The Shew Bread
“Thou shalt also make a table of shittim wood: two cubits shall be the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof. And thou shalt overlay it with’pure gold, and make thereto.a crown of gold round about. And thou shalt make unto it a border of a handbreadth round about, and thou shalt make a golden crown to the border thereof roundabout. And thou shalt make for it four rings of gold, and put the rings in the four corners that are on the four feet thereof. Over against the border shall the rings be for places of the staves to bear the table. And thou shalt make the staves of shittim wood, and overlay them with gold, that the table may be borne with them. And thou shalt make the dishes thereof, and spoons thereof, and covers thereof, and bowls thereof, to cover withal: of pure gold shalt thou make them. And thou shalt set upon the table shewbread before me always.
And thou shalt take fine fiour, and bake twelve cakes thereof: two tenth deals shall be in one cake. And thou shalt set them in two rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before the LorD. And thou shalt put pure frankincense upon each row, that it be on the bread for a memorial, even an offering made by fire unto the Lord. Every sabbath he shall set it in order before the LorpD continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant. And it shall be Aaron’s and his sons’; and they shall eat it in the holy place: for it 7s most holy unto him of the offerings of the Lord made by fire by a perpetual statute.
For my fiesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eateth my flesh, and drinketh my blood, dwelleth in me, and I in him. As the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father; so that he that eateth me, even he shall live by me. This is that bread which came down from heaven: not as your fathers did eat manna, and are dead: he that eateth of this bread shall live forever.” — Ex. xxv: 28-30. Lev. xxiv: 5,9; John vi: 55-88.
IGHT across the tabernacle, on our
right as we enter, and in the full
blaze of the golden candlestick, which almost seems to shine for the purpose of revealing it alone, stands the table of shewbread, which these verses describe and whose significance they explain.
It is a simple little table three feet long by half that width, and two feet three inches high, made of acacia wood and overlaid with gold.
Upon it there ever stand twelve loaves of unleavened bread, covered with fine powdered frankincense, offered before the Lord continually, as a memorial. Every -Sabbath these loaves are renewed, the old ones being eaten by the priests in the holy place, while the frankincense is burned before the Lord on the golden altar of incense.
Beside the loaves are trays and vessels of wine, also offered before the Lord as a drink-offering and drunk by the priests on the Sabbath in the sanctuary.
This simple type is so natural and expressive that there can be no doubt of its significance, and no difficulty in apprehending its beauty and fitness. As water and light are the natural symbols of cleansing and illumination, so bread as fittingly expresses the satisfaction and provision for the soul’s deeper need which Christ supplies and the Gospel reveals. The same symbolical idea was presented previously in the manna, which fell for forty years in the wilderness, and which, we are distinctly told, was designed to show them ‘that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word of God.” In the bread and wine of the Lord’s supper, the same element is preserved as the perpetual symbol to the Church of Christ’s provision for his people’s need.
Our Saviour has claimed this symbol for Himself in the sixth chapter of John, and shown how fittingly it expresses the real life which the soul can only find in His life and death, and His living life-giving Person, of which, indeed, it would seem to be not too much to say that all natural elements were made to be the symbols and fore-shadowings. ‘This is but the figure, He is the real Bread. His flesh is meat indeed and His blood is drink indeed.
I. The Preparation of the Bread. — There is much in this symbol which naturally suggests the deepest and holiest mysteries of Christ’s person and work.
Bread is the fruit of the ground, which was cursed for man’s sin. So Christ was born of a cursed and sinful race, and came under that curse to become the life and support of the human soul.
Bread is the offspring of death. The seed must be buried in the soil and die ere it can produce the harvest which feeds the race. 3 So Christ Himself has appropriated this beautiful figure and taught us that as the corn of wheat by dying grows into ampler life, so He was planted in death in the soil of Calvary, that from that dark sepulchre He might come forth in resurrection life as the life of the world.
Is it pressing the symbol too far to say that as bread must be crushed in the millstones and kneaded in the baker’s hand and baked in the fierce heat of the oven, so our heavenly bread has been perfected and prepared under the crushing pressure and in the consuming flame of suffering.
And as in the natural world life is maintained not by direct impartation of power, but in the concrete form of bread, so the soul’s life is not received direct from God, but in the Person of Christ.
The loaves must be prepared; so the Bread of life must be presented in a form in which we can partake of it. Not wheat, not flour, not dough, but bread. So divine truth and grace must be adapted to human need. AIl truth is not bread. Much preaching and teaching is but presenting ears of corn, husks, barbs, beards, and all often. A divine revelation of God would not have been bread for a dying one, it needed a concrete redemption and revelation, a person who would gather up and concentrate in himself all that God is to a lost humanity, truth incarnate, the Gospel of a personal, loving, suffering, sin-atoning Saviour.
There were twelve loaves, ample provision for all the tribes. So Christis our all-sufficient Saviour. Special provision is made for each tribe. Not one loaf for all, but personal provision for each one. That is the way Christ saves. Not all men in the mass, but each one separately, ‘‘He tasted death for every man.” He has a loaf for everyone of you. There is-for you in the heart of God, in the work of Christ, in the thoughts of your Lord, in the prepared places of Heaven, a place as specific as if you were the only one for whom He died and lives. Oh, how touching this individual I love of my Redeemer for me, how encouraging to me to claim my share, for it is all for me; I am depriving none by receiving all. JI am enriching none by declining anything.
The bread was unleavened. Not loaves, but cakes, because the process of fermentation was the symbol of sin and decay.
The priests of God must eat incorruptible bread. The reason why so many are weak and sickly is that they use the leavened bread of human pleasure, pride, sin. ‘* Labor not for the meat which perisheth, but for that which endureth.”
Il. The Offering of the Bread. — Before it was eaten by man, it was first offered to God for seven days as a meat-offering.
So Christ’s work of salvation was as much an offering to God, as a provision for man. We lose sight of this. There were necessities on the divine side as well as the human. There was a. law dishonored, there was a love unyielded, there was a holiness offended with impurity and sin. There was a Father’s heart deserving the love and obedience of a race He had created in His image. And Christ came to answer all these divine requirements even more than to meet human misery with full blessings. Christ came as man’s answer to God as much as God’s message to man,
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Christ came by his blood to meet the holy demands of justice, by his obedience to meet the claims of law, by his consecrated love to meet the longing of God’s heart for love, by his purity and righteousness to satisfy the holiness of God; and to do all thisasaman. So that in Him God saw man cancelling his own sin, bearing its righteous penalty, receiving and obeying His law, loving and submitting to His will, yielding himself a living offering of love on the altar of sacrifice, and presenting a character so pure and holy that it was the reflection of Elis own, and in it He was satisfied. He looked past the men that had sinned and were sinning, and saw only the one man that stood for them, and in Him He accepts all. It was an infinite satisfaction to His blessed nature and character. It was the bread of God as wellasman. It was a sacrifice to God of a sweet-smelling savour, and His infinite being went out crying ‘‘ My beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased.” And all of us who are in Him are thus accepted through Him, His person, character and work are the substitutes for ours, and we are accepted in the Beloved.
And so far as His life and spirit live in us, we too, like Him, are an offering to God, acceptable to Him. As man lives on God and finds in Him his life, so God lives in His children and has in them His life, His bread.. So in Rev. ii: 20 the feast is described ‘‘I will sup with Him and He with me.”
Hence we find our Saviour always representing His work primarily as done for His Father, His will, His glory, His pleasure, and so also, before He meets with his disciples orwallows their communion He must rise to His Father’s presence and present his finished work. ‘‘Touch me not,” he says to Mary, ‘‘for lam not yet ascended to my Father.” The bread must first be offered on the Heavenly Table ere it can be partaken of by the earthly children. The Head of the Table, the Father, must first partake of the feast of salvation ere his children can receive the cup of salvation. But this once done, we find Him afterwards, not only permitting but commanding their touch, giving Himself to the touch of doubting Thomas, and bidding Peter and the other ten on the Galilean shore to that morning meal which was the type of the table now open to His loving children, and the bread accepted in heaven and offered on earth to all who hunger. Ill. The Eating of the Bread. — On the Sabbath day the old loaves were removed and eaten by the priests, and new ones placed on the table. So while Christ is, in the first aspect of His work, am offering to God, He is, in the second, a provision for - His people’s need. The spiritual meaning of this language none but a Christian can understand. And to a true believer; to.a soul that has felt
Bible Training School ee ee Library the deep inner need of Christ and known its satisfaction; to a soul that is living in communion with the Person of Jesus Christ; to a soul that has felt the crushing sense of sin and then the sweetness of assured pardon and peace breathed by his Spirit’s voice; to a soul which has felt the utter disappointment of human enjoyment, and the bitter pain of human sorrow, and then after all this found the real deep satisfying sweetness of his consolations; toa soul that has found these promises, commands, directions, more precious than gold, and more necessary than food, and this Gospel more interesting than romance, and back of all this Gospel and these words, has felt its way to the S living Person of Jesus, and knows what it is or anything of what it is to have Him as an all-sufficient Saviour, a perpetual Presence, a very present help, and a friend more near and loved than human affection can comprehend jeto a soul that has known any or all of this as hundreds of sympathetic hearts here to-day do know, it would be idle to attempt to interpret:and illustrate such words as these: ‘‘ I am the Bread of life, he that cometh to me shall never hunger, and he that believeth in me shall never thirst. Iam the Living Bread. He that eateth my flesh dwelleth in me and lin him. My fiesh is meat indeed and my blood is drink indeed.” The golden key that unlocks their mystery is in the secret place of your own heart.
This bread was eaten by the priests alone. They were the types of all true believers, so all Christians, all true believers, and they only, can feed upon Christ. None others understand it. None others desire it. None others have either appetite or organs to appropriate Him. It was a beautiful provision, that while the blemished and feeble were not permitted to minister at God’s altar of incense, they were Taipsto be hindered from. eating the bread in the Holy Place. So although you may be too weak a Christian to do any useful ministry for Christ, although you may be too inconstant and unbelieving and cold even to offer acceptable worship, you are not thereby cut off from the provisions of God’s house. Christ wants specially to feed and cherish the faint one. Come and feed on Him till you get strong, and hands and feet and voice and tongue can join without blemish in His service too.
The Bread was eaten on the Sabbath; perhaps a type of the special provision God makes for His children on His own day. Here is the family table and the day of peculiar Christian nourishing. He or she who can afford to lose it, will find themselves ill prepared for the conflicts and tasks of life. But it is almost as fatal an error to make this the only day of spiritual renewing, as to neglect it altogether.
Every day requires new strength and grace, and one must have “daily bread.” The whole of the true believer’s life is a Sabbath in the sense that he has entered into rest, rest from sin and self in Christ, and in the enjoyment of His peace he -can sing, “‘I shall not want. He makes me to le down in green pastures. He leadeth me by the waters of Rest.” Have you learned tu know this Sabbath, and found in Christ this Living Bread?
IV. The Wine. — -Life needs more than bare support. It requires cordials for the faint, refreshment for the feeble, and the festival for the glad and the gay. The Gospel has provision for the higher capacities and more special needs of man. Talk of the wine of life that flows in the rich, full tides of tumultuous human passion, and the veins of youth and love and genius. There are deep and holy joys; there are everlasting consolations, there are raptures of love and hope and communion; there are hours of peace surpassing all understanding; there are illuminations of soul, and visions of truth and unfoldings of God, and foredawnings of heaven, and there are tides of power and glory that touch and thrill all that is divine in the soul, until all other life seems a living death and death is life in the glory revealed. O there is wine, wine on the lees well refined, as well as bread in the house of God, and he who has drunk of it once will say to the Master of the Feast: “Thou hast kept the good wine until now.”
V. The Frankincense. — This was the symbol of acceptance. It was burned on the altar while the priests partook of the bread, and sent up its sweet perfume through all the holy place.
The first truth this suggested was the sweet acceptance by God of Christ’s work. It is not only offered, but accepted.
The second truth was the acceptance of the sacred meal of the priests as an act of worship. God accepted them in eating it. There is no more acceptable service you can render to God than to feed upon Christ and rejoice in Him. Martha covered her groaning table with viands — for her God, but Mary pleased: Him more as she sat at His feet and heard His words, feeding on His life and love, and worshiping Him by receiving what He gave.
VI. The Table. — Its purpose was to exhibit the bread. This is what the church and ministry are appointed to do.. This is what we are trying to do to-day. What lessons we may learn from this table!
It was simple. It had but one use, not to show itself, but the bread. So the ministry is out of place when its brilliancy obscures the Saviour. When the great Italian painter had finished his picture of the Last Supper, he showed it to a friend. ‘What beautiful cups” was the answer. The painter drew his brush over the canvas with a shadow of sorrow on his brow. He had failed. He had painted cups, but not the Saviour. Many a sermon is but an exhibition of pictorial skill in painting cups, and the Saviour is in the background. May God make us like the table, only exhibiting the Bread.
It was for the purpose of holding forth the bread as an offering to God as well as for the priest’s use, so the highest aim in all our ministry should be to hold Christ forth for God’s glory as much as man’s good. If you speak Christ, if you live Christ so that God sees Him in you it is. heaven enough, if no man rejoices. If I have held Christ up so that God is satisfied, even if you do not eat the bread, my ministry is not amiss.
Our first aim should be for God. The table, however, was meant also to hold the bread which the priests were to partake of. And so we must offer Christ to the world. But let us learn the lesson of the loaves and the frankincense. Loaves, not ears of corn, or lumps of dough, or bushels of grain — but bread, prepared for the soul’s present need — compact, concrete, warm, simple, and in small quantities.
And Frankincense, attractive, sweet, appetizing, so that they will eat and live. Not the loaves without the frankincense.
In conclusion, what is all this to you? Are you living on the bread of God, or starving while, in the Father’s house, there is bread and to spare. The blight of the church to-day is spiritual exercise and starvation. Men are feeding or rather famishing on German Rationalism. French Socialism, and American Sensationalism, on lifeless protoplasms, and juiceless bonds and bank notes, and unwholesome pleasures. ‘* Wherefore do ye spend money for that which is not bread, and your labour for that which satisfieth not? Eat ye that which is good, and let your soul delight itself in fatness,”
Is there a hungry soul reading this? Christ stands at the door and knocks. He wants to enter to spread a feast, to sup with you, for your salvation will be meat and drink to Him, and then to have you sup with Him on the rich blessings of grace now, and at the banquet of glory forevermore.