Furthermore, the book of Revelation uses the developed Trinity for the fullest unveiling of the church. Revelation 1:4 begins, “John to the seven churches.” You need to take note of the word seven. “To the seven churches...from Him who is and who was and who is coming, and from the seven Spirits.” Again, you need to take note of the word seven. The seven Spirits match the seven churches, the seven churches are the seven lampstands (1:20), and the seven Spirits are the seven eyes of the Lamb (5:6). The church in its fullest development is the seven churches as the seven lampstands which need the seven Spirits as the seven eyes of the Lamb to match them.
In Revelation even Christ has been developed. He did not have seven eyes when He was on this earth. Peter and James did not see the seven eyes. John who reclined on the bosom of Christ surely saw the Lord Jesus with only two eyes, but in Revelation, he saw the seven eyes of the Lamb. The seven eyes are a development. The One who used to have two eyes now has seven eyes.
The church in its fullest development needs to be matched by Christ in His development, and this matching is altogether a matter of the seven Spirits. This point is crucial. For the matching to be a matter of the seven Spirits means that we need not only to be filled but also to be saturated and even soaked in the seven Spirits. Then the church becomes the lampstand.
The lampstand is the embodiment of the Triune God. From 1975 we began to see the lampstand as the embodiment of the Triune God with three aspects—the substance, the form, and the expression. The substance of the lampstand is gold. In fact, the entire lampstand is a lump of gold (Rev. 1:12; Exo. 25:31). Gold signifies the divine substance, which is God Himself. This lump of gold also has a form. It is not merely a bare piece of gold but a piece of gold in a definite form with a purpose. The gold is in the form of a lampstand, and this form signifies Christ. God took a definite form in His Son. Actually, the Son of God is the form of God. In addition, the seven lamps are the expression of the lampstand. Both Zechariah and Revelation tell us that the seven lamps are the seven Spirits (Zech. 4:2, 10; Rev. 4:5). Therefore, these seven lamps that are the expression of the lampstand signify the seven Spirits, that is, the Spirit of God. Based upon the Spirit as the expression of the lampstand, it is clear that the lampstand is the embodiment of the Triune God, the embodiment of the Father as the substance, of the Son as the form, and of the Spirit as the expression.
In Revelation the lampstands specifically signify not Christ but the church. (See footnote 123 in Rev. 1—Recovery Version.) Nevertheless, we should not say that the lampstands are not Christ; rather, we should say that the lampstands are the increase of Christ. In Exodus 25 only Christ was typified in the lampstand, but in Revelation Christ in His increase is signified in the lampstands. The lampstands in Revelation signify Christ in His enlargement, in His increase.
When we are talking about the ministry of the New Testament, we need to ask ourselves whether we know how to minister the embodiment of the Triune God as the very solid element of the church. We need to consider this matter soberly. Including myself, I would say that we do not know much about this matter.
We need to see what the ground is for saying that Christ with His seven eyes is for the churches in the fullest development. At least once in writing to a church in the two chapters following chapter one, Christ declares that He has the seven Spirits (3:1). The fact that He has the seven Spirits indicates that what He has is to match the seven churches, and now the seven churches are the seven lampstands in the fullest development of the church.
In this book there is a long parenthetical section from chapter four through chapter twenty. The first three chapters of Revelation are the basic chapters on the church, and the last two chapters are the basic chapters on the consummation of the church. In between is a long parenthesis of seventeen chapters that tells of God’s dealing with the universe by His governmental administration. This parenthetical section begins with the throne of God (4:2) and ends with Satan cast into the lake of fire (20:10). What is indicated in this section is God’s dealing with His enemy, from the throne to the lake of fire.
During the time that God is dealing with His enemy, the churches are going on in growth. Therefore, even in the parenthetical section of seventeen chapters there are several references to the church people. In chapter seven is the innumerable multitude of believers, and in chapter twelve are the woman with the manchild (7:9; 12:1, 5). In chapter fourteen are the firstfruit with the harvest, in chapter fifteen are the overcomers on the glassy sea, and in chapter nineteen is the wife of the Lamb (14:4, 15; 15:2; 19:7-8). Then in chapter twenty are the overcoming saints who will be co-kings with Christ in the millennium (v. 6). These references to the church people within God’s governmental dealings indicate that the church is being developed during the time that God’s governmental dealing with His enemy is going on. These six instances—the innumerable multitude, the woman with the man-child, the firstfruit with the harvest, the overcoming ones on the glassy sea, the wife of the Lamb, and the co-kings of Christ in the millennium—show that the church is still going on and being developed while God is dealing with Satan.