Lamb, Manna or Good Land—What Kind of Christ Do You Enjoy?

As believers in Christ, we have received the most wonderful Person! He is our lamb, manna, and good land!

In fact, the Lord Jesus is the spiritual reality of every positive thing in this universe.  As the lyrics to  stanza four of a hymn “Christ is the one reality of all” says,

Christ is our real God, our real Lord,
Christ is our real life, our real light;
Christ is our real food, our real drink,
Our real clothing, and our real might.

He is so much. But as believers, how much of Him do we experience?  God desires that we would experience Christ in a progressive, ever expanding way—not only to meet our need, but to fulfill God’s eternal purpose.

In this post we’ll consider from the Old Testament pictures or types, God’s desire for His people to experience Christ progressively as their Passover lamb, heavenly manna and good land. With this revelation, we’ll be inspired to experience Christ to a greater degree–not only as our Redeemer or daily bread, but as our good land in which we walk and live for the fulfillment of God’s purpose.

Is Christ your Lamb, Manna or Good Land?

Have you experienced Christ as your redeeming lamb? Is he also your daily manna, your heavenly bread? Or is He even more, your good land?

The Passover Lamb—Christ our Redeemer

For Christ to be your Passover Lamb is to experience Him as your Redeemer—the One Who shed His precious blood for you.

Every true believer must realize that they have been forgiven of their sins and justified by God based on no work of their own. We are all saved uniquely by Christ’s redeeming death for us on the cross.

Romans 3:24-25a says,

“Being justified freely by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus, Whom God set forth as a propitiation place through faith in His blood…”

Such an experience is a fulfillment of the type of the Passover in Exodus 12. By sacrificing the Passover lamb, applying its blood, and feasting on it in their houses, the Israelites were spared from God’s death judgment on Egypt.

Paul said,

“Christ our Passover has been sacrificed for us, so therefore let us keep the feast.” (1 Cor. 5:7)

So every day, we need to “keep the feast” and praise and thank the Lord saying,

“Lord, I praise you that You are my real Passover—the Lamb of God, sacrificed for me. Thank you for shedding your blood for me. Through Your precious blood, I’m redeemed, my sins are forgiven so I can  have fellowship with You right now.”

But, don’t stop there…

The Heavenly Manna—Christ our daily bread

God did not want His people to remain in Egypt (signifying the world). Rather, He told them to leave Egypt that very night. He led them across the Red Sea (a figure of baptism) so that they could be separated unto Him and hold a feast unto Him.

May it be the same with us. After enjoying Christ as our Redeemer we need to not only leave the world. We need to get the world out of us. We need a change of diet. We need to go on to daily feed on Christ as our heavenly manna, our daily life supply to make us people with a heavenly constitution.

We can only be useful to God for His purpose when we are reconstituted with Christ in such a way.

The Lord made this point clear to His disciples in John 6 when He said,

“Truly, truly I say to you, Moses has not given you the bread out of heaven, but My Father gives you the true bread out of heaven. For the bread of God is He who comes down out of heaven and gives life to the world” (vv. 32-33).

Later He said,

“It is the Spirit who gives life…the words I have spoken to you are spirit and are life” (v. 63).

So after enjoying the Lord’s cleansing blood, we need to go on to feed on Him in His Word. Here is a post that provides 12 tips on how to feed on the Lord in the Word to receive daily spiritual nourishment.

The Good Land—the All-inclusive Christ as our spacious land

But there is still much more of Christ for us to experience! God wants us to enjoy Christ as our spacious good land typified by the good land of Canaan.

Deuteronomy 8:7-8 says,

“For Jehovah your God is bringing you into a good land, a land of waterbrooks, of springs and of fountains, flowing forth in valleys and mountains; a land of wheat and barley and vines and fig trees and pomegranates; a land of olive trees with oil and honey.”

This land is a picture of the unsearchably rich Christ given to us for our enjoyment.

In Colossians 2:6-7 Paul said,

“As you have received the Christ, Jesus the Lord, walk in Him, having been rooted and being built up in Him.”

If Christ were not such a spacious land, how could we walk in Him?

Do we see that the Christ in whom we believe is now the soil, the land in which we’re rooted?

In The All-inclusive Christ, Witness Lee points out,

God’s purpose is not just that we enjoy Christ a little, but that He should be the all-inclusive One to us. Look at this verse: “As ye have therefore received Christ Jesus the Lord, so walk ye in him” (Col. 2:6). He is a sphere, a realm for us to walk in. He is not just some food or water, but a realm, a land within which we can walk. We must walk in Him. He is our land, He is our earth, He is our kingdom. Walk in Him.

I believe that the picture is very clear. In Egypt was the lamb, in the wilderness was the manna, and ahead of the people of Israel was the land of Canaan. That is the goal; that land is the goal of God. We have to enter in. It is our portion. It is the all-inclusive gift of God to us. We must take possession of it. It is ours, but we must enjoy it. (p. 15)

May we all be deeply impressed that there is so much more of Christ for us to experience. It is only when we experience Christ as this spacious land that God can fulfill His purpose to have Christ as everything to us issuing in the church as Christ’s Body, His fullness,  constituted with His rich element to be His kingdom and temple. May we pray,

“Lord inspire us to advance in our enjoyment of You from the lamb to the manna and ultimately to the good land. Lord may we daily be rooted in You as our soil, being built up in You that we may walk in You as our good land to fulfill God’s purpose.”

Resources and Further Reading:

• This post was inspired by The All-inclusive Christ, Chapter One by Witness Lee . You can read it online at ministrybooks.org, download a free PDF or order your own free copy from Bibles for America (in the USA).
• Here are two hymns to enrich your appreciation from this post:
  • Jesus, the all-inclusive land is everything to us
  • God has set the land before us
• For a further appreciation for entering in the experience of Christ as your good land you enjoy reading this post from  A Normal Believer in Christ  blog.
• Photo Credit: personal photo of Jezreel Valley, Israel