One wondrous thing which may present itself to us in the Apocalypse (or Book of Revelation) is the combination of joys and terrors. This book is full of this; and yet to nature, to the sense of flesh and blood, to the common sensibilities of the heart, this combination is strange. And yet so it is. Seals are broken, and judgments take their course; trumpets are blown, and again judgments follow; vials are emptied of their terrible contents, and the horrors of the scene are only aggravated. But joys, and songs, and shouts of congratulation, and the harps of harpers, are heard throughout from beginning to end, and all along the line of these awful visitations. From the Doxology that we listen to in Chapter 1 down to the abounding and repeated exultations in Chapter 19, we listen to these joys and praises.
Bit further, in the progress of this book we may see the furnishing of the heavens and the earth as they are to be in the Millennial age. Of old, heaven was the dwelling-place of angels—I mean, that is he condition in which we see the heavens in. Old Testament days. Jacob’s vision of the ladder and many other scenes, as well as passages of Scripture without number, let us know this. But when the Lord Jesus had ascended, heaven became the dwelling-place of glorified Man, as well as of angels. This was a further furnishing of it. Stephen saw it in that condition. As soon as we read the 4th chapter of this book of Revelations, we find that the same heaven has become the habitation of translated saints, The Living Creatures and the Enthroned. Elders are there; and all through the action of the book, from that moment, they continue there. Then in the 14th chapter we find other companies of saints joining them, and harping round the Beast and the Elders, as. well as the Throne. This shows us heaven in new and wondrous conditions, peopled with more than hosts of angels, who excel in strength, and kept their first estate, even with redeemed sinners the witnesses of grace. Earth is to be furnished as well as heaven. The opening of this 14th chapter shows us the beginning of that work; for there we see the “first fruits” – the pledge and sample of that people who are to fill and furnish the earth in the days of the kingdom, or, as we call it, the millennium..... They are learners of the song that is sung in heaven; they know the joy of listening, if others know the higher joy of singing; and not only do they listen, but, as we said before, they learn. They know what is harped on the harps of God on high. With such a people as this, the earth begins to be furnished for its millennial condition. This company of 144,000 is the first fruits of those who are by and bye to occupy the footstool in the days of the kingdom. And here we may observe there will be a link between the millennial heavens and earth; and the Lamb forms it. It is because this company on Mount Zion are with the Lamb that therefore they understand and share the joys the heavens know. As there will be a place on earth for the eye to feast itself in the sight of the heavenly glory; so, as we see here, there will be a place for the ear to delight itself in the hearing of the heavenly music. The nations that are saved shall walk in the light of the Holy Jerusalem. The company with the Lamb on Mount Zion listen to the harps of the harpers round the throne on high.
But of these harpers themselves we must speak a little further. As I have before observed they are not before “the throne “only, but before “the four beasts and elders.” They form a new company in heaven, being (as I judge) the saints who have been martyred before the fifth seal, and to whom “white robes” had been given (Chapter 6:9-11). They were raised and glorified-translated to heaven; and there were (as we find from this Scripture-Rev. 14:22And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and I heard the voice of harpers harping with their harps: (Revelation 14:2)) given to them harps, like the beasts and elders themselves, and like them, also, were singing the new song (see Chapter 5:8,9, and 14:3), with this difference, as I have just hinted, they sing it round the beasts and elders, as well as round the throne. The beasts and elders had sung it as they fell worshipping the Lamb. Perfect and beautiful in its variety, as well as in its order, is all this heavenly scenery. But as we look off the harpers to consider the 144,000, we still see something beautiful and perfect in its place also. This company is in the midst of troubles; the vials are about to be discharged, as the trumpets have now all been blown. They are in the thick and midst of fearful sights, troubles, visitations, and judgments, such as might well occupy the heart and fill it with terror and forebodings-but they are at leisure from it all, free in their spirits to listen to the voice of joy and worship in heaven. They have deeply retired into the presence of Christ, and their hearts arc at leisure to be in company with the calm and the sunshine of heaven, though earth and its terrible circumstances are around them. This is blessed. How little we know of such leisure by reason of retirement into the presence of Christ! How quickly does the presence of circumstances get the mastery and give all its occupations to our timid hearts. Jehoshaphat’s army knew this! The Psalmist now and again seems to anticipate the way and experience of the remnant (the saved remnant of Israel) in these closing days of their history, ere the kingdom comes. Isaiah says: — “And in every place where the grounded staff shall pass, which the Lord shall lay upon him, it shall be with tabrets and harps” (Isa. 30:3232And in every place where the grounded staff shall pass, which the Lord shall lay upon him, it shall be with tabrets and harps: and in battles of shaking will he fight with it. (Isaiah 30:32)) But this as we pass on. At v. 6 of this chapter we are in the world again, neither in heaven with the harpers, nor on Zion with the 144,000. Upon this a voice from heaven addresses John, and says to him, “Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth;” the spirit affirming this, and giving this blessedness its character, saying, “Yea, that they may rest from their labors, and their works do follow them.” That is, those who are martyred in that day, who “die in the Lord,” are to enjoy an order of blessedness beyond those who outlive that day, inasmuch as they have reward as well as rest. John is then given another vision. He sees the reaping of the earth, and the casting of them into the great wine press of the wrath of God, by an angel. These actions, I believe, symbolize the setting of the earth in holy order, and in righteousness as for the kingdom. This is as the severance of the tares from the wheat, or the gathering of the good into baskets, and the casting of the bad away, as we read in Matt. 13 It is the full furnishing of the earth—it is the harvest after the “first fruits,” which had, as we saw, been gathered in the time of v. 1. —(This harvest appears to be the fruit or result of the preaching of the everlasting Gospel, as we read in v. 6 of this same chapter.) —And these actions of reaping the harvest, and gathering the vintage close chapter 14.
After this we are called for another moment up to heaven again, such is the varied action and scenery of the book. A sea of glass was seen before the throne, in Chapter 4, but it was then unoccupied; now it is filled, as this passage (Chapter 15:1-4) shows us—filled, I judge, by a company who have been sufferers unto death, under the Beast; and therefore it is that this sea of glass is seen by John as “mingled with fire,” for those who stand upon it are not merely conquerors, but conquerors through death-martyr conquerors, through martyrdom, or fire: they had refused to take the mark of the Beast in the crisis of the world’s history. They owned Him from whom the world had revolted, and which world was then in its hour of fullest pride and daring. They had fallen victims to it, having loved not their lives unto the death. Like their Lord, they had resisted unto blood; Like Him they were martyred, and, accordingly, they stand in triumph now before the throne on high. This is like Moses and the Congregation of Israel on the Banks of the Red Sea; they, therefore, sing his song as we read here,— “the Song of Moses”—that is, the song of victory. But Moses and the congregation were not martyrs; they had not fallen under the sword of Pharaoh, as this company had under the sword of the Beast. They were at the Red Sea a living people, which had left Egypt in defiance of all the strongest enmity of that land, and it was their foes, not themselves who had perished. But this company on the sea of glass had been slain-martyred for their faithfulness to Christ—which Moses and his company had not been. They have therefore a song beyond the “Song of Moses,” even “the Song of the Lamb.” This song is a song of victory through death. Debtors to the blood of Jesus through redemption, and for all things, still, as saints, like their Lord, they had overcome the world by dying under its hatred and persecution; accordingly, they sing the “Song of the Lamb,” as well as the “Song of Moses.” Theirs is a richer song than that of Israel, just as they are standing on higher and more wondrous ground-not only on a “sea of glass,” but a “sea of glass mingled with fire.” But now, when we reach this point, heaven is, I may say, fully furnished, as we saw at the close of Chapter 14 that earth was. The best companies have now reached it. The sea of glass, vacant before, is now occupied and, like their brethren who were on high before them, whether the living creatures or crowned elders of Chapter 5, or the martyred saints under the 5th seal, this conquering band now receives harps to harp withal! But here fresh wonders break upon the apprehension of the soul. These harps are called “Harps of God.” Wondrous surely! Harps made for their joy, now that they are enthroned in glory in heaven. As of old, at the beginning, coats had been made for their nakedness, when they were in their sins on earth (Gen. 3:2121Unto Adam also and to his wife did the Lord God make coats of skins, and clothed them. (Genesis 3:21)), God Himself, as with His own hands, makes robes of righteousness to adorn us, to clothe us worthy of His own presence, sinners in ourselves as we be. And God Himself again, as with His own hands, makes instruments of joy to gladden, as to fill His own courts of Glory with suited pleasures.... God Himself serves us at the beginning of our history as self-ruined sinners, and at the end of our history as glorified saints! He serves us in our ruins and in our glories! As the Lord, in the day of His ministry, had healed us, and fed us, and washed our feet, so did He anticipate His ministry in the coming kingdom when he said of Himself, and of all His people, “Verily I say unto you, that He shall gird Himself and make them sit down to meat, and will come forth to serve them.” (Luke 12:3737Blessed are those servants, whom the lord when he cometh shall find watching: verily I say unto you, that he shall gird himself, and make them to sit down to meat, and will come forth and serve them. (Luke 12:37).)
And if the Lord thus anticipates the day when He will serve us in our joy, we ought to anticipate that joy itself, and even in spirit take our harps and sing,—
Lord, I believe Thou hast prepared,
Unworthy though I be,
For me a blood-bought, free reward,
A Harp of God for me!
‘Tis strung and tuned for endless years,
And formed by power divine,
To sound in God the Father’s ears,
No other name but Thine.
J. G. B.