Lamentations 4:1
How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street. How is the gold become dim! how is the most fine gold changed! the stones of the sanctuary are poured out in the top of every street.
How the gold has become dim pictures the loss of the holiness and the Spirit and power that attended the preaching of the gospel in the apostolic age, seen in love and holy influence, while God's standard and promises remain unchanged. It portrays the church losing its former holy and distinctive character as a separate and peculiar people, which had been mighty while it retained the Holy Spirit's power. Although light and privileges increased, deadness and formality weakened its energies and work, with early earnestness, love, faithfulness and spiritual power lost through worldliness, selfishness and unfaithfulness. The dimming is humanity's loss of the reflection of God's character through sin, as truth fades when it is not valued and practiced and conscience loses sensitivity until corruption spreads. It is Israel's apostasy and departed glory, where despised light became darkness, while the stones of the sanctuary poured out in the streets mark sacred things cast down and loss of spiritual discernment.
What Dimmed Gold Signifies
The fine gold is the holiness and the Spirit and power of God that attended the preaching of the gospel in the days of the apostles, once seen in love and influence among the first Christians. Its becoming dim and changed describes the loss of former spiritual brightness, for the Lord's professed people no longer show that Spirit and power compared with the early church. The standard of holiness is unchanged, and the requirements and promises of God have lost none of their force, yet that Spirit and power are now absent.
The dimmed fine gold also pictures humanity's loss of the reflection of God's character through sin. Truth fades from the mind when its value is not appreciated or practiced, the conscience loses its sensitivity, and people become spiritually diseased and degraded. This corruption has become universal and worsens as transgression increases.
The dimming pictures the truth of God losing its hold upon the soul, as seen in those at Battle Creek who had received great light. Their becoming absorbed in worldliness and selfishness and departing from God is evidence of this decline in brightness and value. That decline is accompanied by fanaticism and enthusiasm. Among the Pharisees the same dimmed gold pictures spiritual treasure lost, for faith and love, the gold tried in the fire, had grown dim because they had left their first love.
What was pure gold becoming dim pictures God's pure law adulterated by human invention. As the priests departed from right principles, they burdened the law with increasing human demands and humanly invented rules. The fine gold becoming tarnished likewise represents a person's spiritual worth and perception, where deceitful sin paralyzes spiritual discernment and dims what could have been honorable service to God. It also evokes the corruption of a sacred institution that should remain undefiled.
Instances of Dimming
How is the gold become dim portrays the church's loss of its former holy and distinctive character, no longer remaining a separate and peculiar people as it had been during persecution. Although light and privileges increased, the church did not advance in purity and holiness, but deadness and formality gradually weakened its energies and work. That dimming of the fine gold marks the loss of the early earnestness, steadfast love, faithfulness, and spiritual power that had once characterized the believers. Failure to use entrusted talents faithfully leads to that decline. Had the church kept that separate character, it would have retained the Holy Spirit's power as the disciples did, including healing the sick and casting out devils, and would have been mighty and a terror to its enemies.
The same image of fine gold becoming dim describes Israel's apostasy and departed former glory, where the light God had given was despised and rejected until it became darkness. That rejection was a turning from God and His worship to idolatry and its degrading rites, leaving the nation in spiritual darkness amid widespread idolatry. Prosperity under Solomon with its temptations likewise dimmed and marred the gold of character among an increasing number of people.
The dimmed gold represents loss of spiritual light, while the stones of the sanctuary poured out in the top of every street picture sacred things cast down. Together they mark spiritual darkness and loss of discernment among ministers at the conference.