According to Leviticus 24:9, the bread of the Presence was the most holy of the people’s offerings to Jehovah made by fire. It signifies the surplus of the believers’ experience and enjoyment of Christ offered to God for His satisfaction. This means that the bread of the Presence was God’s food. It was offered to God by His people to be His food. God, however, caused certain loaves to be spared, brought into the Holy Place, and arranged and displayed on the table. Eventually, the priests who served in the Holy Place ate of this bread.
The significance of this matter is that the believers should experience Christ and enjoy Him daily. Then they should bring the Christ they have experienced and enjoyed, and they should offer Him to God for His satisfaction. God will reserve a part of this food for the priests. Suppose no one has this experience and no one makes such an offering to God. Then God would not have any food, and He would not be satisfied. Furthermore, nothing could be spared as a weekly supply for the serving priests. If in the church in your locality no one experiences Christ and enjoys Christ to this extent, then there will not be anything of Christ offered to God. As a result, there will not be the bread of the Presence, and the serving ones will not have any weekly supply.
We today are both the believers and the serving ones, both the people of God and His priests. For this reason, we encourage all the saints to experience and enjoy Christ daily. Then they will have a portion of the Christ experienced by them to bring to the meetings and offer to God for His satisfaction. In a very real sense, this offering is God’s food. God will reserve a portion of this food for the priests who serve Him. They will then display this portion in God’s presence and partake of it as their weekly supply.
The bread of the Presence was on the table within the Holy Place of the tabernacle. This signifies that Christ as the food of God’s priests is for a corporate feasting within God’s dwelling place.
In the meetings of the church we have a particular enjoyment of Christ. Those who stay away from the meetings do not have this enjoyment, although they may enjoy Christ in other aspects. When we are in the tabernacle, in the midst of the built-up saints, we enjoy Christ on the table in God’s dwelling place.
The bread of the Presence on the table signifies a corporate feasting. In the Bible a table always signifies not an individual feasting, but a corporate feasting. In the church life we feast corporately. To be sure, we can have some enjoyment of Christ when we are alone. But this enjoyment cannot compare with feasting with Christ corporately in God’s dwelling place. How rich is our enjoyment of the bread on the table in the tabernacle!
The bread of the Presence was to be eaten in the Holy Place. This means that it is to be partaken of and enjoyed in God’s habitation, the church. It is not possible to have this table outside the church life. This table is found only in the tabernacle, only in God’s habitation.
The display of the bread on the table signifies the life supply. The ark with the cherubim signifies God’s glory, but the table with the bread of the Presence signifies nourishment. In the church life we should have both the testimony and the nourishment. We should have both the ark of God as God’s testimony and the table with the bread of the Presence as nourishment for the priests.
We have seen that both the ark and the table were made of acacia wood overlaid with gold, that both were of the same height, that both had golden rings at the feet, and that both were carried on poles of acacia wood overlaid with gold. These similarities indicate that the table comes out of the experience of the ark. It is always the ark which first issues in the table, not the table which issues in the ark. Eventually, however, in our experience it is difficult to say which is first. The ark issues in the table. But the more we experience the table, the more we shall have of the ark, for the table will always bring us back to the ark. Therefore, the ark issues in the table, and the table brings us back to the ark. This means that Christ as the embodiment of God’s testimony issues in our enjoyment of Him, and that our enjoyment of Him always brings us back to Him as God’s testimony.