What is the experience of the eating of the showbread table? In the Old Testament, Exodus chapter 25 presents a picture of how we engage with the table spiritually today:
And you shall set the bread of the Presence upon the table before Me always. (v. 30)
Today, as believers, the showbread table and its contents are everything about how we can eat, see, and enjoy the Lord. Our churching as New Testament priests today is the reality and expansion of the tabernacle in Exodus (1 Pet. 2:5; 9). According to Hebrews, we have a “new and living way” through Christ to experience the fulfillment of the tabernacle in each item, from the showbread table to the lampstand, to directly meet our God face to face. Although we no longer rely on the physical table and bread before us, every time we come to the Lord to remember Him and His words we should have the reality of the bread of the Presence.
What is this bread in the Holy Place? It’s a bread of the Presence. This word in Hebrew, “pānîm,” means “face.” In other words, we are not just eating before the Lord, but eating His very Person; by eating this “face- bread,” we receive the face of the Lord Himself. In the book of John, the Lord Jesus reveals that He is this very bread: “Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life” (6:35). This eating at the table is not only for enjoyment, but is also to receive Him. As we eat this living bread, we are in fellowship with Him — we abide in Him and He in us (v. 56). This bread is a Person, and eating of this Person makes us one with Him.
While we eat this bread at the table, it is here that we also receive light — the bread and the lampstand are experienced together in the Holy Place. When you see a person’s face, you see certain attributes of that person shown through their face. In the same way, when we come to the Lord’s words as the bread, they reveal who He is — His attributes are made known to us as a lamp, or light, in our being (2 Pet. 1:19). The Lord’s face is bright. By receiving His words we, too, become bright, reflecting His image and likeness. Our Lord is the goal and the substance of our eating, and this eating transfuses His face — which is His image and likeness — into us. When we come to the table in this way, who He is gets into us; He mingles with us.
The more we eat from this showbread table, the more Christ becomes our constitution. Every time we open the Bible, we come to the showbread table, and it is here that our true eating or fellowship with the Lord’s words will render a result: we become constituted with Him, expressing who He is as our testimony. The Lord is personified, shining, in us. In this proper eating at the table, we experience the Holy Place — we have the bread of His presence and the shining of the lampstand — the word and the light make us bright people in this tabernacling, our churching together. And this is the ultimate satisfaction to Him — a well-pleasing fragrance from the incense altar. In this all-in-one experience of the Lord’s Person — in this true mingling and satisfaction between God and man — we become an entrance for others into the tabernacle.
Today, are you hungry? Enter in, eat of the bread, receive the light and be satisfied! Come to the table. There, you will find the living bread, the face of Christ in His words, as a light rising up in you. And this eating and shining and the sweet savor that is the experience of the tabernacle today. Our face, shining from eating this living bread, becomes the expression, the testimony of His image and likeness to lead others into His presence as New Testament priests in this age. As we eat this Person, we shine and serve as the lampstand for others to enter into this churching, which is where God is realized among us as the reality of the tabernacle today.
(Above are notes of fellowship taken from a gathering on 1/21/2023, not reviewed by the speaker.)