9. "Grace unto you and peace.... from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead.... I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death.... These things saith the first and the lad, which was dead and is alive." (Rev. 1:5, 18; 2:85And from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, (Revelation 1:5)
18I am he that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death. (Revelation 1:18)
8And unto the angel of the church in Smyrna write; These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive; (Revelation 2:8).)
The book of the Revelation is a very solemn and yet blessed book. It opens to us, in a peculiar way, the dark outline of the churches' departure from God, and gives us many fearful details of the trials and difficulties the faithful few will have to meet with; in corresponding contrast most bright and blessed is the aspect in which the blessed Lord presents Himself.
" Grace unto you and peace.... from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead."
The blessed Captain of Salvation having waded through all necessities and trials, and gained the Shore, calling to those for whom He stemmed the mighty stream, to mark the place He held and this His present victory over all their very present trials after the full experience of them. And surely this is both blessed and gracious. For landed safely there, and now, care and thought no longer demanded from Him, for Himself and His God, the work being finished which He gave Him to do, His whole care and thought could be for the church; and who so fitted as He to sympathize with her as Himself, just come out of the conflict in which she still is? And the blessedness of this, His position, so held' for the church, shortly afterward shines out; for when John fell at His feet as one that was dead when he saw Him-this was His gracious way: " And he laid his right hand upon me, saying unto me, Fear not; I am the first and the last: I am he that liveth, and was dead: and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death."
" If God be for us, who can be against us?" is a blessed word; but how pre-eminently blessed is this presenting of the Lord in His risen glory, just returned from the conflict, as being for the church too. Jesus, manifested as God, with memory fresh as to all the details of the conflict for us, Himself having the mastery of them all, present to give us the same. May God realize the blessed thought to us, that in confidence of His possessing the keys of hades and of death, we may advance with all boldness under the immediate scrutiny of His eye. Strongly confirmatory of the view here taken of the object of the character thus assumed by the Lord, to my own mind at least, is the use of the same character in the address to the church of Smyrna, " These things saith the first and the last, which was dead, and is alive."
Any one that carefully reads the letters to the seven churches, will see that not only are the insignia under which the Lord introduces Himself to them, respectively, different, but that likewise there is an internal harmony in each letter between the insignia adopted-the state of the church, and the promises or warnings given to it. It was, I believe, the peculiarly trying state of things at Smyrna, but the faithfulness of the church thereunder, which led the Lord Jesus, in addressing it, to take the same choice character in which He had introduced Himself to John in the first chapter, in the midst of his embarrassing feebleness, and by which, John, in opening the book, is led by the Spirit to introduce Christ, as sending with Him, which is, and which was, and which is to come, and with the seven spirits that are before His throne, grace and peace to them.