From seeing the Divine Trinity in an all-embracing way in Revelation 1:4 we must go on to the seven churches. The seven churches are a consummation of the doctrine concerning the church. This is the consummation of the church, which was first mentioned by the Lord Jesus in Matthew 16:18 and where the seed of this truth was sown. Then this seed grew up in the Acts and was growing in the Epistles where it developed to the uttermost. Then the last book of the New Testament gives us the consummation of the church— the local churches. The book of Revelation, especially chapter one, does not continue the thought that the church is God’s ekklesia, God’s house, Christ’s Body, Christ’s fullness, the new man, the wife, the Bride of Christ, or the warrior. The church in Revelation 1 is consummated as the lampstands. The lampstands are the consummation of all the definitions of all the aspects of the church.
Probably many of us have never thought about the location of the lampstands. Where are the local churches—on earth or in heaven? Surely they are on earth because Revelation 1:11 tells us that the seven churches are seven cities. None of the local churches are in the heavens, but they are all physical, geographical locations. The local churches are on the earth. Now we must ask where the lampstands are. Are they in the heavens or on the earth? We need to be careful in our answer to this question. The lampstands are the consummation of the lampstand in the Old Testament. In Exodus 25:31-38 and in Zechariah 4:2 the lampstand was in the tabernacle and in 1 Kings 7:49 the lampstand was in the temple. Is this location within the tabernacle the earthly place or the heavenly place? The earthly place was outside the tabernacle where the altar was. But what about within the tabernacle? The lampstand is not in the outer court but in the holy place. In practical existence the churches are on this earth. In the sign of the churches, the lampstands, the churches are in the holy place. Here the Son of Man, the Lord Jesus, appears not as a priest offering sacrifices on the altar outside of the tabernacle, but He appears as a priest who serves within the tabernacle to take care of the lampstands.
The priest in the Old Testament had a three-fold duty—to offer the sacrifices, to trim the lamps of the lampstands, and to burn the incense. One of their responsibilities was in the outer court and two were in the tabernacle. In the book of Revelation the Lord Jesus appears as a priest only with these two duties within the tabernacle—to trim the lampstand and to offer the incense (Rev. 8:3-5). There is not a verse in Revelation which indicates that the Lord is offering some sacrifice because the offering of sacrifices has already been accomplished. In chapter one He appears not as the priest offering the sacrifices, but as the priest trimming the lampstand. Therefore, we must realize that according to the lampstand, the churches are in the heavens. According to the practical existence, the churches are on the earth. This indicates that the churches are in the heavens appearing on the earth. This is the principle of Bethel, which is the house of God (Gen. 28:17, 19). The house of God is a spot where a ladder joins the earth to the heavens and brings the heavens down to the earth. As a consummation concerning the church, we see a view of how the church in its significance is in the heavens and in its physical existence is on the earth. Therefore, the church is a heavenly matter, yet it is on earth. This is the consummation. To understand Revelation 1 concerning the church as the lampstand, we need the entire Old Testament. The seven lampstands are the consummation of the lampstand in the Old Testament.
The seven stars in Revelation 1:16 and 20 are also a consummation. First, God promised Abraham that He would multiply his seed as the stars of the heaven and also as the sand which is upon the seashore (Gen. 22:17). Abraham had two kinds of descendants—the heavenly ones, which are the believers, the regenerated ones, and the earthly ones, the natural Jews who were born of the race of Abraham without being regenerated. The Jews are the earthly descendants of Abraham like the sand which is upon the seashore. But we are the heavenly descendants of Abraham, the stars of the heaven. Daniel 12:3 also indicates that the heavenly descendants of Abraham will be like the shining stars. The mentioning of the stars in Revelation 1 is a consummation indicating that all the messengers, the leading ones, of the churches should be altogether in the heavens. The stars are not only heavenly, but they are also in the heavens. This again is a consummation.
We can also see the consummation of other items in the seven epistles to the churches in Revelation 2 and 3. The first consummation is the tree of life. In the epistle to Ephesus the Lord says, “To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God” (2:7). This is nothing new, but this is the tree of life in consummation. In Genesis 2, the tree of life was presented to man in a general way, but in Revelation 2:7 the right to eat the tree of life has been restricted to the overcomers. The unbelievers and even the common believers have no right to eat the tree of life in Revelation 2:7. Only he who overcomes has the right to eat. This is the consummation, but it is still not the ultimate consummation. We see the ultimate consummation of the tree of life in Revelation 22:2 and 14 where all the believers, not only the overcomers, will have the right to the tree of life in the new heaven and the new earth. The right to the tree of life there is based upon only one requirement—to have your robes washed, to be saved. In Revelation 2:7, however, the right to the tree of life is restricted to the overcoming ones who do not merely have their robes washed but have overcome the degraded church situation.