02.18. THE TABLE OF SHEWBREAD
THE TABLE OF SHEWBREAD THE Table occupied the northern side of the Holy Place.
It was two cubits long, a cubit wide and a “Cubit and a half high.
It was made of the usual incorruptible wood. It was overlaid with pure gold.
It had two cornices or crowns, an outer and an inner crown.
There were four gold rings at the four corriers, two on a side.
Through these were passed wooden bars or staves covered with gold. They were the handles by which the Table was to be carried when on the journey.
Twelve loaves of bread were placed on the table, six in a row. On these were placed frankincense; for, it was counted as an offering made by fire unto the Lord. The bread was to be renewed every Sabbath.
It was to be eaten by the priestly family in the Holy Place.
“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 an handbreadth round about, and thou shalt make a golden crown to the border thereof round about. 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 staves of, shittim wood, and overlay them with gold, that the table may be borne with them.” (Exodus 25:23-28.) “And thou shalt take fine flour, 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 may be on the bread for a memorial, even an offering made by fire unto the LORD.
Every Sabbath he (Aaron, the high priest) shall set it in order before the LORD 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 is most holy unto him of the offerings of the LORD made by fire by a perpetual statute.” (Leviticus 24:5-9.) The Table and the Bread were considered as one. When the Table is spoken of it includes the bread. When the Bread is mentioned it signifies the Table. The word, “shewbread,” is, literally, “bread of the face,” that is to say, “bread of the presence.”
It is called the” continual” bread. (Numbers 4:7; 2 Chronicles 2:4) The twelve loaves represented the twelve tribes of Israel.
They were a continual memorial unto the Lord of the twelve tribes and His covenant promises unto them. As these twelve loaves set the twelve tribes as one people before the Lord; so, also, it is a symbol that the Church although constituted of many members is one bread; as it is written:
“We being many are one bread (that is, one loaf).” (1 Corinthians 10:7.) The one bread, the one loaf, the one Church, ever recalling to the Lord His covenant promises made unto her. As the Table and the Bread were one, so Christ and the Church are one Christ.
He is the Head, the Church is the Body; as it is written:
“For as the body is one, and hath many members, and all the members of that one body, being many, are one body: so also is Christ.” (1 Corinthians 12:12. ) The word” Christ” should have the article. Properly it should read:
“So is the Christ.” The Christ here refers to the Church as the Body of Christ. A man’s name belongs both to his head and his body. Just so, the Head of the Church is called Christ, and because the Church is His Body it is, also, called Christ. The Table upheld the loaves.
It is Christ who upholds the Church and presents her continually as the “continual bread” before God the Father; as it is written:
“Able to keep you from falling, and to present you faultless before the presence of his glory with exceeding joy.” (Jude 1:24.) The Table was the center of union for the priestly family. The typical teaching is plain enough. As Christians we are spiritual priests; as it is written:
“An holy priesthood, to offer up spiritual sacrifices, acceptable to God by Jesus Christ.” (1 Peter 2:5) “Present your bodies a living (not dead) sacrifice.” (Romans 12:1.)
“By him therefore let us offer the sacrifice of praise to God continually, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to his name.” (Hebrews 13:15.) As spiritual priests there is only one center around which we can meet and that center is the Risen and Living Christ.
He has declared Himself to be the center of every true assembly; as it is written:
“Where two or three are gathered together in my name, there am I in the midst of them.” (Matthew 18:20.) Apart from all other teaching, what an astounding statement is this. The statement that wherever in this round world, and no matter how far they may be from one another, all Christians who gather sincerely in His name, there He is, not His influence, but Himself.
“There am I.” This is nothing less than—omnipresence.
What a claim, and because He is truth itself, therefore true.
What a dynamic, irrefutable demonstration that He claimed to be and was very God. The Table was the center of daily nourishment for the priestly family. The shewbread was their divinely appointed food. “They shall eat it in the holy place.” (Leviticus 24:9.) The loaves also set forth our Lord Jesus Christ as the Bread of Life.
He declared unto the Jews He was such.
God had given their fathers manna in the wilderness, and were dead.
He had come down from Heaven as the True bread, those who should eat of Him should never die. Then, He told them that He would give His flesh for the salvation of men. He would offer Himself as a sacrifice for sin, those who should eat His flesh and drink His blood would find Him the bread of everlasting life unto them. By eating His flesh and drinking His blood He meant the appropriation of His sacrificial death and the acceptance of Him by faith as their personal substitute. The symbolic meaning of eating is self-evident.
It is by eating we appropriate the food and make it a part of ourselves.
There must be this personal, individual appropriation of Christ if we would live by and in Him and have Him to live in us. But personal appropriation does not stop with the mere acceptance of the Lord as a personal, sacrificial Saviour.
He says:
“I am come that they might have life, and that they might have it more abundantly.” (John 10:10.) A thing grows by what it feeds on.
It is our privilege to feed on Christ day by day and grow in Him while He expands in and fills us with Himself.
We are to feed on Him by more and more appropriating Him to ourselves, appropriating Him as our perfect sacrifice and resting in the love and security of it; we are to appropriate Him as our living Head, loving us and living for us; and throwing ourselves more and more open to the penetration of His will above our will, allow Him to fill us with His own joy.
Let a Christian so appropriate the Lord Jesus Christ day by day, He will find His soul fed and filled with Christ as the living bread and living each day more and more in the consciousness that it is the living Christ that liveth in Him. And now let it be remembered in the logic of the symbols that the bread became such only after the flour had been ground beneath the upper and the nether millstones, moulded into a loaf by a determining hand and made to pass through the test of a fire heated oven, so the Christ of God became the living bread for appropriation only after He had been ground beneath the upper and the nether millstones of the cross, felt the determining, decreeing hand of a covenant God, had passed through the agonizing test of body and soul in the down sweep and the all environing, oven-like heat, of the wrath of God against the sin He represented. As He Himself said through the lips of a prophet, “From above hath He sent fire into my bones and it prevaileth against them.”
Let it be further said-only after the priests had come by way of the Brazen Altar of sacrifice could they eat of the bread; only after Christ is accepted on the cross as a personal” sacrifice for sin is it possible to feed on Him as the Bread of Heaven. The Table was the center of fellowship in the priestly family.
Here the priests came together. Here they found their unity. Here they got into close and happy communion with one another.
They got into this close touch with one another because each was gathered about the same table and each was occupied with the same bread. To have harmony in the assembly of Christ it is necessary to be occupied with Christ.
Only as we get near to Christ do we get near to one another.
Let a Church be taken up with Christ, with the glory of His eternal past, the wonder of His redeeming love, the perfect efficiency of His sacrificial death, His unfailing priestly intercession in Heaven now and the assurance of His imminent Coming; let a Church think Christ, talk Christ, live Christ and serve Christ, that Church will become the circumference of Christ, the environment revelation of Christ, where each shall have the same mind, the mind of Christ, and be at one in Christ.