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Scripture Reading: Gen. 1:1, 26-27; 50:26; Exo. 1:1; 40:34, 38; Lev. 1:1-17; 6:8-13; Heb. 10:5-7; 9:14a; Phil. 2:7-8
The first important matter in regard to seeing Christ as the reality is to realize that Christ is the reality by which we worship God. In the universe the relationship between man and God is man’s worship to God. Whatever we are and whatever we do must be for the worship to God. So when we mention worship to God, it includes all these things.
To take Christ as our reality means to take Christ as our being, our doing, our living, and even as our worship to God. I believe that we know something of Christ as reality in a general way, but we are not so clear concerning Christ as reality in details. This has been buried in the Bible for centuries. Although it is in the Bible, it has never been adequately discovered and unveiled. But I believe that in these last days this very thing has been more and more opened up to us. It has been more than ever before discovered and unveiled. So we need to spend some time to see Christ in the pages of the Old Testament as well as the New Testament. The New Testament is so simple and brief, whereas the Old Testament gives us a picture in detail. Just in the one book of Leviticus, we can see all the details of Christ as the reality to us by which we worship God.
In the above verses we have read both the first and last verses of Genesis and Exodus before coming to Leviticus. This is quite meaningful. In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth, and of course, God created man. Man was created by God to express God Himself and to represent God for His dominion. Man was the center of God’s creation to express Him and to represent Him. But at the end of the book of Genesis, we see that the man created by God died and was put into a coffin in Egypt. How poor and pitiful! If this were the end of the Scriptures, we all would be finished. But this is not the ultimate consummation. After Genesis there is Exodus. There is a way out, an exit — praise the Lord! But the beginning of Exodus is not as glorious as the beginning of Genesis. At the beginning of Genesis, God created the heavens, the earth, and man. This is wonderful. But man fell, died, and was put into a coffin in Egypt. Then Exodus begins with all the children of Israel in Egypt. Everyone, without exception, was in Egypt. How poor! But how glorious when we reach the end of Exodus. Instead of a coffin, there is a tabernacle. Instead of a dead corpse, there is the shekinah glory of God. The coffin was individualistic, whereas the tabernacle is corporate. In Exodus 27:21 the tabernacle is referred to as the Tent of Meeting. I really like this term meeting. It is not a tent of individuals but a Tent of Meeting.
In Exodus there was a Tent of Meeting for God’s dwelling. He was no longer just in the heavens; He was also on the earth in the Tent of Meeting. When we come to the book of Leviticus, we find that God speaks out of the Tent of Meeting. On Mount Sinai, God spoke from the heavens, but since God has a Tent of Meeting on the earth, He can speak out of it. This is marvelous! Out of all the coffins, God raised up a people and brought them out of Egypt to build them together to become the Tent of Meeting.
Where were we before we were saved? We were just in a coffin. And we were not in a corporate coffin but in so many separate and individualistic coffins in the world. All the young brothers and sisters and all the older ones were in the same situation. We were all “in a coffin in Egypt.” But, Hallelujah, the day came when the Lord called us out of the coffins and brought us out of the world! We had a real exodus. And now He has brought us together in the Tent of Meeting. Today we can all declare that there is a Tent of Meeting in Los Angeles! There is no need for God to speak out of the heavens because He has a Tent of Meeting. The Lord is speaking today out of the local churches, and the local churches are the Tents of Meeting.
After God’s creation and the fall of man, through His redemption, there is a Tent of Meeting. This is so marvelous to me! I am so excited because I see the Tent of Meeting! We should never be disappointed or defeated, because we have the Tent of Meeting. The Tent of Meeting is a glorious victory over all the deadening works of Satan. God is so victorious and successful. We should all be excited, and we should excite others. Just look at the people today in the world. Everybody has such a sad face, and they are all so disappointed, but we are so happy and excited. Praise the Lord, today in the city of Los Angeles, in the district of Hollywood, there is a Tent of Meeting!
After Exodus we need the book of Leviticus, because in the Tent of Meeting, God wants to enjoy Christ as the reality. This is all that God is doing in the Tent of Meeting. He just wants to enjoy Christ as the reality in every aspect. This is why after Exodus, there is the need of Leviticus. Leviticus tells us how God enjoys Christ as everything in the Tent of Meeting.
How can God enjoy Christ? It must be by our cooperation. If God has a Tent of Meeting on the earth and Christ is everything to God as reality, yet there is no man to offer Christ to God, this means that there is no human cooperation. Let me illustrate it in this way: Suppose there is a kitchen stocked with abundant food. What then do we need? A cook! But God is not the cook — we are! We must cook the food, and eventually God will come to be the co-eater with us. Generally, in the family, only the wives cook. The husbands, then, are the co-eaters with their wives. This is exactly the same situation with God and man in the Tent of Meeting.
At the Tent of Meeting there is no arduous labor but continual cooking and eating. Leviticus is a book of the church life in the meeting, because it covers all the things related to the Tent of Meeting. We are the Tent of Meeting, and we are simply meeting people. We must meet all the time, morning and evening. How wonderful it would be if we could do nothing but meet all the time every day! And in the meeting we just cook and eat. We do the cooking, and God eats with us.
And what is the food for all our cooking and eating with God? It is Christ! We may say that Leviticus is a book of the church meetings, and we may also call Leviticus a book of recipes. All the wives who cook have a recipe book. Leviticus is a recipe book telling us how to “cook” Christ. It tells us how to feed and satisfy God by “cooking” Christ. God is hungry! But praise the Lord that God has raised up the local churches as real “kitchens.” Now God is waiting for all of us to cook Christ in many ways to satisfy Him and to satisfy us. We need to read Leviticus again and again. All the things mentioned in this book are about Christ. By this book we can learn how to cook Christ to satisfy God.
In Exodus the Tent of Meeting, the tabernacle, which is just the enlarged Christ, was set up. In the tabernacle, the Ark is the center and the content, and the Ark is just Christ Himself. The Ark is the vessel that contains the Ten Commandments of God, and the Ten Commandments are the very expression and representation of God. This means that the Ark contains God as the content to be expressed. The Ark is composed of two kinds of materials: wood overlaid with gold. Gold and wood typify the two natures — the divine nature and the human nature. This is Christ. Christ is of both the divine and human natures. He contains God within Himself as the very center and content of the tabernacle.
The tabernacle is a larger vessel, also made of two main materials — wood overlaid with gold. This reveals that the tabernacle is just the enlargement of the Ark, the increase of the Ark. When the Ark is enlarged, it is the tabernacle. This means that when Christ is enlarged, He becomes the church. The church is just the enlargement of Christ. Strictly speaking, the church is also Christ (1 Cor. 12:12). The Ark is the individual Christ, and the tabernacle is the corporate Christ. Praise the Lord that we have Christ enlarged on the earth as the Tent of Meeting, and in this Tent of Meeting there is the dwelling of God. God dwells in the enlarged Christ, and God speaks out of the enlarged Christ. We need to realize that this enlarged Christ includes all of us. We are the increase of Christ, so we are the Tent of Meeting. The Tent of Meeting is just the enlarged Christ in a corporate way.
The Tent of Meeting brings God to the earth. God is no longer in the heavens; He is here in the Tent of Meeting. Christ enlarged as the Tent of Meeting brings God to the earth. “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God...And the Word became flesh and tabernacled among us” (John 1:1, 14). He as the Word was God, and one day this Word became flesh to tabernacle among us and bring God from heaven to earth in the Tent of Meeting. Today God is in the Tent of Meeting. This is clearly seen in 1 Corinthians 14 where people coming into the Tent of Meeting of the local church say “that indeed God is among you” (v. 25). God today is in the Tent of Meeting, and this Tent of Meeting is just Christ enlarged. Christ enlarged brings God to the earth.
This is only one part. Christ is not only the Tent of Meeting; He is also all the offerings. He is the tabernacle, and He is also all the offerings. The tabernacle brings God to man, and the offerings bring man to God. This is not one-way traffic but coming and going in two ways. Christ comes as the tabernacle, and Christ goes as the offering. Christ comes to us with God, and Christ goes back to God with us. In other words, by His coming, He brings God to us, and by His going, He brings us to God.
We are sinful, but Christ as the tabernacle has brought God to us. We also need Christ as the offerings to bring us to God. The shekinah glory of God is in the Tent of Meeting, but how can we approach it? We need the offerings. Christ as the offerings brings us to God.
As the tabernacle, Christ is the means by which God is joined to us. However, the tabernacle cannot be mingled with us, but only joined to us. But Christ as the offerings can be mingled with us. All the offerings are to be eaten and assimilated by us. By assimilation the food is mingled with us. The offerings are so that Christ can be mingled with us. By this we have more subjective experiences of Christ. Christ is not merely joined to us but mingled and blended with us. He said in John 6:57, “He who eats Me, he also shall live because of Me.” We become what we eat. After eating a chicken, the chicken becomes a part of us. In Leviticus nearly all the offerings are good for eating. Whatever we offer to God is God’s food as well as our food. This is the way that Christ brings us to God.
God is now in the Tent of Meeting, but we need to present Christ as all the offerings so that we may contact God. We need to present Christ to God as all kinds of presents. Christ as the offering is a kind of present to God. We need to present to God the burnt offering present, the meal offering present, the peace offering present, the sin offering present, and the trespass offering present.
However, if we are going to present something, we must first possess it. We must pay the price and get whatever we need in a proper way. This is our problem. Many times we come to the meetings without any present for God. This is why we need to labor on Christ all the day long in order to have some good produce. Then we can bring something to present to God as a present. It is not that God is demanding something from us. He only desires that we would give Him a present of Christ. If we are only fulfilling a demand, it is not so pleasing, but if we offer a present, how sweet and pleasant it is to God. God has no requirements for us in the Tent of Meeting. He only wants us to present Him with something of Christ. Christ is the only present that God desires.
Today God is seeking the true worshippers who worship Him in spirit and truthfulness (John 4:24). Christ is the reality of all the presents that we must present to Him. Therefore, we must feed on Christ all the time. We must eat Him in order to have Him mingled with us. Then we are one with Christ, and He becomes the very present that we present to God. This will satisfy God, and it will also satisfy us. Then we will see the richness and the fullness of the Tent of Meeting. This is exactly what the church life in the meetings should be like.
