We have seen that every single local church as a lampstand is an embodiment of the Triune God. When all the local churches are put together they are the multiplication of the lampstand as revealed in Exodus 25; therefore, in this age the lampstands are the multiplied embodiment of the Triune God as the testimony of Jesus. In Paul’s fourteen Epistles he mainly taught the mystery of God which is Christ (Col. 2:2) and the mystery of Christ which is the church (Eph. 3:4). Christ and the church are a great mystery (Eph. 5:32). Christ is the embodiment of God and the church as the Body of Christ is the embodiment of Christ; the embodiment of Christ simply means the embodiment of the Triune God. This again shows us that the book of Revelation is the conclusion of all the books of the Bible, especially of all the books of the New Testament, which reveal to us Christ and the church. The conclusion of all the aspects of the church revealed in the foregoing twenty-six books of the Bible is that the church in this age is signified by the lampstand.
Revelation is a book of signs which are symbols with spiritual significance. The first sign of this book is the lampstand, a sign of the church. A sign is a picture, and a picture is always better than one thousand words. It would be hard to describe the lampstand without a picture of it. For example, it is very difficult to describe a person’s face. How can one give the dimensions of a person’s nose, ears, or cheeks? By looking at a picture of a person’s face, though, we are able to see exactly what that person looks like. This is why the end of the New Testament gives us a conclusion of all the definitions of the church in the sign of the lampstand.
The three aspects of the lampstand are the element, the shape, and the expression. The golden element signifies God’s divine nature. Also, Christ is described in the New Testament as the embodiment of the invisible God (Col. 2:9). He has a form and a likeness and He is a mold for us to be conformed into (Rom. 8:29). Christ desires to be formed in us (Gal. 4:19). This shows us that Christ is the shape of the lampstand. The Bible does not tell us that the Father has an image or a form, nor does it say that the Spirit has a likeness. The words image, form, likeness, and mold are ascribed to the second of the Trinity, so He is the shape of the lampstand. The expression of the lampstand is the Spirit. In our daily life we have the fruit of the Spirit, and the fruit of any tree is its expression. Then in our ministry, in our service in the church, we have the manifestation of the Spirit. The fruit of the Spirit is mentioned in Galatians 5 where our daily walk is revealed, and the manifestation of the Spirit is mentioned in 1 Corinthians 12 where our ministry or service in the church is mentioned. In our life we have the fruit as the expression, and in our ministry we have the manifestation as the expression. According to the entire revelation of the Bible, God the Father is the element, God the Son is the shape, and God the Spirit is the expression. When these three aspects are put together, we see the lampstand which is the embodiment of the Father, of the Son, and of the Spirit.
A local church is a lampstand, signifying the Triune God embodied in human beings. This is the great mystery of godliness revealed in 1 Timothy 3:16—God manifested in the flesh. This not only transpired in Jesus Christ as an individual person, but this also transpires in all the local churches. Jesus Christ Himself was a lampstand, and today every single local church is also a lampstand. In element or in nature, in shape or in type, in expression or in manifestation, a local church is exactly the same as Jesus Christ. The local churches are the testimony of Jesus.
By the time we reach the book of Revelation, everything has been covered already in the Old and New Testaments. There is nearly nothing new in the book of Revelation. Not only the holy writings but also all the secular writings, after talking about so many things and covering so many aspects, have a conclusion. In the conclusion they repeat and confirm what has already been spoken. The Bible is the same. After sixty-five books everything has been revealed and now there is the need of a conclusion.