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Scripture Reading: Zech. 3:9; 4:2, 6, 10a; Rev. 1:4, 20b; 4:5b; 5:6; 22:17a
The last book of the Bible opens with a vision of seven golden lampstands. As we are told, the lampstands are seven churches (Rev. 1:20).
Why is the church a golden lampstand? Very few see this mystery. As we said in previous chapters, the golden lampstand first symbolizes the Triune God. It speaks of His nature, form, and expression. The Father is the nature, the Son is the image, and the Spirit is the expression. For the church to be represented by this very same symbol indicates that the church is the expression of the Triune God. Ultimately, the church is one with God.
From the standpoint of experience, how does the Triune God come into us and then become the church? Since our regeneration, we have had the nature of God, the pure gold, inside us. But for this gold to take the shape of the lampstand requires that we be transformed.
I am not talking about being reformed. Transformation is a matter of life. It involves a metabolic change. A mortician has to apply artificial coloring to the face of a dead person in order to disguise the pallor of the lips and the skin. The corpse lies in his coffin, still lifeless, but his appearance is much improved. The best reformation can do is to superficially change the outward appearance.
Transformation, in contrast, produces change from within. If you are sickly and pallid, you need to begin eating properly and getting enough fresh air and exercise. After a time the proper diet and exercise will cause a metabolic change in your appearance. Without any false color being added to your skin, your complexion will be vibrant with good health.
The Scripture speaks of being transformed in 2 Corinthians 3:18: “We all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting like a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” Romans 12:2 also tells us not to be “fashioned according to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind.” Transformation refers to a metabolic change brought about by another element being added to us and becoming part of us.
Without this additional element, which is God Himself, we cannot be transformed. The best we can hope for is an improved appearance, while we still remain our old self. God has no interest in improving us outwardly. His economy is first to regenerate us by adding His very nature to us. This higher element then begins to uplift our original element and gradually eliminates the negative things of that original condition.
When the Holy Spirit comes into man, He brings with Him the element of divinity. This element effects a change in man. This change is usually called the work of the Spirit. He is not merely reforming man. As those who have studied chemistry know, there cannot be a chemical reaction without a new element being added, no matter how much effort is made to uplift the original constituents.
It is pitiful that so many Christians regard the work of the Spirit as a work of reformation. They ask God for His Spirit to help them to be more loving and to fulfill their duties. They consider themselves as poor and weak, in need of the power of the Holy Spirit to strengthen them. The thought of God as the all-powerful One, answering the prayers of poor, frail human beings by strengthening them to meet their obligations, is a natural religious concept.
Such a concept is not the revelation of the Bible. When the Holy Spirit comes, He brings God into you. God Himself becomes the source within you. He becomes your life, bringing about a subjective, organic change. He is not helping you in an external way. The end result is that you become God-men, not good men. You are not merely full of virtues but full of God. You are not here to express virtues but to express God.
We were born men of clay. When the Holy Spirit comes, He begins to change us into men of gold. He also shapes the gold within us until it is in the form of a lampstand. This lampstand is the church.
Perhaps you do not grasp what I mean. Let us take as an example a young sister, saved two or three years ago. Because her family has indulged her, she is selfish and bad-tempered. After being saved, she begins to feel that she must stop behaving so inconsiderately of others. She prays, “Lord, keep me from losing my temper. Do not let me act in such a spoiled way.” Usually, her prayer is not answered. Occasionally, however, it seems to work.
Let me assure you that if such a prayer is answered, it is answered only temporarily. To pray this way is wrong. God is not trying to reform us so that we are better behaved. He wants to add Himself to us and be our life. He wants to be our very substance, just as the food we take in becomes part of us. We do not gain strength by having a cow help us! Our energy does not come from riding on a bull! The animal must be slaughtered and some of it must be eaten by us. Within a few hours the beef we have eaten is assimilated, and we find that we are strengthened to carry on. It is not the strength of the cow that is sustaining us. Rather, the element of the cow has come into our blood. It has become part of us.
Such an illustration of the food we eat is to point us to Christ. We are not imitating Him or asking for His help. Rather, we take Him in daily. As we digest and assimilate Him, we are changed into His image.
If this young sister we have mentioned feeds upon Christ daily and opens to let Him be her life element, gradually and spontaneously her ugly manner will disappear, as the new element is metabolically added to her. This is what transformation is. This is the way of God’s salvation.
Transformation is the work of the Holy Spirit. To listen to preaching is not sufficient. The word of the preaching brings the Spirit to you. God comes with the Spirit. By His coming into you, you will have such a change. The outcome of this transformation is the golden lampstand.
Genesis 1:1 says, “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.” Verse 4 of chapter 2 says, “Jehovah God made earth and heaven.” Here are two different names for one person. Other names for God are introduced as the Bible continues, but we will skip over to the Gospel of Matthew, which says, “The book of the generation of Jesus Christ” (1:1). Do you think Jesus Christ and Jehovah are two separate persons? No! The revelation in the Bible is progressive. First there is mention of God, then Jehovah, and then Jesus Christ.
The revelation continues. In Acts 2:2-4 the Holy Spirit came and filled all the disciples gathered together. In the Epistles we read, “The Lord is the Spirit” (2 Cor. 3:17). Then, in the final book, there are seven churches and seven Spirits before His throne (Rev. 1:4). These seven Spirits are the seven lamps of fire burning before the throne (4:5). The seven lamps, in turn, are the seven eyes of the Lamb (5:6). Then in the last chapter, “the Spirit and the bride say, Come!” (22:17).
Now you have had a survey of the whole Bible. In Genesis God is introduced, but in Revelation there are the Spirit and the bride. These are not different persons. In the beginning He was God. Then the name Jehovah comes in. After that He became Jesus Christ. Then He became the Spirit. Ultimately, He is the Spirit and the bride. The Spirit is the ultimate expression of God.
In your daily fellowship with God, who is the God that you contact? Is He the God in Genesis 1 or the Spirit in Revelation 22? Today the God you experience is the Spirit. The God in Genesis 1 was far away in the heavens. Now He is the Spirit within you and is one with the bride.
How did God after incarnation become the Spirit? After living on earth for thirty-three and a half years, He went to the cross and there redeemed us from our sins and terminated the old creation. He was buried and after three days arose from the dead. In resurrection the last Adam became a life-giving Spirit (1 Cor. 15:45). The last Adam is the man Jesus, God become flesh. In resurrection He took the second step, by which He became the Spirit.
The Lord, as the last Adam, became the Spirit after incarnation by passing through death and resurrection. Besides being the Spirit, He is also the seven Spirits (Rev. 4:5); that is, He has been intensified sevenfold. This is the Spirit who is within us. This is the God who is within us.
Are you in Genesis, in Matthew, or in Revelation? I would surely answer that I am in the book of Revelation. I would not like to stay in Romans or even in Ephesians. I am in Revelation. I am part of the golden lampstand. I am enjoying the seven Spirits, the seven lamps, and the seven eyes (5:6).
How do we who are men of clay become men of gold? As we pray, repent, and confess to the Lord, the Spirit, this intensified Spirit, fills us. If we do not pray, or if we do not open to repent and confess our sins when we pray, there is no way for us to be transformed. The more we open in our praying, the more we will be filled with this sevenfold Spirit.
This Spirit is like a lamp, shining in us. He ruthlessly exposes us. Because we do not fully open to Him, however, His work is not accomplished all at once. As we open a little, He comes in. The next day we may open the door to another room, but just a small crack. The Lord will put His foot in, and we tell Him that is enough. Then His shoulder may follow. Sometimes we argue with Him. Sometimes He argues with us. Sometimes He simply stays there knocking on one of the doors. Eventually, we cannot help but open to Him. We are not all that pleased for Him to be there, because we no longer feel as comfortable in that room as we did before He came in. Little by little, as we pray and confess, the Lord goes from room to room. For some the time is longer, for others shorter, but it takes a few years. Even then we are not entirely possessed by Him.
We who are saved and love the Lord must be fully occupied by Him. The Lord will not become impatient. To Him a thousand years are like a day. If we refuse to let Him in today, He will try again tomorrow. If He cannot gain an entrance this year, He will be back again next year. Even if we hold out during this age, in the next age He will come again. Sooner or later He will occupy us fully. Years ago I decided I would like to have this matter settled quickly. It is pointless to bargain with Him. I told Him to take over as fast as He could. Nonetheless, it is God’s way to occupy us little by little.
The Lord may come to enlighten you. After two or three weeks you decide you have had enough. You quit. No more praying. No more meetings. That is the end. But after a few weeks you begin to think of the Lord again. You find yourself talking to Him. You find yourself going to a meeting. As you sit there, inside you the tears begin to flow. Afterward, when you get home, you kneel by your bed and pour out your heart to Him.
What makes you have an experience like that? Why should you suffer that kind of torment? What folly! What is this mysterious constraint within you? It is inexplicable, yet somehow you have been restored to the Lord. You attend the Lord’s table meeting and enjoy its sweetness. A few days pass by, and you find the Lord again knocking at the door of that very room you will not open. You answer, “Lord! Here You are again! You had better forget about this room.” Such is our story.
I can describe these experiences to you because I have passed along this road. Over the course of fifty years, one after another, the rooms have been given to the Lord. This is the Lord’s work within us as the sevenfold Spirit. He daily enlightens us and exposes our weaknesses. Even unintentionally and unwillingly we find ourselves confessing to Him.
Once a weakness is touched by the Lord, it is no longer the same. After Jacob’s thigh was touched by the Lord, he walked with a limp (Gen. 32:24-31). You used to go into a violent rage when you got angry. Now you may still lose your temper, but it has lost its vigor. Your temper is crippled. You want to flare up, but the fire will not come. Because your temper has been touched by the Lord, your rage can no longer go out of bounds.
The same thing befalls your idle talk. You would go from house to house, talking about whether Sister So-and-so was pregnant, whether Brother So-and-so was engaged, and whether that family came from East or West Malaysia. There came a time when you prayed, however, and the seven lamps shined. Why were you such a busybody? Why not preach the gospel instead of gossiping? The reproaching of those seven Spirits shining within crippled your idle talk. The next time you visit your sister-in-law, your tongue is silent. You can only ask how she is. When she begins to tell you the latest news about the neighbors, you have a sinking feeling inside. She asks what is wrong, and you do not know what to say. Your gossiping tongue has been crippled.
One after another our weaknesses are touched until they are lame. The Lord still shines until in time our weaknesses are gone.
These seven Spirits are also the seven eyes. Eyes speak of transfusion and transmission. As we look at someone, we infuse what we are into him. When we are in prayer, we sometimes sense the Lord’s eyes upon us. He is infusing us with Himself, changing what we are by adding His substance to us. After our time of prayer we are not the same as before. Not only has His light shined on us; He has also transfused His element into us. We have had an “injection” of the divine life. Day by day it increases.
Without your realizing it, you are being transformed. Not only is there gold within you; you are becoming pure gold. The gold is taking the form of the stature of Christ. Then when you meet together, you are a golden lampstand. The Holy Spirit is released and able to shine forth.
Now you can see why the seven Spirits are not only the ultimate expression of God but also the ultimate expression of the church. If a lamp has no light bulb, it has no ultimate expression. The lampstand’s ultimate expression is the bright shining of its seven lamps. The church in each locality can be such a lampstand, shining in the darkness, because all of you individually are being transformed. The element of gold is increasing in you, resulting in your expressing God Himself.
The golden lampstand is God Himself and also the church. This reality is accomplished by the seven Spirits, which are the Spirit. In the end the Spirit and the bride become one entity. This is what the church is. This is the final objective toward which God is aiming. This is the work of the Spirit in us. By these seven Spirits, seven lamps, and seven eyes, all that God is will be shined into us. By this transfusion of Himself, we will be metabolically changed to become the golden lampstand in reality.
