I will not go on with any other scriptures which I have heard or read as used on this subject. I have taken what appeared to be principal. Much, I doubt not, has been urged which I never heard or read. And I could say with simplicity, I wait to be further instructed, if so be there is light from the Lord.
I would not close, however without adding a few suggestions of a freer character, as to the ground on which my present thoughts rest. And in the first place, I ask, if the seventieth week of Daniel be reserved, as we know it is, and if the previous sixty-nine weeks concerned Daniel's city and people, Jerusalem and the Jews, are we not to conclude, that the reserved seventieth week concerns itself with them also? And if the Apocalypse treat of the last week, are we not to read it also in connection with the same, that is, with Jewish saints? I believe so; though I fully admit that they, in a sense, represent us, inasmuch as they will then stand, as we do now, in the faith and confession of Jesus. I fully admit, also, as to the same book, that the Lord Jesus is hidden during the action of it till chap. 19; I never had a thought that He was personally manifested till then. And, further, I admit that, in the same wondrous book, He is not on His own throne; I altogether allow that—surely I must. This, however, I must also add, that in the action of that book, He does not appear as a priest in the sanctuary—but though presented in different aspects and under various symbols, yet, in not one of them, as High Priest of our profession, making intercession for us. This is much to be observed. It shows that the action is peculiar. And I judge that the throne in chap. 4 which presides over the whole action till chap. 20 is therefore peculiar also. It is not simply the present throne nor the millennial throne, but the throne in, the heavens, having taken to itself certain attributes and powers suited to the peculiar action of those days which the book itself contemplates.
I have thus cleared my way a little, in order to state what is my strong conviction, long since suggested to me by a much loved brother, and never since then removed from my mind, that the election now gathering from the Gentiles is to be removed to meet the Lord in the air before the time of Rev. 4 There had been nothing I believe in the earlier parts of scripture to hinder this. The consideration I have been giving to different scriptures had that point in view. But, while, as I have judged, there is nothing to hinder this, there were some notices to prepare us for it. Jesus had said, “I will come again and receive you unto myself.” Paul had taught that we should be taken up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and on account of His coming he had comforted the saints against His day. All the apostles had kept the hearts of the elect in the attitude of hourly expectation. But these were but notices faint and precursory till we get the disclosure of the great fact, that the saints have been borne away to heaven at some untold moment, from whence it is given them to survey, and be interested in, the terrible action of the last days. (Rev. 4; 5; 6; 14; 15; 19)
The crowned elders represent or symbolize a company of redeemed sinners, whose place and inheritance are heavenly. The inquiry is, “Where are they who are thus represented during the action of the book of the Apocalypse?”
This is a question among us, suggested by the scriptures, lawful, therefore, to be entertained in a spirit of godly fear, as well as in a spirit of liberty. My judgment is that they are actually in heaven, having previously ascended there in their glorious bodies. The grounds of thus judging I would submit to my brethren, companion of the joy of these inquiries of the temple.
These mystic personages, when first presented to our view, form part of the order and court of heaven. Nor do they then appear as though they had only that moment reached the place, for there is nothing of the freshness of admiration which might suitably be expressed by those who were just opening their eyes on the celestial glory, but there is the calmness of a people familiar with it, Chap. 4. A central throne appears in the scene, having taken to itself this expression that the time had come when the Lord in heaven was again conceiving remembrance (so to speak) of the earth, for the rainbow is seen round it. But as the earth is not to be brought into the joy and full power of its covenant, till it be purged of all that corrupts it, we find lightnings, thunderings, and voices, in attendance on the throne, as well as the rainbow; all this giving witness that the time had arrived when the earth becomes the object of interest and attention in heaven. For the power on the throne there must put forth destructive judgments, which shall destroy the destroyers of the earth, before it can array itself with the earth, its desired companion in the glory; as it is written, “heaven is my throne, earth is my footstool.”
The mystic personages of whom I speak are part and parcel of this august scenery. But if, as I said, they do not appear there, as though they were only fresh in the admiration of the heavenly beauties, so they do not appear as though they were personally anxious about the tremendous action, for which the powers in heaven are getting themselves ready. They are not awed by the thunder, or scared by the lightning, or quake, like Moses, before the voice; but clothed in white, crowned with gold, and seated on thrones, they keep up the constant worship of God, and in conscious elevation above all water-floods, glory in all that is round them. In this manner they are introduced to us.
The question of the inheritance of that earth, which has now, as we have just seen, become the object of attention in heaven, arises after this, and very naturally so. If the earth be now to be purged, and then brought into connection with heaven again; if the moment have arrived for thunders, and lightnings, and voices to break from the throne, and for the bow to encircle it, the time has also come for settling the inheritance and government of the earth, or for the book or title-deed of that inheritance to be opened.
Accordingly, this in its order is done. The book is seen in the right hand of Him who sits on the throne; and after a general challenge of all creation, none is found either “worthy” or “able” to take it and open it but the Lamb that was slain, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. But His taking it at once becomes the occasion of universal joy. Everything and every one in their several way and measure express this; for this taking of the Book had given notice that the whole creation was soon to be made again the inheritance of Him whose right it is.
Chap. 5. But here I would pause a little. This burst of joy is but anticipatory—no doubt of that. For the time of Rev. 5 is not the time of millennial kingdom—the restitution of all things, or creation's jubilee. This universal pulse of gladness is therefore all anticipative, most surely. But this we observe, that it is in heaven the living creatures and crowned elders sing their anticipated joy. It is in heaven they sing as much as the angels. Every creature joins, but each in its proper place. For, as at the moment of Adam's sin, the creatures, in the ear of the Spirit, became groaners after deliverance (Rom. 8.), so now, when the Lamb is owned as “Lord of the world to come,” and as about to possess Himself of His kingdom, in the ear of the same Spirit, these groans are turned into praises. The prisoners of hope get bright pledges of a glorious deliverance. Beautiful and precious is this momentary and universal rapture. And in the midst of it we hear the mystic ones, of whom I speak, uttering their part in their heavenly places; even angels themselves forming a larger and outer circle around them.
But I proceed.
The book of the inheritance, which conveys the government of the earth to the Lamb, and which has now found its way into the hand of the Lamb, is sealed with seven seals, as it were, closing up some action which is to be gone through, or performed, ere this government can be settled under the Lamb. The living creatures appear in the closest personal intimacy with the act of opening those seals by the Lamb. The Lamb alone opens, but they are very near Him. Perfect in its place all this is. The Lamb, as we saw, alone had “worthiness” or “ability” to touch the book. But the living creatures have just owned their share in the now expected inheritance and government, and therefore are naturally and fitly near the book; and as being already in the secret of it, they call the servant of God “to come and see,” while the Lamb opens the first four of the seals. This is a high notice of these honored creatures. We saw them before exercised in heavenly worship, forming a company nearer the throne even than angels but here we see them intimate with heavenly secrets, which the prophet of God had to learn. This bespeaks, (if we hear it, beloved,) the joy and thankfulness, and praise of our hearts. Are the heights of glory thus ours? Are intimacies of heaven thus ours? But we are to see greater wonders yet.
After the opening of the sixth seal, among other things, we get presented to us a company who had been delivered out of the great tribulation; for such tribulation will immediately precede or wait upon the period of the sixth seal. But then we again see the living creatures and crowned elders; for one of them, one of the twenty-four elders, explains to John who this delivered company had been. Chap. 7. Surely this too is full of the same dignity, and very significant. Here they appear in the place of heavenly knowledge again, able to instruct the chief of the prophets; and they are also apart from the noble army of martyrs. And I feel that we are not to pass by all this, for these are high aid heavenly places surely.
The first series of actions that are under the seals, ends here. On the opening of the 7th seal another action begins, that of the seven trumpets. Over these seven trumpets seven angels preside. But upon the blowing of the seventh of them, our mystic objects are again seen. For the time of this 7th trumpet brings the course of events up to the eve of the kingdom, and in that bright prospect, the twenty-four elders celebrate the Lord God Almighty, and all the glorious results of his taking to Him his great power. And in this we get them connected, though but shortly, with the trumpets as well as with the seals. Chap. 8-11. There is an action then which may be termed that of the dragon and the beasts with its results, in which the living ones are again for a moment noticed, and noticed in a place of much honor, in 'close neighborhood to the throne, and apart from the company on Mount Zion, as we saw them apart from the martyrs in the seventh chapter. Chap. 12-14 — I pass this however, and look more particularly at the next series of actions, or the pouring out of the seven vials of wrath. Seven angels come forward, and one of the four living creatures gives them seven vials containing the judgments of God, and the angels empty these vials, or pour out these judgments on the dire and doomed places.
Here then, in this action, our personages fill a place of distinguished honor. In the mystery of seals, they were in the place of wisdom, calling John the prophet to the secrets of the book: but here they are rather in the place of power, committing the instruments of vengeance to the ministers of vengeance. Through other parts of the book they have been seen in greater intimacy with the throne than angels; but here was something beyond that—they arm angels with the implements of their service. Chap. 15, 16 — Babylon is the scene of the next great mystery in this book of wonders. But in it the living creatures and crowned elders do not expressly appear. Chap. 17, 18. The marriage in heaven then takes place, and for the last time our mystic Ones appear. The twenty-four elders and the living creatures worship God with their hallelujah, because He had judged the great whore, and had avenged the blood of God's servants upon her; and this, I may say (though they do not appear by name in the two preceding chapters), connects them expressly with Babylon, as we have seen them connected with each of the preceding actions, because Babylon is the great whore. Chap. 19 — Here, however, we lose sight of them. But continuously (I may say, after this review) from the moment the heaven was opened to take up John in chap. 4 to this moment in chap. 19 when the heaven is again opened to let down the white-horsed rider and His army, we have seen them there in all the calm and happy sense of home, acquainted with the secrets, and entrusted with the resources, of that high and holy place — John, the prophet, instructed by them, angels that excel in strength armed by them, and other redeemed ones at times taking their place apart from and around them.
I ask, then, where have they been all this time? As all this mystic scene passes before us, does it convey no certainty as to the inquiry? Where have those who are symbolized by these mysteries had their place all this time? Does it betoken that they have been actually in heaven or on earth? I wait to learn why I am not to consider them in heaven as really as the throne itself, the Lamb, or the angels. Are they seen in the place out of which the judgments come, or upon which they come? Is the sphere where they move above or below? Are they in company with the throne all through these actions, or tossed amid the agitations of the earth? Nay, are they not distinct from those who pass through the great tribulation itself, speaking of them most expressly as apart from themselves? Were I to go through these chapters unaffected by any prejudices, I know not that I could get more full and clear answers to these inquiries than they afford me, I grant, however, that I am to read them in company with all scripture, and if any other part of God's most precious book note this point, I must re-read these chapters, not allowing myself to take them or listen to them alone. But as yet, at least, I have not found such.
I fully admit that, during the action of these chapters and in different stages of it, certain other companies take their place in heaven. I have no doubt that there is a heavenly people on earth during this action, or at least the greater part of it, and that such in their season will be taken to their distinct heavenly place.
But this leaves me still at liberty to say that those who are represented by these mystic persons have been there throughout the whole of it. The action itself is neither that of the present dispensation, where Christ is in heaven alone interceding for us, nor is it that of the coming or millennial dispensation, when the heaven and earth will be parts of one temple with their several happy families, but an intervening action of a corrective or judicial character preparing the way of the kingdom.
Here, then, I rest, waiting for further instruction from any, if there be light from the Lord, as He gives it now through His word. But at present I cannot gainsay the conclusion that arises from all this. I cannot feel warranted to depart from the simplicity of the word, or to assume anything beyond what the first impression naturally conveys, that there is a company of redeemed ones actually in heaven, or in the place of the throne of God, before this action of the Apocalypse begins.
Perhaps, however I might suggest a few objections.
1St. It may be said that the four and twenty crowned elders express only the disembodied spirits of saints. I would answer that I do not think we can give this interpretation, because they not only appear in so different a place and condition and are as tangible and visible (so to speak) as angels themselves, but they actually minister, as we have seen, to the action that is going on, and help to conduct it to its great issue.
2ndly. It may be said that their appearance in heaven is only in anticipation of their place (that being heavenly) in the age of the kingdom. I would answer that I do not think we can say this, because the action here is so entirely different from what it will be in the kingdom. Here it is corrective or judicial upon an unpurged earth, there it will be in happy government of a restored earth. And beside, they are as crowned elders all through this action, but as soon as it is over, and the kingdom comes, they are lost to our sight as such, and we see them only as the Lamb's wife.
3rdly. It may be said that those represented by these symbols are the saints still really on the earth, and only in spirit, or in the purpose of God in heaven, as we read in Eph. 2. But, I answer, the analogy seems to me to fail, because the Epistle to the Ephesians shows the saints to be in heaven only as in Christ, or in the spirit of their calling, but actually on the earth; the Apocalypse shows these mystic ones to be actually in heaven, and only in spirit or in sympathy (as watching an action at a distance in which they are deeply interested) on earth. And this is to me rather contrast than similitude. Besides, during this action, the heavenly and earthly spheres are kept very distinct, and those of whom I speak are always in the heavenly. And again, John, who in spirit is called there, is at times down on earth, and even when in heaven, appears there in a way different from them. He appears to be there as a stranger or a visitor, but they are as fully at home as the throne, or the Lamb, or the angels.
Again I say, I wait to be instructed; but I cannot but judge that these testimonies from the book itself and these considerations, lead to a conclusion very simple to a mind unprejudiced.
I do indeed judge that there has been a mistake in confounding the saints who form the elders with the saints under the last apostasy and the beast. This has been suggested to me by another; and I believe most justly. The saints of the Most High (Dan. 7) cry “how long wilt thou not avenge” (Rev. 6): at least this is characteristic of them. And their prayers bring earthquake and thunder (Rev. 8). They have part in the first resurrection; but such as this is their characteristic; and they pass to the throne, as I have already said, only through death (Rev. 14:13; 20:413And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth: Yea, saith the Spirit, that they may rest from their labors; and their works do follow them. (Revelation 14:13)
4And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (Revelation 20:4)), on which character of journey, so to speak, we know that the saints now gathering do not depend (1 Cor. 15:5151Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, (1 Corinthians 15:51)). And this again distinguishes the two classes—death being not, in this way, a necessary stage now to the heavens as it will be (Rev. 13:1515And he had power to give life unto the image of the beast, that the image of the beast should both speak, and cause that as many as would not worship the image of the beast should be killed. (Revelation 13:15)). For as being killed, the title of the Apocalyptic saints to take part in the first resurrection comes. How then, I may ask, can 1 Cor. 15:5151Behold, I show you a mystery; We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed, (1 Corinthians 15:51) wait for the time of the Apocalypse? This long since occurred to me, and I find that it has struck the minds of others quite independently. But what say we to all these things? Why, though they may be clear to one's own mind, yet how happy is it to know that these things and the like, are the very material in which Peter says, that there is much hard to be understood (2 Peter 3) and that may give us happy forbearance one with another.
I, however, press on for a little longer. In the fourth chapter, as I observed, we see the living creatures and crowned elders round the central throne of God Almighty in the heavens. The action in the course of the book changes, the place of these mystic personages never does. They are interested in the action, they sing and rejoice at certain stages of it, but they are never engaged in it, or leave their high habitations. This chapter exhibits them there, every succeeding one confirms this; and must we not say, therefore, that they had been previously taken there I believe that we have many notices which are enough to prepare us for such an event as this, though I know it is a difficulty to many—I mean the event here intimated, a secret rapture of the saints. I do not say that we have a single type of it, but only this, that we have many things which might prepare us for it. Horses and chariots filled the mountains, but the prophet's servant had no eve for them till the Lord gave him one. Neither would that prophet himself have witnessed the flight of his master, if his soul had not passed through a testing and fitting process. Daniel was given to look on a very glorious and heavenly stranger, and to hear his voice, as the voice of a multitude; but the men who stood beside him saw nothing—only a terror fell on them. The glory on the holy hill shone only in the eyes of Peter, James, and John, though there was a brightness there like that of the sun, which might have lighted up all the land. Many bodies of saints arose, but it was not only those to whom it was given, that ever knew of their resurrection; for no mere eye or ear of man, as such, conversed with that great occasion. The heaven was opened to Stephen, and Jesus and the glory seen by him there; but the assembled people saw nothing. If Paul went to paradise in the body (and whether he did or not we will not say), none saw him. As when Philip was borne from Gaza to Azotus, no one traced his flight, for the Spirit carried him In the presence and voice of Jesus which arrested Saul on his journey to Damascus, there was no word for the ear of his companions, nor form of man for their eyes: all was mere glare and sound; but Saul saw and heard it all and for a time conversed with it. Have not, therefore all the circumstances which are to attend on the rapture of the saints been thus anticipated? And yet, silence and secrecy, in a great sense, mark them all.
We have in these several visions and audience, resurrections, flights, and ascensions, the glory down here, and the heavens opened up there, and yet man a stranger to it all. And this is simple and easy. For all the things belonged to the regions and energies of the Spirit, lying beyond the range of the natural faculties. “The natural man discerneth not the things of the Spirit of God.” The eye and the ear are not attuned to the appearances or voices of the Spirit, if the Spirit please it not. And let me add, that beyond all these, Jesus rose, and rose too forth from a tomb of hard hewn stone, and from amid a guard of wakeful soldiers; but no ear or eye of man was in that secret. And this resurrection of Jesus is a first-fruits. And after He was risen, though He might have walked the earth before, He was seen only by those to whom it was given Him to appear (Acts 10:4040Him God raised up the third day, and showed him openly; (Acts 10:40)). And He could vanish out of sight as He pleased, or appear in various guises as He pleased, and none could trace Him. This last is the greatest instance; but all of these are notices helping us to apprehend how silence and secrecy may, if the Lord will, wait on the coming of the Lord from heaven to meet His saints in the air. I am sure that this presents a difficulty to many who would not dare, in their own strength, to grapple with the plain words of God. But at present I feel that I should be doing wrong to the claims of scripture, were I to refuse to believe that there are saints gathered into heaven at some untold moment between the times of Rev. 3 and 4. The joy of chap. 5 has been said to be but anticipatory: I grant it most surely. How could it but be so, seeing that the time of that chapter is not the millennium, nor the season of creation's joy! But this I say, also, that this anticipation is felt by each of the three companies—the redeemed elders, the angels, and all creatures, in their due places at that time, and the elders or living ones feel it in heaven. All whom the Son of man takes away in His day He will take away in judgment, after the pattern of the wicked antediluvians (Matt. 24:38, 3938For as in the days that were before the flood they were eating and drinking, marrying and giving in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, 39And knew not until the flood came, and took them all away; so shall also the coming of the Son of man be. (Matthew 24:38‑39)). But the saints are not to be taken away in judgment, but to glory. Their removal finds its pattern, therefore, in that of Enoch, who was borne away to heaven before the flood or day of the Lord swept off the wicked from the face of the earth. Enoch was first taken to glory in heaven at some moment which did not depend on any event; and no one we may suggest, saw his rapture. Then comes the hour of ripened iniquity in the earth; and in that day the generation of the ungodly are taken away by a flood, and the earthly saint left for the new world here.
But, beloved, no more. With entire freedom of heart I can say, I do not desire to lead the opinions of others. Even our knowledge of truth itself is but little worth to the soul, if it have not been attained by exercise of the renewed affections before God. And opinions are poor human things, the fruit of man's midnight lamp, at which he eats the bread of literary carefulness. And how can the saint value them? But if we walk together with right desires, though it may be in much remaining ignorance, we may assure ourselves, even at this still later hour of the day, that our Lord will not refuse us both His light and His company, as once to our brothers on their way to Emmaus. Do not, however, let me intimate that I find no difficulties in considering this great subject. Indeed I do; and besides difficulties, I am going to say this, that I think there may be some indistinctness as to it purposely left on the page of scripture, in order to keep the saints in health of soul, maintaining them in spirit still, and ever longing for Jesus till His return, and yet being in divine strength, ready to reach Him by death through flames and floods. For indeed, the soul's lively, hopeful, suffering energies are far beyond well-ordered and carefully digested conceptions of these things. And sure, sure I am, that our Lord has another purpose touching us as His disciples or pupils, than the merely having us of one opinion by dint of the study of the Bible. For poor is the communion our souls have tasted as the fruit of that. And I will add one other thought—that though I see nothing necessarily delaying our rapture into the air, nothing put as a drag upon it, yet I know and allow that many things are to be done on the earth before the full form of evil be revealed, or the reserved week of Daniel begin. The nations of the East may have either to be reproduced or organized, and all of the prophetic words about Babylon, Edom, Tire, and the rest of these may have to be accomplished in the ancient sites of these famous cities and lands of the peoples. I do not deny this; and we know that much is to be done with Israel and with Judah, morally and politically, and with the land that is theirs by gift of God. And the West is to be got ready as the platform of a serious action ere the crisis comes, or its precursors in the seventieth week. Nor would I deny that a full 6000 years as to man's world is to tell itself out ere “the world to come” be displayed in its holy fruitfulness and beauty. And I grant that the present dispensation may still go on, because God's long-suffering is salvation, and He waits to be gracious. But still I add, that none of this is made necessary to our removal. We are not to be remembering days and years, though of course, the longer we live, the nearer is our salvation. Nor have we to ponder the, ways of the nations, though of course the maturer the iniquity, the more fit for the judgment.
But “come Lord Jesus” is ever to be the desire of the utterance. “Hope of our hearts, O Lord appear” is a song, I believe, most suited to the worship of our congregations. And let me just add, that I grieve very specially over some prevailing thoughts on this subject, because they threaten to sully the heavenly atmosphere of our assemblies, and give check to the happier and more abundant flow of hope and joy in our souls. This would be bad indeed. Even increase of knowledge, with decline in the spirit of worship, would be bad. With this, however, I desire that our souls may be kept in patience. We should count the resistance of the world no “strange thing,” take it what shape it may. We should all deem it a very likely thing that, instead of being at once with the Lord, we may have to answer for the profession of His name at the stake, or in captivity and loss of all things. O for the great conquering grace! O for hearts big with the expectation of Jesus, but ready also not only to suffer shame but to die for His name?
I say no more. May the Lord hinder the confidence of our hearts together, from being soiled by suspicions and conjectures! A second journey across the Jordan will be worth the time and labor, if it hinder that, to prove that no altar has been raised to our own imaginations. Let us call each other's spiritual senses into exercise, but not seek either to frighten or to school others into our way of thinking. For on such subjects, even an inspired apostle, as I noticed before, used this chastened style, “I would not, brethren, that ye should be ignorant;” at the same time, as he also tells us in the same place, opening these mysteries, not for the filling of the mind of the disciples with opinions, but for the guiding of their hearts with right affections, saying to them, “lest ye should be wise in your own conceits.” Let us then, beloved, get the apostle's taste and spirit, as well as his knowledge. A brother's spirit is more edifying than his communication. We experience that every day. And let us take a hint from another, “to aim to gather knowledge more from meditation than from study, and to have it dwell in us, not as opinions, but as the food of communion, the quickener of hope, the husbandman of divine charity, and the blessed refreshing of the kingdom of God within us.” I esteem it holier to confess difficulties than to grapple with them, in either the ingenuity or the strength of intellect, And surely it is bad when some fond thought or another is made the great object. It soon works itself into the central place, and becomes the gathering point. The order of the soul is disturbed, and the real godly edifying of the saints hindered. For we have to remember that knowledge is only a small part in the wide field of our husbandry (2 Peter 1:5-75And beside this, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; 6And to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience godliness; 7And to godliness brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness charity. (2 Peter 1:5‑7)). An appetite for it needs to be regulated rather than gratified. And many who, in. their husbandry have raised far less of it than others, have more abundantly prospered in bringing forth richer fruits in service, and in charity, and in personal love to Jesus.
May the Lord deepen in the souls of all His saints the power of His own redeeming love, and shed more and more among us the savor of His precious and honored name!
But I desire still to add another thought. The sense of the nearness of the glory should be deeply cherished by our hearts, and we need to be at no effort to persuade ourselves of it. It is taught us richly in the word “Whom he justified, them he also glorified,” is sentence which intimates this. It tells us of the path and the title to glory, When by faith we stand justified by the blood of Christ, we are at once made meet for the inheritance of the saints in light. And the path to it being thus simple, the place of it is near, and its capacity to unfold or manifest itself lies in the compass of a moment or of the twinkling of an eye, if the Lord please.
The congregation of Israel were set at the door of the tabernacle to acquaint themselves with their high priest and his ways. They took knowledge of his consecration and services, and then the glory appeared. That glory was just waiting within its vail, and all it wanted was a title to show itself, an object worthy of its visitation. And as soon as the congregation stand in the value of the priesthood, the glory finds this object. This is very expressive of the nearness to the camp in which it was all the while dwelling (Lev. 8, 9). Just so at the introduction of the ark into the temple afterward (2 Chron. 5), and at the creation of the tabernacle before (Ex. 40). And on these occasions the glory appeared to cause triumph and gladness, for the scenes it visited were ready first. But this was not always so. A light surprised the persecutor as he journeyed to Damascus. It was above the brightness of the sun at noon-day. And well it might have been, for it was a beam from the glory and bore the Lord of the glory upon it (Isa. 24:2323Then the moon shall be confounded, and the sun ashamed, when the Lord of hosts shall reign in mount Zion, and in Jerusalem, and before his ancients gloriously. (Isaiah 24:23)). But it did not come to gladden Saul all at once or merely to display itself. It had, I may say, weightier business on hand. It came to make this ruthless persecutor a citizen of its own native land. It begins, therefore, by laying him in ruins before it. It is the light of Gideon's pitcher confounding the host of Midian or the army of the uncircumcised. Saul falls to the earth. He takes the sentence of death into him. He learns that he had been madly kicking against the pricks, destroying himself by his enmity to Jesus, for that Jesus was the Lord of the glory. But He that wounds can heal, He that heals can make alive. “Rise and stand upon thy feet,” says the Lord of glory to him and he is quickly made His companion, servant, and fellow-heir. It is sweetly characteristic of the present age that the hand of a fellow disciple is used to strengthen Saul to bear the glory, or to accomplish his conversion. The seraphim alone do that for Isaiah (chap. 6), the Spirit does it for Ezekiel (chap. 2), the hand of the Son of man does it for Daniel (chap. 10); but a fellow-disciple is made to do it for Saul.
What a transaction was this! what a moment! Never, perhaps, had such points in the furthest distance met before. The persecutor of the flock and the Savior of the flock, the Lord of the glory and the sinner whom the glory is consuming, are beside each other! The glory came, not to gladden, as it had the congregation of old, but to convict, and through conviction and revelation of itself and Jesus to turn a sinner from darkness to light, making him a meet partaker of the inheritance of its native land. Can we trust all this and rejoice in it? Is it pleasant to us to know that the glory is thus near us? Stephen found it so when the Lord of it pleased to raise the curtain (Acts 7). And when the voice of the archangel summons it, and the trump of God heralds it, it will be here again as in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, to bear us up to its own country (1 Cor. 15, 1 Thess. 4).
Thus may we cherish the thought that the glory is near us. Our translation to its native land asks but for a moment, for the twinkling of an eye. The title is simple, the path is short, and the journey rapidly accomplished. “Whom he justified, them he also glorified.”