Eating Christ and Displaying Him as the Bread of the Presence to God and His People

The table of the bread of the presence – also called “the showbread table” – is literally the “face-bread”, the bread of God’s face. God wants His people to present to Him fresh bread for Him to feed on and for His people to feed on in His presence. This is wonderful!

On the one hand, eating this bread of God’s presence causes us to depend on the Lord Jesus as our food, our life supply, and on the other hand God’s presence is our food: we feed on Him, we love to be in His presence, and everything we do has to be in His sweet presence.

Paul was a wonderful example in this respect: he didn’t just forgive the sinning and repenting brother in Corinth; he forgave them in the face of Christ, even in the index of Christ’s eyes (2 Cor. 2:10). Paul was so one with the Lord, feeding on Him as the bread of the presence of God, that he had God’s presence and His smile when he forgave this brother.

In a sense, God’s presence may be abstract to us, but His face is more solid; when we see someone’s face we have a clear feeling of what he thinks of us and what he’s up to. We need to live in the index of Christ’s eyes so that we may see whether He approves or disapproves of what we do and say, and in everything in our service to Him we need to check not whether “is this right or is this wrong?” but, Is the Lord pleased with this?

Maybe a certain situation looks good to us, and we may feel OK to go to a certain place and do a certain thing, but the Lord may not be pleased about it. Our God is invisible, but Christ is His embodiment, expression, and even God’s face: God’s face is Christ, and this One is in our spirit today!

When we turn to our spirit, exercise our spirit, and live in a close and intimate contact with the Lord, God’s glory shines on the face of Jesus Christ and we see God’s face, feed on the bread of His presence, and do everything according to and in the index of His eyes. Hallelujah, there’s a treasure in us: the face of Christ with God’s glory shining on it is in our spirit as the treasure in our earthen vessel!

Eating Christ as the Face of God, the Shining of His Presence on us in our Spirit

In Num. 6:25 Moses blessed the people of Israel saying, Jehovah make His face shine upon you and be gracious to you. This word “face” signifies the presence. Our God is invisible, but Christ the Son is the visible presence of the invisible God (see John 14:7-9). Hallelujah, our God doesn’t merely dwell in an unapproachable light: He was incarnated to be the shining sun and bring God’s presence to us (see Luke 1:78; Matt. 4:16; John 8:12)!

Now in Christ God shines on us and is gracious to us – in Christ God came to us full of grace and reality (John 1:14-17). God is invisible, but Christ is His face, the shining of His face, and the Holy Spirit is God’s countenance (Num. 6:26).

As priests to God, it is our responsibility, duty, and privilege that we eat Christ as the face of God, the bread of God’s presence, every day in the presence of God. Christ is in us today as the face of the invisible God to be the treasure in our earthen vessel (2 Cor. 4:6-7), and whatever we do, the excellency of the power should be of Him and not of us!

What does it mean to eat Christ as the bread of God’s presence? The following illustration helped me understand and appreciate this matter more:

Perhaps we can illustrate the significance of the bread of the Presence by pointing to the delight a mother has in preparing a favorite meal for her son. Although a certain mother may be in her seventies and her son in his fifties, she still loves him and enjoys cooking for him. Suppose her son comes to visit her after an absence of several years. The elderly mother may prepare a meal she enjoyed cooking for her son and that he especially enjoyed eating when he was young. She recalls that her beloved son enjoys this particular dish very much. Thus, she prepares the meal for him and serves it to him. As he eats the food she has prepared, her eyes are upon him. He enjoys this meal in his mother’s presence. Therefore, this food is the food of his mother’s presence, his mother’s face. In a sense, this meal is virtually the presence of his mother. By eating this food, he eats his mother’s presence. When he eats this food before his mother, it becomes the food of his mother’s presence. In like manner, the bread on the table in the Holy Place is the bread of God’s presence. (Witness Lee, Life-study of Exodus, pp. 1061-1062)

Hallelujah, in our experience the reality of God’s presence is the Spirit in our spirit, and this Spirit is the reality of Christ as the bread of life (see 2 Tim. 4:22 – the Lord be with your spirit; John 6:33, 51, 63). When we turn to our spirit and have no distance between us and the Lord, we eat Christ as the face of God, the bread of God’s presence, we are satisfied with Him, and God Himself is satisfied with us eating Christ.

When we eat Christ in God’s presence to be our serving supply, we are not only satisfied and filled but we are encouraged, cheered, and strengthened to go forward with the Lord and serve Him in spirit with our fellow serving ones, the saints in the church life. God’s presence in our situation of being built up in the church life cheers us, encourages us, satisfies our hunger, and causes us to go on with Him.

Thank You Lord for being the Spirit with our spirit today! Whenever we call on Your name, You are so available, so near, and so real, and we can see God’s face! Lord Jesus, we love You! We turn to You and touch You with no distance between us and You so that we may eat Christ as the bread of God’s presence. Lord, You are the God’s face shining in our spirit to be our bread, our serving supply, in our Christian life! Hallelujah, we have Christ as the image of the invisible God in our spirit, and we can feed on Him whenever we turn to our spirit!

Eating Christ and Displaying Him as the Bread of the Presence to God and His People

The bread of the presence is also called “the bread of arrangement” in 1 Chron. 9:32; this bread was to be arranged before God’s presence for God’s satisfaction and for our satisfaction. On the one hand, the priests had to take care of the offerings, and on the other hand, they had to arrange and display the bread on the table in God’s presence.

On the one hand, we need to take Christ as our replacement and life before God to be in a peaceful situation with Him, and on the other hand, we need to take Him as our inward life supply to serve Him. When we experience Christ as our life and life-supply, we will be able not only to eat Him but also to spread the Christ we have experienced before God as the life supply to God and man.

When we take Christ as our inward life supply, the bread of the presence, we will not preach ourselves but announce and minister Christ, the One we have enjoyed and partaken of in spirit. As we enjoy Christ as the bread of God’s presence, we are not only brought into God’s presence ourselves but we also bring God’s presence to others.

As New Testament priests, we should learn how to display Christ as the bread of the Presence to all of God’s worshippers; we need to learn to help other believers by showing them how to enter into the Holy Place to experience and enjoy Christ as their life supply (1 Pet. 2:5, 9).

We are the New Testament priests, and it is our responsibility to both feed on Christ as the bread of God’s presence, and to help others enjoy Him as their life supply by displaying the Christ we have enjoyed and experienced before them. The true ministers of God enjoy the bread of God’s presence and display Christ as the life-supply to God’s children.

May we be those who have a hunger for the Lord and who eat Him every day, realizing that He is the face of God in our spirit for us to partake of. Also, may we be those who help others enter into the Holy Place to experience and enjoy Christ as their life supply for their service to God in the church life!

Lord Jesus, stir up our hunger to eat more of You. Lord, we want to enjoy the bread of Your presence so that we may be brought into Your presence and also bring Your presence to others. Lord, may we learn how to display Christ as the bread of the presence to all of God’s people! Amen, Lord, we want to help the believers by showing them how to enter into the Holy Place to experience and enjoy Christ as their life supply! Lord, You are our life and life supply, and we want to eat You and display You to Your people as the bread of God’s presence!

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, brother James Lee’s sharing in the message for this week, and Christ Making His Home in Our Heart and the Building Up of the Church, ch. 10 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (3), week 3 (week 27), The Table of the Bread of the Presence.
• All Bible verses are taken from, Holy Bible Recovery Version.
• Hymns on this topic to strengthen this burden:
  # Just to behold Thy face, / For this my heart doth cry; / I deeply long to drink of Thee / My thirst to satisfy. / Thy glorious, radiant face / My heart delights to see; / Here I’d abide and ne’er depart, / Beholding constantly. (Hymns #812)
  # I come to His presence afresh / Ere the night has passed into morning; / And His face I see as it shines on me- / The Lord within is dawning. / And He speaks to me and reveals to me / All His riches for me today; / And with sweet delight I partake of Him, / My hunger has passed away. (Hymns #554)
  # Whene’er we meet with Christ endued, / The surplus of His plenitude / We offer unto God as food, / And thus exhibit Christ. / Let us exhibit Christ, / Let us exhibit Christ; / We’ll bring His surplus to the church / And thus exhibit Christ. (Hymns #864)