A Propitiation - The Ark of the Covenant and Jesus

21 But now the righteousness of God has been manifested apart from the law, although the Law and the Prophets bear witness to it- 22 the righteousness of God through faith in Jesus Christ for all who believe. For there is no distinction: 23 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, 24 and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, 25 whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. This was to show God's righteousness, because in his divine forbearance he had passed over former sins. 26 It was to show his righteousness at the present time, so that he might be just and the justifier of the one who has faith in Jesus. - Romans 3:21-26

God meets us at the mercy seat. Jesus is the propitiation through which we are made right with God.

“I think that the Apostle Paul had this expressly in mind when he wrote the wonderful third chapter of Romans. There he described Christ as the one “whom God hath set forth to be a propitiation through faith in his blood, to declare his righteousness for the remission of sins that are past” (Rom. 3:25). The Greek actually says something stronger than “a propitiation.” It says that God sent forth Christ to be the propitiatory, exactly what the lid on the ark had been called.
Christ is the propitiatory. And Paul, being a Jew well versed in Jewish thought, was, I feel, referring back to the top of the ark, back to the mercy-seat, and saying to the Jews in Rome, as well as to the Gentiles who needed to learn deeper truth, that Christ is in reality what the propitiatory in the Old Testament was (to use the words of Hebrews) as a figure, a pattern, a picture of the things to come.

On this basis, and no other, Romans 3:26 has meaning: “To declare, I say, at this time his righteousness, that he might be just, and the justifier of him who believeth in Jesus.” We cannot meet God at the level of the law, His holiness of character. But we can meet Him on the basis of that which the covering of the ark represents—Christ doing a propitiatory work. God, therefore, can remain holy and yet justify those who have faith in Jesus. And thus in the tabernacle there was a box with the law covered by the propitiatory.” No Little People - Francis Schaeffer