This can be confirmed by the churches' experience. Whenever Christ as the High Priest comes to snuff all the negative things and add more oil to the church, He is actually adding more and more of the sevenfold Spirit, which is to add more of the divine nature, more of the gold, into the church life. At the beginning, the church in a locality may not have much gold. As time goes on, though, the Lord snuffs the negative things and adds the oil. Eventually, the church will have more gold, more and more of the divine nature. This tells us that the church as the embodiment of the Triune God must be reduced in all the human, natural things, but always increased in the divine nature. Our flesh, our self, our natural man, and everything about us related to the old creation, even our good self, must be reduced.

The black, charred part of the wicks of the lampstand signifies our flesh, our natural man, our self, and our old creation. In the church life if you bring in your natural life, your self, your flesh, and your old creation, this becomes the charred part of the wicks of the lampstand. Then Christ as our High Priest must come in to cut off, to snuff, this charred part. A brother may exercise so much of his self, his old creation, and his natural life, that these natural things become black. Then there is the need for our Head, Christ the High Priest, to come in to cut off all these black things. Whenever such a cutting is going on, the adding of the oil accompanies it. This oil is actually the flow of the gold, which is the sevenfold Spirit as the divine element.

In Revelation 2 and 3 with the seven churches, all the black, charred parts of the wicks can be seen. In the church in Ephesus the coldness came in and the first love was lost (2:4). This was the black part. In the church at Pergamos worldliness came in along with hierarchy (2:13-15). Christ as the High Priest in Revelation is snuffing all these black charred parts of the wick. At the same time, He is adding the oil into the churches. In principle today it is the same. When the church exists in a certain locality, at the beginning it may have been somewhat pure because worldliness and fleshly activities could not be seen there. But after a number of years, the worldly things, the fleshly activities, the human opinion, the natural activity, the old creation, and the traditional things may gradually come in. Then there is the need of a snuffing of these black elements. The High Priest comes to snuff all the negative things and to add in more and more of the sevenfold Spirit. The Spirit in essence is the golden element, even God Himself. The Spirit being added into the church indicates that God's divine element is being added into the church. By this way the flesh, the natural life, and the old creation are being reduced in the local churches and God's divine element is being increased. Through this process, the churches become the pure golden lampstands in reality, and this is the testimony of Jesus in today's age on this earth.