Scripture is the Word of God; Scripture alone announces His purpose; Scripture alone discloses its fulfillment. Scripture and Christ―the former the written and the latter the living word of God,—are the divine means whereby God and His purposes are, or can be, known to man. This knowledge reached men in a three-fold way: (1) They searched out what the Spirit of Christ signified; (2) Their understandings were opened; (3) The Holy Ghost was bestowed to lead them into the whole truth. But by whichever of these three means, the Scriptures are the vehicle by which the knowledge reaches us. Man’s wisdom is out of court; man does not know God. All, therefore of God, is God-bestowed, and God-taught when bestowed. There is no such thing among men as a knowledge of God first-hand. The only first-hand knowledge of God is Christ. No man knoweth the Father but the Son, and he to whom the Son shall reveal Him (Matt. 11:27,27All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him. (Matthew 11:27) John 1:1818No man hath seen God at any time; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him. (John 1:18)), and the knowledge of Christ does not reach all men firsthand. He made Himself known to His apostles, and what He manifested to them they have written, as the Lord said to His Father (John 17): “All that shall believe on Me through their word.”
It is well, therefore, ere we begin our study of this precious record of Christ’s glories, that we should have carefully gone over the foundation on which we are building. Now let us put forth another statement. Man whether in Eden, in the world, in the judgment, or in the glory of God, has but one standard by which he can be estimated; that one standard is the Person of Jesus Christ. All questions everything that the mind of the new man can conceive, save the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, find their answer in the Person of Jesus Christ. Therefore, let it be clearly understood, in this day of shameful denial, that the Person of Jesus Christ revealed in the Scriptures of Truth (the sixty-six Books of the Bible, the Word of God by the power of the Holy Ghost), is the only solution to this Book, which is a Revelation of Jesus Christ given to Him by God.
Now, this expression, “Which God gave unto Him,” it is deeply important to have divinely clear in our minds at the outset. Jesus Christ is God: “I and the Father are one” (John 10:3030I and my Father are one. (John 10:30)); and God says of Him, “Thy throne, O God” (Heb. 1:88But unto the Son he saith, Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom. (Hebrews 1:8)). This, however, is not the character He is presented in in this Book. Jesus Christ is Man. He says, “Neither am I come of Myself, but He [God] has sent Me” (John 8:4242Jesus said unto them, If God were your Father, ye would love me: for I proceeded forth and came from God; neither came I of myself, but he sent me. (John 8:42)), and God says of Him, “Thou art My Son, to-day have I begotten Thee” (Heb. v. 5). We have seen, therefore, on God’s word and His own, that He is God; and we have seen, on God’s testimony and His own, that He is Man. It is as Man we have to consider Him in this Book: Jesus Christ. Jesus― “a Saviour,” Christ― “God’s anointed.” Jesus―His name as the humbled Man. Christ—His name as the exalted Man. Jesus―the antitype of Joshua, bringing His people into the heavenly places. Christ―antitype of David, bringing the people into Zion. Jesus― the name of sweetness and fragrance to the wearied and fevered pilgrim stretched on the dusty highway of this world. Christ―the name of power when said pilgrim has put on incorruptibility, and the kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of Jehovah and of His Christ. The revelation of JESUS CHRIST; repeat the lovely names, dear fellow-partaker of the long-suffering, till the glories of it sparkle on your forehead and on the fringes of your garments. “Our beauty Thou, our glorious dress!”
Well, God has given this revelation of Jesus Christ to Jesus Christ that He might show unto His “bondsmen” [this word is better, because they are His property as well as His servants] what must shortly take place. Of course, “shortly” is a divine, not a human “shortly.” Peter instructs us on this, by telling us that a thousand years are as one day, and one day as a thousand years. Anyway, such a thing as “slackness,” “delay,” “yea and nay,” are qualities unknown to God—and are found only among men. “His patience” explains all to those who keep it with Him.
Blessings on Reader
“I adjure you by the Lord that the letter be read to all the holy brethren,” is the injunction given by the apostle Paul to the saints to whom he wrote his first Epistle, almost entirely in respect to the coming of the Lord. The vast importance of this part of Christian truth cannot be over-rated. The redemption of the soul is undoubtedly of prime importance to the creature, but the redemption of the body can only be adequately measured by its importance to the Creator. We live in a world over which six thousand years have rolled, and during the whole of that period there has been only one man who has glorified God upon it; only one man who ever finished the work given Him to do. This blessed Man could appeal to His God and Father to confirm the decree of the second Psalm in respect to His obedience. He could say, “And now, O Father, glorify Thou me”; but in that magnificence of liberality which always characterized Him, He added the request, “Father, as to those whom Thou hast given me, I desire that where I am they also may be with me, that they may behold my glory which Thou hast given me.”
The Book of Revelation is the answer to His appeal, both as to Himself and them. It is a Revelation of Himself that God gave Him to show to them. There was no antecedent reason why God should have disclosed His purposes in this fashion; all that was necessary (essential is the word used by people) had been disclosed, and fully disclosed in the previous twenty-six books of the New Testament. This Book does not form a part of them or any of them; it is quite supplementary, quite an appendix; it might have been left out; people did do without it entirely for some 1600 years; the Established Church does without it; the highly favored Luther did not want it.
Wherefore, then, comes it, if not simply and solely for His sake who prayed for it, and, blessed be God, got it? It is a personal Book, a necessary Book. He ministered to others while He was on earth, and through His servants the Holy Ghost continued that ministry to others after He was gone; but this Book was necessary on His account, for the setting forth of what concerns His glory. God, the controller and disposer of the future, even to Jesus Christ as Man, rolled back the veil on His account, and gave the Revelation into His hands, that He might pass it on by the hand of His angel to His beloved John, who was to pass it on to us.
Is it strange, then, that He should commend the reading and the hearing of it to us with His blessing, and let us know that an interest in Him and His coming glories, carries with it a blessing? There was a time when we thought that the knowledge of our own safety was our furthest point, and from that point we thought of the glories that should follow; but it was our safety, our glory. Well, this has its place, and a blessed place too, but not the blessing here contemplated. It is His glory here disclosed; His wondrous Person displayed in its many phases of glory in respect to Man as a creature; Man as an object of divine care individually, as Abraham, Isaac, Jacob; Man collectively, as seen in Israel; Man as a worshipper; Man as a ruler; Man as a Jew; Man as a Gentile; Man as an earthly being; Man as a heavenly being; Man as the son of David; Man as the Son of God. All these and many more glories are disclosed to us, and He puts them into our hands to love them and to cherish them as His, and into our hearts to observe them, because their fulfillment is at hand. At hand, because there is positively nothing to come between the Revelation and its fulfillment. The patience of God is in exercise until that moment when in the twinkling of an eye the first act in the great drama begins. During the interval between the issue of this wonderful program the audience have been unconsciously assembling. The actors in this seven years denouement have been falling into their predicted role, but the actual hour is kept a secret in God’s power. How faithful to Christ, therefore, has God been, to give Him this program for distribution among His servants, who are to have specially reserved and prepared places in His presence (chap 4:4), where they shall behold all that passes with intelligence and worship.
Salutations; Title; Worship
The salutation and the mode of address follows the usual mode. The writer states his name. All Paul’s Epistles begin with his name. There is special reason why the Epistle to the Hebrews should begin with God, and that the instrument should be withheld. John, therefore, to the seven churches in Asia; i.e., the Roman province on the west coast of the Egean. There were other churches there, but the object is to present seven typical churches, so that he that hath an ear might listen to what the Spirit said about these seven; not what He said of one, but what He said about everyone. There is a tendency, especially in a Philadelphian phase of the Church, to forget this; and a danger, too; for it is as pleasing to write oneself down as free from blame as it is dangerous to have a name for living, which is after all but a dead state. There is but one salutation for the Church in God’s sight, and that is the two grand characteristics of its Head.
He brought grace, He made peace; His unsought favor came and met the responsibility of the creature to its God. But in judgment, the title of the salute] is different from that in the household salutation.
If my father were a judge, and had to summon me to his court, he would summon me in the name of the Queen, and not as my father. So here, Jehovah, of TODAY― “is” comes first, not “was.” To Israel of old it was “was―is―will be.” Then again, in the household of God the Spirit dwells with the family, is a member of the household. But here it is His world title, as Jehovah is an Israel title. Jesus Christ, of course, could not be anything to God’s household but a Church title, but with a difference. In the household He is God’s Son and our Lord, but here His title appropriately indicates that He is, what those He judges are not. First, He is the faithful witness―Church, Israel, World―He alone is the faithful One. Secondly, He has no relation whatever with the first man’s race; death has passed upon all men; He is the firstborn of the dead. Thirdly, as to power displayed in the world, there are kings of the earth to be appointed. He is their Prince―Head―Chief. And now a song of praise breaks forth; it is from a company for whom there is no judgment; they stand complete in Him who is the Judge. The mention of His name excites their praise and worship, and will never cease to do so, for they have learned His worthiness. They have learned Him in what He has done for them, but in that they have learned Him, and He is beyond all else dear to them. Their whole eternal being is wrapped up in Him, and, wonderful to say, His delight is in them. It is unique for a book of judgment to begin with a hymn, but they sung a hymn before He went out into the Mount of Olives on a former occasion. Divine history repeats itself in some respects, only grace begun ends in glory; whereas in human affairs it is from the better to the worse.
Let us look for a moment at the wonderful hymn here sung. Short as it looks it is in seven volumes. It begins with His love; then cleansing, next atonement―both by His blood. As to the effects, power in government, priesthood in worship. The object, God, all creature claims met. Father, His own relationships bestowed. Let us look at it as seven sparkling gems: Love―Cleansing―Atonement― Power―Worship―God―Father. It is not altered if we adopt the reading “kingdom” instead of kings. Power is the thought. That which was offered to Israel (Exodus 19.) here finds its accomplishment in Grace. All is seen in Him―His Father―His blood―His love. And here, too, a slight alteration is needed. The Love is looked at as an abiding thing. Individually we can say, He loved me, and gave Himself for me (Gal. 2.). We can also say, Christ loved the Church, and gave Himself for it (Eph. 5.). But here, just as judgment is beginning, what assurance is given by the Spirit of God presenting the fact to us in the present tense, “To Him that loveth us”! It has no end.
Mode and Effects of Advent
We have seen the effect of the announcement of Jesus Christ as Head of the New Creation on an unnamed worshipping class sealed with a divine Amen. We now consider an announcement of a very different character made to another and very different class, and also sealed with a divine affirmation as well as an Amen. There are some that claim to be without God, who say that an affirmation is more in consonance with what they owe to themselves. Their case is met here. God thinks much of His Amen; they do not. Ask a reverent but ignorant man what he means by Amen, and he may not be able to say, but he will not refuse its place at the end of a religious statement. Ask a saint of God what it means, and he will delightedly draw the Word of God out of his pocket or out of his heart, and tell you that “The Son of God, Jesus Christ, who has been preached among you,” is the answer to your question. He will tell you plainly that “Yea” is in Him. He will go on to show you that whatever promises of God there are, that IN HIM is the “Yea” and IN HIM the “Amen,” and that the object of it is, Glory to God, by us (2 Cor. 1:19, 2019For the Son of God, Jesus Christ, who was preached among you by us, even by me and Silvanus and Timotheus, was not yea and nay, but in him was yea. 20For all the promises of God in him are yea, and in him Amen, unto the glory of God by us. (2 Corinthians 1:19‑20)); so that, as ever, the Person of Christ is the resolution of everything for the believer.
The first thing declared is that He is coming with the clouds. That sets aside any “Lo here” or “Lo there” which it appears to be Satan’s intention to hoodwink sufferers in crisis sorrows with. He tried to upset the faith of Thessalonian saints with this device. “The day of the Lord is present,” he said to them, at which, of course, they feared, and were troubled and shaken. When He does come, there will be no mistake: “Every eye shall see Him.” In unexpectedness He will come, as a thief, but as to the fact itself, it will be the most universal sight that the world has ever experienced. The angels of His power, in flaming fire taking vengeance on all who know not God, and those who do not obey the Gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, will take care that none are without the sight of Him. At His first coming it was, Where is He but the second time it will be the very reverse of this. Terror, remorse despair, will strive for mastery in every breast. To think that this One, so terrible to look upon as a Judge, was the One so beseechingly preached so shortly before, as ready, willing, anxious to save to the uttermost all coming to God by Him! And now, hope is forever fled, and the floodgates of the previous ages of pent-up wrath, let loose upon a guilty and indifferent world. What had they gained by sin? Nothing. What had they lost in not receiving Him as Savior? Everything. Alas, that men should be so senseless! Alas, that Satan should have such power! Now, it is, that every one that seeth the Son, and believeth on Him, should have eternal life. It is the Father’s will that it should be so. It is that for which He went to the enormous cost of giving His Son. It is because He wills that souls should see Him now, and have that eternal life, that He has put off for eighteen hundred years giving the kingdom to His Son; and it is that the Father’s will may be done by Him in heaven as He did it on earth, that the blessed One has been exercising such rare patience, which He calls on His followers to share, Watch with Him they could not. Continue with Him in the dread hour of death they could not. Now, to keep His patience they can, and a few do. But then it will all be over for faith and patience. “Every eye shall see Him, and they too which pierced Him.” We might have written, “And they that crucified Him.” Ah, there are many more than those who crucified Him, who have pierced Him! There are some who have crucified Him afresh, crucified Him for themselves; and there are some, too, that have wounded Him in the house of His friends (Zech. 13:66And one shall say unto him, What are these wounds in thine hands? Then he shall answer, Those with which I was wounded in the house of my friends. (Zechariah 13:6)), and therefore those which pierced Him are a larger and wider class than even those who in Jerusalem nailed Him to the cross, and thrust the spear into His holy side. “All the tribes, of the earth,” or of the land (Palestine) not merely Judah, but the whole nation, “shall mourn because of Him.”
Few can read Isaiah 53 and 64 without tearful sympathy with the heart-stricken sufferers of those days when in anguish of heart they remember their iniquities and the slain One.
Alpha & Omega: Jehovah God: El Shaddai
The glory and dignity of His person, is ever the foundation-thought in Scripture. Would that it were the source and origin of every thought in Our hearts! Nothing is in its place without it. It is like what we call the center of gravity in natural things: it affects and regulates every divine institution. It is not too much to say that a divine knowledge of the titles of God and Christ in Scripture would throw such a flood of light into the soul as to make it like a further revelation. But it must be under divine guidance. Any other way would lead either to increased darkness or confounding of the truth. To those who have never explored these mines of divine treasure, a work called “Divine Unfoldings” would be prized beyond valuation.
We seem to have here three aspects to which attention is called. And attention is called in such a manner as to be intelligible to persons who were not Israelites or the Church. Israelites, of course, would understand the name “Jehovah,” for it is as much the name connected with the nation as the title “Father” is to the child. But there is a difference to be remarked in the way it is translated, as it were, as to its meaning to unfamiliar ears; for the name “Jehovah” carried with it the order of was, is, and shall be; whereas here it is is, was, and shall be. What He is now, therefore, is the prominent thought; what He was and will be come in to fill up the title. Then again, the use of the first and the last letter of the Greek alphabet, explained to mean the beginning and end, is entirely in keeping with the class addressed. It is the idea of comprehensiveness. Nothing before beginning; nothing after end. Nothing before A; nothing after Ω. What can the Gentile mind comprehend except in the plainest statement of fact? As Pharaoh said to Moses and Aaron, Who is the Lord? I know not the Lord. Even the Israelite sunk under bondage would ask the name of the God of his fathers. We have here also another name by which God was known before He revealed Himself by His name “Jehovah,” or the “self-existent One.” This was the term “The Almighty.” To Abram (Gen. 17:11And when Abram was ninety years old and nine, the Lord appeared to Abram, and said unto him, I am the Almighty God; walk before me, and be thou perfect. (Genesis 17:1)), the Lord appeared, and said unto him, I am El Shaddai. In Gen. 48:3,3And Jacob said unto Joseph, God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessed me, (Genesis 48:3) Isaac says to Jacob, El Shaddai bless thee. And in Gen. 48:3,3And Jacob said unto Joseph, God Almighty appeared unto me at Luz in the land of Canaan, and blessed me, (Genesis 48:3) Jacob says to Joseph, El Shaddai appeared to me at Luz. In Exod. 6:2,2And God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am the Lord: (Exodus 6:2) God spake unto Moses, and said unto him, I am Jehovah, and I appeared unto Abraham, unto Isaac, and unto Jacob as El Shaddai; but by [or, as to] My name Jehovah I was not known [or, made known] unto them, And thus we get the fact that before God called out a corporate testimony for Himself on the earth, He had an individual testimony, and that the names by which He was known to each was just that which would be His standard of perfection in them, and their standard of perfection in Him. Just as we might say now, God is Love; God is Light. What does God look for in us? Walk in love; walk as children of light. That would be perfection in respect to those names in us, just as He said to Abram, I am El Shaddai: walk before Me, and be thou perfect. Then for the other side: What may we always expect to find God as to our need? Always Love—always Light. What is the measure of the first? Christ. What is the measure of the second? Christ. The total of every sum in divine arithmetic is Christ. That is how we may know any given sum to be right. Hear the great tutor work out the two grand problems of Life and Death: For me to live is Christ; to die is gain: for to be with Christ is far better. To Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, living in tents, and waiting for a city, God practically said by His name, There is no possible circumstance in your pilgrimage that you shall not find Me mightier than. To Israel He practically said, What you found Me, or have heard tell of Me, in the past, that you may count upon Me to be TODAY; and what you find Me today, and in the past, that I pledge Myself to be in the future. And so scrupulous was God to keep faith with His promise, that even where idolatrous kings of Israel or Judah called upon Him in some critical moment He delivered them. There is no instance on record of His being behind His promise if they appealed to Him on it, no matter how debased—even Ahab.
The Messenger’s Credentials
It is beautiful to note the grace of our God in the choice of the messenger by whom the program of judgment reached us His servants. Grace and truth reached us by that most choice of all messengers, God’s well-beloved Son. Then, the message of the place and privilege of “the body” in the eternal purpose of God, and where judgment cannot come, by that incomparable and most indefatigable of servants, Paul. And now comes the dread message of judgment on the external testimony for God in the earth by the disciple whom Jesus loved, and who had himself drunk in so sweetly the spirit of his and our Lord and Master: “I John, your brother.” No ministerial pre-eminence begotten by the exalted dignity conferred on him, but taking his place with the poor of the flock: “Your companion,” your joint-partaker “in tribulation.” Well might he say that, banished from home and kindred during the persecution of Nero, under whom Paul found his martyrdom. But if tribulation was his lot in common with his suffering brethren, the kingdom and patience of Christ was no less theirs. In fact, we are trained to glory in tribulation, as working patience, seeing God has called us to His kingdom and glory (1 Thess. 2:22But even after that we had suffered before, and were shamefully entreated, as ye know, at Philippi, we were bold in our God to speak unto you the gospel of God with much contention. (1 Thessalonians 2:2)) and to the patience of Christ (2 Thess. 3:55And the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patient waiting for Christ. (2 Thessalonians 3:5)). This “patience of Christ” has a far more blessed element in our “hope” than is generally accorded it. There is probably no item more important for walk, in the whole career of a Christian in his earthly course, than patience. Not patience in the ordinary acceptation of the term, for that is a quality possessed in various degrees by different persons. It is not even embraced by the exhortation, “In patience possess ye your souls,” which will be so necessary for an earthly saint, under the sorrows of persecution in the last week. This is a patience quite outside of ourselves, it is “the patience of Christ,” maintained in our souls by the Holy Ghost. His endurance while sitting, expecting at the right hand of God, is the most marvelous of the displays of His excellencies since His obedience unto death. Both are to the glory of God ,the obedience as the humbled Man, and the endurance as the glorified Man. Have we grasped this? Have we grasped the immense significance of the statement, “Because thou hast kept the word of MY PATIENCE”? Think of a mighty Victor, as He is, waiting eighteen hundred years for the fruit of His victory, and that because He will not move till it is the Father’s good pleasure to signify that He shall take it! Think, too, of the Father’s estimate of what is due to Him, that He should give Him the fruit of eighteen hundred years ingathering as His reward! saying to Him, “It is too light a thing that Thou shouldest be My servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give Thee for a light to the Gentiles, that Thou mayest be My salvation unto the end of the earth” (Isaiah 49:66And he said, It is a light thing that thou shouldest be my servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the preserved of Israel: I will also give thee for a light to the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth. (Isaiah 49:6)). Yes, most adorable Saviour!―patient, spotless One! much as we yearn for Thy return, sincere as is the Spirit’s cry within us that Thou shouldest come, we gladly wait on, that Thine inheritance may be enlarged thereby. Thou art worthy Lord Jesus.
And we, too, while we wait, are no losers in experience of what God has made Him to us. We are but knit the closer, we do but see fresh traits for our worship, Eliezer was preparing Rebekah, during the journey for her Isaac—the gold ring, the golden bracelets, the jewels of silver, the jewels of gold, and the goodly raiment, spoke to her of Isaac’s large heart and liberal hand, during the weary journey. We may learn more of Him there, but never so deeply as we can in a state where tears can flow in the contemplation of Him. There will be no tears there, and these heart experiences will be over; we shall get other experiences, but these deeply cut ones, foundation stones, as it were, of our experience of Him, are all fashioned out of sight, and will be known only to Him and us personally. His glory-glories all will see and share, but the sorrow-glories are the deeper ones. He learned obedience by the things that He suffered; and we, who see Him as the obedient One on earth, and the patient, expecting One in heaven, learn obedience and patience from Him.
Commission to Address the Churches
“I became in Spirit on the Lord’s-day.” Some extra care is needed to grasp this expression, on account of the conventional use of words, which would lead our minds to their meaning instead of to God’s intention. Two things are indicated first; viz., locality and condition. John was in Patmos, as we have seen, on account of the Word of God, and the testimony of Jesus Christ. Being in Patmos was not enough. He was not only shut off from the world’s roar and the world’s lion, but he was shut in to God by the Spirit: “I became in Spirit.” We get the idea in 1 Cor. 14:22For he that speaketh in an unknown tongue speaketh not unto men, but unto God: for no man understandeth him; howbeit in the spirit he speaketh mysteries. (1 Corinthians 14:2) in respect to a man speaking with “a tongue.” He is shut off from men, but speaks to God, and “in Spirit” speaks mysteries. The next expression is not without some difficulty—not, of course, that there is any real difficulty in any part of God’s Word—but difficulty does sometimes arise through the structure of man’s mind, or its prepossession of analogous truth. Now, there are two expressions current with the believer. The first is the Lord’s-day―the resurrection day―the first day of the week―the day when disciples come together to break bread, and find their Lord known to them after such a sort as gives the act and the day a pre-eminence over every other day and act on earth; second, “The day of the Lord,” an expression used largely by Old and New Testament prophets. It comes “as a thief,” and ends with dissolution of the heavens and the earth to make way for “the day of God.” Now, seeing that the day of the Lord has not come yet, and therefore had not come in John’s time, nor even in the spirit of that day, however much it might be the subject before him, we are thrown back on the first expression for two excellent reasons. In the first place. “the Lord’s day” and “the day of the Lord” are expressed in Greek quite differently; and, secondly, the expression used here of the day is the same as is used of the supper, so that the Lord’s-day and the Lord’s supper are analogous expressions; the former found here, and the latter in 1 Cor. 11:2020When ye come together therefore into one place, this is not to eat the Lord's supper. (1 Corinthians 11:20). The supper gets its character from the Lord’s death. The day gets its character from the Lord’s resurrection. In the Acts of the Apostles we get most appropriately the first day of the week, because the truth taught by that expression is that, by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, the old week has gone, Sabbath and all; for the Sabbath was the end, the last, the seventh day of Creation week. Now, the Resurrection specially declares, not that there shall never be a Sabbath, but that a new week has begun. The day of the Lord will restore the Sabbath, and put it in its true place; but until then the Lord’s day―(not supplements, but)―supplants it, for, till the re-appearance of the Sabbath, a new week has begun, in which rest is connected with the first day, the day on which the Lord rose the triumphant Victor over death for man—New Creation day, of which, thank God, there will never be a second.
“Behind me”―it was absolutely new. Had it been “before” him, we could not have grasped the absolute freshness and unexpectedness of what was happening. Every word of God is full of divine meaning―the danger is lest we “give” instead of “get” its import. There is, however, no danger if we sit as Mary sat―at His feet.
“A great voice, as of a trumpet.”
This reminds us of Sinai, where the trumpet and the voice of words so terrified man, that he could not hear it; and even Moses, beloved of God as he was, and with whom God talked as a friend, said, “I do exceedingly fear and quake.” The voice and the trumpet have no terrors for John. He, too, is a beloved, and had reclined his head on Jesus’ breast. We shall see, shortly, the effect produced on him by the Person of the Lord in His judicial aspect.
“I am Alpha and Omega.” This title, common to God and Christ in this Book, expresses the comprehensiveness, as “First and Last” expresses the eternity, of Him to whom it belongs. The Greek letters, used during “the times of the Gentiles,” quite harmonize with the way God has used language before, employing Hebrew, Chaldean, Syriac, or Greek, as best expressed His mind.