"Wondrous Meeting Places." by Charles H. Welch in The Berean Expositor circa 1909-11. It is not our purpose to discuss the merits of any particular "Place of Worship," nor to advocate the attendance, or non-attendance at the meeting-place of any one sect or denomination; we desire to "preach Christ," and by so doing we shall strike a more powerful blow at sectarianism than by all the denunciations that we might pour forth, and at the same time feed the Lord's people with the true bread which cometh down from heaven. This wonderful meeting place to which we wish to draw attention is found in Isaiah liii., being symbolized in Exodus xxv.21 and 22. Let us turn to Exod. cxv.16-22. The ark of the covenant has placed within it the unbroken tables of stone. Let it be remembered that Israel in reality never received the ten commandments, they were broken beŁore they could be given them. God's answer was, "Make an ark," not "Give them another chance," or "Give them an easier code." Upon this ark is placed the mercy seat, the propitiatory, which exactly fitted the ark beneath. Here we have Rom. iii.21-26 set before our very eyes. Atonement has a broad base of righteousness to rest upon. The blood sprinkled upon the mercy seat covers the perfect and unbroken law within, "That he might be just, and the justifier of him that believeth in Jesus. "This symbol of the perfect work of Christ is the "ground of meeting" in Exod. xxv.22. "There will I meet with thee, and I will commune with thee from above the mercy seat." Fellow-believer, "Let us draw nigh"; none can say us nay if He bids us welcome. With this beautiful type in mind let us turn to Isaiah liii. In Acts viii.35 we read, "Then Philip opened his mouth and began at the same scripture, and preached unto Him -- Jesus." Isaiah liii. is the passage. It is a part of repentant Israel's confession when they look upon Him whom they pierced, when the veil shall be removed, and they shall say:- "Surely He hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows . . . . All we like sheep, have gone astray, we have turned every one to his own way, and the Lord hath made to meet on Him the iniquity of us all." Let us pause and consider this wondrous meeting place. The sufferer is the Son of God; the hands which fashioned the heavens (Heb. i.1O) are nailed to the accursed tree; the brow which is yet to wear "many diadems" is crowned with the thorns that sprang up in consequence of Adam's sin. Why all this? Was there no other way? No! The Lord of glory stepped down from His exalted throne, became a man, a servant, and dies under the imputed guilt which the Lord made to meet on Him. What a tremendous thought is here; how it calls upon us to remember that we are upon holy ground! One sin to an infinitely holy Being must be loathsome, but to think of the combined sin of my lifetime being made to converge upon His sacred head is more than heart can conceive. But the writer is not the only one for whom the Saviour died. Thousands more can rejoice in Him as the great sin-bearer for them. But this is not all. Generation after generation have lived, and sinned, and died, and for many of each the Saviour's blood was shed. Here, like Paul at the end of Rom. xi. (as he goes on to enumerate the multiplied mercy of God), we get out of our depth -- we can only bow our heads and say, "O the depth of the riches and wisdom and knowledge of God." This is not all, however, there is still a "much more." At the end of Isaiah liii.12 we read of a second meeting place, linked and founded upon the first one in verse 6:- "He was numbered with the transgressors, and He bare the sin of many, and made a meeting place for transgressors." He was first made a meeting place for transgressions, and then, having put away sin by the sacrifice of Himself, He sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, where He ever liveth to make intercession for us, to whom we can go at all times by a new and living way. What a glorious meeting place! But even this does not exhaust the depth, nor scale the height, nor comprehend the love that passeth knowledge. We who by faith look back to that solemn meeting place of Calvary, look forward in hope to the consummation of it all, as expressed in the words of the apostle to the Thessalonians. Whether I Thess. iv. is to be interpreted of the church of the mystery is a question with which we must deal by and by, but one thing we know, that the redeemed of all ages and dispensations, whether by rapture or resurrection, whether before or after the great tribulation, whether to inherit the heavenly holiest of all or the earthly paradise, they shall all meet the Lord (I Thess. iv.17; I John iii.1-3; Phil. iii.20 and 21; Col iii.1-4; Titus ii.13; Rev. xx.4, and xxii.4).