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Scripture Reading: Rev. 1:4-5a, 9-20; 2:7, 17; 3:12, 20; 4:5; 5:6; 21:1-3; 22:1-2, 14, 17
In the foregoing chapters we have covered the matter of God’s expression beginning from the first chapter of Genesis and almost through the entire Bible. Now we come to the last book, the book of Revelation. In this book you have two main categories of things: First, you have the church with its consummation, which is the New Jerusalem. This is what God wants. Second, you have all the things other than the church in the entire universe, which will be judged, condemned, and burned. There is no third category. Everything that is in the first category is for eternity and will consummate in the new city of living water, the New Jerusalem, the eternal tabernacle, as God’s full expression for eternity. Whatever is not in the church and its consummation will be burned in the lake of fire. In the Bible there are two sources, two lines, two flows, two ways, and two results.
What are these two sources? If you go back to Genesis 2, you can see that the tree of life is the positive source, and the tree of knowledge is the negative source. The tree of life brings in the line of life, the flow of life, and the way of life, and it results in the new city of living water where the tree of life grows. It begins with life, and it ends with life. The issue is the new city, the eternal tabernacle, the full expression of God.
The other line is on the negative side. It begins at the tree of knowledge and ends at the lake of fire. From the beginning to the end there is a line of God’s judgment. This began from the time that the fire came from the heavens upon Sodom and Gomorrah (19:24) and continues to this day. In Matthew 3:10-12, 1 Corinthians 3:13, and Hebrews 6:8 and 12:29 there is the fire. Eventually and consummately, in Revelation 20 and 21 there is the lake of fire. It is no more just a flow; the flow issues in a lake. The lake of fire is the result of all God’s judgment. All God’s judgment through the centuries brings the judged things burned by His fire into the lake of fire.
The book of Revelation is a continuation of what John revealed in his Gospel and in his Epistles. The Gospel of John mainly reveals to us the matter of the divine life. The divine life is nothing less than the Triune God — the Father, the Son, and the Spirit — as our life and our life supply. The life revealed in John’s Gospel is too divine, too mysterious, too high!
In John’s three Epistles he reveals more mysteries of the divine life, such as the divine fellowship, the divine abiding, the divine anointing, the divine birth, and the divine seed. Because the Gospel of John and the Epistles of John are on the divine life, we should not consider that the Revelation of John is different. John was a writer who revealed the divine life. We must consider that his last book should also be on the divine life. For example, the entire Bible is on the tree of life. Right after God created man, He brought him to the tree of life. The Bible begins in Genesis with the tree of life, and it ends in Revelation with the tree of life. This is because the entire Bible is a book of life.
We have covered many crucial verses in this chapter and the two previous chapters. If possible, you should study those verses, remember them, recite them, and pray-read them again and again. It is better to do it each month for two years. See what will come out. I assure you that you will see something. These are the crucial verses in the Bible. You need to eat them and digest them, taking every verse into your being.
Now we come to the consummation of God’s expression. The book of Revelation is an issue of the entire Bible. Without the book of Revelation the entire Bible has no conclusion. If you know what is in Revelation, you can see that nearly all the signs included in the Old Testament are here. The first sign in Revelation is the lampstands. The lampstand was mentioned the first time in Exodus (25:31-40), the second time in 1 Kings (7:49), and the third time in Zechariah (4:2-10). If you do not have the book of Revelation, you cannot know what the real issue, the real outcoming, of the lampstand is.
The last sign in Revelation is the New Jerusalem, a city built foursquare with three gates on each side. The New Jerusalem was also revealed in Ezekiel. At the end of the book of Ezekiel there is a city by the name of Jerusalem, having four sides with three gates on each side, and all the twelve tribes’ names are written there (48:31-34). Between the lampstands in Revelation 1 and the New Jerusalem in Revelation 21 and 22, there are the tree of life and the manna (2:7, 17). The tree of life was also mentioned in Genesis, and the manna was mentioned in Exodus 16.
Another item that was in the Old Testament and that consummates in the New Testament is the Lamb of God. John the Baptist mentioned the Lamb of God in John 1 when he said, “Behold, the Lamb of God, who takes away the sin of the world!” The lamb was also mentioned in Genesis 22 when Abraham offered his son Isaac on the altar. God came in and stopped him, and when Abraham turned, he saw a ram, which he offered instead of his son Isaac. There is also the passover lamb in Exodus 12. The consummation of the lamb is in Revelation 22:1, where the river of water of life proceeds out of the throne of God and of the Lamb.
There are also the seven lamps in Revelation. The seven lamps and the seven Spirits of God were already mentioned in Zechariah 4. The four living creatures in Revelation were in Ezekiel 1. Nearly everything in the book of Revelation can be found in the Old Testament because Revelation is a conclusion to the entire Bible. If you would understand the book of Revelation, you have to understand the entire Bible. The book of Revelation is the issue not only of John’s writings but also of the entire Bible.
First of all, at the end of this age God will have local churches as lampstands on this earth. The term local church is not mentioned in Revelation, but in 1:11 John was instructed to write to the seven churches in seven cities, indicating that seven churches are equal to seven cities. John did not write to a street church or a home church or a community church or a church on the campus. John wrote to seven churches in seven cities. Asia was an ancient province of the old Roman Empire. It was like a state. As a province, it could have more than one church. But each city within this province could have only one church. According to history, Ephesus was a large city at that time, but it had only one church.
John’s tone in his greeting to the churches is different from Paul’s greetings in his Epistles. For example, in Galatians 1:3 Paul says, “Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ.” But John in Revelation 1:4-5 says, “Grace to you and peace from Him who is and who was and who is coming, and from the seven Spirits who are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, the faithful Witness, the Firstborn of the dead, and the Ruler of the kings of the earth.” Who is the One who is and who was and who is coming? This is Jehovah of the Old Testament. This is the Jehovah who is the great I Am. When Moses asked the name of God, God answered, “I AM WHO I AM” (Exo. 3:14). He is the verb To Be. He is the great To Be. Compared to Him, everything is nothing. He is the only existing One. In the past He Was, in the present He Is, and in the coming days He Will Be. He is To Be. This is Jehovah.
In the book of Revelation the one Spirit of God becomes the seven Spirits (1:4; 4:5). How can the one Spirit become seven? In this book the seven Spirits are the seven lamps of fire burning before the throne (v. 5). The lampstand has two aspects. Looking from the top, you may count seven lamps, but looking from the bottom, there is one lampstand. This means that the lampstand is seven-one and one-seven. A good illustration is a three-way lamp. If you only need a little light, you turn the switch in one way. If you need more light, you turn the switch again. If you need still more light, you turn the switch once more. How marvelous it would be if we could buy a seven-way lamp! The shining of the lampstand in Revelation is intensified seven times because today is a day of darkness, and the sight of God’s people is so weak. In the Gospels God’s Spirit was uniquely one, but in Revelation this one Spirit becomes seven. This is not seven in substance but seven in function. It is still one, but its function is sevenfold intensified. The Spirit of God today is the seven Spirits.
Revelation 1:5 also says that Jesus Christ is the faithful Witness. While He was on the earth, He was a Witness of God. He was resurrected from the dead, and today He is the Ruler of the kings of the earth. You do not need to worry about the world situation. All the rulers of the earth are under our Ruler. This is why His calendar is the universal calendar. Even those atheistic Communist countries who are opposing Christ use His calendar. He is the King of kings. He is the Ruler of all the kings.
By these examples you can see that the book of Revelation has a special tone. In such a tone what God wants today is a church in every city as the practicality of God’s expression. Every local church in this book is a lampstand. The lampstand is the embodiment of the Triune God. With the lampstand there are three things: First, there is the substance, which is pure gold. The substance is not made of wood or of mud but of pure gold. In the Bible gold signifies the divine nature of God the Father. So in the lampstand there is God the Father as the substance. Second, the golden lampstand is not just a formless piece of gold. It is gold formed and shaped into the form of a lampstand. The form, the embodiment, of the Triune God is the second of the Trinity. All the fullness of the Godhead dwells in this second of the Trinity bodily (Col. 2:9). Jesus Christ is the form of God. This is God the Son. So there is the substance of the Father and the form of the Son.
Third, there is the expression of the lampstand. The lampstand is for shining, and the shining is the expression. The expression is seven lamps. The Bible tells us clearly, not only in Revelation but also in Zechariah, that the seven lamps are the seven Spirits (4:2, 6; Rev. 4:5). The substance of the lampstand is God the Father. The form and the embodiment of the lampstand is God the Son. The expression of the lampstand is God the Spirit. So the lampstand is just the embodiment of the Father, the Son, and the Spirit. This is the church. The church is the lampstand as the embodiment of the Triune God. By this you can see what a local church is. A local church is one that has God the Father as its substance, God the Son as its embodiment, and God the Spirit as its shining, its expression.
It is right to say that the Lord’s recovery is to recover the local church, but it depends upon your understanding. If you simply mean that the local church is a group of Christians meeting without a name in a city, not being a denomination, not having a pastor, sitting in four directions instead of one, with everyone standing up to function, that is not adequate. Such a local church may be of the Lord’s recovery, or it may not be. It all depends upon the reality. What is the reality of the local church? It is the substance of the Father, the embodiment of the Son, and the expression of the Spirit.
Suppose an outsider visits a local church, and he hears the older sisters gossiping and the younger sisters murmuring. He sees the elders debating and the brothers complaining. Is this the condition of a golden lampstand? This is a muddy lampstand. When there is gossiping and murmuring and debating and reasoning, where is the substance of the Father, where is the embodiment of the Son, and where is the shining expression of the Spirit? Among Christians today it is very difficult to find the proper situation of a golden lampstand that has the substance of the Father, the embodiment of the Son, and the shining of the Spirit. If you go to most Christian groups today, you mainly find politics and nice manners.
This means that the divine life has never been realized adequately and fully by a group of Christians. When people come to a local church, they must see the full realization of the divine life. They should not see a kind of behavior and a kind of performance. They should just see people living Christ. They should just see people who are in the full realization of the divine life. The divine life should be fully realized in the local church. Such a realization of the divine life swallows up all gossiping, murmuring, reasoning, and debating. It swallows up backbiting and politics. God does not want to see good manners and politics in the church life. He wants to see Himself expressed from within you. This is the golden lampstand. This is the practicality of God’s expression. Today God wants to recover such a lampstand in many leading cities on this earth. He wants to have such a shining church, golden and pure. It is, no doubt, a composition of human beings, but all these human beings are saturated with the heavenly gold. The substance of the divine Father becomes their very being. Their very being is in the form of Jesus Christ, and what they express is not just nice behavior but the shining Spirit, a sevenfold intensified shining. This is a proper local church. This is a proper lampstand. This is what the Lord is going to recover today.
He has no intention to recover trivial matters, such as long sleeves and short hair. He wants to recover the Trinity fully enjoyed, possessed, realized, and expressed in the local church. The proper local church is simply a church that possesses the Trinity, enjoys the Trinity, realizes the Trinity, and expresses the Trinity. For this we all need the sevenfold intensified Spirit. We do not need just a onefold Spirit; we need a sevenfold Spirit. This is why we have to pray unceasingly and continually. We have to pray to be filled up and saturated and permeated until we overflow. To enjoy the sevenfold Spirit simply means that the intensified Spirit floods you and fills you and overflows from within you to be the very fullness of the Triune God. This fullness is the expression, and this expression is just the shining in sevenfold intensification. This is the kind of local church that the Lord is going to recover. We are not here just to have a church according to the outward teachings of the Bible. What the Triune God wants to recover among us is a proper lampstand in all the localities. In every city the Lord wants to have such a shining lampstand as the local church.
Among such local churches, the Christ whom they experience is exactly the One revealed in Revelation 1. Such a Christ has eyes like a flame of fire (1:14). You may consider that His eyes indicate a kind of judging, but they also indicate a kind of supply. Out of His mouth proceeds a sharp two-edged sword to kill not you but your flesh. This is to kill your murmuring and gossiping tongue. His feet are like shining bronze, judging and burning and purifying. Sometimes the messages in the Lord’s recovery are just like a two-edged sword to cut and to judge, because God wants a pure golden lampstand in each locality. Pure gold is gold that has been purified by fire. The Christ today is the burning Christ for purification. He is not only washing us but also purifying us by burning. This is the practicality of God’s expression. Do not consider that the practicality of God’s expression covers such matters as how many elders a locality should have or how old the elders should be. The practicality of God’s expression is a matter of the divine life. It is a matter of the saturation of the Triune God into your being to be your expression.
If you see a vision of such a practicality, this vision will kill all your opinions. You would never think to have a school church or a church on your street or a church in your home. Such a vision will kill all these different views. You will be left with one city and one church. You will be left with one church, which is so pure, so golden, so shining, so full of the Triune God.
The practicality of God’s expression is not only in Revelation chapter 1 but also in chapters 2 and 3. In these two chapters the Lord Jesus, as the Son of Man who is in the midst of the churches as the lampstands, not only purifies the churches so that they may shine with pure light but also promises to feed them with the tree of life (2:7), the hidden manna (v. 17), and the feast (3:20). Revelation 2:7 and 17 are promises of rewards to the overcomers — that they may enjoy the tree of life and the hidden manna in the coming kingdom. This indicates that all the seeking saints may have a foretaste of the enjoyment of Christ as the tree of life and the hidden manna in this age. What the overcomers will enjoy as the full taste in the coming kingdom, they should enjoy in this age as a foretaste. In the practicality of God’s expression we can and should have a foretaste of the reward that the Lord promises to give us in the coming kingdom. Revelation 3:20 is a promise for this age — that the seeking saints, by opening themselves to the Lord, may enjoy the Lord’s presence and feast with Him. These three promises are the fulfillment of the enjoyment of the tree of life in Genesis 2, the manna in Exodus 16, and the rich produce of the good land in Deuteronomy 12. For the practicality of God’s expression in the Lord’s recovery, the Lord would feed us with all these particular portions of nourishment.
The Lord’s promise in Revelation 2:17 also implies that by enjoying the hidden manna we may be transformed into a white stone for the building of God’s spiritual house for His expression (1 Pet. 2:5). The Lord’s promise in Revelation 3:12 also indicates that a seeking saint may be made a pillar in God’s temple, bearing God’s name and the name of the New Jerusalem for the expression of God. This should be also by the nourishment of the tree of life, the manna, and the feast. In the practicality of the local churches as God’s expression today, the enjoyment of the rich Christ as our particular nourishment is needed in order that we may be transformed into precious stones for the building up of God’s eternal dwelling place to express God.
In the consummation of God’s expression in eternity, the enjoyment of the tree of life and the water of life will also be a particular feature in the New Jerusalem. The tree of life and the water of life will still continue to supply God’s redeemed people in the new heaven and new earth for them to express God in full for eternity. This shows that both for the practicality and the consummation of God’s expression, the particular enjoyment of God’s rich Christ is a prerequisite. Without such an enjoyment of Christ, the church life in the Lord’s recovery will be just an empty shell with no value for God’s expression.
Now we come to the consummation of the entire Bible — the New Jerusalem. The New Jerusalem is the totality of all the past centuries, including all the positive things that were a part of God’s expression. This is why there are the names of the twelve tribes on the twelve gates to let people in. Then there are the twelve apostles’ names on the twelve foundation stones. The New Jerusalem is a total composition of God’s redeemed people, both of the Old Testament and of the New Testament, including both the Jews and the Gentiles.
According to the record of the Bible, the New Jerusalem is like a mountain (Rev. 21:16). At the top of the mountain is the throne of the Lamb-God. This is the redeeming God. How can God and the Lamb fit upon one throne? We can understand this by realizing that the same section of the Word tells us that the Lamb is the lamp (v. 23). The Lamb, the second of the Trinity, is the lamp, and God the Father, the first of the Trinity, is the light. The Spirit, the third of the Trinity, is the oil. This means that the three-one, the one-three, is upon the throne. Then some might point out that the Bible says that Christ is sitting at the right hand of God. You have to realize that every truth in the Bible has two aspects. Without two sides nothing can exist. Even a piece of paper has two sides. One side of the truth is that the Lord Jesus is sitting at the right hand of God. The other side of the truth is that the Lamb-God is sitting upon the throne. Both are right. Do not try to reconcile it. You simply have to take what the Bible says. The Epistles say that Christ today is at the right hand of God (Rom. 8:34), but the book of Revelation, according to the picture, shows us that God is in Christ. God as the light is in Christ as the lamp. The Triune God is on the throne, and out of the throne, which means out of Him, a river flows down the mountain in a spiral and eventually reaches all twelve of the gates. This means that the new city, Jerusalem, has only one street. No one can get lost. The New Jerusalem is the consummation, the total expression of God in full for eternity. In the past chapters we have covered the entire Bible, and we have seen that man was created in God’s image, and eventually man will be the total expression of God to express God thoroughly, fully, and eternally. In that day we will be there, and today we are in the local churches. Today we express the Triune God, and we are His embodiment in the way of practicality. We have the Father’s divine substance, we have the Son’s image and form, and we have the Spirit’s shining so that we may express the very God in whom we believe, whom we serve, and whom we worship. This is the expression of God. Today we are in its practicality, and in the future we will be in its consummation.
