God Revealed

by Maurice Pujol
Published August 17, 2006

"I see a solid gold lampstand with a bowl of oil on top of it. Around the bowl are seven lamps, each one having seven spouts with wicks. And I see two olive trees, one on each side of the bowl."

Then I asked the angel, "What are these two olive trees on each side of the lampstand, and what are the two olive branches that pour out golden oil through two gold tubes?"

"Don't you know?" he asked.

"No, my lord," I replied.

Then he said to me, "They represent the two anointed ones who assist the Lord of all the earth."

There’s an old church saying that describes the relationship between the Old and New Testaments – “The Old Testament is God concealed, the New Testament God revealed.”

Under the Old Covenant, God showed Himself only to specially selected individuals, and then only imperfectly. Abraham, Jacob, Noah, Moses and the prophets all received special revelations from God to accomplish specific purposes in God’s plan. They were granted a special anointing that gave them the power and the wisdom to carry out these purposes, in spite of their human imperfections.

The excerpts above are from Zechariah 4, parts of a conversation between the prophet and an angel. In the Bible, angels who address men are always messengers of God, carrying important information to specific individuals. This information always reveals something about God’s will and God’s nature.

Prophets don’t always understand the nature of the visions with which God blesses them. They see, they hear, and they pass the Word along. Zechariah was no exception. He did not understand the significance of this important revelation of God’s nature that we call the vision of the lampstand and the olive trees.

For Zechariah was blessed with a picture of the triune God – one God consisting of Father, Son (Word) and Holy Spirit. As a Jew living in the sixth century BC, this concept would have been totally foreign to him. Even today, the world’s other monotheistic religions, Judaism and Islam, don’t accept the doctrine of the Trinity. There are even some Christian sects who have rejected this teaching of orthodox Christianity.

This great mystery of the Godhead has been discussed and debated for centuries, and I do not with to engage anyone in a doctrinal dispute. There are many passages in Scripture that reveal the Trinity to us, going back even to the beginnings, as God’s Word (Jesus) was spoken to create everything in the universe and his Spirit (the Holy Spirit) hovered over the waters (Genesis 1:2).

In Zechariah’s vision, the lampstand represents our Father God, His divinity underscored by the repetition of the number seven, the number of perfection and wholeness, the number that identifies God. The two olive trees are His “anointed ones,” the Son and Holy Spirit. Jesus’ Jewish name, Messiah, and his Greek name, Christos, mean “Anointed One.”

Though we see imperfectly and only in pictures of tangible things, Zechariah’s vision is of the one Divine Being in several of His aspects. God is the source of all life; and His expression of love to us, the Word made flesh (Jesus), is the source of our salvation. God’s Spirit, the Holy Spirit, is regularly connected to the symbol of oil; for it represents the divine anointing of Jesus being made available to all who believe. In its core meaning, “anointing” is to pour a substance all over something, usually in significant quantity.

To seek God’s anointing means to seek a full dose of the Holy Spirit, similar to Elisha’s request that he receive a “double portion” of the great anointing on his mentor, the prophet Elijah.

If we had only the Old Testament as scripture, we would not be able to “connect the dots” in this way. The full revelation of God to mankind came in the person of Jesus, who stepped down from His exalted state to take on our frail human flesh. By becoming less than He was – one of us – He was able to make us more than we are.

More correctly, Jesus gave us the opportunity to become more than we are, more than sinful human beings destined to hell and the grave – if we make the right choice to believe Him. He enabled us to become the people God originally intended us to be, restoring God’s “blueprint,” so to speak. Man was created to live eternally in perfect fellowship with His Creator, but he destroyed this opportunity by seeking to impose his will over God’s. Jesus is the fulfillment of God’s promise to change all this.

Jesus more clearly identified the eternal, ongoing relationship that defines God in His totality, addressing the Father regularly in His prayers and identifying the Holy Spirit as the Comforter and Teacher who would come to lead His people after Jesus left the earth. Jesus’ own words put “labels” on Zechariah’s vision, so that all His disciples could understand.

In fact, Jesus became God’s perfect revelation of Himself, once and for all. A better one was never offered before Him, and there never will be a better one in the future. Though we still see God imperfectly and, as Paul said, as though through a dirty mirror, Jesus is that unmistakable evidence of God’s presence with us and His love for us.

What’s even better, the Holy Spirit is available to each and every believer who will welcome Him. This is a great blessing under the New Covenant, instituted at Pentecost, that Old Covenant believers didn’t enjoy. Before Jesus, the Holy Spirit’s anointing was reserved only for chosen individuals on specific missions for God.

Though Jesus’ death and resurrection, this anointing has been unleashed to be made available to all who believe. This is quite a blessing, for the Holy Spirit empowers us to live what we believe, to resist temptation and to reach ever higher levels of holiness as we progress through this life. Without His special anointing, these tasks would be most difficult or even impossible.

Zechariah’s vision is also another evidence of the divine inspiration of the Bible. Written by dozens of human authors over several centuries, still intact, still revealing, still teaching, the Bible is still a complete, integrated work, full of spiritual treasures for all who will take the time to seek them out. Only God could have put this masterpiece together.

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