Christ the Wheat, Christ the Bread

Jonathan Edwards observes in his Notes on Scripture that the temple was built on a threshing floor “where wheat was wont to be threshed that it might become bread to support men’s life.” Like everything else about the temple system, this constituted a type of Christ:

“The wheat that was here threshed, or the bread that was made of it, seems to be typical of Christ, that bread which came down from heaven, who is often typically represented by bread, by flour, and wheat. See note on 2 Kings 4:41. And the threshing of this wheat to prepare it for our food seems to represent the sufferings of Christ, by which he was prepared to be our spiritual food. And therefore this very wheat that was threshed on this floor was the first meat offering that was offered to God on the altar that was built in this place. And the threshing instruments, that were typical of the instruments of Christ’s sufferings, in being the instruments wherewith the corn was threshed, is made use of as the fuel for the fire, in which David offers sacrifice in this place; and the fire in which that very wheat that they had threshed was burnt, and the same oxen that in that place were wont to labor in treading out the corn, were the first sacrifice that was there offered, so that before they were sacrificed on the altar, they in their labors in that place were typical of Christ, who underwent such great labors to procure bread for our souls. And they were sacrificed for men there, in that very place where they were wont to labor for the good of men, as Christ was crucified in that very land where he had laboriously spent his life for the good of men, and where his goodness had been so distinguishingly manifested for so many ages, and in that very city, Jerusalem, where he had especially labored, and which city had been for many ages distinguished by his goodness above all others in the world. Those oxen were sacrificed in a fire that was made of their own instruments, their own yokes, and other instruments that they had borne (2 Samuel 24:22), as Christ carried his own cross.”