So there you have it.  God told the people throughout the Old Testament that he was going to do something different.  The prophet Isaiah spoke for God (1:13) and said, "To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me, saith the Lord?  I am full of your burnt offerings...I don't delight in the blood of...lambs...Bring no more vain oblations."  In other words, God was saying, "This isn't working.  You people aren't repenting from sin,  you are just putting your belief in rituals.  I am going to do something drastically different.  Your insincerity makes me sick."

He then outlined the new plan--and the prophet Ezekiel explained it.  (36:26-7) "I am going to give you a new heart; I'm going to put a new spirit within you.  I will take away the stony heart out of your flesh and will...put my spirit with you..."  Actually, this was the plan from the beginning.  The breath of God, the Holy Spirit living within us, guiding us from within and not by laws.

So he came.  He bled and died for us.  And now, the symbolism of the Mercy Seat comes into play.  We have the sacrifice--the Lamb of God.  We have the blood.  All we need is a High Priest and a Mercy Seat on which to spread His blood so that He can intervene; so we can be reconciled to God.

Heb. 9: 8,11-12 "...the way into the holiest of all (The Mercy Seat in heaven) was not yet made manifest while the first tabernacle was standing, which was a figure for the time...(Old Testament). But Christ came  as a High Priest..of a greater and more perfect tabernacle not made with hands, (greater, perfect, because it was in heaven) but by his own blood he entered in once into the holy place (in heaven after his death) having obtained eternal redemption for us."

And to sum up what he was saying (and I will paraphrase), the writer of Hebrews said, (vs. 23-25) "There was an earthly pattern of things in heaven.  Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, (not the earthly holy of holies) but into heaven itself...not to offer himself often...every year with blood...but once...to put away sin by the sacrifice of himself."

Our High Priest spread his blood on that Mercy Seat in heavenly places for you, and for me.