IN the church in Sardis the change from the corruptions and depths of Satan in Thyatira is at once obvious and striking. Sardis is apparently clear of corruption and "depths of 'Satan," but worldly and dead; a prophecy of the condition of the Protestant profession after " the Reformation." Protestantism is to this day characterized by much reputation for life (" a name that thou livest "); but the fresh, living reality, is gone: "thou art dead." "And to the angel of the church in Sardis, write "-
1. SARDIS, the place where the church was, was the ancient capital of Lydia, situated in the fertile valley between the mountains Tmolus and Hermus, watered by the small river Pactolus, so famous in ancient history for its golden sands. It was 33 miles from Thyatira, 28 from Philadelphia, and 60 from Ephesus. It was the city of Croesus of fabulous riches: and it continued a rich and thriving town down to the close of the Byzantine Empire. In the eleventh century it fell into the hands of the Turks; and in the thirteenth was destroyed by Tamerlane. A village of two or three huts, called Sarte, is all that stands for it in our clay. Place and surroundings have invariably a good or a bad effect on the professing church; and here "the church in Sardis," a prosperous, worldly city, richer in Croesus' time than any in all the world, seems to have suffered injury to its spiritual life by being located in the midst of prosperous worldly enterprise, resulting in great wealth. There is a worldly atmosphere generated in such places which saints are sometimes, from necessity, enveloped in, as well as others; and just as trees and flowers refuse to grow, or show only a stunted, loveless, languishing vegetation, in the midst of a great manufacturing and commercial city, so Christians, living in the atmosphere of worldliness and haste to be rich, are apt to have their spiritual vitality checked and injured by the influence of the place, unless they keep themselves, like men in a diving-bell, drawing their vital air from a higher sphere. Much faith, prayer, meditation, and converse with God by reading His word, are needful if we would isolate ourselves, and protect our spirits from the deadening influence of the surrounding worldliness.
Living in the atmosphere of Sardis, heavily charged with soiling elements, the majority of the church there had defiled their garments; but not until their spirituality had just so declined, as to make them venture too freely into moral proximity to the defiling world. The fall is always first in the saints' hearts: ("thou hast left thy first love,")-then it manifests itself in outward things. We come next to consider-'
2. THE CHARACTERISTICS the Lord assumes in addressing the church in Sardis: "These things saith He that hath the seven, Spirits of God and the seven stars." "The seven Spirits of God" means that He has all spiritual energy to work, and the " seven stars " that He has all authority to entitle Him to do it. He could say, in view of the discipling of all nations, in Matt. 28:19, " All power (authority, ἐξουία) is given unto Me in heaven and on earth." And again, John 17:2, "As Thou hast given Him power (authority) over all flesh, that He should give eternal life to as many as Thou hest given Him." Although the church in Sardis may not acknowledge His authority, but give the world the right to regulate all things concerning its doctrine, discipline, and government, the Lord Jesus still says, though thus ignored, I have " the seven stars," i.e. all fullness of authority to rule all things in "the house of God," as He will, by and by, as Rev. 5 declares, have authority given Him, with fullness of divine energy to carry it out and to make God's will become law throughout the habitable world. He has " the seven stars," but they are not seen in His right hand; for Protestantism, though called "the Re-formation," never could be owned by Him ecclesiastically as His regular and re-formed order, with all His gifts and rulers in their right places, as they were in Ephesus, when they had " elders of the church " who could be sent for by the Apostle and charged to take heed to themselves and " to all the flock of God, in which the Holy Ghost had set them as overseers" (Acts 20:28). It was conspicuously obvious there that the most appropriate designation He could take to Himself when addressing that church was, "He that holdeth the seven, stars in His right hand, and walketh in the-midst of the seven golden candlesticks (Rev. 2:1). The various orders and authorisings throughout Protestantism are just as conspicuously and evidently not held in His hand; of its authority He must say, "I never knew you;" He is not their author, nor will He own them or be responsible for them; but, as they take ecclesiastical place, He will take account by and by of their doings; and meantime He has all fullness of authority, and He will so arrange matters that His will, with regard to the individuals who own Him and bow to His authority, shall be carried out.
In Popery, both spiritual power and ecclesiastical authority are arrogated: Protestantism claims spiritual power, and allows the State to assume the ecclesiastical authority. Hence all the Protestant Church establishments. But where they do not own the supremacy of the State after an Erastian sort, they have set up an ecclesiastical authority devised by human skill, and without regard to Christ as possessed of the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars; they establish doctrine, discipline, worship, and government, and tyrannize over the consciences of the more spiritual by means of this man-made order. The immediateness of contact with Christ Himself, which faith gives, is denied by this evil system, and spiritual death is the issue. We might almost say that the state of this Sardian profession is chronic deadness.
The Sardis state, though chiefly. human, not divine, is still ecclesiastical history, and men must be held responsible for the church-action which they take; and though the Lord is no longer seen walking in the midst of the candlesticks, He is there as truly as ever, taking note of and judging all that conies before Him, though it may be largely man's wilfulness substituted for His authority. As long as men attempt church-building, and potter in ecclesiastical ordering, and call it by the name of Christ, the Lord Jesus must inspect it and pass judgment on it.
The great mass of believers are in the sphere of Sardis; and, Christ's gifted servants being there also, He must assert His authority over them though in a wrong place and put to a perverted use-" to draw away the disciples after them." They are His as well as all that by which He represents Himself on the earth: " He bath the seven stars." If they administer things so very badly as to unite the professing church with the world, and advocate the unscriptural and suicidal alliance of Church and State, He will take note of it; and being His converted and gifted servants, He will call them to account for their bad work, and judge them for it too, just because they are His: "He haft the seven stars." It is " to the angel of the church in Sardis " He gives this designation of Himself; not to the world.
And, besides having authority,, He has all fullness of spiritual power. " These things saith He that hath the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars." This figure of the seven Spirits of God as had by Christ, not as connected with Christ's person, are seen in ch. 1: 3 as before God's throne: " the seven Spirits which are before His throne:" and in Rev. 4, 5 they are seen as " seven lamps of fire burning before the throne;" when He is seen as the Lamb that was slain, v. 6, the seven Spirits are His seven eyes; " which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth." See also Zech. 4:2-10. This indicates His fullness of spiritual qualities, intelligence, and power of the Spirit in connection with Him to accomplish the will of God in the world. Isa. 11:2 has the same form of speech; "And the Spirit of Jehovah shall rest upon Him; the Spirit of wisdom and understanding; the Spirit of counsel and might; the Spirit of knowledge and the fear of Jehovah." The subsequent context shows that "the seven Spirits" of Jehovah here mentioned are His in reference to the judgment and government of the earth. The seven Spirits are the Holy Ghost in such comprehensive qualities as these. The last promises to the faithful in Thyatira" authority over the nations," and." I will give him the morning star "-indicate the end: and as if the kingdom were about to come, He says to Sardis, "These things saith He that hath the seven Spirits of God." He has fullness of divine power to subjugate the nations, and to carry out authoritatively whatever is the will of God. There was a misapprehension of Christ's power and authority by those who went down to Egypt for help and leant on the arm of the world in their organizing Protestantism against the Pope.
But now the Lord would show the futility of so doing, for He has authority over all, and the fullness of spiritual energy to bring about whatever is God's will on earth. "He hath the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars." And if so, may not individual Christians trust themselves, and all that concerns them, in His hands? The way the Lord speaks of Himself here is appropriate to the condition of the church in Sardis, which was dead and worldly. If they were dead, the fullness of the Spirit giving life was His. If they had gone formally into the world, and invited and used its authority and support, yet He had the seven stars. If they had gone wrong ecclesiastically and spiritually, it was not because of want of fullness of authority and spiritual power in Him to meet all their need.
3. THE NAME WITHOUT THE THING: "I know thy works, that a name thou hast that thou livest, and thou art dead" (verse 1). It is utterly impossible for churches in alliance with the world to be in a state of spiritual life and vigor. When men in their own wisdom think to better their condition by giving up Christ's rights to the world, or by organizing churches according to their own pattern, and systematizing divine truth into Creeds and Confessions (as if they could put all God's truth into a human mold), they bring upon themselves a condition of spiritual death as the fruit of their folly. For they thereby either go to sleep on the lap of that ease which the world affords, or they preclude their being acted on by truth beyond their creed, which the Spirit, in His fullness, would give them from the word of God: and thus their organizations being human, and their creeds human, they degrade the divine system of Christianity into a merely human system, which keeps out Christian truth, the only means by which life is maintained. Theology is preached, not Christ, and man's learning is looked to for getting a knowledge of the truth, not the Holy Ghost; (yet He says " the things of God knoweth no man, but the Spirit of God; ") and logic is admired in formulating and inculcating theological sentiments, while the people are famishing for Christ, the living bread, who came down from heaven and gave His life for the world. There was a powerful working of the Holy Ghost, producing the divine life and its fruits, which is ordinarily called the Reformation of the sixteenth century. Then it was that, under the preaching of Luther and other servants of Christ of that age, multitudes of men, in all lands, were convicted of their sins and converted to God, and, with many others who were only convinced of the evils of Popery, they broke away in whole nationalities from the domination of the Papacy, and, by means of the Spirit working with a preached gospel and a printed Bible circulated in the language of the several countries, rid themselves of the corruptions of Rome, and held a comparatively scriptural creed, and lived a life becoming the gospel. But as everything given into the responsibility of man becomes spoiled and has proved a failure, so the result of this great work of God in man's hands also lost its life, power, and freshness, and, in course of time, with the old reputation for life as much insisted upon as ever, its vitality was only in name: " Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead." This is the judgment of no ignorant or impetuous critic, but of the omniscient Savior. " He that hath the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars" saith, "I know thy works that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead.”
4. " THY WORKS! " there seem at first sight to be none, only a dead profession. Strange it is to make it their work to live a life of mere quotation, or to pride themselves on a reputation for life because their fathers once enjeyed it, when the coldness of death so obviously prevails. There are many who have a name that they live, but their life is one of reference to times gone by, rather than a present enjoyment of life in Christ; a living by talking of extraordinary times and experiences which they have had in the past, but they have no present enjoyment of living fellowship with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ, which is the Christian state.
Others live on the traditional reputation of that with which they are connected. Their name for life is that they are members of an historical church, whose fathers long ago did self- sacrificing exploits, or were men of faith, prayer, and power, witnesses for Christ, of world-wide renown, men of God, who had sealed their testimony with their blood. But the Lord repudiates all historical religion, and insists on a present life of faith, carried on in the living power of the Holy Ghost, like Paul, who said, " I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave Himself for me,"-Gal. 2:20. But in this connection the Lord is testifying of the mass, rather than of the salvation of individuals.
What characterizes Protestantism is a boast of living when it is a painful anachronism. " I know... that thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead." The corruptions and Jezebels of Thyatira had no place, in Sardis, which, with a name to live, was but dead. But we will treat of this death and its causes more fully when we now consider the works of Sardis; for there are works, though defective. There had been the recovery of much truth, zeal for the Lord and His word, suffering for His name, liberty of conscience, the purging away of gross evil, and coming out from corruptions; but the. Lord complains, "I have not found thy works perfect before my God." They were works that He found incomplete, being only in meager outline, not filled to the full measure of Christian works (Eph. 2:10; 4: 5.)
What works were wrought at the Reformation? They were evangelic more than ecclesiastical, and of a practical kind; but in none of them did the Lord Jesus, the great Head of the Church, find anything like completeness or filled-fullness (as the word signifies). It is not the ordinary word for perfect, but one that means a filling to the full (πεπληρωμένα), (1 John 1:4; Col. 2:10; John 3:29; 15: 11; 16: 24, 17: 13;
2 John 12; Phil. 2:2.) It is the same word that is used in many places about the fulfilling of Scripture, "that the scriptures might be fulfilled," and the same as when Paul says that he was not only a minister of the gospel, but a minister of the church, to fulfill (or complete) the word of God (Col. 1:25), and rendered in Col. 2:9 complete, where the apostle writes, "and ye are complete in Him," filled to the full in Him. Now, with this the meaning of the word, and the Lord's declaration that the works were not completed ones before His God, " before MY God," we have a whole flood of light thrown upon the subject. (1.) Let us look first at the incompleteness of the works of the Reformation period in bringing out with scriptural fullness the great doctrines of Divine Revelation. Whoever reads even Luther's writings, great instrument of God though he undoubtedly was to deliver from superstition and give in good measure the saving truths of the gospel, will find, even the works of Luther and his co-laborers in formulating the doctrines of justification, righteousness, sanctification, the Spirit and His mission, Baptism and the Lord's Supper, were seriously incomplete. There was as much as gave life, if not settled peace, to thousands; the Lord gave great blessing with it, but the incompleteness of the doctrine, and especially the gross fundamental blunder about what they called " the sacraments "-retaining Baptismal regeneration, and framing the figment of consubstantiation, left the seed of evil doctrine so embedded in the very heart of reformation theology that it must ever keep those who receive it from doctrinal completeness.
(2.) And again, the works in church-forming were just as imperfect as those in creed-making. Just as there is not one doctrine of Holy Scripture to be found in its revealed completeness in the whole of Reformation theology, so there is not a trace of the true doctrine of the church of God to be found in the history of the Reformation, nor was there ever a practical approach made by the most enlightened of them to accepting and presenting the true manifestation of the church of God. They never got down to the true rock-basis (Matt. 16:18) of the church of God as it is in Scripture. The clergy were retained, and they by their presence kept the Lord from acting out His will, as well as giving full blessing by the Holy Ghost. The church of the Reformation period was built on man; they "put confidence in princes," contrary to the express teaching of Scripture (Psa. 108:9), and they left room and liberty for man to work, but ignored the Lord as the Head of His body the church, and as the One who should have been allowed liberty to direct all and work all by His Spirit, having as He has "the seven Spirits of God" and " the seven stars." The church of God, as revealed in the Holy Scriptures, being unknown in the Reformation period, all that could be done with a view to setting it up was necessarily not filled to the fullness of the pattern we have in the word. The Reformation allowed the stars to be regulated by the States of the world, and made it impossible for the Holy Ghost to have liberty in the Church to work by whom He pleased, according to Christ's will, and subsequently men who did not like this argued for the stars being put under the regulation of the church, both being equally unscriptural. And these incompleted works of the Protestantism of three hundred years ago come down in creeds and confessions to hamper and torment all the more conscientious " in Sardis" to this day. The evil that men do lives after them. The simple Scripture doctrine that rule and gift are retained by Christ in His own hands, and that we should believe this, confess it practically, and be filled with life and blessing from our living Head, and kept in perennial freshness by being immediately in contact with the fountain of life by the Holy Ghost, is what never was seen in Protestantism at the Reformation, nor since, and what it is the daily effort of the chiefs of Sardis to prevent. This being the very secret and source of spiritual vitality the serious incompleteness in regard to the church lets them put something between them and Christ-a system, a clergy, ordinances; and thereby scriptural worship becomes an impossibility, for the material of worship, the perfect purging of the worshippers, the place of Christian worship, the power for worship and liberty in worship (as Christ ordained all) are unknown in Protestantism, and no wonder then that with a name to live, it should be said by Him "that hath the seven Spirits of God and the seven stars "-" thou art dead." " Become watching and strengthen the things which remain, which are ready to die; for I have not found thy works perfect before my God."
(3.) In regard to Christian practice, their " works " were not filled out to Christian fullness. How could they, when Christians were put under the law as their rule of life-as they are to this day? The word tells us there is no perfect rule of life for a Christian but Christ Himself in contrast with law. The first piece of Christian ethic was a brief paper sanctioned by the Holy Ghost to guard the churches against legalism (Acts 15:23-29). Christian obedience and walking "in newness of life" are set on other grounds than those of " the law," namely, on those of having life and salvation not in order to have them nor to improve them, and we obey and serve from other causes and motives: and the love of Christ constraineth us. The spiritual man delights in that to which the Lord calls us in His word, and the Spirit working in the new man impels to do good, and gives strength to perform it: and the obedience of the Christian is more comprehensive than that of the Jew under law. " Ye are not under law, but under grace."
There is a word used by our Lord, though dropped out in our English version, which has great significance; it is "My: " "thy works " are not " completed BEFORE MY GOD." The works may be such as to give a good name for life before men, but not "before My God." "Man looketh on the outward appearance; but the Lord looketh on the heart" (1 Sam. 16:7). Again, works that might have passed with Israel's God, before God was fully revealed according to his nature in Christ, and before He raised and glorified Him, and before the Holy Ghost came down, giving in all its completeness the Word of God, and giving us the consciousness of relationship with the Father, and making us "one Spirit" with the Lord, will not do now that we are brought into the presence of "the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, and are blessed in Him with all spiritual blessings in the heavenlies," and are led of the Spirit and have received the Spirit of adoption, whereby we cry Abba, Father.; our works must be found such as will be pleasing to Christ's God, "perfect before MY God." Every work in Protestantism-even to the saints being still mixed up with the world, in politics, pleasure, or worship-filling its places of power and authority, or exercising the rights of citizenship, or going to its shows, amusements, and entertainments-or attending its places of worship (Heb. 13:13), all tell of defectiveness in practice, a lack of being up to that fullness demanded by Christianity, and will not pass with the Lord, before His God, when the fire shall try every man's work of what sort it is. That is a solemn word by which He pronounces judgment on them even now-" I have not found thy works perfect before My God." In this nineteenth century of Christianity, they cling to " that which is abolished," and the doctrine, discipline, and moral ethics of Protestantism are so incomplete that the practice of professing Christians in Sardis is hardly in anything higher than that of the Jews before the coming of Christ.
5. " THE THINGS WHICH REMAIN and are ready to die." The things which remain are to be strengthened. The angel is enjoined to do this. There is always some " angel" on whom the responsibility is laid. The embers of an expiring Christian life may be almost extinguished, but if there are any " things that remain," the Lord would have them strengthened. Most part of even saints would have them to die out. They are so cold. and dead, they will say, what good can come of working with them? Not so the Lord, who has "the seven Spirits of God." He would have them strengthened. They are of long standing, chronic in their moribund condition, "the things which were ready to die," but His command is " Strengthen them." There are a few names in Sardis which have not defiled their garments, and they at least could be helped and strengthened. There is an undefiled remnant, dear to the Lord's heart, who are groaning over the deadness that surrounds them, living a life of faith and prayer, devoted to the Lord, pious, exemplary, and walking with undefiled garments in holy separation from the world, and yet having little light and little strength-they see nothing for it, but struggle on where they are, and try to serve the Lord with a good conscience, though in the midst of things which they have an instinct if nothing more) are not in accordance with His mind. These the Lord bids strengthen. Their whole surroundings are such as to threaten them with a complete extinction of their spiritual life: they could be strengthened by having the complete Christian teaching presented to them, and then fully knowing Christ as He now is at God's right hand, they would follow Him into a path of Christian separation from the world, and "walk as He walked."
But this word of the Lord's may be of wider significance, and may refer to the mass rather than to individuals, though the body cannot be reached without acting on the individuals. In modern times we have read of missions in Asia stirring up the dying embers in the all but fossil churches of Armenia, and the churches of Scandinavia are being stirred up and the remaining life strengthened in so powerful a manner that they now speak of a disruption of the national church, because in it they are bound down to those practices which bind them over to spiritual death. In last century the strengthening of the things ready to die in the English Church issued in Methodism; and in this century the strengthening of the things that were ready to die in the Church of Scotland resulted in a disruption of that church and the building up outside of it of what is called the Free Church of Scotland. And in Germany, France, Switzer land, Italy, the strengthening of things that are ready to die in recent times has given better doctrine, faith, and life to thousands; and many are finding their way to the Lord Himself.
But if the effects of such strengthening only result in their settling down with a fresh set of incomplete works, such as one sees all these awakenings have produced, what is the good. of it? The Lord enjoins it, and if the full Christian truth be given His saints they will be more blessed where they are as Jong as they do not have light and strength (as they ought and might) to "go forth unto Him without the camp, bearing His reproach" (Heb. 13:13).
There has been immense help rendered to saints and servants of Christ in " Sardis " during the past fifty years, and though the majority have not profited by the light that has reached them, to as to answer in the completeness of their practice to the fullness of the Christian doctrine, those who know the full worth of Christianity, and desire to serve Christ and meet His mind fully, should not on that account slacken their efforts for their strengthening as long as the Lord sends unclear and unemancipated believers across their path. The Lord's command creates the duty; and the possession of the truth makes us their debtors. They are our brethren, members of Christ's body, and dear to Him; and it would be specially pleasing to Him were we making special prayer that His groaning captives should be delivered. His languishing " things" in Protestant systems should be strengthened, leaving in His hands the issues from death."
The word here translated " strengthen " is so translated in only one other place of Scripture when the Lord said to Peter, "When thou art converted, strengthen thy brethren" (Luke 22:32). In all other places save Luke 1:51;16: 26, it is rendered by "establish" or " stablish " (Rom. 1:11;16: 25; 1 Thess. 3:2,13; 2 Thess. 2:17;3: 3; James 5: 8; 1 Peter 5:10; 2 Peter 1:12); from which one would gather that the Lord is here giving a commission to place on a firm solid basis of divine truth the unestablished-" Rooted and built up in Him " is the aim.
The work of the teacher is to the end that Saints, by accepting the truth and acting upon it, they "may be established." After the apostle had given the Romans "the gospel of God " in an epistle full of establishing truth, he ends it thus-" Now to Him that is of power to stablish, you according to my gospel, and the preaching of Jesus Christ, according to the revelation of the mystery which was kept secret since the world began," etc. (Rom. 16:25-27). This is the means of establishing souls wherever they need to be strengthened, by fixing them down on Paul's gospel, and " the revelation of the mystery," that they may know God according to the fullest and latest revelation of Himself. This alone gives stability. A sack filled with chaff has no power in itself to stand, but a sack of wheat stands erect by the weight of the wheat put into it; so those Christians who are filled with the truths peculiar to Christianity will be established by the word of truth communicated, whereas those who are filled with the mere chaff of theology will always be unestablished, incomplete in their works, and "ready to die; " and what we affirm as true of the individual is true also of the community. And it is to the remaining collective though languishing vitality of the church or professing body "in Sardis" that special reference is here made.
When souls are really delivered and solidly grounded in the truth of Christianity before God in Christ, rooted and built up in Him, and stablished in the faith, as they have been taught, they generally show it by their delighting in God's word, and in their subjection to it, and in their determination to allow of nothing that is not formed upon the Bible and regulated by its precepts; and this will be extended to doctrine, church communion, and practical life in the world. "Become watching," then. Wherefore He saith, " Awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the dead, and Christ shall give thee light" (Eph. 5:14). " Watch" is a word which was frequently spoken by the Lord in the days of His flesh, as we see on consulting the Gospel history (Matt. 24:42,43; 25: 13; 26: 38, 40, 41; Mark 13: 34,35,37; 14: 34, 37, 38;
Luke 12: 37,39). His apostles also used it in their speaking and writing (Acts 11: 31; 1 Cor. 16:13; Col. 4: 2; 1 Thess. 5: 6,10; 1 Peter 5: 8). And the Lord, in addressing the churches, again employs it just as in another place of this Apocalypse (Rev. 16:15), when it would seem as if it were almost a repetition of His address to the church in Sardis.
6. EXHORTATION TO REMEMBER, KEEP, AND REPENT.-" Remember, therefore, how thou has received and heardest, and keep it, and repent" (verse 3). This clause begins with remember and ends with repent. The Lord would call memory into exercise, that He may reach their consciences and bring about a better moral state. The " how" is said by some to be indicative of the subjective manner of reception, how they had "received;" others would make it more objective-" after what sort; " while others would unite both, which seems to give the true meaning. There had been a permanent deposit of Christian truth committed to them; the way they came by it was by hearing, and now that it had been committed to writing they were exhorted to. keep it. The Reformation was chiefly brought about by hearing the preaching of the gospel; the manner of hearing was characterized by intense earnestness, and the truth thus received was prized by tens of thousands as an inestimable treasure, while at the same time the Bible was translated and put into the hands of the people, and they were thus everywhere placed in the enjoyment of an open Bible, liberty of conscience, and liberty of assembling to hear the word read and expounded. They had received much by hearing, and much more by having the entire word of God laid open to them by means of the printing-press; and in our day it is the boast of Protestantism that there never were so many millions of copies of the Holy Scriptures in the homes of the people; and while this is a mighty boon it is just thus that the responsibility of Protestants is increased, and their sin of not acting on the full truth of the Bible affords the most solemn proof of their dead state.
Where is a good conscience in the midst of this full blaze of Bible light, when men will admit that their creeds and systems are not in accordance with God's word, and yet they subscribe the one and remain in the other? " Remember, therefore, how thou hast received." It is impossible to have repentance without remembrance. " Remember how thou hast received." With what a fervent grasp of a living faith Christ, who is our life, was embraced, and with what flowings of grace and joy in the Holy Ghost we accepted through Him forgiveness of sins and justification from all things; how we breathed the atmosphere of divine love, and were filled with all joy and peace in believing, the Spirit shedding abroad the love of God in our hearts, and giving us to live by the faith of the Son of God.
This was "how" the apostolic churches received the word, not. as a mere system, but as the good news of God concerning His Son, becoming the power of God unto salvation: and thus, no doubt, the church in Sardis was formed. It was thus the church in Thessalonica received the word, as we are expressly informed. "For our gospel came not unto you in word only, but also in power, and in the Holy Ghost, and in much full-assurance, as ye know what manner of men we were among you for your sakes; and ye became followers of us and of the Lord, having received the word in much affliction, with joy of the Holy Ghost, so that ye were ensamples to all that believe in Macedonia and Achaia (1 Thess. 1: 5,6,7). This explains the "how" of reception of the gospel, and doubtless there had been a similar reception given to the gospel in Sardis; there had been something striking and memorable in the way they had received the word, to make the exhortation of the Lord to call these days to remembrance appropriate, searching, seasonable, and impressive. In days of languor, when those who were once consuming them selves with fervor and zeal for the Lord have settled down in carnal ease, holding a heartless orthodoxy, there is no more likely means of leading them to repentance than by the Lord reminding them of the liveliness, heartiness, fervor, zeal, and love with which they had received the truth when it was first brought to them in power and in the Holy Ghost. "Remember how thou hast received"-"hast received," as He says in
chap. 2: 27, " even as I received of my Father." "Let the word of the Christ dwell in you richly in all wisdom." And with regard to all things, not only in the salvation of souls but in the ordering of Christian worship and the regulation of the affairs of the Christian assembly, we are not at liberty to deviate from what the church received and heard from the beginning. His word remains in all its divine sufficiency; "keep it" is the Lord's injunction, deviate not a hairsbreadth from it, abate not a jot of it, hold it fast, and count on the working of the Holy Ghost, who remains still in the House of God to work in grace, power, and blessings by whom He chooses, in order to make good to His saints all that His word contains.
To men in Sardis who have so widely departed from thefaith of Christ and obedience to the mind of God, and who have set aside Christ's will to do according to their own, the Lord's call is not only to remember the original deposit of divine truth committed to the church, and that it may be kept as originally given, but seeing that their practice has been in neglect of it and in opposition to it, He also enjoins them to repent; and the very form of the word suggests that He urges upon them a quick and decisive work of self-judgment and amendment.
7. THE LORD'S AWFUL THREAT if there was not attention paid to His solemn and impressive exhortation to wake up and repent. "If, therefore, thou shalt not watch, I will come (upon thee) as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee " (verse 3). This shows us that the prophetic mystical meaning-that which gives a. bird's-eye view of the complete phases of the church in responsibility from the Apostles' days to Christ's second coming-must be the one that is chiefly intended. Were it the historical Sardis of St. John's day that had been intended, there is no longer either a " church in Sardis " or the city of Sardis itself.
A prophetic earnest of the judgment coming on the symbolic Sardis may be found. in the sudden, unexpected, and exterminating catastrophe which befel the wealthy and prosperous Sardis of this epistle. " Its overthrow came like a thief in the night during that great earthquake, which leveled its proudest compeers with the dust. It did certainly undergo a temporary sickly recovery, but it was only to relapse into a more slow but equal debasement, and the modern Sart scarcely merits to be called the dust of Sardis." The testimony of another writer is even more striking. " If I should be asked what impresses the mind most strongly on beholding Sardis, I should say, its indescribable solitude, like the darkness that could be felt. So the deep solitude of the spot, once ' the lady of kingdoms,' produces a corresponding feeling of desolate abandonment in the mind which can never be forgotten. Connect this feeling with the message of the Apocalypse to the church in Sardis-' Thou hast a name, that thou livest and art dead.... If therefore thou dost not watch I will come as a thief, and thou shalt not know what hour I will come upon thee,' and then look round and ask, Where are the Christians, where is the church of Sardis? The tumuli beyond the Hermus reply, 'All dead! ' suffering the threatened judgment of God for the abuse of their privileges. Let the unbeliever then be asked, Is there no truth in prophecy "-no reality in the words of Christ? Thus has passed away the great and ancient capital of Lydia, whose wealthy monarch Croesus was master of all the nations within the river Halys, and in its sudden destruction we have an earnest of the sudden destruction that shall come upon the world, 1 Thess. 5, and on lifeless Protestantism, which being found at the time of Christ's second coming merely part of the world, shall be judged by Him as He shall judge the world: "I will come as a thief, and thou shalt not know at what hour I shall come upon thee." It is a threat of solemn and awful import, "/ will come as a thief." It tells that this Protestantism, which has such an enormous boast and reputation of life, will, in the end, terminate in utter worldliness, and become thoroughly identified with the world, the absorption of it by the world being so complete that they will have ceased to have any distinct existence as a church body, and its register will have no names at all-indeed it will be altogether discontinued. For "the comprehension" (which is now eagerly sought for by some notable church dignitaries) will have become so complete that the world and the church will have become identical, and citizenship in the world will be deemed enough. It is a sad thought that masses of the human family who had " escaped the pollutions of the world through the (Protestant) knowledge of the. Lord Jesus Christ should again become entangled and overcome, and the latter end of them be worse than the beginning:" and having re-merged themselves in the world, that they shall ultimately share in its tremendous and unexpected doom; for the peculiar way in which Christ shall come in judgment on the world is the way in which He shall come to judge them, " I will come as a thief, and thou shalt not know at what hour I will come upon thee." "I will come as a thief! " While Thyatira shall be passed through terrible tribulation and special judgment,-but judged as a corrupt church, -Sardis shall be treated as the world and judged as the world.
This is taught by our Lord, as to "the evil servant," in Matt. 24, where the Lord uses the illustration of the thief, and then goes on to say: " But and if that evil servant shall say in his heart, My lord delayeth his coming, and shall begin to smite his fellow-servants, and to eat and drink with the drunken" (that is go into the world), "the lord of that servant shall come in a day when he looketh not for him, and in an hour that he is not aware of, and shall cut him off; and appoint him his portion with the hypocrites: there shall be weeping and gnashing of teeth."
If we refer to 1 Thess. 5:1,2, we shall find the figure of the thief again used, when (coming as it does after the rapture of the saints in chap. 4.) it can refer only to Christ's coming to the world. Writing to the saints, he says:-" Yourselves know perfectly that the day of the Lord so cometh as a thief in the night," suddenly, stealthily, unwelcomely, and for evil. " For when th4 shall say peace and safety, then sudden destruction cometh upon them as travail upon a woman with child, and they shall not escape." But he adds, " ye, brethren, are not in darkness that that day should overtake you as a thief." " Those that sleep in Jesus will God bring with him;" and when Christ, who is our life, shall be manifested to take vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ, then shall we also be manifested with Him in glory; and so we being associated with the Lord, when He comes as Judge to the world, cannot be of those who are to be judged by Him-but we are to come with Him to the judgment of the world. This proves conclusively that Sardis, or Protestantism, will be utterly destitute of all signs of vitality when Christ comes upon it " as a thief." The work of the Holy Ghost, all that is of the new creation, all possessed of everlasting life, shall not come into judgment; for God is not to judge His own work, nor Christ the work of the Holy Ghost; but the result in man's hands becomes the object of judgment, and being destitute of life, shall share the doom of those who are in the darkness of spiritual death. And an ominous premonition of the coming of this judgment on Sardis, as on the world, is that the Scripture eschatology is a blank to the Protestant world, and the coming of the Lord is generally left out in the preaching of Protestants. Indeed, if they refer to it at all, it is only as regarding the Lord as one who is coming to execute judgment—coming for "the general judgment" as they say-a thing unknown to Scripture-not as one who has their affections and whom they are looking for, as the best beloved of their hearts, according to His promise to come to receive them to Himself (John 14:2,3), and take them up to the Father's house, as 1 Thess. 4 teaches, before He comes with them in judgment on the world. There is no surer sign of the deadness of Protestantism and its worldliness than that the Lord's pre-millennial coming to take up His saints, which, according to Scripture, His saints should be waiting for every moment-that which was the hope of the apostolic church,-should have generally dropped out of the belief of the professing church of modern times, as a present expectation to be waited for day by day. Christ does not seem the most loved object to many; for, out of the many millions of nominal Protestant Christians, there are scarcely any who hold correctly and intelligently " that blessed hope," and who are waiting. for God's Son from heaven, as an immediate expectation, and as indicative that the Lord has the supreme place in their hearts. Only living spiritual men whose soul and life are commanded by Christ Himself are the persons who wait lovingly and longingly for their Savior's coming again.
Might we not now find whole denominations of professing Protestant Christians in whose midst the hope as well as the doctrine has become obsolete? It is a sad fact that it is so! They will tell you it is not essential. It may be possible to get to heaven by Christ's blood without looking for His second coming; but it is indeed essential to life and godliness, as is abundantly declared in the Holy Scriptures, 1 John 3:3, Col. 3, 2 Peter 3, and the general deadness and worldliness of the Protestant profession are no doubt largely owing to the neglect and want of it. It is the doctrine of a standing or falling church: and the absence of this "blessed hope" is at once a fertile cause of the deadness of the Protestant profession; and a sure premonition of its coming doom. The belief in the Lord's coming in the Protestant world is nothing higher at present than the uncertain dread of the visitation of a midnight marauder. He would inspire with similar surprise, and terror, and consternation, and aversion, as the sudden appearance of a thief in the house; and as thus it is they regard Him and His coming, He threatens to visit them just in this manner "I will come as a thief, and thou. shalt not know at what hour I will come upon thee." They have had a great reputation for life and activity; but their place has always been in the world, and they will be visited with the world's judgment. Sad and solemn end of living on a reputation not sustained by the fact, but all the time being closely united to the world, and forming a part of it, and the totality of her ecclesiastical systems constructed after the pattern of the world, and administered in strict accordance with a worldly-wise expediency, and with a view to comprehend, attract, and hold the world! The great modern mass of worldly but active ecclesiastical Protestant systems will be judged with the same thief- like suddenness and exterminating severity with which the infidel world will be judged. " I will come as a thief!"
The whole aim of Protestantism has been to assume the world, to pervade all its institutions, to sanctify all its arts, sciences, and daily life, and to use Christ incarnate and the gospel merely for civilizing, humanizing, and world-elevating purposes; and of this it is impossible to get it to repent and accept Christ risen, and a new creation. Consequently, as it was said of old, " Ephraim is joined to his idols, let him alone," so they will be ultimately left to their Protestant idols, and the Lord will say to them, As you will not repent, you may expect Me as a thief: Have your worldliness, but its end is swift and unsparing judgment! "Behold I come as a thief! Blessed is he that watcheth and keepeth his garments " (Rev. 16:18).
8. A FEW NAMES. "But thou hast a few names in Sardis which have not defiled their garments, and they shall walk with me in white, for they are worthy. He that overcometh, he shall be clothed in white raiment" (ver. 4, 5).
The question may be raised, If you make Sardis symbolical of Protestantism, after the fresh start at the time of the Reformation, when deadness had set in, can it be said that after all the revivals and religious awakenings that have become so general in our times, " a few names" would describe the number of Christians in the Protestant world? Have we not heard of men numbering converts by the ten thousand? and are we not now told that there are at present more Christians in the world than at any former period? We acknowledge, with grateful hearts, that the Lord has been working graciously, and that of late many have been wakened up as well as converted; but, though all this be admitted, yet the proportion of living, separated, consecrated believers are but "a few names" compared with the dead mass of the professing body. The recent awakening throughout the churches of Great Britain and Ireland that was supposed at the time to be so effective for good, has left only "a few names" of true believers, where hundreds, and even thousands, were counted as being converted; the ministers, as a rule, are not more spiritual in their preaching since then; while the churches seem to be more immovable in their worldliness; and the world itself is more mad on its pleasures, more determined in its own evil courses, and its people more given to drunkenness and profligacy; while our scientific and literary men are more daring in their opposition to a Divine Revelation, more outspoken in their skepticism, and more reckless in their assaults on the Bible.
Were the mass of professors themselves appealed to, to say whether they knew their sins forgiven (what all babes in St. John's day knew and enjoyed, 1 John 2), you would get only " a few names in Sardis " who would confess Christ, and own that they knew Him as the One who had saved their souls and washed away their sins in His precious blood. And if they would not venture to say they are saved, what right would others have to become responsible for them, and affirm that they are good Christians, though they have no assurance of their salvation? How few are the names in Sardis who have settled peace, and a believing knowledge of Christ's work for them! Are not the majority unestablished, worldly believers, or mere professors? Are not the few godly pastors and pious Christians continually complaining of the deadness of the churches, the dearth of living godliness, the lack of consecration to the service of Christ? But there are " a few names " in Sardis who keep themselves apart from the prevailing worldliness. The lives of such men as one's reading in modern Christian biography will readily recal to memory, tell us of a holy walk " unspotted from the world." No doubt " a few names " are still doing this in the midst of dead, hollow, and worldly profession; for there are saints who are vexing their righteous souls daily with the
unlawful deeds done within the sphere of " Sardis," and who, at the same time, " have not defiled their garments."
"Names" are persons; but those who are known to the Lord as His "by name" (John 10:3). Before the Holy Ghost came, "the number of names in Jerusalem was about one hundred and twenty;" after Pentecost, we read, "the number of the men was about five thousand." When the Lord called Saul, it was "by name," and thus He speaks of him to Ananias-one, " by name, Saul of Tarsus " (Acts 9:11). The Lord knows " the few names " of His saints even in the mass of lifeless profession "in Sardis;" and He recognizes them individually as His, and owns them as such; and He gives the encouraging word for such, " they shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy." How different Christ's estimate and man's In Sardis all had a name, a reputation of life; but His judgment is, the living ones are few. But all Christ's people, wherever found, are named and numbered. If only " a few names:" He has said to each, " I have called thee by name, thou art Mine."
" Which have not defiled their garments." The word " garments " is symbolic of moral character and conduct. Though the praise is only negative, "not defiled," yet it is high praise in the circumstances; for how very few in the sphere of the great Protestant profession ever think of keeping away from theaters, operas, concerts, oratorios, assemblies, or, at least, private evening parties for dancing and folly; from shows, fancy fairs, bazaars, or even worse things in business, and private retellings, and banqueting! There is a huge system of utter worldliness carried on, and those who are the great leaders of it-the men who are the very soul, life, and energy of the worldliness of the present day, which Scripture condemns—are religious professors. " And they parted His garments, casting lots." They gambled beside the very cross, and for Christ's clothes too! Strange sight was it to see the soldiers parting Christ's garments among themselves beneath-the very shadow of the cross;-so Sardis has assumed Christ's garments outwardly, in having a name to live, but it remains, like the heathen soldiers, the same world still, though arrayed in Christ's garments. The world's worst phases of gambling and deceit are in this very sphere. Where do we find the greatest business swindles, the most consummate overreaching, the most dishonest bankruptcies, and the sharpest practice in roguery, but just within the sphere of this vaunting religious profession called Sardis? " Thou hast a name that thou livest, and art dead," dead not only to God and the high claims of godliness and spiritual worship, but to the claims of moral rectitude, commercial uprightness, and common honesty. It is then no small praise that the Lord can say, " Thou hast a few names that have not defiled their garments." There are still a few men of probity, honesty, integrity, who are marked by name by the Lord as those who have an unsoiled moral character-men who have not defiled their garments by evil or dishonest practices in daily life.
"They shall walk with life in white, for they are worthy." Where are they? In Sardis. Does the Lord acknowledge, them there? Yes; and He says " they are worthy," and as they have walked apart from the prevailing worldliness in the sphere of the great Protestant profession, " they shall walk with Me in white." With Me, the living One, in the sphere of true life, where the tree of life is the food, and the river of the water of life the ornament and refreshment; where the overcomer shall be displayed in glory, " clothed in white garments," and his name left standing with honor in the book of life, and when, He adds, " I will confess his name before My Father, and before His angels." This is a high commendation, a full recognition, a great encouragement, and a dazzling prospect. Then whispers the spirit of ease, of unbelief, of unfaithfulness to Christ, If all this is said of the undefiled in Sardis, then Christ must approve of their being there. Consequently those who would represent to them that it is not pleasing to the Lord that devoted Christians should remain in Protestant churches, which are not framed after the pattern of Holy Scripture, but that they ought to come out to Christ Himself, " the Holy and the True," must be under an entire misapprehension of His mind, and those who would endeavor to put before them such things, even from the word of God, as would lead them outside of mere Protestantism into a position alleged to be one of greater faithfulness to Christ, must be doing the devil's work. The leaders in " Sardis " now boldly say this, but it is reckless, blasphemous, and entirely unwarranted by Scripture.
For, let, The time when they were approved of by Christ in Sardis was when, in the development of the phases of the church (symbolically) there was only Popery and Protestantism. But now there is another phase of fidelity come out called " Philadelphia," where there is a fresh revelation of Christ personally, and in new moral characteristics, and in which fresh testimony is given, and definite faithfulness as to keeping His word, and not denying His name, according to the present mind of Christ, for His saints, is commended. There is a present mind of Christ for His own at the present hour, and this is, that they should break away from all that is unscriptural ecclesiastically in fidelity to Himself. " Sardis " may not teach this; but other Scriptures do. Sardis, though dead, was a church established on Scripture principles, and to have left it then would have been apostasy; but no modern " Sardis " being so, it is apostasy, in principle, to be in the membership of any Protestant " Church " (2 Tim. 2:19-22).
But, 2d, There is also, and ever will be to the end, a remnant in Thyatira, or Popery, who will remain there, and who may never be in any way visited by the new light that shines upon Philadelphia. Would you then say that the Lord approves of their remaining in connection with Popery? Of course not, you say, for that would stultify our being in Protestantism. But does not the advance to Philadelphia stultify equally those who linger in Sardis? and if you would take all Christians out of Popery, why not also take them out of Protestantism, seeing that their being there ecclesiastically is as entirely out of the
present mind of Christ as the other? Their being in Sardis is an anachronism. "There is no difference; for all have sinned, and come short of the glory of God," is said in reference to our sin before God, and so may it be said of Popery and Protestantism ecclesiastically: there is no difference, for both have sinned and come short of the glory of God. Corrupt Popery allows Jezebel to seduce, and dead Protestantism allows the world to rule, and neither of them meets the mind of Christ as to His church. Wherefore, in neither of them dare the believer who knows Christ Jesus, "the Holy and the True," outside the world, and in the glory of God, remain if he means to meet the mind of Christ, and walk in faithfulness, keeping His word, and not denying His name (Rev. 3:8).
But some may ask-" Is not all this the mere notion of fanciful men? " Not at all. " We have the mind of Christ." The many thousands who have been called out of both Thyatira and Sardis, if not also out of Laodicea, can testify that it is the solid truth of God they are acting upon, attracted by the living person of the Christ, to whom they have gone forth; and they know that in their so doing they have been led by the Holy Ghost, who has shown them the path and the privilege of leaving all for Christ, and who Himself has led them forth to Him. There was a day when one man came out against the world in the belief that the earth went round the sun, and not the sun round the earth, and though the false theory had the benefit of overwhelming numbers, it did not alter the solid fact, and although the church condemned the astronomer, time has now turned all men to the same belief. There was a pious monk in Germany, fully three hundred years ago, who found in the word of God that justification is by faith, and though the Pope and the Church of Rome condemned it and him, he stuck to the new light given him, and, as a consequence, a great part of Europe came out from Popery; but after the first flush of awakening was past, the Sardis phase of the church was formed, and, as we have seen, it is entirely out of the Lord's mind, and will be judged by Him with the same punishment as the world, and now the Lord is calling His own out of this. There is always a man of God for the day, who is used by God to bring out His present mind to meet any particular phase in the evolution of His purpose, and it is in vain to oppose it. If it be of God, no man can overthrow it. Then would it not be wise in modern theologians and God-fearing private Christians, at least to pause and consider whether or not the Scriptures give us an advance on Protestantism, and whether or not it be the mind of Christ to have His people outside of it as well as of Popery, and linked in the closest way with himself? It can be nothing but prejudice, or interested wilfulness, that keeps the spiritually-minded from seeing that Philadelphia is a stage beyond Sardis when they have the thing pointed out to them; for while there are only " a few names in Sardis " whom the Lord acknowledges, and the bulk of professors is a mass of deadness, He gives His unqualified approbation of the whole company in Philadelphia, and tells them that He will make the ecclesiastical party, who, through Satan's malice, are their adversaries, to come and do homage to them, and acknowledge that He has loved them.
The Philadelphian Church phase having come, there is no ground for believing that if Christians remain in Sardis with the light of the truth acted upon in Philadelphia, they will have the approbation of the Lord as when they were in ignorance: for would not this be a premium on unfaithfulness to the truth and to Christ? Does not the most palpable teaching of facts tell this in the ear of faith? The Lord's approval in this day can be secured for those who have adequate knowledge only in the outside place; for the midnight cry has been raised, " Behold the Bridegroom; go ye out to meet Him; " and thus we are in the last great revival marked by the person of Christ being brought out with fullness and distinctness, and the faithful are being attracted by their bridal affections to answer to the affection in his heart that wakes them from their long slumber to go out to meet Him. It is likely that there may still be "a few names in Sardis" that the light and " cry " have not reached, whose hearts are breaking on account of the deadness. They have real attachment to Christ, and lead a life of moral purity, and not having been visited as yet by this great revival, of such the Lord will say, " They shall walk with Me in white, for they are worthy." There are, no doubt, such persons, but the light is rapidly spreading, and if it reaches them, and discloses Christ, they must go forth unto Him, and will certainly do so.
9. THE PROMISE OF THE LORD TO THE OVERCOMER.-" He that overcometh, the same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot his name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my Father, and before His angels," verse 5. This promise is threefold. 1. White raiment; 2. The name left unblotted out of the register; 3. His name confessed in glory. The last word of Jesus' valedictory address to his disciples before He suffered was this-" I have overcome the world" (John 16:33). He is the great overcomer. Satan presented it to Him in the temptation in the wilderness in the different forms in which it addresses us, and He overcame it. And since then He has overcome through death, and broken the power of Satan in his own trusted stronghold; for through death He has destroyed him that had the power of death, and is now giving from His conqueror's place on high those powers to men which fit them for being deliverers of their fellows from Satan's power (Eph. 4:8-11). And now to them who believe this word is spoken: " This is the victory that overcometh the world, even your faith." Faith would feel in the midst of a name to live in Sardis the necessity of actually living by receiving constant accessions of the elements of vitality from heart-contact with Christ, who is the life. " He that eateth Me, the same shall live by Me " (John 6) Being strong in the Lord, and in the power of His might, and growing in grace and in the knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, we are in a fit state to meet and vanquish our enemy. " I write unto you young men," says St. John, " because ye have overcome the wicked one " (1 John 2:13). We read in Rev. 12:11, " And they overcame by the blood of the Lamb, and by the word of their testimony, and they loved not their lives unto the death." Thus only can the saints overcome. Satan's great object is to keep Christians from making good to their own souls their heavenly privileges and blessings in Christ, and then getting them to mingle in the world. Only a few names in Sardis have any adequate spiritual apprehension of their standing and privilege in a risen and glorified Christ. The majority stop short with a happy sense of pardon, and an escape from hell; but such will not prove overcomers of mere nominal dead religion, nor of the world from which they do not separate. But those who know Christ in His fullness of spiritual power, and fullness of living authority, and count on Him for grace, preserve themselves, and lead a holy, blameless, moral life. To such the Lord promises white garments. " He that overcometh, he shall be clad (or clothe himself) in white garments."
There is a "he" here in the text. "The overcome; he shall be clothed in white raiment;" he shall be so, not those who had a name to live and were dead, not the men of defiled garments who said Lord, Lord, but heeded not Christ's word. Whatever good moral character we have here, we shall stand invested with it in the glory. It is a solemn word said of Judas that he went "to his own place," the place given him by his character of thief, betrayer, and suicide. And so it is with dead professors (Matt. 13:42). But the overcomer in Sardis shall be arrayed at last with all the character he acquired in keeping his garments undefiled on earth, in the midst of the general deadness and worldliness. He shall go to his own place, the place of Christ who overcame the world. His raiment shall be the white garments of moral purity. In chap. xix. 8, " To her was granted that she should be arrayed in fine linen, clean and white, for the fine linen is the righteousnesses of saints; " the very word signifies moral requirement answered to in the holy lives of the saints. It is the same as in Rom. 8:4, " the righteous requirement of the law" should be fulfilled in us. That character which the saints acquire by their holy Christian life and walk shall be recognized and reproduced in glory. They shall walk there in a higher condition of enjoyment when heaven is opened and the throne is seen: we read, "And round about the throne were four-and-twenty thrones, and on the thrones four-and-twenty elders sitting clothed with white garments, and on their heads golden crowns." The promise to the victor in Sardis takes its complexion from what has gone before, and indicates that the overcomers as well as the undefiled ones of verse 4 are persons of whom the Lord said, " They shall walk with He in white, because they are worthy."
(2) The name unblotted out from the book of life is the next part of the Lord's promise, "And I will not blot out his name from the book of life." Just as members of any society have their names struck off the book of membership when they die; so the Lord implies in his promise to the overcomer, that all mere professors who- only have a name that they live, and are spiritually dead, will be struck off the book of life. Jesus is inspecting the churches in responsibility as a judge, and according to what He finds so will He judge, approving or condemning. All who take the name of having life are allowed to stand if
. they show by their walk that they are true Christians; otherwise their names, given by their own act as being Christians, will not be retained on the register. The names in the book of professed life in the church below will be admitted by Christ to be worthy to stand if they have had real life under the name, otherwise they will be blotted out. These are all the places where the expression occurs. We have (1.) Thy book (Ex. 32:32); the book of the living (Psa. 69:28); the book (Dan. 12:1). (2.) We have the book of life (Phil. 4:3; Rev.3: 5; 20: 12, 15). (3.) We have the book of life of the slain Lamb (Rev. 13: 8; 17: 8;
21: 27). We read the books were opened (Rev. 20) There shall be no erasure of any name of an overcomer from the book of life. He who, in the surrounding worldly profession with a great reputation for life but dead, maintains a holy Christian life, shall find his name in the book of life when he stands before the judgment-seat of Christ, when names of the defiled in Sardis which were in everybody's mouth will be forever blotted out. This will be no small mark of honor " on that day." This subject of blotting out the name presents a difficulty to many, and is solved in various ways. Some insist that if their names were inscribed in the book of life and then wiped out, it makes for the possibility of people being saved and having divine life falling away and being lost. Others affirm that, although the Lord promises not to blot out the name, of the overcomer from the book of life, He does not say He will blot out any names from the book of life who have ever been in it. In order to get a scriptural view of what the book of life is, let us examine a little the Scriptures which speak of it. The figure of this is found in Ex. 32: 32,33, when Moses in his extremity prays-" If not, blot me out of Thy book which Thou hast written." And the Lord said unto Moses, " Whosoever hath sinned against Me, him will I blot out of my book." This is clearly responsibility, just as in Sardis. The language in the LXX. is the same as far as it goes. Again we have the same words in Psa. 69: 28, "Let them be blotted out of the book of the living, and not be written with the righteous." These two passages state that there will be blotting' out for those who deserve it. The same word for book occurs in Dan. 12: 1, " every one written in the book." In the New Testament we have, " whose names are in the book of life" (Phil. 4:3); here, "I will not blot out his name out of the book of life" (Rev. 3: 5), and in 20: 15, " And if any one was not found written in the book of life he was cast into the lake of fire." Another word is used in Rev. 13: 8; 17: 8, 20: 12, 21: 27. But there is yet more in the Lord's promise to the overcomer.
(3.) The name confessed.-" But I will confess his name before my Father and before His angels." Not only will his name be left standing in the book of life, but when " the books are opened," and the deeds done in the body of the saints of God are looked into with respect to the bestowal of the rewards of glory, the Lord Jesus says, He will confess such a name before His Father and before His angels. Such an one in overcoming the worldliness of Sardis' will have his name cast out as evil, and it will be a name of reproach and scorn on earth, as the name of Jesus was-if people even trouble themselves to take it at all in their lips. How great the honor of having the Head of the Church and the crowned Lord of glory confess his name before His Father and before His angels 1 What a change! Jesus had said when on earth, "Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him will I confess before my Father who is in heaven"
(Matt. 10:32). And in another place, " Whosoever shall confess Me before men, him shall the Son of Man also confess before the angels of God (Luke 12:8). It is said in John 12:42, "Among the chief rulers also many believed on Him, but because of the Pharisees they did not confess Him lest they should be put out of the synagogue. Better for them to have confessed Him and to be confessed by Him, than to hear the withering word of rejection: "Many will say unto Me in that day, Lord, Lord, have we not prophesied in Thy name, and in Thy name have cast out devils, and in Thy name done many wonderful works?" (It is Sardis all over.) " I never knew you; depart from me, ye that work iniquity."
"And then will I confess to them, I never knew you. Depart from Me, workers of lawlessness." Their works-that which they had a name for-are disowned; themselves repudiated. How cutting for men with such a name to hear Jesus not only refuse to confess them, but order them from His presence as workers of lawlessness! Oh! that such would be aroused by His faithful warning to be born again, that they may have the reality of spiritual life, and not a mere profession and a name that they live when they are dead.
But the overcomer and true confessor shall be confessed by the Lord in the presence of the Father and of His angels. To have Him say when his name is read out from the book of life, " I know that man as a living believer in Me, and a faithful confessor of My name on earth, when I was made nothing of, and cast out; I own him here, in My Father's presence and before His angels!" It was as an overcomer John departed from the presence of the council, rejoicing to be counted worthy to suffer shame for His name (Acts v. 41). And now he is made the medium of the message to the overcomer in Sardis, that his name should be confessed by the Lord Jesus in glory. There is one thing conspicuous by its omission: Sardis had no trouble
lying upon her, no persecution, no conflict with foes within or Without, and this indicates that, like Laodicea, the church in Sardis knew nothing of that separateness which stirs up opposition; for instead of acting like " the two witnesses," and tormenting " them that dwell upon the earth," they themselves were the very
persons characterized as dwelling upon the earth, and as having their sphere and home there; but as such they will be involved in "the great temptation" and overtaken by the Lord's coming as a thief. Now this is the condition of the mass of professors of religion everywhere: they have a name that they live, and are
dead, and they dwell on the earth, and feel quite at home; they think not of overcoming the world, but of enjoying it; they can stir up no opposition from the world, for they have annexed it, and cultivate it into as much religious propriety as it will allow; and the Church is the world and the world the Church. But how terrible the doom of such! " I will come 'upon thee as a thief; and thou shalt not know at what hour I will come upon thee." Avoiding the indifference to Christ which allows of holding the greatest amount of His truth without acting upon it, as in Laodicea; and leaving Sardis with its deadness and its great reputation for life; may it be ours, in all our felt feebleness, to cling in loving attachment to the person of Him who is Holy and True, and so act towards His Word and Name as to have from Him the divine approval he gives to Philadelphia:
" I KNOW THY WORKS: BEHOLD, I HAVE SET BEFORE THEE AN OPEN DOOR, AND NO MAN CAN SHUT IT: FOR THOU HAST A LITTLE STRENGTH, AND HAST KEPT MY WORD, AND HAST NOT DENIED MY NAME (Rev. 3: 8).
" He that has an ear, let him, hear what the Spirit saith unto the churches."