The tabernacle is good for us to experience, to join to, God, and the offerings are good for us to enjoy and mingle with God. To experience, to join to, God is to enter into the tabernacle. When the Lord Jesus was on earth, people contacted Him. Eventually, the disciples were brought into Him, into the incarnated God. Thus, the tabernacle brings God to us that we may experience, enter into, join to, God.
Both the tabernacle and the offerings signify Christ. The tabernacle signifies that God is in Christ for us to contact, to touch, to experience, to enter into, to join to, God. The offerings are God in Christ for our enjoyment. By enjoying Christ as the offerings we are mingled with God. God in Christ is the tabernacle, the dwelling place, for us to approach, contact, enter, possess, and experience. God in Christ is also all the offerings for us to enjoy Him, to take Him in, and even to eat, digest, and assimilate Him that He may become our constituent. After enjoying the offerings and eating them, we enter into the tabernacle, and there we enjoy all the contents of what God is in Christ. It is a wonderful revelation that the Lord is the tabernacle and the offerings. We can enter into Him, and we can enjoy Him and be mingled with Him.
Christ as the offerings is for our enjoyment because these offerings are edible. They can be eaten not only by God but also by us. We can enjoy and eat Christ with God. This mutual enjoyment can be compared to the mutual enjoyment we have in a feast where we encourage one another to enjoy all the different dishes. This co-enjoyment in a feast is a picture of our enjoying Christ together with God. As we are enjoying Christ in a certain way, we may say, “Father, I would like You also to enjoy this portion of Christ.” Then the Father may reply, “Child, I would like you to enjoy what I am enjoying.” This is the fellowship of mutual enjoyment, the fellowship of co-enjoyment.
Whatever we eat becomes us. If we realize this, we shall see that it is not wise to oppose the divine revelation concerning the mingling of divinity with humanity. Through Christ’s redemption and by His Spirit, Christ’s divine element becomes our food. After we eat this food, it is digested and assimilated to become our fibers and cells. Surely this is a matter of mingling.
The Bible reveals that the creating God became a man, the God-man, and that this man has become the offerings- the burnt offering, the meal offering, the peace offering, the sin offering, the trespass offering, the wave offering, and the heave offering. These offerings have become food to us. This means that God in Christ is edible. God became edible by becoming the offerings. Through our eating of these offerings, the divine element is mingled with humanity. Thus, Christ is not only our dwelling place; He is also our food to enjoy God and be mingled with Him.
Daily we may enjoy not only God’s presence but also His element, His essence, even His edible substance. Paul’s Epistles indicate that Christ is edible, but they do not give us the details concerning the eating of Christ. For the details, we need to come to the book of Leviticus. The Christ revealed in Leviticus is a Christ who is good for eating. Leviticus gives us not only the “groceries” but also the “recipe” for “cooking” Christ.
All the offerings are not only for us to enjoy God but also to have God assimilated into our being. This assimilation results in mingling. We need to realize that we are being mingled with God and that God is mingling Himself with us. The Lord Jesus as the Spirit is in our spirit, and daily He is mingling Himself with us. But this mingling depends on our eating Christ, digesting Christ, and assimilating Christ. Good food may be set before us, but we may eat the food wrongly and thus get indigestion. Likewise, if we eat Christ wrongly, we shall get spiritual indigestion. In such a case, we shall not assimilate Christ. We need to learn how to eat Christ, digest Christ, and assimilate Christ. Then we shall be nourished, strengthened, and mingled with God.
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