“And to the angel of the church in Sardis write: These things saith he that hath the seven Spirits of God, and the seven stars.” There is an evident allusion to the manner in which the Lord presented Himself to the church in Ephesus, but with a marked difference. Ephesus was the first presentation of the general public state. Sardis gives the rise of the new state of things, not strictly ecclesiastical — the Lord acting in the way of testimony rather than in that precise order. Hence it is not said here that He held in His right hand the seven stars and walked in the midst of the seven golden lampstands: this was ecclesiastical strictly. But here He “has” the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars. He changes not, but does not describe Himself as before. Yet all power, all governing energy, is in His hands, and the seven stars, that is to say, all the instrumental lights by which He acts on souls here below. Let them not look to the world — to the powers that be. “I know thy works, that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.” Such was Protestantism after the impulse of the Reformation passed. How sad but true! The decline was sure if slow, They did lean on the world; and what can the issue of this be for those who are not of the world, as Christ is not?
“Be watchful, and strengthen the things that remain, which were about to die: for I have not found thy works completed before my God.” Hence what judges the actual state is this, that they have the testimony of God’s word much more fully than those who had sunk into the mere ecclesiastical formalism of the middle ages. There the word of God had been overlaid and kept away, because the priests and the gospel can never go together in unison. It is, and always must be, the effect of the clerical principle to substitute the authority of man (more or less) for that of the Lord, and to weaken and hinder the immediate action of the Spirit by the word of God on the conscience. One speaks not of individual clergymen, but of clericalism wherever found, Catholic or denominational, nationalist or dissenting. Earthly priests are its extreme expression.
But the Protestant principle is a different one. People may not be true to their principles, and often are not. Has not every one, say they, the right of private judgment? God’s rights were thus easily forgotten. Yet one of the grandest points fought for at the Reformation, and gained for Protestantism, whatever might be its defects, was this; — that man has fairly, freely, and openly the Bible. God’s word is there to deal with human conscience. Men often speak of justification by faith; but even Luther himself hardly got thoroughly clear as to the truth of it. If, on the one hand, Romanists are miserably deluded, Protestants, on the other, do not understand the righteousness of God to this day. They have the truth in a measure, but not so as to clear souls from bondage, or bring them distinctly into liberty, peace, and the power of the Spirit. Had Luther settled peace in his soul, as the state in which he walked? We have many of us heard what conflicts he had, not merely at the beginning of his career, but to the end. Nor do we mean conflicts about the church or its leaders, but about his soul. It is needless here to cite passages from his extant writings, which prove how sorely he was tried by inward conflicts of unbelief. These amply prove how far he was from the calm enjoyment of the holy deliverance of the gospel; but it is an error to impute them to any other cause than a lack of clear knowledge of grace. In such a state all sorts of things may trouble the man, however able or honored he may be, who cannot without a question rest on the Lord. Assuredly Luther is one from whom we may all learn much; whose courage, faithfulness, self-renunciation, and endurance are edifying and instructive. At the same time it is useless to blink the fact: energetic as he was and used of God largely, he was behind in the understanding both of the church and of the gospel.
In spite of drawbacks, an open Bible was won for God’s children in particular, and for man also. This very thing condemned the state of Protestantism in result; because, while the Bible was freely read, scarce any one thought of forming all upon it or of being regulated by it only. Nothing is more common among Protestants than to admit a thing to be certain and true because it is in the word of God, without any serious intention or thought of acting upon it. Is not this a humbling fact? Romanists are in general too ignorant to know what is or is not in the Bible; for except the common-places of controversy with Protestants, they know little of its contents. Tell them that this or that, however momentous, is found there, and they look amazed. They rarely know it as a whole, having never read it save (?) under the eye of the directing priest, their confessor. The Protestant can read the Bible at liberty, which is a real and precious boon; but for this very reason the Protestant incurs no light responsibility.
“I have not found thy works completed before my God. Remember therefore how thou hast received and heardest, and keep [it], and repent If therefore thou shalt not watch, I will come [on thee] as a thief.” It is a sweeping intimation of the same way in which the Lord threatens to come on the world. NOW if there be in the state of Protestantism one thing more marked than another, it is that they fall back on the world to deliver themselves from the power of the pope or the ecclesiastic. This has ever been the chief snare, as it is now. If even what belongs to the world be touched, they are in no small agitation about it. The church in danger because the tithes are assailed! Why, such wealth is real poverty, and the evident shame of an early lapse into Judaism. What would the apostles have thought of a claim so earthly and opposed to the true and heavenly separateness of Christ’s body?
Let none infer that in saying this one feels little for saints. Nor is it doubted that it is a great sin to wipe off all public recognition of God in the world. But leaning on the world has let in the world; and if the godly complain of accrediting unbelievers as the faithful, their leaders are quick to stifle conscience with the cry, We must not judge! But this is not a true judgment of charity which spares no pains to own every saint and to warn that we may win to God sinners. The false start has led to far worse than in earlier days. Impossible to believe that the unblushing worldliness one sees in the modern combination of Dissenters with Papists and sceptics springs from just, holy, or unselfish motives. It is rather to be imputed to the latitudinarian spirit of infidelity, which admits also of a truckling to superstition. Doubtless the infidels hope to gain the day, as the superstitious are no less confident in their hopes. The truth is that the devil will have the upper hand to the destruction of them both, and then find that the Lord will appear in His day for personal judgment of all adversaries, and the rebuke of all unbelief.
The angel of the church in Sardis is warned that if he should not watch, the Lord will come on him unexpectedly as a thief. It is not at all so that His coming is spoken of for His own. These wait for Him in bright hope, without fear for themselves of His thief-like surprise. How can it be such for those who in faith and love look and long for Him? His coming is their joy; and they watch more than watchman for the dawn. The figure of the thief is therefore employed for the sleeping world or worldly-minded souls. Compare 1 Thessalonians 5 with 1 Thessalonians 4; also Matthew 24:4343But know this, that if the goodman of the house had known in what watch the thief would come, he would have watched, and would not have suffered his house to be broken up. (Matthew 24:43) and Revelation 16:1515Behold, I come as a thief. Blessed is he that watcheth, and keepeth his garments, lest he walk naked, and they see his shame. (Revelation 16:15). If people walk with the worldly in divine things, it is not only that the unrenewed are in danger of being deceived, but that believers lose the joy of their own relationship. The world is attracted by the good words and fair speeches which deceive the hearts of the unsuspecting. So solemnly does this language suppose that the assembly at Sardis had passed out of the practical attitude of waiting for the Lord who waits for them. It is an easy transition to pass into great dread of Him as a judge. They had slipped into the world, and share its fears and anxieties. They little knew or had lost the sense of Christ’s peace left with them. Such souls lack the joy of His coming for them to receive to Himself those whom He loves. The unwelcome visitation of a thief would be incongruous if they were enjoying the blessed hope according to His own word, that He comes quickly.
“Thou hast a few names in Sardis which defiled not their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, because they are worthy.” This is said without the enfeebling “even” of the common text, and they are cheered before the promise repeats it. Where the scriptures are read freely, we may look for some real good even in untoward associations. This has been always the case. Precious souls are there, and our happy service is to help them, if we can, to a better knowledge of His grace, — not, of course, to make light of their worldly ways, yet in love to feel for them as the Lord fully does. “He that overcometh, he shall be clothed in white garments; and I will not blot his name out of the book of life, and will confess his name before my Father, and before his angels. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.”
In the next place stands a great contrast. “And to the angel of the church in Philadelphia write: These things saith he that is holy, he that is true, he that hath the key of David, he that openeth, and no one shall shut; and shutteth, and no one shall open.” Every word of Christ’s presentation of Himself differs from that given in chapter 1. This marks generally the change in the chapter, and especially the part before us. The address to Sardis also, although allusive to that of Ephesus, is nevertheless clearly meant to stand distinguished from it. It is a recommencement, and so far analogous with that to Ephesus; but the manner in which the Lord is presented is not the same. His having the seven Spirits of God is distinct from the first and normal picture. But where is anything here similar to the description of the Lord Jesus given before? It is a new state of things; and in the details of Philadelphia there is far more evidence of it.
The descriptions of the second chapter generally repeat what was found in the vision John had at first seen. The one exception is in Thyatira, where He is described as the Son of God; and this marks the fact of a transition, the beginning of a changed condition. It is a church state in responsibility though not in true power, being an ecclesiastical body which presents horrors to the Lord’s eyes, but not without a remnant dear to Him. This at the same time goes down to the end, and brings in distinctly the Lord’s coming. For, be it observed, the personal coming of the Lord is not introduced in any of the first three; from Thyatira it is, because the condition sketched out goes on till then. It was not so with Ephesus, with Smyrna, or with Pergamum the only semblance of it is in threats of present visitation. To Thyatira, or at least the remnant there, it is given personally, and to Sardis judicially. But Philadelphia has it in all grace, as a bright and proximate hope.
Indeed to the angel of the church in Philadelphia is prominently brought out the Lord in His moral glory, what He is, not merely what He has, It is now Christ Himself, and this as One that faith discovers in the beauty of holiness, not dependent on the vision of glory seen before, but Christ as He genuinely is in Himself, “he that is holy, he that is true.” But He is also seen according to the largeness of His glory. Absorbed with Him and resting in His love, the heart delights in all that is His. Faith sees that the Holy and the True is the same that has the key of David. Old Testament prophecy, or dispensational truth, can be freely introduced now. It is “he that openeth and no one shall shut; and shutteth, and no one shall open.” His control is guaranteed. “I know thy works: behold I have set before thee an opened door, and none can shut it: for thou hast little strength.” There is perfect liberty now, liberty for worship and service, for every one that would serve the Lord. They are supposed not to be marked by such mighty doings as were before. If Sardis did great exploits, Philadelphia knew nothing of the sort. Are we content to be little? to be of no esteem in the world? never to set up for anything that men wonder at or admire?
Notoriety is not true of Philadelphia, which is rather formed by faith of a rejected Christ. We know of what small account He was to the world; so it is with the saints in Philadelphia. Has this fellowship with Him no price in His eyes? “Thou hast kept my word, and hast not denied my name.” Jesus was, marked by valuing His Father’s word and loving His Father’s name, the only One that could also truly say to Satan as true of Himself, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceedeth out of the mouth of God.” So here the Philadelphian saints are distinguished by the same living in the dependence of faith. In their measure each could say with the apostle, “For me to live is Christ,” To some it might appear a small thing not to deny Christ’s name; but is anything more precious to the Lord? Once it was a question of not denying His faith, as was found in Pergamum; but here it is Himself as revealed. What He is is the main point. Orthodoxy, if ever so real, does not suffice, but His person, though absent on high, and the glory due to Him in our souls.
“Behold, I make [or, give] of the synagogue of Satan, that say they are Jews, and they are not, but lie.” Is not this the revival of that dreadful scourge that had afflicted the early church (as in Smyrna)? Have we not heard of it And have we not seen it ourselves? How comes it, that for so many hundreds of years only a part of what the Fathers had labored at sank into the minds of men, a considerable portion being rejected by Protestantism; but now, when God brings out this fresh witnessing, there rises a counter-testimony? Satan revives the old Judaizing spirit, at the very time that God reasserts the true principle of Christian brotherhood, and, above all, makes Christ Himself to be all to His own. Here we have for our instruction the fact, that the synagogue of Satan, those who say they are Jews, and are not, revives. How stand the facts? How are they even in this country? What is commonly called Puseyism has this character; and the system is in no way confined to this country but holds equally abroad, as in Germany, America, and elsewhere. In fact it is a fair show in the flesh wherever Protestantism is found; and, above all, wherever this is provoked either by skepticism on the one hand, or on the other by truth that condemns both with any real measure of heavenly light. In order to defend themselves on a religious footing, men fall back on a system of ordinances and of the law. This seems meant by the synagogue of Satan here. They claim sacerdotalism and practice ritualism, both irreconcilable with Christianity.
But the Lord will compel the recognition of His own testimony and witnesses. We do not say when, where, or how; but as surely as He lives will the Lord vindicate the truth He has given as it were back again for His name. Only let us bear in mind that the favor and power vanish when the witnesses lose sight of Christ and preach themselves. May we have grace to merge ourselves truly in Him! “Behold, I will cause them to come and do homage before thy feet, and to know that I loved thee.”
Nor is this all. As we know, there is a perilous time awaiting the world, the hour not exactly of tribulation but “of temptation.” This hour of trial, it seems, falls within the Apocalyptic future, or “the things which are about to be after these things.” It is not merely the time of horrors when Satan in a rage is expelled from on high, and when the Beast, energized by him, rises to his full height of persecuting power, but the previous period of trouble and seduction. “The hour of temptation” is a term larger than the “great tribulation” of Revelation 7, and still more so than the unparalleled tribulation which is to befall the land of Israel (Dan. 12, Matt. 24, Mark 13). If so, how rich and full is the promise, “Because thou didst keep the word of my patience, I also will keep thee from the hour of the trial (or, temptation) which is about to come on all the habitable world, to try them that dwell on the earth”? In vain men try to escape. The hour of temptation must come on all the inhabited world. Perhaps some remember when people used to flee to Canada, in order to escape “the great tribulation,” which they expected to fall on the old empire of the Beast revived. But the scheme was a mistake, their flight foolish. The hour of temptation will catch men, no matter where they may hide; for it is about to come on the whole habitable world, “to try them that dwell on the earth.” How blessed to be here a sojourner, whose living associations are with Christ in heaven!
Who then can escape? Those who at Christ’s call are to be caught up to heaven. They will not be in that hour. It is not merely that they will not be in the place, but they will be kept “out of the hour,” of the coming temptation. What a full and bright exemption! Such is the strength of the promise and its blessed that the Lord promises His own to be kept even out its time. The simple and sure way to keep any from the hour is to take them altogether out of the scene. The Irvingites used to talk about the Lord having a little Zoar. How poor and earthly its comparison! It is not, however, a question of geography, or of a distant and secret place of shelter, but of complete removal from the period filled by the temptation coming on all the habitable world. This is worthily secured by translating them to heaven before the time of the world-trial arrives; and this the promise before us imports. The godly remnant of Jews, on the other hand, having to do with a special and fiery but circumscribed tribulation in Jerusalem, have only to flee to the mountains in order to escape, till Jesus appears in glory to the confusion of their foes. It is quite another thing for Christians. How readily errors for the church take a Jewish shape!
“I come quickly!” There is not a word about His coming as a thief now, but with joy. The Lord will have revived the true hope of His return; there are those who now wait thus for Christ, and this epistle seems emphatically to apply to such. “I come quickly!” In principle it is true for all that are really faithful. Happy they for whom Christ is all! What association with Himself in glory He promises! Let it be ours now in faith and patience, yea keeping the word of Christ’s patience. “Hold fast what thou hast, that no one take thy crown.” It is a great grace never to go back from known truth; and none can be so exposed as those who have received much, and of a high order. Watch and pray. “He that overcometh, him will I make a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out; and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the city of my God, the new Jerusalem, that cometh down out of the heaven from my God, and my new name. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.” He will be as much marked by power in the day of glory, as by contentedly dependent weakness in God’s present ways of grace. He suffers with Christ and waits for Him, if not with Him. To be a pillar in the temple of My God is as truly a figure for the day of glory as the synagogue of Satan is a figure now. For literally there is no temple in the new Jerusalem. It is the one of little strength now made manifestly strong in that day and in God’s blessed presence. And thus it is with each promise associating us with Christ in all the scenes of bliss.
There remains the last epistle to the angel of the church in Laodicea; and on this but a few words may suffice. “And to the angel of the church in Laodicea write: These things saith the Amen, the faithful and true witness, the beginning of the creation of God.” The church in its responsibility on earth was to be set aside, most of all at the last, for being an unfaithful witness. The Laodicean picture is, of course, most distinct, but seems to be largely the result of dislike and contempt for the testimony that the Lord had previously raised up. If people despise the grace and truth valued by those who truly wait for the Lord, they are in danger of falling into the awful condition here set forth. Certainly here Christ is no longer the loved and satisfying object of the heart; nor is there any such sense of His person as leads into waiting for Him; still less can there be glorying in weakness that the power of Christ may rest on one. There is the desire to be great, to be esteemed of men, “rich, and increased in goods, and in need of nothing.” We find here a state therefore, that leaves ample room for man’s thoughts and ways.
Hence the Lord introduces Himself to them as the Amen; all security lies in the Christ of God. He only is “the faithful and true witness.” This is exactly what the church ought to have been but was not; and therefore He has to take that place Himself. It was so before when He was here below in grace; now He must resume it in judicial power and glory, than which one can hardly conceive a greater rebuke for the condition of those whose obligation was to be faithful and true witnesses. Besides He is “the beginning of the creation of God.” This sets aside the first man altogether, and most justly, for Laodicea is the glorification of man and of his resources in the church. He begins that new work, which God delights in as according to His nature.
“I know thy works, that thou art neither cold, nor hot; I would that thou wert cold or hot. Thus, because thou art lukewarm, and neither cold nor hot, I am about to spue thee out of my mouth.” Being neutral in principle and practice, they were halfhearted toward Christ. Nor is any place more likely to generate neutrality than an outwardly true position, if self-judgment be not maintained with godly sincerity. The more one stands in the forefront of the battle, with the responsible testimony of God, the more His grace and truth are in letter brought out before others, if there be not also walk according to the light, sooner or later comes a lapse back into neutrality, if not active enmity. For heart and conscience are not animated and governed by the power of God’s Spirit through living faith in Christ. Indifference to all that is good must follow; and the only kind of zeal, if zeal can so exist, will be for what is of the first man, worldly, and bad.
This is Laodiceanism. So repulsive does the Master declare it to be, that one need not wonder that most are unwilling for it to be their lot, or that it can be, as it is, the last recorded phase before the church is traced no more on earth. People vainly dream of progress, and flatter themselves. “Thus because thou art neither cold nor hot, I am about to spue thee out of my mouth. Because thou sayest, I am rich, and am grown rich, and have need of nothing, and knowest not that thou art the wretched one and the miserable, and poor, and blind, and naked; I counsel thee to buy of me gold purified by fire.” They wanted everything that was characteristic of Christianity: “gold” or divine righteousness in Christ, “that thou mayest be rich”; “and white garments,” or the righteousnesses of saints, “that thou mayest be clothed, and that the shame of thy nakedness may not be manifested; and eyesalve to anoint thine eyes, that thou mayest see.” They had lost the perception of what God values. All was dark as to truth, and uncertain as to moral judgment. Holy separateness and savor were gone. “As many as I dearly love, I rebuke and chasten: be zealous therefore, and repent. Behold, I stand at the door and am knocking: if any one hear my voice, and open the door, I will come in to him, and will sup with him, and he with me.” The Lord presents Himself even there in His pitiful way to meet their every want.
“He that overcometh, I will give him to sit down with me in my throne, as I also overcame and sat down with my Father in his throne. He that hath an ear, let him hear what the Spirit saith to the churches.”
The utmost promised in the word that closes the epistle goes not beyond reigning with Him. It is not anything special. For every one that has part in the first resurrection reigns with Christ, as even shall the Jewish sufferers under earlier enemies, or later under the Beast. It is a mistake therefore to suppose that it is a singular distinction. For all amounts to this, that the Lord will hold, after all, to His own truth in spite of unfaithfulness. There may be individual reality, even where the surroundings are miserably untoward. But all that are born of God and are Christ’s share the kingdom.
Such is the bearing of the seven churches to which the Lord was pleased to send the letters contained in the second and third chapters. We have found substantial reason and ample evidence in their own contents, as well as in the character of the book itself, to look for a meaning far more comprehensive than only the historical notice of the Asiatic churches then primarily addressed. That John wrote to these seven churches is indisputable; but that no more was meant ought not to be assumed. “The things that are” is an unusual and suggestive expression. The septenary number in itself is significant, and its division into three and four. Again, the order of their contents, as well as their nature severally, points to a continuative inference. There are depicted successive phases of strikingly varied ecclesiastical states, as objects of the Lord’s judgment from the threat on the first till the spitting out of the last. Further it is plain, if certain phases do not abide, that at a given point in their course the language implies that the latter ones continue up to Christ’s coming. From Thyatira inclusively those also that follow, as they successively arise, go on together till then.
Thus one gathers from the internal evidence that the three earlier churches are severed in character from the rest; for though all are alike typical and successive from the apostle’s day, only the last four are used as foreshadows of the successive states to continue up to the Lord’s advent. The promises to the overcomers in Thyatira, the threat to the worldly-minded in Sardis, the comforting assurance to those that keep the word of Christ’s patience in Philadelphia, and the closing sentence to the angel of the church in Laodicea are clear enough to indicate far more than any past application. “The things that are” in other words are not yet closed; they have not become the things that were. Who is bold enough to suppose that the predicted hour of universal temptation is past, or that faithful souls have been somehow kept out of it? Will it be said that the last stage is reached for the church on earth? that Christ has already and definitely spewed its final representative out of His mouth? If it be so, ought not every saint on earth to sit in sackcloth and ashes deploring the irreparable ruin? Not a hint is given of restoration when this pass is reached. The next chapter discloses what follows. It is worthy of all heed on our part, if indeed we believe the crisis in Laodicea as well as the promise to him that overcomes in Philadelphia. There was enough in the then existing state of Thyatira, Sardis, Philadelphia, and Laodicea to call forth the Lord’s words; but who believes that each of the epistles to them left no room for a much more exhaustive fulfillment?
From this point we have the Spirit of God leading the prophet into the understanding of (not the church state, but) that which must follow when churches are no longer to exist. Thus it becomes a question of dealing with the world, not without, testimonies from God in the midst of gradually swelling troubles; but His witnesses henceforward are of Jewish or Gentile character, never thenceforth of the church on earth.
Believers we do see, of course, some of the chosen people, others of the nations; but we hear of no real church condition after the second and third chapters. The Jewish saints are expressly distinct from the Gentile a state quite incompatible with the church, seeing that it is the essence of its nature that such distinctions within are wholly abolished. For Christ has broken down the middle wall of enclosure, having annulled the enmity in His flesh, that He might form the two in Himself into one new man, making peace, and might reconcile both in one body to God through the cross, having slain the enmity thereby. Can there be a more striking proof of the way in which the patent facts of the word of God are habitually passed over than that a change so immense has been so constantly overlooked chapter 4:1.
When John sent the epistles to the seven Asiatic churches, what, one may well ask, was there to fulfill the introductory chapter 4. and vs. 7. Those who look at the seven churches as only past have nothing to say that explains it: all is vague and jejune. Historical authorities are equally at fault. It is the grand and impressive opening of “the things which must take place after these,” that is, “after the things which are” (the sevenfold course of things ecclesiastical). The new things cannot begin till the existing things, however protracted, come to an end. The future is in contrast with the present state of things; but the world-kingdom of our Lord and of His Christ is not even announced till long after in Revelation 11:1515And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. (Revelation 11:15), and even then much has to be done before it is established here below as in Revelation 20:44And I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshipped the beast, neither his image, neither had received his mark upon their foreheads, or in their hands; and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years. (Revelation 20:4). Chapters 4 and 5, therefore introduce an interval of the deepest interest, and of all importance to discriminate. From chapter 6 preparatory dealings of God with men generally (whether Israel or the nations), and with remnants out of both, follow the existing church period, and fill the transition that intervenes before the kingdom comes for the earth in power and glory. Hence we shall find conspicuous among other dates the well-known prophetic term of Daniel under its three forms of a time, times, and a half, of forty-two months, and of twelve hundred and sixty days. But what came to pass, after the letters were dispatched to the seven churches in Asia, Which accounts for this glorious preliminary vision in heaven which the prophet was caught up to behold? Does it not suppose the total passing away of that church state, which we all believe still to subsist? Does it not reveal, “after these things,” the action of God’s throne by judgments on the world, to put the Lord Jesus in possession of His long-promised inheritance of all things?
The church condition indeed is not, strictly speaking, the subject of prophecy, which deals with the world, and shows us divine judgments coming on its evil, when God is about to make room for glory according to His own mind. Such is the great theme of the book of Revelation. But inasmuch as there were Christian assemblies then, the Spirit of God is pleased to preface it with a most remarkable panoramic view of the church condition, as long as it should subsist before the Lord on the earth. We have seen this given with the most striking wisdom, so as to suit at the time of John, yet also as long as Christianity goes on, always applying and increasingly, not every part at once, but with sufficient light to give children of God full satisfaction as to the mind of the Lord. The churches delineated in these seven epistles are “the things that are,” a phrase which naturally lends itself to continuance. It is not prophecy; yet the letters of Christ afford, as time passes, divine light on the succeeding states Christendom assumes. Nevertheless the coming of the Lord remains thus in God’s wisdom the ever-present and constant hope of the Christian. So indeed the Lord took care to guard against misuse of His parabolic instruction.
Thus the change is immense as a whole, and the revealed details only the more disclose its true nature. There is no vision henceforth of the Son of Man in the midst of churches. No more are churches recognized when “the things which are about to take place after these” begin. Revelation 22:1616I Jesus have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the churches. I am the root and the offspring of David, and the bright and morning star. (Revelation 22:16) is no exception; for this applies only in John’s day, or at most as long as the existing condition abides. It is only in the conclusory appeals of the book, and has nothing to do with the predicted things to succeed the present. Chapter 4 lets us see a quite new sight in heaven after the existing things terminate on earth.
“After these things I saw, and, behold, a door opened in the heaven, and the first voice which I heard as of a trumpet speaking with me, saying, Come up hither, and I will show thee the things which must take place after these things. Immediately I became in Spirit; and, behold, a throne was set in the heaven, and upon the throne one sitting, and the sitter [was] in appearance like a stone jasper and sardius; and a rainbow round the throne in appearance like an emerald. And round the throne [were] twenty-four thrones, and upon the thrones [I saw] twenty-four elders sitting, clothed with white garments, and upon their heads golden crowns. And out of the throne proceed lightnings and voices and thunders; and seven torches of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God; and before the throne as a sea of glass like crystal. And in the midst of the throne and around the throne [were] four living creatures full of eyes before and behind; and the first living creature like a lion, and the second living creature like a young ox, and the third living creature having the face as of a man, and the fourth living creature like a flying eagle. And the four living creatures, having each one of them respectively six wings, are full of eyes round and within; and they have no intermission day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy Lord, the Almighty God, that was and that is, and that is to come. And when the living creatures shall give glory and honor and thanksgiving to him that sitteth upon the throne, that liveth unto the ages of the ages, the twenty-four elders shall fall before him that sitteth upon the throne, and shall do homage to him that liveth unto the ages of the ages, and shall cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Worthy art thou, our Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power; because thou didst create all things, and for thy will they were, and were created.”
At the epoch where the chapter first applies, the day of the Lord is not come; but a vast change previous to it has taken place, and brought strange sights before the Seer. The scene is shifted from earth to heaven. It is no longer a question of the churches: they are over, and disappear. “After these things” the prophet saw; “and, behold, a door opened in the heaven,” and the first voice which he heard trumpet-like says, “Come up hither, and I will show thee the things which must take place after these things” —a phrase which nowhere in the N.T. admits of the vague sense of “hereafter,” least of all in this part of the Revelation, where it is in manifest Contrast with “the things which are.” A brief interval there may be, followed by the things which are about to take place, and must, “after these things” or the existing church status.
For such a sight immediately John became in Spirit; and, behold, a throne was set in the heaven, and upon the throne One sitting in appearance like stone of jasper and sardius. The same stones figure, especially the first, in the glories of the new Jerusalem (Rev. 21), where we are helped by its crystallizing character. This has induced some to imagine the diamond against all usage of the word. There is no room for such a fancy: for the aim is to show that the jasper here, like the gold — not only pure, but “like pure glass” — is above all nature in its symbolical application. If jasper be naturally semi-opaque, gold is so wholly. Here they are emphatically translucent. As the sardius is fiery red, jasper was not to oppose but strengthen the judicial appearance of His glory who sat the central object of the scene, not on the propitiatory or mercy-seat but upon the throne. He is about to judge the world in the way of providential chastisements with increasing severity, before He sends the Firstborn Heir of all things to bring in the kingdom.
God would judge; but a rainbow round the throne, in appearance like an emerald, indicated that though about to judge unsparingly, He remembered His covenant, not with Israel yet, still less His grace to the saints, but to creation on which many blows must soon fall. For as the issue creation was about to be delivered from the thralldom under which it as yet groans, and shall be set free from corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God. The kingdom of Christ will have it in full joy and peace, before the eternal day when all things are made new in the deepest sense.
Another notable object meets his eye: round the throne are twenty-four thrones, and upon the thrones twenty-four elders sitting, arrayed in white garments, and upon their heads crowns of gold. Isaiah saw no such company in his chapter 6; nor did Ezekiel in his opening chapter 1 or at any other time; nor does Stephen hint it in. Acts 7, nor Paul in 2 Corinthians 12, Daniel indeed saw thrones set up (not “cast down”); but they were empty, John here and now saw them filled with four-and-twenty elders, the chiefs of the twenty-four courses of priesthood. They exercised priestly functions in chapter 5:8. But they are a royal priesthood also; they wear crowns of gold and sit on thrones; and their garb is in accord. Can there be a doubt that they are the glorified saints?
Scripture, be it observed, never speaks thus of disembodied souls any more than of angels. The symbolic heads of the heavenly and royal priesthood are complete. From Revelation 4 to 19, when the kingdom comes in power and the enemies are made Christ’s footstool, the number stands unchanged. From first to last are twenty-four elders: there is no addition; whereas, if the souls of saints separate from the body were meant, how many must have, from the day John saw them, been adding Continually? The elders therefore represent not the unclothed who depart to be with Christ, but the full complement of those whose mortal was swallowed up by life, the saints of both Old and New Testaments changed at Christ’s coming and caught up to be with Him in the Father’s house. His coming between Revelation 3 and 4 falls in precisely with the existing facts and the vision of what follows. What else accounts for the disappearance of churches? What else explains the sight of the symbolic representatives in full of the saints destined to heavenly glory, who shall accompany Christ when He comes with His holy myriads to execute judgment against all the ungodly? (See Revelation 19:1414And the armies which were in heaven followed him upon white horses, clothed in fine linen, white and clean. (Revelation 19:14).)
Some no doubt wonder that there is no vision of the translation of the saints to heaven, save perhaps mystically in Revelation 12, as we shall see. John 14 had clearly spoken of it; 1 Thessalonians 4 and 5 had revealed the different characters of the Lord’s coming and of His day; and 2 Thessalonians 2 had shown their true correlation, in correction of false teachers who sought to alarm by the rumor that the day was come, and in recall of the saints to the hope of His coming and gathering to Him above before that day of terror and judgment for the earth. Hence the sight of the twenty-four elders enthroned and crowned above must convey the clearest proof that Christ had come and taken His own to heaven ere this vision could be given.
Another consideration of no small force in confirming this remark is, that the judicial character of the Revelation excludes that wondrous act, which is one of sovereign grace, and entirely apart from vision of judgments, with parenthetic disclosures here and there of mercy in the midst of judgment. Here we find it not described but presupposed in the plainest way, and so strongly confirmed that any other hypothesis is fairly untenable.
It is not here the Father’s throne, nor the throne of the God of grace. Out of it proceed lightnings and voices and thunders. This is in no way its expression while God is occupied with the gospel of His grace, or now making known to the principalities and authorities in the heavenlies through the church His all-various wisdom according to an eternal purpose which He made in Christ Jesus our Lord. It precisely suits the transition after the saints are caught up, and the world comes under God’s strokes, before the Lord shall be revealed from heaven with angels of His power in flaming fire, taking vengeance on those that know not God, and on those that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus, on Gentiles and on Jews, no church being mentioned on earth (compare 1 Cor. 10:3232Give none offence, neither to the Jews, nor to the Gentiles, nor to the church of God: (1 Corinthians 10:32)).
Again the symbol of the Spirit’s action agrees with the change. It is not parted tongues as of fire sitting upon each one, in testimony to all mankind of a Saviour Lord and His work of redemption, but seven torches of fire burning before the throne, the fullness of consuming light and judgment on evil. Still less was it the Spirit descending as a dove and coming on the Lord Jesus here below. Each appearance was perfectly appropriate. So it is here for the judicial dealings of God about to take place in an apostate world.
“We have an altar,” says Hebrews 13:1010We have an altar, whereof they have no right to eat which serve the tabernacle. (Hebrews 13:10) to the Christian Jews, “whereof they have no right to at that serve the tabernacle.” But no altar is in this scene. It was no more needed by those who had it fully, when the Jews lost it save in form: the saints were in heaven. It is made all the more striking, because the prophet did see before the throne as it were a glass sea like crystal (which glass at that time was far from like). Some have tried hard to divert this emblem from the molten sea for the priests to wash in, but in vain. For it is an allusive contrast of marked significance. Those taken to heaven and glorified wanted “the washing of water by the word” no more. It is a sea, not of water, but of glass (not the material of the vessel, but its contents). This declares that it is not purifying but fixed purity, which never could be true till the saints were all changed at Christ’s coming, as the symbol attests.
Next is seen a more difficult sign to read aright. “And in the midst of the throne and around the throne four living creatures full of eyes before and behind.” The chief creatures of earth and air (not of the sea), which were saved in Noah’s ark, furnished the forms; the lion, the young ox, the man, and the eagle. They were emblems of power, firmness, intelligence, and rapidity, though indeed each one had six wings, that is, only short of perfection in movement. They were the cherubim, but distinguished strikingly from the manifestations to Ezekiel, and incorporating also the seraphic qualities seen by Isaiah. They were full of eyes, not only before and behind but round and within; their perception was complete and intrinsic; and they have no cessation day and night, saying, Holy, holy, holy Lord, the Almighty God, that was and that is and that is to come. Thus do they celebrate the Holy One, and in His O.T. names of the Lord, the Almighty God, and Jehovah; for here it is so in all strictness, rather than as we read in chapter 1:4 and 8.
“Our” God and Father is wholly absent; as even in chapter 1 The utmost approach was to Christ’s God and Father. For the three preliminary chapters (however full of divine profit, yet occupied with the judgment of the churches) are but the avenue, through the things seen and the things that are, to what was about to take place after these, the proper and strict prophecy of the book.
It is to be remarked that there is dead silence as to angels in our chapter, whereas they distinctly appear in chapters 5:2, 11, 12. This suggests what solves the difficulty often and largely felt. For the living creatures in themselves present the attributes of providential power in the execution of judgment; but the comparison of the chapters points to change in its administration from the angels who are now the agents to the redeemed who are to be. Hence in chapters 4 the angels are merged as it were in the living creatures; in chapter 5 they are distinguished in view of Christ’s co-heirs, to whom and not to angels God will subject the inhabited earth to come (Heb. 2). The rendering of “beasts” in this case is still more unhappy than the belittling of “thrones” into “seats.” It is quite a different word in chapter 6:8 literally, and elsewhere symbolically.
And beautiful it is to see that, as often observed, the elders sat unmoved on their thrones before the judicial display of God’s glory, and the signs of His displeasure in the lightnings and voices and thunders which went forth from His throne, with all other solemn tokens of coming judgment. But when the living creatures give glory and honor and thanksgiving to Him that sits on the throne, that lives forever and ever, the elders fall and pay homage, and cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Worthy art thou, our Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honor and the power; because thou didst create all the things, and for (or, on account of) thy will they were and were created. It was not only worship, but in full spiritual intelligence. Those that are a new creation in Christ enter into God’s rights as Creator; which earth’s inhabitants, and especially apostate Christians, are about to dispute and deny. Their zeal is in due season and character. For God’s will the whole was in being, as it was also created.