2 Chronicles 4:2

The Sea matches the laver of the tabernacle, but how much greater it is! It was 10 cubits in diameter (about 15 feet) and its height 5 cubits (7 1/2 feet). Twelve bronze oxen supported it, all facing outward, three toward each direction of the compass. They stand for the twelve tribes of Israel. The oxen speak of lowly, patient service. The priests washed in the Sea. This pictures the moral cleansing they needed for carrying out their service. The sea held 3000 baths of water, which is over 12,600 gallons.

Solomon's molten sea was made of bronze. Bronze is the fitting symbol of divine righteousness demanding judgment on sin (as at the bronze altar), or judgment on uncleanness (as at the bronze sea). Revelation 1 describes the Lord Jesus as having "His feet like burnished bronze, refined in a furnace." That is how He appears, walking among the lampstands. He cannot tolerate evil, but must, in the exercise of judgment, trample it beneath His feet.

A priest under the law with defiled hands and feet did not need to go back to the bronze altar. He needed to go forward to the bronze sea. He did not need the blood applied again to make him a priest. He only needed to wash with water, so that he could carry out his priestly duties. So now, if a believer fails, if he sins, if he picks up defilement, he does not need to be washed in the blood again as at the first. He simply needs the cleansing action of the Word... Does this make little of defilement? The very opposite! Did the provision of a whole sea of water make little of priestly defilement?... Once a man is cleansed by the blood of Jesus, he is clean forever. If Christ has cleansed me, I am divinely, eternally clean.

The brazen sea served for the daily purification of the priests. There they washed their hands and their feet. That made them fit to carry out their service and to dwell where the Lord dwelt... The Word of God does this washing, on the ground of Christ's intercession as Advocate. Under the law this washing applied to hands and feet, that is to say, to works and walk. Under grace it applies only to walk. This is because we have been purified from dead works to serve the living God. That happened once for all — something the law could not do.

Why was the washing laver, or molten sea, round? You will see if you turn to John 13. In this chapter the Lord Jesus reveals to us His present priestly service. The atoning work is done. "It is finished." This priestly work for us is going on... The molten sea was round, that is, it had neither beginning nor end, so to speak — everlasting as an emblem. And such is the love of our Great High Priest. "Having loved His own who were in the world, He loved them to the end." Love that never stops washing our feet, and restoring our souls.

"Before the throne there was a sea of glass, like crystal." The reference back to the molten sea in the earthly sanctuary is too obvious to be mistaken. But it is not a sea of water, as there. It is a sea of glass — a silent yet powerful witness to the fixed and unchangeable purity of the eternal home of the glorified. On earth we often need the water (of the Word), because of the defilement we pick up along the way. That defilement comes in between our souls and God. In the wonderful scene we are going to, defilement will never be possible.