“Having turned,” says John, “I saw seven golden lighstands;” and in the last verse of the chapter, he records the signification of them as communicated to him by the Spirit, saying, “the seven lightstands which thou seest are Seven Ecclesias.”
Having ascertained what the apostle meant by “being in spirit,” the next consideration is, Where was he conveyed to? and then, What did he behold there?
While conditioned thus, he tells us that he came to be “in spirit"— egenomen en pneumati. By reference to Ezekiel we find that when he was about simply to deliver a prophetic discourse, he introduced it by saying, “the Word of Yahweh came unto me, saying;” but when he was about to relate a prophetic vision he had seen, he prefaces his description by informing us that “there was upon me the hand of Yahweh, and he carried me out in spirit of Yahweh.” When “in spirit, ” then, he both sees visions, and hears, and then proceeds to nar¬rate. This was the case with John.
SYMBOLIC VISION OF THE SPIRIT-NAME.