In the meetings of the church – the Holy Place – all the saints must exercise their spirit and cause the lighting of the lamps; the light comes of their enjoyment of Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God, the divine nature, the humanity of Christ, and the Spirit of Christ.
Our responsibility and privilege as priests to God is to light the lamps in the Holy Place, that is, cause light to ascend in the meetings of the church. Whenever we gather together with the saints, the Lord is among us, and we as children of light need to cause light to ascend.
We first need to walk in the light and have our whole being in the light, allowing the Lord as light to saturate us and expose to remove anything in us that hinders the shining of the light. Then, whenever we meet and whatever we do, we will shine with God Himself as light.
This light is not an artificial light – it is not man-made, neither is it natural light – it is not from our own ability or knowledge; this light is the divine light, the light that comes from God. In order to receive light from God to see the true nature of things we need to have a pure heart; only those who are pure in heart can see God (Matt. 5:8).
We need to be rescued from any self-deception and be brought fully into the light by turning our heart to the Lord and being single in heart for Him. We need to allow the Lord to search our heart and know us; we need to let Him come in and expose the pride, ambition, and mixture, and remove all these negative things.
We need to receive the Lord’s spoken word and say Amen to it, allowing the word of God to operate in us, settle in us, and make home in us; the opening of the Lord’s word gives light, giving understanding to the simple.
God’s acts can be clearly seen, but His ways are hidden and His paths, with His footsteps, are not known to men; when we enter into the sanctuary of God, we can see God’s way clearly. God’s way is revealed to us in the sanctuary, that is, when we are in our spirit and when we are in the church.
It is many times a troublesome task to try to understand what is going on, why some things happen to us, and why we as God’s seekers have to go through such suffering, persecution, and pain; but when we turn to the Lord in our spirit and meet with the saints in the church, all things become clear.
In our spirit and in the church, under the shining of God’s light, we receive divine revelation and obtain the explanation to all our problems.
Amen, Lord, keep us turning to You in spirit, and keep us enjoying You with the saints in the meetings of the church! Save us from mentally trying to understand the situation – keep us turning to You, walking in the spirit, and meeting with the saints in spirit so that we may receive and be in the divine light! Lord, amen, may our whole being, living, speaking, and actions be in the divine light!
Elements involved when we Experience the Lighting of the Lamps in the Church Meetings
If we look at the picture in the Old Testament in the tabernacle concerning the lighting of the lamps in the Holy Place, we will realize that there are certain elements involved whenever this takes place: the lampstand, the lamps, the oil, and the wicks all need to be present and ready.
If we want to light the lamps in the meetings of the church, the sanctuary of God, we need to experience the spiritual reality of these elements. If we have these elements, whatever we say and do in the meetings will give forth light.
We need to know what is involved when we experience the genuine lighting of the lamps in the church meetings, the sanctuary of God.
Suppose when believers come together, everyone in the congregation is a priest. When they open their mouths to speak, that will be the lighting of the lamps. A young sister may give a short word of testimony, and in her testimony there will be the lighting of the lamps. The saints in the meeting may be surprised, and the meeting itself will be full of light. Then the gathering, the sanctuary, will be full of divine light. This light comes out of the embodiment of the Triune God, out of the divine nature, out of Christ’s humanity, and out of the Spirit of God becoming the Spirit of Christ with the elements of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection. What we say and do in the meetings should always include these elements. (Life-study of Exodus, p. 1313, by Witness Lee)
The Lampstand: Christ as the Embodiment of the Triune God. The light in the sanctuary of God issues from the lampstand, which signifies the embodiment of the Triune God (Exo. 37:17).
The lampstand shows us the embodiment of the Triune God: with the gold we have the nature of the Father (the divine nature), with the shape of the lamp we have the Son (the embodiment of the Triune God), and with the lamps we have the Spirit (the seven Spirits, the expression of the Spirit).
What gives light in the Holy Place is the lampstand, the embodiment of the Triune God, with no mixture – pure gold, the pure nature of the Father, expressed in Christ the Son, and realized as the Spirit.
What does it mean for us to experience Christ as the embodiment of the Triune God? Christ needs to be formed in us; He not only needs to live in us (Gal. 2:20) but also be formed in us until He is clearly seen in us (Gal. 4:19). Christ needs to be experienced by us until He’s not just a “good feeling” or something objective but He is being formed in us through many experiences, dealings, and sufferings (signified by the “beaten work”).
The Light comes out of the Gold, the Divine Nature of Christ. The light in the Holy Place comes out of the gold of the golden lampstand; this gold signifies the divine nature of Christ (John 1:1; 8:12; 2 Pet. 1:4). Christ came to be the light of the world, and out of His divine nature light shone over all those sitting in darkness.
As believers in Christ we have Christ in us, and His divine nature is in us; we need to know, enjoy, and partake of the divine nature so that we may be “golden”, that is, divine-human beings shining out the divine light. We need to escape all the corrupted things which are in the world by lust, and we need to light the lamps by walking according to the divine nature and partaking of the divine nature.
The light we need to cause to ascend is not a natural light or a man-made light but a divine light, the light that comes from the divine nature.
The Wick signifies Christ’s Humanity, which Burns with Oil and Shines. Christ is golden (divine), but it is His humanity – signified by the wick – that burns with oil. It is not the gold that burns and gives out light; the gold upholds the light, but it is the wicks that burn with oil to give light.
The wicks in the old days were made of materials from plants, and spiritually they signify Christ’s humanity. Christ’s humanity was saturated with the Spirit (the wick was saturated with oil) to burn and give out the divine light wherever He was.
We need to experience not only the divine nature but also Christ’s humanity, the fine, pure, aromatic, and uplifted humanity of the God-man Jesus Christ. When we speak and share in the meetings it’s not just about what we speak and how we expound the truth, but it is whether the Lord’s humanity can be expressed through us. We need to experience Christ in His humanity, which is fragrant and sweet.
To cause the meeting to be lit up with the divine light, we need not only God’s divine nature but also Christ’s aromatic humanity.
The Oil signifies the Spirit of God who became the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9). The main function of the priests is to add oil for the lighting of the lamps; the oil comes from olive trees, and the olive tree signifies Christ (see Rom. 11:17; Judg. 9:9; Psa. 104:15).
Just as olives pass through a process to produce olive oil, so the Spirit of God has passed through a process involving incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection, to become the Spirit of Christ (Rom. 8:9). Now the Spirit of Christ is the oil which we must gain, be filled with, and bring to the meetings of the church to cause the divine light to keep shining.
We need to experience Christ as the olive tree in all the aspects of His process. On the one hand we need to experience His aromatic and wonderful humanity, and on the other, we need to be filled and anointed with the Spirit of Christ, flowing out the Spirit which has been constituted into us for the divine light to shine brightly.
Lord Jesus, we want to experience You as the embodiment of the Triune God by enjoying You, living Christ, and allowing Christ to be formed in us. May You gain a solid expression of Yourself in us as we go through all kinds of experiences. We want to partake of the divine nature and escape any corrupted thing in the world, so that the divine light would shine bring. Lord, we need the sweet experience and enjoyment of Your aromatic humanity so that You may be expressed through us and shine in us. We want to be filled and saturated with the Spirit of Christ as the oil.
References and Hymns on this Topic
- Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by brother James L. for this week, and Life-study of Exodus, pp. 1309-1313 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallization-Study of Exodus (part 4, 2016 Summer Training), msg. 8 (week 44 in the HWMR), Lighting the Lamps in the Sanctuary of God by Serving as Priests Clothed with the Expression of Christ.
- Hymns on this topic:
# God’s Spirit is of Christ today, / The Spirit of reality, / He dwells in me with Christ as life / To make this Christ so real to me. / As Christ is God’s embodiment, / Expressing God as life divine; / So is the Spirit unto Christ, / Revealing Him in life sublime. (Hymns #243)
# The Church the lampstand is to Christ, / Christ is the lamp with God as light; / The light divine from Christ doth shine, / The Church upholds its glory bright. (Hymns #822)
# Thy Word I read before Thee here / E’en as the priests the lamp did light; / Thy Spirit is as oil to me / To light Thy Word and give me sight. (Hymns #813)
About aGodMan
We need to dwell on this matter of the olive oil used in lighting the lamps. Christ, as signified by the lampstand all of gold, is the embodiment of the Triune God. But in the center of the lamps there were the wicks. These wicks were not of gold; on the contrary, they were of the plant life. Because gold does not burn, it cannot give light. It is the wicks that burn to give light. However, in themselves it is very difficult for the wicks to give off light. Instead of giving off light, they give off smoke. This is the reason it is necessary to saturate the wicks with oil in order to have light.
In typology oil signifies the Spirit of God. Oil comes from olive trees, and the olive tree signifies Christ. In the sight of God, Christ is the real olive tree. (Life-study of Exodus, pp. 1309-1311, by W. Lee)
Amen, I love Your speaking, Lord! I love Your prayers of intercession. Thank You Lord! Thank You for the ministry!
Amen! Certain elements must be involved whenever we experience the genuine lighting of the lamps in the meetings. These elements are the embodiment of the Triune God, the divine nature, the uplifted humanity of Christ, and the Spirit of Christ with Christ’s process of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection. If we have these elements, then whatever we say and do in the meetings will give forth light. This is the lighting of the lamps in the Holy Place.
Yes, Lord we need to be saturated with YOUR SPIRIT AS OIL
Amen! Christ Himself is the Divine Light. We must walk and partake of this Divine Nature and surely this light will shine thru us!