These challenges of the Churches by the Son of Man lead us to see, that all was then nearly over, that there was but a step between such rebukes and their removal. And, surely, we do not need in our day to be told of the disturbance which has taken place in the house of God. We learn that Adam lost Eden, and the present groans of creation tell us so. We learn that Israel lost Canaan, and their present wanderings over the earth tell us so. And how see we the sanctuary? Are we not witnesses to ourselves that we have been no more able to hold the blessing which was ours, than Adam could hold Eden, or Israel Canaan. The candlestick that was set for the rebuking of all that was without as darkness, and for being itself the embodied and well-ordered light of the world, is not now at Ephesus or even Sardis. But where is anything like it? Can any one thing, in any one place, assert the honor of being the Lord's candle there, and show that the Lord is feeding, and judging, and trimming it as such? In the day of John the Lord still owned the candlesticks, owned them by thus visiting and judging them. But is there such recognition now? We may try our ways most surely by all that is here said to the Churches, but this does not amount to the Son of Man owning us by judgment. And our first duty therefore both in grace and wisdom is, to be humbled because of this; for though we may have much in fragments that belongs to the candlesticks, yet all that does not give us the standing and privilege of the candlestick, entitling us to set aside as darkness, and as not of the sanctuary, all that is not of ourselves.
When our fidelity to the Lord became the question, we were found wanting, as any other steward. This book will, at the end, show us that the question of the Lord's fidelity to us will be answered in the other way: for as the Lamb's Wife the Church will then be found to survive all the judgments, though here she could not as the candlestick stand the righteous challenge of the Lord. And this is man—and this is God always: shame and ruin mark our end—honor and peace, and everlasting truth and love the end of the Lord. And in this shame and ruin, I believe these three chapters close; the perfect order of the seven lights of the house of God is gone, and gone too not to be restored, and according to this the prophet is at once called to see other things, and other places; to witness another scene, but still a scene of judgment as we shall find, not that of the priestly Son of Man in His Temple, but that of God and the Lamb in the earth.
But this judgment is delayed till all the foreknown family have come in—for God's long suffering is salvation (2 Peter 3:15). The fullness of the gentiles must come in, and all be brought to the knowledge of the Son of God (Rom. 11:25; Eph. 4:13); therefore before we are led in our prophet to behold this second scene of judgment, or the judgment of the earth, we are given, I believe, a sight of the Church in heaven, under the symbols of the living creatures, and crowned elders round the throne; so that the rapture of the saints into the air had taken place at some untold moment between the times of our third and fourth chapters.
But here I would pause a little. We have not, I am aware, this ascension of the saints actually presented here; we learn it in the appointed Scripture (1 Thess. 4), and that rapture will lead both to the Lord Himself and then to the Father. But it is not these results that we get here. It is not the saints, either in the Lord's presence, or in the mansions of the Father's house, that we see here, but the Church before the throne of God Almighty, of Him who was, and is, and is to come, for whose pleasure all things were created. This is the scene we get here:-not the children before the Father, but the Church in dignity before the throne.
But how perfect is the wisdom of God in appointing all the seasons for revealing His mind and purposes! A view of the Father's house would not have been in character here, for this is the book, not of consolations for the children of the Father, but of judgments by which God and the Lamb are asserting their holy rights, vindicating their own praise, and delivering the long usurped and corrupted inheritance out of the hands of its destroyers. The Gospel by John conducts us to the Father's house, our path there ends, as the path of children, in that house of love; but this Apocalypse by John gives us the action that gets the golden city ready for us, and our path here ends, as the-path of heirs, in that place of glory: for both are ours, the joys of children, and the dignity of heirs—the house of the Father, and the throne of the Son. Here, then, when taken into vision of heavenly things, it is the throne of God, with its due attendants, and not the Father's house with the children that we see. It is the throne of God Almighty, Creator and Ruler of all things, around which is, therefore, the holy pledge of the earth's covenanted security-the rainbow. And it is the place too from which the subsequent action of the book, or the judgment of the earth, flows; and, therefore, lightnings and thunders, and voices (the symbols of these judgments) here issue from it. And it is the throne, also, which is to rule the world to come or the kingdom at the end. And therefore the seven spirits (the symbol of that energy by which that kingdom is to be maintained—Isa. 11:1-3) are here seen before it; and in connection with this government of the kingdom, or " world to come " (Heb. 2:5), we see the Church in the symbol of the living creatures and elders also around it. But as to this wondrous subject of the living creatures or the Cherubims, I would observe a little more particularly. Whenever we see them throughout Scripture, they are always attendants upon the throne of God: always reflecting by their action, or attitude, the mind and ways of Him who sits; there.
1.—Thus they are seen at the gate of Eden, with a flaming sword, because there the Lord was expressing His own unrepenting righteousness in the law, driving as He then was the sinner out of His place.
2.—Thus also they are seen over the mercy-seat in the holiest, with fixed delighted gaze inquiring into the secrets of that throne of grace, because there the Lord was expressing His work in Jesus, the fixedness of His purpose, and joy in the gospel of His dear-Son (Ex. 25:20; 1 Peter 1:12).
3.—Thus also they are seen with unfolded wings under the God of Israel (Ezek. 1:11), because then the Lord of Israel was about to leave His sanctuary, the apostasy of His people having disturbed His rest in Jerusalem. And they are here also seen reaching out their hands to take fire to cast it over the city, for then the Lord had commanded the judgment of its sins.
4.—Thus also as here, they are seen round the throne, still attending on it to celebrate the praise of Him who sits there, and do His will, and learn His mind, still therefore reflecting His mind and ways. But in this last place of the Cherubim, we observe a distinction of great importance. Hitherto, or in the first three instances, they were angelic, because the law had been ordained by angels (Gal. 3:19). With delight the angels, inquired into the mysteries of Christ (1 Peter 1:12), and the angels waited on the Lord of Israel (Isa. 6:2). But now the Cherubim, or attendants on the throne, have become human, because " the world to come " is to be made subject to man and not to angels,(Heb. 2:5), and this throne in Rev. 4, is the throne that is by-and-bye to preside over the world to come."
But this is glorious and wonderful. Poor sinners redeemed by blood are destined, through grace, to take the Cherubic dignity and joy in which angels, unfallen angels, once stood, the angels themselves falling back, as it were, and opening their ranks to let redeemed sinners in, and then to take their own place around them, as well as around the throne itself (7.). Angels are thus passed by and the seed of Abraham taken up, and it is blessed to know that angels themselves take delight in this. They desire to look into this mystery. God manifest in the flesh is seen of them (1 Tim. 3:16). Their own joy is enhanced by all this, for by it they have learned more of the shining and gracious ways of Him who created them, as He has redeemed us, and on whom they as we depend. Beggars from the dunghill are set as among princes round the throne—the living creatures, and the crowned elders accordingly, never in the whole action of this wondrous book move out of heaven, but there abide, either in the intelligence of the mind of God, or in authority under the throne, or in the holy office of leading the joy of creation (see 5., 6., 7., 11., 15., 19.). They abide in their sphere on high while the action proceeds on earth.
Such I judge to be the throne with its attributes and attendants. It is the throne of the Creator and Upholder of all things, from which is to go forth the judgments which are to clear the earth of its corrupters and destroyers, and then to have connection with the redeemed earth in " the world to come."
But the throne being thus seen, and God's glory and pleasure as Creator and Governor of all things being thus celebrated, the question arises, Who can He seat on the throne with Himself? Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord, or who shall stand in His-holy place?"
The earth and its fullness is the Lord's by the title of creation here celebrated, and owned in that 24th Psalm; but it was His pleasure of old to set His image over these works of His hand. Adam was given dominion, but Adam lost his place, and forfeited his kingdom. Who then shall reassume the dignity, again ascend the hill of the Lord? Who is he whom the Lord God can reinstate in Adam's forfeited lordship? That now becomes the question, and accordingly it is raised in the 5th chapter, immediately after the exhibition of the supreme throne in the 4th chapter, and the answer to it from every quarter is this:" The Lamb that was slain, the Lion of the tribe of Judah." He who sat on the throne joins to give that answer by letting the Book pass from His hand into that of the Lamb. The living creatures and elders join in giving it by singing their song of gladness in the prospect of the earth being soon the scene of their glory; the hosts of angels join in giving it by now ascribing all strength, and glory, and faculty for dominion to the Lamb. Every creature in heaven, on earth, under the earth, and such as are in the sea, in their order and measure join in giving it by uniting the name of the Lamb with that of their Creator and Lord, and they all at once feel as though their groans were already turned into praises, for as soon as Adam fell, creation was sensitive of the cause and became a prisoner of hope (Rom. 8:20-22); but now that the Lamb takes the Book, she becomes at once equally sensitive of deliverance, and glories in the liberty of the children of God. Thus is the question settled in heaven. The title of the Lamb to take dominion in the earth is owned and verified in the very place where alone all power and dominion or office could righteously be had, in the presence of the throne in heaven, for " power belongeth to God." Messiah owns that in the 62nd Psalm, and here He again owns it by taking the Book out of His hand, for that is an action which confesses on the part of the Lamb, that powers are ordained of God, that the Lord in heaven is the foundation of office. Thus it is in heaven, and from the Ancient of Days, that the Son of Man takes dominion, and the Nobleman receives His kingdom (Dan. 7; Luke 19). Jesus would not take power from the god of this world (Matt. 4:9, 10), nor would He take it from the heated desire of the people (John 6: 15). He waits to take it (for then alone it could be righteously received) from the hand of the God of heaven and earth, from whom Adam had of old received it. And as the Lamb here owns God on the throne to be the source of power, so God on the throne owns the Lamb to be His ordinance of power. This action of taking the Book has this concord of sweet sounds in it, for the Lamb goes up to receive it, and the Lord allows it to pass from His hand. God's glory as supreme and only Potentate is thus vindicated, and He commits power in the earth again to the hand of man, as fully sanctioning it then, and all the exercise of it, as of old He did in Adam, delighting again in this other image and likeness of Himself. And this governs all the subsequent action of this wondrous book, for the title to the kingdom being thus approved in the due place and form, it only remains to clothe that title with possession. The inheritance is the Lamb's by purchase of blood; that blood sealed Him as the fully obedient One, and therefore God could thus highly exalt Him (Phil. 2.), and that blood had also reconciled all things in heaven and earth (Col. 1).
And the inheritance being therefore thus purchased, He has now only to redeem it. His blood as the Lamb slain had given Him the title to it; His strength as the Lion of the tribe of Judah must now give Him possession of it.
(Continued from page 11)
( To be continued, D. V.)