The depths of that which was indited of God is always affording something further for the heart and life before God. Having found the bitter waters made sweet by the tree on which Jesus hung, we pass on to the twelve wells of God and the shade of His instructions in the desert. We learn both new and old; and if what is last fills up the measure of the revelations of God towards us, we shall certainly be unstable if we bring not with us our early steps, or, rather the early steps of God in the path by which He leads us. Some have taught us much on the truth of the Seven Churches, and there remains yet something to observe; and we hardly ever enter on such a subject with others but that what we have substantiated opens a vista of further learning. So with the momentous truths of the second and third chapters of the Revelation.
It is exceedingly necessary to distinguish between the apostasy of dispensation, and the failure of testimony, and confession in the churches. The apostasy of the dispensation carries with it the failure of confession and of testimony, but the last is in the Seven Churches; at least in six, if not necessary in all, but is not spued out till it fails to serve Christ nothing; and that which is rejected is thrown out into the world to be judged with it in the judgments of God, while the warning given in the successive phases of the churches will, if taken, be the avoidance of those things coming on the earth whatever time, and specially at the last. God's judgments are manifest in a germinating fulfillment; from the last of which, i.e. on the apostasy, there is neither recovery nor evasion.
To apprehend the point of failure is most needful. Its moral characteristics would apply to its conduct and sufficiency of testimony as such; but there is ever an under-stratum manifest, to the mind that is touched, in the harmony of God's ways that is full of warning. An observation made in a former number has fallen in, in a striking manner, with these considerations; but still is beside of the aim of these remarks; what agrees with it is, that " the testimony was connected ... with outside things" (page 196, of No. XXVIII). What is here said is intended to bring the truth of this to bear on the failure of being a true witness to heavenly things; for what is outside to heavenly things need not be outside to a present necessary position, and conscience as to God, and without which the higher testimony must greatly fail.
What I desire to bring to the hearts of brethren is this, that the failure of the churches was grounded on the non-apprehension of the kingdom, and a failure in the mass of professing Christians of walking in it as rejected. I am sure many will be surprised at hearing that it is that unto which we have been called, and unto its glory-and its glory is never apart from rejection and suffering. Paul enumerates, in the twentieth of Acts, the grace of God-the kingdom of God—and the church of God, as the whole counsel of God. Paul's peculiar revelation was the church and its privileges: he writes the Epistle to the Hebrews, perhaps, out of his province, and we have not his name. It was Peter's province, and we have his name, and not the doctrine of the church. The church, or the assembly, is not gathered on this ground, but in heavenly places in Christ, baptized by one spirit into one body; and the weakness of non-apprehension of this is disastrous to internal blessing, and highly injurious to their confession. We observe, however, that even in the passage (John 17:2121That they all may be one; as thou, Father, art in me, and I in thee, that they also may be one in us: that the world may believe that thou hast sent me. (John 17:21)), that separation to God is the ground-work, as may be seen in the preceding verses of the chapter.
It is very likely to have happened, that, in the recovery of the truth of the church in the heavenlies and its hope, that a truth, such as the truth of the kingdom should have been passed by too rapidly, and the mind been solely directed to the church, and the gift left with it, as the union also of the members in the body was less thrown on the divine life than on the peculiarity of the unity of the church by the Holy Ghost, as beyond the question of simply divine life.
In the Epistle to the Thessalonians, the church of God, the Father, and of Jesus Christ, is said to be called unto the kingdom and glory. If it is, it must be of it now, not in the method of Israel who are cast out for the time, nor as partaking of its restoration in glory with them, but embraced in the glory of that which shall belong to Christ, in whom also we have obtained an inheritance as co-heirs-but suffering and glory is the title of the heirship-in fact, confession of the rejected Head. Christ did not suffer as the head of the church, but as head of the kingdom which He claimed as Son of the Father. They killed, and we own, Him, for while on earth we walk in all the earthly things that become His authority in the world, and we walk in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ. Not to have done so I believe to be the manifest failure of six of the churches, and must be of the seven. It is palpably so in Pergamos. The Balaam teachers had begun to seduce on this very ground. Smyrna was meant to be saved from this in finding such bitterness in the thought of ease and enlargement, met by persecution from the Lord of the world.* The evil went on, and being where Satan's throne was, it had also its faithful martyr. The kingdom of this world and its spirit, and union with it in many marred its testimony. The mass was not yet corrupt, individuals (for the kingdom is so confessed), were seduced to give up the confession of the rejected kingdom and head, and thus the testimony of THE CHURCH was marred. We have here, too, the reward of the kingdom-the hidden manna- Christ in glory and unseen; and intimacy of personal communion is added to faithfulness.
a I thought, till the other day, that, "but thou art rich " was " rich before God " in the midst of poverty and hardship; but the interpretation, given in the sense of reproof, is fully carried out by the best reading, αλλα πλουσιος ει -πλουσιος δε ει would have signified their richness with God (αλλα) the reverse.
In Thyatira, the evil, as to the word, is not brought forward in its accusation by the Lord, but false worship, even to the worship of false Gods. Romish idolatry cannot but be present to our minds. It is on the surface to observe to a student that the character of the judge is according to the evil, and the reward according to the nature of the departure overcome. Well, we find the evil in the reward, though not in the accusation-with corruption of worship in Rome, we find side by side, the claim of power over the nations. Now the reward of perseverance unto the end (and what perseverance is can be well understood), is the very thing confessed against, which is authority in the things of this world, nay, over the world, deposing of kings, etc. This at once unveils the secret working of more than denial of the rejected kingdom. It claims to rule that which rejected Christ. Their testimony is, therefore rejected, though they are not spued out of the Lord's mouth. The other reward is the Lord promised, as the morning star, the church's hope. In fact, it seems that there is a reserved reward according to a higher communion in both these churches.
Sardis is quiet settlement in the world with a name to live while dead; it might have been presently Laodicea, but the Lord graciously interposes Philadelphia. But what is the whitener of the undefiled garment? Garments undefiled of the evil, and in such circumstances how rare. The warning is, that the Lord will come on the unfaithful servant as a thief in the night. Philadelphia can be described as a people conscious of what the church is and appreciated of the Lord, the testimony, in His grace valued, a door kept for its testimony-His word, His name-but little strength-great weakness but no denial-the word of expectation too;-why little strength? The church is all that is confessed and the kingdom forgotten. Is not there a sense of much complacency as shown in the Lord's mind in the description of His regard for Philadelphia. Is not, however, the description in accordance with the absence of a confession of the kingdom? The church and its truth, its union with its Head, its hope and joy confessed, is lovely in all moral loveliness, but it is not all the Lord left.
The want of the force of the lowly frame keeps in no strength. The proper earthly confession is wanting; nay, it is too fine a thing for its rough dwelling-place, and how can it master rough spirits within? Has not there been manifestly failure here? They have gone out, and if put out how often have they come in again? The church could well manage suffering strangers. It is weak. Ah! too, if I am anxious to know the power of Christ's resurrection, it is not built on conformity to His death. How ready I am to take reproof even from an enemy, though I may say, " let not their precious balms break my head." Church motive is sweet; but does not obedience to it in the drawings of the Spirit come more sweetly and more rightly in with the confession of a kingdom not of this world. The church is above, so far it agrees, but its proper character is more positive than negative. The assembly of the church is not in the kingdom, it is beyond it. It is the place of the rest of its spirit. It is the place of its praises-of its worship. Its strength for all that is arduous in confession amidst rejection, is found from the sources known there in the presence of the Father, whose children are not of this world by the life they have received of Him. It is a different confession, though in blessed harmony. Who then are those that overcame? The Jachins and Boazes of the new Jerusalem. Surely, they are stronger than the weak, and support the temple. As to Laodicea, little need be said. It is rich and glorious gin the world. The confession of the kingdom is quite lost, and the world, for a while, content with it; but its fate is the fate of the fruitless branch. It is cut off, and its judgment begins. The connection between this and the subsequent parts of the Revelation is evident. Laodicea is now become part of the world without, and dealt with accordingly, not chastened but judged. The reward of those who open to the Lord's knocking is much the same in character as in the case of the confession against Thyatira.
That the failure has the bearing I have shown, is much manifested by the application to the conscience of individuals. " He that hath an ear."
The condition of the church as a witness that Jesus is of the Father, depends on a oneness in divine life by communion with God. It is their divine oneness. Shaken together by one grace is no connection of the body. There is, indeed, a oneness in the death by which every class stands together, but church oneness is in the Holy Ghost, and they look to God in His ways, while waiting for their Head as Head of the body from heaven, to gather them to Himself. I beseech the Lord to make this thought more felt, leaving however the purpose of this paper on the conscience of each one, being assured that the beloved disciple would not have been directed to describe himself in the kingdom and patience of Jesus Christ, if his subject had not been in accordance.