Causing Light to Ascend by the Humanity of Jesus saturated with the Spirit of Christ

It is our priestly duty as believers in Christ to light the lamps by causing the light to ascend in the church life, especially in the church meeting; this was a perpetual statute for the priests in the Old Testament and it is our duty today.

On one hand, the divine light comes from God, for only God is light and can give light; on the other, however, we need to cooperate with the Lord to cause the light to ascend and maintain the light shining in the meetings of the church and in our Christian life.

How do we light the lamps in our experience daily? Light is in God, in Christ, in the Spirit, and in the Word of God; for us to receive light, we need to come to the Lord in His word.

The letter kills, but the Spirit gives life; the words which the Lord speaks to us are spirit and are life. This means that we need to come to the Lord’s word every day with a prayerful attitude to “strike” the word with our spirit, that is, to exercise our spirit over the word of God, so that we may receive the divine light in the word.

Merely reading the Bible may not give us light, just as the Pharisees’ knowing the Scriptures did not give them the revelation that Christ – the living word of God – was among them.

Especially as we come to the Lord in the morning and before going to bed at night, we need to contact Him, read and pray His word, and cause the light to ascend. Then, when we come to the meetings of the church, we will come with light, and we will light the lamps in the Holy Place.

We need to seek to have God’s speaking, for His speaking is His shining. May our church life be filled with God’s speaking in us and among us, and may we all cooperate with the Lord to be in His word prayerfully so that He may shine in us, within us, and through us to all the saints! Amen!

And may we realise that, when we come to the meetings of the church, we do not have to say things of ourselves or manufacture light in our natural man; we simply need to exercise our spirit and cause light to ascend, so that we may light the lamps in the Holy Place.

May we not bring darkness to the meeting, and may we not allow meetings to be in darkness; may we simply be those walking in the light, enjoying God’s light in His word, and shining Him forth in the meetings of the church by our speaking and our living.

May we take the Lord’s word as a lamp unto our feet, and may the opening of His word give us light and understanding.

Amen, may we be a factor that increases the shining of the church as the golden lampstand, and may the Lord’s light shine bright among us for all to see God expressed in the church, His testimony on the earth!

Causing the Light to Ascend in the Church Life by the Humanity of Jesus Saturated with the Spirit

How did the light shine in the Holy Place? How did the priests cause the light of the lamps to ascend to give light in the tabernacle?

The lampstand was of pure gold, a beaten work, and it had seven lamps; these seven lamps had wicks not of gold but of the plant life, and these wicks were saturated and soaked with oil.

It was not the gold that burned but it was the wicks that burned, and they burned by being saturated with the oil. The job of the priests, therefore, was to trim the charred wicks and to add more oil so that the wicks would burn bright.

What do all these signify, and how do all these apply to our Christian life?

The oil is olive oil, and Christ is the olive tree; He went through a process to become the Spirit, typified by the olive oil. The olive tree signifies Christ (cf. Rom. 11:17, 24), and the oil of beaten olives signifies the Spirit of Christ produced through Christ’s process of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection (cf. John 1:14; 1 Cor. 15:45b).

Oil in the Old Testament refers to the Spirit of God; God went through a process to become the Spirit of Christ, the Spirit with the humanity of Jesus and will all His accomplishments, and this Spirit causes the light to shine.

The Spirit was produced through Christ’s process of incarnation, human living, crucifixion, and resurrection (1 Cor. 15:45; Rom. 8:9); this Spirit is the oil that supplies the light for God’s shining in the church life.

What does it mean to make the lamps burn?

First of all, this was a perpetual, a continual matter; the priests’ duty was to light the lamps in the Holy place twice a day, in the morning and in the evening, and the light in the Holy Place was never to go out.

This means that, no matter how much we meet with the saints and how established is the local church with its gatherings, we still need to cooperate with the Lord to light the lamps, that is, cause light to ascend in the meetings of the church.

The local churches are the golden lampstands, and no matter how long a local church has been in existence, the light cannot be discontinued – we all need to tend to it, making sure the light ascends, for this light is the testimony of Jesus, the testimony of the golden lampstand.

To light the lamps, that is, to make the lamps burn continually, literally means to cause the light of a lamp to ascend. But what causes the light to ascend is not the gold in the nature of the lampstand but the wicks (of the plant life) and the oil (of beaten olives).

This is very significant. In order for light to shine and for the lamps to burn, the wicks had to be saturated with oil, and anything that was charred had to be removed, so that light would shine and no smoke would be given.

The humanity of Jesus saturated with the Spirit of Christ needs to become our enjoyment and experience, for only this can cause light to shine in the church life. We need to come to the Lord and tell Him,

Lord Jesus, we want to fulfill our priestly duty to cause light to ascend in the meetings of the church. Lord, we have no light in ourselves, so we come to You; shine on us, shine in us, saturate us with the Spirit of Christ, and work Your humanity into us for the shining of the light in the meetings of the church. May there be abundant light in the meetings of the church at all time! May all the saints experience the uplifted humanity of Jesus and be saturated with the Spirit of Christ so that light would ascend and the golden lampstand would be shining for the testimony of Jesus!

Enjoying the Humanity of Jesus and being Filled with the Spirit of Christ to cause Light to Ascend

Causing light to ascend in the meetings of the church does not equal having much noise, much singing, and much praises outwardly; rather, causing light to ascend comes from enjoying the humanity of Jesus and being filled with the Spirit of Christ.

The light of the lampstand comes out of the gold, which signifies the divine nature; this shows that the shining comes out of the divine nature. But what causes light to shine is not the gold but the wicks, and these are of the plant life, signifying Christ’s uplifted humanity.

God became a man and went through a process, and in resurrection Christ brought His humanity into divinity, uplifting it and elevating it. Now this humanity can be anointed, be saturated, and be filled with the Spirit of Christ for the shining of God in the church.

The golden lampstand is the embodiment of the Triune God; with the gold we have the nature of the Father (gold signifies the divine nature); with the shape, the form, we have the Son (who is the embodiment and expression of God); and with the lamps we have the expression of the Spirit (the seven Spirits of God).

The golden lampstand is the embodiment of the Triune God, and today the golden lampstand has been increased and multiplied to be the many identical golden lampstands all over the earth, the local churches (see Rev. 1).

All the golden lampstands are identical in nature, but the shining of the lamps needs to be maintained by the saints in the local churches.

The light of the lampstand comes from the burning of the wick, which signifies Christ’s humanity.

When Christ was on earth, the Spirit saturated Him and He had the supply to shine, but what shone forth was His uplifted humanity, and people saw God being manifested on earth by looking at His human living, His words, and His works.

We believers in Christ have the Spirit with our spirit, but we also need to enjoy and experience the humanity of Jesus, the uplifted humanity of Christ, so that we may cause light to ascend in the meetings of the church.

Our humanity gives off smoke, and we cannot have the divine light shine by our natural efforts.

We simply need to open to the Lord and come to Him to enjoy Him and experience Him in His uplifted humanity and be filled with the Spirit of Jesus so that light may shine through us.

Just as the wicks of the lamps of the lampstand had to be saturated with oil, and they had to be constantly supplied with the olive oil, so we need to be filled, saturated, and permeated with the Spirit of Christ so that the divine light would shine.

Christ went through a process to become the olive oil, the oil coming out of beaten olives; now this One is in us, and we need to be filled with the Spirit of Christ and experience the humanity of Jesus so that the divine light may shine in us and through us.

Lord Jesus, we want to enjoy the humanity of Jesus and be filled with the Spirit of Christ so that the divine light may shine in us, within us, and through us. Thank You Lord for going through a process to become our constitution as the humanity of Jesus and to fill us as the Spirit of Christ for the shining of God through man on earth. Amen, Lord, may all the saints in all the local churches enjoy and experience the humanity of Jesus and be filled with the Spirit of Christ for the divine light to shine. May we all cause the light to ascend in the Holy Place, thus fulfilling our priestly duty!

Read this article / blog post in Romanian – puteți citi acest articol și în limba română la următorul link – Să facem ca lumina să se înalțe prin umanitatea lui Isus saturată cu Duhul lui Cristos.

References and Hymns on this Topic

• Inspiration: the Word of God, my enjoyment in the ministry, the message by Minoru Chen for this week, and portions from, Life-study of Exodus, msg. 114 (by Witness Lee), as quoted in the Holy Word for Morning Revival on, Crystallisation-Study of Numbers (1), week 9, Lighting the Lamps.
• Hymns on this topic:
  # We have oil in our lamps—we are burning! / We have oil in our lamps today! / To the spirit, O Lord, keep us turning, / Keep us turning, turning all the way! (Hymns #1308)
  # For the building of the Body / We need Jesus humanly; / The humanity of Jesus / Builds the church organically. / In the Spirit, all that Christ is / Has become our life supply / To equip us for God’s building, / God in Man to glorify. (Song on, The Humanity of Jesus)
  # 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. (Hymns #243)