"Make a lampstand of pure gold and hammer it out, base and shaft; its flowerlike cups, buds and blossoms shall be of one piece with it.  Six branches are to extend from the sides of the lampstand--three on one side and three on the other.  Then make its seven lamps and set them up on it so that they light the space in front of it" (Exodus 25:31,32,37).

The candlestick was the symbol of a person and that person is Jesus.  Jesus Himself said:  "I am the light of the world" (John 9:5).

This golden candlestick stood on the south side of the holy place, opposite the table of shewbread with the altar of incense between.  The light of the candlestick was indispensable in the service of the priests.  There was no other light in the tabernacle.  There were no windows provided in the pattern of the tabernacle which God showed Moses.  Not a single ray of light was allowed to come from the outside by the light of nature.  The oil in the light, representing the Holy Spirit, was the only source of light by which the priest was to serve in the tabernacle.  The light of the candlestick points both to Jesus, and also to the written Word of God.  The two are inseparable.  David says in Psalm 119:105 "Your word is a lamp to my feet, and a light for my path."

As believers, we're to walk only by the light of the Word of God.  The light of nature on the outside is the light of human reason, philosophy and speculation.  It is the light that shuts out God in the tabernacle, and blinds the worshiper to the things which are spiritual.  The light of nature is the light of human reason.  man following reason instead of faith rejects the Word of God entirely, and invents all sorts of human philosophies and theories of man's natural wisdom.

The believer inside the tabernacle, which is Jesus, is to walk in the light, even as He is in the light.  The light of the Word of God is the only true light, the only infallible light, the only safe guide and rule of life and conduct and practice for the believer.

The golden candlestick speaks not only of Jesus as the Head, but also of the Church, which is His Body.  The candlestick was seven-branched---a central upright shaft with three branches coming out of either side.  The central upright shaft represents Jesus as the Head of the Body, and the six branches which came out of its side are the members of the Body of Christ, who came out of His wounded side, and by the blood which gushed forth are made one with Him.

The one central shaft represents Jesus, the Son of God, and the Head of the Church.  One is the number of deity and sovereignty.  He said to Israel:  "Hear, O Israel; the Lord our God is one Lord" (Deuteronomy 6:4).

The Bible opens with the statement of the sovereignty of God.  "In the beginning God"!  This God was Jesus because the verse says:  "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1:1). And John tells us that it was Jesus Himself who was this Creator:

"Through him all things were made; without him nothing was made that has been made" (John 1:3).

There were six branches attached to this once central shaft.  Six is the number of man.  The six branches are the men and women, the boys and girls, united to Jesus by faith and made one  in Him.  Seven branches, but one candlestick. Seven is the number of perfection, and all believers are by their union to Jesus made perfect in Him, nourished by the oil of the Holy Spirit.