This chapter, with the next, forms a break in the book. We see in it the claims of Christ, the First-begotten, to take the inheritance of all things in the earth and sea. His standing with one foot upon the earth, and the other on the sea, is descriptive of His universal right to the whole world.
The moral instruction to us is most valuable, for whatever brings out Christ to us ministers strength to the soul. To know our fellowship with the Lord Jesus, our portion with Him, our place with Him, will practically deliver us from this present evil world, which is to be judged; and, in proportion as fellowship with Jesus is known, the saint will be enabled to be unmoved amidst the turmoil all around. The waves may rise higher and higher, heaving to and fro, as it was when Christ was here, breaking up the old dispensation. He was unmoved in His spirit amidst it all; and He took the hearts of those to whom He revealed the truth out of present things, and connected them with the new creation. When the heart is filled with that which is true, it is empty for that which is of the world.
The things the Lord Jesus taught were heavenly things, but these led to the cross, and so to follow Christ will always involve the cross as a matter of course. The cross goes very far too, for it spares nothing for the world, and nothing for the flesh; while whatever is crowned with glory and honor above is untouched. The glory above spares nothing below.
In Rev. 8:33And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. (Revelation 8:3), &c, we see that the effect of intercession here is to bring out judgment. This stamps the throne in the Apocalypse as a throne of judgment. “When thy judgments are in the earth, the inhabitants of the world will learn righteousness. When thy hand is lifted up they will not see: but they shall be ashamed for their envy at the people,” (or, “toward thy people,” see margin), &e. That is just a description of an effect akin to what this book describes. “Though favor be shown to the wicked, yet will he not learn righteousness.” The world does not learn righteousness through grace, but the believer does.
In the seals of chapter 6 we had the unfolding of God's providential judgments. In chapter 8 (after the parenthetic sealed thousands of Israel, and palm-bearing multitude of Gentiles out of the great tribulation) we saw the direct infliction of judgment upon the Western Roman Empire. Then we came to the woe-trumpets. Smiting was sent forth on “the third part everywhere.” This seems to allude to the Roman Empire. There is the judgment of death on all classes, from the least to the greatest. The West thus comes under the infliction of judgment; but this is less than what is yet to come.
In the first four trumpets we see rather the circumstances judged and visited. In the “woes,” it is the people, the inhabitants of the earth. There is great importance to be attached to the descriptions connected with dwellers upon earth in them. They are plainly those who are not inhabiters of heaven, that are in union with Christ and have their hopes above. The natural moral position of man now is a dweller upon earth, as Cain was when driven out from the presence of the Lord, and went into the land of Nod, a vagabond in the earth (not like Adam, whose right was to be a possessor of earth when he was in Paradise, where God could walk with him). Cain went and established himself away from God; and this is what we all in spirit do now, until we have heaven for our home by living union with Christ in heaven. The world is trying to establish itself far from the presence of God. We, as Christians, are to be and seek nothing in it, while at the same time God has “given us all things richly to enjoy.”
The natural tendency of all is to settle here: even the saint finds it so. A stone lying on the ground will sink in a little, for the earth attracts downwards; but we have the Holy Ghost to reveal Christ on high and lift us up when sinking, and thus we are not dwellers upon earth (though, whenever we sink down, we partake of this character practically).
The Lord is coming out of His place to punish the inhabitants of the earth. It is a terrible thing to belong to that which is to be judged. Now He is exercising patience, and He is perfect in patience as in everything. He would not put His people of old in possession of Canaan until the cup of the Amorites was full. But His eye is not dimmed to all that is going on, nor is His hand weakened. We cannot settle in a world which has rejected Christ without being at war with God. Although the Church will be taken from the earth before all the final sifting takes place, the Lord would have us lay to heart the lesson He would teach us by this detail of the execution of judgments. We may derive the instruction just as much, though we shall not be in the scenes; for God by them shows us what we should judge and eschew now by the power of His Spirit. It includes everything that springs from that principle of evil against which, when developed and intolerable, He will display Himself with His great and strong arm. We have to judge its roots and fruits now spiritually and morally, though we shall not be actually in its last stage. We must go through the wilderness, being here as to our bodies; but the mischief is, if we settle in the wilderness, while on our way to the better country, that is, a heavenly.
When the fifth angel sounds, in the beginning of chapter 9, the third part of men are not specified as coming under judgment: but all is in a general way. It is not that specified part of the earth here, but the unsealed remnant. The king with the Greek and Hebrew significative name will rise in the Grecian Empire; and exercise his power chiefly among the Jews, first in the east and then in the west.
There are special judgments for those who are settling on the earth when God is going to judge. When the sixth angel sounds, we see these judgments coming (through the Euphratean horsemen) on those who are thus settled down here below. It appears, then, there are three series of judgments: first, a course inflicted generally on corrupt Christendom: secondly, judgment connected with the Jewish people in the east; and, thirdly, judgment on the western Roman Empire.
Then in chapter 10 we see Christ in angelic glory, with the left foot upon the earth and the right on the sea, signifying that He is about to take possession of that which is His by right and title. The angel (as in chap. 8), it is evident, is Christ Himself, the trumpets being uniformly angelic. He is declaring His right to the dominion preparatorily to taking possession. To him who will receive the testimony, it is as though God said He is not going to leave the world any longer to belong to man in sin. It is to be put into the hand of the righteous man, the second Adam. It is not here the Roman or the prophetic earth, but the whole world, including the land and sea. God has set man over all the works of His hands, and we here see Jesus crowned with glory and honor, asserting His dominion before all things are openly put under Him. It has nothing to do with result to the Church, He is dealing with the earth. The Lord God has been trying man in two points very especially Israel as to obedience through the law, and the Gentiles as to power, beginning with Nebuchadnezzar. These had been God's two tests with men, but they failed in both. Israel thought that they could keep the law, and they were put upon obedience to it; but they made and worshipped the golden calf. Nebuchadnezzar had the dominion over man, nations, and tongues given him; and what did he do with it? He first makes a golden image for them all to worship, under penalty of death; then, when lifted up, a beast's heart was given to him: he was insensible to God above him, and ravaged all beneath him.
Now the Lord Jesus is brought forth as the one in whom is fully perfected all that man has failed to be under the test to which God has put him, bringing in first perfect obedience, and next full power. Christ has come, and been proved to be the obedient man: soon He will come to take the power as the glorified man. Satan's great object, when Christ was here, was to take Him out of the path of obedience, as the servant, and to induce Him to do some act by power. He would have made Christ change stones into bread to supply His need in hunger. But He was the faithful, obedient servant, who would not take His place as God on the earth thus. “Lo, I come to do thy will, O God.” So in Psa. 16 He says, “My goodness extendeth not to thee, but to the excellent in the earth, in whom is all my delight.” He did not come to assert His title as God, but to care for the weary and heavy-laden sinner.
So in like manner Jesus could say to the young lawyer, “Why callest thou me good? There is none good but one, that is, God.” He would not be as God while He was taking the place of humbling Himself in taking the form of a servant. His path of lowly obedience being accomplished, the malice of Satan overcome, the last terrible cup (“if it be possible, let this cup pass from me”) being drunk, eternal redemption being gained through His blood for us, He is now set at God's own right hand in the heavenlies. Meanwhile the Church is the companion of His afflictions, taking the path of obedience in separation from all that is contrary to Him, until the mystery of God is finished. The Church is gathered to reign with Him, and is hid with Him, until “his enemies are made his footstool.” The connection of the Church with Christ is in the heavenly places, the cross down here stamping it as identified with Himself, a heavenly Christ. Therefore before He executes judgment on the earth, He takes it out of the way to Himself. The Church is with Him in rejection, and will be with Him in power, and the glory is enjoyed here just in proportion as the cross is practically known.
The little book in chapter 10 is prophetical. The immediate utterance of God's power follow s His asserting His title to “earth and sea.” “Seven thunders uttered their voices” but their utterance was not to be written, for other things were yet to be brought out before God's power was fully made good here below, when all the glory of God would make manifest His right to the claim. What instruction we get from the silence of Scripture!
Our place is above prophets: “We have the mind of Christ.” It is better to have our names written in heaven than to have devils subject to us. (See Luke 10) John had revealed to him what was beyond prophets. (See ver. 9.) No wonder it was bitter in the eating. What will it be to live in a time when the elect could scarcely be saved, but that the time was shortened! This would be earth's sorrow—but John would not have it. Those who have the tribulation of the Church will not have the tribulation of the world. It is better to have Christ's sorrow about that which should come to pass, than to have tribulation in its midst.
The great thing brought out in chapter 11 is the full manifested power of rebellion against the authority of Him who is coming to judge. Jew and Gentile combine, as did Pilate and the Jews in the crucifixion, rebel now openly against His power. Jews and Gentiles together are either associated with Christ in heaven, or against Him on earth. In the character of this rebellion we just get the same as that of Adam's sin. He listened to the delusions of Satan, who told him he should be as God, and he acted in direct, deliberate disobedience. Heb. 6 shows the same principle. The conclusion of evil will consist not only in man rejecting Christ upon earth, but the heavenly Christ, apostatizing from Him they profess to believe is in heaven. Alas! we have the same principles in our hearts too.
The witnesses stand before the God of the earth. This was the title by which He is to be acknowledged then: and if the remnant give glory to Him as the God of heaven, then it is too late. God would not be owned only in that way then, for that was not the thing He was bringing in, true though it was. In the different revelations of God to man, there is always that which puts the heart, which puts faith, to the test. To the Jews God had committed the testimony of the unity of the Godhead; but when He was bringing in a new thing, they rejected it, sheltering themselves under the old, which was no longer such a test. They were orthodox in that which accredited their nation, and they took up the old thing to resist the new, using God's law as a plea for the rejection of Christ, in whom dwelt all the fullness of the Godhead bodily. God's glory it is puts men to the proof, not man's. Now the object proposed to faith is the glorified Christ in heaven. At the time of these judgments, the test of faith will be owning Him as God of the earth. The test comes to those who are dwellers upon earth, as Pharaoh, who said, “The river is my own.” “Who is Lord over us?” The earth does not rightfully belong to the first Adam, who was turned out of Paradise, but to the last Adam, the first-begotten whom God will bring into the world.
Some points of deep practical importance may be learned in all this. There is a tendency, as was said before, in us all, as saints, to be dwelling upon earth. The flesh is always a dweller upon earth; it bears the stamp of that which will be judged. All that is of the flesh is therefore to be judged now, mortified, and brought into subjection. The Christian has to keep separate in spirit from that which is under judgment from the course of this world—this wonderful, busy, active, principle and system of man's intelligence and power. All this last development of human civilization is doomed. We may say that England and France, and the surrounding countries are, as it were, the center of man's activity. At home we have a measure of light shining towards souls; abroad there is Popery, the powers of darkness in western Christendom; resistance of authority is everywhere. The grand scene of judgment will be where the grand scene of pretension is. If light is despised, it is here. If man's will is in exercise, it is here. If authority is resisted, it is here. All these principles will be finally judged when headed up in open evil and revolt against God—the Beast and the false Prophet. It is in this great scene that we have now to judge the good and evil, what is of Christ and what is of Satan.
How our hearts ought to be out of it all! What heavenly witnesses we should be in a world that despises and rejects Christ! The character in which He sets Himself before the Christian is as the heavenly One, the Morning Star, “that where I am, there shall ye be also.” He did not remain with us down here, because He meant to have us, as the result of the travail of His soul, united as His body by the Holy Ghost to Himself as a heavenly Head. He cannot leave us here. Throughout all ages we shall be to the praise of the glory of His grace. He will display us as the fruit of His travail to His eternal glory. Thus we see the double character of Christ. To us He is the man glorified in heaven, with whom grace has made us one; but also in this book we see Him as the one who is to take possession of the inheritance, and we shall share it with Him.
The Lord keep our hearts out of the whole spirit and course of this present evil age. We want to have Christ dwelling in our hearts by faith, and before our eyes, to get through its entanglements and snares. Do you see a poor suffering Christian on a sick bed full of Christ? How simple it all is! But it is not so simple to wind one's way through a seductive world, with its thousand besetments and temptations, vanities which beset the heart and allure it away on the one hand, the sorrows and wretchedness of a sin-stricken world that would break the heart on the other. None can rise above them without the affections being set on Christ—hearts intelligently knit to Him, and mixed up with the interests of a loving, crucified, and glorified Savior.