210 The Tabernacle Seven, we believe, is the divine number of periods, during which He has dealt with man and will yet deal with him, even unto the eternal state. For seven days the holy bread, which prefigured the sinless Bread of Life, stood "before Jehovah" on the gold-covered table in the Holy Place, just another symbol of the divine perfection of Him who is the True Bread. But let us examine more closely the ingredients which went into this holy bread, as well as the one which was expressly excluded by Jehovah: I. The Fine Flour-A Type of Christ's Perfect Hu- manity. How soft and white is fine flour! Did you ever hold it between your fingers, just to feel its smooth tex- ture? You felt no roughness, no unevenness, only a soft, smooth even substance. As someone has expressed it, "Fine flour is bread-corn which has been bruised until it is smooth and even. Christ is the bread-corn bruised, and in Him is no roughness or unevenness" (Rodgers). His spot- less humanity had nothing in it to mar it, because it was flawless, absolutely without sin. That is why His Father in heaven was always well pleased with His Son. That is why even His enemies could find no fault with Him. That is why He Himself could challenge those who sought to kill Him to "convict him of sin." He was "holy, harm- less (i. e., 'guileless'), undefiled, separate from sinners, and made higher than the heavens" (Heb. 7:26). No wonder He was rightly called "the Bread of God"! 2. The Absence of Leaven-A Type of Christ's Sin- lessness. As if to emphasize the sinless nature of His Son of whom the shewbread spoke, Jehovah expressly com- manded that no leaven be put into the holy bread. Tow some people teach that leaven is a symbol of the Gospel,
211 The Tabernacle and that the church will convert the world. Just a few days ago I heard one of the leaders of rationalistic teaching say as much over the radio--and over a nation-wide hook- up, too! But this man who preaches in so-called evangelical pulpits does not believe in the inspiration of the Holy Scriptures, the virgin birth of our Lord, His vicarious atonement for sin, His bodily resurrection, or His coming again in glory-personally, visibly, bodily. Not all who teach that leaven is a type of the Gospel are skeptical con- cerning the way of salvation; thank God for that! But practically all, if indeed not all of them, deny the bodily, imminent, visible return of Christ in glory, to bring in His own kingdom. They try to spiritualize His second coming; and in this we believe they pervert this "blessed hope" of the Christian. Moreover, every single reference in the Bible to leaven suggests evil. This holy bread was to be made without leaven. Dur- ing the feast of unleavened bread all leaven was to be put out of every house in Israel. Our Lord warned His disciples against the "leaven of the scribes and Pharisees," by which they understood Him to mean their "doctrine," or teach- ing. The apostles wrote of "the leaven of malice and wickedness," and exhorted Christians to "purge out the old leaven." And the whole of the thirteenth chapter of Matthew, where the woman is pictured as hiding leaven in three measures of meal, presents the course of this church age; for all seven of our Lord's parables recorded in this remarkable chapter tell the same story-that the church began with a few believers, and that it would grow into a great system, in which would be found the true and the false, the wheat and the tares, the good fish and the bad, true believers on the Lord Jesus and hypocrites who bear His name, yet deny the blood of His cross. In this
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