Manna is a type of Christ (John 6:31-35, 48-51, 57-58). As the real manna, Christ was sent by God the Father (v. 32) for God’s chosen people to live by Christ (v. 57). Although we may readily acknowledge that manna is a type of Christ, we should not regard this in a natural way or superficial way. As we consider the account of the sending of manna in Exodus 16, it is important for us to see the relationship between our eating and our living. We must eat in order to live. This is another basic principle in the Bible. Therefore, in John 6:57 the Lord Jesus said, “He who eats Me shall also live because of Me.” Without eating, it is not possible for us to live.
Now we must go on to see that the way we live depends on what we eat. If you eat a great deal of fish, you will be constituted of the element of fish, for you will absorb the life and nature of fish. Certainly you will not be constituted of fish if your diet includes only chicken or beef, but no fish. The kind of life we have depends on the kind of food we eat.
According to the picture in the book of Exodus, the children of Israel were destined to have a heavenly living. However, when they came out of Egypt, they brought Egyptian food with them. During the first few weeks of their travels, they ate this Egyptian food. But when the supply of Egyptian food was exhausted, the people were troubled and began to murmur and complain. Although the shortage of food was a problem to the people, it was a cause of joy to God, for it gave Him an excellent opportunity to change the living of His people. God’s intention was to change their living from an Egyptian living to a heavenly living. God did not want merely to adjust, change, or regulate the people outwardly. He wanted to change them organically by changing their diet. When the children of Israel were in Egypt, they had many different things to eat, all elements of the Egyptian diet. However, God wanted to change their diet from many items to just one item, and that item was the manna which came from heaven.
In Genesis 2 God’s intention was that the tree of life become man’s unique diet. Revelation 22 indicates that the tree of life will be our unique diet in eternity. Although this tree will bring forth twelve kinds of fruit, there will nonetheless be just one tree in the New Jerusalem, not many trees. In today’s Christianity, on the contrary, there are thousands of trees; that is, there are thousands of sources of food. But in God’s economy there is one tree—the tree of life. This tree was in the garden, and it will be in the New Jerusalem.
In Exodus 16 and John 6 the tree of life appears by the name of manna. If you read the Bible carefully and with understanding, you will see that manna and the tree of life are interchangeable. The manna is the tree of life, and the tree of life is the manna. This means that the manna in Exodus 16 was the tree of life in Genesis 2, and that the manna in John 6 will be the tree of life in Revelation 22. Manna and the tree of life are different terms to describe one thing. God does not have two kinds of food for His chosen people. Because there is one God, there is also just one kind of food. Christ is both our manna and our tree of life for eternity. We have one God, one Christ, and one Spirit. We also have one food, one diet.
The people in the world, however, live by many different kinds of foods. In the previous message we pointed out that worldly people may live on such things as education, sports, and amusements. Just as there are supermarkets for physical groceries, there are also psychological and religious supermarkets for psychological and religious groceries. Because the people in the world feed on so many things other than Christ, we may rightly regard them as today’s Egyptians. Before we were saved, we were in Egypt enjoying the Egyptian diet with all the other unsaved people. But we have been saved and have made our exodus out of Egypt. Now God intends to change our diet. However, we may still desire to sit by the fleshpots in Egypt, to feed on cucumbers, melons, onions, leeks, and garlic, or to enjoy fish from the Nile. Therefore, we face the problem of having more than one element in our diet. We also have the problem of living on many things other than Christ. For example, although I encourage the young people to get a good education, I must remind them not to live on education. Education should not become our diet.
According to God’s economy, we should live on Christ and on Christ alone. Christ should be our unique diet, and we should live by Him. We should not seek to live on any other food. Whatever satisfies, strengthens, and sustains us is our food. The unique food we take for our sustenance, strength, and satisfaction must be Christ. However, many believers do not take Christ as their unique source of satisfaction, strength, and sustenance. Instead, they are trying to be satisfied, sustained, and strengthened by other things. Because God wants us to live on Christ, we should be sustained, strengthened, and satisfied by Christ alone.
We have strongly emphasized the fact that God wants to change our diet. His intention is to cut off the worldly diet and to limit us to a diet of heavenly food, which is Christ. Because terms such as temptation and loving the world have been used in a light way in Christianity, I prefer not to use them in speaking of the divine revelation in Exodus 16. I wish to inquire concerning your diet. On what are you living day by day? What do you take in to satisfy, sustain, and strengthen you? We all must face these questions and answer them. We all should be able to say, “The Lord is the only One who satisfies me. Apart from Him, I have no satisfaction. I am daily strengthened and sustained by Christ. He is the only food on which I rely.”
I can testify that for more than fifty years I have not been satisfied, strengthened, or sustained by anything other than Christ. From the time I was saved at the age of nineteen, Christ has been my satisfying food. I have obtained certain good things, but none of these things has satisfied me even once.
Christ must be our food, satisfaction, strength, and sustenance. This does not mean, however, that we do not need certain things for our human living. We need various good and useful things, including, for example, education. But we should not allow these things to become our food. We may need them and we may have them, but we should not live on them or by them. Our only food is Christ.
The Christ who is our food is the Christ who has become subjective to us. He is the processed God indwelling our spirit as the all-inclusive Spirit. On the one hand, Christ is in heaven as the Lord of all; on the other hand, He is dwelling in our spirit as the all-inclusive life-giving Spirit. We look to the Lord in the heavens, and we fellowship with the Spirit in our spirit. Praise the Lord that He is within us subjectively! The main purpose for His being so subjective to us is that He may be our food, our life supply. Anything which is to be our food and life supply must be something that can enter into us and then be assimilated by us. It must be taken in and become part of the very tissue and fiber of our being. Christ is subjective to us in precisely this way. In 1 Corinthians 6:17 Paul tells us, “He that is joined unto the Lord is one spirit.” Whenever we eat a certain food, we join ourselves to that food. For example, when I eat fish for dinner, I join myself to the fish. In the same principle, when we eat Christ as our real food, we are joined to Him and become one spirit with Him. Hence, the Christ who is subjective to us, to whom we are joined and with whom we are one spirit, is our food, our heavenly manna. It is crucial for us to see this.
In giving these messages on the book of Exodus, I am not content merely to carry on a Bible study or to pass on teachings to the saints. My desire is that we shall experience all these matters in a way that is actual and practical. Before giving this message, I prayed to the Lord again and again that we all may see our need to live on Him and by Him. We don’t need teachings, doctrines, and Bible knowledge. We need to take Him as our food and to live by Him. Feeding on Christ and living by Him should not be an occasional practice. Rather, it should be the way we live twenty-four hours a day.
During the past months, most of the confession I have made to the Lord has been related to my shortcoming in the matter of living Him by being one spirit with Him. Every day I have had much to confess to the Lord regarding this. Early in the morning I pray, “Lord, grant me today’s portion of grace that I may live You and practice being one spirit with You. ” For about an hour I may be successful in living in one spirit with the Lord. Then I become conscious of the fact that I am no longer one spirit with Him. Thus, I need to confess, ask for the Lord’s forgiveness, and come back to Him. To be one spirit with the Lord is like breathing: it does not happen once for all, but takes place moment by moment.
In my early days I found it difficult to overcome certain besetting sins. Now, by the Lord’s mercy and grace, I am no longer troubled by those sins. What I find difficult today is learning to be continually one spirit with the Lord. This is a very hard lesson to learn. If I myself do not practice being one spirit with the Lord, then my ministry concerning this matter has no reality. Living Christ and living by Christ should not be mere doctrine; it must be our practical daily living. I myself must learn to live this way. In my experience I have discovered that being one spirit with the Lord requires great sensitivity. The besetting sins are coarse and crude, but living in one spirit with the Lord is very delicate and fine.
When I was young, I wondered why the Lord charged us to watch and pray (Matt. 26:41). I wondered what need there was for me to watch. Now I am learning that we need to watch lest we inwardly lose contact with the Lord. We need to be watchful lest we turn off our spiritual switch and become separated from Christ in our experience. In order to be cut off from Christ, we need not do something coarse, such as lose our temper. We can be cut off from Him simply by looking at our husband or wife in a way that is unkind. We need to turn to the Lord, confess, and receive His forgiveness. We even need to ask Him to cleanse our eyes. The reason we have an unkind expression on our face is that we are not at that instant one spirit with the Lord.
Every morning we should ask the Lord to give us the grace to be one spirit with Him for that day. Then we need to exercise to be one spirit with Him in a practical way throughout the day. If we try to practice this, we shall realize that time after time we are no longer one with Him. Our experience may be somewhat like a lamp that, because of some electrical problem, switches off and on unpredictably. I once had such a lamp in my study, and I found it very troublesome. One moment the light was on; the next moment it was off. It would switch off and on all day long. We are often this way in our experience with the Lord. All those who want to live Christ by being one spirit with Him will be troubled by such on-and-off experiences.
As you are getting ready for bed at night, ask the Lord to prepare you to practice being one spirit with Him the next day. If we endeavor to live in oneness with the Lord, we shall discover that taking Christ as our food has been for us largely a matter of doctrine. It is not yet much of a reality in our daily life.
Many Christians know that manna is a type of Christ. But simply to know this as a doctrine does not mean anything. God’s intention is for us to live on Christ all day long. He does not want us to live on anything other than Christ. We need certain things for our living, but they should not become food to us. Christ is our unique diet, and we should live by Him and on Him alone. May our eyes be opened to see this crucial matter.