THE PLACE FOR GOD’S NAME
In verse 5 Moses utters a very important word: "But unto the place which the Lord your God shall choose out of all your tribes to put His name there, even unto His habitation shall ye seek, and thither thou shalt come." After all the places of pagan worship had been destroyed, God’s people were to go to the place chosen by God. In that unique place God would put His name. God’s name denotes His Person. For His name to be in a particular place means that His Person dwells in that place. This indicates that the unique place of God’s choice was God’s dwelling place, God’s habitation.
A TYPOLOGICAL SIGNIFICANCE
According to the basic principle of the divine revelation in the Scriptures, the record in the Old Testament consists of types, figures, and shadows of matters found in the New Testament. If Deuteronomy 12 consists only of statutes given to the children of Israel, then this chapter cannot be applied to our situation today. However, the statutes recorded in this chapter have a spiritual significance. If we grasp the spiritual significance of these statutes, we shall see that this portion of the Word was written not only for the children of Israel, but also for us today. The Apostle Paul realized that the history of the children of Israel was meant to have a typological significance for believers in the New Testament age. In 1 Corinthians 10:6 he said, "Now these things were types of us" (Gk.). In 1 Corinthians 10:11 he went on to say, "Now all these things happened unto them as types" (Gk.). For this reason, Paul could say in Romans 15:4, "For whatever was written before was written for our instruction."
One of the most important types in the Old Testament is that of the good land, which is a full and complete type of Christ. Furthermore, the enjoyment of the produce of the good land typifies our enjoyment of the unsearchable riches of Christ (Eph. 3:8). Before you came into the church life, you probably never heard about the enjoyment of Christ. This was my situation. I knew that Christ was the Son of God, the Savior, and the Redeemer, but I had never heard that He could also be my enjoyment.
According to typology, the children of Israel first enjoyed the Passover lamb as a type of Christ. First Corinthians 5:7 indicates clearly that the Passover was a type of Christ: "For even Christ our passover is sacrificed for us." After the children of Israel had made their exodus from Egypt, they enjoyed the manna as they wandered in the wilderness. According to 1 Corinthians 10:3 and 4, the manna also was a type of Christ. It typified Christ as our spiritual food, our daily manna. Although some Christians realize that manna is a type of Christ, not many see that the good land is also a type of Christ. Joshua 5:12 says, "And the manna ceased on the morrow after they had eaten of the produce of the land; neither had the children of Israel manna any more; but they did eat of the fruit of the land of Canaan that year" (Heb.). This verse clearly indicates that the manna was replaced by the produce of the good land. If the lamb of the Passover and the manna were types of Christ as enjoyment for God’s people, surely the good land with its rich produce is likewise a type of Christ for our enjoyment. Many of us can testify that only after we came into the church life in the Lord’s recovery did we hear that Christ is the good land for our enjoyment.
(The Genuine Ground of Oneness, Chapter 4, by Witness Lee)
