(Num. 8:1-41And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, 2Speak unto Aaron, and say unto him, When thou lightest the lamps, the seven lamps shall give light over against the candlestick. 3And Aaron did so; he lighted the lamps thereof over against the candlestick, as the Lord commanded Moses. 4And this work of the candlestick was of beaten gold, unto the shaft thereof, unto the flowers thereof, was beaten work: according unto the pattern which the Lord had showed Moses, so he made the candlestick. (Numbers 8:1‑4).)
“And the Lord spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto Aaron, and say unto him, When thou lightest the lamps, the seven lamps shall give light over against the candlestick. And Aaron did so; he lighted the lamps thereof over against the candlestick, as the Lord commanded Moses. And this work of the candlestick was of beaten gold, unto the shaft thereof, and unto the flowers thereof, was beaten work; according unto the pattern which the Lord had showed Moses, so he made the candlestick.”
Here we have a lovely type of the work and testimony of the Holy Ghost founded upon the atoning work of Christ. “The seven lamps” express, in typical language, the perfection of the Spirit’s light. “The beaten shaft” with which those seven lamps were connected, expresses in the same way, Christ as the foundation of all the Spirit’s action. But not only were the seven lamps” inseparably connected with “the beaten shaft,” they also threw their light immediately thereupon, thus typifying that the grand object of the Holy Ghost, in all His operations, is to bear witness to and glorify the Person of Christ. “The seven lamps shall give light over against the candlestick.” The seven lamps did not throw their light upon themselves, but upon the beaten shaft that sustained them.
Such is the type, and if the reader will turn, for a moment, to the third chapter of the Acts, he will find a very striking instance of the application of the type. Christ, the great Antitype of the golden shaft, had left this world and taken His seat in the heavens; and the Holy Ghost, the great Antitype of the seven golden lamps, had come down from heaven, to emit the bright light of testimony in this dark world. But to whom does this blessed Spirit bear witness? Only, and always to Jesus. Whom does He seek to exalt? Ever and only the Name of Jesus. As in the type, so in the Antitype, “ the seven lamps give light over against the candlestick.” If repentance and remission of sin be preached it is in the Name of Jesus. If souls are to be saved, salvation is only in the Name of Jesus. If a poor cripple is to be healed, the healing can only be found in the Name of Jesus. “The seven lamps” can only “give light over against the candlestick.”
How strikingly all this comes out in Acts 3 Peter, filled with the light and power of the Holy Ghost, can only bear witness, and refer all his actings immediately to Christ. The lame man thought only of receiving an alms from a benevolent individual; but Peter at once hides himself, and exalts the Name of Jesus, in those memorable words, “Silver and gold have I none; but such as I have give I thee: in the name of Jesus Christ of Nazareth, rise up and walk.” Here we see the seven lamps throwing light over against the candlestick. If a benefit is to be conferred upon a poor cripple it must be seen to come directly from a risen Savior. It is not a benevolent man dispensing around him his silver and gold, but a vessel filled with the Holy Ghost bearing witness to the Name of Jesus; or to use the language of our type, it is “the seven lamps giving light over against the candlestick.” “Let your light so shine before men that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.”
This is a great principle, and one much needed in this day of activity and effort. We have to remember that activity is one thing, devotedness, quite another. It is not that we want to lessen activity, or cripple effort; by no means, we only want to see them based upon, connected with, and referring to Christ alone. We want to learn, more deeply, the lesson of “the seven lamps,” and to remember, at all times, that service, to be of any value, in God’s account, must have Christ for its source, and Christ for its object. Be it sweeping a crossing, or evangelizing a nation; be it a penny given to a pauper, or a life and fortune dedicated to the objects of benevolence, it is all of no account with God unless its immediate source and object be Christ Himself, for “the seven lamps shall give light over against the candlestick.”