The knobs, the calyxes, the external green leafy parts of the flowers, containing the blossoming buds, signify the sustaining and supporting power of the resurrection life. We can comprehend this only through our experience with the Lord. To shine the divine light is to blossom. But this blossoming requires a container to support and sustain it. From our experience we know that in order to shine with the divine light, we must have resurrection life to be a knob, a calyx, as a container to sustain and support our shining. If we do not have resurrection life as such a container, our blossom will collapse. This means that the shining of the divine light in us will cease. Without the knobs, the calyxes, the flowering buds would fall. In like manner, without the resurrection life, we have nothing to uphold, support, and sustain our shining of the divine light.
Suppose in your daily life with your family you are shining with the divine light. Suddenly, however, you revert to your natural life and begin to speak and behave in a natural way, especially in your relationships with the members of your family. Immediately, your blossoming buds collapse and you stop shining. Because you have lost the calyxes as the support of the blossoming buds, there is no more shining. When you remain in resurrection, you are blossoming, shining. But when you leave resurrection and return to your natural life, you immediately stop shining. You may have been shining a few minutes ago, but now, having lost the support of resurrection life, you are no longer shining. Whenever the calyx, the support of the blossoming bud, is removed, the flower collapses and falls. Thus, because there is no blossoming, there is no shining. The shining of the divine light is held by the resurrection life.
The blossoming buds, the petals, signify the expression of the resurrection life. Resurrection life is both the container and the blossom, both the support and the expression.
Exodus 25:32 says, “And there shall be six branches going out from its sides, three branches of the lampstand from its one side, and three branches of the lampstand from its other side.” On each side of the lampstand there are three branches arranged in layers. Here the number three denotes both resurrection and the Triune God. Actually resurrection is the Triune God. According to 1 Corinthians 15, the life-giving Spirit is the ultimate expression of the Triune God and the ultimate reaching of the Triune God to man. Hence, the life-giving Spirit is the ultimate consummation of the Triune God. Through resurrection, in resurrection, and with resurrection, Christ, the last Adam, became a life-giving Spirit. This life-giving Spirit is the processed Triune God. Resurrection is nothing less than the processed Triune God Himself. Resurrection is the Spirit of Christ, and the Spirit of Christ is Christ Himself. This understanding of resurrection corresponds to the Lord’s word: “I am the resurrection” (John 11:25).
On the one hand, in the Bible the number three refers to the Triune God; on the other hand, it refers to resurrection. Resurrection is the very Triune God. In the lampstand resurrection is signified not only by the almond blossoms, but also by the three branches on each side of the lampstand.
Furthermore, the branches signify the branching out of Christ’s resurrection life. The six branches in two groups of three signify the testimony of the light of life. Two is the number of testimony. For this reason, the Lord Jesus sent out the disciples two by two. In the same principle, the two groups of branches on the two sides of the lampstand signify the testimony of the light of life.
The three cups shaped like almond blossoms on each branch with knob and blossoming bud signify the resurrection life blossoming in and with the resurrection life. We have pointed out that there were three blossoms on each branch. This indicates resurrection with resurrection, and resurrection in resurrection. The lampstand is filled with almond blossoms. This reveals that the divine thought here is focused on resurrection.
We truly need a spirit of wisdom and revelation (Eph. 1:17) to understand the significance of the lampstand. In the golden lampstand we have divinity, resurrection, and the light of life. The shining is the expression of the divine life in resurrection. Although we are human and natural, through regeneration we have received the divine life with the divine nature (2 Pet. 1:4). This means that as believers in Christ, we have the divine substance, the divine element, that is, divinity. Now we need to live Christ, to live divinity, by practicing to be one spirit with the Lord. The vast majority of Christians neglect this matter. Instead, they simply teach others to improve their natural humanity. But in our natural humanity there is no divinity, no resurrection, and no light. We must not remain in our natural life, but enter into resurrection. For this, we must pass through the cross. Then we shall be in resurrection, and with the divine element in resurrection there will be the blossoming, the shining.
Once again I would emphasize the fact that the blossoming is the shining. When we blossom, we shine. With the lampstand we have divinity and resurrection. Now this resurrection needs to blossom. Whenever it blossoms, it shines; that is, it expresses the life of God. This expression, this blossoming, is the shining.
I encourage all the saints to consider the picture of the golden lampstand and pray about it. This will help us to see how Christ today is shining over us and how we can be a shining member of Christ through the divine nature and by blossoming in resurrection. This is to shine the divine light. The more we shine in this way, the more we shall be the church with the seven Spirits.