While we are growing with the divine element, we are being shaped. Life always has the life essence, the life power, and the life shape. We do not need to worry about an apple tree producing bananas. There is no need to make a mold so that the fruit on the apple tree will take the shape of an apple. The apple life has the apple shape in the same way that the divine life has its divine shape. The divine shape is Christ. Christ is the mold, the form, and the likeness, and the New Testament tells us that as His many brethren we will be conformed to His image (Rom. 8:29). In Philippians 3:10 Paul also tells us that as we experience Christ we are being conformed to His death. The more we grow, the more we are in the shape of Christ. According to my experience the shape of Christ is mainly in the mold of His death and resurrection. The more we grow in the divine life, the more we do not live the natural life. We do not move, act, or work in the natural life, but we move, act, and live in the resurrection life. People can see that in our daily life we do not live the natural life because the natural life is under the cross. We live another life, the resurrection life. As a result, in our daily life there is a form, a shape, of Christ’s death and resurrection. All the saints in the churches are being shaped into the image of Christ, so all the churches are being molded into a form. When I was a young man studying the Bible, I was taught by some teachers that in the church life there should be no disorder. This teaching is right, but actually it is not a matter of order, but a matter of shape. We all have to be shaped by the divine life into its form, and the form of the divine life is Christ. We all need to let Christ be formed in us (Gal. 4:19).
The golden lampstands are also filled with God the Spirit as the seven shining Spirits—the full expression of the Triune God. In the New Testament we are told to be filled with the Spirit (Eph. 5:18), to walk according to Spirit (Rom. 8:4; Gal. 5:16), and to bear the fruit of the Spirit (Gal. 5:22-23). In our service and in our ministry we need to have the manifestation of the Spirit, so in our daily life we need to have the fruit of the Spirit as our expression. In our church service we can only have the manifestation of the Spirit as our expression by praying in our spirit (Eph. 6:18). We all need to pray unceasingly (1 Thes. 5:17) that we may be filled in our spirit. Ephesians 5:18 charges us not to be filled with wine in our body, but to be filled with the divine element and riches in our spirit. As a result, the Spirit will spontaneously shine out of us. In our daily life we will have the fruit of the Spirit. In our work, service, and ministry, the Spirit will be the manifestation. The fruit of the Spirit and the manifestation of the Spirit are both the expression, the shining, of the lampstands.
Eventually, the church should be the lampstand with God the Father’s nature as the element, with God the Son’s mold as a shape, and with God the Spirit’s expression as the shining. This shining is just the testimony of Jesus. This is the church life and this is what the Lord is after in His recovery today. God’s New Testament economy, which is focused on one wonderful Person who has passed through all the processes, issues in this age in the golden lampstand to shine forth the testimony of Jesus. Eventually, in the coming eternity the issue will be the New Jerusalem and that issue will be much richer than the golden lampstand.