Scripture Reading: Exo. 12:3, 8-9; 16:14-16, 31; Num. 11:7; Josh. 5:11-12; Deut. 8:3, 8
Ⅰ
To eat is to contact things outside of us and to receive them into us, with the result that they eventually become our constitution—Gen. 2:16-17.
Ⅱ
God desires that man eat, digest, and assimilate Him; God's intention is that we would receive Him by eating Him—John 1:1, 14; 6:35, 51, 53-58:
A
To eat the Lord Jesus is to receive Him into us that He may be assimilated by the regenerated new man in the way of life—vv. 48, 50, 56-57.
B
Eating implies both dispensing and mingling—Jer. 15:16:
１
Eating is the way to experience God's dispensing for His expression—Gen. 1:26; 2:9.
２
The food eaten, digested, and assimilated by us actually becomes us; this is a matter of mingling—Matt. 4:4.
３
As we eat the Lord Jesus, we need to have proper spiritual digestion; if we have good digestion, there will be a thoroughfare for the food to get into every part of our inward being—Ezek. 2:8—3:3; Jer. 15:16; Rev. 10:9-10; Eph. 3:16-17a.
C
God's economy is that we eat Christ and be constituted with Him in order to express Him and represent Him—1 Tim. 1:4; John 6:35, 51, 57; Gen. 1:26:
１
God's eternal plan is to dispense Himself into us so that He becomes every fiber of our inward being—Col. 3:4, 10-11.
２
God's economy is not a matter of outward things but of Christ coming into us inwardly; for this, we need to take Christ by eating Him—Eph. 3:17a; John 6:57.
Ⅲ
In Egypt, the wilderness, and the good land the people of Israel expe-rienced three stages of eating:
A
In Egypt the people of Israel ate the passover lamb—Exo. 12:3, 8-9:
１
Just as the roasted flesh of the passover lamb was to be eaten for life supply, so we need to eat Christ for our life supply—vv. 8-10; John 6:53, 55-57:
ａ
To solve the problem of the fall of man and to accomplish God's original intention, both life and redemption are needed.
ｂ
God's judicial redemption through the blood of Christ is the procedure to reach God's goal of dispensing Christ as life into us for our organic salvation—Rom. 5:10.
２
The children of Israel were to eat the passover lamb with its head, legs, and inward parts—Exo. 12:9:
ａ
The head signifies wisdom, the legs signify activity and move, and the inward parts signify the inward parts of Christ's being, including His mind, emotion, will, and heart with all their functions.
ｂ
Eating the passover lamb with the head, legs, and inward parts signifies taking Christ in His entirety with His wisdom, His activity and move, and His inward parts—John 6:57; 1 Cor. 1:24; Rev. 14:4b; Phil. 1:8.
B
In the wilderness the people of Israel ate manna—Exo. 16:14-16, 31; Num. 11:7:
１
By giving His people manna to eat, God indicated that His intention was to change their constitution by changing their diet—Exo. 16:14-15:
ａ
In name the children of Israel were not Egyptian, but in nature and in constitution they did not differ from the Egyptians in the least—v. 3.
ｂ
The Egyptian diet denotes all the things we desire to feed on in order to find satisfaction—Num. 11:4-6.
２
God wanted His redeemed people to forget the Egyptian diet and to partake of heavenly food—Deut. 8:3:
ａ
The more manna we eat, the more we correspond to God, are identified with Him, and live and walk according to what He is.
ｂ
What helps us most in our daily living with the Lord is eating Christ as heavenly food; by eating Christ we become Christ; that is, Christ becomes our constituent—John 6:56-58.
C
In Canaan the people of Israel ate the produce of the good land—Josh. 5:11-12:
１
The good land was a land of wheat, barley, vines, fig trees, pomegranates, olive trees with oil, and honey, all of which typify the unsearchable riches of Christ—Deut. 8:8; Eph. 3:8.
２
By enjoying the riches of the good land, the people of Israel conquered the tribes in the land, established the kingdom of God, and built up the temple as God's dwelling place on earth—Josh. 5:11-12.
D
These three stages typify the three stages of the believers' enjoyment of Christ by eating Him—John 6:51-57; 1 Cor. 5:7-8; 10:3-4; Phil. 1:19:
１
By their eating in the first two stages, the believers are energized to leave the world and are constituted with Christ as the heavenly element—John 6:51-57; 1 Cor. 5:7-8; 10:3-4.
２
To reach the goal of God's economy, we need to progress until we enter into the highest stage of eating Christ as the rich produce of the good land so that we may overcome the spiritual enemies, be built up to be God's dwelling place, and establish God's kingdom on earth.
３
As we eat Christ as the produce of the good land, we are constituted with Him and are made the same as Christ in life, nature, and expression for the building up of the church as the Body of Christ—Eph. 4:16.