CHRIST AS OUR LIFE SUPPLY
At the altar in the outer court you can enjoy the meal offering, but it is not so enjoyable as eating of the showbread at the table. At the altar in the outer court there was not a table, but within the tabernacle there was a table. In John 6 we are told that Christ is the bread of life (v. 35), the bread from heaven (v. 50), the bread of God (v. 33), the living bread (v. 51), and the true bread (v. 32). This means that Jesus is the bread on the showbread table for us. You must realize that it is not in the outer court. It is within the tabernacle. It is within the expression of God. Unless you are in the expression of God, you could never enjoy Christ as the showbread on the table.
CHRIST AS THE LIGHT OF LIFE
Once you have been satisfied by eating of the bread on the showbread table, you travel further. The enjoyment of life always turns you to light and always issues in light. When you enjoy Christ, right away you have light within. "In Him was life, and the life was the light of men" (John 1:4). When you enjoy Christ as your life supply you not only get the satisfaction, but also the enlightenment, the light. During the past few months many of us have practiced every morning to take the Lord as our sin offering and trespass offering at the altar. That sin offering and trespass offering brings us to the enjoyment of Christ as our daily life supply. When we enjoy Christ as our daily supply, right away we are under a kind of enlightening. Whatever we do is not in darkness. We live our daily life under the light. This is from the inner life. The inner life within us becomes our inner light.
CHRIST AS THE ARK
From the shining of this light we go onward to enter through the veil and to the ark, which typifies Christ Himself. Within the ark are the two tablets of stone with the Ten Commandments, the pot with the hidden manna, and also Aaron’s rod which budded in resurrection This means that within Him is the divine law, the hidden manna, and the budding life. At this ark you enjoy Christ so much!
You should have had this kind of experience already. When you take Christ as your sin offering and your trespass offering at the cross in the morning, you would be ushered during the day into the enjoyment of Christ at His table. This enjoyment would issue in light, so that you are living and walking in the light. This enlightenment then brings you to the ark, to the inner Christ. This is to enjoy Christ in the inner chambers which is the Holy of Holies. At least a few times you have experienced that when you were walking and living under the light you were full of regulations within. You were regulated by commandment one, commandment two, commandment three, etc. All the Ten Commandments were within you as the law of life regulating you. On the one hand you like to be here because it is so wonderful. But on the other hand you don’t like to be here because you are so restricted. When you enjoy Christ in this way you are really bound. You are not free to lose your temper and be mad with your wife. You are not free to comb your hair the way you want to comb it. Within you there are so many commandments. This is the inner Ten Commandments. In the church life we don’t have even one regulation, but when you enter into the veil, you enter into the Ten Commandments. But don’t consider that this is too hard, because close to the Ten Commandments as the law of life there is a pot with hidden manna to supply you. So to be bound by the Ten Commandments is a kind of enjoyment because you can enjoy the hidden manna. Also when you enjoy the hidden manna something buds. The dead rod buds in life.
(Concerning the Lord's Recovery, Chapter 3, by Witness Lee)
