The next step in the series of qualifications for reigning with Christ is that of entering the second veil, and having access to the ark of the covenant, and eating of the hidden manna. Jesus says to the believer who reaches the third overcometh, "I will give him to eat of the hidden manna."

In this step we have the doctrine and experience of sanctification. Although holiness is not definitely mentioned in this verse, yet it is emphatically and fully expressed by emblem. Any truth set forth in Scripture by an inspired type is just as truly accurate as when set forth by a didactic statement. Thus we are taught in the Epistle to the Hebrews that the first veil represents regeneration, which is the beginning of the holy life, and that the second veil represents the perfecting of holiness and the full baptism of the Spirit as the shekinah flame between the wings of the cherubim. We see from the typology in this promise that the experience of sanctification is always j^laced, in -Scripture, soon after the work of regeneration. The great mass of the nominal church have an impression that Christian holiness must come very late in life, that it is by the added growth of long years of Christian service, and many suppose it is hardly consciously received until about the time of death. But all such views are the result of miseducation, and of the natural unbelief of the human heart. Throughout all Scripture, both in precept and type, the blessed work of heart purity and the fullness of the Spirit are set forth as coming soon after conversion. Thus the crossing of the Red Sea is a type of the new birth, and the crossing of the Jordan is a type of sanctification, and we see from the history in Exodus it was God's design that the Israelites should not stay very long in the wilderness, but come up in a few months and possess the promised land. In like manner it is His expressed will that all young converts should come up soon after justification into the inheritance of the baptism of the Holy Spirit.

Also in the slaying of the passover lamb and the sprinkling of the blood upon the door posts we have a type of the penitent coming to Jesus to get under His shed blood. But it was just fifty days from that event to the Feast of Pentecost, or the baptism of the Holy Spirit, proving by clear Scripture type that the believer should receive the sanctifying gift of the Holy Spirit not later than fifty days from his justification.

The same truth is taught in manifold forms of expression and imagery in the Bible. Thus in these seven overcomeths we find the third step in the series to be a definite promise of sanctification. To understand the purport of this promise of eating the hidden manna more perfectly, let us refer back to the history of the manna in the writings of Moses. We there read that the manna fell on the open plain every night, and every morning the people gathered it up, and ground it and made it into cakes of bread. This manna was not hidden, but open to the gaze of all the people. When the Ark of the Covenant and the Tabernacle were constructed God told Moses to make a golden pot, and gather up some of this manna that lay on the ground and put it in the golden pot, and put the pot in the Ark of the Covenant, and put the Ark in the second veil, or the holy of holies. This manna thus preserved in the Ark was "the hidden manna." Now in order to eat any of that hidden manna a person must- of necessity go through the first veil, which is the holy place, and then enter the second veil into the holy of holies. Thus we see that no one could eat of that manna except he entered into the second veil, which is nothing less or more than the state of entering heart purity and perfect love.

In this connection it will be very interesting to notice what were the contents of the Ark of the Covenant. We are taught both by Moses and Paul that the sacred Ark was a type of the Lord Jesus, the acacia wood being a type of His humanity, and the covering of pure gold a type of His divinity, that this Ark contained first the two tables of stone upon which God had written the ten commandments, and next the almond rod that Aaron held in his hand, and that budded and bore almonds, and next the golden pot containing the manna. Now all three of these things significantly set forth the living word of God. The tables of stone represent God's word in the form of law. The almond rod represents this word in the form of promise, and the hidden manna, sweet and nourishing to the taste, represents it in the form of fruition and experience.

Thus God's word comes to us first as an inflexible command, arresting us and putting us under conviction for our sins and the need of salvation. Next the message reaches us in the form of promise, with its buds and blossoms of hope and faith. Then the word comes to ns as an inward conscious experience. That is the sweet manna. It is also worthy of notice, that each of these things in the Ark had a two-fold exhibition. The tables of stone were given twice. When Moses went down from the mountain, with the two tables containing the ten commandments, and saw the people in the act of idolatry, he dashed the tables to the ground, and they were broken. Afterwards God wrote the same words on two other stone tablets which Moses himself had to furnish. This sets forth the two covenants, the one in the flesh and the other in the spirit, referred to by Jeremiah and Paul. Then Aaron's rod was laid up all night before the Lord, and after it budded and blossomed, to distinguish him as the true priest from the false pretenders, the same rod was laid up a second time before the Lord. In this we see a type of the two works of grace. Also the hidden manna had two manifestations, one on the open ground from whence it was gathered every day, and then the hidden manna preserved in the Ark.

These things could not happen by chance, but all the details set forth unmistakably the two great works of saving grace, the one in saving from wrath, and the other purifying us for the heavenly life. The manna that fell on the ground would last only a day, typifying the transitoriness of the blessings and forms of nourishment in the lower state of grace, but the manna in the golden pot, kept sweet for a thousand years, indicating the permanent blessedness and richness of our spiritual lives while we dwell in the holy of holies and under the direct operation of the abiding Comforter. The manna is the very life of Christ, upon which all believers feed, and we must remember that the manna which lay on the ground every morning, and that which w r as preserved in the golden pot, were exactly alike, but each existed under different circumstances, and in a different relationship.

In like manner all believers live on the Lord Jesus, but there is a feeding on Christ in His outward life, and then there is an entering into His inner life, and by a thorough crucifixion with Him, and unlimited abandonment to His will, the soul enters into the inner region of Christ's spiritual life. Thus the apostle tells us that when we enter the holy of holies, we are to go through the veil which is the rent flesh of Jesus, by which w r e pass into His very heart life. And Jesus tells us that after w r e have found the first rest, we are to take His yoke upon us, and learn the secret of His inner being, that He is meek and lowly in heart, and then we shall find deep, permanent rest to our souls.

Thus the truth is spread out before us, under various forms of expression, that w^e are not merely to know Christ according to His outward life in the flesh, but to enter the secret recesses and fountains of His inner being, and know Him, in the language of the apostle, "according to the power of the endless life.*' This participation of the inner life of Jesus is the real hidden manna, which He offers to all those who are overcomers.

I may say in concluding this chapter that it is highly probable that the Ark of the Covenant was preserved at the time that the temple and Jerusalem were destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar, when the Jews were carried away into captivity. We read in the book of Maccabees in the Apocrypha, that God told Jeremiah to take some man with him, and take the Ark of the Covenant, with the curtains belonging to it, and carry it to the east of the Jordan, and hide it in a cave in Mount Nebo, where Moses died, in the place that God would show him, and cover the cave over with a stone, and that no one should discover it until the Lord should come to reign in His glory on the earth. And in the account which Jeremiah gives us of the capture of Jerusalem and the carrying aw x ay of the treasures of the temple into Babylon, He makes no mention of the Babylonians taking the Ark. Hence we have no grounds for doubting the accuracy of the account in the Apocrypha, and, if it be correct, then when Jesus comes and sets up His reign on this earth, that sacred Ark, which was made at Mount Sinai, will be brought forth from its hiding place and exhibited during the millennial reign of Christ, as a proof and seal of God's unbroken covenant with His saints in all ages.