Manna was to be eaten by God's elect, signifying that Christ as the heavenly food is to be dispensed into us for our nourishment to constitute us a heavenly people (Exo. 16:13b-15; Num. 11:7-9; 1 Cor. 10:3; John 6:35, 50, 57b). Every human being is a constitution of the food he has eaten. Before their exodus the children of Israel were in Egypt. They had an Egyptian constitution. The book of Numbers tells us that while the children of Israel journeyed in the wilderness, they remembered the fish, cucumbers, melons, leeks, onions, and garlic that they had eaten freely in Egypt (11:5). This diet made the children of Israel Egyptian in their constitution.
God gave the children of Israel manna to eat to change their diet from the earthly to the heavenly (Num. 11:5-6; John 6:57b). For forty years in the wilderness God's diet replaced the Egyptian diet. Through the change of diet, every one of the children of Israel became a constitution of the heavenly diet. Thus they became no longer an Egyptian people but a heavenly people. According to John 6, manna typifies Christ (vv. 35, 50, 57b). He is our heavenly food, our food of life, and our living food. If we eat Him, we become Him; then we live Him. Today we are still being constituted with Christ as our diet, so that we may become a heavenly people. Christians are not "Egyptians." Christians are a heavenly people with a new diet. This is very meaningful.
The reason for the change of diet was to replace God's redeemed people's earthly constitution with the heavenly one. Christ not only redeemed us from the outward, sinful things, but He also entered into us. However, His entering into us was not once for all. From the day He first entered into us, every day we should take Him as our daily food, our daily meat. As we take Him day by day and time after time, He is constituting us to change our inward constitution.
The water out of the cleft rock drunk by God's elect signifies the Spirit of Christ as the spiritual drink dispensed into us for our watering to make us spiritual persons (Exo. 17:5-6; 1 Cor. 10:4; John 7:37-39). The water out of the cleft rock is to saturate God's redeemed people with the Spirit of Christ instead of with the spirit of the world (1 Cor. 2:12) and to constitute God's redeemed people to be spiritual rather than worldly. When the children of Israel were in Egypt, they bore a particular spiritual flavor. That flavor was the Egyptian flavor. This flavor was also a spirit, an Egyptian spirit. It is the same with us today. If we are Chinese, we may bear a Chinese flavor, a Chinese spirit. If we are Japanese, we may bear a Japanese flavor, a Japanese spirit.
Today as Christians we no longer drink Egyptian water. We drink the water that comes out of the cleft rock, that is, the wounded Christ. As the cleft rock, Christ streams out His Spirit to be the living water for us to drink. As we drink the Spirit as the living water, we receive an element in the water. Then after a long period of drinking such a Spirit, we bear a divine, heavenly spirit as a particular flavor. Others will realize that we have a certain taste. This taste is the Spirit of Christ.