The Bread of the Presence: Christ is the Food for the Believers as Priests to God

It is vitally important for us to realize that we daily need to eat Christ, feed on Him, take Him in, and enjoy Him as spiritual food. Just as physically we need to eat daily – and even more than one time every day – so spiritually we need to eat Christ, digest Him, and assimilate Him into our being so that He may be constituted into us and live in us to make us His corporate expression.

Eating the Lord is a basic and crucial matter in our Christian life, and it is oftentimes neglected by the believers. Just as people today in this modern world with their busyness tend to “skip breakfast” or even skip lunch, so we may skip our spiritual breakfast regularly, which leads to spiritual indigestion and a shortage in our growth in life.

As believers in Christ we need to be recovered back to eating Jesus for the building up of the church. The only way we can build up the church is by having the Lord’s building element constituted into our being so that we may become building members of the Body of Christ.

When we eat the Lord we need to inwardly exercise our spirit and outwardly open our mouth and call on the name of the Lord, pray-read the word of God, and pray to fellowship with the Lord.

Our eating of the Lord must go deeper: we shouldn’t merely depend on reading some verses from the Bible in the morning (or on the bus on the way to school or work); we need to set time aside to enjoy the Lord, eat Him, and be nourished by Him so that we may have a proper inward spiritual supply to serve the Lord as priests.

Oh, how we need to be reminded that we cannot live without eating Christ, without feeding on Him and taking Him as our life supply in His word! God’s economy is that we EAT CHRIST and be constituted with Him, so that He may build up the church through us and with us, and we may become His corporate expression.

Today we want to go on and see how we as priests need to eat the Lord in a particular way “at the table” in order to be supplied to serve God in the tabernacle.

The Bread of the Presence signifies Christ is the Food for the Believers as Priests to God

The only people that could eat the bread of the presence were the priests; the table of the bread of the presence signifies Christ as the food, the nourishing feast, for the believers as God’s priests (see Exo. 25:23-30; Lev. 24:8-9).

In Genesis we see Christ as the tree of life, and earlier in Exodus we see how Christ is the manna for all of God’s people to eat openly, daily, morning by morning. But this eating of the bread of the presence is more particular: it is on the table, in the Holy Place in the tabernacle.

This is not a general eating; eating the manna is general – God rains down manna on all His people to feed them and keep them alive, but the eating of the bread of the presence is very particular. We need to advance from eating the manna to eating the bread of the presence on the table as a priest, a serving one, so that we may be inwardly supplied to serve God.

There are at least five differences between the open manna and the bread of the presence:

1. The bread of the presence was to be eaten in the holy place in the tabernacle, while the manna is outside in the field, in the open, for anyone to gather it and eat it.
2. The bread of the presence is for the serving priests, not for everyone, while the manna is for all people.
3. The bread of the presence is for our serving, while the manna is for our living, to sustain us.
4. The bread of the presence is to be enjoyed weekly by the priests, while the manna was there daily.
5. The bread of the presence was arranged on the table in an orderly way in the Holy Place, while the manna is open, scattered on the ground.

We need to eat the Lord daily as our food supply, the reality of the manna – the food coming down from heaven to supply us day by day so that we may live the Christian life. As we grow in life and are built up in the church life, serving the Lord in the church, we will be little by little brought into another level of eating – we eat the Lord as the bread of the presence on the table in the holy place.

We need to eat the Lord not only daily for our spiritual life supply but also as a special portion for our serving, in an orderly way, in the Holy Place. All the believers in Christ are priests to God, and it is our duty to feast on Christ as our serving life supply.

Positionally, every saved one in the New Testament is a priest, but practically, we must be priests of God, serving Him in a practical way, and we will have the right to eat Christ as our portion, our serving supply. Weekly, Christ is our food supply for serving the Lord (Lev. 24:5-9).

We need to take Christ as the reality of all the offerings (the bronze altar) and be washed by the life-giving Spirit (the laver) in the outer court, and we need to enter into the Holy Place to eat Christ as our serving life supply to be inwardly strengthened to serve God in His house. Hallelujah, Christ is our feasting table for us as priests to God!

Lord Jesus, we want to advance from eating You as our daily life supply, the real manna, to enjoying You as the serving life supply in the Holy Place for our service to God as priests! Lord, thank You for being not only our daily food for our living as sons of God but also our weekly supply, the bread of the presence, for our service as priests to God. Cause us to advance in the church life in our service as priests so that we may enjoy You as the special portion of life supply for the serving priests!

When we Meet with God upon Christ and Fellowship with God, Christ becomes our Nourishment

According to our concept, after God revealed the details concerning the ark of the testimony with the lid, the propitiation place, the next piece of furniture should have been the incense altar, which positionally is the closest to the ark.

But the divine revelation in the Bible is not according to our logic or concept but according to God’s economy and our experience; after the revelation of the ark of the covenant, the Lord spoke concerning the table of the bread of the presence, implying that the table is connected to the ark (see Exo. 25:10-23).

We need to consider the relationship between the Ark and the table from the standpoint of our experience. We know from experience that when we meet with God upon Christ as the propitiatory cover, enjoying fellowship with God and hearing words from His mouth, the Ark becomes a table where we enjoy a nourishing feast. Has there ever been a time when you have met with God in the Holy of Holies on Christ as the propitiatory cover, conversed with Him, and received a word from Him, and yet there was no table set up for your nourishment? Experientially speaking, it is not even necessary to say that a table has been set up, for the Ark spontaneously becomes the table. This means that Christ, God’s testimony, becomes our nourishment. As the embodiment of God, Christ becomes a table full of life supply to nourish us. (Witness Lee, Life-study of Exodus, pp. 1048-1049)

In our spiritual experience, when we meet with God upon Christ – our propitiatory cover – we enjoy fellowship with God, hear words from Him, and receive the flow of grace as we stand upon the sprinkled blood of Christ, we discover that the ark – Christ as God’s testimony – becomes a table to us, and we feast upon Christ.

Actually, the dimensions and height of the ark were the same as of the table, showing us that, as we commune and meet with God, we enjoy Christ and feast on Him as our serving supply.

The more time we spend with the Lord in the Holy of Holies, we listen to what He speaks to us, and we are supplied by Him with a life supply – the bread of the presence – that surpasses any kind of enjoyment of the manna or the quails in the wilderness. Hallelujah, Christ – the testimony of God – becomes our nourishment to be our serving supply (John 1:18; 6:57).

The degree to which we know Christ as God’s testimony determines the degree to which we enjoy Him as our feast, the bread of the presence. If we only know Christ as the Son of God, our Savior – which He is! – we need to go on further to see Christ, the testimony of God, as signified by the ark of the testimony.

When we know Christ, the testimony and embodiment of God, in a deep and subjective way, we are brought to enjoy Him as the bread of His presence on the table, and He becomes a table full of life supply to nourish us.

Hallelujah, our God has been processed: He is now embodied in the Son and consummated to be the life-giving Spirit, and in His economy He has become a table full of life-supply, nourishment, grace and reality, to nourish us and feed us as the priests of God!

Hallelujah, God has been processed: He is embodied in the Son and realized as the life-giving Spirit to be a table full of life supply, nourishment, grace and reality, to nourish us and feed us as the priests of God! Lord, we want to know You in a deeper way as the testimony of God, the embodiment of God, so that we may feast on You as the bread of the presence on the table. Amen, Lord, uplift our enjoyment of Christ and deepen our eating of Christ as the bread of the presence, the serving supply for the priests!

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 Life-study of Exodus, msg. 90 (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:
  # Jesus, O living Word of God, / Wash me and cleanse me with Your blood / So You can speak to me. / Just let me hear Your words of grace, / Just let me see Your radiant face, / Beholding constantly. / Jesus, living Word, / My heart thirsts for Thee; / Of Thee I’d eat and drink, / Enjoy Thee thoroughly. (Song on being washed to eat the Lord)
  # Here, O my Lord, may I feast upon Thee; / Flood with Thy Spirit and fill by Thy Word; / May, Lord, Thou be such a feast unto me / As man hath never enjoyed nor e’er heard. (Hymns #811)
  # Take time to absorb Him, to gain the supply, / That we may be watered and nourished thereby; / The deeper the roots spread, the deeper the flow, / And richer and higher within us He’ll grow. (Song on Eating and Absorbing God)