Canaan's Food

THE cutting off of the flesh by the judgment executed at the cross, and the practical realization of this judgment are the first conditions indispensable for warfare. Of what use were Saul's helmet, coat of mail, or sword, to David in fighting_ against the Philistine? He had to " put them off him." (1 Sam. 17:39.)
But there is another resource. Before going forth to fight, Israel must be seated at the table of God. To be able to withstand the toils of warfare, Israel must be nourished; that is the secret of positive strength. And what is the nourishment? Christ. He is the source of strength,' and there will be no victory for the people if they have not been previously fed. What a blessed thing to enter into the conflict with hearts fed by Christ. We may certainly expect to be defeated if we advance to meet the enemy with hearts void of Christ. In the reverse case, as we shall see in the following chapter, there is nothing alarming about the combat, and may God give us each to prove this. Let us not wait until the morrow, for we may be called to fight this very evening. Let us feed on Christ to-day, to-morrow, every moment, that we may be ready at the first signal to arise and march on to victory.
Yes, beloved, it is a Person; it is Christ who is our food; not truths, nor privileges, but Himself; and He is here presented to us as food under three different aspects: the Passover, the Old Corn of the land, and the Manna.
This Passover in Canaan is the same feast that the people had celebrated in Egypt, and yet how much they differed one from the other. There, it was a people conscious of their guilt, hasting to flee, sheltered amidst the darkness and the judgment by the blood of the pashcal lamb. Here, it is a people safely landed in Canaan, delivered from the last traces of the reproach of Egypt, a risen people, who have been through death, but who return in perfect peace to the starting-point, the foundation of all their blessings, to sit around -the memorials of a Christ slain for them on the -cross. The Passover in Canaan corresponds with what the Lord's Supper is for the Christian. And notice, it is a permanent food; it will not cease in the glory; only it will no longer be the remembrance of the Lord's death celebrated during His absence, neither shall we need something tangible to remind us of it, for our eyes will see in the midst of the throne, the Lamb 'Himself, as it had been slain, He the visible center of the new creation founded on the cross, the basis and pivot, of eternal blessing, the object upon whom myriads of myriads gaze with adoring and universal worship.
But there is more than this in our heavenly repast. " And they did eat of the old corn of the land on the morrow after the passover, unleavened cakes and parched corn in the selfsame day." (Ver. 11.) God gave them a food which had been unknown to them in Egypt, the old corn of the land of Canaan, a heavenly, glorified. Christ, but Christ as a Man who had been through this sin-stained world in a spotless humanity, the unleavened bread, and who in this same humanity had passed through the fire of judgment like the parched corn, and wire, having entered the glory in resurrection, sits as Man at the right hand of God.
Moreover He is there for us, not only as our Advocate with the Father, but as introducing us in His Person as Man into the glory. The place is prepared for man in the third heavens; he is brought, in Christ into the full enjoyment of heavenly blessing. I behold this Man and say:: There is my place; I am in Him, a man in Christy possessing already the same life as He, life eternal, the life of a Man risen from among the dead; I am united to Him, seated in Him in the heavenly places, enjoying this infinite blessing by the Holy Spirit who leads me into it. Blessed Savior! for me Thou earnest down, for me Thou didst hang on the cross; Thou art gone into the glory, and Thou past brought me into it already in Thine own Person, previous to being with Thee and like Thee forever.
What wondrous joy and what power there is in occupation with such a Christ " We all with unveiled face beholding as in a glass the glory of the Lord are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by the Spirit of the Lord." (2 Cor. 3:18.) In this passage we see the result of being nourished with the old corn of the land. The soul, formed by a heavenly Christ, is able to reproduce the traits of this blessed object. Such is our portion.
Such also was that of Stephen, the faithful -martyr. In him, a man on the earth, full of the Holy Spirit, as fruit of the perfect work of -Christ, we see a believer in his normal character, answering perfectly 'to the end for which God had placed him in this world, in the midst of -circumstances that were the most calculated to make him lose that character. The Spirit in him Unhindered (his heart having no object on the -earth, and the Holy Ghost not having to contend within him to bring him to the level of a heavenly Christ) links him with an object in heaven so as to form him here into its image. 'The traits of the glorified Man in heaven become in him those of a perfect man on the earth: Lord, lay not this sin to their charge." Here it is an example of what it is " to be changed into the same image from glory to glory." It is not anything mystical, nor a vague product of human imagination; it is in our daily life, our ways, our words, by love, intercession, patience, and dependence, that we may, through grace, show forth the likeness of a glorified Christ on whom we gaze. Is it so with us Christians in these days? Are our hearts so fed by Him that the world can see it in our lives? Can those around us catch the rays of the glory of Christ on our countenances, as with Stephen or Moses? It would not be for us to know it, for in this case we should have lost sight of the heavenly object, and turned our eyes upon ourselves. Moses alone in the camp of Israel wist not that his countenance shone.
" And the manna ceased on the morrow." (Ver. 12.) Israel ate it no more; manna was wilderness food; for us a Christ come down from heaven into the midst of our circumstances to -encourage us in the difficulties of the way. In contrast with Israel, we Christians are privileged to have Christ as our food in every aspect at the same time, though perhaps not at the same moment. But the manna is not a permanent food. Indispensable and most blessed as it is that the remembrance of it should remain before God always, in the golden pot, and for us in " the hidden manna," still as food it is transitory and suited to the journey which comes to an end Now the Old Corn of the land will, like the Passover, be our lasting and eternal food; not in order that we should be, as on earth, transformed gradually into His likeness, for then "we shall be fashioned like unto His glorious body." (Phil. 3:21.) " We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he' is." (1 John 3:2.)