I have been looking at the conquerors in the Apocalypse. All are conquerors there, and their victories lead to the kingdom. As on the journey they were overcoming, so at the end they sit on thrones. In all the churches you see the saints as conquerors (chaps. 2, 3.). Another company are looked at in the same character in ch. 12:11, and again another company in chap. 15:2. Jesus Himself recognizes His own conqueror character, ch. 3:21. And so, the inheritors of all things forever, the same, ch. 21:7. “No cross, no crown,” as the word is, no victory, no throne, is the impression left on the soul by the apprehension of the Book of the Apocalypse.
But then the path we travel to the Father’s house is not the same. We believe; and as trusting in Jesus, as receiving the Son, as believing the message which He has brought from the Father’s bosom to us, we reach the Father’s house. John’s Gospel shows us this. As believers, we reach the house; as conquerors, we reach the throne. All is beautiful in its place and in its season, and the Spirit of God in Scripture distinguishes these things for us, that we may be both comforted and yet kept watchful and vigorous.
Look at Psa. 23, and then at Psa. 24. The one conducts the soul, by a sweet gracious path, to “the house of the Lord;” the other, by a stronger, more vigorous journey, as it were, to “the hill of the Lord,” or place of government. But I can only point out such things. How unfeignedly would I own I know little of the vigor of conflict or the blessedness of conquest!