The Presence

Taken from the book The Hidden Mysteries of The Lord’s Table by Mark. G. Nolan

“HE WAS KNOWN OF THEM IN BREAKING OF BREAD.”

The disciples and followers of Jesus were in utter shock and horror when He was arrested, beaten and cruelly crucified after a mock trial. Ahead of time, Jesus spoke of these events that were to quickly transpire but His words fell to the ground as His followers leant on their own understanding. The very words of Jesus given to inform, prepare, and give confidence to the ones who would soon see their Master executed, were made of no effect through their unbelief.

Throughout the four Gospels we read The Lord plainly telling His disciples in advance that He would suffer at the hands of the elders, the scribes and chief priests, that He would be killed, AND that He would rise again. In Matthew’s Gospel alone this message is clearly given by Jesus five times, yet His words were not received.

After the terrible events had taken place, a handful of women went to the tomb where Jesus had been buried, only to return to the disciples’ moments later to declare with amazement that The Lord had risen. Their report was disbelieved, and their own brethren considered them to be liars with idle tales, Luke 24:1-11. It is unbelief that blinds the eyes and hardens the heart to receive the truth.

Here is an account of what also took place on that day.

“Now behold, two of them were traveling that same day to a village called Emmaus, which was seven miles from Jerusalem. And they talked together of all these things which had happened. So it was, while they conversed and reasoned, that Jesus Himself drew near and went with them. But their eyes were restrained, so that they did not know Him.

And He said to them, “What kind of conversation is this that you have with one another as you walk and are sad?”

Then the one whose name was Cleopas answered and said to Him, “Are You the only stranger in Jerusalem, and have You not known the things which happened there in these days?”

And He said to them, “What things?”

So they said to Him, “The things concerning Jesus of Nazareth, who was a Prophet mighty in deed and word before God and all the people, and how the chief priests and our rulers delivered Him to be condemned to death, and crucified Him. But we were hoping that it was He who was going to redeem Israel. Indeed, besides all this, today is the third day since these things happened.”
(Luke 24:13-21)

When the two downcast disciples walked to Emmaus unknowingly with the resurrected Lord Jesus, unbelief blinded them to the identity of their travelling companion. They spoke to Him of their sorrow that The One they trusted to redeem Israel had been crucified.

Even though Jesus had said exactly what would happen, AND that He would rise again, by holding onto their own ideas the disciples had hardened their hearts to the hope and expectation of meeting their resurrected Messiah. Jesus confirms their state of unbelief.

“Then He said to them, “O foolish ones, and slow of heart to believe in all that the prophets have spoken!”
(Luke 24:25)

I don’t believe on the road to Emmaus that Jesus hid His identity as many suggest. No, the two disciples were blinded from His TRUE identity by their own unbelief. As they walked together, Jesus taught them through the Living Word what had been written about Him, building their faith through the scriptures.

^“And beginning at Moses and all the Prophets, He expounded to them in all the Scriptures the things concerning Himself.”
(Luke 24:27)

After traveling for up to seven to eight miles on the road to Emmaus, coming to the end of their journey, Jesus is invited to eat with His two slow of heart disciples. Having now received revelation of the scriptures by the Word Himself, they sit down to eat and at the very point that Jesus broke the bread their eyes were opened, and they saw Jesus face to face.

“Now it came to pass, as He sat at the table with them, that He took bread, blessed and broke it, and gave it to them. Then their eyes were opened and they knew Him; and He vanished from their sight. And they said to one another, “Did not our heart burn within us while He talked with us on the road, and while He opened the Scriptures to us?” So they rose up that very hour and returned to Jerusalem, and found the eleven and those who were with them gathered together, saying, “The Lord is risen indeed, and has appeared to Simon!”

And they told about the things that had happened on the road, and how He was known to them in the breaking of bread.”
(Luke 24:30-35)

There are various suggestions as to why at the point of breaking bread the disciples finally realised who Jesus was. Some say that it was when they saw the nail prints in His hands that they realised the stranger in their midst was indeed the risen Lord. I believed this reasoning for many years until I read about the presence of God face to face at the table of shewbread in the temple at Jerusalem. I will try and explain.

THE MEANING OF THE SHEWBREAD

LECHEM HA PANINE.

The Bible has been translated into hundreds of different languages over the years, and it’s not uncommon for some phrases to lose their original meaning during the translation process. However, you don’t expect words of scripture to be intentionally completely changed.

In 1534, Martin Luther translated the complete Bible from Latin to his native German language, making the scriptures accessible to be read and understood in his homeland. During this translation work, a deliberate change of wording was introduced into the original text when naming the twelve loaves that were to be always present on the table inside the Temple.

“And you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it. Two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each cake. You shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure gold table before the Lord.

And you shall put pure frankincense on each row, that it may be on the bread for a memorial, an offering made by fire to the Lord. Every Sabbath he shall set it in order before the Lord continually, being taken from the children of Israel by an everlasting covenant.

And it shall be for Aaron and his sons, and they shall eat it in a holy place; for it is most holy to him from the offerings of the Lord made by fire, by a perpetual statute.”
(Leviticus 24:5-9)

“And you shall make the poles of acacia wood, and overlay them with gold, that the table may be carried with them. You shall make its dishes, its pans, its pitchers, and its bowls for pouring. You shall make them of pure gold. And you shall set the showbread on the table before Me always.”
(Exodus 25:28-30)

In the original text, the three separate Hebrew words for naming this bread was “Lechem Ha Panine” A literal translation of these words is Bread (Lechem) The (Ha) Presence (Panine). Panine can also be translated as face, literally God’s face is present at the breaking of bread.When Luther encountered the Hebrew name for this bread, instead of using the literal, word for word translation into German, he substituted it for a totally different word, choosing the singular German word “Schaubrot” which translates into English as “Shewbread,” or “Showbread.” He should have translated it as “Das Brot der Gegenwart.”

By changing the name of this Temple Bread, the significance of it is literally lost in translation. The Bread of the Presence is now otherwise known as the shewbread, a strange word with no particular relevance. The true meaning of the bread has been concealed through misinterpretation.

This same word for Presence, Panine is used to describe the encounter that Moses enjoyed with the Lord in the wilderness Tabernacle. The English translation for this word in this passage is “face to face.”

“And it came to pass, when Moses entered the tabernacle, that the pillar of cloud descended and stood at the door of the tabernacle, and the Lord talked with Moses. All the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the tabernacle door, and all the people rose and worshiped, each man in his tent door. So the Lord spoke to Moses face to face, as a man speaks to his friend. And he would return to the camp, but his servant Joshua the son of Nun, a young man, did not depart from the tabernacle.”
(Exodus 33:9-11)

The literal translation for verse 11 from Hebrew to English reads as follows. “Yahovah so spoke to face Moses to speaks as face his friend to a man.” This is a perfect example of the word Panine being translated as face, which has been used twice in the original text.

I believe that, like Luther, the King James Bible translators purposefully mistranslated in several places the words Lechem Ha Panine (Bread of the Presence/face to face) and have deliberately erroneously translated it as shewbread. By doing so, any relevance to what the words in the original Hebrew actually mean has been completely lost.

Why was the true translation, Bread of Presence mistranslated for the word Shewbread? I believe that the King James Bible translators wouldn’t use the literal translation because that would agree with (in their minds) the false Catholic doctrine of transubstantiation, God being physically in the bread and the wine. They instead went along with Luther’s complete mistranslation of the text, throwing out the baby with the bath water so to speak.

The changing of the name of the Bread in the Temple appears to be theologically motivated to prevent the reader from associating the bread with the presence of God. The word shewbread, translated from Luther’s German word Schaubrot, leaves the reader with no idea of the original meaning and relevance of this sanctified bread.

Yes, this deliberate attempt to hide the true meaning of the bread has been propagated for many years. I believe there was and still is a conspiracy to hide the truth of the spiritual presence of Jesus in the blessed bread by removing or deliberately changing the original wording in the biblical text.

Many Catholics use the original text to justify their belief that the Eucharist is the actual physical flesh of Christ. To them, the wafer metamorphosises into Christ’s physical flesh. If it were Jesus’ actual flesh, eating it would be an abomination to God.

The Jews following Jesus knew it was forbidden to eat man’s flesh and many turned away from following Him because they were not understanding spiritual truths (ref: John 6). They were not born of the Spirit who leads into all truth, and therefore could not comprehend what the Holy Spirit was saying to them through the word of God, Jesus.

Jesus wielded the sword of truth that day knowing that it would cause a dissention, and many would ultimately leave Him.

THE BREAD IN THE HOLIEST PLACE

“And you shall take fine flour and bake twelve cakes with it. Two-tenths of an ephah shall be in each cake. You shall set them in two rows, six in a row, on the pure gold table before the Lord.

The twelve loaves present in the Temple were to be eaten by the priests. It was consecrated bread, holy to the Lord, and was to be eaten only by the priests, specifically in a holy place.

When we consider the Last Supper, we see Jesus, the Bread of Life, with His twelve disciples who were to become priests unto the Lord. The twelve represented the twelve tribes of Israel, and also the twelve loaves, the Lechem Ha Panine which were on the golden table inside the temple.

Some would argue, saying, “How could the disciples eat the bread of life (Jesus) while Jesus was still alive at the Last Supper?” Jesus transcends time space and matter, and so does His spiritual body. Even though Jesus was sat at the Last Supper with His disciples in the last hours before His death,

“Jesus (the lamb) was slain from the foundation of the world.”
(Rev 13:8)

“And now Father, glorify me in your own presence with the glory that I had with you before the world existed.”
(John 17:5)

BAFFLING TO THOSE WITHOUT THE SPIRIT

Many dismiss the real presence in the bread and wine in rejecting the catholic dogma of transubstantiation. For the following reasons.

Objection number 1.

Transubstantiation is a false doctrine because in Mt 26:29 after Jesus had said, “this is my blood” and prayed, He still referred to the contents as, “fruit of the vine.” If transubstantiation of the juice into blood had occurred, as both Roman Catholic and Orthodox Churches say it was at this time, then Jesus would never have referred to it as “fruit of the vine” but rather “blood.” This proves that when Jesus said “take eat & drink” he LITERALLY gave them bread and juice.

My Answer:

I agree with the statement that the substance does and did not change or transform in any way physically, just as it doesn’t transform in any way at the communion table. The Lord was speaking of spiritual bread and wine. Spiritual food for the soul, and cleansing and regeneration of the spirit. In throwing out the fact that the bread and wine doesn’t visually transform they in turn reject the real presence.

The fruit of the vine is often referred to in scripture as the blood of the grape. The blood that flowed from the saviour’s veins is the spiritual fruit of the vine. A good tree can only bare good fruit. His blood represents the fruit of the vine. Grapes are crushed to release the sweet juice. Jesus was crushed like a grape.

“But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised (crushed) for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon Him; and with his stripes we are healed.”
(Isaiah 53:5)

Many times, we find in scripture the statement “the blood of grapes.” Remember this was purposely written by the Holy Spirit for our teaching. Many Churches today refer to the moving of Holy Spirit as an outpouring of new wine.

In the book of Acts on the day of Pentecost the people who witnessed the outpouring of the Holy Spirit thought the people to be drunk. They were drunk in the Spirit of God, not earthly wine as they supposed. The saints in the upper room were intoxicated in the presence of God’s love, joy, peace and so on. The fruits of the Holy spirit.

I once did a bible study on Isaiah 53 with a keeper of a synagogue whose name is Lance whilst in Manchester, and he commented on what a good translation the KJV was when comparing it to his Hebrew bible. But he quite gratuitously pointed out that the word bruised translates crushed in Hebrew.

Objection Number 2

Paul also refers to the elements of the Lord’s Supper as “eat this bread and drink the cup” in 1 Cor 11:26 after they should be transubstantiated. 1 Cor 11:26-27 proves transubstantiation wrong because Paul calls the loaf, “bread” after both Roman Catholics and Orthodox say the “change” was supposed to take place. Catholics make Paul a liar by calling the loaf “bread” rather than what Catholic false doctrine claims it was: Literal Flesh.

My answer:

We commune with the Lord and the saints simultaneously through the spirit. The bread although physical once blessed by the priest is received as the spiritual body of Christ through faith which in turn represents haloed bread, sanctified by our High Priest, Jesus (Yahoshua.)

Objection number 3

In 1 Corinthians 11:25, Jesus said literally that the “cup was the covenant”. So, which is it? Is it the juice that is the covenant, or the spiritual blood manifested in the juice? Is it the cup that is the covenant, or is the cup the blood?

My answer:

Jesus clearly meant that the cup bearing His blood was the seal of the covenant He was making a new covenant in his blood with those who would have confidence in His blood, to cleanse their sin. We have faith in the blood to cleanse us from all sin. Romans 3:25.

Any covenant was to be sealed in blood. Gen 15:17 not fruit juice. If the juice in the cup didn’t represent His blood, then the covenant would be worthless. God made a covenant with Abraham. The cup which contained the blood of the covenant represented the lot of Jesus which he had to bear for the sins of the world. In spilling his blood for the remission of our sins. Hebrew 9:11-28.

Taken from the book The Hidden Mysteries of The Lord’s Table by Mark. G. Nolan