The Tabernacle lesson four
Continuing with the furnishings in the Holy Place was the Table of Shewbread.
I’m not going to proceed any further with the rebellion of Korah tonight; I’m sure that you have probably read it by now and although we did not get to Leviticus ch.17, I think our purpose was to show who was God’s choice through the budding of Aaron’s rod and we did talk about it last time.
Aaron’s rod budded; when God touches something, life
Springs forth; it blossomed, a life touched by God will have beauty and fragrance; it produced almonds; the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace and so forth. If the Spirit dwells within then there is evidence for all to see, amen? There should be evidence. You’ve got to like people, you just can’t dislike people. If you dislike people…that is not good evidence is it?
Now this whole thing came about when the rebellious uprising took place in the camp of Israel and this was God’s test to show the one He had chosen for the priesthood. Let us never be guilty of this type of thing. Let God do the selecting; it’s not up to us and we need to back God’s choice. Now the Ark was placed in the Holy of Holies or the Holiest place and to this point we have only talked about the furnishings, and the offering, we haven’t yet talked about the tabernacle or its layout. There is a reason for my doing it this way and I think we will see it as we study further.
Moving on in our study from the contents of the Ark, using Exodus ch. 25 as our guide, finds us looking at verses number
23-30 and this is a piece of furniture called the Table of Shewbread. Also called the Table of the Presence.
It is located in the Holy Place which was separated from the Holy of Holies as most of you know by the veil. But let’s get to the Shewbread first.
So let’s read Ex. 25:23-30. And I am reading from the KJV.
23Thou shalt also make a table of shittim wood: two cubits shall be the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof.
24And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, and make thereto a crown of gold round about.
25And thou shalt make unto it a border of an hand breadth round about, and thou shalt make a golden crown to the border thereof round about.
26And thou shalt make for it four rings of gold, and put the rings in the four corners that are on the four feet thereof.
27Over against the border shall the rings be for places of the staves to bear the table.
28And thou shalt make the staves of shittim wood, and overlay them with gold, that the table may be borne with them.
29And thou shalt make the dishes thereof, and spoons thereof, and covers thereof, and bowls thereof, to cover withal: of pure gold shalt thou make them.
30And thou shalt set upon the table shewbread before me alway.
This is the Table, The Table of Showbread of the Tabernacle The table of showbread was a small table made of acacia wood and overlaid with pure gold. It measured 3 feet by 1.5 feet and was 2 feet, 3 inches high. It stood on the right side of the Holy Place across from the lampstand and held 12 loaves of bread, representing the 12 tribes of Israel. The priests baked the bread with fine flour and it remained on the table before the Lord for a week; every Sabbath day the priests would remove it and eat it in the Holy Place, then put fresh bread on the table. Only priests could eat the bread, and it could only be eaten in the Holy Place, because it was holy.
“Showbread” also was called “bread of the presence” because it was to be always in the Lord’s presence. The table and the bread were a picture of God’s willingness to fellowship and communion (literally speaking, sharing something in common) with man. It was like an invitation to share a meal, an extension of friendship. Eating together often is an act of fellowship. God was willing for man to enter into His presence to fellowship with Him and this invitation was always open.
Jesus exemplified this when He ate with tax collectors; to call sinners to Him, make them right with God, so that they could enjoy everlasting fellowship with God.
“I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. … Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die.” (John 6:35, 49-50)
God so desires our fellowship that He was willing to come to earth from heaven as our “bread of life” to give eternal life to all those who would partake in it. At Jesus’ last Passover meal with His disciples, Jesus described Himself as bread again:
“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’” (Matthew 26:26)
Jesus’ broken body is our only access to fellowship with God. Today, we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, or communion, to remember this important truth. And today, as in the day of Moses’ tabernacle, God still desires to have fellowship and sit down for a feast with His people.
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” (Revelations 3:20)
We need to read another portion of scripture from the book of Leviticus in conjunction with the reading from Exodus because it gives us the purpose for the table and that purpose was a place on which to put the bread. Sometimes called “the bread of the face” (that’s what the shewbread means) it is also referred to as “bread of laying out” as well as “bread of His Presence” This is the bread.
Leviticus 24:5-9 5 and thou shalt take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes thereof: two tenth deals shall be in one cake. The measure is always the same amount.
6And thou shalt set them in two rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before the LORD. (Notice it is a pure table)
7And 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. (again it is pure frankincense).
8Every Sabbath he shall set it in order before the LORD continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant.
9And it shall be Aaron's and his sons'; and they shall eat it in the holy place: for it is most holy unto him of the offerings of the LORD made by fire by a perpetual statute.
This is the bread…At this point it is difficult to decide whether to continue to study the furniture in the Holy Place and then the Tabernacle, the Laver, the Brazen Altar and the Outer Court or to start from the outside and work inward. What we must remember is that God builds His Temple in US; His temple will be a completed temple, not a half-built temple, and not a defiled temple. God said to Moses in Exodus ch. 25 here where we have been reading: “According to all that I am going to show you, as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of its furniture, just so you shall construct it.” NRSV. This is to be our Christian experience…the pattern…sticks to the pattern and so as we look into the furnishings and all that it entails, we need to remember that God expects perfection from us just as He demanded for His Temple when He gave Moses the pattern.
Whoa! This is getting much too heavy now. What do I mean when I say perfection? Look at Ephesians 4:13. (read this verse from the amplified Bible also). “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man,” (in the Greek which language this was written in the word for man is telios) and it means maturity, full grown, consummate human integrity and virtue, full age. Looking at that scripture again, it talks about the knowledge of the Son of God. We do achieve maturity by knowing the Son of God, amen? That is the only way it can happen, knowing Jesus. We must strive for and live to be that perfect, mature, full grown man / woman that God expects us to be. I haven’t met too many who can say they have arrived yet. In fact if I did meet that person, I would be suspicious of their claim. Humility is a mark of maturity I think. However we should not be in the same place in our journey as we were a year ago. Should we? We must enter in to a walk with God that leads to a more intimate relationship with Him and a more mature relationship. Paul said it in Philippians chapter 3 beginning at verse 1 through verse 21 and we will read from the NRSV. Here is the key found in verse 13 “Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, verse 14 I press on” “I press on” says Paul. And that is how we come to mature in Him, amen? We press on.
We are studying this subject with the knowledge that God came to man first and foremost, not the other way around and that is the reason that we have started from the inside - In the Holy of Holies and work outward. After all isn’t that what happens in our lives? God in Christ (the Ark) comes in and does a work on the inside that changes us so that we reflect His beauty on the outside? He doesn’t change the outside first.
I want to say something here for the record and that is this: I have stated emphatically that Jesus was man and He lived without operating as God (that is, He laid aside His Deity to become a man so that He could taste death for every man) but
let me clarify just in case you may have missed this all important declaration…He is also God and He is the Son of the Living God. How many believe this is truth? I do not want to infer in any way that Jesus is just a man, albeit a perfect man, He is still God. God in the flesh, incarnate…”God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.” And He has given you and me tonight the power or the right or the privilege to become the sons of God! I FELT THAT I MUST CLARIFY MY POSITION IN CASE THERE IS ANY DOUBTS WHATSOEVER AS FAR AS MY BELIEVING IN THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. HE was and is GOD ALMIGHTY.
We need to get to the Table of Shewbread, the Bread of His Presence. The Table was made from the same materials as the Ark. The Acacia wood which came from a tree (Emily) and the gold which came from Egypt. There is something we need to observe about the table that is significant in the observation of the Ark and that is this: the Ark was made to contain and preserve what was inside and the Table was made to uphold and expose that which was placed upon it. A crown of gold AND A MOULDING was all the way around the top to keep the bread from falling off and becoming defiled. Jude verse 24 says, “Now unto Him who is able to keep you from falling (or stumbling) NKJV, And to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy…
The New Revised Standard Version puts it this way…to make you stand without blemish in the presence of His glory…” (repeat) Verse 25 goes on to say, “to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. He wants us to be without blemish…you can’t be without blemish if you have a gossiping tongue. You can’t be without blemish if you harbor hatred or lustful thoughts, you can’t stand without blemish if you have an unforgiving spirit. You can’t stand without blemish if you don’t love your brother or your sister
I don’t know if any of these apply to anyone here or not. What I do know is we can’t stand without blemish if we harbor sin in our lives. I point the finger tonight at myself. The Bread of the Presence was continually before His face. What does this signify?
While this Table is first and foremost symbolic of our Lord Jesus Christ, it also includes the Church…you can’t separate the Head from the body and as a picture of the church, God is saying “you need food for your journey; here it is on the Table, which is Christ…the Table is Christ and the Bread is Christ.
We need the fellowship that the Table affords, amen? That is why the family eats at the table is it not? For fellowship…you can’t get it watching tv and eating off a tray…you need to sit at the table where you not only receive food for strength but you have fellowship. The family interacts around the table and develops a bond there. I remember wonderful times of fellowship around our table when I was growing up. It was a great time of fellowship and that is what the Table represents. It was a time of partaking and the showbread like the manna is partaking of our Lord Jesus Christ. The purpose of this table then was to uphold 12 cakes of bred…representing the twelve tribes and also the twelve apostles which again represents the church,. An elaborate piece of furniture some may think just to hold up 12 cakes of bread…it is what it represents. God gave His very, very best to redeem mankind. He gave His only begotten Son for you and for me tonight.
The table had two crowns on it. Read Ex. 25:24, 25.
One border, the width of a hand, went around the top of the table. Jesus, being God and yet as a man, was able to say in John’s gospel chapter 17, verse 4b, “I have finished the work which you gave Me to do.” The hand width signifies the effort and accomplishment of the human pat with His dependence on the Divine part…remember He laid aside His Divine attributes so that He needed to depend upon the Divine part.
In verse 5 of John 17, Jesus said “And now, O Father, glorify me with thine own self with the glory which I had with You before the world was” This is represented in the crown of gold on the Table. Read Phil.2:9-11. Then Heb.2:7-9.
The crown was all gold: ALL OF GOD. It is because of this exalted, immovable, everlasting crown position that we have assurance – 2 Tim. 1:12 B, John 10: 27 – 30.
The crown provided security for the bread which was continually before His face. Shewbread, bread of face was set before the face of God in security, acceptance and holiness. There were 12 cakes, the word cakes comes from CHALLOTH, which means pierced cakes. They were pierced to allow quick and thorough baking. These challoth were done by being quickly baked in a hot oven.
At Calvary- Jesus was pierced and passed through the fierce oven of God’s judgment and He became the bread of Life -- the sustainer and satisfier of all who feed on Him.
I mentioned before that there were these 12 cakes- they represent the 12 tribes as well as the 12 apostles- which represent the church. This is a picture of the old covenant being united with the new. When the priests ate of the bitter frankincense and drank of the wine they were looking ahead to the cross- to Jesus’ death on the cross. Acts 26:7 Paul refers to the 12 tribes.
The frankincense is referred to as a vegetable of the purest and whitest kind. It was bitter to the taste. It is said that the frankincense aroma filled the room – keeping bugs, ants and other creatures away from the bread. Being bitter when the priests ate the bread it was as the Passover – with bitter herbs – it was truly a bitter experience for Jesus to go His sufferings.
We need to remember His sufferings. Paul speaks of the fellowship of His sufferings that we read earlier in Phil. 3.
Let us never forget Gethsemane and Calvary.
When we read from the book of Ex.. at the opening of our study in the 25th chapter – where it talks about the table – it also speaks about the plates and dishes for incense and the flagons and chalices which to pour out drink offerings.
These represent the vessels of honor – which we are to be unto Him. 2 Tim 2: 20 -21, Zach 14:20, Titus 2:12. It is only as we live holy unto God and have a holy relation with one and another can we be fit for the Masters dwelling place.
There were no chairs because the priests were required to eat standing up so they could continue to serve God and the people. You cannot serve God and neglect the people.
As on the Passover night they were to eat the lamb while standing with their shoes on, their loins girded and their staff in hand so that they were always ready to go. Even so every priest must still eat for strength, fellowship and service.
For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do show the Lord’s death till he comes 1 Cor. 11:26.
The call to move the tabernacle could come at any moment, the rapture of the church could come at any moment. I have already referred to this table as being a table of fellowship. The fellowship was as the priests gathered around the table and ate together, it was fellowship with God and one another. This signifies unity in the body of Christ. Jesus prayed John 17:21 that they all may be one -- As you Father are in Me and I in You.
Around the table they found communion with God and each other because they ate the same bread at the same table. Remember that Jesus is the TABLE and He Is the BREAD.
The more we feed on Him, the more we draw nigh to Him, the more we have fellowship and draw closer to one another.
Lastly at this table where the priests are fellowshipping and partaking together we will find Jesus to be our supply, our security, our sustenance and our sanctification. We can say with the hymn writer – He is ALL I need, JESUS is ALL I need.
Next week the CANDLESTICK.
Continuing with the furnishings in the Holy Place was the Table of Shewbread.
I’m not going to proceed any further with the rebellion of Korah tonight; I’m sure that you have probably read it by now and although we did not get to Leviticus ch.17, I think our purpose was to show who was God’s choice through the budding of Aaron’s rod and we did talk about it last time.
Aaron’s rod budded; when God touches something, life
Springs forth; it blossomed, a life touched by God will have beauty and fragrance; it produced almonds; the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace and so forth. If the Spirit dwells within then there is evidence for all to see, amen? There should be evidence. You’ve got to like people, you just can’t dislike people. If you dislike people…that is not good evidence is it?
Now this whole thing came about when the rebellious uprising took place in the camp of Israel and this was God’s test to show the one He had chosen for the priesthood. Let us never be guilty of this type of thing. Let God do the selecting; it’s not up to us and we need to back God’s choice. Now the Ark was placed in the Holy of Holies or the Holiest place and to this point we have only talked about the furnishings, and the offering, we haven’t yet talked about the tabernacle or its layout. There is a reason for my doing it this way and I think we will see it as we study further.
Moving on in our study from the contents of the Ark, using Exodus ch. 25 as our guide, finds us looking at verses number
23-30 and this is a piece of furniture called the Table of Shewbread. Also called the Table of the Presence.
It is located in the Holy Place which was separated from the Holy of Holies as most of you know by the veil. But let’s get to the Shewbread first.
So let’s read Ex. 25:23-30. And I am reading from the KJV.
23Thou shalt also make a table of shittim wood: two cubits shall be the length thereof, and a cubit the breadth thereof, and a cubit and a half the height thereof.
24And thou shalt overlay it with pure gold, and make thereto a crown of gold round about.
25And thou shalt make unto it a border of an hand breadth round about, and thou shalt make a golden crown to the border thereof round about.
26And thou shalt make for it four rings of gold, and put the rings in the four corners that are on the four feet thereof.
27Over against the border shall the rings be for places of the staves to bear the table.
28And thou shalt make the staves of shittim wood, and overlay them with gold, that the table may be borne with them.
29And thou shalt make the dishes thereof, and spoons thereof, and covers thereof, and bowls thereof, to cover withal: of pure gold shalt thou make them.
30And thou shalt set upon the table shewbread before me alway.
This is the Table, The Table of Showbread of the Tabernacle The table of showbread was a small table made of acacia wood and overlaid with pure gold. It measured 3 feet by 1.5 feet and was 2 feet, 3 inches high. It stood on the right side of the Holy Place across from the lampstand and held 12 loaves of bread, representing the 12 tribes of Israel. The priests baked the bread with fine flour and it remained on the table before the Lord for a week; every Sabbath day the priests would remove it and eat it in the Holy Place, then put fresh bread on the table. Only priests could eat the bread, and it could only be eaten in the Holy Place, because it was holy.
“Showbread” also was called “bread of the presence” because it was to be always in the Lord’s presence. The table and the bread were a picture of God’s willingness to fellowship and communion (literally speaking, sharing something in common) with man. It was like an invitation to share a meal, an extension of friendship. Eating together often is an act of fellowship. God was willing for man to enter into His presence to fellowship with Him and this invitation was always open.
Jesus exemplified this when He ate with tax collectors; to call sinners to Him, make them right with God, so that they could enjoy everlasting fellowship with God.
“I am the bread of life. He who comes to me will never go hungry, and he who believes in me will never be thirsty. … Your forefathers ate the manna in the desert, yet they died. But here is the bread that comes down from heaven, which a man may eat and not die.” (John 6:35, 49-50)
God so desires our fellowship that He was willing to come to earth from heaven as our “bread of life” to give eternal life to all those who would partake in it. At Jesus’ last Passover meal with His disciples, Jesus described Himself as bread again:
“While they were eating, Jesus took bread, gave thanks and broke it, and gave it to his disciples, saying, ‘Take and eat; this is my body.’” (Matthew 26:26)
Jesus’ broken body is our only access to fellowship with God. Today, we celebrate the Lord’s Supper, or communion, to remember this important truth. And today, as in the day of Moses’ tabernacle, God still desires to have fellowship and sit down for a feast with His people.
“Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with him, and he with me.” (Revelations 3:20)
We need to read another portion of scripture from the book of Leviticus in conjunction with the reading from Exodus because it gives us the purpose for the table and that purpose was a place on which to put the bread. Sometimes called “the bread of the face” (that’s what the shewbread means) it is also referred to as “bread of laying out” as well as “bread of His Presence” This is the bread.
Leviticus 24:5-9 5 and thou shalt take fine flour, and bake twelve cakes thereof: two tenth deals shall be in one cake. The measure is always the same amount.
6And thou shalt set them in two rows, six on a row, upon the pure table before the LORD. (Notice it is a pure table)
7And 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. (again it is pure frankincense).
8Every Sabbath he shall set it in order before the LORD continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant.
9And it shall be Aaron's and his sons'; and they shall eat it in the holy place: for it is most holy unto him of the offerings of the LORD made by fire by a perpetual statute.
This is the bread…At this point it is difficult to decide whether to continue to study the furniture in the Holy Place and then the Tabernacle, the Laver, the Brazen Altar and the Outer Court or to start from the outside and work inward. What we must remember is that God builds His Temple in US; His temple will be a completed temple, not a half-built temple, and not a defiled temple. God said to Moses in Exodus ch. 25 here where we have been reading: “According to all that I am going to show you, as the pattern of the tabernacle and the pattern of its furniture, just so you shall construct it.” NRSV. This is to be our Christian experience…the pattern…sticks to the pattern and so as we look into the furnishings and all that it entails, we need to remember that God expects perfection from us just as He demanded for His Temple when He gave Moses the pattern.
Whoa! This is getting much too heavy now. What do I mean when I say perfection? Look at Ephesians 4:13. (read this verse from the amplified Bible also). “Till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a perfect man,” (in the Greek which language this was written in the word for man is telios) and it means maturity, full grown, consummate human integrity and virtue, full age. Looking at that scripture again, it talks about the knowledge of the Son of God. We do achieve maturity by knowing the Son of God, amen? That is the only way it can happen, knowing Jesus. We must strive for and live to be that perfect, mature, full grown man / woman that God expects us to be. I haven’t met too many who can say they have arrived yet. In fact if I did meet that person, I would be suspicious of their claim. Humility is a mark of maturity I think. However we should not be in the same place in our journey as we were a year ago. Should we? We must enter in to a walk with God that leads to a more intimate relationship with Him and a more mature relationship. Paul said it in Philippians chapter 3 beginning at verse 1 through verse 21 and we will read from the NRSV. Here is the key found in verse 13 “Beloved, I do not consider that I have made it my own; but one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, verse 14 I press on” “I press on” says Paul. And that is how we come to mature in Him, amen? We press on.
We are studying this subject with the knowledge that God came to man first and foremost, not the other way around and that is the reason that we have started from the inside - In the Holy of Holies and work outward. After all isn’t that what happens in our lives? God in Christ (the Ark) comes in and does a work on the inside that changes us so that we reflect His beauty on the outside? He doesn’t change the outside first.
I want to say something here for the record and that is this: I have stated emphatically that Jesus was man and He lived without operating as God (that is, He laid aside His Deity to become a man so that He could taste death for every man) but
let me clarify just in case you may have missed this all important declaration…He is also God and He is the Son of the Living God. How many believe this is truth? I do not want to infer in any way that Jesus is just a man, albeit a perfect man, He is still God. God in the flesh, incarnate…”God was in Christ reconciling the world unto Himself.” And He has given you and me tonight the power or the right or the privilege to become the sons of God! I FELT THAT I MUST CLARIFY MY POSITION IN CASE THERE IS ANY DOUBTS WHATSOEVER AS FAR AS MY BELIEVING IN THE DIVINITY OF CHRIST. HE was and is GOD ALMIGHTY.
We need to get to the Table of Shewbread, the Bread of His Presence. The Table was made from the same materials as the Ark. The Acacia wood which came from a tree (Emily) and the gold which came from Egypt. There is something we need to observe about the table that is significant in the observation of the Ark and that is this: the Ark was made to contain and preserve what was inside and the Table was made to uphold and expose that which was placed upon it. A crown of gold AND A MOULDING was all the way around the top to keep the bread from falling off and becoming defiled. Jude verse 24 says, “Now unto Him who is able to keep you from falling (or stumbling) NKJV, And to present you faultless before the presence of His glory with exceeding joy…
The New Revised Standard Version puts it this way…to make you stand without blemish in the presence of His glory…” (repeat) Verse 25 goes on to say, “to the only God our Savior, through Jesus Christ our Lord, be glory, majesty, power and authority, before all time and now and forever. Amen. He wants us to be without blemish…you can’t be without blemish if you have a gossiping tongue. You can’t be without blemish if you harbor hatred or lustful thoughts, you can’t stand without blemish if you have an unforgiving spirit. You can’t stand without blemish if you don’t love your brother or your sister
I don’t know if any of these apply to anyone here or not. What I do know is we can’t stand without blemish if we harbor sin in our lives. I point the finger tonight at myself. The Bread of the Presence was continually before His face. What does this signify?
While this Table is first and foremost symbolic of our Lord Jesus Christ, it also includes the Church…you can’t separate the Head from the body and as a picture of the church, God is saying “you need food for your journey; here it is on the Table, which is Christ…the Table is Christ and the Bread is Christ.
We need the fellowship that the Table affords, amen? That is why the family eats at the table is it not? For fellowship…you can’t get it watching tv and eating off a tray…you need to sit at the table where you not only receive food for strength but you have fellowship. The family interacts around the table and develops a bond there. I remember wonderful times of fellowship around our table when I was growing up. It was a great time of fellowship and that is what the Table represents. It was a time of partaking and the showbread like the manna is partaking of our Lord Jesus Christ. The purpose of this table then was to uphold 12 cakes of bred…representing the twelve tribes and also the twelve apostles which again represents the church,. An elaborate piece of furniture some may think just to hold up 12 cakes of bread…it is what it represents. God gave His very, very best to redeem mankind. He gave His only begotten Son for you and for me tonight.
The table had two crowns on it. Read Ex. 25:24, 25.
One border, the width of a hand, went around the top of the table. Jesus, being God and yet as a man, was able to say in John’s gospel chapter 17, verse 4b, “I have finished the work which you gave Me to do.” The hand width signifies the effort and accomplishment of the human pat with His dependence on the Divine part…remember He laid aside His Divine attributes so that He needed to depend upon the Divine part.
In verse 5 of John 17, Jesus said “And now, O Father, glorify me with thine own self with the glory which I had with You before the world was” This is represented in the crown of gold on the Table. Read Phil.2:9-11. Then Heb.2:7-9.
The crown was all gold: ALL OF GOD. It is because of this exalted, immovable, everlasting crown position that we have assurance – 2 Tim. 1:12 B, John 10: 27 – 30.
The crown provided security for the bread which was continually before His face. Shewbread, bread of face was set before the face of God in security, acceptance and holiness. There were 12 cakes, the word cakes comes from CHALLOTH, which means pierced cakes. They were pierced to allow quick and thorough baking. These challoth were done by being quickly baked in a hot oven.
At Calvary- Jesus was pierced and passed through the fierce oven of God’s judgment and He became the bread of Life -- the sustainer and satisfier of all who feed on Him.
I mentioned before that there were these 12 cakes- they represent the 12 tribes as well as the 12 apostles- which represent the church. This is a picture of the old covenant being united with the new. When the priests ate of the bitter frankincense and drank of the wine they were looking ahead to the cross- to Jesus’ death on the cross. Acts 26:7 Paul refers to the 12 tribes.
The frankincense is referred to as a vegetable of the purest and whitest kind. It was bitter to the taste. It is said that the frankincense aroma filled the room – keeping bugs, ants and other creatures away from the bread. Being bitter when the priests ate the bread it was as the Passover – with bitter herbs – it was truly a bitter experience for Jesus to go His sufferings.
We need to remember His sufferings. Paul speaks of the fellowship of His sufferings that we read earlier in Phil. 3.
Let us never forget Gethsemane and Calvary.
When we read from the book of Ex.. at the opening of our study in the 25th chapter – where it talks about the table – it also speaks about the plates and dishes for incense and the flagons and chalices which to pour out drink offerings.
These represent the vessels of honor – which we are to be unto Him. 2 Tim 2: 20 -21, Zach 14:20, Titus 2:12. It is only as we live holy unto God and have a holy relation with one and another can we be fit for the Masters dwelling place.
There were no chairs because the priests were required to eat standing up so they could continue to serve God and the people. You cannot serve God and neglect the people.
As on the Passover night they were to eat the lamb while standing with their shoes on, their loins girded and their staff in hand so that they were always ready to go. Even so every priest must still eat for strength, fellowship and service.
For as often as ye eat this bread and drink this cup ye do show the Lord’s death till he comes 1 Cor. 11:26.
The call to move the tabernacle could come at any moment, the rapture of the church could come at any moment. I have already referred to this table as being a table of fellowship. The fellowship was as the priests gathered around the table and ate together, it was fellowship with God and one another. This signifies unity in the body of Christ. Jesus prayed John 17:21 that they all may be one -- As you Father are in Me and I in You.
Around the table they found communion with God and each other because they ate the same bread at the same table. Remember that Jesus is the TABLE and He Is the BREAD.
The more we feed on Him, the more we draw nigh to Him, the more we have fellowship and draw closer to one another.
Lastly at this table where the priests are fellowshipping and partaking together we will find Jesus to be our supply, our security, our sustenance and our sanctification. We can say with the hymn writer – He is ALL I need, JESUS is ALL I need.
Next week the CANDLESTICK.
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