The most high God dwells not in temples made with human hands; yet He condescended in the age of types to have a temple erected for Himself, which He called His House, and glorified it with the symbols of His presence. In allusion to this, the Christian community, organized under the government of His Son, is called His House and Temple. “ But Christ as a Son over His own house; whose house are we, if we hold fast the confidence and the rejoicing of the hope firm unto end.” Hebrews 3:6 And again, “Know ye not, that ye are the temple of God, and that the Spirit of God dwells in you?” If any man defile the temple of God, him God shall destroy; for the temple of God is holy; which temple you are.” 1 Corinthians 3:16-17 Again, “Now, therefore, you are no more strangers and foreigners, but fellow-citizens with the saints, and of the household of God. And are built upon the foundation (notice it is singular) of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief corner stone: In whom all the building fitly framed together grows unto an holy temple in the Lord.” Ephesians 2:19-21
In the type, called the Jewish Tabernacle or Temple, the Church of Christ occupies the middle space between the outer court and the holiest of all. “For Christ is not entered into the holy places made with hands, which are the figures of the true; but into heaven itself, now to appear in the presence of God for us.” Hebrews 9:24 The common priests went always into the first tabernacle or holy place, and the high-priest once a year into the holiest of all. Our great High Priest did not go in multiple times, He went in once and for all into the true “holiest of all, into the presence of God, and has permitted us Christians, as a royal priesthood, as a chosen race, to enter always into the only holy place now on earth—the Church of Christ. To know what church is the representative fulfillment of the primal type of Moses, one has but to look at the furniture and elements in the Old Testament “holy place”—and notice it stayed in that place every time the priest came in to worship!!
There is an analogy between the Jewish holy place and the House of God; so there is an analogy between the furniture of the first tabernacle or holy place, and those who officiated in it; and the furniture of the Christian house of God, and those who officiate in her. “In the first tabernacle,” says Paul, “which is called holy, there were the candlestick, and the table, and the showbread,” or also called the “loaves of His presence.” On the golden table every Sabbath day were placed twelve loaves, which exhibited there for one week, and on the next Sabbath they were substituted by twelve fresh fresh loaves sprinkled over with frankincense. The loaves which were removed from the table were eaten by the priests. These were called in the Hebrew “the loaves of the faces,” or the loaves of the presence. This emblem of the abundance of spiritual food in the presence of God for all who dwell in the holy place stood always upon the golden table furnished by the twelve tribes, even in the wilderness. The light in the first tabernacle was not from without, but from the seven lamps placed on the golden candlestick; emblematic of the perfect light, not derived from this world, which is enjoyed in the house of God.
Since the type is the pattern for the anti-type, not only was there a table overlaid with gold, always spread, and on it displayed twelve large loaves—memorials of God’s bounty and grace; in the House that Jesus is head should there not always be spread the table with one loaf, more precious than gold, which would represent the richest meal ever available for the priest who enter there to worship?? Was there ever were a Sabbath where no bread was displayed, a tabernacle in which a table was not spread??
