“And thou shalt take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes thereof: two tenth deals shall be in one cake. And thou shalt set them in two rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before the LORD. And thou shalt put pure frankincense upon each row, that it may be on the bread for a memorial, even an offering made by fire unto the LORD. Every sabbath he shall set it in order before the LORD continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant” (Lev. 24:5-8). “And thou shalt set upon the table showbread before me always” (Exo. 25:30).
After taking care of the offerings, the priests must proceed to spread the showbread in the Holy Place. Christ is not only our life within; He is also our life supply as the bread of life. Thus, we must experience Him as our life supply. This is to spread Christ as the showbread. When we experience Christ as our inner life supply, we will be able to spread Him before others and God. When we come to the meetings or contact those in other places, we can present Christ to them as the inner life. We must go deeper with the Lord and not be so superficial, emotional, and outward. Christ is within us, but we must experience Him as the indwelling One and the hidden One within who is our life supply. And this life supply is to be presented not only as a satisfaction to others, but also as a satisfaction to God.
Some may ask, “What is the real experience of the indwelling Christ?” Allow me to give an illustration which I believe will help. Suppose you are in trouble. If you pray, just asking the Lord to take care of your trouble, then you are an outward Christian, that is, a Christian in the outer court. The Lord is willing to hear this kind of prayer from those who are newly saved. Perhaps, after you pray in this way, the Lord will take away your trouble, and you will shout, “Hallelujah, praise the Lord!” But you are only in the outer court.
However, a time will come when you will be brought into a situation where the more you pray and ask the Lord to take away the trouble, the more trouble you will have. Then you may think that it is better not to pray. Regardless of what you pray, the trouble increases. But this forces you into the Holy Place. It forces you to solve the problem inwardly, not outwardly. The trouble forces you to know the Lord, not only as the ascended Christ, but also as the indwelling Christ.
Do you see why there is trouble after trouble, trial after trial? You may say, “Brother, this is not the gospel, the good news.” But this is really the good news! Trouble after trouble and trial after trial force us to be an inward Christian rather than an outward one. They force us to go deeper with the Lord, causing us to realize that He is not only the resurrected and ascended One, but also the indwelling One. Then we will experience Him as the inner life and the life supply. We will learn that His grace is sufficient (2 Cor. 12:9). The more trouble we have outwardly, the more experiences of Christ we will have inwardly. This will cause us to experience Christ as the inner life supply.
“And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Command the children of Israel, that they bring unto thee pure oil olive beaten for the light, to cause the lamps to burn continually. Without the veil of the testimony, in the tabernacle of the congregation, shall Aaron order it from the evening unto the morning before the LORD continually: it shall be a statute for ever in your generations. He shall order the lamps upon the pure candlestick before the LORD continually” (Lev. 24:1-4).
With the spreading of the showbread in the Holy Place, the priests must light the lamp. The bread is the life, and the lamp is the light. When we have life, this life is the light. “In Him was life, and the life was the light of men” (John 1:4). When we have the experience of Christ as our inner life, this life will be the inner light shining within us. We will not just read the Bible by exercising our mind to gain some knowledge, teaching, or doctrine, but something within will be enlightening. Something within will be shining as the very light of life. This is a deeper item of the priesthood. In the outer court, the priest takes care of the many offerings; in the Holy Place, the priesthood must take care of something deeper, something within, not simply something without. We all must experience these items of Christ in the Holy Place: Christ as the inner life and Christ as the inner light.
When we read the Bible, we must not exercise our mentality too much to understand it. If we understand it too much, it will become the tree of knowledge to us. We must pray-read the Bible and not try to merely understand it mentally. Then, we will be in the priesthood. We must open ourselves to let the Lord fill us, possess us, and occupy us. Then the Word of the Bible will be shining from within, not from the written Word, but from the living Christ. The written Word will shine within through the living Word. Then we will have the inner light, not simply the outward knowledge.
Why should a Christian not go to the movies? Is it because there is a rule demanding that Christians should not go to the movies? That is not the Christian life; that is a religion with rules and regulations. But when we experience Christ as the light of life, something within is enlightening and controlling us by the inner light. This is an inward control, enlightening, and shining, which is typified by the lamp in the Holy Place. The outer court has the outward light of the sunshine, but the Holy Place has the inward light of the lamp. This is the light of life.