Tuesday

EXPERIENCING, ENJOYING, AND EXPRESSING CHRIST (4)
– WEEK 37

The Faithful Witness of God
for the Testimony of Jesus

Related Verses
Rev. 4:5
5 And out of the throne come forth lightnings and voices and thunders. And there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God;

Rev. 5:6
6 And I saw in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures and in the midst of the elders a Lamb standing as having just been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth.

Rev. 1:10-12
10 I was in spirit on the Lord’s Day and heard behind me a loud voice like a trumpet,
11 Saying, What you see write in a scroll and send it to the seven churches: to Ephesus and to Smyrna and to Pergamos and to Thyatira and to Sardis and to Philadelphia and to Laodicea.
12 And I turned to see the voice that spoke with me; and when I turned, I saw seven golden lampstands,

Zech. 4:2-3, 10-14
2 And he said to me, What do you see? And I said, I see that there is a lampstand all of gold, with its bowl on top of it and its seven lamps upon it, with seven pipes for each of the lamps on top of it;
3 And there are two olive trees beside it, one to the right of the bowl and one to the left.
10 For who has despised the day of small things? For these seven rejoice when they see the plummet in the hand of Zerubbabel; they are the eyes of Jehovah running to and fro on the whole earth.
11 Then I answered and said to him, What are these two olive trees on the right of the lampstand and on its left?
12 And I answered a second time and said to him, What are the two olive branches that are by the side of the two golden spouts, which empty the gold from themselves?
13 And he spoke to me, saying, Do you not know what these are? And I said, No, sir.
14 And he said, These are the two sons of oil, who stand by the Lord of the whole earth.

Related Reading
The lampstand implies the significance of the Triune God. Gold is the substance with which the lampstand is made, the stand is the embodiment of the gold, and the lamps are the expression of the stand. The gold signifies the Father as the substance, the stand signifies the Son as the embodiment of the Father, and the lamps signify the Spirit as the expression of the Father in the Son. (Life-study of Revelation, p. 84) 

Substantially, the lampstand is one, but expressively, it is seven because it is one lampstand with seven lamps…In substance the lampstand is one piece of gold, but it holds seven lamps. This mysteriously indicates that substantially the Triune God is one. In substance He is one, but in expression He is the seven Spirits. The Father as the substance is embodied in the Son as the form, and the Son is expressed as the seven Spirits. 

The seven lamps are first mentioned in Exodus…As we proceed from Exodus to Zechariah, we see that the seven lamps are the seven eyes of Christ and the seven eyes of God (Zech. 3:9; 4:10)…[In] Revelation, we see that the seven eyes of the Lamb are the seven eyes that are the intensified Spirit of God. Hence, we have a strong basis for saying that the seven lamps are the sevenfold intensified Spirit as the expression of Christ. 

The lampstand implies the significance of the Triune God; it symbolizes the Triune God embodied and expressed. God the Father as the divine gold is embodied in Christ the Son and then is fully expressed through the Spirit…The embodiment must be uniquely one because our God is uniquely one. Thus, the embodiment must be one stand. The expression, however, must be complete, and complete in God’s move…Seven is the number for completion in God’s move. Throughout the centuries God has been expressed in His move. This is the reason that the seven lamps signify the intensified Spirit as the expression of Christ in God’s complete move. This is the practical understanding of the Trinity. The Trinity is for the dispensing of God into humanity. God, the Divine Being, is first embodied in Christ and then expressed through the sevenfold intensified Spirit…The gold has been formed into a stand for the fulfillment of God’s purpose…This stand, which is a type of Christ, is expressed through the seven lamps signifying the seven Spirits of God. The seven Spirits of God are not separate from God; They are the seven eyes of God and of the Lamb, the Redeemer…They are also the seven eyes of the building stone. Hence, They are the seven eyes with the redemption of Christ for God’s building. Whenever these eyes look at people, they are redeemed and built into God’s house. This is the Trinity. 

To have only the Father without the Son is to have the substance without the embodiment. Only when the gold is beaten into the form of a stand do we have the embodiment. While the stand is the embodiment of the substance, without the seven lamps, this embodiment cannot have its expression. Hence, the substance is the Father, the embodiment is the Son, and the expression is the Spirit expressing God the Father in the Son. 

The church is the embodiment of Christ and the reproduction of the Spirit. The Spirit is the reality of Christ (John 14:17-20; 16:13-15), and the church is the reproduction of the Spirit (Rev. 22:17a). The church with the Spirit is the embodiment of Christ, the testimony of Jesus (1:2, 9; 19:10). Therefore, the more Spirit, the more church and the more testimony of Jesus. (Life-study of Revelation, pp. 84-85, 91-93) 

Further Reading: CWWL, 1979, vol. 1, “Life Messages, volume 2,” chs. 68—70; CWWL, 1975–1976, vol. 2, “The Church—the Reprint of the Spirit ,” ch. 3

© Living Stream Ministry, 2023, used by permission