CHRIST AS DAILY FOOD
There are perhaps four types which present specially Christ as food for our souls: three in His life here, and one as Man in glory. They are the unleavened bread, the manna, the meat-offering, and the old corn of the land. It is important that in our minds these should be distinguished. The first two were eaten by the people, the third by the priests only, the males of the sons of Aaron, the fourth by the people when they got into the land.
The unleavened bread involves the new order of man as seen in Christ, one in whom there was no active working of sin (one in whom there was no sin), no inflation of human pride, but in whom all was sincerity and truth. In Him there was the absence of all that which characterises us as men after the flesh, all that of which leaven was the symbol. He is “the holy, the true”, Rev 3: 7. If we appreciate Him in this way, we shall desire to be conformed to Him, and shall judge in ourselves all that is contrary to Him. We are assimilated to that which we feed upon. When the people celebrated the passover they were commanded to put all leaven out of their houses and to eat unleavened bread for seven days. This seven days represents the whole cycle of our life here. So the apostle says, “Christ our passover is sacrificed for us: therefore let us keep the feast” (1 Cor 5: 7), &c. God having judged sin in the cross of Christ for us, it is incumbent upon us that we should judge it in ourselves. We will not tolerate in ourselves anything that is contrary to Him, and thus we shall keep the feast with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth.
The manna is the type of Christ in His life man-ward, in all the grace which characterised Him toward men. It was food from heaven, He dwelt among us, full of grace and truth, John 1: 14. The people wondered at the words of grace which came out of His lips. Everything He said and did expressed the grace of God. It has been said that the manna is daily grace for daily need. All the people fed upon it, gathering it every morning. And so with us, we need daily to appropriate this heavenly grace; we cannot do without it if we are to be here for the will of God. Faith can appropriate this grace day by day. “My grace is sufficient for thee”, 2 Cor 12: 9.
In the meat-offering we have the type of Christ as man in His life God-ward, devoting Himself to the will and glory of God. Every part of it was a sweet savour to God. Its spring was the love of God in which He ever abode. God was His object in everything He said and did, He sought only the glory of Him who sent Him, He delighted to do His will, humbled Himself even to death in obedience. He could say, “I have set the Lord always before me”, Ps 16: 8. In Him every thought of God as to man was fully realised, “In whom is all my delight”, v 3. All the various forms of trial to which He was subjected, even death itself, only served to bring out His perfection as man before God; all went up as sweet savour. This is holy food for those who are holy to feed upon, in a holy place, in the court of the tabernacle. Every one who touched it must be holy, the unclean could not eat of it. Only those in priestly (spiritual) condition can appreciate Christ in His life God-ward. (Every saint is constituted a priest, but every one is not necessarily in proper priestly condition.) It is only in spiritual energy and communion with God that we can feed upon the meat-offering.
The old corn of the land is a type of Christ as the glorified Man in heaven, in whom is set forth all the purpose of God for us, Josh 5: 11, 12. It is food to sustain us in heavenly life (not in wilderness circumstances), “He that eateth me, even he shall live by me”, John 6: 579. The Spirit would engage our hearts with Him in glory and take of His things and shew them to us, and thus unfold the counsels of God to us. But before we can appreciate Him in this way we must have passed over the Jordan; in other words, we must have come to appropriate the death of Christ as setting us free in spirit from our natural life in connection with this world and giving us entrance into that which is beyond death, into the heavenly place where Christ is, and where all our blessing lies. “If ye have died with Christ from the elements of the world, why as if alive in the world”, &c. “Ye have died, and your life is hid with the Christ in God”, Col 2: 20; 3: 1-3.
12th January 1920
From Mutual Comfort vol 13 (1920)