«　WEEK 8　DAY 4　»

　　Rev. 3:11-12 I come quickly; hold fast what you have that no one take your crown. He who overcomes, him I will make a pillar in the temple of My God, and he shall by no means go out anymore…

　　21:22 And I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.

　　[In Revelation 3:12] the overcomer will be made a pillar built into the temple of God. Because he is built into God’s building, “he shall by no means go out anymore.” This promise will be fulfilled in the millennial kingdom as a prize to the overcomer. To overcome in the church in Philadelphia is not to get anything or to overcome other things; it is to keep what we have received in the Lord’s recovery to the end. If you do this, the Lord will make you a pillar in God’s temple. This reminds us of Jacob’s dream in Genesis 28. After Jacob had that dream, he set up the stone which he had used for a pillow to be a pillar. That pillar was for God’s building…. The principle is exactly the same today. The Lord has set up a good number of stones to be pillars in His recovery…. Once a stone has been set as a pillar into the building, it can never be removed, for it has been built in…. If you have been built into the temple as a pillar, you could not leave even if you wanted to. (Life-study of Revelation, pp. 193-194)

　　The Lord makes us pillars by transforming us, that is, by carrying away our natural element and by replacing it with His divine essence. Therefore, the meaning of make in Revelation 3:12 is to constitute us into something, to construct us in a creative way. In the church life today the Lord is making us, constituting us, into pillars in the temple of God. The Lord’s work in the church is to work Himself into us as the divine flow to carry away our natural being and replace it with His substance that we may be gradually processed by His transforming element. As the result of this transforming work, we become pillars in the temple of God.

　　Revelation 3:12 tells us that the overcomers will be pillars in the temple of God in the coming age. However, Revelation 21:22, speaking of the New Jerusalem in the coming age and in eternity, says, “I saw no temple in it, for the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb are its temple.” Here we see that in the New Jerusalem the Triune God Himself will be the temple. This means that for the overcomers to be pillars in the temple means that they will be pillars in the Triune God. This involves being mingled with the Triune God and constituted of Him. This is a mystery.

　　Even in today’s church life, the overcoming saints are pillars in the Triune God. Furthermore, these saints sometimes have the consciousness that the church is actually nothing other than the Triune God. This fact is indicated by the golden lampstands as a symbol of the church (Rev. 1:12, 20). Furthermore, the lampstand is the embodiment and expression of the Triune God. The gold of the lampstand signifies the nature of the Father; the form signifies Christ as the embodiment and image of God; and the seven lamps signify the Spirit as the expression. Therefore, the lampstand is the embodiment of the Triune God and also a symbol of the church. Hence, it is not too much to say that, in actuality, the church is the Triune God, because the lampstand is the church and also the embodiment of the Triune God. Now we can see that the pillars in the church today are pillars in the Triune God. In the coming age these overcoming believers will be pillars in the temple of God, which is God Himself. From this we see that being made a pillar involves the Triune God being mingled with and constituted into the faithful overcomers. (The Conclusion of the New Testament, pp. 1215-1216)

　　Further Reading: The Conclusion of the New Testament, msg. 112; CWWL, 1994-1997, vol. 3, “Crystallization-study of Song of Songs,” chs. 1-2, 7, 12