The last book of the Bible opens with a vision of seven golden lampstands. As we are told, the lampstands are seven churches (Rev. 1:20).
Why is the church a golden lampstand? Very few see this mystery. As we said in previous messages, the golden lampstand firstly symbolizes the Triune God. It speaks of His nature, form, and expression. The Father is the nature, the Son is the image, and the Spirit is the expression. For the church to be represented by this very same symbol indicates that the church is the expression of the Triune God. Ultimately the church is one with God.
From the standpoint of experience, how does the Triune God come into us and then become the church? Since our regeneration, we have had the nature of God, the pure gold, inside us. But for this gold to take the shape of the lampstand requires that we be transformed.
I am not talking about being reformed. Transformation is a matter of life. It involves a metabolic change. A mortician has to apply artificial coloring to the face of a dead person in order to disguise the pallor of the lips and the skin. The corpse lies in his coffin, still lifeless, but his appearance is much improved. The best reformation can do is to superficially change the outward appearance.
Transformation, in contrast, produces change from within. If you are sickly and pallid, you need to begin eating properly and getting enough fresh air and exercise. After a time the proper diet and exercise will cause a metabolic change in your appearance. Without any false color being added to your skin, your complexion will be vibrant with good health.
The Scripture speaks of being transformed in 2 Corinthians 3:18: “But we all, with unveiled face beholding and reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit” (Gk.). Romans 12:2 also tells us not to be “conformed to this age, but be transformed by the renewing of the mind.” Transformation refers to a metabolic change brought about by another element being added to us and becoming part of us.
Without this additional element, which is God Himself, we cannot be transformed. The best we can hope for is an improved appearance, while we still remain our old self. God has no interest in improving us outwardly. His economy is first to regenerate us by adding His very nature to us. This higher element then begins to uplift our original element and gradually eliminates the negative things of that original condition.
When the Holy Spirit comes into man, He brings with Him the element of divinity. This element effects a change in man. This change is usually called the work of the Spirit. He is not merely reforming man. As those who have studied chemistry know, there cannot be a chemical reaction without a new element being added, no matter how much effort is made to uplift the original constituents.
It is pitiful that so many Christians regard the work of the Spirit as a work of reformation. They ask God for His Spirit to help them to be more loving and to fulfill their duties. They consider themselves as poor and weak, in need of the power of the Holy Spirit to strengthen them. The thought of God as the all-powerful One, answering the prayers of poor, frail human beings by strengthening them to meet their obligations, is a natural religious concept.
Such a concept is not the revelation of the Bible. When the Holy Spirit comes, He brings God into you. God Himself becomes the source within you. He becomes your life, bringing about a subjective, organic change. He is not helping you in an external way. The end result is that you become God-men, not good men! You are not merely full of virtues, but full of God! You are not here to express virtues, but to express God.
We were born men of clay. When the Holy Spirit comes, He begins to change us into men of gold. He also shapes the gold within us until it is in the form of a lampstand. This lampstand is the church.
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