In 1 Corinthians 7:22-23 Christ is revealed as the Master of the believers: “The slave who has been called in the Lord is the Lord’s freedman; likewise the free man who has been called is Christ’s slave. You were bought with a price; do not be slaves of men.” These verses indicate that believers inwardly should be slaves only of Christ; they should not become slaves of men. Christ bought the believers with a price, that is, with His precious blood (6:20; Acts 20:28; 1 Pet. 1:18-19; Rev. 5:9). As a result, the believers become His slaves to serve Him by doing the will of God (Eph. 6:6-7). We must consider Him as our Master, and we must daily serve Him by doing the will of God.
In keeping with this, Paul in Ephesians 6:5-7 says, “Slaves, be obedient to those who are your masters according to the flesh with fear and trembling, in singleness of your heart, as to Christ; not with eye-service as men-pleasers but as slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from the soul; with good will serving as slaves, as serving the Lord and not men.” Paul exhorts the slaves to obey with fear and trembling in singleness of heart, as to Christ. In other words, the slaves are to be in obedience to their masters as to Christ. This means that the slaves are to regard their masters as if they were the Lord. The relationship between slaves and masters is a type of our relationship with Christ, our Master. We should obey Him as a slave, in singleness of heart.
A slave is to do the will of God from the soul. The expression from the soul equals from the heart, from the inner being. This means to serve not only with the physical body but with the heart. The slaves were to serve “as serving the Lord and not men.” This indicates that Paul’s intention was to direct the slaves to the Lord. As the slaves of Christ, the believers must obey Him as their Master and do the will of God from the soul.
In 1 Corinthians 10:3-4 Christ is presented as the spiritual food and the spiritual rock.
As the spiritual food, Christ nourishes the believers. In verse 3 Paul says, “All ate the same spiritual food.” The expression spiritual food refers to manna (Exo. 16:14-18), typifying Christ as our daily life supply (John 6:31-35) for the Christian journey. We believers should all eat the same spiritual food and should not eat anything other than Christ. Christ as the heavenly manna should be the unique food for God’s people.
John 6 reveals Christ as the real manna, as the heavenly food given to us by God. As the real manna, Christ was sent by God the Father for God’s chosen people to live by Christ. In verses 32 and 33 He said, “My Father gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world.” Then in verse 35 He declared, “I am the bread of life; he who comes to Me shall by no means hunger.” In verse 57 He went on to say, “He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.” Without eating Christ as the real manna, it is impossible for us to live by Christ.
Moreover, manna signifies that Christ as the heavenly food is to be dispensed into us for our nourishment in order to constitute us a heavenly people. Every human being is a constitution of the food he has eaten. Food is anything we take into us for our satisfaction, and the food we eat enters into us organically and becomes our constitution. Before their exodus from Egypt, the children of Israel had an Egyptian constitution. The book of Numbers shows 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 in order to change their diet from the earthly to the heavenly. While the children of Israel journeyed for forty years in the wilderness, the divine diet replaced their Egyptian diet. Through the change of their diet, the children of Israel became a constitution of the heavenly diet. Thus, they became no longer an Egyptian people but a heavenly people.
Manna typifies Christ as our heavenly food, our bread of life, and our living bread (John 6:41, 35, 48, 50-51). What helps us most in our daily living with the Lord is eating Christ as heavenly food. By eating Christ we become Christ; that is, Christ becomes our constituent. If we eat Christ, we become Him and then live Him. As we partake of Him as our heavenly food day by day, He is reconstituting us to change our inward constitution. From the first day Christ entered into us, we should take Him as our daily food to be constituted with Christ as our heavenly diet so that we may become a heavenly people.