The church is a corporate expression of God in Christ. In the seven epistles that the Lord spoke to the seven churches, we can find some secrets of how we can be the expression of God. The Christ revealed in Revelation 1 through 3 is a wonderful person. It is difficult to describe this wonderful person, but we know that in this universe there is such a wonderful One. These chapters first present a vision of Christ as the Son of Man walking in the midst of the seven lampstands, the local churches (1:13; 2:1). Some Christian teachers say that since the lampstands must be in heaven, Jesus is walking among them in heaven. However, since the seven lampstands signify the seven local churches, they are still on the earth. We cannot say that Jesus is walking in heaven among the churches. Verse 11 of chapter 1 says, “What you see write in a scroll and send it to the seven churches.” John was not writing to the heavens or to the angels. Instead, he was writing to seven cities on the earth—Ephesus, Smyrna, Pergamos, Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea. Christ today as the wonderful person is walking on the earth in the midst of His local churches.
In this portion of the Word, this wonderful person does not charge us to worship Him, and there is only a small indication that we need to work for Him. The first church, the church in Ephesus, did many good works for Him. Christ appreciated this, but not very much. Mainly, He was not happy with Ephesus. He said, “I know your works...But I have one thing against you, that you have left your first love” (2:2, 4). The first secret to being the church as the testimony of Jesus is that we must love Him. We must say, “O Lord Jesus, I love You. Lord Jesus, nothing is as sweet to me as You are. Lord, I love You sweetly, intimately, and privately. In my love for You, I have many secrets with You that even my spouse does not know of.” Can we say this to the Lord? We must have a private love toward the Lord that we have not told even to our spouse. We all need to tell Jesus that we love Him.
After this, we also need to partake of the Lord by eating Him. We should not care as much about worshipping or serving Jesus. Strictly speaking, He does not need us to serve Him. He has countless angels to serve Him. Rather, He needs some eaters. He wants us to eat Him (John 6:57). Even if the angels desired to eat Jesus, they do not have this privilege. However, we, His simple followers, do have the privilege. We must know nothing but eating Jesus. Eating Jesus is the way. Revelation 2:7 says, “To him who overcomes, to him I will give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.” If we love the Lord, we need to eat Him. We need to take Him into us as our enjoyment. Nothing is as enjoyable as eating. We can forget every kind of sport and give up all entertainment, but we cannot give up eating. My residence is near Disneyland, but I have never gone there. The best land is not Disneyland but Christ our land. Christ not only gives us the good land; He is the good land. He is our enjoyment, our entertainment, our sport, our amusement, our joy, and our rejoicing. We all need to enjoy Him. To be the proper church is to enjoy Christ, love Him, and eat Him as the tree of life and the hidden manna (v. 17).
Loving Jesus is the first secret, and eating Him is the second. We need to eat Him in both an open way and a hidden way. We can eat Him by pray-reading His word with some other saints (Jer. 15:16). This is to eat the tree of life. However, we also must learn how to eat Him in a hidden way as the hidden manna. It is when we eat Him as the hidden manna that we are given a “white stone”; that is, we are transformed into precious stones, which are for God’s building. First we eat Him openly, and then we eat Him in a hidden way to be transformed into stone. Verse 12 of Revelation 3 indicates that the stones are built into the temple as a main part, a supporting pillar, of God’s building. Here is an advancement. Verse 7 of chapter 2 speaks of eating, verse 17 indicates transformation into a white stone, and 3:12 speaks of a pillar built into God’s temple, which eventually consummates in the holy city. We are being built into the church, which today is the temple and in the future will be enlarged to be the city.
Verse 20 says, “If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, then I will come in to him and dine with him and he with Me.” In Greek, dine denotes taking the principal meal of the day at evening. To dine is to eat not merely one kind of food but the riches of a feast. This may refer to the eating of the rich produce of the good land of Canaan by the children of Israel (Josh. 5:10-12). The tree of life, the manna, and the produce of the good land are all types of the various aspects of Christ as food to us. We must eat Christ not only as the tree of life and the hidden manna but also as a feast full of His riches.
I would encourage all the young brothers and sisters to take heed to this word. Fifty years ago, when I was your age, I prayed every morning, “Lord, I give myself to You again. I put myself into Your hand. Lord, You must do something for Yourself in this age through this young man.” How I thank the Lord that He has answered my prayer. I do hope and expect that from today on, many of the young people will pray, “Lord, help me to eat You as the tree of life and even as the hidden manna in a hidden way that I may be transformed into a white stone to be built into Your temple as a supporting pillar.” The Lord’s recovery today, particularly in this country, needs many supporting pillars in every place. To this end, we need to pray. I can assure you and testify that this kind of prayer will be fully answered by the Lord.
Now we can see what the church is. The church is the transformed humanity who loves Christ, eats Christ, enjoys Christ, and is transformed by the holy, divine element of Christ into something solid—a white stone for God’s building. In one sense, the church is still humanity, but in another sense, it is a stone, a solid, supporting pillar, and a pure, solid, golden lampstand. All these matters are covered in the seven epistles in Revelation 2 and 3.