Revelation of Jesus Christ
W R Hartridge
Table of Contents
Preface
THE priceless Word of God is believed to be competent (by the aid of the Spirit of Truth) to throw whatever additional light is needed upon a part of the Word necessarily kept dark and comparatively obscure till the time of the end.
Every portion of this book is needed in its place. The Jew, the Gentile, the Professor of Christ, each may find in it vengeance or salvation, according as he measures himself by his own doings or by the blood of Christ. It is not within the purpose of God that the Church of God should come into the Tribulation. Professors will; but the Church of God, having kept the word of Christ’s patience, will be kept out of the hour of trial by being caught up to heaven (Rev. 3:10; 1 Thess. 4:17). Whenever that occurs, the special meaning of this book will lie between pages 16 and 86, the pages before and after referring to the Church of God only.
“Strengthen ye the weak hands, and confirm the feeble knees. Say to them that are of a fearful heart, Be strong, fear not: behold, your God will come with vengeance, with the recompense of God; He will come and save you. Then the eyes of the blind shall be opened, and the ears of the deaf shall be unstopped. Then shall the lame man leap as an hart, and the tongue of the dumb shall sing... And an high way shall be there, and a way, and it shall be called The way of holiness; the unclean shall not pass over it; but it shall be for those [the clean]: the wayfaring men, yea fools, shall not err therein. No lion shall be there, nor shall any ravenous beast go up thereon, they shall not be found there; but the redeemed shall walk there: and the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come with singing unto Zion; and everlasting joy shall be upon their heads: they shall obtain gladness and joy, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away” (Isaiah 35.).
Note
THE object of this work is to present each Vision or subject before the reader in such a manner that there may be no confusion with what precedes or what follows it.
The exact order of the Scripture has been followed; indeed, its order is as divine as its subject.
The division into chapters and verses is not divine. It frequently hinders the right apprehension of the meaning. It is therefore not followed here.
References to authors, or sources of information, are omitted, as tending to cause distraction to the reader, and occupy space that cannot well be spared.
The center column is the Authorized Version.
The outer columns are intended to help the reader to understand what he reads; either by bringing other scriptures to explain, or by presenting thoughts which must be weighed before God, as all other ministry.
In quotations from the Old Testament, the Revised Version has been used.
In the earlier pages, the valued remarks of others have been drawn upon at times, and will be recognized.
The best critical Editors of the text have been consulted, and various eminent translations. Most persons are aware that King James’ translators had not the advantages now possessed in authentic documents of the Book of Revelation.
Announcement of Revelation
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, 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 10:30); and God says of Him, “Thy throne, O God” (Heb. 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 8:42), 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, 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. 13:6), 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. 17:1), the Lord appeared, and said unto him, I am El Shaddai. In Gen. 48:3, Isaac says to Jacob, El Shaddai bless thee. And in Gen. 48:3, Jacob says to Joseph, El Shaddai appeared to me at Luz. In Exod. 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. 2:2) and to the patience of Christ (2 Thess. 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 49:6). 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. 14:2 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. 11:20. 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.
The Things That Thou Sawest
One Like Unto the Son of Man
“And I turned to see.” Everything in this Book betokens its character as a revelation. It is something that had not been before, something quite new in character. Mary at the sepulcher “turned herself back, and saw” (John 20:14); “She turning round says” (v. 16). This action portrays the unexpected, unlooked-for nature of the manifestation. Seven golden candlesticks are seen, not one candlestick with seven branches as in the tabernacle, but seven separate light-bearers, each representing a church, of which it could be said to Ephesus, “I will remove thy candlestick.”
“One like the Son of Man.” In Daniel, the Son of Man is seen as brought to the Ancient of days. Here He possesses all the characteristics of the Ancient of days, but with other characteristics in relation to the church which was a “mystery hid” in Daniel’s vision. These other characteristics are brought out in relation to the various churches, as we shall presently see. But all of them show how intimately His person is connected with the churches and their representatives, whom He is shown as holding in His right hand.
None could live in the presence of such a One, and John falls at His feet as dead. He who had lain in the bosom of the Son of Man come in grace, is at dead before the same Son of Man as judge. His authority on the ground of redemption has, however, enabled Him to give confidence. Perfect love casts out fear. He was alive, became dead, and is now alive for evermore. As first and last, everything is met in His holy Person. The keys of death and hades are in His safe keeping, no longer at Satan’s disposal or in his power.
The Son of Man is a title the Lord delights in. In eternity with the Father, His delights were with the sons of men. In prophecy He applied it to Ezekiel a hundred times, and of Himself in the Gospels He uses it eighty times. No one ever uses it of Him save Stephen, who sees Him in that character standing at God’s right hand. He has passed by angels to take up His glories as Man! and in and among men are these glories to be manifested both in heaven and on earth. Distinct spheres of blessing they are, and yet through Him to be intimately related in blessing. This title, then, has a very wide and far-reaching significance. It is not only that He condescended to become a Man that He might make reconciliation, but that as a Man He might bring many sons to glory, and that they might be His companions there. The thought is so vast that the creature, except divinely prepared and divinely endowed, could not―and in many cases does not―grasp it.
“Write the things which thou hast seen”; namely, that which we are now considering, the glorious characteristics of His Person, in their judicial aspect, which are the foundations of everything in this Book. It was John’s special function in his Gospel to speak of Him in His character as “Son.” But there it is Son of God who has come down into the world in grace to make the Father known to all such as, believing in Him, had authority to become sons of God, even to such as believed on His name, being born of God. In that same Gospel (v. 27) He has authority to execute judgment, because He is the Son of Man. The glories of His Person, therefore, are the sum and substance, pith and marrow of Holy Scripture, from beginning to end, natural or spiritual, temporal or eternal.
The Things That Are: The Seven Churches
First Love Relinquished
We read this address to Ephesus with feelings akin to those in which we read the solemn question addressed to the man in the garden, “Where art thou?” It is the death-knell of the pillar and ground of the truth. “These things saith He that holdeth the seven stars in His right hand, who walketh in the midst of the seven golden candlesticks.” Oh, what maintaining and sustaining power there was in Him, if they had but kept close to His holy Person! Nothing else had been needed on their parts. “As the Father hath loved Me, and I also have loved you: abide in My love. If ye shall keep My commandments, ye shall abide in My love, as I have kept My Father’s commandments, and abide in His love.” This is how He had plighted His troth to her for whom He was in a few hours to lay down His life; and His parting request was, Abide in My love. He had been faithful unto death, in death, beyond death. He abideth faithful. He is the faithful and true, and He comes to say that she has left her first love.
First works gone too! No wonder! Works apart from Christ have no value in themselves. It is only as they spring from a real, constant, devoted, personal affection to the adorable Person of the Lord, that works have any divine meaning at all. It is His Person alone, that can call forth any kind of work that He can own. “Except ye abide in ME, ye can do nothing.” It was entirely of His grace when things were bad beyond retrieval that He gave a glimpse of His beauty to Philadelphia, shining from heaven upon her in her filth and rags, as He did to Saul in the filth of his righteousness, and making her to hear His faithful voice after eighteen hundred years, saying, “I have loved thee.” Yes, every step of that weary journey, every moment of that dreary interval, has He been waiting, watching, and expecting. All for her sake who soon forgat Him! Oh, He is a faithful lover. He could have taken His great power and reigned long and long ago. He could have gathered Israel and fulfilled all His gracious promises to Abraham, His friend; but His heart would not consent. He would wait for her. His love had been stronger than death for her: His patience should be stronger than death also―it should outlast all her departure. If He had waited for Rachel seven years and been disappointed, He would wait seven years more, but He would not give her up. He has let out the secret of His love to Philadelphia in telling her she had kept the word of His patience. Mark it well―not that she had been patient, but that she had believed (kept the word of) His patience. Shall we ever grasp the extent of His faithful, patient, abiding love? Never. But it abides; and although He has thus to remind her of her departure, see how love imputes everything it can think of to her advantage, even patience twice cited: “For My name’s sake hast labored, and hast not fainted.” Who that has got a heart divinely stirred, can fail to recognize His intense affection, notwithstanding His eyes of fire pierce her through and through as to the weakened spring that will ultimately ruin her outward testimony to His name?
And remember. He does not say I have “somewhat.” The Holy One tones down nothing. The “faithful and true” never compromises faithfulness and truth. He tells her what He sees, and we know His record is true.
Tribulation. Poverty.
He who is the first and the last has in His own person, experienced every kind of suffering it is possible for His saints to endure, even unto death! If they are faithful unto death, He who has passed through death, and is now the Living One, will give to them the crown of life.
The root of “Smyrna” is “bitterness,” as myrrh. Myrrh and aloes were used for embalming the dead (John 19:39).
“I know thy works, and tribulation, and poverty (but thou art rich).” What a contrast to Laodicea, who says, “I am rich”; but of whom the Lord says, “Thou art poor”! It is only through the same kind of poverty as “His poverty” that we can be accounted “rich.” “Ye know the grace,” do you not? (2 Cor. 8:9).
Their afflictions were threefold; personal― for the persecutions wore them out with suffering; relative―they had to endure the spoiling of their goods; religious―Babylon came in with her blasphemous doctrines to heathenize Christianity, and to foist a heathen priesthood on them under the guise of Judaism. This is what is meant by the term “Synagogue of Satan,” “They say they are Jews, and are not, but do lie.” It was not simply the mistake of men who would confound or mingle Christianity with Judaism, from not knowing the distinctive character of each in the Word; it was Satan using Judaism as a blind, to introduce heathenism, which worships himself. It was an old device. Moses set up―by the word of the Lord―a serpent of brass. When it had served its purpose, Satan got hold of it, and it had to be destroyed as Nehushtan, for the people were burning incense to it (2 Kings 18:5). It is just the same today; hence the allusion to the synagogue of Satan to Philadelphia. In the Jewish ritual of those who sport with Popery, what more common device than a cross? This is the essential sign of heathenism, and was never a Christian symbol. Constantine introduced it when Pagan Rome became Papal Rome. Its signification to the heathen was male and female element in deity; it is found on Phoenician monuments 1600 years before Christ; it was the monogram of Osiris and Jupiter Ammon; it is marked on the garments of the Egyptian priests, and on the calves of Thebes. The Assyrians used the Maltese form of cross. It may be seen in the British Museum on Samei Vul, king of Assyria, B.C. 825. God uses Satan’s power, acting through the world’s hostility, for two ends, first, to exercise the divine life in a saint; secondly, to hinder further departure from the Lord. How wondrously was Satan used of God for blessing in Job’s case! Paul gets a messenger of Satan, that Christ’s grace and power may rest upon him. God may use Satan as a rod, too, but he cannot touch a hair of the head beyond what is allowed.
Deceit and violence are Satan’s methods (Ps. 72:14). These will characterize his dealings in the Crisis week. In this church he tries violence, reserving deceit more particularly for the next.
The ten persecutions, occupying 250 years, A.D. 64 to 313, were under the ten emperors, Nero, Domitian, Trajan, Marcus, Severus, Maximin, Decius, Valerian, Aurelian, Diocletian. It was under the last that the grand effort of Satan was made to exterminate truth, Christians, Scriptures, everything bearing Christ’s name. A supreme effort was made to wipe it out of existence. For ten years this bitterest of all bitter persecutions lasted, and for a moment success seemed assured, for medals were struck to celebrate it. But Galerius, son-in-law of Diocletian, and the moving spirit of most of this wickedness, died by the hand of God in fearful tortures in the manner of Herod, confessing at the last his mistake, and asking forgiveness.
False Doctrine. Gnosticism.
Pergamos means “a tower.” After Babylon ceased to be a world-power, the secret societies holding direct communication with the powers of darkness transferred their operations into other lands, one outcome of which was the establishment of Buddhism. But the headquarters of the system was at Pergamos. Hence the expression “Where Satan’s throne is.” The Chaldean Priest-King, Attalus III., bequeathed his titles to Rome, but the conditions could not be fulfilled. At length Julius Cæsar, being both Pontifex and Imperator, Babylon became identified with Rome, and has remained so to this day. Pergamos―the strong citadel of Satan, stands in contrast to the Lord, of whom it is written, “Thou hast been a refuge for me, a strong tower from the enemy” (Ps. 61:3).
It was under this era that the Church was taught to regard the conversion of the world as the realization of the Millennium. At the same period heathen festivals were associated with Christian events. Dec. 25th was the heathen celebration of the birth of the Sun-god. The Gnostics were unwearied mediators between Paganism and careless Christianity; their object ever was to divide what was divinely joined, or to blend what was divinely separated. They divided the divinity and humanity of Christ; they blended Christianity with Judaism or the world. The Lord speaks to this church as “He that hath the sharp sword with two edges,” for it is only by the Word of God that these perversions of Satan are dealt with.
The Lord appreciated the fact that notwithstanding they lived where Satan’s throne and dwelling were, they held fast His name, and did not deny His faith. Antipas had even died rather than relinquish it.
Nevertheless, it is a fearful thing to listen to the seductions of Balaam. The Lord may cause trial to purify His saints, but He never brings evil doctrine to tempt them. Satanic subtlety took the place of persecution, which had failed, and the effort was now to associate Christians with the world, so that they might come under its judgment. Balaam is when the natural man comes in to deal with the things of God. God may use a man in a certain way, as He did Saul, as He does even Satan; but the end is always disaster to those who are ministered to. The natural man cannot lead to God, whom he does not know for himself. His object, too, is gain for himself, not gain to others solely.
“So also thou hast them that hold the doctrines of the Nicolaitanes, which thing I hate.” If Balaam destroys by bringing in the world, Nicolaitanism uses the flesh in us in like manner. Nothing is more common in us all than to make the very privilege of the position which we as Christians occupy, to give a warrant or license to take liberties. Instead of having more freedom, more independence of judgment, because we are Christ’s; we are, on the contrary, to use our freedom and liberty the more in subjection to Him. To connect fleshliness with spirituality is lawlessness of the worst kind. The lawlessness of the natural man is lawlessness before God; the lawlessness of the Christian is lawlessness to Christ. Can Christ do other than hate that?
“Repent,” He says; I will come to you quickly, if you do not; I will make short work of it with you; I will fight against you with the Word which ought to be your comfort and joy.
Popery. Mystic Babylon.
Thyatira is Christianity heathenized. In her the Church, the bride of Christ, finds a correlative in the harlot, Satan’s counterfeit. Hence she stands in the midst of the seven. The first three culminate in her; the last three spring from her. She is the embodiment of the first three by the following process (1,) Decline from the Person of Christ; (2,) Synagogue of Satan; (3,) Throne of Satan; (4,) Idolatry. From her springs (5,) Death with a name to live; (6,) Out of death God raises a people for His Son; (7,) The residue is spewed out. The last four, therefore, go on to the end (the Crisis), but with this distinction: Thyatira is judged as the Church, the idolatrous outcome of Satan’s power and religion when the Lord was lost sight of. Sardis is judged as the world, from which she differs nothing but in name. Philadelphia God’s resurrection out of the dead for the glory of Christ, is rapt up into heaven out of the way of judgment, while Laodicea is terminated as a vomit to express what can be only so expressed. If we grasp therefore, what Thyatira is in its own and two previous aspects, it is entirely Satanic, and is really Satan’s harlot put forth to travesty Christ’s bride. No wonder, then, that mystic Babylon, as representing Babylon in the Church aspect, gets such a prominent place in the judgments of the Apocalypse; city Babylon being the world aspect of this monster machinery of iniquity. The name “Thyatira” means “One unwearied in presenting sacrificial offerings.” In her, Satan has found his masterpiece of insult to the ONE offering. In respect to worship, she is Satan’s synagogue. In respect to power, she is Satan’s throne. The Son of God judges her.
There was considerable devotedness in the Middle Ages, spite of darkness; those who loved the Lord were characterized by much self-denying service.
Thyatira, by Jezebel, became really heathen, though retaining Christianity as a cloak. Jezebel was not a daughter of Abraham, but a princess of idolatrous Tyre, of a family infamous for cruel savagery, and devotion to Baal and Astarte. Her father was a priest of Astarte (Venus). The Gnostics brought in these Pagan abominations, in which sorcery and witchcraft were not wanting.
Jezebel is a large advance on Balaam doctrine, and really the result of it. Here a Pagan prophetess is found committing fornication with Christ’s servants, and bringing forth children of adultery. Idolatry becomes rampant, and the depths of Satan in full exercise. “And I will kill her children with death.” Sardis is a proof of it. “And all the churches shall know,” for all, or nearly all, have put priesthood, under the guise of ministry, between the soul and Christ. God having taught the saints that they are one with Christ, whoever puts anything between―law, priesthood, philosophy―virtually denies the truth of Christianity. He who trieth the reins and hearts will apportion to each their share in this complicity with evil. Thyatira really closes the public history of the Church. Philadelphia is no return to anything. It is God’s sovereign grace witnessing of what has been departed from.
Form Without Power.
Sardis begins quite a different phase of things from Thyatira, though sprung from it. “Sardis” is a Lydian word signifying “newborn,” or “renewed.” It may thus convey the aspect called the Reformation, which was a loud protest against Popery, and so far a great good. But there was no coherence, no holding the Head (Christ), now that the false head (the Pope) had been relinquished. And so a multitude of sects sprung up, each finding a guiding power in a minister, instead of the guidance of the Holy Ghost. And so, Christianity became a powerless name, inert, dead; for if not a witness of Christ, What? Hence Sardis is judged as the world; Thyatira as the Church.
“The seven Spirits of God” refers to the Spirit of God’s fullness of power in His various perfections, not only in the external Church, but in the world. “The seven stars” as that which represents the external Church belonging to Christ. Sardis put them, as it were, into the hands of the powers that be, or worse still, made the Church itself the possessor. Confidence should be in what Christ is for the Church.
“A name that thou livest.” A religious reputation is one of the worst evils which can befall a saint, especially if, laboring devotedly, he is found gathering a circle round himself. Christ is the only true object to gather to, and it is a solemn consideration that all work that does not gather to Him is only dead work. His glory, His interests, His people, His coming, His kingdom, His God and Father; all these have in them vitality to the one ministering them, as well as containing vitality for those ministered to.
The respectable religiousness of Protestantism may pass muster with the world, but before God it is dead.
Great as the ruin is, the remedy would not be found in despair, but in watchfulness, to strengthen the things that remain, ready to die; like plants neglected, and left without water. With God all things are possible, and obedience to the direction here given leads to Philadelphia. It is just like the revival in Israel in the days of Josiah. It was not something new brought in, but the strengthening of what was possessed but had been forgotten. This is what follows:
“Remember.” Remember what? What you have received and heard. Go to the Word; hear what God says. Never mind what man has made of it, but get the real thing, pure at the Source; and, having got it, HOLD IT FAST at all costs, and act upon it. This is to repent. But suppose you will not exercise the watchfulness here suggested, what then? You will be treated as the world. He will come upon you as a thief. He tells you so here, to warn you; for it is a terrible warning. There is another terrible warning to Laodicea, about their nakedness being exposed; and, solemn to say, He seems further on to couple them together. Listen to His voice just after three unclean spirits have gone out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the beast, and out of the mouth of the false prophet: “Behold, I come as a thief” [Is that to Sardis?] “Blessed is he that watches” [Is that to Sardis?] “and keeps his garments, that he may not walk naked, that they may not see his shame” [Is that to Laodicea?] The rapture will have taken place long before this Revelation 16:15, but how remarkable that these words should be uttered then. When are they fulfilled? And why warn Sardis and Laodicea in these words?
Love to the Person of Christ
Philadelphia is a special blessing to meet a special need. It is when the world and the church have arrived at a state of felt darkness, that a few are raised up to be a testimony. Light in the Lord to those that sit in darkness and in the shadow of death.
Philadelphia means “brotherly love,” but love to brethren, on Christ as a center; and with those who keep His word, and do not deny His name, is the only real Philadelphia.
“He that is holy, he that is true,” is the only standard by which a true estimate can be formed.
Christ, personally ruling the affections of the heart, causes light to the soul.
When we get the Spirit’s testimony to Christ, the heart clings to Him; and having found Him in the Word connected with all that is holy, all that is true, yea, that He is the holy One, and the true One, one is satisfied. Having Him that is from the beginning, development is not needed.
It gives wonderful confidence to know that He holds the key. None could shut out His testimony, none can shut out ours while He holds the key and sets before us the opened door; for we cannot open one ourselves, any more than one could be shut which He has opened.
That which characterizes the saints of this church is the written Word of God bringing Christ’s character and name as truth and holiness into the heart, and thus (walking in fellowship with “Him that is holy and Him that is true”) they are safe.
“I know thy works.” Nothing to remark on this. He would have said something had it been necessary.
Is Christ’s approbation sufficient for me, and sufficient to govern my conduct?
“Lord, ‘tis enough; I want no more.”
Weakness without reproach from the Lord, is better far than the gifts at Corinth, with blame for not knowing how to use them aright.
His strength is made perfect in weakness, but weakness without God becomes unbelief.
When Christ was on earth, every one sought to shut the door on Him; Pilate, Herod, scribes, Pharisees, and the whole nation. Christ, like Philadelphia, was in the midst of an order of things once instituted by God, but that had utterly failed.
“Little strength,” but in connection with the Source of all strength.
God answers our weakness according to His own strength.
“I” will make them know that I have loved “THEE,” both specially emphatic in the Greek. Happy to be thus honored by having our name linked with His!
“The synagogue of Satan” is a religion of the flesh that rests in outward things, works, ordinances, and the like.
Keeping the word of Christ’s patience is what characterizes Philadelphia.
Keeping the word of His patience preserves from the temptation of these perilous times, neither is the coming hour of temptation fen those whose citizenship is in heaven, from whence they are looking for the Savior. This is for earth dwellers, who share the earth’s punishment, and who find the earth too sore a torment to cling to any longer “I come quickly.” Aye do, Lord, and give the grace to hold fast for Thee; for our crown is Thine! “A pillar in the temple of MY God. The name of MY God. The name of the city of MY God, New Jerusalem, that cometh down out of heaven from MY God, and MY new name.” Could He give more? Yes, He gave HIMSELF.
Self-Complacency
The Church having failed to add yea and amen to God’s provision of grace, Christ becomes the Amen.
The Church also having failed to be the witness of the Christ of God, as revealed in the Word, Christ must supplant it with His own testimony as the Faithful and True.
The Church also having failed to exhibit His prerogative as Head of the New Creation, losing sight of “the beginning.” Christ takes up that title in respect to it.
“Neither cold nor hot.” Negativeness; Christianity with a Christ of man’s imagination; not the Christ of God. No fault humanly, but not right divinely. Had been fervent in spirit, but now cooling down through philosophy and vain deceit. Better be nothing than present Christ falsely. Better to quarrel with Peter than to dissemble with him.
The corruption of the best thing is the worst of corruptions. Nothing on the face of the earth so opposed to God as professing Christianity.
“I will spue thee out.” This should come home with more sorrow to the heart than the judgment of Antichrist himself, because here it is Christ expressing His loathing, His disgust, His abhorrence, of that which has professed to stand in connection with, and as representative of, Himself. There is a solemn word in Leviticus 18:28, where Israel is warned that the land should spew her out, as it had spewed out its inhabitants before her.
It is final and complete judgment, no escape whatever; and the reason is plain. Antichrist has no place but by perversion of the truth. There must come a falling away first, before the Man of Sin is revealed. A falling away is not from error, but from truth, Apostasy is from doctrines of Christianity; there is nothing else of God to apostatize from.
Man’s estimate of himself: Rich; increased with goods; needing nothing. God’s estimate: Wretched; miserable; poor; blind; naked. True riches, gold tried in the fire; durable clothing, white raiment of His provision. But the eyes must be divinely prepared to see what is divine. Human intelligence in the things of God is the most disastrous knowledge. It not only falsifies what is true, but it gives fallen man a standing that he can accept, a religion that involves no sacrifice of self, and becomes no sacrifice to cast off.
“As many as I love.” Ah, blessed Lord, that is where Thine heart is. Having loved Thine own that were in the world, Thou lovedst them unto the end. Chastening and rebuke are but proofs of Thy love. Couldst Thou have Thy people unlike Thee? unfit for Thee? unworthy of Thee? and Thy return so near, too! No wonder Thou art urgent on them. Haste thee, escape, O Lot, “I cannot do anything till thou be come thither.”
“Be zealous therefore, and repent.” Not only repent, but do your diligence about it. Say not, There is plenty of time; say not, There are so many friends to leave who are orthodox, and therefore all right. See you not an alarming portent? Do you not see that the door is shut, and that the Lord and Master is outside the house? He reminds you of the fact; He says He is standing there and knocking, that He may remind you. It will be too late if yet remain longer. Hear, and obey.
Commencement of Things Hereafter
A Door Opened in Heaven
“After these things” is the prophetic formula for closing up one subject and opening one quite different. Specially marked is it in this instance because the sphere is totally changed from earth to heaven. All the Spirit’s phraseology in Scripture must be carefully noted, for it is the fullness of wisdom condensed into the fewest words. “Behold”! Mark it well. Something calling for more than the ordinary observation. “A door opened.” This is a sentence peculiar to Philadelphian condition, where the opened door is a characteristic feature, and consequent upon keeping His word. Indeed, the Lord had the very same principle in view when speaking to Nathanael, the force of which is not always seen. It will be remembered that Jesus had said to him (in answer to Nathanael’s question, How do ye know me?) I saw you, before Philip called you. On Nathanael owning Him Son of God, King of Israel, Jesus virtually says, Do you take My word for what I say? An opened heaven is yours from henceforth. I have no secrets from the man who takes My word for what I say. So it is to Philadelphia: I have set before thee an opened door, because thou hast kept My word, and not denied My name. And, as in the other case, it is “heaven opened.” Take a contrary example in Nicodemus: “If have told you earthly things, and ye believe not, how shall ye believe if? shall tell you of heavenly things?” Hence the way to learn all heavenly truth is the acceptance of that which HE is as “come down.” I am the Bread that “came down”; and unless a man eats of Jesus as “come down” bread, he can know nothing of Him, when, as Son of Man, He has ascended up where He was before. It is as true now as it was then, that “there are some of you that believe not,” for Jesus knew from the beginning who they were that believed not, and who should betray Him.
By an opened door in heaven, then, John is called upon to behold what takes place upon the earth in vindication of the trampled rights of God and His Christ. Patience has had her perfect work. Long-suffering has been mocked at (2 Peter 3). The trumpet and the voice of words (Heb 12:10) are now heard in heaven, instead of on earth; a significant fact, taken in conjunction with the total disappearance of the seven churches from this Book henceforward. The trumpet, a voice first heard at Sinai, which the people could not listen to, first calls the sleeping and the living saints to meet the Lord (1 Cor. 15; 1 Thess. 4) in the air; then, in respect of anticipative revelation, was heard by a living witness of the Church, on earth, where alone judgment could be pronounced on its earthly career; now, as this scripture instructs us, from heaven, in respect to Jew and Gentile.
All is in divine harmony with Hebrews 12:26, 27: “Whose voice then shook the earth [Sinai]; but now He hath promised, saying, Yet once more I shake, not the earth only, but also heaven. And this word, ‘Yet once more,’ signifieth the removal of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things that cannot be shaken may remain.” As the wonders of the divine panorama unfold to our gaze, we shall see many of God’s people moving in the troubled scenes depicted; some we shall recognize as the chosen people, and some from among the nations, but never Church condition, as we now know it. Its voice may be heard when an elder is speaking; its garments may be seen when an opened heaven discloses the celestial armies following their Head; its beauty may be disclosed as a holy city of gold, and jasper is seen descending over a purified and righteousness-loving earth; but all these things are its heavenly, not its earthly aspect, which closed once and for all when it rose to meet its Lord, according to divine appointment in 1 Thessalonians 4. The Church was never the subject of prophecy from God’s point of view. How could His presence be called “a dark place”? Man’s presence is a “dark place” indeed, and therefore from man’s point of view, prophecy does speak of her as we have seen in the seven Epistles, for there the light is shining in the darkness, to reveal, alas! the eclipse she has suffered as a testimony for God in the earth.
A Throne Set in Heaven
“Immediately I was in the Spirit.” The immediateness of the Spirit’s action is remarkable all through the New Testament. The instant recognition of glory to Christ, because of the extraordinary place of condescension He had taken in becoming Man, seems to be the prominent reason. Man is slow, God quick, to recognize such rare perfection. “A throne was set in heaven, and One sat on it.” The foundation of all governmental action is the throne; “Thy throne, O God is forever and ever. A scepter of righteousness is the scepter of Thy kingdom.” This applies to Christ, of course; but God is introducing His Christ into this place of glory which He has won as Man. God, therefore, is the One who sits upon the throne here. His person no man hath seen nor can see. It is by His character we know Him, and by His character the Spirit here gives us His aspect. He is to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone, two characteristics the exact opposite of each other; for the jasper is transparent, clear as crystal; the sardine (carnelian) opaque. “O righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee,” is sardine stone. “But I have known Thee, and these have known that Thou hast sent Me.” This, taken in conjunction with “He that hath seen Me hath seen the Father,” is jasper. Hence the Holy City, the New Jerusalem, when seen descending out of heaven from God, is only described by jasper― “a stone most precious, clear as crystal.” She has the glory of God (Christ). Her wall is of jasper, for the glory of God surrounds her―keeps her in on every side.
And what a mine of wealth for interpretation is the high-priest’s breast-plate! The Urim and Thummin for our hearts! For the first and the last is there seen to be, not jasper and sardius as here; but sardius and jasper. He who was sardius under the law has ended as jasper by the revelation of His Son in us. Will anyone say this is fanciful? Will anyone urge that the twelve stones represented the twelve tribes? Come, then, let us interpret them so, and read the glory of God (Christ) that way. Sardine, Reuben; jasper, Benjamin. “Reuben, thou art my first-born, my might, the first fruits of my strength; the excellency of dignity, and the excellency of power” (Gen. 49:3). Benjamin. “She called his name Ben-oni [son of my sorrow]: but his father called him Benjamin [son of the right hand]” (Gen. 35:18). Are not both Christ?
And while we have the breastplate before us, let us look at the beautiful emerald also. See it there, the last stone of the first row. That represents Levi. Moses shall interpret this time. “Of Levi he said, Thy Thummim and Thy Urim are with Thy godly One” [or, Him whom Thou lovest] (Deut. 33:8). So, after all, that beauteous rainbow, the emblem of that sevenfold covenant made with Creation (Gen. 9:8-17), was Christ, Thy godly One―Him whom Thou lovest! Does it not really make one doubt whether one can be in the body or out of the body to see the throne (set out for judgment, too!) resplendent with these tokens of God’s beauteous Son? Truly, God was in Christ, reconciling the world unto Himself. And here, on the very Throne of Judgment, can Christ be to God other than He always was? Impossible. But what a guarantee for Israel! What a guarantee for Creation! “Him whom Thou lovest” shall protect Creation. “The excellency of power,” “The Son of Thy right hand” shall protect Israel. “The beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him.” And what shall we say to these things? A good deal, both now and presently. This is what we say now, “We rejoice in hope of the glory of God” (Rom. 5:2). Another thing we say now is, “The Word became flesh, and dwelt among us (and we have contemplated His glory, a glory as of an only begotten with a Father), full of grace and truth” (John 1:4). Another thing we can say is, “Of His fullness have all we received, and grace upon grace” (John 1:16). But presently twenty-four thrones will he seen encircling The Throne; and then we shall think of His words, “The glory that Thou gavest Me I have given them, that they may be one, as we are one” (John 17:22).
Twenty-Four Surrounding Thrones
Next to the importance of the central throne, and its divine occupants, and the attendants of its majesty, comes the wondrous announcement of twenty-four thrones in its immediate vicinity. Thrones in the presence of the Throne of God Himself! Far too wonderful to contemplate were it not God’s Word we have before us. These twenty-four thrones are expressed by the same word that expresses the central throne, and we dare not make less of them than God does. But who are the sitters thereon? Twenty-four elders, clad in white garments, and having on their heads crowns of gold. How come they here? First, they must have had a title; secondly, an invitation; and both divine. No creature whatever, man or angel, can be in God’s presence without both. An angel is elect, and a minister. A man is elect, appointed king and priest.
The only persons spoken of in Scripture answering to these distinctions, are those in Israel and from among the Gentiles, who have been called “by faith” into God’s assembly. It appears to be a sine qua non that it should be “by faith”: because there are kings and priests who reign over the earth, who are the theme of the song of the heavenly ones, and we know that their title will be derived from having “seen and believed,” and so owned their Lord. But why twenty-four, seeing that God’s arrangements are distinguished by “twelve” where administration is indicated? The answer is that Jew and Gentile, having been brought in “by faith,” two twelves are necessary to indicate them. All knowledge being found in God’s Word, we instinctively turn to 1 Chronicles 24, where much valuable help is obtained. We find there twenty-four princes of the sanctuary, princes of God, sons of Aaron, appointed by David to serve in the Temple of Solomon. But the sons of Aaron, Nadab and Abihu, having died by judgment (the flesh cannot serve in God’s temple), the sons of Eleazar (whom God has helped), and the sons of Ithamar (palm trees of delight), in all twenty-four, are selected and appointed. “The righteous shall flourish as a palm-tree,” brings an Israelite to our mind; while “God is our help,” “the Lord is my helper,” are expressions found in the mouth of Jew and Gentile respectively. Eight from Ithamar and sixteen from Eleazar, make our twenty-four, and give us “help.” “Having, therefore; obtained help from God,” let us ask another question. How did these twenty-four get into this place of security and dignity, and thus be found there at a time when judgment is the theme of every tongue? Scripture again must be our interpreter. “BY FAITH Enoch was translated that he should not see death; and was not found, because God had translated him; for before translation he had the testimony that he had pleased God. But without faith it is impossible to please Him. For he that draws near to God believes that He is [has faith in Him], and that He is a rewarder of them that seek Him out” (Heb. 11:5, 6). Verily, these have their reward! 1 Thess. 4:13-17 gives particulars.
One more question. What is their special function so close to the throne of the Eternal? It is written, Things which eye hath not seen, and ear not heard, and which have not come into man’s heart, which God hath prepared for them that love Him, God has revealed to us by His Spirit; for the Spirit searcheth all things, even the depths of God... The spiritual discerns all things... having the mind of Christ (1 Cor. 9-16). How righteous is God! Righteous in His bestowments; righteous in His judgments. These twenty-four enthroned elders are the witness to heaven, earth, and hell, that God is righteous. Righteous to whom? Righteous in Himself; righteous to Christ! O righteous Father, the world hath not known Thee, but I have known Thee, and these have known that Thou hast sent Me, and I have made known to them Thy name, and will make it known; that the love with which Thou hast loved Me may be in them and I in them! (John 17:25, 26). White raiment, the effect of divine righteousness. Gold, divine righteousness in its preciousness. Crowns, more than conquerors. Sitting, work done. Clothed, enveloped with divine covering.
The Appointments of the Throne Preparatory to Action
“Lightnings, thunderings, voices;” these are the accompaniments of the Divine Majesty. We shall hear them twice more during the progress of the prophecy, but intensified. At Sinai they were heard, only there smoke was added, for certain reasons. Here, creation being the object in view, the symbols of Majesty are few and simple as compared with some others, as blood, fire, smoke, earthquake, hail. Here it is voices only, but there are also voice of trumpet, voice of words, etc.
“Under His glory He shall kindle a burning like the burning of a fire, and the light of Israel shall be for a fire and His Holy One for a flame” (Isaiah 10:16, 17).
“Seven Spirits”:
Spirit of Jehovah,
Wisdom,
Understanding,
Counsel,
Might,
Knowledge,
Fear of Jehovah.
(Isaiah 11:2.)
“A sea of glass” ―not water, for that would indicate cleansing needed. The remembrance only was needed, the fact was accomplished.
The four living creatures are around and in the middle of the throne; that is, near to Him that sits thereon. Their function appears to be to worship Him for what He is in Himself. The elders do this, but in addition give divine reasons for what is done by Him. In fact, the elders always speak giving divine reasons; the living creatures never.
But the latter have intelligence of what is done, from every point of view and from every aspect in which created beings can view it; whether as lion, steer, man, or eagle. Moreover, their intelligence is viewed in another aspect. Like the Cherubim on the Ark they gaze on abstract perfection; but still what He is; and this being constant they rest not day and night expressing His three-fold holiness, titles, and eternity. The elders, as redeemed, have wisdom to tell His acts, and why.
“Jehovah, Elohim, Shaddai,” the Covenant and the dispensational names of God. Not the relationship name to the Church, which is God and Father.
None of the terrors of the throne, nor the symbols of judgment, move the elders. They sit peacefully on their thrones. But as soon as the living creatures give glory, honor, and thanks to Him that sits on the throne, that moves them directly. They fall down; they worship; they cast their crowns at His feet, and worship Him that liveth forever and ever, saying, “Thou art worthy, O our Lord and our God”; [Thomas―John 20:28], “to receive glory, honor and power.” Elders say power, because their function is worship. Living creatures say thanksgiving, because their function is power; but as usual the elders add the reason, “For Thou hast created all things, and for Thy pleasure they exist and were created.” Creation however, not having fulfilled its function through man’s default, comes under the judgment of the throne at this time.
What is suitable to the august Majesty of the Eternal when He sits upon the throne? The seven-fold Spirit of God is there. The Lamb, as we shall presently see, is there. The fixed, eternal, unchangeable holiness of the throne is indicated.
But, in addition to this, God has ordained that intelligent observers of His doings shall be there also. This is so wonderful that one hardly trusts one’s self to say anything. Still, it is His appointment, and it is His glory that there should be beings there to understand what He does, and to worship. There could be no worship without understanding.
The Unfolding of the Divine Outfit
Competent power now exists to unfold divine purpose. In the center of all God’s ways of power and providence is the Lamb as slain. He only can open out the ways and purposes of God’s right hand.
“And I saw in [not on] the right hand of the Throne-sitter.” This is always a title, not a description only. “In the right hand” finds authority from the same use of the preposition, Rev. 22:1.
“A book,” that is, a roll of writing, not a book with leaves as we use. It was written on both sides―external and internal. Not only acts and deeds, but thoughts and intents. Not that which man sees, but what God sees. A portion was rolled up and sealed then another portion and sealed, and so on until seven portions (all) had been sealed up.
A strong angel proclaims in a loud voice (like an usher in a court of justice), “Who is able to open the book, and to loose its seals?” None respond. No one in heaven―no one on earth―no one under the earth,―could either open, or even inspect, the roll.
“Inspect,” that is, look upon it as the effect of ocular vision. It was too sacred for any but the divine eye. Of the thirteen Greek words translated “see,” each has its special use. When John says, “I saw,” it is what his divine intelligence could see—not merely his eyes.
“And I wept much.” As we shall have weeping at various times in this Book, it is well at the outset to explain that this term is used to express that emotion of the soul that springs from the sense of “hopelessness.” Jesus wept over the City because of its hopeless condition as He then beheld it; at the grave of Lazarus He did not so weep; He shed tears, which has another sense―rightly interpreted by the Jews who stood by: “Behold how He loved him!”
John, therefore, expressed his sense of the hopelessness of any one being able to respond to the strong angel’s proclamation.
“And one of the elders.” It must be borne in mind that John as a prophet “in the Spirit” is not viewed in his Church relationship. He knows nothing but what he “sees” and “hears.” As the divinely appointed seer, he cannot as such say, “But we have the mind of Christ” (1 Cor. 2:16). This is the function of the elder. The elder can say what John in his Church relationship can say (1 John 5:18, 19, 20): “We know... We know... We know,” and therefore can say to the seer, Weep not, there is hope in ONE.
“Hear, Lord, the voice of Judah” (Deut. 33:7). Judah is a young lion. He couched down as a lion, as a lioness; who shall rouse him up? (Gen. 49:9). But he is also the Root of David. David’s Lord; [not here his Son. That is the Offspring of David, and does not come in till the end of the Book (chap. 22:16), where He takes the titles of Root and Offspring.] “Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world” (John 16:33). “I have glorified Thee on the earth: I have finished the work which Thou gavest Me to do” (John 17:4).
Redemption has met the question, Who is able to open the book, and to loose its seals? Redemption is the answer to all that has happened on the earth since the Fall. All those questions that men have perplexed themselves and others with concerning the presence of evil in a world created by a God of infinite goodness, are answered a thousand-fold in redemption. The Son of God, sent by God to be the Saviour of the world, has answered in His own blessed Person every attempt brought in stealthily or openly by Satan to destroy man and thwart God’s purpose of blessing to him. Redemption, the foundation of all blessing to man, goes far deeper in its range than purchase, and includes every purchased saint in earth and heaven, and still its fathomless ocean is unsounded. God devised it; the Lamb accomplished it in His own blood.
The Divine Purpose
In the most central part of the throne, surrounded by the living creatures and the enthroned and crowned elders, stands a Lamb as it had been slain. His attributes: completeness of power―completeness of perception, which penetrate, as the completeness of the Spirit of God, into every part of the earth.
“And He came and took the roll out of the right hand of Him that sat on the throne.” The communications of the mind of God could only adequately be interpreted and unfolded by One who had acquired the title by death, having been led thereto without resisting evil.
The living creatures and the elders prostrate themselves before the Lamb, praising and giving thanks upon the harp, and presenting in receptacles of divine righteousness the prayers of saints still upon earth; for the earth being in question [from the throne], and redemption still to be in force there, (though Church relationship is over), mention is made of the power of the blood over those redeemed out of every tribe, tongue, people and nation (see 7:9), as well as over those who have, by that same blood, been ordained kings and priests, that they may reign upon the earth. This is made the subject of a new song, based on the worthiness of Him to take the roll and open the seals. It is a new song, for it is praise in respect to that which had not previously been set forth as part of God’s counsel; but Redemption has brought it to light.
Now, angels could not sing the song which Redemption had brought to light; the living creatures could, for by their nature, as a part of the throne, as the cherubim were of the mercy seat, they knew: for it is their function to testify day and night of God’s holiness. The elders knew also, for whether they represented those whose sins had been remitted, or those whose sins had been pretermitted; that is, whether blood-bought ones of Old, or New Testament times, they could praise God for redemption to other saints than themselves, still down on earth under the judgment of the throne. But the angels could not. They know well the worthiness of the Lamb, for they have desired to look into, and have known from what they have seen in the Church, the ever-variegated (Gr. Eph. 3:10) wisdom of God. They, therefore, express His worthiness to receive sevenfold reward, going far beyond Solomon, who asked for wisdom, and got riches added. The slain Lamb excels, as ever.
All created things join in four-fold praise. Blessing, honor, glory, power, to God and the Lamb. Every knee shall bow to the once lowly, humbled, obedient, self-emptied One; but now exalted, extolled, and very high.
The living ones, as representing the throne, say, Amen; while the elders fall down and worship the Eternal, whose word is represented by Amen.
Redemption is a mine of unexplored wealth. Not only have God’s ways been vindicated, and all His promises in time past made good, but other purposes, which were not divulged, have been brought forth; some now in progress, others not yet made good. But we can go further, and say that much can only be disclosed in glory. What shall not the cross disclose which is yet untold, and some of which never can be told, even in glory!
Division 1
The First Seal
The Lamb opens all the seals. The living creatures call forth the first four judgments; the seer hears the voice, and sees the effect produced by it. In the opening of the remaining three seals, effects are also seen and recorded.
Throughout this Book attention must be paid severally to that which was “seen,” and that which was “heard.” In Rev. 22:8, he says, “I, John, was he who heard and saw these things. And when I had heard and seen,” etc. These words invariably mark distinct phases of the prophecy. There were things seen, and things heard, which were not prefaced with these words. The reader is earnestly invited to watch these clues, to enable him to catch the Spirit’s meaning. God has on purpose designed His Book that the diligent may be enriched, while the slothful gets but little. The true way to search for wisdom is “as for hid treasures” (Prov. 2:4). Another principle with God is, that every truth got in this way He will add to—To him that hath, shall be given (Matt. 13:12).
“Noise of thunder.” Thunder is a term used in connection with judgment, to convey the sense of terror accompanying what it is used with.
“One of the four.” This refers to the first like a lion, because all the others are designated second, third, fourth. Had it said “first,” it would have indicated priority, which none of these creatures has.
“A white horse.” A horse denotes strength: “Hast thou given the horse his strength?... He rejoices in his strength” (Read Job 39:19-25). White, meaning human righteousness that God can own. The united symbol denotes a powerful one going forth with a righteous cause owned of God. “Bow.”
“His bow abode in strength” (Gen. 49:24). As the one like a lion called him forth, there can be but one conclusion, great strength and might indicated. Victory was assured, for a crown was given him. He conquered as he went, and conquest was before him.
The first judgment, therefore, that falls upon the earth, after the rapture of the saints and the short interval indicated by chaps. 4 and 5, is the calling forth of some mighty one, who, like the first Napoleon, carries his conquests everywhere. Being appointed by God for this purpose, nothing can resist him. Such a thing has occurred before, although never on such a grand scale; and men may possibly regard it as within the order of things they have been accustomed to call providential, not knowing that what has happened hitherto has always had a restraining influence accompanying it. God has always hitherto tempered judgment with mercy, but these are judgments pure and simple; they will increase in intensity and character as they proceed, and there will be singular intervals in which God will open doors of escape,―cities of refuge, as it were,―for those to flee to, who are divinely acted on to turn to God, and cry for deliverance, just as Pharaoh did; and some will escape, if they hold to the value of the blood once shed. (See Rev. 7:14.) A great multitude that no man can number will ultimately be found ascribing their salvation to Him on the throne and to the Lamb; and in the presence of the throne, and servants in the temple, shall these be.
It will help the reader to understand these judgments better, if he views the world as in a condition similar to the times of Matthew 12. The truth of this will be seen when it is remembered that the Roman Empire, which for about 1500 years had been in a dormant state, is revived in more than its original power; the object, of course, being to resume the thread of history where it was broken off by that strange interlude, THE CHURCH. It will be remembered that the blessed Lord, having presented Himself to Israel, that nation answered by slaying His messenger, and driving Himself out of the land. Definitively rejected, He betook Himself into the Gentile portion of Palestine, and at Caesarea Philippi enunciated THE CHURCH, and its immunity from Satan’s power to destroy it. The 1900 years have seen the CHURCH removed, and the history resumed where it was broken off, say after Matt. 12:45.
The Second Seal
“And when He had opened the second seal, I heard the second living creature saying, Come.” The second creature, like a calf, that is, a young bull―a type, not of strength only, but of endurance also―gives force to what follows. There came forth another horse. It is a consequence of the first. It is still strength and power, as under the first seal, but red; for whereas under the first seal it was conquest only, splendid, daring, irresistible everywhere; here it is slaughter, every man’s sword is turned against his fellow; perhaps as the result of the overturning under the previous seal (for it has not the word, “I saw, and behold”). And not only so, but the rider of the horse has a great sword given to him, so that with peace disturbed everywhere, internecine and civil strife predominant, and carnage, this judgment exceeds in severity that which has preceded it.
We are also enlightened on another important point, even at this early stage of the judgment. The Lord of hosts has got His eyes fixed on Jerusalem. His jealousy has been aroused in respect of Jerusalem and Zion with a great jealousy. He has indeed been displeased with His people, but the nations helped on the affliction, and therefore He is very sore displeased with them. He is going to comfort Zion, and make Jerusalem a city of His choice; and though He can only reach her through judgment, yet He will do so. His promises to the fathers, which were the outflow of His heart’s desire 4,000 years agone, shall yet have their fulfillment to the letter. In the prophet Zechariah, about B.C. 520, at the foundation of the second Temple, and about 75 years before the commencement of the 70 weeks of Daniel, the word of the Lord came to the prophet. It is one of those events having great underlying importance, for the exact date is given. It was the twenty-fourth day of the eleventh month, in the second year of Darius Hystaspes of Persia, that is, about the middle of March, 519 B.C. The prophet was enabled to look down the long centuries that should intervene, and see the old folks walking about Jerusalem, and the boys and girls playing in the streets. “They shall be My people, and I will be their God.” But judgment must come in first. “For thus saith the Lord of hosts, He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of His eye.” It is, however, useless to attempt to give an adequate idea in a few words. The student of the Word must read on from the words referred to.
“I saw in the night, and behold a man riding upon a red horse” (Zech. 1:8). In these last days, when the Crisis Week of Daniel is close at hand, generalities will not instruct us. We must gather up the Lord’s mind from the precious prophecies which came to their close in Malachi, just as the first week of Daniel’s 70 weeks was ending.
Does the reader of these pages realize the fact that it is possible the subjects which come before us in this Book may be in operation in a remarkably short space of time? Any person pretending to name the day, or the hour, would be a gross impostor; and even to venture to name the presumed year is an infringement of the divine prerogative, which has justly brought ridicule upon those who have been loose enough to commit themselves to such statements. But, on the other hand, to be insensible to the extreme nearness of the crisis, would betray a singular stupidity (to use no more expressive term) as to what is passing in devout men’s writings, as well as in the world’s records, at the present day; and God has set these thoughts in motion for the very purpose of their being on the alert. It was equally so at the Lord’s first advent. Expectancy occupied the minds of the devout, and even found expression in the verses of the court poet. Of course, everything happened differently to what people expected; and so it will be in the present instance. It is when everybody says, “Peace and safety” (they have already had “peace with honor”), that sudden destruction comes, without escape. It is not that anyone dreams of permanent peace and safety; but the present moment is all the world lives for. If anything is certain it is the suddenness of coming events.
The Third Seal
Now, under the third seal, we no longer look for the strength of the lion, nor for the strength and endurance of the ox, but for that which appeals in a powerful way through man himself. The third living creature is heard saying, Come. And I saw and behold a black horse! the usual sign of mourning being black, as red is of blood and slaughter. The rider holds in his hands a pair of scales, for famine and scarcity are now the prevailing features, as we shall find in Leviticus: “When I break your staff of bread, ten women shall bake your bread in one oven, and they shall deliver your bread again by weight” (Lev. 26:26), so indicating the preciousness of that which cannot be spared, even to the turn of the scale. But this sore famine weighs most heavily upon the laboring classes, as is indicated by the voice heard from the midst of the four living creatures, which declares that a day-laborer will not be able to procure more than a pint and a half of wheat for his day’s work, or four pints and a half of barley. We have seen something of the dire effects of famine, but nothing to the extent in which these judgments set it forth; for after the great slaughter of the previous seal, the breadwinners will be few, and the sufferings of hunger are immediate, and urgent and cannot be met by the spared luxuries of life―for the oil and the wine are not to be hurt. A painful view is seen of the despondency and misery of those who, not long before were wont to show their self-will in Confederacies, and could in great measure rely on the bounties of others. Under these judgments things will be greatly changed. A vast amount of relief during this present day of grace springs from the mixed motives of those who profess Christianity: some doing their utmost for Christ’s sake; others doing their utmost to recommend themselves to God’s mercy and forbearance. But in that day these motives will have changed; Christ’s own will have been taken to heaven and the others who have been left among the earth-dwellers will have found out the hopelessness of good deeds that get no credit, nor any recognition whatever. “Each for himself,” is the natural language of the human heart, and the judgment will but intensify these sad traits. Left without a motive! ―Alas, for those who cry for aid from such in those days! Still there is One whose heart never changes, wherever He may be, or whatever He may be engaged in. The One who, when His hour had come for sorrow, and their hour had come for malice, could not refrain from an act of pitying mercy, even to an adversary, that could repair the ill-timed zeal of His follower in cutting off a man’s ear, by asking for a sufferance of power to heal the wound. Can anyone doubt for a single moment that it is the voice of One we know, who puts in the saving clause about the wheat and the barley, and even spares the oil and the wine? It is useless to say that the voice has no name attached to it. Many a sheep knows His voice better than it could define His name. And it is Himself that has said it as to His voice. There are some things that He says and does that characterize Him in an unmistakable way. Take John 20:15. There is a woman weeping because she cannot find her Lord. She meets a Man who says, “Why weepest thou? whom seekest thou?” She thinks it is the gardener, but directly He says, “Mary,” she hears His voice; as He says, “My sheep hear My voice.” “He calleth His own sheep by name.” Take another case, John 21:5: “Children, have you anything to eat?” says One on the shore. “No,” they reply. “Cast the net on the right side of the ship, and you shall find,” is the rejoinder. “It is the Lord,” says John. And so this voice, which is heard in respect to the dire scarcity, must find its expression in providing a meal, if it is only one. Oh, Bread of Life, that came down from heaven, that a man might eat thereof and not die, cause men to hear Thy voice now, and live! Let them not turn from the feast now spread through grace.
The Fourth Seal
Increasing in intensity as these judgments proceed, we come to the fourth and last of the series of what may be called providential judgments; that is, such judgments as might occur while God is dealing in grace with the world, and calls forth, or keeps in restraint, such measures of prosperity or the reverse, as His good providence sees fit and suitable in the government of this present evil world. Up to the present conquest, bloody war and famine have done their desolating work, and a yet sorer blow falls on the earth, that desired not, nor cared to continue in, the goodness of God. The sword, hunger, pestilence, and wild beasts let loose, do their fearsome work on a fourth part of the earth. Presently we shall hear of a third of the earth, and afterward of the earth as a whole; for up to the end it is in the nature of the judgments to increase in magnitude. All the terrors of this fourth seal are foretold as following the pestilence of the third seal. In Ezekiel it runs thus: “When I shall send upon them the evil arrows of famine, that are for destruction, which I will send to destroy you; and I will increase the famine upon you, and will break your staff of bread; and I will send upon you famine and evil beasts, and they shall bereave thee; and pestilence and blood shall pass through thee; and I will bring the sword upon thee: I the Lord have spoken it” (Ezek. 5:16, 17). Again: “When I send My four sore judgments upon Jerusalem, the sword, and the famine, and the noisome beasts, and the pestilence, to cut off from it man and beast” (Ezek. 14:21).
But all these judgments, sore as they are, are only preparatory—anticipative—intended to awaken attention—to clear the way for further action. God’s thoughts are upon His people, and it is for their sakes, and to bring about their blessing, in connection with Christ’s glory, that all judgment is designed. God has no pleasure in the death of a sinner: judgment is His strange work; He delights in showing mercy, and His great controversy with man in every age has been, that man will not be blessed after God’s desire. Man wants his own way, and nothing else. To do as he likes, to have the earth for his own possession. It was for this the Jews and Gentiles joined hands in crucifying the Son of the Blessed. “This is the Heir; come, let us kill Him, and the inheritance shall be ours.” Nothing can cure this, for Satan pulls the strings of the rebel heart. Seals, Trumpets, Vials, Lake of Fire, must run their course ere the rightful Heir comes to His own.
Why is it that man, ordinarily so keen after his own interests, so alive in a general way to what is to his advantage, so anxious to lay up for what he is pleased to call his future, is yet so blind on such a momentous future as Scripture lays before us? Is there any way of rendering a reason for what appears to the child of God such incredible folly? Yes, it can be accounted for; but the reason can only be found in the Word of God, which lays bare the hidden springs of man’s being. Men, we are told (Eph. 4:18), “walk in the vanity of their mind, having the understanding darkened, being alienated from the life of God, through the ignorance that is in them.” Now, mark the very serious condition of people we meet with every day: empty, dark, alienated, ignorant. Satan has effected this ruin. God has devised a remedy, Christ has perfected it, the Holy Ghost testifies to it. What, then, is needful to set this beneficent provision in operation? Nothing, as far as the creature is concerned, but to bow to the authority of God’s Holy Word. A soul that bows to the authority of that precious volume, will find there (all ready for him), redemption, forgiveness, riches of grace (Eph. 1:7). Instead of being empty, he shall be filled unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ (Eph. 4:13). Instead of being dark, the eyes of his understanding shall be enlightened (Eph. 1:18). Instead of remaining in alienation, he shall be made nigh by the blood of Christ (Eph. 2:13). Instead of being ignorant, he shall know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge (Eph. 3:19).
The Fifth Seal
What satisfaction to find that the execution of judgment is stayed under this seal! And yet the voice of judgment is heard. But this time it is the cry for vengeance against the earth-dwellers, for blood which they have shed. No cry of this kind could come from any one soul between Pentecost and the rapture. But this latter event has already taken place, as we have seen, and the representatives of those who have received the grace of God have been seen, robed and crowned, in the presence of God and the Lamb. This cry is the first that has reached us from the people beloved for the fathers’ sakes. Hence the Altar, which is named for the purpose of characterizing those whose cry is heard. We have not yet come to the Temple; when we do, we shall hear of the Golden Altar, for that is in the House; this one would be outside the House. We shall get it in Matt. 23:35: “So that all righteous blood shed upon the earth should come upon you, from the blood of righteous Abel, to the blood of Zacharias, son of Barachias, whom ye slew between the Temple and the Altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation.” The souls of these now cry for vengeance. What would be wrong in a Christian, is the true and proper utterance of a godly Jew. “How long, O Master, the holy One and true; dost Thou not judge and take vengeance for our blood from them that dwell on the earth?” And here we discover who and what an earth-dweller is: it is one who is dwelling in a place that does not belong to him. The earth belongs to God, and He has given it to Christ for an inheritance, and He will share His inheritance with His earthly people as soon as He has rooted out the evil-doer. The earth-dweller is the Canaanite who has to be dispossessed by unsparing and uncompromising judgment. No mercy was to be accorded to man, woman, or child, that was found in God’s land. Under Joshua, the people failed to possess; but another day has been appointed, and now the true Joshua will take them into the land.
But a little patience, and all their hopes shall be fulfilled. In the meantime, as their blood was righteous blood, white robes were given to each one, for each one had been slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which he held. “And it was said to them that they should rest for a little season, until both their fellow-servants and their brethren, that were about to be killed as THEY also had been, shall have been completed.” What an earnest of coming blessing! In possession of the white robe, they could now speak of the “little while,” even as we, according to our hope, can wait our “little while,” having the Morning Star.
With what marvelous tact and skill does the Spirit of God introduce this scene to our notice! What a variety of incidental lights are thrown in, all illuminating some special truth that it will be well for us to know! First, we learn that martyrs of Israel are in full remembrance, and that they are keeping their Lord’s patience. We must not interpret, “How long, O Lord?” as indicating impatience. It is Israel’s equivalent for our church cry, “Come, Lord Jesus, come quickly.” Again, we are shown “an earnest” given in the white robe. To us the Spirit is the earnest of the inheritance. Then, again, they are to wait till some others were to be treated as they had been treated, and that such were their fellow-servants—their brethren. This informs us of what is coming to pass. We are brought by such an allusion to understand that many dear saints of Israel will seal their testimony with their blood. But, above all, what a tale it tells us Of our loving God, who stops the cataract of judgment, in order that He may have the opportunity of expressing His affectionate solicitude for His own, His thoughtful consideration for their disembodied condition, and the gratification He would afford them in giving them a white robe—earnest of their future body!
The Sixth Seal
Now we have judgment again, but on quite a different scale to anything that has preceded it. The super natural begins. The powers of the world to come, suspended while Israel’s history was suspended, now come into play—just as at the Crucifixion: the earth was shaken, the rocks were rent the tombs were opened, a supernatural darkness had rested over the whole land; so, something, entirely different from all that has been seen or known upon the earth from that time, now commences. It may be physical, of moral, or both. Any way, it strikes terror upon every soul of man upon earth, from the king on the throne down through every rank of society, to the bondslave. In terror they betake themselves to mountains and caverns. In vain. There is no hiding place from the face of Him that sitteth on the Throne; no shelter from the wrath of the Lamb. Terrified, and utterly cowed by this new departure, so entirely different from every known experience, they think that the great day of His wrath has come. Vain thought! This is only the first great, terrible awakening to the dread reality of the Crisis week, the unfulfilled seven years of Daniel’s prophecy.
Oh, that men would be wise in time! Oh, that they would read and ponder the second Psalm, and, ere it is too late, take to heart the last three verses! for the day is near at hand. In the scripture just referred to, God says to the chosen nation, “Be wise, O ye kings: be instructed, ye judges.” In Daniel He says, that at the time of the end, “None of the wicked shall understand but the wise shall understand.” While the rapture has not yet taken place, although it is expected daily, it is yet the day of grace, the accepted time, the day of salvation. Just as it was said to the crucified malefactor, “Today shalt thou be with Me in Paradise,” so the same could be said to any one NOW “turned to God from idols to serve the living and true God; and to wait for His Son from heaven.” They that are alive shall be caught up with those that sleep through Jesus (the rapture).
These wonders set forth may be physical, or moral, or both. Morally, we learn that a great convulsion overturns all existing governments. The heavenly ordered system changes its character entirely. Neither sun, moon, nor stars fulfill their accustomed and beneficent functions, according to that word: “Yet once more I shake not the earth only, but also the heaven”; and the reason is, “That what is not shaken may remain” (Heb. 12:26). It is in the moral aspect of all these details that believers now in these last days get the blessing of them. No one is entitled to say, however divinely sure he may be that he is exempt from these judgments, “They do not concern me.” It is perfectly true that the believer in Jesus, being one with Christ by the Holy Ghost, shall not come into judgment. Grace has rescued him by redemption through the blood of Christ. He shall be at rest with Christ in heaven before any one of these things begins. But the apostle draws this weighty conclusion, “Wherefore we, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace [or let us be thankful], whereby we may serve God acceptably, with reverence and godly fear; for our God [also] is a consuming fire” (Heb. 12:28, 29). God has, in infinite grace, drawn the veil from the future, and revealed to our wondering eyes the blessings and the judgments of the day of the Lord. If we take the joy of the blessings only, and fail to be solemnized by the judgments also, we lose that ballast in divine things so essential to our spiritual well-being. We have, through the mercy of our God, an infallible word of truth, compared to a sharp sword with two edges. It is well to keep this clearly in mind in reference to every portion of the Word.
Arrest of Judgment While the Servants of God Are Sealed in Their Foreheads
We have arrived at a very distinct break in the prophetic record, marked by the usual words for indicating such a break: “After these things.” We have had only six seals opened, and we have much to be presented before the seventh seal is broken. Four angels now enter on the scene. They take their stand on the four quarters of the earth, so that all power of hindrance shall be quelled while God fulfills His wondrous purpose. We know that, in Scripture, “to blow” upon anything is to hinder and prevent it. We therefore understand that no influence from east, west, north, or south, can be allowed to stop what God is now about to have done. The fact that angels are now at work, as God’s ministers, has a very significant bearing on what is passing in God’s mind at this time. Another angel—not one of the four—makes his appearance, ascending from the sun-rising.
Ezekiel was brought to the East gate to see the glory of the God of Israel come from the way of the East (Ezek. 43:2). The Star, directing the kings to worship the newborn Jesus, was seen in the East (Matt. 2:9). So that Israel is very distinctly in the mind of God to bring about the blessing and deliverance which He had promised, and Himself looked forward to, all along their history on the earth. It would be a great error to suppose that blessing is a thing only got with great difficulty from God. The earnest, longing, loving desire has been to bless abundantly: “Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it”; but man has always opposed, hindered, perverted, thwarted. So that now seeing that God will at all costs glorify His Son, and carry out His promise to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, there is no remedy; He must clear the earth, as once He did by the Flood, and gratify His quality of mercy in exceptional ways, as in the instance we are now considering. It is not vindictive, although it is retributive action. The holiness, righteousness, and truth must be met, but He will be God, and restrain wrath while He puts His seal on His own, that He may preserve them and keep them alive.
Let us meditate a little on the sealing that takes place here, and those who are the subjects of it. In the first place we hear of no sealing of those who came up out of the great tribulation. They were Gentiles, they had washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Their deliverance is assured. The tribulation they came out of is not that terrible tribulation referred to by the Lord in Matt. 24:21. That is the time of Jacob’s trouble during the last half-week under the tyranny of the beast and false prophet. These sealed ones, therefore, represent God’s purpose accurately defined by 12 x 12 x 1000, to preserve His servants through the scenes yet to take place. In Rev. 9:5, the locusts can only hurt the men not having the seal of God on their foreheads, but in Rev. 14 we get a company, just as accurately defined as before, standing on Mount Sion, in company with the Lamb; only now His Father’s name is on their foreheads. They are redeemed from the earth and from among men, and are without guile and free from blame before the throne of God, as we have seen the Gentile multitude were. The Lamb feeds the latter and tends them, while the former follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. The conclusion we are led to therefore, is, that a defined number of Jews and an undefined number of Gentiles are preserved through the Crisis week, but the Gentiles are through their trouble first, and the Jew is sealed to pass through his trouble later on. God seals them, but, like the Gentiles, it is the Lamb to whom they owe their deliverance, with the Father’s mark on them in addition.
Another remark may be made in respect to the company in Rev. 7 and the company in Rev. 14. In the former, all the tribes are named, whereas in the latter none of the tribes are named. It will be borne in mind by the reader that two tribes only pass through the tribulation, the ten being dealt with in the wilderness.
The Sealing of the Tribes of the Children of Israel
If we look at the list before us from a divine point of view (which really is the only intelligent view to take of any prophecy) we shall find it full of deep interest. God has set His heart upon having a people of whom He can say, “MY people.” “And they shall be MINE in the day when I make up MY JEWELS.” Do we know anything of this feeling? Have we ever known the intense joy, above all joys, in saying, when alone with our Lord Jesus “MY BELOVED IS MINE, and I am His”? Let us approach with these thoughts, remembering that we have learned what Israel have not—that God is LOVE. We must remember that it is the servants of God who are thus sealed in their foreheads. Five times in Scripture Moses is called the servant of God, and many times the servant of Jehovah; but here it is “the servants of God.” Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant (Christ as a Son; whose house are we). Now these servants are marked out beforehand (Christ was: “Him hath God the Father sealed”), and we shall see them after judgment has done its separating work. In the Rev. 22:3, we shall hear of them thus: “And His servants shall serve Him, and they shall see His face, and His name shall be on their foreheads.” And this in connection with the Throne of God and the Lamb, the very place from whence these visions are being portrayed. We shall hear of them again during the Visions, in connection with the TEMPLE, but what we are now considering is in connection with the THRONE, and it is most important to keep these things distinct. It is the mingling of them that has rendered this blessed Book so unintelligible to many.
This list appears to differ from every other list of the tribes given in Scripture, by the absence of Dan. The reason is a striking one. Abraham and Sarah, Isaac and Rebecca, Jacob and Rachel, were husbands and wives in God’s sight. Hagar and bondage were not God’s ordinance, but the work of the flesh; Sarah was barren. Rebecca was barren, too. But Isaac intreated the Lord, and the Lord heard. Hence, “In Isaac shall Thy seed be called, which is Christ.” It is in Isaac that we (the Church) are Abraham’s seed. But Rachel also was barren, and she asked not God, but followed the example of her grandmother, Sarah. Now, as Ishmael was the result in Sarah’s case, so was Dan in the case of Rachel. God cannot make up His jewels after this fashion and so Dan is left out of this list, and the firstborn of Joseph takes his place. Rachel might well call his name Dan (God hath judged me), and here we find the truth of it. Dan is, however, not disinherited, as we may see in Ezekiel (48:2).
And where in Scripture do we ever find that God forgets or treats lightly anything that He has instituted? Man forgets, and ever justifies himself concerning the most solemn derelictions of duty, as though man could set up a standard in God’s presence! But the Lord plainly tells them that if Moses allowed them to write a bill of divorce, it was in view of their hard-heartedness; but in the beginning it was not so. All that God does is with a view to His own glory in Christ, and in His infinite wisdom and goodness He makes the creature a participator in His goodness in every act that He sets in motion, so that man’s highest wisdom, even were it confined only to his own welfare, is in a willing obedience to God’s precepts. And we may be perfectly sure that the end will prove this to be the case in every instance. God may, and very often does, allow things to go on unchecked; and the inference may be drawn that God tacitly allows what He does not directly reprove. But it is not so, There is no yea and nay in God; His word endureth forever.
The White-Robed Multitude
“The Jew first; and also the Gentile.” We have just seen the Israel of God sealed, and put by till presently.
We have now to do with a great multitude; not numbered with precision, but so vast as to be beyond the power of man to number. And they are seen standing in the presence of the throne, and in the presence of the Lamb. Palms are in their hands, and they cry out with a loud voice, “Salvation to our God who sits upon the throne, and to the Lamb.” Then all the angels from their place outside the throne, living creatures, and elders, fall down and worship God, and, giving their Amen, ascribe blessing, glory, wisdom, thanksgiving, honor, power, might, to our God forever and ever. And again they add, Amen. Remark that the seven-fold blessing comes from the angels only. Remark that it is concerning the white-robed multitude only, for they are separated off from the sealed company by a prophetic stop: “After these things.” Remark, too that they ascribe salvation to God and the Lamb, according to Rom. 10:13: “For every one whosoever, who shall call on the name of the Lord shall be saved.” These must have done so, for it is their keynote before the throne. But there is much more to be remarked, for an elder puts two leading questions to John: Who are these white-robed ones? Where did they come from? John replies with a two-fold force, “My lord, THOU knowest.” It is as though he said in his prophet capacity, “My lord, you are one of the twenty-four who represent those having the mind of Christ. It is within your province now to speak of certain things; I was directed to write to Sardis and Laodicea about white robes. My lord, THOU knowest.”
And he said unto me, “These are they who came out of the great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and have made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Remark the utterance of those who were in Rev. 1:6: “To Him who loves us, and has washed us from our sins in His own blood.” This is much more than robes. The one was the fitness for His eye, but the other was the fitness for His heart. A wedding garment might be needful for a guest. The king’s daughter is all glorious within: her clothing is in-wrought with gold and broidery (Ps. 45:13). But these are very precious, “Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple.” Sealed Israel are the servants of God; so are these. He that sits on the throne shall spread His tabernacle over them. No more hunger, no more thirst. No more shall the sun smite them, nor the burning heat. Isaiah 49 shall apply to them, only that the Lamb in the midst of the throne shall shepherd them, and shall lead them to fountains of waters of life; and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. Oh, sweet vision by anticipation! By anticipation, for the end is not yet. It is as though God said: “I will not leave you in suspense while I unfold My judgments. I will not leave you without hope while trumpets sound, and vials are poured out. I have promised you a blessing if you read My book, and keep (in your heart) the things that are written therein; and I will stop before My last seal is opened, and gladden you with the assurance that I will not make a full end. You saw the jewels from the breastplate; you saw the jeweled rainbow; and you shall see that, in the midst of My strange work, I am still God, whose name is Love.”
The Seventh Seal
“And when He opened the seventh seal there was silence in the heaven about half-an-hour.” Could anything be presented to us more impressive than this measured and defined cessation of all utterance in “the boundless realms of joy”? But these are moments in the history of God’s earth only surpassed by that more wonderful than all other wonderful events indicated by the inquiry of the Gentiles to see Jesus (John 12:23). This seal is remarkable as that which discloses the veritable judgments under the trumpets, some of deepest woe, and the outpouring of the vials of God’s wrath. Up to the present all has been preliminary and preparatory. It was only under the fifth seal that men became thoroughly alarmed and uproused to what was taking place; so deadening to the moral senses is sin. And even now, when the seven angels which stand before God are ranged in order, and the trumpets are given to them, God’s lovingkindness makes another gracious provision for His own. Another angel (“Is it Jesus?”) came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and much incense was given to him (“It must be!”) that He might give [efficacy] to the prayers of all saints at the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense went up with the prayers of the saints, out of the hand of the angel before God. Can we fail to recognize Him who intervenes for His people, to give efficacy to their prayers, in contrast to that altar whose fire is to be the signal for wrath on the earth? For we must remember that we shall hear no more of the Lamb until the second great division of God’s dealings is opened to us in the twelfth chapter. Then we shall hear of Him more frequently than before. But for the completion of this first division, angelic agency only is at work; and, hence, if we hear the voice of the Son of God (for we know His voice), it will be as an angel; not indeed, as one of those to whom judgment is committed, but again as intervening and clothed with divine attributes in order that we may make no mistake.
On casting the fire of the altar to the earth, we may mark the severity of the effects by the symbols accompanying—thunderings, lightnings, voices, and an earthquake. When we come to the second great division of the Book, we shall find the above symbols intensified by the addition of hail; and of the latter it may be remarked that our idea of hail does not convey to us an adequate idea. Stones weighing a talent (125 lbs.) are designated. And so with the other symbols. They are of a character to strike terror and dismay into the most hardened (see Joshua 10:11).
“And the seven angels who had the seven trumpets prepared themselves that they might sound with their trumpets.” All is done with that wondrous deliberation which marks all the ways of our God. No haste, no confusion; all is marked and prepared for the day and hour. Not a sparrow falls to the ground without divine cognition. Every hair of the heads of His saints is numbered.
Note the use of the word “altar” in this section. It occurs three times. The second time it is called the “golden altar.” This fact leads to the consideration that on the other two occasions of the use of the word “altar,” reference is made to the “brazen altar.” The brazen altar was for sacrifice, and the fire on it was perpetual; the golden altar was for incense only. The censer which was kept on the golden altar when not in use was for burning the fragrant ingredients before the Lord. If, then, the angel was ministering at the two altars, this thought would be conveyed to a spiritual mind, viz., that while on the one hand the prayers of the suffering saints ascended to God in the sweet fragrance of One who loved them, on the other hand, the wrath of God fell upon the enemies of Christ after He Himself had endured the wrath due to sin.
The First Trumpet
In looking at the seals, we found that the first four formed a group; we shall find it the same under the trumpets. We found the fifth seal of a more striking and intense action; we shall have to remark the same thing of the fifth trumpet. Moreover, we shall find a distinctive attribute of woe attached to each of the last three trumpets. Again, connected with the sixth seal we got the comfort and assurance that there was One behind the scenes who was looking with satisfaction, not at the judgments, but at their completion, when He should have a beloved and purified people as the precious residuum of the crucible. We shall have the same satisfaction accompanying the sixth trumpet. Then we found the last seal, while it made provision for the saints, opened the avenue for the second series of judgments. We shall note correspondingly that the last trumpet closes the first great division of the Book, opening the way for the introduction of the last seven plagues, which fill up the measure of God’s wrath, and leave the earth empty for God to re-people it after His own heart.
But while there is similarity of order in the arrangement, there is not the smallest identity in detail. The seals were preparatory and awakening: now definitive and deadly punishment is inflicted. Hail, fire, blood, are symbolical terms for different forms of judgment, and that of a character of which men have had no previous experience, and therefore they cannot be described or explained except in general terms. But as the prophet Joel says, “I will give wonders in the heaven above, and signs on the earth below; blood, fire, and vapor of smoke.” These terms are all that can be given, seeing we have no method of measuring them any more than we have the untold joys of heaven. Sufficient is said, however, to show that they are appalling and terrific. The fact that hailstones can fall weighing a talent (125 lbs.), and causing men to blaspheme God, is quite enough to give a slight insight of the terrors of those days. Under the fourth seal we saw power given to death and Hades over a fourth of the earth. Now these burn up a third of the earth, a third of the trees, and all the grass. What a desolation! But all is necessary, for God is going to bring a third part of His people through the fire (Zech. 13:8, 9), and blessing has its counterpart in judgment.
It is important to bear in mind that the judgments inflicted under the trumpets and the vials are a direct display of the divine displeasure from heaven to earth. Not so the seals. The seals, as they are opened, simply call into existence certain things by the word “come.” “Let famine come to pass,” etc. But the trumpets and vials, so to speak, are new revelations of wrath from above—things that men have had no previous experience of, as they have had of war, famine, etc. The action, too, is no longer “come,” but rather “go.” “Cast upon the earth,” under this trumpet; “Cast into the sea,” under the next; “Fell from heaven,” under the third; “The heavenly bodies themselves,” under the fourth; “Fall from heaven unto the earth,” under the fifth. Then, again, all the vials are “poured out”; precisely the same word always used in the Scriptures of the Holy Ghost being poured forth. In fact, under the seals, even the mandates issue from heaven. All of this is in entire accord with the keynote struck in Rom. 1:18: “The wrath of God is revealed from heaven against all ungodliness and unrighteousness of men, who hold the truth in unrighteousness.” It is not now from earth; that is why men think God takes no notice. But it was revealed from heaven coincidently with the announcement of the glad tidings, BUT NOT EXECUTED TILL THE GOSPEL ANNOUNCEMENT IS ENDED. The righteousness of God is revealed on the principle of faith to whomsoever will believe it; while the sword of divine justice hangs over men’s heads in the heavens! The criminal has been tried, convicted, and sentenced; nothing more remains but the scaffold and the executioner. Nothing, do we say? Yes, NOTHING. Men, alas! refuse the righteousness of God, else they would exchange the scaffold for a throne! One look at the brazen serpent saved a dying Israelite. One look to Christ saves a perishing sinner.
The Second Trumpet
He who would despise human wisdom would do a very foolish thing; but he who would employ it to interpret the things of God would be simply lading himself with thick clay (Hab. 2:6). He would be “taking up a load of pledges” with which he could never substantiate God’s truth. God’s truth is written for the way-faring man; a fool he may be, but he shall not err therein: only he must be found in “the way” —as Eliezer says: “I being in THE WAY, the Lord led me” (Gen. 24:27). This way is called “the way of holiness” (Isa. 35:8). May the Spirit of Truth, that proceedeth from the Father, lead us in this way.
The Holy Scriptures are the dictionaries of the Spirit of God, who invariably uses the similitudes, sometimes the exact language, He has used before. Purposely so. The Lord answers those who thought they could entangle “The Resurrection” with questions about the resurrection, with the crushing reply, “Ye do err, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God.” How could they know aught, if they were ignorant of God’s Word and God’s Spirit?
God does not give a Revelation of Jesus Christ for Him to show to His servants, for them to find, when they have got it, that a book of riddles for the curious has been put into their hands! Not so, O man of God. The Holy Scriptures are able to make thee wise unto salvation (the whole thing, root and branch), through faith which is in Christ Jesus.
Now the second angel has sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea. What mountain? Why burn with fire?
If there is one thought that dominates in the heart of God it is His Christ. For Him has a body been prepared; for Him has an inheritance been got ready. But there has been a deadly foe to both, and it is this deadly, unscrupulous, daring, insidious foe, that has so prominent a place in God’s mind all through these judgments. As soon as the Flood was over, and the earth began to be re-peopled, the great grandson of Noah, Nimrod, founded Babel. From that place, every phase of diabolical craft has been promulgated; from there, everything false, and of the nature of confusion, in regard to man’s relation to God as His creature, has its origin; whether as to government or as to religion. Forced eventually out of Babylon, it seems to have made its headquarters at Pergamos, and from thence, when the time was ripe, was transfused into the Roman Government and Church. This enormous power of evil has exercised its devastating influences over the Jew, the Gentile, and the Church of God; sometimes severally, and at others collectively. We must therefore be prepared to hear a very great deal about Babylon in some shape or form. Men have been accustomed to link Babylon only with its present most glaring feature, Popery. This blinds their eyes. The corrupting power of Babylon is upon everything ordered of God, and its special characteristic is the secrecy with which it works. It is the extension of its ramifications now, in every direction, in secret societies, spirit-rapping, and the like, that blinds man to what is at work; while to the eye of God, before which nothing is hid, it brings, what man will find out to be a sudden destruction. It is not within the scope of this exposition to make copious quotations from Scripture. To understand something of God’s mind about Babylon, the 51St chapter of Jeremiah must be read from beginning to end, and it will not be surprising that it is the subject of the vengeance of the Lord: “Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest all the earth: and I will stretch out Mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and will make thee a burnt mountain.” What wonder that the third part of the creatures that were in the sea, and had life, died? The wonder is that anything lived under its withering, blasting influences. The way Babylon appears to have acted has been to undermine and destroy conscience. Just as all the sensibility of the touch would be destroyed if the flesh were seared with a red-hot iron, so does Babylonian influence act upon the conscience. “The world” is saturated with Babylonianism.
The Third Trumpet
As we follow the mind of our God, we learn that the most systematic arrangement exists throughout the whole of His dealings. We have seen, under the sound of the last trumpet, He has foreshadowed the total rout and overthrow of Confusion, as to its source on earth. We may therefore expect Him next to foreshadow His dealings with the power that made Babel what it was, for man is not an independent agent, his mainspring is either God or Satan. Under the second trumpet we had a great mountain, and there is not much discernment needed to look for it on earth. The same simplicity will lead our eyes upward to see a great star fall from heaven, and as both are great, they at least in that point suit each other. But it is burning as a lamp! Did it lend its fictitious light to the powers of darkness? This occult, secret, mysterious influence only known to initiates, who had their baptisms, and were even styled the “regenerate?” Is this what disseminated Buddhism, and now puts it forth as Theosophy? Ah, mystery of evil! We do not know much about thee, but this we know, that a travesty of God’s ways have ever marked thy rebellion: dealings with the sons of men that God created for His glory, and who shall presently people the heavens from whence thou art here foreshadowed as thrust out!
Rivers, and fountains of waters, or springs (faith knows them better as wells of water, springing up unto everlasting life—Rivers proceeding from the throne of God), are here depicted as streams of supply made bitter, even the bitterness of death, by the presence of that which has ever worked as wormwood and gall (see Deut. 29:18, Lam. 3:19, Amos 5:7), seeming in the first scripture to have been the spirit of the false prophets that prophesied peace—peace—when there was no peace.
Much has been said about the “third part.” But, as ever, the wayfaring man, not having the wisdom of the schools, must, as usual, turn to his Bible, and his Father, for light. He may know next to nothing of geography, least of all the geography of the ancients. He may not know the extent or the boundaries of the Roman Empire, nor which is east and which is west. It may be useful and interesting for him to know them, but suppose he does not know? Is God’s precious Word to come to a standstill for lack of human knowledge? Do we not as a rule look for a material solution where there is none? or miss a moral solution where a most important one exists? “He made known His ways unto Moses, His doings unto the children of Israel.” The Book of Revelation is, as to its present use, for the heart. In the future, and even now to the careless, it is addressed to the conscience; and when it says, “Here is wisdom,” it may perhaps be addressed to the intellect. Let us get something for the heart.
The Lord said unto Gideon, “Go and save Israel.” And the Spirit of the Lord came upon Gideon, and he blew a trumpet, and men were gathered unto him. And the Lord said unto Gideon, “The people are too many, tell the fainthearted to go home.” Twenty-two thousand went home, and ten thousand remained. And the Lord said to Gideon, “The people are still too many; bring them down to the water, and I will try them for thee there.” Three hundred was the result. Now, an arithmetician would not call three hundred the third part of two and twenty thousand. But morally it was so before God. Then Gideon divides his three hundred men into three companies of one hundred each, and gains a great victory.
We see, then, that when dealing with trumpets, God has before now had a third part in His mind.
We have another interesting example of a third part in Isaiah 19:24 “In that day shall Israel be the third with Egypt and with Assyria.” That is to say, Israel with her bitter southern and still more bitter northern foe, shall with them, be like three brothers, for the Lord will say, “Blessed be Egypt My people, and Assyria the work of My hands, and Israel Mine inheritance.” Babylon, her other great enemy, destroyed utterly.
The Fourth Trumpet
We have not yet done with Babylon. We have seen under the two previous trumpets the center of Babylon’s operations both in earth and in heaven. Now we have to do with the main instruments by which its power was used to pervert and alienate the mind of man from the worship of God, only true, only wise, only good. “God made the two great lights; the greater light to rule the day, and the lesser light to rule the night: the stars also. And God set them in the firmament of the heaven to give light upon the earth, and to rule over the day and over the night, and to divide the light from the darkness. God saw that it was good.” This was the work of the fourth day. It appropriately comes under His review under the sound of the fourth trumpet. From the earliest period, the Chaldeans used these luminaries as the foundation of a corrupt, spurious religion, calling the sun the king of heaven, the moon the queen of heaven, while the stars were worshipped as lesser deities. This spurious religion was taught to various nations; Baal being the sun-god of the Phoenicians, while to others the sun-god was Chemosh and Moloch. Astarte, the moon-goddess, subsequently became the virgin and child of Mystery—Babylon. And to this day the Sunday and Mo(o)nday attest the continuance of these products of Babel; well called “Confusion” by God, but called by man “The gate of God,” “The tree of life,” “The temple of the universe,” as the cylinders attest, just unearthed as witnesses in view of impending judgment. But let us get out of this exterior testimony into the light of God’s blessed truth; that divine light which can never have its third, or any part smitten, since He who is the Light of the world has been smitten; for life and incorruptibility have been brought to light by the Gospel. In the thirteenth chapter of Isaiah we get “The Oracle concerning Babylon, which Isaiah the son of Amoz did see.” “Howl ye; for the day of the Lord is at hand; as destruction from El Shaddai [the name God revealed Himself to Abraham by] shall it come. Therefore shall all hands be feeble, and every heart of man shall melt; and they shall be dismayed; pangs and sorrows shall take hold of them; they shall be in pain as a woman in travail; they shall be amazed one at another; their faces shall be faces of flame. Behold, the day of the Lord cometh, cruel, with wrath and fierce anger; to make the land a desolation, and to destroy the sinners thereof out of it. For the stars of heaven and the constellations thereof shall not give their light: the sun shall be darkened in his going forth, and the moon shall not cause her light to shine.... And Babylon, the glory of kingdoms, the beauty of the Chaldeans’ pride, shall be as when God overthrew Sodom and Gomorrah.... For the Lord will have compassion on Jacob, and will yet choose Israel, and set them in their own land.” Joel says, “The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining.” Amos says, “I will cause the sun to go down at noon, and I will darken the earth in the clear day.” Compare also Ezekiel’s emblem, Rev. 5:2, for the use of a third part: “A third part burn in the fire; a third part smite with the sword; a third part scatter to the wind.” There is one item well worthy of our consideration as the wonderful transactions of this book pass under our review. We, in this day of God’s providence and grace, are so accustomed to see the whole phenomena of nature work on equal and abiding principles, that we call them fixed laws, as if they could not be departed from. We forget that this fixity is merely in existence in respect to man, and God’s dealings with him. The first chapter of Genesis shows us a state of things established, which in Revelation is, in a great measure, disestablished. We are accustomed to regard the first as natural, and the second as supernatural, and so far we are right; but God can go far beyond this. He can call into being what has not previously existed, and He can dismiss, at His will, that which exists. That which is seen does not take its origin from that which appears (see Heb. 11:3).
The Three-Fold Woe: Addressed to the Class Called Earth-Dwellers
“And I beheld, and heard an eagle flying in the mid-heaven” (not an angel, as the ordinary version). The eagle is employed to announce these woes, for, as in Job, “She hasteth to the prey,” and “where the slain are, there is she.” The Lord also says that where the carcass is, there shall the eagles be gathered together. An eagle, therefore, appropriately announces these three distinct and several woes in connection (not as to time) with the three remaining trumpets that are about to sound. We saw the first four seals grouped together, and we have now the first four trumpets grouped together. The latter three have a special force and significance, not only in themselves, but by having a special attribute of woe attached to them. But they have still further significance by being specially addressed to a class, called by the distinctive name of “earth-dwellers,” or “those that dwell on the earth.” We have met with them in Rev. 3:10, and chap. 6:10, and shall meet with them six or seven times more. They have been referred to under the seals as those who treat the earth as their own, without reference to God’s rights as Creator; but under the trumpets they represent all,—whether of Israel or the Gentiles—who have been under the intoxicating power of Babylon’s seductions. (See Rev. 17:2.) It must not be thought that in this exposition of the Apocalypse too much stress is put upon Babylon. In the book of God’s grace, the New Testament, which is, in respect of the heavenlies, what the covenant with Abram was to the earthlies, is occupied, in its greatest extent, in telling us concerning Him who brought the grace and truth. In each gospel the greatest space is given to telling of that most wondrous act, by which that grace and truth became available, viz., the Cross. Now, the supplement to that book of grace is the Apocalypse, in which the veil is drawn aside, and the hidden source of all the opposition is exposed, and not only exposed, but judged; and not only judged, but the earth made empty—dealt with root and branch, the wicked rooted out with that which made them so; thus the fruit of righteousness displaces it all. And what is it that occupies the greatest space in the Apocalypse? Babylon! Babylon! Men have been lulled to sleep by the fancy that Babylon was exhausted in the abominations of Popery. Popery is indeed the ecclesiastical phase of it, and embraces not only that which puts a pope or a priest between the soul and God, but that which even puts a “minister” in such a position. Access by One Spirit is the only divine mode (John 4:23; Eph. 2:18). But Babylon has corrupted, not the Church only, but all nations have been deceived by her sorcery. The blood of all prophets and saints was found in her (18:23, 24). Government has been perverted by her (18:3). Israel succumbed to the idolatry brought in by her. Her idolatries were at work in the Roman power which crucified their Messiah, and made them clamor for His death at her hands. They that dwell on the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication (18:2). But strong is the Lord God that judgeth her (18:8).
In connecting the three woes with the last three trumpets, care must be taken not to stop short of the extent of the third woe, otherwise their special force will be lost. The Spirit of God has been careful to give us special indications for our guidance. The first woe is exhausted under the fifth trumpet. It is the pit opened by the Devil, and agonizing tormentors let loose. The second also, diabolic in its nature, lets loose 200,000,000 slaughterers who have power at head and tail, and dispose of the third part of men. The third woe, announced under the seventh trumpet, comes into operation when the Devil is let loose in the earth (12:12), and embraces all his action till shut up (20:1) in the bottomless pit. It will be observed that all woe action is diabolical—first from the pit, next from the power bound at Euphrates (Babylon’s home), and finally by the personal reign of the fiend himself in his Jewish and Gentile vice-gerents. It will be found most useful to observe these woes thus, because it marks off all judgment action into three grand phases, providential, angelic, and diabolical; and shows us that association with Satan not only draws down wrath upon man for sin against God, but that Satan hates and torments the being he has beguiled.
The Fifth Trumpet
We saw, under the third trumpet, a great star, burning as a lamp, fall from heaven. Now we have a star, no longer distinguished by special marks which characterized the wicked power that usurped the place of the Spirit of Truth, but one who is the wicked travesty of Him who is a King and has the key, and whose name is known (though differently) to Jew and Gentile. We shall see, further on, Heaven opened, and the Faithful and True followed by His armies white and pure. He has a name for His earthly saints, it is King of kings, and for all others, heavenly or of the nations, it is Lord of lords.
This fallen star is—as all is under the trumpets—spoken of in the language of mystery and symbol. But in the second division of the Apocalypse we shall have mysteries abolished, and we shall no longer have Satan’s titles in Greek and Hebrew, but in plain Saxon. Here, his character is the Destroyer. There it will be the Accuser, the Adversary. To him is here given the key of the abyss, that fearful region in which the legions of demons are; in which are all the slain of all the famous nations of the earth, depicted in the latter part of the thirty-second chapter of Ezekiel, the receptacle generally of the wicked dead. Consuming judgments, symbolized by smoke, issue from the pit; and special instruments of torture and torment, depicted as locusts, emerge from the smoke, in orderly array, headed by their king. Their power is not, like the locusts of the earth, to consume and destroy the grass, the trees, or other vegetation. Neither is their power to kill men; for in those days people would be only too glad to find a refuge in death from the tormenting agonies of their infernal visitants. Physical death in these awful five months will not respond to any summons, or come of his own accord. Men have courted evil spirits—they here have them to the full. Men loved deceit and fraud; they have in these armies of Satan a sham and counterfeit in every form, except torture. They were like horses, had crowns like gold, faces like men, hair like women, teeth like lions, breastplates like iron. The sound of their wings was like chariots and horses rushing to battle, and yet, as in everything Satanic, they were not what they seemed. The only thing real was the torture and afflicting agony they were able to make all suffer, except such as had God’s seal on their foreheads. This fearful judgment lasts for five months, or one hundred and fifty days, and corresponds to the time the Flood was on the earth (Gen. 8:3), and making good the blessed Lord’s words (Luke 17:26), As it was in the days of Noah, thus also shall it be in the days of the Son of Man. Pain, torment, torture, agony, are characteristic of this trumpet; Satan’s power from beneath, in contrast with Heaven’s power from above. The one terrible, but speedy and merciful; the other, agony beyond description. Death, desired so eagerly, is reserved for the next trumpet. It is important to remember here, as everywhere else in the Apocalypse, that it is of less importance to us to get the exact physical details of the prophecy. What is needed for us is to get the moral features, and to see that what comes upon others, who have despised God’s grace, would have been our lot, but for the divine actings of that grace, let in divinely, by grace, into our hearts.
The Immense Place and Importance of the Three Woes
It is impossible to attach too much importance to the place these three woes occupy in the Apocalypse, for in them, in threefold testimony of judgment, is re-enacted, first, the Flood; second, Sodom and Gomorrah; and, third, a new and unique judgment, viz., the personal reign of Satan on the earth. The woes are announced in a special way, as we saw on page 36. The period of their duration is carefully marked off, and the succeeding ones as carefully marked off from those preceding. “One woe is past,” a period of unutterable torment corresponding to the period of the Flood. But, whereas that visitation was comparatively painless and merciful, as insensibility and death speedily followed with those overtaken, this agonizing and diabolical torture gets no cessation or relief from death. Now, the two following woes (Ezek. 16:23) have a special bearing upon Israel, and the whole of that chapter must be read very carefully if God’s indictment there, and the execution of His judgment here, is to be grasped. God has been wantonly insulted by the object of His pity, and tender, loving compassion and affection. His mercies and gifts, extravagant in their bounty, beauty, and costliness, have been used as weapons of insult and provocations to jealousy. Is it a wonder that His anger should burn like fire? It cannot be that His long-suffering should endure forever. His mercy can, and does, and will; but long-suffering supposes an end, and the end is reached. His mercy shall be abundantly declared (in parenthesis), but judgment must vindicate His Holy Name. The two succeeding woes will be treated of, each in its proper place. The former of them has to do with death, inflicted to an extent unparalleled in the world’s history, and its termination is announced (after a long parenthesis at Rev. 11:14); and then, (after another parenthesis), the third and last woe begins; the woe par excellence of the series—for it is no less than the personal reign of Satan on the earth, beginning at Rev. 12:12, and continuing, with certain parenthetical episodes, to Rev. 20:1, when Satan is made prisoner, and shut up during the Millennial era. It is during this last woe that the visions of Daniel coalesce with the Apocalyptic narration, and the thrones that he saw without sitters on them, are, in Rev. 20:4 seen with their lawful occupants occupying them. It was announced under the seventh trumpet that the mystery of God should have its completion. This is accomplished under the last woe by the pouring out of the seven golden bowls, full of the fury of God, who lives to the ages of ages. After the full completion of the last woe, referred to above, as indicated in Rev. 20:1, there is no difficulty whatever as to interpretation. The remainder flows on as a descriptive narrative till the close, when Jesus, our own most gracious, loving Lord, announces Himself in His familiar, homelike accents, and the Spirit and the Bride respond thereto. It may be remarked of the first and second woes, taking place under the fifth and sixth trumpets respectively, that the first appears to have in view the Jew, while the second indicates the Gentile. The result of each fearful judgment appears to lead to the open avowal of undisguised apostasy. That the first is the Jew is evidenced by the fact that the torment falls on the men not having the seal of God in their foreheads. In the second there is no question of any sealing. Of the apostasy of those who escape slaughter there can be no doubt, for they repent not, but are found worshipping demons, and guilty of every foul crime. When we come to the third woe, which is really the reign of Satan on the earth, we shall find the apostasy of the Jew, that is, the rejection of Messiah, and the apostasy of the Gentile, that is, the rejection of the Father and the Son, headed up under Antichrist, the center of all religious wickedness, as the first beast is of all civil or secular wickedness. Each beast plays into the hands of the other, and the devil maintains them both. Thus there is a trinity of evil maintaining a united apostasy in man, who contends that the earth is his own. The same principle is at work at the close as was manifest at an earlier stage, viz., Get rid of the Heir, and the inheritance is ours. The lake of fire will be the solemn and fearful answer to this confederacy of evil.
The Sixth Trumpet
We saw under the seventh seal an angel standing at the golden altar, for the twofold purpose of offering the prayers of saints, and of casting the fire of it, in judgment, to the earth. A voice from the four horns (one voice with the altar itself), is heard telling the sixth angel that had the trumpet, to let loose four angels that were bound at the great river Euphrates. We have no record in the Word of the binding of these four angels until here recorded; but we know from Peter and Jude that the angels who kept not their place and dwelling—tampering with humans, as humans now do with demons—are kept in eternal chains until the final reckoning; four of these being, as we here find, bound at the scene of crime, the river of Babylon. Here we find them loosed for the appointed time; the hour, the day, the month, the year. The week is significantly omitted. We get “your hour,” “the day” of vengeance, “five months” locust torment “year of visitation”; but “week” seems to be reserved for testimony before God. The disciples came together to remember and “show forth” the Lord’s death on the first day of the week. The seventy weeks of Daniel were measured out to bring in blessings, not judgment. It was man, as usual, turned the blessing into judgment. The function of the four angels is to kill the third part of men, with an army of cavalry numbering 200,000,000. Now as to the character of this cavalry. Two things characterize both horse and rider, viz., fire and brimstone. Each has a third symbol placed between the fire and the brimstone. In the case of the horse it is smoke (see 2 Sam. 22:9, and Ps. 18:18, both scriptures being the song of David when the Lord delivered him from the hand of all his enemies and from the hand of Saul), and this smoke signifies the fierce wrath of God. As to jacinth on the horseman, it will now be seen why Dan is left out of the list of the sealed. In Jacob’s prophecy of the latter days, Dan comes seventh. In the high priest’s breastplate Dan comes seventh. The gem representing him is a jacinth (see Revised Version). Now hear Jacob’s prophecy concerning him: “Dan shall judge his people, as one of the tribes of Israel. Dan shall be a serpent in the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse’s heels, so that his rider falleth backward.” And then, as if uttering the cry of the remnant by anticipation, Jacob says, “I have waited for Thy salvation, O Lord” (Gen. 49:16, 17, 18). But judgment, from mouth or tail (Ps. 139:4), does not change the stubborn heart of man. He repents not. Devil-worship, idol-worship, murder, sorcery, fornication, theft. Babylonian-ism in its various forms here set forth, have more attraction for man than anything that God can give; and judgment, like that on Pharaoh, only hardens his heart still more against the Sovereign Ruler, who is thus fully justified in His judgments (Rom. 3:5, 6).
The primary cause of Dan not appearing among the sealed tribes will be seen at page 29, where it is shown that false relationship was a bar in his case. God never loses sight of the principles He established at Creation in respect to marriage. The hardness of man’s heart blights every gracious provision, but God established marriage to foreshadow His Son’s crowning glory in the Church. There is a fitness too where dire judgments are being inflicted because of idolatry, to leave unsealed the most idolatrous of the tribes.
The Episode of Testimony. First Aspect, Gentile
We saw a break before the opening of the seventh seal. We see a break before the sounding of the seventh trumpet. It is, as ever, the voice of mercy; so as to satisfy the heart of God, and leave men without excuse. The Lord Jesus, as the mighty angel invested with the symbol of the divine presence (cloud), remembering His covenant with the earth (rainbow), planting one foot on sea, and the other on land, cries with mighty voice (lion), to which the response is, judgment (seven thunders) not to be recorded, for it is mercy told out—the old story (roll) of the blood (open) to all who will hear—if any such can be found. For, says He (and He vouches it by appeal to Him who liveth forever; who made heaven, earth, sea, and all that in them is), There shall be no more delay, but that in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound the trumpet, the mystery of God also shall be completed—that is, that all the evil that has been going on so long during the time God has been making known His grace in Christ Jesus, and all the time before that, from Adam downwards, during which His long-suffering in the midst of abounding evil has been a standing marvel to faith, and an occasion for unbelief, as ever, to assume that what had gone on so long, must of necessity go on forever—has here its definitive termination announced. This is very sweet to know, but bitter to realize; but it is ever so. “Thy words were found of me and I did eat them; they are the joy and rejoicing of mine heart” (Jer. 15:16), but “stripes that wound cleanse away evil, searching all the innermost parts of the belly” (Prov. 20:30). It is joy and sweetness to have any testimony of God to set forth, but it is sorrowful and bitter to find the servant of Christ is unto death in them that perish. And, alas! this is the nature and the effect of Apocalyptic testimony. John had before testified—here called prophecy, because the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. It is not the foretelling of the future, but the true place of Jesus in that future. We know nothing of time without the means of measuring it; so we know nothing of past, present, or future, without the Spirit’s testimony to Jesus in it. And remark how the last sentence should be read: “Thou must prophesy again concerning peoples, nations, and tongues, and many kings”; for as has been just remarked, the period of the prophecies of Daniel are now about to fall into the current of the prophetic record; and the events of the last half of the week to find their occurrence and fulfillment. We shall, in confirmation of this, have the first allusion to “the beast” in the next episode.
In anticipation of this dread concentration of evil, it may be well to remark that “beast” as a symbol means an Imperial Power rather than an individual, although the directing power and head of such Empire being an individual would be called “beast” also. The term “beast” is used as indicating a power or a being totally devoid of conscience, and therefore amenable, without compunction of any kind, to Satanic influence. Man falls under the cruel power of this scourge.
The Episode of Testimony. Second Aspect, Jewish
“There was given me a reed like a rod,” that is, a measuring rod. The seer is bidden to estimate something more important than the first aspect just presented: he is to consider the temple of God and the altar, where prayer was presented by the worshippers. A full complement of service, but that only which was in spirit and in truth. Nothing external, like profession; all that was under Gentile domination during Daniel’s half week, 42 months, because judgment was going on. But God never did leave Himself without witness, and therefore two witnesses shall testify for Him 1260 days; His witnesses and Gentile action cannot be put on the same level. His witnesses will be clothed in sackcloth, for it is a time of mourning and woe. These are the two sons of oil (Zech. 4:14) that stand by the Lord of the whole earth; that is, they maintain His rights in its entirety, universally. They are unapproachable. They cannot be put down. They are maintained by God’s judgment (fire). If any man hurt them, he will be killed by his own action. They have power to shut heaven (as Elias did), or to turn water to blood, or call forth plagues (as Moses did). In fact, they have absolute power in their testimony during the 1260 days. But at the expiration of that time a new power comes into play, which, as far as the Apocalypse is concerned, we have not heard of as yet. The BEAST that is coming up out of the abyss (bottomless pit), shall make war—conquer—kill. Now that allusion has been made to the beast, we know that Daniel’s prophecy is in question. This, however, is not the beast’s proper Apocalyptic announcement; it only comes anticipatively and incidentally. It is really a part of the third woe, which has not yet arrived. This is an episode before the sounding of the seventh trumpet, and that trumpet will open up the third woe.
The dead bodies of God’s witnesses lie unburied for 31 days in Jerusalem, which here earns for itself the character of Sodom and Egypt, on account of its wickedness. The witnesses become the subject of jeer and scorn, and their death a matter of congratulation to the “earth-dwellers,” who imagine that, after all, they have won the day. But earth-dwellers do not believe in the resurrection and never did—“Say His disciples stole His body from the tomb”! Cremate ours, so that God may not be able to raise it! But after three days and a half the two witnesses go up visibly into heaven, and that in the divine envelopment—a cloud, “and great fear fell upon all that saw it.” All this occurs in Jerusalem. There is a great earthquake; seven thousand men perish; a tenth part of the city falls, and the rest are sufficiently terrified at the results to give glory to the God of heaven. It is tardy, like the confession of Nebuchadnezzar, and is forced out at last, by the battering-ram of judgment.
The Third and Climax Woe. Seventh Trumpet Introducing It, and Giving the Moral Conclusion of God’s Dealings From the Throne
“The second woe is past: behold!” give special heed, “the third woe cometh quickly.” The grand denouement is the folding up and wiping out of man’s iniquity under the god of this age, and the unfolding, at its conclusion, of the righteous ways of the God of heaven and earth, and His true King. The seventh angel sounds his welcome trumpet, and there were great voices, loud and joyous, proclaiming, THE SOVEREIGNTY OF THE WORLD OF OUR LORD AND OF HIS CHRIST IS COME, AND HE SHALL REIGN TO THE AGES OF AGES. And the four and twenty elders who sit on their thrones before God, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, saying, WE GIVE THEE THANKS, LORD GOD ALMIGHTY, HE WHO IS AND WHO WAS, THAT THOU HAST TAKEN THY GREAT POWER, AND HAST REIGNED. And THE NATIONS HAVE BEEN FULL OF WRATH, AND THY WRATH HAS COME, and THE TIME OF THE DEAD TO BE JUDGED, and TO GIVE THE RECOMPENSE TO THY SERVANTS THE PROPHETS, and TO THE SAINTS, and TO THOSE WHO FEAR THY NAME, SMALL AND GREAT, and TO BRING TO CORRUPTION THOSE THAT CORRUPTED THE EARTH. These seven subjects of worship are enunciated by the elders, who, having the entire mind of Christ here, the living creatures do not appear. And the subjects of worship become the program of the remainder of the book and the second great division of God’s dealings. We shall also observe that from this point, and until the action of the second division is completed, we shall lose sight of the Throne; and that until the nineteenth chapter it will be in view of the Temple and the Ark of the Covenant. The seven angels having the seven vials issue forth from the temple of the tabernacle of witness. All this scene of the action of the third woe is thus laid, because the crowning iniquity that has been committed, has been in the corruption and perversion of all that properly belongs to God as an object of worship. It was gross enough to do this in respect of His rights over the earth, as Creator of all things; but when His rights as Sanctifier, Caller, Redeemer were impugned, falsified, made merchandise of the Father’s house, meant for a house of prayer for all nations, turned into a den of thieves—it was meet that God should be known to be in His holy temple, and that all the earth should be brought to silence before Him. We shall now, therefore, have the satisfaction of seeing, in what follows, how completely His divine power and wisdom vindicate all His trampled rights, in ridding the earth of its foul blots. He makes His precious ways to be appreciated and enjoyed by a prepared and purified people, whose exultation in Him henceforth shall know no bounds.
Division 2
Divine Counsel Respecting Israel and Her Deadly Foe
We have now arrived at the second great division of the Book of Revelation, embraced in the third woe, which contains in its scope the seven last plagues, which complete the wrath of God. The scene is completely changed. The throne has disappeared. The temple takes its place. The ark, Israel, all testify that God’s greatest of all controversies has come. It is the time of Jacob’s trouble; but God is faithful; he shall be saved out of it. Increased judgments, lightnings, voices, thunderings, earthquake, hail. The eighteenth Psalm must be fulfilled, before the nineteenth can begin. But a great finger-post, as it were, points us to a divine object, while another finger-post calls our attention to an infernal monster. The divine object is no less than God’s Israel, “Whose is the adoption, and the glory, and the covenants, and the law-giving, and the service, and the promises; whose are the fathers, and of whom as according to flesh Christ came, who is [now] over all, God blessed forever. Amen” (Rom. 9:4, 5).
“I will tell of the decree: the Lord said unto Me, Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee. Ask of Me, and I will give Thee the nations for Thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for Thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; Thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potter’s vessel” (Psalm 2:7, 8, 9).
“She... forgat Me, saith the Lord. Therefore, behold, I will allure her, and bring her into the wilderness, and speak to her heart. And I will give her her vineyards from thence, and troubling [Achor] for a door of hope” (Hos. 2:14).
These three scriptures give the whole position of the divine object presented to us here better than any exposition could do. As for the dragon, he is here presented as foreshadowing himself and his infernal array, just as the woman foreshadows Isaac (Christ), Jacob (Israel), and the twelve tribes. “Red” (fiery), powerful, “having seven crowned heads” (complete Roman Empire), “ten horns” (the powers of administration through which he first acts). He has followers (tail) who have occupied the heavenly places with himself (stars), but they are cast to the earth (involved in his fall). How all this is brought about is the subject of the next page. Here, it is the general sketch of the two parties involved in this mighty drama of the half-week.
We get a good instance here of the way in which prophecy presents the moral features of a case, displaying only such points as are necessary to produce a given effect upon the soul, and quite disregarding other features which, although of great importance intrinsically, are not allowed by their introduction to obscure the immediate thought the Spirit of God wishes to convey. Want of attention to this characteristic of prophecy has led to many blunders, because, owing to a certain knowledge, already possessed from other sources, in respect of a given subject, those elements have been introduced, and by their introduction have served to obliterate and obscure where interpretation was sought. Take the instance in this section. It is impossible not to recognize Christ born of Israel, and the Devil seeking to destroy Him. Now, the grand facts of death and resurrection are unnoticed. Why? Because the object in view is to assert that Israel produces One who is to bear supremacy over the nations, deriving His authority from God’s throne, and that there is a usurper to be put down. It is no question of death or resurrection. Christ is to be victorious, and an opposing force defeated. That is precisely the picture drawn, and it is remarkable how, in a few divine touches, comprehensive history is presented.
War in Heaven. Defeat of Satan and His Angels. All Cast Down to Earth.
The grand mainspring is here dealt with, the hidden secret of all evil, the opposing force to all God’s purposes of blessing to man, His creature, formed for the purpose of being the exponent of Himself and His ways in heaven and earth. This opposing force has occupied the heavenly places (called often high places). Thus Isaiah 24:21: “And it shall come to pass in that day, that the Lord shall punish the host of the high ones on high.” This is here accomplished. And as Daniel 12:1 puts it: “At that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people.” It takes place here; there is war in the heaven. Michael and his angels went to war with the dragon, and the dragon accepted the battle, and fought, with his angels, and he prevailed not, neither was their place found any more in the heaven. And the great dragon was cast out (and here we drop his symbolical name of dragon, and get the names by which he is known on earth)—the serpent of old (that tempted Eve), the Devil (Greek), and Satan (Hebrew), which, as to the first means “accuser,” and the latter “adversary,” who deceives the whole habitable world. He was cast out into the earth, and his angels were cast out with him. Oh, what a deliverance for heaven! Oh, what a fearful thing for earth! No match for the heavenlies, for Christ and His loyal two-thirds are there; more than a match for the earthlies, till Christ and His armies shall come forth, and rout and capture his satellites, and shut up their leader! But it will be done, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. At the end of this great drama we shall see that the second half of Isaiah 24:21 shall be accomplished. Not only will the Lord have punished the host of the high ones that are on high, but “the kings of the earth upon the earth” (Rev. 19:19). I saw the “beast” (Satan’s “king”), “and the kings of the earth” (the ten horns, three of which fell before “another horn,” the beast: Daniel 7:20), “and their armies; gathered together to make war against Him that sat on the horse, and against His army. And the beast was taken, and the false prophet [Satan’s priest] ... Both were cast alive into a lake of fire... The rest were slain with the sword of Him on the horse... And an angel with a key and a great chain laid hold of the dragon—the old serpent, the Devil—Satan [mark the exact order at the end as at the beginning], and bound him, and shut him up, and put a seal upon him till the thousand years were completed.”
The above will come before us in its own place, but it is here set forth to show the end of that of which this section is the beginning, and to show that all that intervenes between Rev. 12:7 and 22:7 is a division complete in itself, the unity of which must be preserved, and not confounded with that ending Rev. 11:18; for while the first great division of the Book ends here (and unless this division is seen all is hopeless confusion), yet the Spirit of God gives us sometimes a complete history within another complete history. It is this which renders the Book so perplexing to the novice. After pursuing the history with but feeble apprehension through a few pages, he finds himself historically on ground earlier than he started from. This ought not to discourage him. He has but stepped over the boundary of a parenthesis, or a separate history, without knowing it, and is really on a path which he had not previously perceived had been broken in upon. It is not within the scope of this book to enlarge on these interesting subjects, but the reader will find the question of parenthesis the solution of many a seeming difficulty, the pitfall of many an unwary philosopher, but the abundant reward of the divinely led student. Numberless fallacies, and not a few heresies, have resulted from this cause. On the other hand, recoveries of some of the profoundest truths have resulted from the spiritual perception of these divine boundaries. The Church is one of them; the times of this present age is another. God so ordered the writing of His Word that only the instructed should understand it.
Heaven’s Rejoicing. Comments on the Issue of the War.
A loud voice is now heard in heaven, giving us the joyous appreciation of what has taken place. We are now in the region of facts; not symbols of facts, nor foreshadowings of facts, but the facts themselves, for which symbols and foreshadowings are so useful and necessary. For be it understood as a canon of interpretation in divine things, you must know a thing before you can understand it. This seems a foolish dictum, because in natural things it is quite the opposite: a thing must be understood before it can be known. In divine things God tells us something, and then, when faith has laid hold of it, God either lets it remain dormant, like seed in the ground, till He calls it into vitality; or, if it so please Him, He gives it vitality at once. But it is there, understood or not. Hence it is called the “incorruptible seed” of the Word. The apostle John says, “I have not written to you because ye do not know the truth, but because ye do know it” (1 John 2:21). He could therefore call up the vitality of what they already knew.
“Now is come [is set up] the salvation [not in its inception, as at the cross, but its completion], the power and the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ; for the accuser of our brethren [an angel can say this as well as a blood-bought one, Rev. 19:10], has been cast out, who accused them before our God day and night.” What a persistent foe but what a long-suffering, patient, faithful God! “And they have overcome him [saints on earth are in question] by reason of the blood of the Lamb [the only source of victory] and the word of their testimony [He is maintained as the truth, against the lie that is being enacted on earth]; and have not loved their life even unto death” [He is of more value in their eyes than life itself] “Therefore be full of delight [the ‘Let us be merry’ of Luke 15], ye heavens, and ye that dwell in them [this is the contrast to earth-dwellers.] Woe to the earth and to the sea [the Devil has got both now under his grasp], because the Devil has come down to you [gone down or descended, only he has been ejected thence], having great rage, [not only at his defeat, but] knowing that he hath but a short time” (3-1/2 years) to accomplish his final act of malice as far as Israel is concerned; for, alas! it is Israel that has brought all this dreadful scene upon the earth. The nations have done abominations, but Israel had been chosen as God’s witness in the earth. Let no flesh, however, glory in His presence. Israel shall yet be a praise in the earth.
There is, therefore, nothing now to hinder the display of God’s kingdom. Salvation and strength and the power of His Christ are ready to be revealed. Satan is ejected from heaven where he has, with relentless malice, accused God’s saints day and night, ever since man has fallen under his power. The voices that are heard in heaven may be those of angels, but they may also be those of the saints of God who have been caught up to meet the Lord in the air ere the judgments began. How truly can they rejoice! How really can they sympathize! they whose conflict on earth was with the wicked spirits in the heavenly places. How well, too, can they sympathize with their brethren on earth, who are using the same all-availing shield, the Blood of the Lamb, and the same word of testimony which maintained His rights, and with that same devotion that had characterized the martyrs of Diocletian’s persecution! The Church of God will always be the minister of blessing to the earthly saints. The exact opposite of all that Satan has been. In man, thus honored by God, will be fulfilled the eighth Psalm. “What is man, that Thou rememberest him, or son of Man that Thou visitest him? Thou hast made him some little inferior to the angels; Thou hast crowned him with glory and honor, and hast set him over the works of Thy hands. Thou hast subjected all things under his feet” (Heb. 2:6, 7, 8).
The Dragon and the Woman. Satan Persecutes Israel.
“And when the dragon saw that he was cast out unto the earth, he persecuted the woman that bare the male child.” We see now the reason of the two narrations. The first vision presents Israel before Christ came into the world. Satan was ready to devour it then; he also tried his best both in the Wilderness and in the Garden, but the Blessed One was victorious in both cases, and “Sit Thou at My right hand” was the divine estimate after resurrection. After the cross, alas! the woman was the persecutor, as far as she could be represented by Judah and Benjamin. But here, where the dragon is cast unto the earth, his rage is turned against the woman which brought forth the male child that had escaped him. But the woman is helped. Babylon and Egypt are both set forth in Ezekiel 17 as eagles with great wings, and as the wilderness is mentioned as “her place,” it is probably Egypt that is here referred to; especially as Egypt is within the Roman earth. And, moreover, when the serpent (not the dragon)—that deceiver and tempter—had cast out of his mouth water as a river after the retreating woman, that he might make her as one carried away by a river, the earth helped the woman, “and the earth opened its mouth, and swallowed the river which the dragon [not the serpent now, for he resumes his symbolical character] cast out of his mouth.” Disappointed and baffled, he turns his forces against the remnant of Israel, who obviously have not followed the others;—for, keeping the Word of God, they would have learned from Ezekiel 17 that Egypt could be no help to them: “I the Lord... have dried up the green tree” (Ezek. 17:24). The Lord when down here was the green tree, under which had Israel reposed she had been safe; now we see what takes place in the dry. (See the affecting remark made by the Lord when led to the cross, Luke 23:31). The godly remnant, therefore, are preserved by the Word of God and the testimony of Jesus (which the spirit of prophecy is). They have not the teaching of the Spirit as we have it, but they have the Spirit’s teaching in the Old and New Testaments, and the prophetic word in both will be their light in a dark place until the day dawn. But the dragon will make war with them, and terrible will be the havoc he will make with them. Thank God! they have to do with one that, after he has killed the body, has no more that he can do. Their prayers are heard, and offered up with sweet incense above, and “The just shall live by his faith” (Hab. 2:4).
Israel’s history is exceedingly interesting in this portion of the prophecy. We may not find the symbols used easy to interpret in the physical details, but it has been several times remarked that what we need to get are the moral features. The “serpent” casts water out of his mouth as a river after the retreating woman, that he may make her as one carried away by a river. Now, the term “serpent” instead of “dragon” is a clue. Deceit is intended to reach and swamp the nation which God intends to have for Himself. But the bait is taken, not by Israel, but by the earth, which swallows what has issued from the “dragon.” So that what was intended as deceit is taken up as violence by another class, and thus the woman escapes. But the dragon’s ire is excited by his defeat, and he persecutes the godly remnant of her seed. The Spirit of God never uses two distinct terms without a very definite object. It is evident here. The dragon persecutes, the woman flees. The serpent tempts, somebody else appropriates the temptation. Then the dragon persecutes the godly, while the nation (Judah, not Israel) is kept for God’s purposes later on, for there is nothing to indicate that it is blessing. It is merely to show that the dragon is under control from God, just as he has always been. ALL power belongs to God.
The Beast From the Sea (I).
The seer is invariably put in a place in consonance with the vision he is called to behold. “I stood upon the sand of the sea, and I saw a beast rising out of the sea.” Woe had been pronounced to the earth and to the sea. The sea comes first on our view. Jeremiah says (Jer. 51:41), “The sea is come up upon Babylon: she is covered with the tumult thereof.” By this we gather that out of the tumult of nations (“The tumult of those that rise up against Thee ascendeth continually,” Ps. 74:23) arises this beast having seven heads, bearing names of blasphemy, and ten crowned horns. We know from the seventeenth chapter how to interpret this beast, as long as we do not confuse this vision, which is the rise of—with the other vision, which is an episode of—the same beast. There are seven heads and seven kings, and the ten horns are ten kings. The ten kings are confederate, and receive power [at] one hour with the beast. These have one mind, and give their power and authority to the beast (that is, they play into his hands). The seven kings are quite another thing. They represent the imperial power of Rome in three aspects, viz., existing, defunct, resuscitated. Of these three aspects, the whole seven are represented by the first two aspects, viz., existing and defunct; for the seventh, not then arisen, was to continue but a little time. But at this point begins the blasphemous travesty of the blessed Lord’s resurrection; the seventh head is seen wounded to death (suicide, perhaps, after the fashion of Nero). By the power of Satan, however, the seventh head is resuscitated and so, i.e., as resuscitated, is an eighth, but otherwise is the last of the seven. This is the beast. A monster seen in Daniel’s vision as the fourth of four. Daniel’s vision was to show the four monarchies from his time to the end: lion, bear, leopard, monster. But as he says of the first three, their dominion would have passed away, but their lives would be prolonged for a season and a time. That season and time is here shown, for this monster has characteristics which carry us back; therefore the order is reversed: leopard, bear, lion. So that we may say that this beast has the spring, dash, audacity, and resource of an Alexander; who, in about ten years, overthrew the cumbrous forces of Persia. To Persia are the feet of the monster compared; that is to say, its powerful and crushing armaments. Darius Hystaspes invaded Scythia with 700,000 men, his naval force being 600 ships manned by 120,000 men, while Xerxes took 2,500,000 men, collected from over fifty nations, against Greece. Artaxerxes Longimanus subdued Egypt with 600,000 men, and raised 1,200,000 to crush Cyrus. Darius Codomannus opposed Alexander at Issus with 600,000 troops, and even after defeat made a supreme effort in another place with 1,000,000 infantry, 40,000 cavalry, and 200 scythed chariots!
It has been shown under another section that “the beast” is spoken of as a power, and also as a person. This causes a little perplexity in a reader’s mind which it may be well to relieve here. Even in this page the perplexity may have been felt somewhat. And first, Daniel (Rev. 7) and John both tell of this beast. Daniel gives information not repeated here, for, as a rule, the child of God is expected to know what is in the Word of God. Now, John tells of seven kings and ten kings. The seven represent the resuscitated Roman empire in its Satan-possessed aspect. The seventh head is seen wounded to death; that terminates the old empire. But then that same seventh head is made to live, it thus becomes an eighth, and yet being of the seven, the continuity (although broken) is not lost. It is the same, only in a new phase. Now for the person. John tells of ten kings. Daniel also tells us of ten kings, but Daniel shows us that three of these kings fall from their place by a person who thus becomes an eighth, yet of the seven; because he has acquired three of the ten. The seven give their power into his hand. This is the beast as a person.
The Beast From the Sea (II).
In the previous page the intelligence and celerity of the Grecian, and the material power and force of the Medo-Persian, have been dwelt upon, but not the royal despotism of the Babylonian Empire. This, the dominant and divinely appointed power, held undisputed sway over the whole world for sixty-seven years, and was represented in another vision as the “head of gold” of the great image. This beast from the sea is to possess the characteristics of all of these sovereign powers, but with a fearful addition—the dragon invests it with his power and throne and great authority. So that, to sum up our estimate of this fearful engine of man’s punishment, we have but to take the image in its entirety, and add to it the dragon’s physical and moral power, and his throne, and we shall understand the tempter’s offer to the Holy One: “I will give Thee all this power and their glory, for it is given up to me, and to whomsoever I will I give it. If, therefore, Thou wilt do homage to me, all of it shall be Thine” (Luke 4:6, 7). The Word, however, settles to whom homage belongs, and the world knows not God nor His Word, and they do homage to the dragon, because he gave the authority to the beast; and they do homage to the beast, saying, Who is like to the beast? and, Who can make war with it? (for it must be remembered that the beast is a power, as well as a personality). In the previous page, attention has been drawn to the use made of the resuscitation of the head with the death-wound, to travesty resurrection. We get the detail of it here; and the world, not knowing the Scriptures, nor the power of God, nor, in fact, knowing anything but what is in man and of man—is carried away by what they see. Deceived, they have refused the truth; deceived, they believe a lie; they are under delusion, according to 2 Thess. 2. The lawless one, a title belonging more particularly to the second beast, is here partially revealed. “His coming is according to the energy of Satan, in all power and signs and wonders of falsehood, and in all deceit of unrighteousness to them that perish, because they have not received the love of the truth that they might be saved. And for this reason God sends to them an energy of error, that they should believe what is false; that all might be judged that have not believed the truth, but have found pleasure in unrighteousness.” And thus we find the true end of all Babylonianism: whatever form it may have taken since the Flood, and in whatever direction it may have spread, east or west; one end has been always in view—DEVIL-worship.
There are probably very few indeed who have the smallest idea of the forces that have been set in motion throughout the world, during the last twenty years, to bring about this result; not from the ordinary and natural tendency of man to slight, neglect, or even despise the things of God—these forces have been always at work as long as man has had a history. What is alluded to now is different in its character altogether. Our span of existence is so brief that we fail to realize the flood of divine light and truth we have lived in. Up to 300 years ago it was not so. The power of the Devil was actively at work, persecuting, cajoling, trampling, or deadening the saints of God; but, since the Reformation, an astounding respite was given to man; the truth made its way by leaps and bounds; the early rain of Pentecost had been succeeded by the latter rain of the same Spirit, and the recovery of precious doctrines, practically unknown from apostolic times, have been enjoyed and delighted in. And what has been running by the side of all this? Not, indeed, interfering with it, because He had set open a door; but the Devil’s power has been active in the world. Men have in spiritualism opened communications with demons; and these are, through Theosophy and Buddhism, with its 40 million followers, laboring to throw off the Christian faith. These things may be unknown to, or unrecognized by, the majority of Christians, just as the insidious and stealthy advances of Popery are unobserved while popular clamor is not raised; but they are none the less active and doing their deadly work while men sleep.
The Beast From the Sea (III). A Mouth Opened in Blasphemy.
A mouth speaking big (boastful) things, and blasphemies, are given to this beast by the dragon; and to it was given authority to continue its career forty-two months, or three-and-a-half years. We might think that boastful language had been heard before, and that blasphemy was not unknown in this day. But men little know to what extent they are indebted to the restraints which they are so anxious to throw off. Even the man that has not God in his thoughts, is conscious of a power around him, which he is glad enough to avail himself of, without cost, as he does other of God’s merciful provisions, in a world that heeds Him not. This power goes by various names, “a proper sense,” “every decent person,” “the right-minded opinion,” etc., forgetting that this unseen court of appeal is, in reality, due to an unrecognized but large class, who are governed, intelligently or otherwise, by the Word of God and the Spirit of God. But in the day of which the Apocalypse treats, the Spirit of Truth has left the earth, and those in whom He dwelt have left with Him. There may be plenty of Bibles, but no interpreter, no restraining voice to check, no salt to preserve from corruption. It will be the reign of self, which is the most despotic of tyrannies, for the king wants everything, or he would not be king. And so blasphemy, full, open, free, and round, shall find its free vent. A Niagara of hatred, bellows forth its resistless torrent of spite and venom against God personally—against that which bears His name in every form—against His dwelling-place—against the heaven, and the happy and secure dwellers therein. Using to the fullest effect the forty-two months—a short time to that which has had more than as many centuries to work its evil course, the mighty waters, limited to this narrow channel, boil, and hiss, and writhe with the unwonted constraint. Passive vilification of all that is good will not suffice evil-workers. The mouth speaking big things to man, and uttering blasphemies to all that is of God, finds a vent in deeds, as the next page will reveal to us.
It has been already remarked that when the Spirit of God, with those in whom He dwells, has left the earth, there will be no restraining power. The full effect of this may not be apparent all at once, for we must not forget a twofold action of the Spirit of God, set forth in this book. One is the unity of the Spirit, displayed in His oneness, in the Church. He that hath an ear, let him hear what “the Spirit” saith unto the churches. Again, “the Spirit” and the bride say, Come. But there is also the seven-fold unity of the Spirit in His relation to the world—the “seven spirits” that are before His throne. The “seven spirits” sent forth into all the earth. Now, the “one Spirit,” personally in the believer, or corporately in the assembly, has nothing whatever to do with the world, except so far as that believer or that assembly is a witness for God to it. Again, the aspect of the Spirit to the world as the demonstrator of sin, righteousness, and judgment (John 16:8), has nothing whatever to do with the believer or the assembly. To the world He says, You believe not on Christ. You are sinners. You have sent the righteous One back to His righteous Father, and you see Him no more. You are under judgment, for the ruler of this world is judged. To the believer He says, Ye have believed that He came out from God. He has washed you from your sins in His own blood. You see Him because He has gone to the Father. You have everlasting life, and shall never come into judgment. The Spirit of God, then, as indwelling the believer, or binding saints together into one, will absolutely cease to be found on earth at the rapture. Not so that other function, which it has been shown He exercises in condemnation of the world’s rejection of Christ. This it is the effort of the world to throw off. This is the spring of all the downgrade movements we hear of, weakening the authority of the Word, and by it leading to the denial of the Son, and through Him of the Father. Complete success in these efforts may not have been attained at the translation of the saints, but its progress will be with giant strides, until at last the beast will express it openly in foul blasphemies.
The Beast From the Sea (IV). War With the Godly Jew. Power Over the Gentiles.
“And there was given to it to make war with the saints, and to overcome them.” In a previous section, we saw that the beast had a mouth speaking big things and blasphemies; here we have the activities of his opposition to the saints; that is, to those who, as we have seen before, are clinging to the Word of God and prophecy, which is the testimony of Jesus. We must ever bear in mind that the old notion, that prophecy is merely the disclosing of future events, is utterly misleading, and lends itself to the most foolish results, as one has repeatedly seen. Prophecy is the disclosure of the place and position, the dignity and honor proper to Jesus, in that future. His rights have been disowned, usurped, misused, by man: and now in the scenes before us, Satan is investing a power without conscience (beast), to trample upon them still further. Prophecy, at such a moment, is of all importance; for it is God’s testimony in the world, by His own people, that everything that is being devastated belongs to His Son; that He is Heir and Lord of all, and that His servants and adherents are waiting for that very kingdom that is being defiled by the invading scourge. It is small wonder, therefore, that the beast makes war upon this minority, and overcomes them. His object is to obliterate the name of God, and to make man run riot during the little while that remains before imprisonment and torment begin. To wipe out God’s witnesses, and to display his own power over the nations of the earth, and to exercise, for his brief span, his authority over every tribe, people, tongue and nation, and bring them under their sway, is that which power is here given him for.
Note the contrast here manifest between the tribes, peoples, tongues and nations, just mentioned, and that special class called earth-dwellers, to which attention has been drawn at other places.
“It was given unto him to make war with the saints.” Let us take advantage of this expression to see that we understand the functions of the several personages at work. This beast we are considering is Gentile, and its representative is a Gentile. When we come to consider the beast from the land, we shall find it to be Jewish, and its representative a Jew. Both are apostate. One represents apostate Christianity the other apostate Judaism. The beast we are considering is the one representing apostate Christianity. In the Book of Daniel we shall find both these powers referred to, only in Daniel we shall get the political, rather than the religious aspect. Look at Daniel 7. It will be found there that the beast of the fourth kingdom has ten horns, and another horn before whom three of the ten fall. This is the beast from the sea, which we are considering. Now, in Dan. 11:36, we shall find mention made of a “willful king.” This is the second beast, the beast from the land. The rise of the second beast appears to be the outcome of the first; that is to say, that the apostate and revived Roman empire, carrying with it all that is effete in Christendom after the saints are gone, is the forerunner of the second apostate and Jewish power that arises in Judea, and who plays into the hands of, and is identified with, the Gentile power in apostasy. It is in effect what we saw in the treatment of the blessed Lord. Herod and Pontius Pilate joined hand; in condemning Him of whom Pilate declared they found no fault. Now in judgment, Jew and Gentile are found in concert to make war on the godly; only at the present stage of our book, the second beast has not yet appeared. It is difficult for us, who have not experienced such things, to appreciate at its proper value what it would be for a repentant, godly Jew to have the image of the beast forced upon him by an apostate ruler of his own people. But he has, alas! brought it upon himself. He thought he could establish himself in his religion before God without accounting for past iniquity. He thought he could establish his place of supremacy among the nations by calling to his aid a kingdom just then the admiration of the whole world. Little does he think that what seems so easy—such a matter to be grasped at is a delusion and a snare of Satan, who has endowed the ruler of the land, and the Gentile power he seeks, for the very purpose of destroying him.
The Beast From the Sea (V). His Worshippers: Their Antecedents.
If there is one class more than another in this Book of solemnities that we are now studying, that strikes us with a peculiar and increasing force every time it recurs, it is that which here presents itself: the class described as the earth-dwellers. The fact that God has dealt with three classes of people at different times, and in various ways, upon this earth, has caused the earth-dweller proper to be overlooked. Of course, any of the sons of men, while spending the period between their birth and death, might be called dwellers on earth, whether of Israel, or the Gentiles, or the Church of God. That, however, is not what Scripture means by an earth-dweller. In 1 Kings 8:27, and 2 Chron. 6:18, we get this very searching question put, “Will God, in very deed, dwell with men on the earth?” Because, if so, He must have an habitation; He cannot be a wanderer in His own Creation, and without a home. Christ, to win man to a home above with Him, has done so, in unfathomable and matchless grace. But if God have an habitation on earth it must be one suitable to Himself, and in the land of His choice. And this is just the whole point of God’s relations with man here. The earth is the Lord’s, and His purpose is to dwell with man; and eventually He will do so. But man—proud, vain, empty man—wants to appropriate all privileges, mercies, and gracious provision on the part of God, and to make the earth his own, and to dwell there; leaving God entirely out of the question. We first heard of earth-dwellers in the Churches; we next heard of them as guilty of the blood of souls under the altar; then we heard of them rejoicing that God’s two witnesses had been slain; and now they are the first to worship the beast—at least, some of them; for even here there is a characteristic attached to them which makes us hope that those alluded to in the fourteenth chapter, if the same (for a slightly different word is used), may give heed to the voice of the angel who warns men to prepare for the final reckoning with Him who made earth and heaven. The characteristic alluded to will then be determined of them. Were their names written from the founding of the world, in the Book of Life of the Lamb (who has since been slain to give effect to that life)? If not, alas for them!
It may be well to take this opportunity to look a little further at this point, which has not been clear to some. “Whose names are not written in the Book of Life of the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” The only obscurity is occasioned by the words, “of the Lamb slain,” which makes it read as if the Lamb had been slain from the foundation of the world. But Rev. 17:8 gives us the same thought without the words in question, so that it reads, “Whose names were not written in the Book of Life from the foundation of the world.” The reason the words, “of the Lamb slain,” are found in Rev. 13, is because it might otherwise have led to the inference that the names were written there irrespective of the great work of redemption, whereas this is conclusive, that the Book of Life is the Lamb’s, and that the need of redemption was foreknown ere a name was written. This having been clearly asserted, it was not necessary to repeat it in Rev. 17, because the leading thought is not “redemption,” but “names inscribed in the Book of Life.” The Book of Life, as such, is a Book from which a name could be removed (Psalm 69:28, Rev. 3:5). Hence the extraordinary favor of having been written in the Lamb’s Book of Life, for that carries with it certain redemption, and is a certain passport to the heavenly city (Rev. 21:27).
“From the foundation of the world” presents an interesting thought as distinguished from “Before the foundation of the world.” The former is “time,” the latter is “eternity.” “From the foundation” occurs seven times. “Before the foundation” occurs three times. Most interesting are these three times to us of this day of grace; for such belong to “eternity, although manifested in time.” The three things referred to are the Father’s love to Christ (John 17:24), the blood of Christ (1 Pet. 1:20); the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ chose us in Him (Eph. 1:4). Oh, the marvelous grace of our God!
The Beast From the Sea (VI). The Resource of the Faithful.
God never yet, in the whole course of His dealings with man, has been known to fail His own when they called upon Him in the day of their calamity. “Call upon Me in the day of trouble: I will deliver thee, and thou shalt glorify Me” (Ps. 50:15). “Ye shall call upon Me, and ye shall go and pray unto Me, and I will hearken unto you, And ye shall seek Me and find Me, when ye shall search for Me with all your heart; and I will be found of you, saith the Lord: and I will turn again your captivity” (Jer. 29:12, 13, 14). But power was given unto this beast (Rev. 13:5). It is permitted that it should make war with the saints, and overcome them. Him whom God sent to be a ruler and deliverer has been despised, rejected, crucified, and now they must wait upon God. He is their only resource. “Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God, that He may exalt you in due time.” In the meantime, there is nothing for it but absolute submission. If any earth-dweller read the words now, let him humble himself, at once; wash, and make his robes white in the blood of the Lamb, at once; look for Him who is coming from heaven, at once; and he will escape these judgments altogether: for he shall be “caught up” with the saints of God to meet the Lord in the air. But when once judgment has begun, Jew or Gentile, whichever you may be; if you have an ear to hear, pay heed to these words: your only remedy then is UNQUALIFIED SUBMISSION. If you are led into captivity, go into captivity. If they slay with the sword, you must be slain. Resistance will not only be vain, but be disobedience. The patience and the faith of a saint will be known by unqualified submission. This was the way the Master triumphed. He was oppressed, yet He humbled Himself, and opened not His mouth. “As a lamb that is led to the slaughter, and as a sheep that before her shearers is dumb, yea, He opened not His mouth.... He was cut off out of the land of the living” (Isa. 53:7, 8). If this was the Master’s resource in the day when the hand of the enemy was upon Him, it is your only resource when the same enemy lays his hand upon you. It is most gracious that this little word of comfort, in a bitter hour, has been vouchsafed. Make the most of it, for “Here is the patience and the faith of the saints.”
Let there be no mistake with respect to those who shall be “caught up,” for now that the truth has got a certain hold on men’s minds, the enemy is sure to make an effort to nullify or pervert it. If there is one truth above another with respect to the future standing out bright, clear, and decisive, it is that the very first act that shalt mark God’s supernatural action will be the disappearance from everyday life all over the world of those who own in sincerity and truth the Lord Jesus Christ. The dead in Christ, and the living remaining ones, will be caught up into the air to meet the Lord. Of those that are left, only two classes will be found, Jew and Gentile and both these classes come under the judgments of the Apocalypse. The enemy is already deluding souls to look for their being caught up while judgments are going on. There is no warrant for it whatever. Two witnesses in Rev. 11, after being slain, and their dead bodies exposed, will have spirit of life from God, and will hear a voice from heaven saying, “Come up hither,” and they will be seen to go up to heaven; but otherwise there will be none, so far as revealed. Judgment cannot begin till the Church has gone; and after that, except in the instance given, there are none to go.
It was hardly to be expected that Satan would leave long untouched this precious truth of the believer’s hope, resting, as it does, upon “This we say unto you by the Word of the Lord.” It is, however, necessary for the Lord’s glory, first, to show the competency of His death to deliver, not only from our sins, but out of the present evil world (Gal. 1:4); second, to satisfy the affection of His heart (John 14:3); third, to be with Him at His second coming to the world, according to Zechariah 14:5, “The Lord my God shall come, and all the holy ones with Thee.” This is at the time His feet stand on the Mount of Olives.
The Beast From the Earth
This beast, whose function appears to be to give moral support to the first beast, comes up out of the earth, not necessarily signifying a settled order, in contrast to the tumult of the people, out of which the first beast is seen to rise; but rather that which is of the earth earthy, as opposed to all that which is spiritual or heavenly in character. If the first beast was a travesty of the One who came in His Father’s name, this is equally so of Him who testifies of the risen One. It had indeed horns like a lamb, but there was no mistaking its voice. It exercises all the authority of the first beast, causing the earth and the earth-dwellers to do homage to the first beast whose deadly wound was healed. It is a testimony to resuscitation. Mark how the earth-dwellers are laid hold of by this power to accept resuscitation, who had rejected or slighted resurrection. It works great wonders in confirmation of its doctrine. It even causes fire to come down from heaven, and earth-dwellers are deluded by it. It deceives the earth-dwellers by many of the signs which were given to it to work before the (first) beast. The earth-dwellers are told to make an image to the beast that has the wound of the sword and lived. The image being made, this (second) beast has power bestowed upon it to give breath to the image of the (first) beast, that it should even speak. It goes further. It causes to be killed all who will not do homage to the image. It further causes all classes, small and great, rich and poor, bond and free, to receive a mark on their right hand, or upon their forehead. It might be the name of the (first) beast, or it might be his number, for the number expressed what it was. It is the travesty of the 8th and 9th chapters of Ezekiel. There, is the image of jealousy; there is the slaughter of all that had not a mark on their forehead. That was executed by six men. And this trinity of evil is expressed by a three-fold six. The beast’s name and this number will exactly correspond.
And these earth-dwellers, who received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved, have been given over to strong delusion, that they should believe a lie; that they all might be damned that believed not the truth, but took pleasure in unrighteousness (2 Thess. 2:10, 11). Thus, the function of this second beast is to deny both Father and Son, through these awful counterfeits of truth. And there can be little doubt that John, who wrote his Epistles after these visions, designated as Anti-Christ—and by the Spirit, of course—this fearful thing that has been under consideration. John alone uses the term Anti-Christ in his Epistles, and most suitable it is to express the energizing power that, as a second beast, of the earth earthy, gave spirit and speech to that which represented the first beast; and thus involved earth-dwellers with the entire system; dragon, first beast, second beast, image, by a mark and perdition: OR, death and deliverance, if God gave repentance to the acknowledgment of the truth. This second beast reigns in Palestine, and is “the king” introduced somewhat abruptly at Daniel 11:36.
In the understanding of these later chapters of Daniel’s prophecy, let the reader be careful to mark four powers at work as well as Satan. The first beast is the king and kingdom of revived Rome. The second beast is the king and kingdom of revived Judaism. The King of the South is Egypt, allied with the first beast. The King of the North is a power not yet in existence. He will be called the Assyrian (Isa. 10:5).
The Lamb on Mount Zion. 144,000 Redeemed From the Earth.
Oh, what a relief to get into the sweet and refreshing atmosphere of the Lamb’s presence once more! After seven pages about those fearful agents of Satan, who are to be the first occupants of the lake of fire, we come to that which, in Division II, marks the first direct symbol of the end: the Lamb is seen standing on God’s holy hill of Zion. There is no spot on the whole earth that God takes such interest in as Zion. “The joy of the whole earth is mount Zion.” God says, “I have set My king upon My holy hill of Zion.” It is not the time for the king yet, but the very mention of the name makes much music in the heavenlies; for the redeeming One stands with 144,000 representatives of the election of grace, and every man bears His Father’s name on his forehead, and His own name also. What an answer to Anti-christ, overleaf! “O Zion, that bringest good tidings”! Out of about 110 times that Zion is mentioned, ninety are in terms of the Lord’s great love and affection for her: so that the place has great, very great significance; and heaven knows it, too. For a voice is heard, as the voice of many waters, and as a voice of great thunder: and the voice is that of harp-singers playing on their harps, and they sing a new song before the throne (how sweet to hear of the throne again!) and before the four living creatures, and the elders; and no one could learn that song but the 144,000 who were redeemed from the earth. Had any one ever gone through such scenes as they had? Had any one ever known, as they had, the value of God’s seal upon them? Had any beings ever known such an escape, and such a Deliverer? Yes, the elders had, and could sing their song too. But it was not the same song. “The theme of joy is but one,” but their song was their very own, for these were redeemed, purchased from the earth; those out from among the dead. These were redeemed from among men; those out of the very clutch of the Devil himself. But these are very precious—virgins, undefiled, these followers of the footsteps of the Lamb. These are very precious—these first fruits to God and the Lamb. Nathanael in character, no falsehood is found in their mouth; they are Israelites indeed, and shall see heaven opened, and the angels of God ascending and descending on the Son of Man.
A large class, of a still larger class, who appear to find “THE CHURCH” anywhere except where God has put it, find it in these 144,000. Whence arises this strange obliquity of vision among those whose love to the Lord Jesus Christ, both theirs and ours, we should never for a moment think of calling into question? It probably arises from two causes, one the consequence of the other. The first cause is that THE CHURCH, that exceptional and unique company, called out of Jew and Gentile since Pentecost, has no connection in any shape or form whatever with the Jew as Jew or the Gentile as Gentile. One new man is the only way it can be spoken of according to Scripture. This by its identity with the Man risen from the dead gives its title, and disconnects it, in the same particular, from Jew or Gentile. Now the Lord’s coming, the second advent spoken of to Jew and Gentile all through the Word of God, does not apply to this “One new man”; and for the simple reason that at that coming or advent it is itself to come with its Head, the Lord Himself. It has a hope, a coming which it looks forward to, but not that above referred to. Its hope is the subject of special revelation (1 Thess. 4:15, 16), where the Word of the Lord declares that “the dead in Christ shall rise first, then we, the living and remaining ones, shall be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord IN THE AIR.” “The dead in Christ” is a mighty company.
The Three Angels
The First Angel Announces Everlasting Glad Tidings.
“And I saw another angel.” The use of the word “another” is necessary because of other angels, which have been mentioned previously; and we find this, with those others, form a series. That this one is first of a group of three, is evidenced by “second” and “third” to those angels which follow this one.
In these days (antecedent to “the Rapture”), the Gospel has the distinctive feature which is attached to its titles. It is The Gospel of the Grace of God (Acts 20:24); the Gospel of God (Rom. 1:1); the Gospel of His Son (Rom. 1:9); the Gospel of Christ (Rom. 1:16); just as before Pentecost it was the Gospel of the Kingdom (Matthew, Mark, and Luke everywhere; Mark connecting it with Isaiah’s ministry). But here it is not the Gospel before Pentecost, nor the Gospel between Pentecost and the Rapture, but the everlasting, eternal, never-terminating Gospel, viz., “Fear God, and give glory to Him who made heaven and earth, the sea and the water-springs.” The reason of its announcement is well defined— “The hour of His judgment is come.” The hearers are equally well defined— “Earth dwellers, or earth-settlers” (for the word slightly varies from the regular form), and “every nation, and tribe, and people, and tongue.” It is here announced in a loud voice by the angel, in view of immediate judgment, but as a testimony it will abide after the judgments are passed, although the class called “earth-dwellers” will no longer exist; for the term “earth dweller” is a contrastive title, as long as there is a class in existence whose final destination, if not already there, is heaven. Nations, tribes, peoples, tongues, will always be on earth, and it will be their home, divinely appointed; and hence those who are called “earth-dwellers” because they have no divine title to it, will either be swept away by judgment after this announcement, or else, accepting it, will be reckoned among the nations. Sealed ones are already safe, and palm-bearers are already safe; for all the angels and all the elders and all the living creatures have worshipped God about them, as we saw in the first great division of the Book. The Lamb is not mentioned in the announcement; but in point of fact there could be no announcement at all if He had not glorified God first, and finished the work given Him to do. It is the “MY WORD,” that identifies with Him; “MY NAME,” that gathers to Him; “MY FATHER’S HOUSE” that heavenly saints are brought into. But, after all, it is an immense thing in itself to hear such glad tidings; for the creature, subject to vanity, to be invited to God’s everlasting purpose of salvation through the Seed of the woman, who is to reign everywhere.
The term “Everlasting Gospel” raises inquiry in some minds. Many, especially those who are supposing that the world is to be converted and turned into a Millennium before Christ comes, look upon it as the same message that has been proclaimed with such perpetual regularity for so many years in their own hearing; people with whom “hearing the Gospel” seems to be the “end,” rather than the “means” to an end. Others have a hazy kind of speculation as to a chance of some kind existing for those who have already let slip their day of grace here. Let both classes divest themselves of their dreams. Christ is not coming to take a kingdom of man’s providing, to crown an edifice raised by missionary box and bazaar. And as to the other class, it worthily accords with ideas of non-eternity of punishment, to have an eternity of privilege always available. Such thoughts are, however, totally foreign to the character of the Gospel proclaimed by the angel in mid-heaven. At that time every one is called upon to worship the beast. If they do, it will be certain perdition, so certain that the beast himself is consigned to the burning flame 1,000 years before even Satan. At such a moment a compassionate God, always thoughtful of His creatures, even in time of judgment, sets in motion what has been true at all times, and will be while He has creatures in existence, “The world is MINE and the fullness thereof...., Call upon ME in the day of trouble” (Ps. 50:12, 15).
The Three Angels. The Second Angel Announces Babylon’s Fall.
“And another, a second, angel followed, saying, Great Babylon has fallen, has fallen.” In the Prophecy of Isaiah it is announced thus: “Babylon is fallen, is fallen; and all the graven images of her gods are broken unto the ground.” The double use of the word “fallen” no doubt follows the Hebrew use, which intensifies the utterance by repetition. But there is doubtless more than this, for Babylon is looked upon all through Scripture as the selected instrument of Satan’s power to disseminate evil, as Israel and the Church were intended to disseminate and show forth God’s light and truth. When Israel was the witness selected by God to show forth to mankind that He was One, Babylon was the exponent and seductress by her multiplicity of idols, and ultimately carried captive God’s people. So with the Church. No sooner was violence found to be powerless against God’s testimony, than deceit, in the mystic Babylon, carried all before it. So that in Babylon the whole machinery of the Devil—manifest and mystic, but mostly mystic—has been carried on. Mostly mystic, because it is the nature of evil to work in the dark, as it is the nature of God to act in the light. Nay, He is Light, and in Him is no darkness at all. Satan and his angels have been the rulers of the darkness of this age. No wonder, then, that the fall of this enormous power has always been, even in the past, a matter of the deepest interest to mankind. Mighty and powerful, relying on her broad walls, on the outer one of which a chariot and four horses could turn round with ease, she was secure till God quenched her manifested power that His purposes might be accomplished. And it was then that her occult powers of mischief strengthened, until all the nations have been made to drink of the wine of the fury of her fornications.
This combination of words, expressing the indignation of God’s anger, needs a little elucidation, lest “anger,” “wrath,” “fury,” etc., should lose their force through lack of power to distinguish each from other. Let it be understood that Rom. 1 reveals two things very specially concerning the Gospel of God. First, His righteousness to every believer. Second, His wrath against all unrighteousness. It is revealed from heaven. Christ is the display of God’s righteousness; Babylon the display of all unrighteousness. Hence the wrath. Where wine is coupled with it, it is to convey the thought of the fury or frenzy produced by the effects of strong drink; to make that which is a natural affection of the soul, and right in its place, assume a punitive characteristic. Thus Jeremiah 25:15: “Take the cup of the wine of this fury at My hand, and cause all the nations, to whom I send thee, to drink it. And they shall drink, and reel to and fro, and be mad.”
Questions have been raised by some respecting chapters 17 and 18, concerning mystic Babylon and city Babylon. Having been accustomed in early days to attribute everything of Babylon, as well as everything of the beasts, to Popery, they now, finding mystic Babylon fulfills the requirements of the Thyatira Church, and of which the beast is the destroyer, do not know what to do with city Babylon, and so they have supposed that a city is to be hastily erected on the Euphrates at the beginning of Anti-christ’s reign, and to be destroyed coincidently with his destruction. Now, the Apocalyptic record leads to no such conclusion. What it does lead us to note is, that a vast and universal system of wickedness, which has corrupted the world and the Church, receives its judgment partly at the hand of man (Rev. 17) and partly at the hand of God (Rev. 18, see verses 5, 8, 20). The Church has been ravaged by the diabolic influences of mystic Babylon; the kingdoms of this world by the same Satanic power that ravaged the Church: so that Christ has been opposed in respect to the two things His heart is set upon. God gives Him the kingdom, God judges His adversary. Man lent himself to corrupt the Church. By man, energized by Satan, shall that system be eaten up and burnt so as to disappear.
The authorities do not admit the word “city” into the section under review; neither is it needed. The downfall of the whole system is announced by this second angel, not merely one of its phases.
The Three Angels. The Third Angel Warns Against Worshipping the Beast.
The action of the third angel is of the deepest importance to all who pass through that awful seven years known as the Crisis Week. The first angel had announced glad tidings of salvation; the second the glad news of Babylon’s fall; the third warns not only of perdition, but of the most excruciating agony day and night, for ever and ever. That condition shall be the lot of all who worship the beast and its image, and receive the mark of its name. Death, therefore, is declared to be the only alternative. Hence, doubtless, the gracious provision of our always merciful and compassionate God, and the sweet words of tender encouragement that follow: for be it ever remembered, that God, who has no pleasure in the death of a sinner, has the pity of a loving Father to His children; and although His holiness and righteousness absolutely demand the extermination of the vile, the rebel, the daring blasphemer; the death of His saints is very precious in His sight. The furnace of affliction may be, as it is, the result of their own doings: nevertheless, He will make it turn to their ultimate blessing if they will but place themselves in His hands.
“The beast—his image, his mark” Solemn thought! All the power of Satan lies behind these three things. They are so arranged that no one shall escape. People must be polluted by one or the other. It is true, that death is the penalty, as it was in the days of the former kings of Rome; but the test is to be of a far more searching character. Then it was the image of the emperor; here, whoever escapes beast or image is convicted by the mark. If anyone have not the mark, he can neither buy provision, clothing, nor conveyance; anything for which payment has to be made, unless he can show the mark. Neither can he sell property; nor, if he be a merchant or shopkeeper, can he vend his ware without displaying the mark. Not by deputy, but personally. No shirking, no evasion, so common now. The object is to bring every one into the net. The Devil’s object is to exterminate all that own God in any form. God’s purpose is to consign to perdition and torment all that own the Devil. It is the last great test before the vials are poured out, and the King—the rightful, sovereign Lord—comes to take His own. There is only one door of escape, DEATH. “Blessed are the dead (that die in the Lord), from henceforth”; they, and they only rest; their works follow them; they shall not lose their reward.
Shall we say that the voice from heaven, which says to John, “Write, Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth,” is that of Jesus, our Lord? Well may we do so; as it is the Spirit that adds His “yea,” and speaks of rest and reward. How gracious to put this message in the prophecy! for it is no part of it. These traits of our absent Lord, which we get from time to time, amidst these judgments, are gems of grace flashing their beauty into our hearts.
It is a little singular that certain Christians should say these words over their saved and unsaved dead, seeing that its force has not yet come into action, and if it had, it is limited to those who die in the Lord. Those who do not, although it is true their works do follow them; yet rest, alas! there will be none. After death the judgment (see Heb. 9:27), and no rest between death and judgment, as we gather from Luke 16:23, 24, which is not a parable. The only true rest must be found now, or it will never be found hereafter. “Come unto Me, all ye that labor, and are heavy laden, and I WILL GIVE YOU REST” (Matt. 11:28). And then, all those “good works which God hath before ordained that we should walk in them” (Eph. 2:10) shall follow us, for “your labor is not in vain in the Lord” (1 Cor. 15:58).
The Two Angels. The Harvest of the Earth.
“By two or three witnesses shall every word be established.” We have just had a three-fold testimony, two of blessing, one of warning. Now we have a two-fold testimony of pure judgment. It is not the King, yet a cloud, symbol of the divine presence, is seen. It is white, for righteousness, pure righteousness, is its characteristic: mercy is no part of it. Like the white throne further on there is no redeeming trait, no blood, no mercy. Upon the cloud sits one like Son of Man, not “the” nor “a.” It is characteristic, rather than personal, here indicated. Upon His head a golden crown; divine, victorious righteousness. In His hand a sharp, efficient unsparing reaping-hook. An angel comes out of the temple (it will be remembered that in the second great division of the Apocalypse, all judgment comes from the temple, not from the throne), and he cries with a loud voice to Him that sat on the cloud, “Thrust in Thy sickle, and reap: for reaping time has come; for the harvest of the earth is fully matured. And He that sat on the cloud thrust in His sickle on the earth; and the earth was reaped.”
Hear the prophet Micah (1:2), “Hear, ye peoples, all of you; hearken, O earth, and all that therein is: and let the Lord God be witness against you, the Lord from His holy temple. For, behold, the Lord cometh forth out of His place, and will come down, and tread upon the high places of the earth. And the mountains shall be molten under Him, and the valleys shall be cleft, as was before the fire, as waters that are poured down a steep place. For the transgression of Jacob is all this, and for the sins of the house of Israel.”
Too much stress cannot be laid upon the fact that, in this second division of the Apocalypse, we are under judgment from the temple. It is the time of Jacob’s trouble. Let us review the past and get a firm grip of the situation. God created the earth for His own glory; He set Adam therein, and put all into his hand. Result: Ruin. Then, leaving open a door of approach, He waited. Result: All flesh corrupted itself, so that He had to bring in the Flood. Introducing Government, He made a new start in Noah. Result: Babel—gross idolatry. So, two thousand years having run, He selected an idolater, cleansed him from his idols by His Word, took him into confidence, called him “friend.” Knowing what was in man, He left no room for final ruin, although He well knew that, as far as man was concerned, ruin would result, as night follows day. But He left no room for final ruin, for His purpose is as certain as that day follows night. So He made an unconditional promise. And, as soon as Isaac was born, He sware by Himself that in Isaac should all the nations of the earth be blessed. Well, Jacob spoils all. Crooked in his mind and thoughts, he dares to make a covenant with God. “If God will be with me... then shall the Lord be my God.” Alas, alas! Ruin; nothing but ruin, multiplied by twelve sons after him. God’s unconditional promise and oath forgotten, man will actually undertake to be and to do for God! Two thousand years more roll by. Christ, Isaac’s Seed, has come. Two of Jacob’s representatives, Judah and Benjamin, kill Him. Ruin. But God must be faithful to Himself! He will. He is. Out of a dead Christ He creates the Church, and puts it safe in heaven. Two thousand more years roll by. Then entering into controversy with Jacob, He empties the earth of all its inhabitants, save a selected few, with which to people the earth afresh, so that He may fulfill His promise and oath made to Abraham, His friend, that “in thy seed” [Isaac (Christ)] “shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.” Now the harvest and the vintage ought to be plain. Men may forget the program, if they have ever taken the pains to read it. God does not.
Will it be credited that a large number of Christians are taught that the harvest here reaped is what they are to look forward to? Will it be credited that another class are taught that to go through the tribulation is to suffer with Christ? Anything, except God’s truth!
The Two Angels. Vintage of the Earth.
Again we have a two-fold testimony of pure judgment, making seven angels in all, and answering in their moral aspect to the seven vials to be poured out by seven angels, all of them out of the temple.
In the harvest of the earth it was necessary to represent the One having the sickle, as like unto [a] Son of Man; and that the white cloud should betoken His prerogatives. Here it is not necessary, for no question ever existed about God’s Vine. “Let me sing for My well-beloved a song of My beloved touching His vineyard. My well-beloved had a vineyard in a very fruitful hill: and He made a trench about it, and gathered out the stones thereof, and planted it with the choicest vine, and built a tower in the midst of it, and also hewed out a winepress therein: and He looked that it should bring forth grapes, and it brought forth wild grapes. And now, O inhabitants of Jerusalem, and men of Judah, judge, I pray you, betwixt Me and My vineyard. What could have been done more to My vineyard, that I have not done in it? wherefore, when I looked that it should bring forth grapes, brought it forth wild grapes? And now go to; I will tell you what I will do to My vineyard: I will take away the hedge thereof, and it shall be eaten up; I will break down the fence thereof, and it shall be trodden down: and I will lay it waste; it shall not be pruned nor hoed; but there shall come up briers and thorns: I will also command the clouds that they rain not rain upon it. For the vineyard of the Lord of hosts is the house of Israel, and the men of Judah His pleasant plant: and He looked for judgment, but behold oppression; for righteousness, but behold a cry” (Isa. 5:1-7) “And another angel came out from the altar, having power over the fire” (of the altar); that is, that which consumes before God in blessing to man becomes the direst of judgments if it is turned against man. “And cries with a loud cry to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Thrust [in] thy sharp sickle, and gather the bunches of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripened. And the angel put his sickle to the earth, and gathered the vine of the earth, and cast the bunches into the great winepress of the fury of God.” So that that which should have set forth the true profession of God’s name upon the earth, has resulted only in wrath to man, who has killed the Heir of the vineyard, and thrust Him out of the inheritance. “And the winepress was trodden without the city” (He suffered without the gate), “and blood went out of the winepress to the bits of the horses, for 1,600 furlongs” (180 odd miles). How the heart turns instinctively to Him, the value of whose blood, and the extent of the reach of which, cannot be measured! Who can fathom what He endured, who, in His own sinless, spotless Person, endured the wrath of God alone and unaided? “The Lamb of God that taketh away the sin of the world,” would they but have come for cleansing; but here it is required. “His blood be on us, and on our children!”
It may be asked, What are the distinctions between the harvest and the vintage? First, let us note the similarities. Both are of the earth, both are reaped, in both the sharp sickle is used, in both the thing reaped is matured. Now note the distinctions. In the harvest the reaper is Son-of-Man-like; in the vintage he is an angel. In the harvest the bidding to reap is by an angel out of the temple; in the vintage it is by an angel out of the altar, having power over fire. In the harvest the bidding is in a loud voice; in the vintage with a loud cry. In the harvest we are not told what was done with the product; in the vintage it was cast into the great winepress of the wrath of God; and it was trodden outside the city, and blood in immense quantity was the result. The harvest represents discriminate, while the vintage indicates indiscriminate, judgment.
The Seven Angels.
In studying the Apocalypse, we are greatly helped by the grouping of certain features, which, although placed at distances from each other, and likely to be overlooked by the more superficial reader, are, nevertheless, exceeding great helps to the one who seeks the great Interpreter’s guidance into “the whole truth.” The three woes were of this nature; they have helped to connect the last trumpet with the last seven plagues. Here we meet with another of these guides. It will be remembered that the Blessed One, Jesus of Nazareth, was, as a Man, approved by God by means of three methods of manifestation outside the ordinary course of what men call the “natural laws of nature”: “Works of power,” “Wonderful things,” and “Signs” (Acts 2:22). These latter always demand more than ordinary attention. If the first two denote the Performer to be a specially endowed Man, the third goes to the extent of saying what Jesus said on one occasion, “If I by the finger of God.” In the original, the word employed is never used except in respect of something done, or to be done, as God, by Jesus; or by the Holy Ghost, in the apostles, after Pentecost. It is a pity that the word was not always translated “sign” in the A.V., as has apparently been done in the Revised Version, because there are six other words used to express the supernatural works of the Lord, none of which come up to this one in importance, great as all are. Now, in the Apocalypse this word is used three times on the divine side. It will be remembered that, at the opening of the second great division, they were spoken of as “finger-posts.” One pointed out the Woman; the second pointed out the Dragon; this, the third, points out the doom of the latter for the persecution of the former. It is stated above that the word is used three times in the Apocalypse on the divine side. Awful to relate, it is given to the second beast to do signs (Rev. 13:13, 14), according to Paul’s prophecy of him (2 Thess. 2:9), where this same word is used. Then in Rev. 16, out of the mouth of the dragon, out of the mouth of the first beast, and out of the mouth of the second beast (also called the false prophet), are seen frogs issuing. These frogs are spirits of devils, working these “signs.” Again, when the first and second beasts are cast alive into the lake of fire and brimstone, mention is made of the second, that he wrought the “signs” wherewith he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast (1St), and them that worshipped his image (Rev. 19:20); so that these “signs” are no counterfeits. They are divinely permitted, just as the Crucifixion was permitted; although the use is in judgment, to deceive those who received not the love of the truth, that they might be saved.
This last great “sign,” then, bringing out the last woe, filling up the measure of the wrath of God, is now presented to us. God give us more than ever to love the truth, which He, at the cost of His Son, has in Him brought in grace to us.
The first great division of the Apocalypse ended thus: “The nations were angry, and Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that Thou shouldest give reward to Thy servants, the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear Thy name, both small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.” This we saw was the orderly summary of events about to occur in connection with the setting up of the reign of righteousness. And let it be remembered that this summary forms the subject of the worship of the twenty-four elders on their faces before the throne of God. And what is the first of these seven solemn utterances? Wrath. The wrath of the nations was met by the wrath of God. Under the fifth seal there had been an erroneous impression that the day of wrath was come. Under the seventh trumpet it had been announced as above, and now, placed between the revelation of the two beasts and the extinction of Babylon, comes these awful judgments, which fill up the measure of God’s outraged Majesty, except upon the instruments themselves of the earth’s corruption. God longs to reward His servants the prophets, and His saints, and those that fear His name.
Episode I. The Worshipping Victors.
“A sea of glass mingled with fire.” Let us get right thoughts of this. The main subject of our episode is Worship. Worship is the approach to God, not only with a suitable estimate of what He is, but with a suitableness at the time of approach. It is not how the worshipper got there, but his suitableness for the presence when there. Now, the first is by blood, the second by water. “This is He that came by water and blood”—Jesus the Christ “not by water only, but by water and blood.” Suitableness of approach being our theme, we can understand that Abram was called from beyond the river. Israel passed through the Red Sea, and afterward through Jordan. John baptized unto the kingdom. Christians are baptized unto Christ—are washed by the water of the Word, because they are already clean through the blood. Water is a symbol of death: no human being can live in it. Defilement in God’s presence would be death. Cleansing, therefore, is thus effected: (1) The worshipper is soiled and unfit; (2) The worshipper is cleansed, the soil is left in the water; (3) The worshipper is clean. Now, under the law, the priests, who alone came into the Presence, washed in the brazen sea, or laver. In this our episode, the same mode of approach is still recognized, only soil there is none. The glass figures the water; as fire represents the purifying judgment passed through. Before the throne (Rev. 4:6) a sea of glass is seen; no fire, because judgment had not begun. The street of the heavenly city is of pure gold, like transparent glass. All these symbols convey the same truth, viz., that the Holy God cannot be approached by a creature without the recognition of purification, whether to be done, or done. The very heavens are not clean in His sight.
This truth once clearly and absolutely recognized, all the rest is plain and evident. Here are beloved Israelites that have been victorious over beast, image, mark, name; having divinely appointed music, which combines their position under Moses and under the Lamb, in a peculiar song. The song of Moses, is triumph over the power of evil by God’s judgments. The song of the Lamb, is the exaltation of the rejected Messiah. Well may they say, “Great and wonderful are Thy works, Jehovah Elohim Shaddai; righteous and true Thy ways, O King of nations. Who shall not fear Thee, O Lord, and glorify Thy name? for Thou only art holy” (that is what the living creatures say day and night). “All nations shall come and worship” (oh, how different to the time when they could hear of God until the word “Gentiles” was uttered, and then go mad!), “for Thy righteousnesses are made manifest” (like saying All Thy judgments about things were right; all Thy doings justify Thee; everything Thou hast done has been right).
And so we have got the promise to Abraham fulfilled at last. Here are his seed, in the presence of God Himself, not only pure and clean themselves, but justifying God in His doings among the heathen, as to His word, “In thy seed shall all the nations of the earth be blessed.”
Does it not make the heart leap for joy and delight to see these beloved ones above? To see them safely housed, and with right thoughts of God and the Lamb. They glorify His name, and declare Him only to be holy and worthy of worship. Through bitter judgments they have learned these things, while we have learned them through the grace, love, patience, long-suffering, and mercy of our God; but the difference has been in His ways, because of His Son, and certainly not because of our deserts. He is sovereign, and has disposed of His creatures as He pleased; but why Israel should be Israel, and the Church the Church, is as inscrutable as Himself, HE IS, and they are, because HE IS. To confound Israel with the Church, or the Church with Israel, or to say that all saints from Adam on are part of Christ’s body, is either to ignore God’s sovereign will and His immutable truth, or it is to dare to introduce the spirit of democracy into the things of God.
Episode II. The Equipment and Commission for Wrath on the Earth.
“And after these things I saw, and the temple of the tabernacle of witness in the heaven was opened.” Let us now be clear about the word “Temple,” which we are considering in contrast to the “Throne.” In the first place, dismiss all thought of any temple erected at any time in Jerusalem. Go to that structure that Moses was commanded to raise, as detailed in Exodus. Forget, for the present, the curtains through which we enter, and behold that erection standing at the further end of the enclosure made by the curtains. That structure is called the Naos, meaning “the House,” or, as here, “the Temple.” It is, in its form, like three cubes placed one in front of the other. Let us enter at the front. Two of the cubes form one apartment; it is the tabernacle of testimony (or witness); the candlestick is there; the table with twelve loaves on it is there. They are the perpetual witness that God was the light and the food of His people. The remaining cube is curtained off. In it is found the ark of the covenant, the censer, and the altar of incense. It was the most holy place, where God dwelt, in contrast to the holy place where the light and the food were. The “holy” and the “most holy” are not now found on earth. They are in heaven, because Christ, the antitype, is there. In Rev. 12 we had the “most holy”; here we have “the holy” (see Heb. 9).
Up to this point, therefore, we have had portrayed to our souls, from Rev. 12 onward, that God abideth faithful. He has stood by His covenant. The ark is the witness of it. The altar of gold, where prayer ascended as sweet perfume to Him, tells it. But here we have this: that light and sustenance from God have been despised, and in the person of Christ, too; for all this golden furniture represents Him, as well as the light and the bread. Judgment, therefore—solemn, sweeping, unsparing judgment—must go forth on all that has despised Him. For all shall honor the Son, even as they honor the Father. So now we see not priests, but angels issuing forth from the holy place, clad in white linen, and girt about the breasts (like Him of Rev. 1.) with golden girdles. Human righteousness and divine righteousness characterize these ministers of His that do His pleasure. “And one of the four living creatures [perpetual witnesses of God’s holiness] delivered to them seven golden vessels, full of the fury of God—the ever-living. And the naos was filled with smoke,” as indicating God’s glory and power. While so, no one could go in (‘Who may stand in Thy sight when once Thou art angry’? Ps. 76:7) till the seven plagues of the seven angels were completed. “And I heard a voice out of the naos, saying to the seven angels, Go, and pour out the seven vessels of the fury of God upon the earth.”
We see now what Peter means when he says that “Judgment begins from the House of God. And if the righteous are saved difficultly, where shall the impious and the sinner appear”? But, as we have seen in Rev. 12, God took up Israel in the most holy place; therefore, they are safe. But when the song went up in the heavenlies, it was also said “Woe to the earth.” It has come. During this present period of God’s grace, believers in Christ, indwelt by the Spirit, and coming together in the name of Jesus in the power of that Spirit, constitute the naos of God (1 Cor. 3:16). Our own individual bodies are called by the same name (1 Cor. 6:19), because the Spirit of God dwells there. The Lord’s body here on earth was so spoken of by Him. In the Holy Jerusalem no structural naos will be found, for the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb are the naos of it (Rev. 21:22). All this shows what extraordinary honor God puts on the body of Christ (which the Church is), and on the bodies of His saints composing it. But they are bought with a price—the precious blood of Christ.
The First Vial: Poured Upon the Earth.
“In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth.” “The Heaven, and the Heaven of heavens, are the Lord’s, the earth hath He given to the children of men;” but “the earth is the Lord’s, and the fullness thereof.” “The heaven for height, and the earth for depth.” God hath set His glory above the heavens, but the earth is found in the depths of wickedness. All flesh has again corrupted His way upon the earth, so the first vessel of God’s fury falls upon the earth. And there is a divine principle in God’s government, which we shall discover at work here. “Be not deceived, God is not mocked; for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. For he that soweth to his own flesh, shall of the flesh reap corruption.” The men who have received the mark of the beast, or worshipped his image, are smitten with a painful and malignant ulcer. Noisome and grievous, no doubt but causing pain—a thing that the self-indulgent feel more than others We may be sure of its being painful and malignant; for when the Lord said to Satan once, “Hast thou considered My servant Job? for there is none like him in the earth, a perfect and an upright man, one that feareth God, and escheweth evil: and he still holdeth fast his integrity, although thou movedst Me against him, to destroy him without cause. And Satan answered the Lord, and said, Skin for skin, yea, all that a man hath will he give for his life. But put forth Thine hand now, and touch his bone and his flesh, and he will renounce Thee to Thy face. And the Lord said unto Satan, Behold, he is in thine hand; only spare his life. So Satan went forth from the presence of the Lord, and smote Job with sore boils from the sole of his foot unto his crown. And he took him a potsherd to scrape himself withal.” So Satan gets thrust with his own lance! “He taketh the wise in their own craftiness.” Poor Job! Those who have sympathized with him in his afflictions, have often felt how much more they deserved it than he. But, indeed, he came out of it nobly. It was grievous, indeed, while it lasted, but it wrought the peaceable fruits of righteousness afterward, and God,—the loving, the faithful,—preached beforehand to him, that godliness hath the promise of this life, as well as that which is to come, by giving him twice as much as before. Oh, yes, we have heard of the patience of Job, and seen the end of the Lord, as well; that He is full of tender compassion, and very pitiful. It has not been thrown away upon us. Every groan of his has taught many an afflicted one to offer praise, and to suffer patiently. And Lazarus, too! full of sores, could not walk, ministered to by dogs! And now, the righteous fury of God falls upon Satan’s friends. “And there fell upon them a noisome and grievous sore.”
There are those worthy of our deepest respect, both for piety and learning, who would prefer the symbolical view of the vials, or, at least, the first four of them, as being more in accordance with the scope and intention of the Spirit of God. We believe there is room for both. The view taken of the first four vials would be this: “First, the ordered and settled parts of the world are smitten as with an ulcerous distemper, where men were branded with subjection to the apostate civil power and his idolatry. Next, there is a judgment on the sea, that is, on the outside regions, where profession of life quite died out. The third representing, by rivers, people formed into a separate condition of nationality, like waters flowing in a distinct channel, under special local influence; and by the fountains, rather the springs, of a nation’s prosperity. All the active principles assume the form of death. The third judgment comes down to smaller details than the former ones; the fourth is on the public supreme authority.”
At any rate, our wisdom is to get hold of moral principles throughout this Book; the physical details, which we also firmly believe, are for that day. There is, however, one point to warn the reader about, and that is the liability to confound metaphor with symbol, or symbol with supernatural fact. A sword going out of His mouth is a metaphor; vials of wrath are symbols. “There was no more sea” is a physical though supernatural fact.
The Second Vial: Poured Upon the Sea.
It will be remembered that the beast was seen rising from the sea, and it was there spoken of as rising from a state of unrest, a tumult of the people. “The wicked are like the troubled sea; for it cannot rest, and its waters cast up mire and dirt. There is no peace, saith my God, to the wicked.”
But the sea is not always upheaved, it is not always subject to the tempest; that is not its normal condition; it has other figures. The waters of the Red Sea were to the Israelite what baptism represents, viz., death. Death to Egypt; life to God in the Wilderness. But, by the word and power of God, death’s power is annulled while His people pass through. It cannot swallow them up. There is no such withholding power for others. Pharaoh and his host, making the attempt, are overwhelmed. They are found dead ; the Israelite is alive and singing on the other shore. Death thus becomes the place where God can work His greatest wonders. It is the sphere where His most signal victories over all the power of man’s great enemy has been accomplished. He is “God that raiseth the dead.” God takes His standpoint just where man cannot stand. Hence we see Jesus walking on the sea, and bidding faith do likewise. So also do we see Him ask Peter to push away a little from the land, while He teaches the people out of the ship. The net gathers out of the sphere of death (to man), and it becomes food to man. A risen Christ feeds His disciples on fish and bread (John 21.).
But to come to the application of this vial. Hear Ezek. 38:19: “In My jealousy and in the fire of My wrath have I spoken, Surely in that day there shall be a great shaking in the land of Israel ; so that the fishes of the sea, and the fowls of the heaven, and the beasts of the field, and all creeping things that creep upon the earth, and all the men that are upon the face of the earth, shall shake at My presence.” The vial poured upon the sea, it became blood—itself the symbol of death. But it is added, “as of a dead man,” so that we get death of three-fold intensity. “So that every living soul died, even the things that were in the sea.” We saw in the last vial a kind of retributive action. We may look for the same thing here; for it is righteousness, pure righteousness. Golden bowls by angels in golden girdles, in enfolding white robes. God has for six thousand years been bringing life out of death. “In the day thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.” But God spake of life through the promised Seed, and Adam called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living. In the death and resurrection of Christ, life and incorruption have been brought to light through the Gospel. So of the saints; the dead in Christ shall rise first. Life out of death is God’s divine order. What has man, by Satan, done? Made death doubly death, by bringing in the second death. Everything that has life (naturally) dies. Man has befouled everything, polluted everything, ruined everything! No wonder, therefore, that God righteously brings it to an end in His wrath, and brings in the times of restitution, or restoration of all things which all the holy prophets have spoken of, notably Isaiah (Isa. 65:17), who says, “Behold, I create new heavens and a new earth: and the former things shall not be remembered, nor come into mind. But be ye glad and rejoice forever in that which I create: for, behold, I create Jerusalem a rejoicing, and her people a joy. And I will rejoice in Jerusalem, and joy in my people; and the voice of weeping shall be no more heard in her, nor the voice of crying.” In that day death is the exception; not the rule, as new; should one die a hundred years old, he is but a child. The span of life will not only exceed that of Methuselah, but death does not come in at all necessarily. This period, in which righteousness reigns, will give place to a new heaven and new earth, in which righteousness dwells; and in which not only tears are wiped away, but death exists no more (Rev. 21:4). In the day of the Lord death exists, for He must reign till He has put all enemies under His feet, and the last enemy is death. In the day of God, therefore, death is not; and those who complete their day under the Lord’s righteous sway, find the last enemy annulled, and “dwell with God’s Beloved, in God’s eternal day.”
The Third Vial: Poured Upon the Water Springs.
The earth and the sea having been visited, the rivers and water-springs are next dealt with under the third outpouring of wrath. They also become blood. They, sometimes in Scripture called living waters, always in motion, as the carriers of blessing, and preventing stagnation and death, now become blood. No more life, no more quenching of thirst, no more refreshment to the weary, no more the carriers of men or merchandise; they become blood. It was so in Egypt. “He turned their waters into blood, and slew their fish.” But it is in the article of food that water occupies the correlative place with bread. With bread and water life is sustained. But who could drink blood? Hence this most righteous judgment, of a most righteous and holy One, who has so judged. The angel of the waters deems it so, for he says, Thou art righteous, who art, and wast, the holy One [it sounds like “He that liveth, and was dead”— “the holy and the true”], that Thou hast judged so. Because they have poured out the blood of saints and prophets; and Thou hast given them blood to drink. They are worthy. Yes, indeed. He is worthy, whose saints they slew. They are worthy who receive at the hand of God that which they did to those for whom Christ shed His blood. Precious Savior! Thy blood was a fountain open for sin and uncleanness. Thou hast given unto them according to their works. And I heard the Altar say, Yea, Lord God Almighty. True and righteous are Thy judgments! The angel of the waters below, and the golden altar, where the prayers of the dying martyrs were made fragrant ere they reached His holy ear, both give their testimony to the righteousness of these vials of final wrath, pent up so long by a long-suffering God, that men had begun to scoff at the delay. But the word of the Lord endureth forever. He had said by Ezekiel, “I will bring upon thee the fury of blood and jealousy.” By Isaiah He had said, “Your hands are defiled with blood; your feet are swift to shed innocent blood.” And the Lord Jesus had said, “That upon you may come all the righteous blood shed on the earth, from the blood of Abel the righteous unto the blood of Zachariah son of Barachiah, whom ye slew between the sanctuary and the altar. Verily I say unto you, All these things shall come upon this generation” (Matt. 23:35, 36).
“And I heard the Altar say.” It will be observed that this differs from the common text. There can, however, be no doubt whatever as to its correctness. In prophetic language an altar has a voice as well as an angel, or the ground from which the blood of Abel spake (Gen. 4:10). In the earlier part of the book the souls of those that were “slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held,” were seen under the altar. Now here that altar which had witnessed their blood is said to cry out to God, and to own that His judgments are true and righteous, and really there is more force given to the utterance than if an angel had spoken. An angel, though a divinely appointed minister, cannot enter into the sufferings of saints so as to have sympathy with them. God can and does. “Our bones are scattered at the grave’s mouth.” God has seen and noted it all. He regards His saints as so many burnt-offerings rising up before Him whose blood, or rather the witnessing altar, calls for wrath and indignation. The Lord may seem to slumber for a season, but when He awakes, as one out of sleep, He will surely avenge their blood on them that dwell on the earth. And now it is at hand. Great Babylon had not yet come into remembrance, though from the beginning the special corruptress of the truth, and drunken with the blood of the saints. But meanwhile the altar could not hold its peace, and the Lord listens and hears. For the God who heeds the groans of the creature, will surely answer the altar’s cry about His slain ones.
“Thou art righteous, O Lord, who art and wast, the holy One.” Not, “and shall be,” as in the ordinary version—a precious exchange, for the word signifies “the mercy” of the holy One.
The Fourth Vial: Poured Upon the Sun.
The source of light and heat is now touched in respect to heat, which is increased enormously, so that men are scorched with a great scorching. This is the burning heat of James, that withers up and consumes all the pride and the glory of man. All the proud boast and arrogancy of the days of his vanity are now forgotten in one excruciating, agonizing woe, which gives him, beforehand, a foretaste of those everlasting burnings that await him in the lake of fire. Such are recalled to our minds by the Lord’s words in Matt. 13. Those who had heard the word, and indeed received it with joy; but had no root in themselves, nothing to lay hold, nothing to take root downward and bear fruit upward. And so, when tribulation or persecution arose, they were stumbled—succumbed, and laid hold of what came first, as long as it took the burden of it off themselves. Having no root in themselves, they were glad to cast themselves on a priest, who undertook (for a consideration) to settle matters for them. And so they could profess a religion that had no root. No wonder that, when the sun arose, they were scorched, and, having no root, were dried up. Now that God’s wrath burns hot against them, their religion is shown at its real value. They blaspheme the name of God, who exercises His authority over these plagues, and are far from repenting, that they might give Him glory.
And in the matter of retribution; it is as evident here, as elsewhere. Men worshipped the sun everywhere in place of God, who trieth the heart and conscience, to unite man with Himself. It was less demand, they deemed, on the conscience, to serve the inanimate than the living God, who trieth the heart. So, as long as they were satisfied with their worship, what mattered aught else? Something to bless or curse themselves or others by, something for self-interest or personal advancement; and a sun-god would do as well as, or better than, any other. But now, their god becomes their tormentor. They made their children pass through the fire to the sun-god; now, their descendants have the furnace heated for themselves, seven times hotter than it is wont to be heated! It was easy to roast God’s children at slow fires, to support the votaries of a harlot, drunken with blood of saints. Now the fire tries every man’s work, and we see of what sort theirs is. They blaspheme the name of God, and repent not to give Him glory.
These things are painful to think about and to write about, but they are written down in the Word to make us think, and the reality of what is written there, is far more evident in the Word itself, than in the littleness of our little thoughts about it. It has been remarked before in these pages that these judgments are intended to reach the heart, or the conscience. It touches the heart of the believer now, for it causes him to praise and worship Him who endured these things, when He endured the wrath of God for our sins, that we might never come under them. It touches the conscience of the one who trembles, but has not yet laid hold of the hope set before him in the gospel. But why not? Now is the accepted time, now is the day of salvation. The glory of the gospel is its immediateness. It is the enemy who has made a prolonged business of it. There is no reason why your conversion should not be as instantaneous as Paul’s. He was converted to furnish a model example: “For this reason mercy was shown me, that in me [the first], Jesus Christ might display the whole long-suffering, for a delineation of those about to believe on Him to life eternal” (1 Tim. 1:16). Words cannot be more explicit than this!
But when once judgment has begun, the conscience is hardened (witness Pharaoh), and these before us who blaspheme, and repent not, testify to it. It is remarkable, too, to notice after the terrible catastrophe of the nations before Jerusalem, and when the millennium has begun, and Israel is dwelling safely in unwalled towns and villages, that Gog—the head of the vast north-eastern powers comes up as a cloud to cover the land, to rob, and, if possible, destroy Israel. Man discredits God, whether in grace or judgment.
The Fifth Vial: Poured Upon the Throne of the Beast.
In the divine arrangement of a God of order, we find that the number seven indicates a full complement of that which has various parts. Except for these various parts, it would be indicated by the number one. It is, therefore, what we may express as unity in diversity. Of this diversity it is helpful to see that it is divided into two unequal parts if it is to represent that which cannot by its nature be broken. We can illustrate both statements in this Book. It will be observed in the Churches, that the first three have “He that hath an ear” before “He that overcometh.” In the last four this is reversed, and we see the reason; in the first three, repentance is possible; in the last four, the Lord’s coming is the only resource. In the seals we saw the first four, grouped by providential judgments. So in the trumpets, the first four are grouped, and in the same order as here under the vials; i.e., earth, sea, rivers, heavenly bodies. Only there it was partial; here, it is totality expressed. We may therefore expect to see the remaining three grouped together with an identity of purpose similar to the three woes, to wind up matters (by judgment), so as to clear the way (the object of all the Book) for the REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST in Revelation 19. In that chapter we shall enter upon a new series of events, in which Christ Himself, personally, will intervene. We shall then see that the first great division of our prophecy was an estimate of the world at large in judgment; the second great division, at Revelation 12, an estimate of the world at large, but specially as relating to Israel. The entry of Christ in person will bring in the King of kings as the answer to the last, and the Lord of lords as the answer to the first. Read prophecy as you will, it never alters God’s intention, which is to exalt His Son in a three-fold way. The second psalm is the official decree concerning three things: Christ and His Church in purpose, as revealed subsequently, v.7; God and His King, v. 6; Christ and His inheritance, v. 8. All prophecy has but one object, to testify of these things; and, in detail, to gather out of His kingdom all things that offend, and them that do iniquity, and cast them into a furnace of fire. Under this vial the throne of the usurper is darkened, and his subjects are found blaspheming God, and gnawing their tongues in anguish. Under the next, we shall see preparations for the biggest battle the world has ever known; when both beasts, their followers, all the kings and their armies, are finally overthrown. Then the last, in which everything Babylonian is finished; there is nothing more left to judge; Satan is shut up, and the earth keeps her Sabbath of 1,000 years under God’s King.
It has been remarked above that we might expect to see the last three vials grouped together. They are so; and in this way, namely, that each one is directed at that which, during the mystery of God, has been the vehicle of Satan’s power over men. The first is that under review, the throne of the beast and his kingdom, to which Satan has given his authority. The second is the Euphrates, the river of Babylon, the vicinity from whence all the soul-corrupting doctrines of Satan have emanated. The third is the air, of the power of which Satan has been, and still is, the prince. First, western; second, eastern; third, universal. First, Satan’s king and kingdom; second, Satan’s priest, prophet, and king (for they all act together); and third, the whole civil and ecclesiastical structure set up by Satan in daring rebellion to God’s authority, and in contravention of all His plans of blessing to man during 6,000 years. We can see, then, how thoroughly and exhaustively the seven plagues fill up the wrath of God against all the sources of evil, so that their evil influences shall not even exist during the rule of God’s King. Not that evil ceases to be, for the loosing of Satan after the Millennium shows what is possible; but man’s heart, susceptible to evil, will not be acted upon by one who desires his ruin, but by One who desires his blessing. Though inferior to what God is doing now by His spirit’s testimony to Christ, its blessing to the earth will be beyond parallel.
The Sixth Vial: Poured Upon the Euphrates.
In the divisions of sevens into four and three, spoken of in the last page, it might be asked why, in the churches, it should be three followed by four; while in seals, trumpets, and vials, it is reversed, viz., four followed by three. This is interesting, because it is in these peculiarities that the characteristics of the divine teaching are shown; and when once they are known—as was remarked at an earlier stage—they become the key to the interpretation of a larger and wider range of truth. Now, in the divisions before us, subjects are looked at from two points of view, the divine and the human. The divine is met by three, the human by four. As illustration of the divine: Father, Son, and Holy Ghost; Spirit, water, blood. As illustrating the human side: four evangelists to represent adequately the Christ; four living creatures on the throne, heads of creation in symbol as to that which has to do with man. As to that which has to do with God, they cry day and night, Holy, holy, holy. Now, in the churches, the heavenly being the prominent thought, the divine side comes first, but in all the rest—seals, trumpets, vials—the earthly is the prominent thought; hence the human side comes first; man is dealt with as man; then God acts in the last three, on behalf of Christ. If this seems mystical, it must be remembered that all prophetic truth is mystical, i.e., understood by the instructed, but dark to all else.
And now as to the sixth vial. We saw, in remarking upon the fifth, that the throne of the beast was smitten. This was a preliminary action towards the true King’s return. The false king, the usurper, is smitten, and all his boasted glory turned into howlings of blasphemy, and gnawing misery of pain. This was step one; here we have step two. The water of the Euphrates is dried up, that the way of the kings from the sun-rising may be rendered easy of approach. There is to be a battle, in which all the forces of the enemy are to be concentrated. It will be the whole world concentrated to do battle against Jerusalem, to annihilate it once and forever from the face of the earth. Kings from the east, i.e., of all countries beyond the Euphrates, who, the river being dried up, will enter Palestine from the north; kings from the west, summoned by miraculous agency by spirits of demons, sent forth by dragon, beast, and false prophet to the powers of the Roman Empire. These join the army from the east at Megiddo, on the shores of the Mediterranean. Their forces united, they will march against the city, certain of victory. But the action of Revelation 19 must tell its own story of the result, in its own place. One very solemn and almost startling announcement is heard—we know His voice. Sardis heard Him say, “I will come as a thief.” Laodicea heard His caution about nakedness. Can any belated traveler, once a professor in those churches, have struggled through to this bitter end? Better see to it now, if such be a possibility.
Armageddon, which means the mountain of Megiddo, is a reference of considerable interest to the prophetic student, because it represents the locality of the last decisive battle between the hosts of heaven and hell. We had in Revelation 12 The decisive battle in heaven, which rid the heavenly places of Satan and his hosts, who were cast down to the earth. But now, the earthly places have to be delivered from the hosts of Satan, represented by the men of the earth, who have been deceived by his influence. As usual, the Spirit of God instructs us upon the principle of truth already enunciated. Judges 5:19 tells us that “the kings came and fought. Then fought the kings of Canaan in Taanach, by the waters of Megiddo [place of troops]; they took no gain of money. They fought from heaven.” Here we find the true import. God is fighting from heaven for the deliverance of His people.
The Seventh Vial: Poured Into the Air.
The closing scene hastens on apace. The throne of the beast has been touched; the devil, beast, and false prophet have sent out their summons in hot haste; and, now, the last vial comes upon the air, lately the sphere whence all the malice and deceit of Satan proceeded. Temple and throne now join. The voice of their Sovereign has finished in principle: all that follows is but detail. Immense indeed, but detail. The announcement has been made, the King is at hand. The demonstration of divine majesty that took place when the seven angels received their commission, is again heard at its close. But the closing earthquake surpasses everything that has ever been experienced since man has been upon this earth. The great organization is divided into three parts. The cities of the nations that have participated with her in her last crowning act of guilt fall, and she herself comes into remembrance before God, to give her the cup of the wine of the fury of His wrath. Let it be remembered that Babylon has been the author of every species of spiritual wickedness upon the earth since the Flood; that she had been on earth for Satan, what the Church should have been for Christ. Popery is only that phase of Babylon which ran its course coincidently with the Church. The power of Babylon was bequeathed to Rome, and Julius Caesar was the first Emperor Pontifex that could take up the legacy of Attains III.; but before that time all spiritual wickedness done on earth was done by Babylon. All the various forms of idolatry. The oldest Babylonian Semitic inscription, allowed by God to be dug up at this the time of the end, is that of Sargon I., B. C. 3800, in which the sun-god Sippara is mentioned. Bel, the third in their trinity of Anu, Ea, and Bel, is stamped upon their early bricks. He was the Zeus of the Greeks, the Jupiter of the Romans. Instar (Venus), under the names of Ashtoreth, Astarte, queen of heaven, queen of Babylon, queen of the gods, and to whom cakes were offered, is identical with the female and child worshipped in the mystic Babylon. The sun-god was called “judge of heaven and earth, king of judgment.” Rimmon, governor of heaven and earth, was the god of the air. But enough has been said to show us why the last vial is poured upon the air, and why such dire judgments fall on Babylon as the corrupting power of the whole earth during the whole of its history. A righteous and holy God pours out His pent-up indignation upon that which has usurped His divine prerogatives, and poisoned and perverted every stream of blessing that God intended for the happy well-being of the sons of men.
“And every island fled away.” Solemn thought for a united kingdom. Mountains—not found; they disappear. And thus every spot upon the earth, together with its envelope, the air, have felt the effect of the fury of God’s wrath.
A great hail, stones of a talent weight (125 lbs.), falls from heaven. Men are still hardened; they blaspheme God. Thus grace and judgment make no impression on man. Under each, God is blasphemed.
Solemn reflections press themselves upon us as we think that God’s long-suffering and God’s judgments are both to end with similar result in man, unregenerate man, man apart from the knowledge of God in Christ. It is to be remarked that both Peter and Jude speak of such men as “brute beasts made to be taken and destroyed.” Not that God made them so. “God made man upright” (Eccles. 7:29). Two things conduce to their ruin. Jude tells us one: “What things they know naturally [that is, by the light of nature, as men speak], in these things they corrupt themselves.” Paul tells us the other: “They received not the love of the truth that they might be saved.” And to writer and reader comes this question, “Who maketh thee to differ from another?” (1 Cor. 4:7). Only God.
Mystery: Babylon the Great, the Mother of the Harlots and of the Abominations of the Earth.
Very few words are needed here. The first portion gives us a description of the great whore, and the people, multitudes, nations, and tongues over which her influence has extended. Kings of earth have trafficked with her; earth-dwellers have been intoxicated by her, deprived of a right judgment by means of her idolatries. The angel then carries the seer into a solitary place, and in the power of the Spirit shows a picture of what is passing, and afterward explains it. A woman, clad in purple and scarlet, decked with gold, precious stones, and pearls, with a golden cup in her hand, filled with the foul filthiness of her influence, her name plainly written on her forehead, is seen seated upon an imperial power, which has been before described to us—the beast from the sea. Supported by this diabolical earthly power, and drunk with blood of martyrs of Jesus, sits this thing that called herself The Church. Amazed by the sight, the beholder can scarce contain himself with wonder. Was this thing, then—presided over by a being, allowing himself to be called “our Lord God the Pope,” —a mechanism of religion devised by the Devil? and had it been a vile sham all through—personating the real thing for hire?
Let us now gather up the explanation of this vision, remembering that the beast (first beast) is spoken of in two ways; first, personally; second, as a power (“The dragon gave it his power, his throne, and great authority”). The beast (person) lived once, died (Rev. 13:2), will come up into existence again, will be cast into the lake of fire. Four phases. Earth-dwellers will be astounded, i.e., those whose names are not in the Book of Life. One, who came in His Father’s name, was discredited. One coming in his own name will be received. Strong delusion is judicially appointed to that end. The seven heads represent Rome, where the woman is located. They also represent seven kings—five had passed away, one was present, one should come and pass away. The beast (person) would, by the circumstances before explained, be an eighth, and yet one of the seven. His end, as before shown, would be the lake of fire. The ten horns are ten kings, not coming into existence till the hour of the beast, when they will receive each a kingdom, and reign as kings.
Babylon the Great Is Fallen, Is Fallen
In the former page it is the woman, mother of harlots. The ecclesiastical side of her character, depicted in Thyatira under the figure of Jezebel, a persecuting worshipper of Baal. We have seen what her doom was, to be hated and utterly destroyed by the ten kings confederate with the beast. But, as it has been shown, there is a larger and wider aspect of Babylon,—not merely as a religious power, and ruling the religions of the world, and killing or corrupting God’s people. It has been shown that her baneful influence has infected governments, and all commerce. She has caused men to forget that all power belongs to God; and that the powers that be are ordained of God; that, instead of looking up to Him who has appointed them, nations have looked for support to those whom they govern. No doubt it was by means of the harlot, governments and the dealings of the world were corrupted. No doubt in her was found the blood of all God’s prophets and saints. But she is looked at here more as a great city, influenced by the power that was at work in the harlot—Satan’s power, perverting and rendering negative all those things which should have given glory to God. Here, then, we find it in its true character. Its falseness made it the power it had become. Luxury and wealth, and all the things men go after, are not what they seem to be. In her judgment all this enchantment is dissolved. It is seen in its real character. Demons live in it; every foul spirit dwells in it, and everything hateful and unclean. But at one fell stroke men are disillusioned. That which had such a place, such a hold, gave such an interest to everybody in respect to ease, wealth, luxury, refinement—is gone! When the ten kings had done their work of destruction she might yet have said, “I sit a queen,” but in one hour judgment is come.
Final Praise and Worship in Heaven. Announcement of the Marriage of the Lamb.
The glad and joyous paean of praise is heard in heaven from a great multitude of people. Crowds are saying, “Hallelujah! The salvation, the glory, the power of our God! True and righteous are His judgments! For He hath judged the great harlot, which corrupted the earth with her fornication, and has avenged the blood of His servants at her hand.” A second time they shout, Hallelujah! And her smoke goeth up forever and ever. Then the twenty-four elders, and the four living creatures, fall down and do homage to God who sits upon the throne, saying, Amen! Hallelujah! A voice then comes out of the throne, saying, “Praise our God, all ye His bondsmen, and ye that fear Him, small and great.” Thus all heaven, from end to end, resounds with Hallelujahs! No event, but the death of the Lord Jesus, has been made so much of in the Word of God as giving such intense satisfaction; and, indeed, there is none, for it represents the abuse and perversion of all the grace, patience, forbearance, and long-suffering. The watchword of the blessed One: “I say unto you that ye resist not evil,” has been taken advantage of during nearly nineteen centuries; and now this is the righteous requital by God in vindication of His Son. For this is the point here. God had His own reckoning with her. This records the reckoning on behalf of the suffering Son. Hence, the marriage of the Lamb is the correlative subject. It may be that the voice that comes from the throne on more than one occasion is that of Jesus. It will, however, be observed, how He seems purposely not named all through. This is for several weighty reasons. First, it is God’s vindication of His Son. Second, it is the unfolding of God’s estimate of iniquity, unchecked, while that Son has been set forth as a Savior. Third, it is that greater éclat might be given at His revelation proper. His personal manifestation to the world—the second coming, the second advent, the coming in glory—all the many aspects in which that return has been spoken of, except one; and that was the snatching up of His waiting ones from the earth, before judgment began. This was His promise all along to any who waited for Him; and He carried it out to the letter. Now, His marriage to such (His church, His body) is to take place; she is absolutely fit for Him in every way—no spot, no stain, no fault—absolutely perfect. And she is seen clad in white linen, the symbol of her purity even as He is pure. He made her what He would like her to be. This is the result of the Cross; and now comes the public display: “For the marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready.”
Christ in Person
Revelation of Jesus Christ. Heaven Opened.
When the Lord Jesus stood before the high-priest, the latter, standing up, said to Him, “I adjure Thee by the living God that Thou tell us if Thou art the Christ the Son of God. Jesus says to him, Thou hast said. Moreover, I say unto you, from henceforth ye shall see the Son of man sitting at the right hand of power, and coming on the clouds of heaven.” On the right hand of power He has been sitting while He has gathered His beloved Church to Himself. Now the second part of His statement is fulfilled. It is the time of Matt. 24:30: “They shall see the Son of man coming on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory”; of Mark 13:26: “Then shall they see the Son of man coming in clouds with great power and glory.” Heaven had opened for Stephen to see Him; now it opens for Him to come forth, in righteous power, as the faithful and true One. The true and faithful Witness, in judgment, coming forth in power, to quell every adversary. His eyes as a flame of fire penetrate with divine judgment, searching everything. He has many royal diadems for His sway is universal. “All power is committed to Me.” He had a name written, but none, save Himself, could fathom its immense import, for, though displayed as Man, He is nevertheless Son of God. And “who knoweth the Son but the Father”? His vesture, dipped in blood, signaled Him as the avenger of blood. His name is the Word of God, that which He always is, and was, from, and in, the beginning; but now, making all good in judgment. The armies in heaven are the triumphant trophies of His grace, and their garments, the righteousness which is the product of divine righteousness; good works that God hath before ordained that we should walk in them. These followers of His—these called and chosen and faithful of Rev. 17:14—follow on white horses; that is, they are carried on the same power that carries Him. Clad in robes of His providing, He, according to the prophecy of Isaiah 49, presents Himself in power. “The Lord hath called Me from the womb; from the bowels of My mother hath He made mention of My name: and He hath made My mouth like a sharp sword, in the shadow of His hand hath He hid Me; and He hath made Me a polished shaft, in His quiver hath He kept Me close; and He said unto Me, Thou art My servant; Israel, in whom I will be glorified. But I said, I have labored in vain, I have spent My strength for naught and vanity: yet surely My judgment is with the Lord, and My recompense with My God. And now, saith the Lord that formed Me from the womb to be His servant, to bring Jacob again to Him, and that Israel be gathered unto Him: (for I am honorable in the eyes of God the Lord, and My God is become My strength:) yea, He saith, 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.”
This is the blessed One who now reaps the fruit of His toil, but shares it with His people; for they, with Him, rule the nations with a rod of iron. The other characteristics are peculiar to Himself personally.
Of His three names, the first, no man knows but Himself. The second was the name known to faith, the same that judges at the last day; the third, open, manifest to the sight of all, King of kings (Jew), Lord of lords (Gentile).
Day of glory that all creation waits for! Consummation of all that the whole creation groans and travails in pain together until now for! Token of deliverance from the bondage of corruption, and entrance into the liberty of the glory of the sons of God! It has begun. The night is over. The Sun of righteousness has arisen with healing in His wings.
The Great Slaughter. Beast and False Prophet Cast Into the Lake of Fire.
The opposition of Satan, and of man, through Satan, which has been going on since the world began, against the Lord of hosts, finds its culmination here; for every available power on the earth has been gathered together for one last and supreme effort. To suppose there could be any result but one, is absurd; but blindness is ever the accompaniment of sin. The Devil, who has thus set all his agents at work, does not appear on the scene. He seems to be reserving himself for further effort; and, indeed, it is intended that it should be so, as we shall presently see. An angel, in the place of supreme power, with loud voice, invites the ministers of judgment to come to a feast of God’s providing, that they may consume the myriads that have come that they may be broken with a rod of iron, and dashed in pieces as a potter’s vessel. Kings in abundance are there; commanders of a thousand men; brigades, and lesser divisions; cavalry and infantry; line and volunteer; pressed and mercenary service; for it must be remembered that East and West are joined in this final attack, the greatest that has ever been made. The whole power of Satan committed to the beast is in exercise, according to Rev. 13:4. They did homage to the dragon, because he gave the authority to the beast, and they did homage to the beast, saying, Who is like to the beast? and who can make war with it?
So the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, are gathered together to make war against Him that sat on the horse, and against His army! The result is one of the most appalling character. Enoch and Elijah had been taken to heaven without dying; they had been active for God in testimony against evil. Here are two beings active for evil in testimony against God, thrust alive into hell-fire without the preliminary of death! Their awful punishment, more severe even than Satan’s, who, at least, has a thousand years more respite. And thus we see the termination of secular (military) and religious (priestcraft) wickedness, the two elements of which the world is made up; for the sword was put into the hand of Noah, as far as earth was concerned; while God, by the medium of sacrifice and priesthood, of His own appointment, until Christ should come, secured the spiritual homage of His creatures. The Devil, getting hold of both, puts the sword into the hand of the beast, and spiritual manifestations into the hand of the false prophet. The latter plays into the hands of the former. Both play into the hands of the Devil, man being the victim of their ruin. The rest of the combatants are slain by a word from Him that sits on the horse (Isa. 11:4): “By the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked.”
The prophet Zechariah, who gives us exceedingly vivid and interesting accounts of these closing scenes, thus describes the effect on the combatants gathered before Jerusalem, and the way in which the word from the lips of the Lord will affect them: “Their flesh shall consume away while they stand upon their feet, and their eyes shall consume away in their sockets, and their tongue shall consume away in their mouth. And it shall come to pass in that day that a great discomfiture from the Lord shall be among them; and they shall lay hold every one on the hand of his neighbor, and his hand shall rise up against the hand of his neighbor” (Zech. 14:12, 13). Blind, speechless, the flesh dropping from their bones, what a spectacle of man who dares to lift up his puny hand against the Lord! And the horse, the mule, the camel, and the ass—every beast in their camps must suffer as their masters! Man on the same level as his beast!
Satan Imprisoned in the Bottomless Pit for a Thousand Years.
It is not Christ, but an angel, who now descends from heaven, armed with power. It recalls to our minds the authority committed to Peter by the Lord: “I will give to thee the keys of the kingdom of the heavens; and whatsoever thou mayest bind upon the earth shall be bound in the heavens; and whatsoever thou mayest loose on the earth shall be loosed in the heavens.” We know how the above divine commission was wrested from Peter, and turned by the harlot church to her own purposes. But Babylon is fallen, and retribution has come on the deceiver of the nations, the one whose kingdom Babylon was. The dragon—that old serpent, the Devil, Satan—is laid hold of, bound with a chain, thrust into the abyss, and the key turned upon him, and a seal set upon his prison, that he should not any more deceive the nations until the thousand years were completed. After this he must be loosed a little season. The earth shall enjoy her Sabbath of rest, and blessed will it be; but, alas! man’s heart has once more to be tested. Was Satan’s power annulled? or was man still amenable to his temptations? This we shall see further on. In the meantime let us take a review of the past. If we were considering God’s ways in Israel, we should find that He worked in periods or cycles of seventy weeks of years. But in respect to the world as a whole, there can be no question that He has been working on the principle of a week of seven thousand years, of which it was His intention that the seventh thousand should be a Sabbath. At any rate, the last period is a Sabbath, and it is a thousand years. We recall Peter’s words, 2 Pet. 3:8: “But let not this one thing be hidden from you, beloved, that one day with the Lord is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.” And he is clearly looking to the dissolution of a state of things, and the ushering in of a new era, going beyond the thousand years we are considering into the vast eternity beyond it, which is designated “the day of God.” This in question is the day of the righteous reign of the Lord. But what of the six previous days? They may be divided into three distinctive periods: (1) Creation, to God’s promise and oath to Abraham; (2) Abraham to death of Christ; (3) Death of Christ to return of Christ in glory. Put it another way. First two thousand, the Gentiles; second two thousand, Jews; third two thousand, Church of God. In the first epoch, individuals were subjects of His grace; in the second, principally one nation; in the third, a company gathered from the first and second to form a NEW class altogether—a bride for His Son.
This forms what is called the fullness, or the full complement of the Christ. Hence it is called His body. It is necessary to Him for the display of what He is. It will ever have this subordinate character, viz., the display of His glory. His glory is to have the display. Its glory is to be the display. Hence the beauty of the symbol, “The Bride, the Lamb’s wife”; because under these closest of all relationships we never lose the place of subjection to Him whose glory we display. The thought of equality is utterly foreign and unknown to these divine orderings. Equality exists only, and could exist only, in Godhead—Father, Son, Holy Ghost. The Son may set forth the Father’s glory, the Holy Ghost the Son’s; but these divine manifestations are but to show us the infinite glories of the divine equalities, and by these we learn how to show subjection. It is only by these displays of the divine persons, and especially by the Son (we beheld His glory, a glory as of an only begotten with a Father), that we have learned the divine, and yet subject position. Man could have taught us nothing of this, for man is himself in insubjection. Woman, in a day of incipient apostasy, is claiming to be the equal of the man! God’s order never can be disturbed without serious consequences ensuing. The head of the woman is the man, the head of man is Christ, the head of Christ is God. Oh, glorious position! to be forever subject to Christ! Oh, glorious position, to have, forever, such an Object!
The First Resurrection and Millennium
This is the first resurrection, the resurrection of the just, and it is most important to see why it is introduced here. It is for the express purpose of showing us the three classes of persons who have their part in it. First, thrones, and sitters thereon. We have, in the early part of this Book, seen them as twenty-four in number; that is, two twelves, for administrative purposes. It is not necessary here. “Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world?” “Know ye not that we shall judge angels?” It is enough, therefore, to say there were thrones seen, and sitters on them. In Daniel 7:9, thrones are seen in position, but no reference is made to sitters thereon. And we now quite know why, for the rapture was not revealed. As to this scene before us, the rapture has taken place somewhere between Rev. 3 and 4 but it is not the object of this Book to reveal it. The rapture is pure grace, but the day of the Lord is pure righteousness; as distinct as the first and the second coming of the Lord. In fact, the rapture is the Lord’s method of rewarding those of whom He spoke when He said, “Blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed.” Of course, those who suffer in the tribulation cannot partake of a thing that has already taken place; but He makes such partakers of the first resurrection. If there are any who have lost their bodies for the witness of Jesus and the Word of God, or if there were any that had refused to worship the beast or his image, or to receive his mark in their foreheads or in their hands, they also, if they had been put to death, should be partakers of the first resurrection, and live and reign with Christ a thousand years. The rest of the dead (the unjust) lived not again until the thousand years were ended.
And what is the divine estimate of these partakers of the first resurrection? Just what the Lord had declared. “Blessed are they that have not seen and yet have believed”; and holy, too; for it is this separateness that is holiness. On such the second death hath no power. And now, when Christ takes His throne, they on thrones are priests of God and of Christ; and kings, too, for they shall reign with Him a thousand years. By the Holy Ghost they were priests to God on earth, and by the same anointing were to be kings when the time for reigning came. Alas, that so many, seduced by Satan’s wiles, should grasp at the shadow of it in this world, and forget the substance revealed in this scripture! The souls of those that cried from the altar in Revelation 6 get their full answer here. So do those for whom they were told to wait, viz., those who should be slain as they were, and, under the desolator (that is, the beast, who wishes them to worship him or the image, the desolation), be put to death.
Momentous as everything in this section is, the first sentence in it surpasses all the rest. The mention of thrones in Revelation 4 as adequate witnesses of the righteous decrees of THE throne, necessitated the mention of the number of them. Here the prominent thought is, not only that there are thrones, and that there are occupants of them, but judgment is given to those occupants. They are judges, not, as before, witnesses of judgment. The object, of course, is to show the extraordinary position of honor and dignity that association with the Head of all authority and power confers upon man. Christ is exalted by this astonishing power put into man’s hands. He has been pleased (wonderful thought!)—He in whom the fullness of the Godhead dwells bodily—to identify Himself with the nature of man (Heb. 16), thereby exalting it that He might exalt Himself in it. And let it be well understood, that when He exalts the creature for His own exaltation, no place can be too high for it, provided only it be subordinate to Him. The principle of the whole matter is enunciated in Genesis 41 in respect of Joseph’s exaltation. The question there propounded (v. 38) is, “Can we find... a man in whom the Spirit of God is?” The answer is in v.40.
Satan Loosed Out of His Prison for a Little Season. His Doom.
The fact of reigning with Christ during the thousand years is here made known, but not the details. It is no part of the object of this Book. Ample allusion, sufficient for comfort and encouragement, is made in the Prophets. But, as always throughout the Word of God, there is nothing to stimulate curiosity. All that is practically necessary is amply disclosed. All the rest is for the host, not for the guest to be occupied with. We pass, therefore, at once, to, “When the thousand years were finished, Satan shall be loosed from his prison”; but, as we have been informed, only for a little time. In that short space allotted to him, “he will go out to deceive the nations which are in the four corners of the earth” [or, as we should say, east, west, north, and south]. “Gog and Magog.” These are symbolical names, taken from the previous reference to the northern powers, Russia, etc., which were gathered together before the Millennium, or at its commencement; (for Gog comes up when Israel is dwelling safely in unwalled villages, and thinks to make them an easy prey, but is destroyed by God with a very great destruction). This is at the beginning of the Millennium. But in the scripture under notice, these powers are spoken of symbolically, to denote a similar kind of gathering after it; only now gathered at the direct instigation of Satan, which was not the case before. It shows that in spite of all that has been done for man, by the personal reign of the Lord, and the restraint of Satan’s power, man has no real fear of God, nor love to Him; while, on the contrary, he is ready to place himself in Satan’s hands, for evil against God’s people; for, under Satan’s leadership, they go up over the breadth of the earth, and compass the camp of the saints, and the beloved city Jerusalem, the City of the Great King, and His beloved people under Him. But this is the LAST act of opposition, and God marks it with signal and final judgment. Fire comes down out of heaven from God, and devours them. As to the Devil, who deceived them, he here meets his final doom. He is cast into the lake of fire and brimstone, where the beast and the false prophet already are. And thus the deceiver and his accomplices, as a trinity of evil, are swallowed up in a common doom. And not only so, but they shall be tormented day and night, forever and ever.
Having come, at last, to an end of the source and spring of all evil and misery to man, we have only one more sorrowful thing to behold, and that is solemn beyond compare. The dire effect of 7,000 years deceit has produced a harvest too big for the mind to contemplate. At such a moment, how suitable for a renewed heart to pause, and give thanks to God, who sent His Son, “That through death He might annul him who has the might of death, that is, the Devil; and might set free all those who through fear of death through the whole of their life were subject to bondage.” The power of death was never possessed by the Devil over man, till man put himself under it. It is not, as the wicked say, that God created man only to destroy him; this is kindred to another wicked statement, that God created a hell to put men into. Both statements are utterly false. God created man upright, for His own glory—for His creature’s unalloyed blessing. Hell was not prepared for man, but for the Devil and his angels. It was entirely man’s fault that he delivered himself into Satan’s power, and ruined himself and his posterity. So far from God willing it, He had a Deliverer all ready, that the weakness and default of His creature might not be hopeless. But “God is not a man, that He should lie; neither the son of man, that He should repent: Hath He said, and shall He not do it? or hath He spoken, and shall He not make it good?” (Num. 23:19, 20). God had said: “In the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die” (Gen. 2:17). The Devil said: “Ye shall not surely die” (Gen. 3:4). The choice was made, the penalty incurred. Dispute the righteousness of this, who dare?
The Great White Throne.
Of all the solemn scenes depicted in the Scriptures of eternal truth, without doubt this far exceeds them all. A throne is always a most impressive place. It is intended that it should be so. It is to strike the beholder with awe at the power, and dignity, and majesty of the one who sits upon it. In this case it is no other than God, great and terrible in judgment. One of the latest efforts of Satan is to lessen in men’s minds the sense of dignity. The laugh, the sneer, the free speech affected by man in these last days, is one of the divinely indicated signs of impending judgment. But this is a scene which will reach the most depraved. All illusions of Satan, or of man’s mind, have no place here. A great white throne is seen. Righteousness in judgment; no blood, no mercy. Just recompense. No appeal. So searching is it, that there is nothing, absolutely nothing, to fall back upon. The earth and the heaven disappear, and, having done their work, are no longer required; there is found no place for them. And the dead—and we must give the word its full significance here—those who have forever forfeited, by their own act, all relation of any kind with God; these stand before God. They were born in sin, shapen in iniquity. The mercy of God, which offered pardon and deliverance while yet in the body, was despised, neglected, unheeded; and, now, their position before that throne declares their state dead. But, as dead, their deeds have been various. So the books are opened. The startling crime, the concealed villainy, the venial sin, the foolish word, all recorded with unerring detail. “And the dead were judged out of those things that were written in the books, according to their works.” Not an item forgotten; not a mistake made; no witnesses needed. Every divinely convicted sinner stands speechless, now, or hereafter. Here, stopping every mouth, that God’s righteousness may take effect. There, it is but the justification of His just judgment. The positive record of their own deeds declares their doom. No appeal, no remedy. Absolute, complete, final. But there is not only the positive record, there is the negative also. The Book of Life is opened. Their names are not found therein. Perhaps they were once, for, as the Lord had said of the overcomer in Sardis, “I will not blot his name out of the Book of Life,” He must have meant something of which the converse had a meaning also. And so, after God’s usual method, by a double testimony, they are judged. Their works are found; their names are not; and, in virtue of the latter, they are cast into the lake of fire. Small and great. Whosoever. Solemn thoughts, indeed, are suggested by these things, knowing the character of our God for justice, kindness, mercy, love; what impression is left upon our minds but the overwhelming one, that these who are cast into the lake of fire (never prepared for man, but for the Devil and his angels), have deliberately, and of their own willingness, taken part with him against God.
The absolute conclusiveness and inclusiveness of this last scene of all is shown in the fact that the sea gives up its dead; death and hades deliver up their dead; and death and hades themselves, as instruments of Satan, share the fate of the victims of their terrors. All are cast into the lake of fire. After the first death, the judgment. After the judgment, the second death, and the second death is the lake of fire. Can any read this unmoved who are not yet come to the first death? Now, there exists for whosoever will, the greatest, freest fullest salvation that it is in the heart of God to devise. He has given His Christ, so that if a man receives Him even believes on His name, He is eternally saved. Do not confound this throne with that of Matt. 25:31. There are some twenty points of contrast which the reader would do well to take note of. Many have mistaken them.
Day of God, Described in Parenthesis
A New Heaven and a New Earth.
We saw, when the great white throne was set up, and One sat on it; that the earth and the heaven fled away from before His face, and that there was found no more place for them. Geologists are very anxious to keep us informed of their theories of what happened on this earth before the divine record. We are able to tell them very accurately its future history. We are able to tell them that the present heavens and the earth, by His word, are laid up in store, kept for fire unto a day of judgment: that the heavens will pass away with a rushing noise, and the elements, burning with heat, shall be dissolved, and the earth, and the works in it, shall be burnt up. It is Peter (2 Pet. 3) who tells us this; and he further informs us that its object is to bring in the day of God, for which a new heaven and a new earth will be formed. The previous heaven and earth had existed seven days of 1000 years each, according to the word “one day as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day” (2 Pet. 3:8). Six days formed man’s day, viz., two days to show man without law, two days to show man under law, and two days to show man under grace—two witnesses of each great fact, and, in each, two prominent personal witnesses: Enoch and Noah, Moses and Elijah, Christ and the Holy Ghost. In each, one was taken up into heaven, and the other testified on earth. But the seventh day, the day of the Lord, introduced as with the stealthy and sudden approach of a thief, and ending by the dissolution of all things, was for the display of all God’s ways and purposes and counsels in THE MAN—HIS MAN—THE SECOND MAN—THE LORD JESUS—JEHOVAH’S FELLOW.
The new heavens and the new earth are for another purpose. They are for the display of God Himself. It is the day of God. The Lord Jesus has delivered up His kingdom, and now God is all in all. This section, therefore, and the two following ones, have to do with God’s day, God’s kingdom, God’s people. It is God my King. There are no subordinate rulers, as in the previous earth. There are no boundaries, such as form nations, for there is no more sea. All the population of the new earth will have been born in the old earth, in which righteousness did not dwell. Those who were born there had a righteousness provided by God for them, and in it they ever stood before Him. That righteousness, founded on blood-shedding, was of God’s providing; and none but those possessing it, in whatever period they lived, had to say to God. Consequently, as righteousness did not dwell there, all God’s elect, from Abel, who brought the firstling of his flock, down to the millennial worshippers (Ezek. 45:20), did thus confess that they were in a place which they were not of, and of a place which they were not in. But now, in the new heavens and earth, righteousness dwells. They are at home, and so is God. He dwells with them, and they dwell with Him. The heavenly and the earthly distinctions are kept up there as we shall presently see; but all is on a vastly different footing from anything that preceded it; but the prevailing feature is, “I will be to him God, and he shall be to ME son.” Here we do not find any mediatorial kingdom. The Lamb is not in the scene. God is all in all. No sorrow nor crying more, no earthly people of God distinct from the inhabiters of the earth. These are God’s people, and God is with them Himself, but withal His tabernacle is with them. This is the holy city, the New Jerusalem. The Church has her own character, is the habitation of God in a special way, when the unchanging state comes, and all is made new. God is the end, as the beginning. Him that is athirst now, God will refresh with the fountain of the water of life—the overcomer shall inherit all things. At present the world is Rephidim, a place where there is nothing to satisfy the thirst; and where the same spirit is at work that obtained in Israel, for the people committed two evils there, when they cried to Moses, saying, “Give us water, and we drink.” Moses’ faithful answer shows the spirit at work, for he says “What! ye strive with me? What! ye try Jehovah?” Not so in God’s day; God will be the source of supply and not only so, but none other will be wanted. It will be, God is my God; I am His son.
The New Jerusalem
Attention has been called, in an earlier portion of this work, to the enormous prominence given to Babylon in the Apocalypse. That prominence is due to the fact that by the craft of Satan and the depravity of man, a vile sham has obtruded itself before men as the Church, the bride of Christ, which this book exposes as a foul and meretricious harlot, and decribes as hurled to her just doom. But so much the more does it enhance the importance, in the eyes of Christ, of the true thing, the bride, the Lamb’s wife. He loved the Church; He gave Himself for it. Nay, more: God gave it to Him. The interests of God and of Christ are identical. Dear as the Church is to Christ, it is equally so to God; for Christ is the Head of the Church, which is His body, His bride. And it is God’s household; God’s temple.
Now, unto the beautiful new earth, wherein righteousness has its dwelling-place, is seen the holy city, New Jerusalem, coming down out of the heaven from God, and prepared as a bride adorned for her husband. We heard, a thousand years before, in Rev. 19, heaven’s triumphant exultations that the marriage of the Lamb had come, and His wife had made herself ready. And presently, when this marvelous episode of the day of God has been unfolded to us in these first eight verses of Rev. 21, the Spirit of God will go back again, and supplement what He told us in Rev. 19, by a description of the bride’s beauty. The subject is one on which He delights to dwell. He will do it in such a way as to convey to our minds that while the first and second beasts were a travesty of God’s Christ and Christ’s witness, the harlot Babylon was a travesty of the bride, the Lamb’s wife, while the city Babylon was a travesty of this holy city, New Jerusalem, the subject of this vision. And as the one was described in full, so will the other be, and by the same angel. One of the greatest aids to interpretation is to discern not only what God tells us, but how He tells it. It is for want of this discernment that so many blunders have been made, and the idea obtained that the Book is difficult to comprehend. Take the Gospels, for example. God has given four views of His Christ, viz. King, Prophet, Man, Son; in each of which we have “Emmanuel” (God with us), Himself manifested. The ignorant believer has tried to harmonize, with the result of rendering the whole pointless. Now, in this Book God has presented the same truth from several points of view, and it has been one of the main objects of this work to enable the general reader to rightly divide what he reads, so as to discern where the matter in hand starts afresh. God’s order is divinely mathematical. Man’s mathematics will not solve it. But let any devout soul simply and obediently look to God for light, and he will find all Scripture, whether prophetical or otherwise, plain and simple. God has not set His children riddles to solve, but He has provided food, clothing, and education. To the unbeliever it will be a riddle, and nothing else; but what was light to Israel was darkness to Egypt (Exod. 14:20).
It has been remarked in its place that the “day of God” is not, strictly speaking, the subject of this Book. Yet the fact of its being introduced at all, shows the great importance and significance of its introduction. One main object is to show that the Son of Man’s kingdom has been so righteously begun, continued, and ended, that God’s rest can begin. The reign of righteousness gives place to a new heaven and new earth, in which righteousness dwells. Christ reigns till He has annulled all rule, and all authority and power. Then comes the end, when He gives up the kingdom to Him [who is] God and Father. But, be it well observed, in all this mighty change the Bride, the Lamb’s wife, the holy city, the New Jerusalem, undergoes no change. She preserves the freshness of her youth as in the day of her espousals. And why? Because all that she is, is the display of CHRIST’S GLORY. The fullness of the Godhead bodily dwells in Christ (Col. 2:9). The Church is called the fullness of Him that filleth all in all (Eph. 1:23). The purpose is that it should be filled [even] to all the fullness of God (Eph. 3:19), and that it should attain its full growth (Eph. 4:13).
God’s Dwelling Place
In John 1:14 we have a beautiful expression concerning Christ, which is here used in respect of the Church, including, of course, Christ the Head. It is said, in the scripture referred to, “The Word became flesh, and tabernacled among us.” Now here, in this new earth, a great voice out of heaven says, “Behold! the tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall tabernacle with them”; and here 2 Cor. 6:16 falls into its place; for God has said, “I will dwell among them, and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be to Me a people.” All the things that characterized the former earth—tears, death, sorrow, crying, pain—all shall be absent from this blest scene, for the former things have passed away. The Spirit by Isaiah uses these terms in describing the Millennial blessedness, hence the distinction made about former things having passed away. Peter, too, refers to Isaiah, but looks to its fulfillment in a larger sense in God’s day. Hence we get the word from the throne; He who sits there snakes the decree, “Behold, I make all things new.” The Church was a new creation in Christ are the old world had passed away. All things are now made new to match her, and it is to be no secret. “Write it”; make it known. These words are like Him who makes them, true and faithful. The decree is confirmed in the words “It is done.” This is God’s way of confirming, e.g., “Let light be, and light was.” Then comes His title as a confirmation, as we saw in the case of the Lord Jesus. He is first and last, beginning and end. All is included in Him. It is the divine signature to the decree. In what follows, we have the Spirit’s comment in the words of exhortation and warning. Three classes are addressed—the thirsty one, the overcomer, the cowardly. Let us use the precious opportunity to take up the word of exhortation. Thirsty one, are you tired of all the weary wretchedness of this disjointed world of heartbreaks? Does the scorching sun and the east wind and the withered gourd make you cry bitterly for the rest that remaineth? You shall have it, weary soul. God knows your distress; He has measured your tears; He has weighed your sorrows; He has gauged your griefs; He knows your hunger and thirst after righteousness, and He says, “Blessed one, you shall be filled.” You have His word for it that He will give you of the fountain of the water of life freely. And you, overcomer, you too are parched with thirst; and the strife, and the worry, and the harass of the warfare is great. Still you faint not. Or, if faint, still you pursue. On your knees one minute, and sword in hand the next; you have a hard time of it for a little moment. But courage! You shall inherit everything. And God says He will be your God, before He says you shall be His son—He wants you. But to you, cowards, unbelievers, with all the list of horrors that follow your names, what can I say? What dare I say? I can only say what God says, you will “have your part in the lake that burneth with fire and brimstone: which is the second death,” if you remain where you are.
Continuation and Completion of Revelation of Jesus Christ
The Bride, the Lamb’s Wife.
This is the correlative of “Come here, and I will show thee the sentence of the harlot” (Rev. 17:1), for next to the glory of God and His Christ, the glory of the bride is the theme of Scripture after the ascension of her risen Head. But, it may be asked, why is the bride, both in the day of God, and in the day of the Lord, spoken of and described as a city? The answer is that there is nothing known to man that so describes full corporate completeness as a city, and no city called holy but Jerusalem (Isa. 52:1). “Thy Maker is Thy Husband; the Lord of hosts is His name” (Isa. 54:5). Thus we get expressed the marital and the corporate relationship of the earthly people. It is precisely the same in respect to the heavenly city, the holy city—New Jerusalem—Jerusalem, which is above (Gal. 4:26), city of the living God, heavenly Jerusalem (Heb. 12:22). The spectacle of the harlot took place in the desert; that of the bride on a great and high mountain. Both are seen in spirit. The harlot is seen having the glory of man (the beast); the bride has the glory of God. The characteristic of the bride is, that she is “the light-bearer.” Only here, and in Phil. 2:15, is the word used. “Like jasper, clear as crystal”: the same stone that indicated Him that sat on the throne (Rev. 4:31) the stone representing Benjamin (son of the right hand), whose attribute is, “the beloved of the Lord shall dwell in safety by Him.” The wall is great and high, 144 cubits = 216 feet. The city itself measuring 12,000 stadia of 600 feet = 136 miles in length, breadth, and height. If the last causes surprise, remember the canopy over the glory, and the pavilion over the earthly Jerusalem (Isa. 4:6). The city is of pure gold, but transparent; the wall of jasper diffusing the light on the earthly city below, and all around. Of the twelve foundations, each representing precious stones the first is jasper. Then as to the twelve gates: each one pearl; at each gate an angel; over each gate the name of a tribe, while each foundation is inscribed with the name of an apostle. The tribes are appropriately on the keystones, for salvation is of the Jews; and through them we entered. They in their turn are built upon the foundation of the apostles and (New Testament) prophets; Jesus Christ being the chief corner stone. And thus it comes to pass that all who looked for the city that hath foundations, whose builder and maker is God (Heb. 11:10), from Abraham, whose children we believing Gentiles are (Gal. 3:29), down to the last martyred saint under the beast’s tyranny, are represented there.
Final Aspect of the Throne
Only one more aspect was needed to complete the Revelation, and that is here given. Let us review what has gone before. First, the Judge was brought before us, then the Church; for judgment begins at the house of God. Then the Thrones were set. The Lamb can alone unfold; the elders alone can estimate. Then came a series of judgments from the Throne, dealing with man as man. Then a new series began from the Temple, in respect to religious man as such. This ended in the total overthrow of everything irreligious (1) By the revelation of Christ; (2) By the binding of Satan; (3) By the setting up of a kingdom where man as man, and religious man as such, should be found under God’s King and Priest. Both having been displayed, and both having been manifested as existing by the excellence of the King-Priest, and not owing to excellence in man, the beauty and excellencies of the King-Priest’s companions in glory is shown (1) As to relationship [Bride]; (2) As to government [Throne], which is what this page treats of. All this was to be followed by a never-ending day of God, in a reconstructed heaven and earth; yet inasmuch as it was not the proper subject of this Book, which treats essentially of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, but a result springing from it, it is shown in a parenthesis, the bride and throne essentially concluding the Revelation of Jesus Christ.
Water of life; food of life. Both are now found in Christ personally, and whosoever cometh to Him now, shall never hunger; and whosoever believeth in Him now, shall never thirst. Not so then. That gracious, tender, loving heart, that beats in a divine Man for men, and can be approached by the vilest and most sin-laden penitent, and who waits to be gracious, deferring the day of His glory, so that the entire long-suffering may be displayed, will no longer, in His person, present water and food of life. Out of the throne comes the one, and by the side of the river grows the other. But how, then, can you get at them? Nothing defiled can get into the city where they are. In other words, they are inaccessible there to those for whom NOW they are free as air, because they can be got at in His person who says, “Come unto Me.” The blest inhabitants of the city eat and drink; the very leaves are specific for every need of the nations below. There is no need above, for there is no curse. The throne of God and the Lamb is there; His servants serve HIM; His face they see; His name they bear in their foreheads. Night there is none; artificial, or even divinely ordained light is not needed. God is Light, and His servants are children of light: in Him is no darkness at all. They once were darkness; now are they light in the Lord. He once spake in Creation, “Let there be light,” and He in redemption has become their Light. Praise to His name!
Conclusion
The Angel’s Comments (I)
In the previous chapter, v. 5, we had the testimony of Him that sat on the throne to the faithfulness and truth of the utterances. Here it is the angel who says so. We must not take these words as they would obtain between man and man. With men they would mean that the one affirmed that he was faithful and true to the other in respect to what was said. The divine utterances are not so. In all that God says, He is true to Himself. Christ is the truth: outside of Him, all else is spurious. We get, therefore, in what God has presented in this Book, a reflex of Himself. His truth, His faithfulness, take this form. His estimate of what is due to His Christ, quite irrespective of what man may think of it or believe it to be. So again with what follows. It may be very right and proper to regard such a wondrous revelation as an extraordinary favor vouchsafed to mortal man; but whether so regarded or not, the Lord God of the holy prophets was so intent upon His Christ being an object of surpassing interest that He sent His angel to inform them of the fact, and expected them to take a surpassing interest also. Not merely on their own account, but very specially on His. Not merely as a matter of privilege, or any other reason relating to themselves, but as a matter of high importance to the Lord and Master, whose servants they were. And then the Master Himself puts in His word in His own name and person. Behold! I am coming quickly. And as all He says leaves a blessing behind it, He adds: Blessed is he who keeps [that is, lays hold of, appropriates as his own,] the words of the prophecy of this Book.
But here a very solemn and serious consideration comes before us. It is this: What heed has been paid by the servants to the message sent forth by the Lord God of the spirits of the prophets? What heed has been paid to the priceless message of the priceless Master? What have the servants done in respect to it? Who is keeping the lookout for the Master? Who, or has any one, got the blessing that He offered? The astronomer never leaves the observatory empty nor the telescope idle. Somebody is always there. The telescope never has a moment’s rest. But what matters the return of a comet, or the appearance of an unseen star, in comparison to the lookout day and night for the Man that disappeared at Bethany, and who is coming in like manner? He parted from His own, who beheld Him as He went up, and stood staring at the heavens till reminded by two men that His return was the next thing, and that they were to look for it. And now that the message has come to His own, intimating that it is “shortly” and “quickly,” who is on the qui vive? Who is watching for Him personally? Some are, doubtless, doctrinally. That is something, of course, brought about by the Spirit’s urgency within the last few decades. But that is not enough for His large and generous affection. Has He only died for me doctrinally? He loved me, and gave Himself for me. Therefore let us, one and all, who love His appearing, give Him no rest, but agonize in spirit before Him for His return. Perhaps He does but wait for this personal action of affection from His blood-bought ones! There will be no mistake about Judah’s agonizing cry, “Oh that Thou wouldest rend the heavens, that Thou wouldest come down” (Isa. 64:1). Who can read the touching, heartbroken appeal that precedes this apostrophe to their rejected Lord without the tears flowing hot and fast for them? Who can say that we ourselves have not been brought to Bochim to stir up personal affections and quicken our sluggish regard for Him whose personal glory has been lowered in the eyes of those before whom it should have been exalted, and who now comes to us with His touching appeal: “I redeemed you: I never broke My word with you. Why have you done this?” (See Judges 2:14). Has the great calamity that has befallen us been for the special object of moving us for the last time to our innermost being before He comes? Of making us relinquish all that we have cherished for a lifetime with that hopelessness that came over David when he exclaimed, “And now, Lord, what wait I for?” My hope is in THEE.
John’s Wonderment
Nothing is more common among the sons of men, than to come short of the measure of apprehension necessary to receive any message aright. There are two reasons for this. One is, that the condition of soul for receiving, must be akin to the condition of soul for giving. And the other is, that the machinery of one’s thoughts is rarely exactly adapted, for various reasons to take up what is set forth. At the transfiguration, Peter made a most humiliating mistake, with the best of intentions, but the fact is, he was bewildered; “he wist not what to answer” (Mark 9:6). Cornelius, divinely instructed by a holy angel to send for Peter, to hear words whereby he might be saved, transfers the importance of the message to the messenger, and falling down to do homage, receives the rebuke, “Stand up, I myself also am a man.” And so it is here. Never came such a communication to mortal man, as the angel had told out to the disciple whom Jesus loved. But that message came from Jesus through the angel. It was a revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave Him to show unto His servants; and, strange to say, the source and origin of the gracious message is left out, and His glory given to the messenger. Not he who delivers the letter, but he who writes it, is my friend. Now, great and important principles are involved in these mistakes. Who would be so ready as the precious Lord Himself to remind us that “GOD was in Christ, reconciling the world to Himself”? It was the blessed One Himself again, that had to remind His dear clinging ones, “The FATHER Himself loveth you.” And so, laying hold of this principle, we may ask ourselves, Why is it that all this amazing display of love, grace, and here power, majesty, and glory, have so small an effect or our souls? Is it not that our souls are resting on something short of the fountain and origin of the glory? Honestly now, when we read the Apocalypse, do our souls keep harping on the effect it will have on Him? Or shall the truth be told, that every shred of attention, or a considerable part of it, has been, What will our position be in respect to it? It is no use denying it, we all do it. John does it, but by the Spirit of God he records the rebuke he got. Let us profit by it. The full force of this revelation is to see its effect on Jesus Christ. He is the One for whom it was made. We are accessories to His glory, no doubt—but so are the angels in their estate. We, however, derive our glory from duly estimating and appreciating His glory. All else misses its point. We are apprehended for the express purpose of apprehending Him (Phil. 3:12). It is wondrous grace in Him to think so much of us. It is the worst of all possible errors in us, to have a single thought of ourselves, where anything concerning Him is in question.
Let us pursue a little further this question as to the correct perception of truth set before us. It must be manifest that much ministry that is set before us is not assimilated by us. We hear the words, we follow and endorse the conclusion drawn, and yet are unable to feel that we have made our own the truth advanced. Why is this? Why is it that, perhaps at a future time, the very same truth lays hold of us with a divine force that makes it ours forever? Doubtless we shall find, as always, our answer in the Word of God. There, ministry is looked at as edification, or a building up of an edifice, and this figure, whether of the process in an individual or in the assembly, involves the accurate adjustment of every part to that of every other part; and all on the foundation. Every new stone must fit exactly to the stone on which it lies. Isaiah instructs us on the point thus: “Whom will He teach knowledge? and whom will He make to understand the message? them that are weaned from the milk, and drawn from the breasts? For it is precept upon precept, precept upon precept; line upon line, line upon line; here a little, there a little” (Isa. 28:9, 10). And the Lord puts it thus: “For unto every one that hath shall be given, and he shall have abundance” (Matt. 25:29)
The Angel’s Comments (II)
These comments of the angel are of very great value to us. Two or three words sometimes throw a flood of light where a long and eloquent discourse fails to reach us. And as we are on the subject, it is quite worthwhile to ask, Why is it that angels, who desire to look into the announcements made in the Gospel to man, by the Holy Ghost sent down from heaven (1 Pet. 1:12), should be sent to instruct and enlighten man? What is the secret of their strength, seeing that they do not themselves profess to be more than fellow-bondsmen with us? The secret appears to be an exceedingly simple one, and one well calculated to arouse us to the consciousness of dormant and unused faculties. It would be difficult to show, from the Scriptures, that they possess, or have access to, any means not already possessed by us. But two things are very manifest with regard to them that are not by any means so manifest in us. One is the unquestioning simplicity of their obedience, and the other is their child-like, unsophisticated adherence to the plain word of God. They appear to enjoy a thing simply because it is, and they appear to do a thing simply because they are told. Reasonings, or whys and wherefores, do not seem to be part of their being. Take a man—a holy man: tell him a simple fact from God; what is his procedure? First, he will morally tie himself up in twenty knots. Then he will, in that condition, give twenty different ways in which such simple fact can be construed, and finally he will select one of them which falls short of, if it does not altogether deny, the communication made to him. Take an example. Zacharias is burning incense: the angel of the Lord appears. Zacharias is troubled with fright and fear. Says the angel; “Fear not, Zacharias; thy prayer has been heard: Elizabeth shall bear a son; call his name John. You shall have joy and rejoicing. Many will rejoice at his Birth. He shall be great before Jehovah; he shall drink neither wine nor strong drink; he shall be filled with the Holy Ghost from infancy. Many of the sons of Israel shall he turn to Jehovah, their God. In the spirit and power of Elias shall he go before Him, turning fathers into little children, and disobedient ones into just and thoughtful men, making ready for Jehovah a prepared people.” All plain as the sun at noon. Terse, lucid, comprehensive, grand. What says Zacharias? “How shall I know this? I am old, and so is my wife.” Oh, what poverty of reception! Not a word about these twelve magnificent utterances, sent by a munificent God just about to bring His First-begotten into the world, and putting high dignity upon His standard-bearer. Nothing but Sarah’s cynical laugh translated into the language of an old man’s apathy. Mark the noble courtesy of the angel’s reply: I am Gabriel; I stand before God; I am sent to talk to you, to bring the joyful news of these things to you. Not believe them? Stand still, then, and see God act. Be tongue-tied perforce, till your own hand has recorded the name of your son.
Oh, what fools we are! What heart-sluggards! We shall judge angels? We shall, for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it. Meanwhile, bless the Lord, ye angels of His: ye mighty in strength, that fulfill His word, hearkening unto the voice of His word! Bless the Lord, all ye His hosts; ye ministers of His, that do His pleasure! (Ps. 103:20, 21).
Daniel’s instructor said, “Shut up the words, seal the book, until the time of the end.” But, now the time is near. John’s instructor says, “Seal not.” While grace reigns, the unrighteous may become righteous, and the filthy holy. Not so in judgment. The die is cast forever. The voice of the blessed One is heard again, saying, Behold! I come quickly, and My reward is with Me.
I, Jesus. First Testimony.
Does it strike us with sufficient force, how close those two words “I Jesus,” bring us to His holy Person? What a sweet home-sound there is in it, to say nothing of the sweetness there always is in the very sound of His name. Since He left His beloved ones, the day He was taken up, Stephen has seen Him, and Paul heard His voice; but otherwise His communications with us have been by the Holy Ghost, through the Word, and never, except in this Book, do we get the direct word from Himself. We stand with reverence, and hear the details from John or the angel. But every now and then, comes the utterance direct, “I am coming quickly,” and we almost start at the realistic tones of His voice. Observe, the angel does not say, “He is coming,” but Jesus says it Himself. Why? Why? Do not our hearts tell us why? Is the wife unaffected at the tone of her husband’s voice? Does she let him call unanswered? Is He as pleased to get our response, as we are to hear His loving voice? And yet, is He not God over all, blessed forever? He is, and that is just the beauty of it. He, the great, the mighty, the terrible, whose eyes are as a flame of fire, whose feet are as fine brass—and we are never meant to forget it, either — yet has He so revealed Himself to our hearts, that His perfect love has cast out all fear, and He can say in the simplest words of affection, “I Jesus, have sent My angel to testify unto you these things in the churches.” I could have kept it to Myself. I could have let the magnificence of My vindication burst upon your vision, but I wanted your sympathy and fellowship in it beforehand. I wanted you to count the days and hours with Me, till it should be My Father’s good pleasure to tell Me to take the kingdom and claim My bride. I want your heart, your heart, your heart in all this. I know I shall have it in the day that My glory shall be revealed, and when I shall have set you free from every hindrance of flesh and spirit, and given you a body of glory like My own; but can you break through all opposing forces, and give Me a little of your devotion now, before the day comes. You remember David’s men, how three brake through the enemy’s forces to get their master a drink of water. Well, I am David’s root and David’s offspring, and I have got a David’s feelings, for David was endued with Mine. But, oh, My bride. I am a greater than David to you. I am your bright and Morning Star, I shine with a radiance for you, where there is no eye to gaze on it but yours. I shine resplendent among the sons of the morning, when none but you are awake to watch. I am for you, and you are for Me; in known and enjoyed relationship, before the roar and bustle of the day begins. All the glories of the day are Mine to shine with you. All the royalties of David had their origin with Me, and all that the house of David foreshadowed, all that Solomon in his glory pictured, shall have its extension and fulfillment in My day. For I will say: “Awake awake; put on thy strength, O Zion! put on thy beautiful garments, O Jerusalem, the holy city” (Isa. 52:1), “But thou art fair, my love; behold, thou art fair” (Song of Sol. 1:15). I am thy bright and Morning Star.
Do our hearts in the most profound reverence gather such words from His heart? Where have we got them? Who has revealed them to us? What makes us worshippers thus? Nature knows not this love to the unseen. Nature knows no link with Him who is invisible. Nature knows nothing of Him with whom Enoch walked. The secret of all this wonderful divine converse is, We love Him, because He first loved us. He is the spring, the source, the originator. “His divine power having given us all things which relate to life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us by glory and virtue, through which He has given us the greatest and precious promises, that through these ye may become partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust” (2 Pet. 1:3, 4). So that all comes from Himself. He is not only the Creator of it, but by Himself it consists. It will never be otherwise. The greater the nearness the more profound the reverence. The cherubim rest not day nor night crying, Holy, holy, holy.
The Spirit and the Bride. I, Jesus. First Testimony.
What Eliezer was to Rebekah in the day of her espousals, such in surpassing measure has the Holy Ghost been to the bride, the Lamb’s wife. From Abraham we learned that God would provide Himself a lamb for a burnt-offering. From Abraham we learned that God would provide a bride for His Son; not of the daughters of the land, but one of His own kindred and of His own country; born, not of corruptible, but of incorruptible seed, by the Word of God. It will be remembered with what exquisite delicacy and with what profound sagacity, and with what intense devotion, that steward of the household fulfilled his mission and brought her within measurable distance of her home. It was eventide and the day was far spent. The bride-groom had gone forth to meet his bride and to greet her as she emerged from the wilderness. She, in her turn, had lifted up her eyes, and beheld her Isaac coming to her. Who is this man that cometh to meet us? she says, descending from her camel to her faithful guide. It is my Master, says he; and she covers herself with her veil.
Can anything be more lovely as a type of what we have here? The Spirit and the bride say, Come. Not the bride alone, nor only the loving One whose delight it is to glorify the bridegroom, but both together, and the promise of the Father first in the greeting, this bridal greeting, this model of joy; for divine joy is not modeled from earth, but human joys have been modeled from divine. What would humans have known of the sacred names of father, son, husband, wife, had not these sacred relationships already existed in the Eternal mind ere He said, “Let us make man in our image, after our likeness”? Is it too much to say that the whole work of creation, redemption, restitution, was all brought about to procure a bride, who, with the Spirit could say, “Come,” to her spouse?
Having seen, then, how He that hath the bride is the bridegroom, let us descend a little, and think of the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears Him, and rejoices greatly in heart because of the voice of the bridegroom. We have not to go far to learn who this is, for he who came in the spirit and power of Elias, declared that it was this that filled up to the full the measure of his joy. Not only did he indignantly repudiate being what he was not, but he adds force to it by repudiating possession of aught that belonged to Him. My joy is in hearing the bridegroom’s voice, His in hearing the bride’s voice: “Let me see thy countenance, let me hear thy voice; for sweet is thy voice, and thy countenance is comely” (Song of Sol. 2:14). Hers in hearing His. Hence the frequency of the strain, “I come quickly” (seven times). Well, the friend of the bridegroom may also say, “Come.” Alas, at the moment the veil is over his heart! Soon it shall be removed, and then he will no longer use elder brother’s words (Luke 15), but rejoice in the light of the heavenly city above him.
Yet once again we must descend, for it is a bridal greeting, and none must be forgotten. There are the nations that walk in the light of the heavenly Jerusalem, as well as the favored kings of the earth upon the earth. They, too, thirst, and know not whom they thirst for now. They know well the groaning creation, which nature tells them was not created for groaning. The time will come when the King shall say to these thirsty ones, “Come, ye blessed of My Father; inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world.” At this moment they may be savages who have never heard. That was our condition once. But they will hear, and they will obey, and they will come; for He will make them willing in the day of His power! They cannot say, “Come”; but He can, and says it for them. And now, open the flood-gates! remove every barrier! let Jordan overflow all her banks in blessing! Whosoever will, let him take the water of life freely. No stint. No restriction. Can we estimate the value of His blood? Can we fathom the depth of His sufferings? Can we measure the extent of the reconciliation?
The only suited attitude at the present moment for the Church of God is one of intense, earnest, eager expectation of the return of Him who has now excelled as “the patient One,” as He before excelled as “the suffering One.” Not His return to earth, but to the air.
I, Jesus. Second Testimony.
The wondrous testimony of grace can never safely be committed to man, no matter who he is, without a penalty being attached to the turning of that grace into license. And this Book, though in itself a Book of judgment, is nevertheless so mingled with gracious actings that it must also be protected from the ravages of man. For man, having yielded himself to Satan, has partaken of his nature, and become a destroyer. He will not only refuse the grace for himself, but he has tried to obliterate the message, and exterminate its receiver. Failing the getting rid of it entirely, his next effort is to make it of none effect, either by adding to it tradition, superstition, idolatry; or to produce similar effect by withdrawing something from it; saying it is unprofitable, too hard to understand, etc. The former attacks the substance of the Book, what it contains; the latter the Book itself. For let it be well understood that this Book occupies a unique place in the Word of God. Every Book in the Bible—Old and New Testaments—is addressed to man, as such, direct. This Book is given to Jesus Christ. It is given Him for the special purpose of acquainting His servants beforehand with the things that are shortly to come to pass. Jesus Christ commissioned His angel to make it known by signs (that is, by what he heard and saw) to His servant John. All other Scripture has been given to men either by prophets or by His Son (Heb. 1:1). “Holy men of God spake as they were moved by the Holy Ghost.” But this Book, equally divine with all the rest, stands on another footing, inasmuch as it reaches man through angelic agency; although a man must be in the Spirit to receive it. He could not receive it as a natural man. In point of fact, it is God’s vindication of Jesus Christ against man, who has rejected and opposed Him. All other Scripture, from Moses to the beloved disciple’s last Epistle, is the Word of God to man, with a view to his being found among those blessed in this Book, or judged by the judgments of this Book for having rejected the Word, and slain the messengers. Hence, “The word that I have spoken, the same shall judge him in the last day” (John 12:48).
This testimony of Jesus, therefore, which is here before us, is in reference to the Book of Revelation. No doubt, man does to all the rest of Scripture what the warning comes against here. But the Book being, as already pointed out, peculiar, it needed a peculiar and special warning, lest anyone should suppose that its peculiarity should render it less sacred than the rest of Scripture. Jesus Christ in this Book is always seen subject to God, for the reason that it is God’s vindication of Him for all that He, and His, have endured from the contradiction of sinners against Him and them. Hence, if any one, no matter who he is, interferes with this vindication of His dear Son, and those who have heard His Word, God shall add to him the plagues, or take away his part out of the Book of Life, and consequently out of the holy city, of which this Book treats. So let all remember, who have to do with this Book, that they tread upon sacred ground, very specially protected and guarded by God Himself. God is no respecter of persons. He must be true to His own nature, even if a Peter need rebuke, or an Uzzah do a profane thing unwittingly.
Long-suffering, gracious, merciful, as our God is, the honor of His beloved Son is so supreme, that no mere creature shall be permitted to falsify that which has for its express object, His glory. Besides which, we have to bear in mind the extraordinary condescension of the Son of God in taking His place in the likeness of men. For Him who is God to do this, is to confer such honor and dignity upon the nature of man as to surpass by it that of an angel. But lest this condescension should lead any one to suppose that His proper Godhead was, in the smallest degree, aught else in respect to it than it had always been, special guards, as the one before us, have been interposed by the Spirit of God.
I, Jesus. Third and Last Testimony.
The last and closing testimony of our beloved and much-longed-for Lord, His parting words to His bride, His servants, His friends, are very specially dear to every renewed heart. The cross, the tomb, come before us, but the resurrection, the ascension, also come before us. The Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, says to us: “For yet a very little while, He that comes will come, and will not delay” (Heb. 10:37), while our adorable Master who has testified to us so many precious things in this wonderful legacy of His thoughtful consideration for us, says: “Yes, I am coming quickly.” And our answer, oh, so fervently uttered as the tear bedews the eye is, Amen. Do come, Lord Jesus.
Possessing our souls in patience, let us, on bended knee, ask what has kept our Beloved so long as eighteen hundred years and more? The answer might well be that He has not kept any one of us waiting. He has been kept waiting, and it is by the special grace of His Spirit in these closing days that any one of us knows in our measure what the sensation of waiting for Him is. It may truly be affirmed, that from apostolic days down to fifty years ago, the coming of the Lord was supposed to mean death. If anyone can find any writer speaking of the Lord’s coming, let him produce him for our wonder. But now the cry has distinctly and unmistakably gone forth, “Behold, the Bridegroom cometh.” And what is more, ten thousands of His saints are at this moment actually waiting to welcome Him. This very work is but the outflow of one such, and it will find a response in many a heart, for the simple reason that it simplifies what so many hearts are hungering and thirsting for. These things do not spring up by chance. The Devil is moving, and we see the effect. But God is moving also, and we see the effect. During the last fifty years Satan has been stirring up man to gather together the material for his punishment in Crisis week. Every one owns that a mighty power is impelling the fourteen hundred millions of men at this moment on the globe, and that the end must be a mighty convulsion. God has been waking up His own to the recognition of facts declared eighteen hundred years ago, which are now ripe to be put in force. As the saints are to be snatched away SUDDENLY, without a moment’s notice, He has left His parting word, “I come quickly.”
Postscript
THE student of the “Revelation of Jesus Christ” must by no means suppose that he has exhausted the unspeakably interesting subject of which it treats. On the contrary, he has only been put in possession of the means of gathering a rich harvest of precious things from the other Scriptures of Truth. The Word of God positively teems with information respecting the Day of the Lord—for it must be clearly understood that the term “Day of the Lord” does not, as so many ignorantly suppose, mean just the period of time when He is seen in flaming fire taking vengeance; but the whole period between man’s day being over and God’s day beginning. The first symptom of man’s day being over will be the rapture of the heavenly saints. The last act of the Day of the Lord will be the Great White Throne, at which time the heavens and earth which are now, pass away, and a new heaven and a new earth introduce the eternal day of God.
For such as desire further help in ministry for the interpretation of the Apocalyptic visions, there is perhaps no work in existence so reliable, so interesting, and with such comprehensive grasp of the whole subject, as “Lectures on the Book of Revelation,” by William Kelly. That such a work should remain in comparative obscurity while the astounding events of which it treats are at our very doors, is a strong proof of the natural apathy of man’s heart in respect of divine truth, and the power of Satan in keeping up, ‘til the very last, his lethal influences.