Page:Visions and Prophecies of Zechariah (Baron, David).djvu/148

 BUT she hath changed My judgments into wickedness more than the nations, and My statutes more than the countries tJiat are round about lier: for tJiey have rejected My judgments, and as for My statutes, they have not walked in them"

Often did God in effect threaten Israel through the prophets to remove his candlestick; but in His long-suffer ing for a long time, even after the sceptre, the emblem of governmental power, had been removed, the candlestick which is the emblem of Israels religious or ecclesiastical position as witness for God in His corporate capacity was not taken away till the cup of his national iniquity was filled up in the rejection of Him who is the " Light of light," for the diffusion of which this very candlestick was formed, and in their final resistance of the Holy Spirit. Then the Kingdom of God was taken from them and " given to a nation bringing forth the fruits thereof."

On the disappearance of the candlestick from Israel, the seven golden candlesticks come into view as representing the new people of God, the Church of this dispensation planted on the earth, that during the period of Israel's blindness and darkness it might fulfil Israel's mission of shining before the Lord in His sanctuary, and letting its light stream out into the night of the world's darkness: the seven as representing the Church, instead of the one as representing Israel, is not without significance.

The seven Christian ecclesiai selected by the Lord out of the many Christian assemblies which already then existed even in that one pro-consular province of Asia, to be symbol ised by the seven golden " luchniai " (lampstands), are meant to represent the one Church of Christ through all time, and in all places, during the present dispensation. It has not, like Israel, one earthly centre, and cannot be presented as an absolute unity. The seven are all mutually independent as to external order and government, yet were they meant to be one in the unity of the Spirit, under the one headship of Christ. But not only in relation to the Lord and to one another, but also in relation to the world outside, did the