PART #6: SYMBOLISM OF THE CANDLESTICK

As near as we can tell, the candlestick looked like the picture at left. It was carved on the arch of Titus in 81 A.D., after it was removed from Jerusalem, by Titus, about a decade earlier. It is the only extant picture of it we have. Granted it was made by Romans and might not be perfectly accurate, it still tends to agree with the Bible description in the main. If this picture is correct, then it rested upon a hexagonal base with two layers, giving a total of twelve faces on the base. The Bible says nothing about that part, however.

The candlestick is very clearly explained to represent a church in Revelation 1...

Revelation 1:20 The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.

Note that each church has it's own candlestick which can be removed without affecting the others:

Revelation 2:5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

Before we go any further we have to clear up a common misunderstanding; the seven churches are not all part of one seven-branched candlestick, but they all have their OWN seven-branched candlestick. The Bible makes a clear distinction between candlestick, and candle. The Bible ALWAYS says “Candlestick” to refer to a place the candle is placed; in the temple sense this ALWAYS means the seven-branched candlestick. There are no exceptions. On the other hand, when the Bible wishes to refer to one of the candles WITHIN that candlestick, it uses the word “candle”, also translated as “light” but from the same Greek word, or the word “lamp” from a different Greek word.

Revelation 4:5 And out of the throne proceeded lightnings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.

Here we see that there were seven LAMPS – that is, individual candles or oil wicks – burning before the throne. Since this follows the pattern of the earthly temple, these clearly were all coming from the one candlestick before God's throne which contained seven lamps.

Numbers 8:2 (GWV) “Speak to Aaron and tell him: When you set up the seven lamps on the lamp stand, they should light up the area in front of it."

It is crucial to this understanding that the distinction is CLEARLY made between LAMPS and CANDLESTICKS. They are not the same, and they are not interchangeable; one is a candle, one is the seven-branched base it rests upon.

So the candlestick represents a church; more on that later. But the flame on top of the candlestick does NOT represent a church! As Revelation 4:5 just told us, the seven LAMPS of FIRE (not the stick they're burning on, but the LIGHTS, the FIRE itself which is IN the candlestick) are the seven spirits of God.

Hebrews 1:7 And of the angels he saith, Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.

So God's angels are very specifically symbolic of the flame on TOP of the candlestick, and not the candlestick itself. Again, it's important. Ezekiel saw angels appear this way as well:

Ezekiel 1:13 As for the likeness of the living creatures, their appearance was like burning coals of fire, and LIKE THE APPEARANCE OF LAMPS: it went up and down among the living creatures; and the fire was bright, and out of the fire went forth lightning.

So these seven lamps of fire that were in front of the throne are seven angels. Much more on that in another article, the one on “The Seven Spirits Of God”; I will summarize here and say that these seven angels represent the seven branches of God's government, the top echelon of God's hierarchy of angels, which guided the seven churches of Asia and the seven church eras since, and ultimately represent seven facets of God's nature... but as I said, that's another article.

Now if you imagine a modern candle burning, you see the long thin candle, made of or containing wax or oil or something of that nature, and at the very top a flickering flame; it is this flame at the top of the seven candles in the candlestick that symbolizes the seven angels. A flickering flame at the top also looks like a twinkling star from a certain point of view, which is why they are also represented by stars in that same place:

Revelation 1:20 The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand, and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches: and the seven candlesticks which thou sawest are the seven churches.

So to fit the other parallel analogies, these “stars” must perch atop the candlestick and provide the light, and come forth from the right hand of God. These seven angels, are also called the “eyes” of God (Revelation 5:6, Zechariah 3:9, 4:10, etc). And since they look like a flame of fire, they are pictured in the symbolic image of God in

Revelation 1:14 His head and his hairs were white like wool, as white as snow; and his eyes were as a flame of fire;

Revelation 2:18 And unto the angel of the church in Thyatira write; These things saith the Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet are like fine brass;

God says that His eyes are the part of His body that represent the flame at the top of the candlestick; now if you think about it, if He says that ONE part of the candlestick represents ONE part of His body... it implies that the rest of the candlestick represents the rest of His body! It requires only a very little thought to connect that to this scripture:

Romans 12:4-5 For as we have many members in one body, and all members have not the same office: So we, being many, are one body in Christ, and every one members one of another.

So the candlestick represents the body of Christ; which is essentially what Revelation 1:20 already told us when it said the candlestick represents the church; but calling it the body of Christ brings it a bit more to the point; the eyes are at the top, the flames of fire which represent the angels, the seven branches below connect to the base, all of which represents the body. If that carving on the arch of Titus is correct, then the twelve faces on the base of the candlestick represent the twelve tribes of whom 12,000 each will be saved to make up the 144,000 in the first resurrection.

This next scripture finally makes a bit more sense now that we understand that. He said to His body, the church, “You are the light of the world” (Matthew 5:14). He also said His eyes (the angels) are the light of HIS body (the candlestick). Then He said “when thine eye is evil, thy body also is full of darkness.” (Luke 11:34)

So when the eye that leads Jesus' body – His church – is a good eye, the church is basically good. When the eye is evil, the church is evil. The differing “reviews” of the seven churches show what happens when different angels lead different eras. Or as Confucius put it “a crooked shadow cannot follow a straight stick”.

But in between the candlestick and the flame we must have fuel; the fuel in the candlestick was olive oil (Exodus 27:20), fruit of the olive tree; the olive tree represented the body of Christ, the church of God, in several scriptures (Romans 11 for instance). And since a candlestick and an olive tree both represent the body of Christ, they must represent each other as well:

Revelation 11:4 These [the two witnesses] are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the God of the earth.

So the olive tree = candlestick = church. Olive trees make oil, and oil burns in the candlestick to create the light. So what does the oil represent? Despite the prevailing religious dogma, oil does not represent the holy spirit. Oil represents the works of God's people – the fruits of the olive tree which is us. It is our fruits, which burn in the candlestick and produce the light of the world (See my article, “Symbolism of Oil” for proof).

So God's people who compose the candlestick create the olive oil by their works; their works create a shining example for the rest of the world, and that, when lit by the spirit of God, burns in all seven candlesticks, each of which represents a different facet of the spirit of God as expressed by the spirit He put in seven different chief angels.

So that explains the candlestick in the temple in heaven and in the temple on Earth; it represents the church of God which dwells in the temple, in the presence of God always. In the symbol in Eden, as soon as soon as Abel obeyed God, a church was formed. And as soon as the church was formed, the light from the candlestick was burning. That leaves only the human body to be explained

It's easy enough to do a physical parallel; if the flames in this candlestick represent God's eyes as it clearly does, then since we’re made in His image, logically it would represent our eyes as well, if we want to tie a given body part to it. In a spiritual sense it's also logical to connect some of our contact to God – that is, seeing Him – through these seven spirits of God in this candlestick, as in Daniel:

Daniel 8:16 And I heard a man’s voice between the banks of Ulai, which called, and said, Gabriel, make this man to understand the vision.

But what is the point of having the symbol of the church, the body of Christ, in your body? Contrary to what many churches want you to believe, it isn't “the church in you, our hope of glory”, but CHRIST in you, the hope of glory. And yet in some way, in our physical temple there is a candlestick representing the church of God, the body of Christ.

Part of the answer is that the church isn't IN you, in the sense of “in your HEART”, for that is behind the veil, a place the candlestick never enters or casts its light. Just as the church has never been able to get into your heart and force a person's heart to change; nor would we want it to. The whole point of conversion is that a person must choose to allow God into that heart. The best the church can do is “shine a light” around the body and show how much corruption there is, to make a person want to allow God access to change their heart.

Most people don't understand this, so let me make it plain; churches don't get saved and churches don't save you. No church, no matter how well it is set up or administered, can convert you. No church brings you to salvation. The church is NOT able to touch your heart in ANY good way. Note I said “good way”. They can convince you to turn your heart over to them – sell your soul to them, so to speak – which is a bad thing. And most churches require you to do this to be a member.

But you cannot turn your heart over to a church because no group of men, however led by God, is QUALIFIED, or COMPETENT, to judge your heart. So the church will always be pictured OUTSIDE the veil, outside your holy of holies beyond which only Jesus Christ should be allowed. The church is there strictly as a nursery; something like God's day-care center.

Mark 7:18-19 ...whatsoever thing from WITHOUT entereth into the man, it cannot defile him; Because it entereth not into his heart, but into the belly, and goeth out into the draught, purging all meats?

The church doesn't enter your heart, it goes into your “Belly” (See the article on the Showbread), where what it teaches you is tried and either incorporated or rejected, but all this takes place OUTSIDE the heart. Never inside.

So the church is a place where they will teach you the truth (mostly) and “bring you up in the way that you should go” (theoretically), and swat you a good one if you commit adultery, convince you to quit smoking, keep you from getting tattoos and so on; a place to, in short, enforce physical righteousness on a willing subject who wants to become more like God.

And this is a good, necessary thing. But it's not the end result God's after; it's just a nursery. In practice, the majority of the church never graduates from that level, always wanting the ministry to tell them how many laps they can swim on Sabbath, what sort of music they can listen to, what color car they should buy; things you would expect a six-year-old not to need help deciding. These people never grew beyond the “flesh”. But you, if you are to be in the first resurrection, must.

And so once the church has whipped you into shape, taught you the law, told you to quit working on the Sabbath, stop speeding, leave the military, and so on – once it has, in short, “shined a light” on your WORKS – you should, if God is working with you, want to go beyond that and change your heart. And that is where the veil comes into place, which we've talked about elsewhere. Now that you understand the process, look at how it is illustrated by the candlestick of the Church of God, shining a light into your body:

Psalms 119:130 The entrance of thy words giveth light; it giveth understanding unto the simple.

The church's primary job is to teach the law – God's words. That will give light to you. Not in your heart, perhaps – but in your body. It will change the way you live, if you hear it.

Job 18:5-6 Yea, the light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine. The light shall be dark in his tabernacle, and his candle shall be put out with him.

If you don't – if you choose to stay “wicked”, then that spark will die. The light that is in your “tabernacle” (God's potential, temporary dwelling) will be put out. The church may have sparked it, but it died LONG before it could illuminate much of your tabernacle – much less convince you to open your holy of holies. We all start in that darkness, and we all need that illumination – and in almost every instance (if not every instance), that initial spark of light comes from a Church – the candlestick of God.

Ephesians 5:8,11,13 For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light ... And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove them ... But all things that are reproved are made manifest by the light: for whatsoever doth make manifest is light.

In this message to the church at Ephesus – which we know for a fact represented a candlestick – Paul said “you ARE light” – not that they were IN light, but that they ARE light, just as Jesus said that WE are the light of the world. And Paul told Ephesus to REPROVE the darkness – which is what light does, chase darkness away. And said that ALL things that are reproved are REPROVED BY LIGHT! The very JOB of light, in every possible sense, is to chase away darkness!

So now I can explain why the candlestick is in the human body; why the church is pictured inside of us, but outside of our heart. And it's really simple; if we are in the church of God, we have a light inside of us. We know at least some of the truth; at least some of the law.

Romans 2:19 And art confident that thou thyself art a guide of the blind, a light of them which are in darkness,

And that light which is in all of us, chases away darkness; we are to be “ready always to give an answer” about the things we understand. And not just to the world; but we are to be a light TO EACH OTHER IN THE CHURCH!

Proverbs 27:17 Iron sharpeneth iron; so a man sharpeneth the countenance of his friend.

We are to be “our brother's keeper”. We are “not to suffer sin upon our neighbor”, or “hate our brother in our hearts”. We are to “judge righteous judgment”, so that the least esteemed person in the church is qualified to judge between his brothers.

1 Corinthians 6:4-5 If then ye have judgments of things pertaining to this life, set them to judge who are least esteemed in the church. I speak to your shame. Is it so, that there is not a wise man among you? no, not one that shall be able to judge between his brethren?

When that happens, the church has cast their light on one another; when a brother is “overtaken in a fault”, and you show him his error, you are being LIGHT, and you are chasing the DARKNESS out of his members – not out of his heart, for man cannot do that, nor can any group or assembly of men; but by chasing it out of his body you have prepared the way for God to chase it out of his heart!

Proverbs 4:18 But the path of the just is as the shining light, that shineth more and more unto the perfect day.

And so YOU have a candle within YOU, that chases darkness out of the church – just as every member of the church has a candle in THEM to chase darkness out of YOU!

1 John 1:7 But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship one with another, and the blood of Jesus Christ his Son cleanseth us from all sin.

And so it is NECESSARY that your physical tabernacle have a symbol of that light; a symbol of the candle of God within you, and collectively a church can form quite a shining light; or, they can be so compromised and so stifling as to suffocate any glimmer of light from within, so that the only way that candlestick can survive is to seek cleaner air. So God plucks it from the midst of the corrupt church and puts it somewhere else.

Revelation 2:5 Remember therefore from whence thou art fallen, and repent, and do the first works; or else I will come unto thee quickly, and will remove thy candlestick out of his place, except thou repent.

To put it one final way in yet another symbol, the church is our mother. Paul says as much when He says...

Galatians 4:24-26 Which things are an allegory: for these are the two covenants … this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the mother of us all.

Paul compares the old testament “church in the wilderness” to Hagar, Abraham's bondmaid, and the new testament “free” church to Sarah, and says that this church is our “mother”. It is an undeniable biological fact that the mother does the bulk of the work in constructing a new human body. The father's contribution is... well, for lack of a better expression, the blueprints. Then he leaves the mother to interpret those blueprints with touches of her own and do the actual building of the work.

But then once the body is built and the baby is weaned, it falls to the father to do the building of the bulk of the character. I know this may offend many, but that's not my fault. The Biblical pattern is clear that the father is the head of the house, and it is his training which builds the bulk of the morals of a child. I won't take the time to make that case here, because if you don't already understand it you wouldn't be convinced by a few paragraphs, and if you do understand it you don't need them.

So to follow this pattern, God calls a person and leads them to Christ; usually via his church. And the church is the “mother” and God is the “father”. This newly “begotten” child of God then comes to the church and is protected from false doctrine (for the most part) and given a comfortable, sheltering home in which to grow up and be “weaned” from their mother's milk.

Isaiah 28:9 Whom shall he teach knowledge? and whom shall he make to understand doctrine? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts.

God doesn't begin working on any real scale with people who haven't mastered the basics; if you've been in church for thirty years and you're still sipping milk and hanging on “mommy's skirts”, you're... well, worthless. About as much good to society as someone who is REALLY thirty years old and hanging on mommy's skirts.

Hebrews 5:12 For when for the time ye ought to be teachers, ye have need that one teach you again which be the first principles of the oracles of God; and are become such as have need of milk, and not of strong meat. For every one that useth milk is unskilful in the word of righteousness: for he is a babe.

From my own experience (opinion alert!) and the pattern of the human child, I'd say that the time for “milk” is no more than two years. The shelter of mommy can continue a while longer, but if you don't start experiencing “curiosity” for the world outside and going out on your own and DOING things by the time you're four or five years “old”, however poorly or “childishly”, I'd say you're a bit backward. If you're ten, or fifteen, or twenty, you're downright “challenged”. If you're forty, or fifty, I'd say you're a spiritual vegetable.

I mention this here because the church is our mother which builds our body, and in the tabernacle the candlestick is what sheds light on our body; the pattern comes from the father, just as the pattern for the tabernacle didn't come from the church, but from God. The moral training of the heart belongs to the father, just as the moral training from God always takes place in the heart, a place the church never should go.

And if the the mother/church is evil, then the body will also be evil and it's father/God will never be really able to work with the child's heart. The mother will very early on turn the child against its father and, if he ever is able to overcome that, it will be a hard road. And if you recall, the mother is the church; the church is the candlestick; the candlestick is the light of the tabernacle; and on the top of the candlestick rest the eyes of God, shining lights into our body... and if those eyes are evil...

Matthew 6:22-23 The light of the body is the eye: if therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light. But if thine eye be evil, thy whole body shall be full of darkness. If therefore the LIGHT that is in thee BE DARKNESS, how great is that darkness!

If that which is supposed to be LIGHT in you, that which is SUPPOSED to correct your sins and keep you trained in the way you should go, if even THAT is darkness... how GREAT is that darkness in your body!

It just goes to show you that when you properly understand God's symbols, they all tie together at any given point and make one complete package; they can be woven back and forth almost like music, and form patterns more beautiful than rainbows.