Testament. God is not some Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde dichotomy, vengeful back in Israel’s day but merciful in Jesus’ day. In the Gospels the Lord rarely expresses His anger. Two times really. Once at the hard-hearted Pharisees while He healed the man with a crippled hand. Another when He fashioned a whip of cords to drive out those who’d made His Father’s house, the temple, a marketplace. Was He upset because Uzzah broke a ceremonial rule? Or was there something much deeper being conveyed here?
Our first clue of understanding appear in this discovery chapter:
Then David said that no one but the Levites may carry the ark of God, for the Lord had chosen them to carry the Ark of the Lord and to minister to him forever.
1Chronicles 15:2
Many years prior the Philistines had captured the ark and under duress returned it to Judah on a wagon pulled by two cows. Israel then copied the Philistine way of transporting the ark to Jerusalem, not the way God had decreed.
The place where Uzzah perished was at the threshing floor of Chidon. I suspect that God directed an angel to stick his foot out right there to trip up the oxen. Seriously, though, in God’s sovereignty, I do believe that this place was not merely coincidental but providentially arranged to communicate His heart. The threshing floor is the place where harvested wheat is pulverized to separate the throwaway chaff from the treasured wheat. As the threshing floor is to wheat, so is the smelter for gold and silver. Malachi, who preached around the same time period as when Chronicles was compiled, prophesied of this refining of the Levites:
[The LORD of hosts] will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver, and he will purify the sons of Levi and refine them like gold and silver, and they will bring offerings in righteousness to the Lord. Then the offering of Judah and Jerusalem will be pleasing to the Lord as in the days of old and as in former years.
Malachi 3:3-4 ESV
Purifying of the sons of Levi was what was happening on Chidon’s threshing floor. Purification of the Levites comes by the way King David addressed them. He gathered together the leading priests and Levites and instructed them after this manner:
“Consecrate yourselves, you and your brothers, so that you may bring up the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel, to the place that I have prepared for it. Because you did not carry it the first time, the Lord our God broke out against us, because we did not seek him according to the rule.” So the priests and the Levites consecrated themselves to bring up the ark of the Lord, the God of Israel. And the Levites carried the ark of God on their shoulders with the poles, as Moses had commanded according to the word of the Lord.
1Chronicles 15:12-15
I’d never been able to understand the spiritual significance of the Levites carrying the ark of the Lord on their shoulders. I knew they foreshadowed the good things in Jesus Christ (Heb 10:1), but how, I had no clue. The Spirit brought to mind Ezekiel 1’s strange wheels within wheels. Although a bizarre and befuddling vision, what’s clear is that these wheels belonged to God’s throne, making it a sort of imperial chariot on wheels. Jesus’ throne is not just a remote outpost in heaven but on the move in our world! It suddenly dawned on me that the Levites carrying the ark are the “wheels” of His royal throne! The ark is a picture of King Jesus on His throne. It was the only piece of tabernacle furniture that journeyed separately from all the rest. Moses often sent the ark out before the wandering Israelites in the wilderness to scatter their enemies and seek out a resting place (Num 10:33-36). The ark played a huge role in God rolling back the Jordan River to enable Israel’s advance into the Promised Land (Jos 3:14-17). That same ark on the Levites’ shoulders went before the armies of Israel as they encircled Jericho, whose famous walls came crashing down (Jos 6:4-13).
So the Lord Jesus manifested His authority against the powers of darkness when the Levites carried the ark. The shoulder is the place of Messiah’s government. “For to us a child is born, to us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder, and his name shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace” (Isa 9:6). Jesus delegated His shoulder to the shoulders of the Levites. The two became one.
The origin of the tribe of Levi holds a key to understanding. The name “Levi” (“attached”) was birthed out of the depths of his mother Leah’s cry, an aching yearning to be “attached” to her bridegroom, Jacob, whose affections were diverted to her sister, Rachel. In the twists and turns of God’s mysterious providence, the tribe of Levi became the one tribe exclusively “attached” to the Lord (see A Royal Priesthood: Attached to the Lord). Once one sees past the busyness of the Levitical priesthood, the essence of the priest is the heart’s longing of a bride to be attached to her bridegroom. That’s the spirit of ministry the Levites were to have.
David, the man after God’s own heart, revives and deepens the Levitical priesthood’s role. The Levites predominate in David’s tabernacle, a precursor of Solomon’s Temple to come. That temple had all kinds of mimicry back to the lover’s garden of Eden. The walls were adorned with palm trees and open flowers, pillars laden with luscious fruit—pomegranates. The ceilings were made of cedar, reminiscent of lovers under the huge boughs of a forest (SS 1:16-17). Just like Eden, a river sprung up within it (Ezek 47:1-7). The Levites, such a conspicuously prominent feature of 1 Chronicles, form a composite of what the bride is to be to Jesus! The Levites carrying the ark on their shoulders is but one of those prismatic colors of the rainbow of what lovers of Jesus are to be like. Peter, reflecting back on the Levites, connects the dots that we are a holy and royal priesthood after a spiritual sense (1Pe 2:5-9).
Now the absence of the Levites carrying the ark on their shoulders in David’s parade to Jerusalem begins to make sense of God’s angry outburst. God’s anger directed at Uzzah drew attention to Him being depersonalized by technology, the Levites’ shoulders having been supplanted by a wagon. It wasn’t about Uzzah breaking an impersonal rule; it was an a cherished picture of relational intimacy being violated. The Philistines desecrated this picture by inserting a new cart in between Jesus and His priests. Jesus desires an intimate relationship with His bride with nothing in between. The ark on the Levites’ shoulders is one picture of many of what a love relationship with Him is all about. Evangelism is not a job to do; it’s a relationship of love to Him as the bride to the Bridegroom first, then shouldering the work to the nations. It’s an expression of oneness with His bride. Like the temple being misused as a marketplace rather than a house of prayer, the Bridegroom gets upset when His bride departs from first love. “Love is strong as death, jealousy is fierce as the grave. Its flashes are flashes of fire, the very flame of the Lord” (Song 8:6).
The Spirit has been given to us to exalt the glory of Jesus in the word of God (2Co 3:18). He leads us into all truth. He it is who knows the deep things of God and is ecstatic to share it with hungry, childlike hearts. The Spirit compares spiritual things with spiritual things. In this dependence upon the Spirit, He connected the dots for me between our 1 Chronicles account and Acts 13:1-2. Check this out:
Then David said that no one but the Levites may carry the Ark of God, for the Lord had chosen them to carry the Ark of the Lord and to minister [LXX: leitourgeō] to him forever.
1Chronicles 15:2
This word leitourgeō is used over 80 times in the Septuagint (LXX) translation of the Old Testament but only three times in the New Testament. In the Old Testament, it’s almost exclusively in context with the public ministry of the Levites. Note the Spirit-inspired wisdom David gained from the outburst against Uzzah incident. The sweet psalmist of Israel had fresh insight that the Lord had chosen the Levites not only to carry the ark but “to minister before him forever.” Compare that to this New Testament account:
As they ministered [leitourgeō] to the Lord and fasted, the Holy Spirit said, “Now separate to Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”
Acts 13:2 NKJV
English Bible translations translate leitourgeō as ministering, worshiping, or serving. This commissioning of the apostles to bring the gospel to the nations marks a turning point in the history of redemption. Paul and Barnabas were the spiritual “Levites” to shoulder the authority of King Jesus to the Gentiles. Barnabas, ironically, is from the tribe of Levi (Acts 4:36). This Levite according to the flesh spiritually fulfills that priestly ministry of old. As they were ministering to the Lord, they were fulfilling the great commandment to love the Lord their God. Jesus doesn’t merely want kingdom work to be done. How it’s done really matters. He first desires a wholehearted love and devotion to Him, too!
Contrary to your typical children’s Bible illustrations, a veil covered the ark when carried by the Levites. God had commanded that the ark be veiled when in transit (Num 4:5-6). Over the ark first came the Holy of Holies veil, then a goatskin veil, and finally a blue veil, heaven’s color. So the people never saw the ark, only that blue veil. In fact, the only person in Israel to ever lay eyes on the ark was the high priest, and then only on one day of the year. But in the New Testament that veil has been removed! When Jesus died, that embroidered wall of separation between God and man was torn in two! When Paul and Barnabas went out, they freely proclaimed the Lord Jesus in plain, easy to understand speech. No veil. ” And every day…they did not cease teaching and preaching that the Christ is Jesus” (Acts 5:42).
Carrying the ark and ministering to Him forever are joined together. When the church at Antioch was ministering to the heart of Jesus, that’s when He sent them out to be His witnesses. This “two-Levite” model blossoms all over the New Testament. After all, two is the minimum number of witness (Deut 17:6). Peter and John went to pray, and the Ark healed a lame man. Paul and Silas ministered to the Lord in a Philippian jail, singing hymns of praise and worship. The throne of King Jesus was revealed in a mighty earthquake that not only shook the prison’s foundations but the jailer and his whole family! Everywhere they established churches, elders (plural) were appointed to manifest God’s authority in them.
God has turned my eye beyond the human instrument to King Jesus manifesting His throne through that instrument. It’s all about the Sower of good seed. It’s been so liberating and unifying to me to see that it’s truly Jesus expressed through the diverse tribes that comprise His body here on the earth. Yes, the body of Christ looks differently, talks differently, ministers differently, but it’s the same King Jesus enthroned in it all.
Glory Unveiled: Discovering Jesus 