In the addresses to the seven churches, we find Christ laying hold of their hearts, as He does of ours now, by revealing some particular truth. And so in first quickening the soul. He revealed a particular truth and gave life to my soul.
Christ never says that my flesh can overcome the world, but what He says is, that if I have faith, it will lay hold of what He presents, and I shall be a conqueror. It is faith in the word which Christ reveals to us that gives us the victory, and nothing else can do it. In remedying anything, He always proposes to give something: " I will give you to eat of the tree of life; " " I will give thee a crown of life," etc.
In connection with His Divine glory as Son of God, He is a giver, and nothing is too great for Him to give. One of the most beautiful traits of the Lord's character is in connection with God as a giver, and all is given on the most magnificent scale, worthy of the Divine glory, blended with the most exquisite grace. He is in His own eternity; He knows the secrets of God, and He turns to me, a poor thing laboring in a very quagmire of difficulties, and says, " Look at that tree of life in the midst of God's paradise: if you overcome you shall have it." Can I slip away from that magnificent promise? Then again: "You are-suffering, and called to pass through tribulation; but be faithful unto death, and I will give you a crown of life."
Who is this Crowner who can give a crown of life, and throw all its effulgence around them, just in contrast with the shadow of death? Ah! what is the death of the body, set in contrast with that crown of life, and with the not being touched by the second death? If I lay my head on my pillow and go up to glory, or, if like Stephen, I go up by having stones thrown on me; well, what death is that? Not the second death; and Christ is holding out the crown of life to me, and sheltering me from the second death. " I will give him a white stone; " Christ gives • him a new name, whose meaning no one knows but Himself and he who receives it. There will be a secret between Christ and myself in glory, with which none shall intermeddle.