Babylon, the counterfeit of the kingdom, is doomed to inevitable

destruction. Over the sad end of a Church dominated by the spirit of

the world and which has finally apostatized from Christ the worldly may

say, in regretful lament, “Alas, alas, that great city;” the “merchants

of the earth” may “weep and mourn over her; for no man buyeth their

merchandise any more;” but the heavens rejoice. For where there is

permanent alienation from God no real life can survive: “The voice of

the bridegroom and of the bride shall be heard no more at all in thee.”

There can be no fruitful activity or profitable labor, for “the sound

of a millstone shall be heard no more at all in thee.” There can be no

inward illumination or safe walking, for “the light of a candle shall

shine no more at all in thee.”

3. _Methods of Success Reiterated._――After a few words of exultant

triumph over the fall of Babylon, and the bright hopes for the future

of Christ’s kingdom opened up thereby, in which heaven and earth unite,

the apostle, before finally leaving the subject, points us again (in

chapter xix) to the weapons by which victory must be won. Repeating

what has been so often said by him that the impression is made on us

that herein lies the central thought of the book, but with a fullness

of detail not previously equaled and with a stress of emphasis which

guarantees the importance of the truth, he asserts again that the

conquering weapons are “the blood of the Lamb” and “the word of

their testimony” (Revelation xii, 11; xix, 15). The cross and the

Bible――these are the means by which the world is to be overcome,

these are the instruments through which the Lord Jesus Christ and

the Holy Ghost work, and with these the Christian and the Church are

sufficiently armed for any conflict or adversary.

John saw “heaven opened (verse 11), and behold a white horse.” Thus

does the Christ appear at the close of the conflict, sitting upon the

white horse of victory, just as he appeared at the beginning when,

armed with the bow, “he went forth conquering, and to conquer” (chapter

vi, 2). He is described by the titles which he had attributed to

himself in his letters to the seven churches of Asia. He is here the

“Faithful and True;” so had he written of himself to Laodicea. “In

righteousness he doth judge and make war;” to Philadelphia he had

called himself “he that is holy, he that is true.” “His eyes were as

a flame of fire;” these very words he had written to Thyatira. “Out

of his mouth proceedeth a sharp sword;” to Pergamos he had spoken

of himself as the one having “the sharp sword.” To Ephesus he had

described himself as the one that “walketh in the midst of the golden

candlesticks [or churches];” and here he is seen in company with the

armies of his followers. He had promised Sardis that the faithful

should walk with him “in white;” here the saints with him are “clothed

in fine linen, white and clean.” To Smyrna he had said, “I will give

thee a crown of life;” and here upon his head are “many crowns.” He

has a name which all can read, “King of kings, and Lord of lords,”

ruling (shepherding) the nations with the iron staff of his power.

But he has also a name that no man knoweth; for he had himself said,

“No man knoweth the Son, but the Father.” He is the Word of God, the

embodiment and utterance of the Godhead’s deepest thought and being,

the “brightness” of the Father’s glory, “and the express image of his

person.”

The weapons which he employs are distinctly said to be the “sharp

sword” that goeth “out of his mouth,” and the blood by which he atoned

for sin. The “sharp sword” means, unquestionably, “the sword of the

Spirit,” the word inspired by the Spirit of truth, the Scriptures which

testify of him (John v, 39), the word by which we are sanctified (John

xvii, 17), the Bible of revelation. By this word, “the breath of his

lips,” he slays the wicked (Isaiah xi, 4). With this, “the spirit of

his mouth,” he consumes the wicked one (2 Thessalonians ii, 8).

And the other weapon is his blood. He is “clothed with a vesture dipped

in blood.” “He treadeth the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of

Almighty God.” In no way could the cross be more explicitly indicated.

Lifted up from the earth upon it, he draws all men unto himself. It is

“Christ crucified” who is the “power” and “wisdom” of God. No weapons

more carnal than these does he employ; none other do we need. By them

the beast and the false prophet are overcome, and both are “cast alive

into a lake of fire.”

PART VI

Progressive Steps by Which the Ideal

Kingdom of Christ is to be Realized

PART VI

=Progressive Steps by Which the Ideal

Kingdom of Christ is to be Realized=

THE twentieth chapter of the Revelation is one full of the most

important matter. It describes the stages through which the kingdom

of Christ must pass in order to attain its ideal state. The key to its

solution is to be found in a careful and close study of the prophecy

of Ezekiel, between which and it so exact a parallelism exists that

neither can be understood without a comprehension of the other. A just

appreciation of this fact would have precluded many of the ingenious

but untenable hypotheses which have based themselves upon this section,

and will now serve to throw light upon what seems obscure and almost

undecipherable.

The Book of Ezekiel consists of two distinct parts, the dividing line

between which is the siege and capture of Jerusalem. The earlier part

of the book is a record of the many and gross idolatries and sins into

which Israel had been tempted and fallen. The sum of these amounted to

a spiritual infidelity and adultery which justly deserved the anger of

Jehovah. And it was the sad and painful task of the prophet to repeat

the solemn warnings with which he had been intrusted of impending and

terrible doom.

Succeeding this are denunciations by the prophet of severe and crushing

judgments upon the surrounding nations, from whose intercourse Israel

has received deadly harm, being corrupted by contact with them, both

in peace and war, and more especially in a lowered spiritual life.

This part of the Book of Ezekiel comes to an end in chapter xxxiii, 21,

where the mournful announcement is made to the prophet that the

predicted blow had fallen: “One that had escaped out of Jerusalem

came to me, saying, The city is smitten.” It was a conclusive proof

of his authority to be considered a true prophet of God, but not less

deplorable on that account.

The remaining part of the book is taken up with brighter themes. Out

of the nettle, danger, God has plucked the flower, safety. The fall of

Jerusalem, which seemed to involve its disappearance from history, is

the means of its salvation. The pages of the prophet are bright with

his predictions of an Israel raised to a new and higher ideal, and

restored thereby to the favor of God. The steps by which this happy

condition is to be brought about are successively unfolded to us and

occupy the book to its close. The false shepherds (chapter xxxiv),

the unworthy and unfaithful rulers who, like the thieves and hirelings

of whom Jesus spake (John x), fed themselves and cared naught for the

flock, are to be removed; and God offers himself to be a shepherd to

Israel, searching his sheep, seeking them out in the cloudy and dark

day, binding up that which was broken, and bringing again that which

was lost――a beautiful predictive type of the Messiah, the good Shepherd

who laid down his life for the sheep.

In addition to this, the false prophets and unsafe guides whom Israel

had followed are to be taken out of the way, and God promises in their

stead to put his Spirit within Israel, cleansing them from all their

filthiness and their idols and giving them a new heart and a new spirit

(xxxvi, 25‒27). This promise of spiritual regeneration is illustrated

by the vision of the valley of dry bones (xxxvii, 1‒14). At the word

of the prophet “the bones” which lay whitening in the valley “came

together, bone to his bone,” assuming the form and appearing in the

likeness of men. But something more than human preaching was required,

for as yet the forms were without life. Then the “breath” of the Holy

Spirit entered into them, like the wind whose sound was heard on the

day of Pentecost, “and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an

exceeding great army” of actual and real men.

The first and closely following result of the spiritual resurrection

thus wrought by the Holy Spirit was the reunion of Judah and Ephraim

(verses 15‒28). These two branches of Israel, unhappily disunited,

always suspicious of each other, often in actual hostility, had by

their division brought reproach upon God’s cause and had subjected

themselves to the disasters, oppressions, and captivities which had

marked their history. Now the schism was to be healed. They were to

become one, so that God could say again, “They shall be my people, and

I will be their God.” Then shall follow a new era of unexampled peace,

prosperity, and productiveness. “David my servant shall be king over

them,” “their prince forever.” “My tabernacle also shall be with them;

yea, I will be their God, and they shall be my people. And the heathen

shall know that I the Lord do sanctify Israel.” The fulfillment of

part of this prophecy is distinctly declared by the angel of God who

announced to the Virgin Mary concerning Christ (Luke i, 32), “The Lord

God shall give unto him the throne of his father David: and he shall

reign over the house of Jacob forever; and of his kingdom there shall

be no end.” Now it is a remarkable fact, of which use will hereafter

be made to clear up the mystery of one of the obscurest parts of the

Revelation of John, that the reign of David and his descendants over

the throne of Jerusalem was exactly one thousand years. In the year

1063 B. C. David was anointed king by Samuel and won his first triumph

in his memorable overthrow of Goliath; and in 63 B. C. Judea became

subject to Rome, and the royal supremacy of David’s line came to an

end.¹ The “scepter” then departed from Judah, and the “lawgiver from

between his feet.”

¹ Dr. William Smith, _New Testament History_, p. 731.

Immediately following this remarkable prophecy of Ezekiel is that

concerning “Gog, the land of Magog” (chapters xxxviii, xxxix). He is

instructed to say to Gog, “After many days thou shalt be visited: in

the latter years thou shalt come into the land that is brought back

from the sword” (xxxviii, 8); “Thou shalt ascend and come like a

storm” (xxxviii, 9); “Thou shalt come up against my people of Israel”

(xxxviii, 16); nevertheless, in the thirty-ninth chapter it is recorded,

“I am against thee, O Gog” (xxxix, 1); “Thou shalt fall upon the

mountains of Israel, thou, and all thy bands, and the people that is

with thee: I will give thee unto the ravenous birds of every sort,

and to the beasts of the field to be devoured” (xxxix, 4); “Then shall

they [that is, Israel] know that I am the Lord their God” (xxxix, 28);

“Neither will I hide my face any more from them: for I have poured out

my Spirit upon the house of Israel, saith the Lord God” (xxxix, 29).

Ezekiel closes his prophecies (chapters xl‒xlviii) with his pictures of

restored Israel, its new ideal temple, and city, and land.

The lines of thought thus laid down by the prophet of the Old Testament

are so closely followed by the author of the Apocalypse that there

seems no other conclusion left to us than that the parallelism of

subject is intended to be as exact as is that of language and imagery.

In the Apocalypse, too, “the faithful city” (Isaiah i, 21) has

forfeited her faith and “become an harlot.” The dire catastrophe which

the seer of the old dispensation saw falling upon corrupt and apostate

Jerusalem has also fallen upon Babylon, the unfaithful Church of the

new. So, also, before the eyes of the apostle, as well as those of the

prophet, there gleamed a vision of a restored Church, pure and clean,

descending from God out of heaven, adorned as a bride for her husband.

How this vision is to be made real, how that splendid city is to be

brought into existence of whose glories the eloquent figures of the

closing chapters inspire such lofty conceptions, it remains for him to

tell us, in order that in all ages to come Christian men may discern

the paths along which they must labor and the steps through which they

must ascend if their efforts are to be crowned with favor and success.

How valuable a help the study of Ezekiel affords us in the

interpretation of the Apocalypse may be seen in the light which it

throws upon the subject of the “thousand years.” The foundation of

those theories of a millennium which have taken such hold upon the

minds of men as to have perceptibly modified language and to have made

the word one of the commonplaces of thought lies in the few verses

which make up the first half of the twentieth chapter. There must be

something peculiarly attractive about these theories and very much in

them accordant with our instinctive hopes, since the paragraph in the

text furnishes but a narrow basis upon which to build a superstructure

so large. It is not easy, moreover, to understand why, in a book so

allegorical as is the Apocalypse, this paragraph should enjoy the

exceptional distinction of demanding a literal interpretation, as would

be the case if these theories are admitted. Nevertheless, it is true

that, from very early ages in Christian history until now, a belief

in and expectation of a personal and visible appearance and reign

upon earth of the Lord Jesus Christ, inaugurating with his saints a

period, stretching through a thousand years, of inconceivable peace and

prosperity, has been entertained by many of his purest and most zealous

followers, and has even been made the distinguishing tenet of large

bodies of men. Whether these opinions are legitimately based upon the

text and how far a correct exegesis compels us to accept them we must

now inquire, endeavoring in all fairness and candor to so interpret

the inspired words as to make the various details of the paragraph

consistent with each other and with the rest of the sacred Scriptures.

Referring once more to the prophecy of Ezekiel, we find the order of

events there described to be, first, a resurrection of dry bones and a

vivification of them into men, then a united Church and people of God,

an undefined period of happy prosperity, a restoration of the kingdom

of David, a combined assault upon this kingdom by hostile nations under

the name of Gog and Magog, and the complete and final victory of the

kingdom over them.

In the Apocalypse the same order is followed, with variation only

in some details of the picture. The only feature which can be called

new is that of the binding and loosing of Satan; and even this, by

implication, at least, is in Ezekiel. It is certainly a reasonable

presumption that the same truths, whatever they are, were in the mind

both of the prophet and the apostle, and were intended to be taught by

both.

Now, if anything in the interpretation of the Apocalypse may be relied

on as valid and beyond question it is that the reign of Christ is not a

future event, to be expected at some day which has not yet dawned upon

earth, but is a present and existent fact. That kingdom was inaugurated

when the Lord Jesus, having risen from the dead and ascended to heaven,

led captivity captive and bestowed upon his followers the gift of the

Holy Spirit. When St. Paul in writing to the Corinthians says, “He must

reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet,” surely the meaning

is that he does now reign and shall continue so to do until the result

is accomplished.

The mediatorial sovereignty of the Lord Jesus Christ is, indeed,

the one theme of the whole book of Revelation. The consummation and

undisputed supremacy of the kingdom has not been reached. It is in its

militant, not triumphant state. But imperfection within and hostility

without no more affect the reality of its being, although they may

militate against its well-being, than did treason within and war

without contravene the fact of the sovereignty of David and his house

over Judah. Into this kingdom not a select number, but all the true

followers of Jesus are introduced. They are “a royal priesthood.” They

are “joint heirs with Christ.” “We see not yet,” indeed, “all things

put under him;” but we see Jesus “crowned with glory and honor;” and

“he that sanctifieth and they who are sanctified are all of one: for

which cause he is not ashamed to call them brethren.”

Again, it may be accepted as almost an axiom of interpretation that

the resurrection referred to in the words, “They lived and reigned with

Christ,” means a spiritual change, and not a physical or bodily one.

It is synonymous with that epoch in the Christian’s life when he is

delivered “from the power of darkness” and translated “into the kingdom

of God’s dear Son,” that crisis of spiritual existence which is called

conversion or regeneration, when one is “born from above” and raised

with Christ into newness of life. The resurrection spoken of is stated

to be that of “the souls of them that were beheaded for the witness of

Jesus, and for the word of God, and which had not worshiped the beast,

neither his image.” It is also called “the first resurrection,” thus

differentiating it from another and subsequent resurrection of “the

rest of the dead.” This first resurrection, moreover, exempts those who

partake of it from the power of “the second death,” which is defined

as the being “cast into the lake of fire.” It separates them from “the

rest of the dead”――those who are dead “in trespasses and sins,” as they

themselves once were――who live not again until “the thousand years” are

finished.

We are now on sure ground. The meaning of this vision is that the

mediatorial kingdom of our Lord is to be established on the earth, and

that by the proper use of those instrumentalities which have been given

into our hands, namely, the word of God and the blood of the Lamb,

it shall advance in spite of all opposition and hindrances, until all

worldliness and false prophetism shall be eliminated, until Christ

“shall have put down all rule and all authority and power,” until “the

kingdoms of this world” shall become “the kingdoms of our Lord, and of

his Christ,” and “he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even

the Father,” and the prayer shall be fulfilled which daily ascends to

the throne of grace, “Thy kingdom come.” The millennium is now. We are

living in it. Its light shines but dimly, it is true, but it will shine

more and more until the perfect day.

The period during which the saints shall live and reign with Christ

is stated to be “a thousand years.” Conjecture has been rife as to

why this number should be selected. Manifestly, here, at least, the

year-day theory, that which makes every day mentioned in the book the

symbol of a year, breaks down. Otherwise, the period would be too long;

and none have been found to maintain the opinion that the millennium is

to last three hundred and sixty-five thousand years. Yet, to interpret

the expression literally, as if it meant exactly a thousand of our

years, would be to depart entirely from the rule of the Apocalypse, in

which numbers are taken as symbols of epochs, not as a measurement of

duration. There is no reason given why in this case exception should be

made to the constant and unvarying use of days and months and years in

this book.

Here, again, reference to the book of Ezekiel will dissolve the

obscurity and present us with an explanation simple, consistent, and

entirely in accordance with the usage which elsewhere prevails in the

Apocalypse.

In the description which Ezekiel gives of the happy results which were

to follow the resurrection of the dry bones and the reunion of Israel,

one of the particulars which tenderly touched every Jewish heart was,

“David my servant shall be king over them; and they shall all have

one shepherd.” Whether the prophet was himself conscious of the full

meaning of these words or not, it is nevertheless the fact that it was

not in any merely earthly descendant of David that this prediction was

to be realized, but in the Messiah, “great David’s greater Son.” So,

doubtless, the apostle of the Apocalypse accepted it. And, inasmuch as

the sovereignty of David’s house was, as has previously been said, just

one thousand years, what more natural than that John should see in this

number the signature and symbol of the reign of Christ? He does not

mean that the duration of that reign shall be limited to a thousand

years, but that, be it longer or shorter, this number is its symbol

and emblem. Whatever he mentions as taking place during the thousand

years is to be understood by us as occurring during the progress of the

mediatorial kingdom of Christ from its commencement to its culmination.

In the sight of the divine Being the period between the establishment

of the kingdom and its complete and final triumph over all its foes,

be it longer or shorter, is the day of Christ, and “one day is with the

Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”

The moments or stages in the growth of the kingdom are now to be

specified.

1. _Restraints upon the Power of Satan._――There is one item in the

revelation made to John, and through him to us, which is peculiar

to him. It is, indeed, implied in the book of Ezekiel, but is not

explicitly communicated. This is the restraint which is put upon the

power of Satan. An angel is seen to “come down from heaven, having

the key of the bottomless pit [the same mentioned in chapter ix, 1‒11]

and a great chain in his hand [see 2 Peter ii, 4; Jude 6]. And he laid

hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan,

and bound him a thousand years.” “When the thousand years are expired,

Satan shall be loosed out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive

the nations;” but this loosing of him, it is said, will be for only

“a little season” before his final destruction. As the thousand years

are a synonym for the reign of Christ, the meaning is that during the

existent mediatorial sovereignty of Christ Satan is debarred his full

liberty. His judgment has not, indeed, come, and he still exists, but

his activity is circumscribed, and his power to hurt is limited and

curbed.

It will be remembered that in the twelfth chapter Satan was described

under the emblem of the dragon and his futile hostility toward the

woman was depicted. At the close of the chapter we were told that “the

dragon was wroth with the woman, and went to make war with the remnant

of her seed.” Since that time he has seemed to disappear from mention

and is directly alluded to only occasionally. His place in the drama of

warfare has been taken by the two wild beasts, his emissaries, in whom

all enmity against Christ and his followers has been concentrated. Now

that these have been judged and consigned to their doom and have in

turn passed from the stage, the apostle reverts to the evil one behind

and within them, whose subordinate agents they were.

One of the noteworthy facts of the universe brought to light mainly

by this book of Revelation, but fully corroborated by other scriptures

when attention is directed to its quest, is the ambition of Satan to

copy and travesty the divine Being, both in modes of manifestation and

methods of work. His abilities seem to lie, not in the direction of

originality, but of imitation. He is not a creator or inventor, but a

consummate actor and a master of the art of mimicry. As the Deity is

revealed to us in the triune personality of Father, Son, and Spirit, so

also there is a trinity of evil――the dragon, the beast, and the false

prophet.

And, again, during the continuance of the mediatorial sovereignty

of Christ established for the elimination of sin from the universe

the Father does not directly interpose, but has delivered all things

into the hands of the Son, and through him to the Holy Spirit, whose

instruments are the cross and the Bible, and whose witnesses and

memorials are the two sacraments. In like manner, there is an attempted

imitation of this on the part of Satan. His personal agency in human

affairs is confined within narrow limits, not of his own will surely,

but by reason of him who hath subjected him. Whatever influence his

malignity and deep-seated hatred of God can exert in order to defeat

the plans and purposes of redemption is wielded mainly through his

subordinates, the two wild beasts. He himself is incarcerated in the

abyss of darkness at the will of his Master and Lord. He seems to have

been allowed personally to tempt Christ; but his arts were wasted, he

lost the field of battle, and must pay the penalty of defeat. Referring

to this, the Lord Jesus said, “I beheld Satan as lightning fall from

heaven;” and again, “Now is the prince ♦of this world cast out;” and

again, “The prince of this world is judged.”

♦ duplicate word “of” removed

While, therefore, the opposition which the Christian encounters, the

temptations which beset him, the evil against which he must struggle

proceed incipiently from the great adversary, it is only the emissaries

and agents of the ruler of this world’s darkness whom he is called

on personally to encounter. As God, in order to save man, must become

incarnate in human flesh, so must Satan, in order to tempt, embody

himself in some earthly form.

The comforting assurance which Paul administered to the brethren of

Corinth was, “There hath no temptation taken you but such as is common

[that is, moderated] to man.” The work of the Lord Jesus Christ extends

some of its blessings to all the race of mankind, to the disobedient

as well as to the faithful, and tempers the vicissitudes of our mortal

state to our capacity of enduring them. It exempts us, though it did

not him, from exposure to Satan’s unshackled power. Satan himself is

bound and shut up in the pit. God’s seal is on him, for he, too, is

the property of the divine Being. And he deceives “the nations no

more” till the thousand years are fulfilled. Then he is to be “loosed a

little season,” as we shall see, prior to his overwhelming discomfiture

and irretrievable defeat.

2. _Outpouring of the Holy Spirit under the Emblem of Resurrection._

――What has already, in the interpretation of this part of the

Apocalypse, been said upon this question will obviate the necessity

for any long discussion of it. Holding the prophecy of Ezekiel in

mind, we cannot but conclude that what was meant to be taught by

the resurrection of the bones in the valley of vision is likewise

indicated by the expression, “They lived and reigned with Christ.”

“This is the first resurrection.” As the resurrection spoken of in

Ezekiel was a striking emblem of the power of the Holy Spirit to effect

spiritual regeneration, so are the words to be taken here. The usage

of describing regeneration by the emblem of a resurrection is so common

in the Scriptures that there is no need to adduce illustrations of it.

Nor is there any need to dwell upon the analogies between the two or to

draw out the important lessons suggested thereby.

One truth, however, is so vital that it must detain us a moment,

namely, the absolute necessity for the supernatural agency of the Holy

Spirit in the inception of spiritual life. No one who believes in an

actual resurrection――that is, in one that is more than figurative and

spiritual, in a resurrection which extends to man’s complete being, in

a resurrection of the body, and not a mere continuance of the life of

the soul――conceives that any natural agents in existence, or, at least,

within our knowledge, are competent to produce it. The bodies we have

here are “terrestrial,” brought into and continued in existence by

the operation of natural laws. The body of the resurrection, whatever

its connection and continuity with the present one, is confessedly

“a spiritual body.” No forces within the realm of nature are able to

create life or to restore it to that which has lost it. The experience

and observation of all the centuries fully establish this truth.

Whether our present bodies or souls come into existence by traduction

or direct creation is another question; but all Christians are agreed

that the resurrection of the body must be effected by the direct action

of God.

So, likewise, analogy would teach, must it be with regeneration of

the soul. That change by which we are raised from the death of sin to

the life of God, that transformation by which we cease to be merely

citizens of earth and become citizens of heaven, can be effected only

by the direct and supernatural agency of the Holy Spirit. No material,

earthly, or human forces are sufficiently mighty to bring it to pass.

Here God must specifically act――not as in other modes of his work,

but by a distinct exercise of power. Nor are we allowed to conceive

of entrance into the spiritual kingdom of God as the resultant of any

process of evolution or growth; whatever preparation is made for it,

the spiritual life of the soul begins in a special operation of the

Holy Spirit as specific and distinct as that by which God “breathed

into his nostrils the breath of life; and man became a living soul.”

The closing chapters of the sacred Scriptures are in unison with the

opening ones of Genesis, and from the prelude to the final “amen” there

is one harmonious melody.

It must be remembered that John was a witness to and a participant in

the extraordinary effusion of the Holy Spirit on the day of Pentecost.

He speaks, therefore, of that which he knew and testifies to that which

he had seen. While the results of the transformation wrought in him are

apparent to us, the fact of it was to him a matter of consciousness.

It is because he had experienced the power of the Holy Spirit that he

declares the necessity for its exercise. And the stress laid upon this

regenerating agency of the Spirit in order that we may be made to live

and reign with Christ is no slight evidence that the man who wrote the

Apocalypse and he who recorded the words of Christ, “Except a man be

born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God,” were one and the same

person.

There is no warrant in Scripture for the assumption that the descent

of the Holy Ghost upon the band of disciples in Jerusalem was intended

to be an anomalous event and incapable of repetition. In the form of

manifestation possibly it was, and in the accompanying signs; but not

in its spirit and power. Our Lord plainly promised to his disciples

the abiding presence of the Comforter to the end of the ages. But

that promise was and is conditional. The Holy Ghost was not given

until Jesus was glorified, neither can he be now. The recognition

and reception of Christ as our only hope and Saviour is the measure

according to which the Spirit now imparts his life. Nor can any

definition or theory of Christianity be accepted as correct in which

the atonement of Christ does not hold the place of central principle.

And in proportion as the crucified Christ is believed on and accepted

as the only name “given among men, whereby we must be saved,” may

richer and more abundant outpourings of the Holy Spirit in his offices

of regeneration and sanctification be expected.

3. _Union of Christian Believers._――There is one particular and

important item relating to the coming of Messiah’s kingdom which is

described with greater minuteness and fullness of detail by Ezekiel

than by the writer of the Apocalypse. This is the unity of the Church

of God――a point upon which the older prophet lays great stress. This

unity is set forth both as a direct result of spiritual resurrection

and as an essential element of preparation for the final conflict with

evil. By symbol and in word he strongly emphasizes the declaration that,

as the sticks which he took became one stick in his hand, so should

Judah and Ephraim be made one in God’s hand. “I will make them one

nation.... They shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be

divided into two kingdoms any more at all.” All the wounds of division

shall be closed and the scars of schism healed.

It cannot be said that this same truth is so patent in the Revelation,

but it is there by justifiable inference. The fact that the saints live

and reign with Christ implies that the kingdom is a united one. The

union and fellowship of the saints with each other, without division

or alienation, is assumed. The obviousness of the truth was sufficient

reason for less explicitness of statement. At any rate, if the apostle

can be accused of any omission here he made ample amends in the

prominence given to the subject in the fourth gospel, in which he

records the prayer of our great High Priest, “That 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.”

The subject which thus opens out to us is one of such absorbing

interest as to demand ample consideration. If it be true, as the words

of the prophet and, indirectly, of the apostle seem to indicate, that

one result of that spiritual quickening by the Holy Spirit called

conversion or regeneration is to bring about union between all who

call themselves disciples of Christ, then that regeneration cannot

be regarded as complete or normal which does not produce fellowship

with all other believers; neither can any Church be said to have

attained a state in any great degree approaching its ideal which is

not in union with the whole Church of Christ. And, in addition, any

instrumentalities we may employ in order to bring about the conversion

of the world must be ineffectual, or, at least, greatly shorn of their

influence, until there exists in the Christian world a unity which

finds its example and the source of its power in the divine nature.

Upon this important question there is entire consentience of opinion

among the inspired evangelists and apostles of the New Testament. They

record their conviction that Caiaphas was speaking as a true prophet

of God, however faulty his motives in so doing, when he said that Jesus

should die in order to “gather together in one the children of God

that were scattered abroad.” Appreciating the immense loss of power

which had resulted from the schism between Judah and Ephraim, a loss

felt even more severely in the moral than in the political world, they

strove with all their might to prevent a like division between the

Jewish and Gentile converts to Christ. Nor did they cease their efforts,

although laying themselves open to the imputation of inconsistency,

until finally the matter became one of life or death to Christianity.

With a tenacity which appears to us akin to obstinacy, they clung to

the hope that the Jewish nation would accept Christ as Messiah and King,

that the old Church would, under the transforming power of the Holy

Spirit, merge into the new as the dawn melts into the day, and that

thus the continuity of history would be preserved.

There can be no question that the rejection of Jesus as Saviour by his

own people was a serious disaster. It created a division among those

who believed in a living God, a personal Providence, and broke the

unity of their testimony in the court of mankind. It sent Christianity

out to its work heavily handicapped; and acute opponents, like Celsus

and Porphyry, were not slow to avail themselves of the advantage it

gave them. Nor has the loss of power therefrom accruing been recovered

to this day. The event is sufficient justification for the wise

conservatism which marked the actions of the apostles.

As little room can there be now for question that the divided,

distracted, segmentary condition of Christendom, with the animosities,

envies, sectarianism, undue exaltation of non-essentials, concentration

of efforts upon things of minor importance, and cultivation of bigotry

caused thereby, operates as a most active factor in shearing the

religion of Christ of its legitimate influence. Nor could increase

of power within and superiority to the world without be brought about

so quickly by any means as by a unity of believers――such unity as the

New Testament inculcates. This statement in no degree conflicts with

the uniform declaration of the Scriptures that the word of God and the

blood of Christ are the two all-important and all-sufficient agencies

for the furtherance of the kingdom; it only asserts that the Bible and

the cross will not have accomplished their purpose until such unity

shall have followed their acceptance.

Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, no less emphatically affirms with

all his authority the necessity of this union. A careful study of his

epistles will show that he divides the religious history of the world

into three distinct periods――Judaism, Gentilism, and a final period in

which these shall be united.

First was Judaism, which began with Abraham, the pioneer and father of

such as believe in a living, personal God. It ran its course, fulfilled

its mission, and had attained what Paul calls “the fullness of times”

when “God sent forth his Son, made of a woman, made under the law, to

redeem them that were under the law.” The office of Judaism in the rôle

of redemption was to bear witness to the supernatural. The Jew believed

thoroughly in God as the Creator, the Providence over nature, the

Ruler and Judge of mankind; in God as a person distinct from nature and

supreme over it. He fully recognized the obligation of the commandment,

“The Lord our God is one Lord; and thou shalt love the Lord thy God

with all thine heart, and with all thy soul, and with all thy might.”

But he exalted the supernatural so highly as to put an impassable chasm

between God and his creatures. The immanent presence of God in nature

was lost sight of in the conception of his transcendency over it. An

incarnation of the Deity and, above all, any such contact of God with

humanity as to admit of the possibility of his suffering was abhorrent

to the mind of the Jew. And so when Christ came to his own as the Word

“made flesh” his own received him not. And, with his foot almost upon

the throne of the world, the Jew stumbled and fell.

Following this period, in Paul’s conception, was that of Gentilism,

which has also its peculiar mission, runs its destined course, and has

its times of fullness toward which it tends (Romans xi, 25). This was

also the conception of Christ himself; for he had said, “Jerusalem

shall be trodden down of the Gentiles, until the times of the Gentiles

be fulfilled” (Luke xxi, 24).

The mission of the heathen Gentilism lay in the sphere of nature and

humanity. With all the beauty, grace, order, motion, and life of the

world the Gentile was in sympathy. His defect was that he rose no

higher. The gods he believed in were simply human and natural forces

personified and exalted. His need was to be impressed vividly with the

conception of the reality of the supernatural and to recognize the

divine Being above and beyond man and the world.

To meet the needs of all classes of humanity God has employed those two

great instrumentalities to which reference is so constantly made in the

Revelation of St. John――on the one hand, the Bible, the written word,

the sword of the Spirit, with its intense realization of the presence

and power of God in nature and history; on the other, the cross, the

blood of the Lamb, with its rich testimony to the fact that “God so

loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever

believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.”

It was Paul’s confident and inspiring belief that when the fullness of

the Gentiles should have come there would be a union of all believers

in God; “and so all Israel shall be saved.” And this is the truth to

which the writer of the Apocalypse bears witness in his vision of the

saints who “lived and reigned with Christ” in one united and concordant

kingdom.

If, then, the attainment of so desirable and blessed a result as that

of the consummation of Christ’s kingdom upon earth is contingent upon

the unity of believers it surely behooves the disciples of Christ to

labor more earnestly than ever before for this unity. The magnitude of

the result is worth the sacrifices needed to gain it.

In what this unity shall consist, in what sense believers are to be one,

is a question upon which lawful difference of opinion may be allowed,

and it is to be settled only by a sympathetic and careful study of the

Scriptures. But as to the mode of its attainment and as to what must

precede its realization the Bible is sufficiently precise and ♦explicit.

It will not be secured by a conventional agreement to accept any common

and universal symbol, sacrament, or organization; unity means something

too vital for that. It will not be founded upon the basis of any past

fact, upon any historical creed or institution or order of ministry;

unity is something akin to life, and life is progressive, anticipative,

not retrospective. The Jewish people were of one common lineage, having

the same fathers, the same oracles, the same institutions, but it was

by no chain descending from past times that they were held in unity; as

soon as the hope of a future Messiah vanished their past associations

became a rope of sand.

♦ “explict” replaced with “explicit”

The Lord Jesus Christ has himself most plainly and authoritatively

announced to us the processes by which alone this unity can be attained.

In the ever memorable words of his prayer as our great High Priest

he said, “Sanctify them through thy truth: thy word is truth,” and

then almost immediately added, “That they all may be one.” The unity

which he anticipated and now desires is one that must be preceded

by sanctification. This is fully in accordance with the prophecy of

Ezekiel, for the union by which Judah and Ephraim were made one was

preceded by the resurrection to life which occurred when the dry

and withered bones had been breathed upon by the Spirit. And, in the

paragraph of the Apocalypse now under consideration, it was only after

the souls of the witnesses and followers of Jesus had been raised by

the first resurrection that they lived and reigned with Christ. Nor

can any unity be real which is not preceded by a spiritual resurrection

from the death of sin into newness of life through the power of the

Holy Spirit.

What is here said of unity as applied to the body of believers is

equally applicable to each individual. The kingdom of Christ does not

reach its designed consummation in the individual until the heart is

united to fear the name of the Lord. The exclusion or omission of any

part of our composite nature from the sanctifying influences of the

Holy Spirit in so far mars the integrity and concord of the kingdom and

is below its ideal. Entire sanctification is, as has been said by John

Fletcher, a constellation made up by the union of all the graces in a

glorious galaxy. And St. Paul teaches us that it is only when we shall

“come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of

God,” that we shall have attained “unto a perfect man, unto the measure

of the stature of the fullness of Christ.”

4. _Final Triumph over the Carnal Mind, or Barbarism. Emblem of Gog

and Magog._――With this glorious picture of the outpouring of the Spirit

and the complete union of the Church of Christ in his mind, the apostle

passes on to the decisive conflict and crowning victory of the kingdom.

“When the thousand years are expired,” he says, “Satan shall be loosed

out of his prison, and shall go out to deceive the nations.”

It is worthy of note that the word which is used by St. John for

“expired” is the same used in the fourth gospel in several important

and significant places, although differently translated. It is found

in the prayer of Jesus (John xvii, 23) in connection with the thought

of unity, as in the section of the Revelation just considered, and is

there rendered “may be made perfect.” It is found in the same prayer

(John xvii, 4), and is used by our Lord in speaking of his active work

upon earth, being there translated “have finished.” It is also recorded

by St. John as being one of our Lord’s exclamations while on the cross

(John xix, 30), and is there also rendered “finished.”

From these uses of the word the inference is very reasonable that it

signifies, not so much the termination of a period of duration, as the

completion of a process. The thousand years may be said to have expired,

not at the close of any number of years of time, but whenever the ends

for which the kingdom of Christ is established are attained. Until

those purposes are accomplished the power of Satan is restrained and

he is not allowed to exercise the full measure of his strength. He who

makes “the wrath of man” to praise him, while “the remainder of wrath”

he restrains, guards his Church and his servants as “a garden inclosed.”

History and experience furnish many an example of the providence

that shelters and shields the infancy and immaturity of Churches and

believers until adult strength has acquired power to resist. The storm

that bends the reed will not move the sturdy oak; and one “rooted and

grounded in love” can withstand blasts that would be disastrous to the

growing and tender shoot. All progress in human laws, in fact, tends

to surround the evil-disposed with increasing restraints, in order that

the weak and helpless and inexperienced may have an equal chance to

develop their individuality.

But at the expiration of this period, we are told, Satan is allowed to

go forth to deceive the nations. The writer of the Apocalypse describes

the final assault of Satan upon Christ’s kingdom under the emblem, so

often quoted and so much misunderstood, of Gog and Magog. In so doing

he draws again upon Ezekiel; and if we wish to ascertain the meaning

of both the apostle and the prophet we must revert to the circumstances

under which the prophecy was originally given, and must, in this

instance, have recourse to history.

Not long prior to the time of Ezekiel there had occurred a sudden

and terrible irruption of barbarians into the civilized parts of the

world, which had caused widespread alarm and terror and shaken to its

base the fabric of society which had through preceding centuries been

laboriously built up. An immense horde of Scythians, in the rudest

stage of savagery, without pity or regard for class, sex, age, or

condition, with intense contempt for and hatred of those arts of

refinement which they were incapable of appreciating, broke loose from

their primitive home and, sweeping down through Asia, overwhelming

cities and empires, threatened to destroy every vestige of literature,

order, and religion and to turn the world back to chaos and anarchy.

Happily their onward course was arrested before the injury they caused

had become irreparable. From this circumstance the name Gog, which was

that of the horde, became the symbol of barbarism, and was used as such

both by the prophet of the Old Testament and the apostle of the

Revelation.

The truth which is intended to be presented is the possibility of

an inroad of that barbarism from which no age is free and from which

the most imminent peril to Christianity is to be dreaded. There is in

every human being, however civilized, a germ of barbarism, a strain

of savagery, which though repressed by education, by culture, or by

law, is not destroyed by them, and which under favoring conditions may

become the ruling principle of life. In every community of men there

will be found some who represent the highest stage which the community

has reached; but there will be found some who remain in the most

rudimentary condition of barbarism. It is the struggle between these

opposing elements which makes the life of the community.

Gog and Magog do not represent heathenism, which is simply a lower form

of religion capable of being improved by the increased light of the

Gospel. They represent the spirit of barbarism, which opposes itself to

every form of religion, lurking as the dark shadow which waits upon all

civilization, ready to manifest itself whenever the power which hinders

its manifestation relaxes its vigilance. And unhappily there are, even

in civilized and Christian countries, institutions allowed to remain

whose only result is to foster the tendency toward barbarism, whose

purpose is to feed the lower sensual appetites and passions that are at

war alike with law, education, culture, and religion, and between which

and the kingdom of Christ must be perpetual antagonism until one or the

other shall be exterminated. The study of history will reveal the fact

that times occur in the life of nations when the tendency to revert to

barbarism asserts itself in unusual strength, when the normal movement

upward and onward is arrested, and the forces which drag men downward

predominate temporarily.

It is such times and conditions of which Satan avails himself to show

his most malignant power. With all such tendencies he is in closest

alliance, and in the effort to intensify them finds his most congenial

employment. It is a mournful fact that the impulse toward the higher

and better is not the only one to be found in man or in any creature;

we must take into the account the opposite fact of the tendency to

revert to lower and baser levels. Indeed, it is not uncommon to notice

that an unusual movement in one direction seems to originate an almost

equal one in the opposite. Nor can there be any guarantee that the

higher and purer faculties shall assert their legitimate sway except

in the promised guidance and help of God. In individual experience,

even after long and faithful service and growth, there will come at

times sudden suggestions and temptations which reveal the existence

of desires and passions we had supposed extinct, but which have been

kept down only by God’s grace and our unceasing watchfulness; such also

is the case with the larger aggregations of men into communities and

societies. And the price we must pay for liberty is eternal vigilance.

The barbarian is, indeed, a man; the essential elements of humanity

lie in him as in all men. But there are properties which belong to the

lowest states of society which constitute a differential characteristic

and which disappear or, at least, become dormant when growth and

culture take place.

The barbarian is an intense realist. He dwells in the region of

facts――such facts as are discoverable by his physical nature only.

Of sentiment, of ideals, he knows nothing and cares less. Such things

as these are spiritually discerned, and he is a natural man only. Of

that unseen ether which lies around the bare and bald facts of life,

connecting them with the divine and eternal source of things, of those

loftier visions of the true, the beautiful, the good which fill the

mind of the cultured with intensest delight, he has no conception. His

delights and employments are sensual and low, and the end of all of

his energies is to gratify them. Arcadian simplicity fades away with

increased geographical and ethnological knowledge.

The only forces which the barbarian appreciates, therefore, are the

mechanical and physical. With him might is right. Of the power of

spiritual forces he has the most inadequate notions until he finds how

weak his cunning and artifice are in the presence of civilization. Of

that sacrifice and renunciation of self for the sake of love of which

the cross of Christ is the summit and crowning example and in which

is the demonstration of the power and wisdom of God he is incapable of

appreciation until the Holy Spirit breaks the chain with which Satan

has bound him; and then he ceases to be a barbarian. Clovis spake the

real feeling of the savage, even when baptized, in exclaiming, “Had

I been there with my Franks they should not have nailed Jesus to the

cross.”

By profession the barbarian is a soldier. He knows somewhat of the

power of weapons of war and but little else. The mechanical and

industrial pursuits by which society is bound together are objects of

scorn to him. He has profound contempt for labor as beneath his pride.

The aristocracy he admires is built on idleness and bloodshed, not on

toil or skill or honest work.

Barbarians divide themselves on national lines alone. The broad

humanity which overlaps territorial boundaries, or a patriotism which

can embrace all mankind and recognize a universal brotherhood, the

barbarian is not able to comprehend, or else he despises the notion as

silly and puerile. He has no consideration of any ties save those of

kinship, if, indeed, fully of these. All within this limit may not be

friends; but certainly all without are enemies, for whose welfare he

need have no regard and whose rights he does not recognize.

And because of these things the stage of barbarism is politically that

of socialism, of that form of it in which the individual has no value

or right of independent thought or action, except as the clan or tribe

or community may confer them. The discernment of the real worth of

man is the gift of the religion of Jesus. In its teaching that the

blood of Christ has been shed for the redemption of all mankind, that

the manifestation of the Spirit has been given to everyone, and that,

therefore, it is not allowed to call any man common or unclean, it has

laid the only solid foundation upon which true liberty, independence,

self-respect, and the highest enjoyments of life can be based.

How rife this spirit of barbarism is, even in societies and States

called civilized and Christian, a moderate degree of observation

will prove. It is to be understood, of course, that to say a tendency

exists in mankind to revert to barbarism is far from saying that such

a tendency is likely to predominate. In pointing out the dangers which

beset civilization the Bible does by no means countenance despondency

or encourage doubt as to the future of history. It indicates perils for

the purpose of inciting us to the use of the means which it suggests

for avoiding them. The spirit of the Bible is one of most cheerful hope

as to the outcome of the conflict between good and evil; and nowhere is

the tone of assurance stronger than in the Revelation.

But we shall be very unwise if we shall neglect to guard against those

symptoms of danger which are manifesting themselves. The persistent

attempts to reduce literature and poetry and art to a barbaric realism,

dragging into light lusts and passions which modesty, culture, and

religion hide from view; the disposition, which seems to increase,

to make the boundaries of States and empires coincide with kinship

of race, and thus to limit men’s interests and aspirations to their

own nationalities; the multiplication of armies and the conversion

of kingdoms into camps, in which every citizen must be a soldier; the

fearful increase of destructive dynamitism and anarchy; the employment

of the most advanced science and education in the invention and

improvement of machines of war; the growth of that form of socialism

which denies all individualism of property, family, and labor――these

are indications of that proneness to barbarism from which mankind is

not yet free, and from which it will not be free until the world comes

into the enjoyment of the liberty of Christ.

The keen eye of the apostle discerned, even in the apparently secure

age in which he lived, the signs of coming perils and dangers; and

against these, men and Churches of all ages have had to struggle. The

battle of Christ with Magog is part of that conflict with the carnal

man that rages in the heart of every Christian, as well as in the world

at large. Happily, however, we know from the pen of inspiration the

full measure of danger to be apprehended, and may rest in the assurance

that Satan has no other appliances of mischief in reserve when these

are exhausted.

It will be noted that the apostle says, in describing the assault

of Gog and Magog upon the kingdom of Christ, “They went up on the

breadth of the earth, and compassed the camp of the saints about, and

the beloved city.” A distinction is made between the “city,” which

symbolizes the Church, and the circumjacent “camp,” which is interposed

as a bulwark between it and the enemy, and which may be regarded as

representing law, education, government, and other conservative forces

of the world. There lies in this a thought characteristic of the

profound mind of the beloved apostle. In a sense most true and deep,

Christians are “the salt of the earth.” The interests of humanity

are bound up with the welfare of the kingdom. In fighting the battles

of God the Church is guarding the welfare of mankind. The bark of

Christianity carries man and all his fortunes. Barbarism is the common

enemy of government and of religion, and in striving to injure one

strikes at the other. Gog and Magog are antagonistic to the “city” and

the encircling “camp” alike. In resisting the emissaries and allies of

Satan Christianity is struggling for the benefit of civilization and

safeguarding all earthly good, even as its Master died not for his own

nation only, but for all men dispersed over the globe. For its own sake,

if not out of regard for religion, society should jealously prohibit

any infringement of divine law. “Happy is that people, whose God is the

Lord.”

On the other hand, it is a matter of profoundest importance to the

cause of religion that it shall maintain the order and prosperity of

the community. No Christian can be indifferent to the welfare of the

State in which he lives. As he dares not allow himself in his own

personal experience to watch without concern any indications of the

growth of the carnal mind, neither can he be listless or apathetic when

opinions destructive to society are spreading abroad. The attacks upon

governments are but the prelude to assaults upon religion. Again and

again has “the earth helped the woman,” and resistance to lawlessness

and anarchy been preservative of the existence of the Church. However

far any established government may fall below the ideal, it is yet

better than none. “The powers that be are ordained of God,” although

Nero may wield the scepter. Forms of government are subject to change

and may be altered in order to conform to higher ideals; but the

existence of government itself is essential to the fulfillment of the

purposes of God.

But, however formidable the assault, the apostle does not allow any

fears of defeat to eclipse his hope for the future. Victory, however

long deferred, is sure to come at last to the Christian and to the

Church. “Be of good cheer,” the Lord said; “I have overcome the world.”

The weapons he has put into our hands are amply sufficient for our

needs, nor are any agencies necessary beyond those with which he has

supplied us.

“Fire came down from God out of heaven, and devoured them.” The “fire”

here is undoubtedly the fire of the Holy Ghost, the baptism from above

of which John the Baptist spake when he said, “He [the Christ] shall

baptize you with the Holy Ghost and with fire.” There came, it may be,

to the apostle, when he wrote these words, memories of an incident of

his life (Luke ix, 51‒56). In his anger at the inhospitable Samaritans,

with a spirit of vindictiveness at the insult to his Master, he had

said, “Lord, wilt thou that we command fire to come down from heaven,

and consume them, even as Elias did?” How quickly followed the sharp

rebuke of the Lord Jesus, “Ye know not what manner of spirit ye are

of.” The weapons Christ uses are not carnal, but spiritual. The fire

which is to devour Gog and Magog is the Holy Spirit who descended upon

the Church at Pentecost. The destruction which awaits them is that of

their sins and animosity, not of their persons. The Spirit of truth

when he comes reproves the world “of judgment, because the prince of

this world is judged.”

And both the struggle and the victory are for each individual believer,

as well as for the Church at large. “We know that whosoever is born of

God sinneth not; but he that is begotten of God keepeth himself, and

that wicked one toucheth him not.” “Ye are of God, little children, and

have overcome them: because greater is he that is in you, than he that

is in the world.”

Thus the consummation to which the apostolic seer looked forward

is reached at last. The Lamb into whose hands the dominion of all

things was committed has prevailed. He has “put down all rule and all

authority and power.” “He [that is, God] hath put all things under his

feet.” Principalities and powers are “subject unto him.” He who was

lifted up upon the cross is now on the “great white throne.” The Father,

he himself had said, gave him “authority to execute judgment also,

because he is the Son of man.” The time of the fulfillment of this

promise has come. Death, “the last enemy,” is destroyed. The gates

of Hades have no longer power to resist the forces of the kingdom of

Christ. Nothing that is hostile to him can look upon his face. Daniel’s

prophecy has been brought to pass. “The iron, the clay, the brass, the

silver, and the gold” are “broken to pieces together,” and become “like

the chaff of the summer threshing floors;” and the wind has “carried

them away,” that no place is “found for them.” The kingdom which the

God of heaven has set up has consumed all other kingdoms and stands for

ever (Daniel ii, 35, 44; vii, 13, 14).

But there is one thought developed in the closing paragraph of chapter

xx which deserves a moment’s consideration. It is that in the relation

which men and things sustain to the Lord Jesus Christ lies the true

test of character and the standard of future, as well as present

judgment. “Set for the fall and rising again of many in Israel,”

through him “the thoughts of many hearts” are revealed (Luke ii,

34, 35). He is, as has been aptly said, the touchstone of human hearts.

And it will be by the “inasmuch as ye did” or “did it not” unto him

that the final sentence on men will be determined.

This truth is set forth in the expression, “the book of life.”

“Whosoever was not found written in the book of life was cast into the

lake of fire.” In the prophecy of Daniel, to which there is evidently

reference in this paragraph, mention is made of “books” that “were

opened.” The writer of the Apocalypse also alludes to the “books” that

“were opened.” But he adds to this that “another book was opened, which

is the book of life;” and in chapter xxi, 27, he calls it “the Lamb’s

book of life.” It is apparent that this additional standard of judgment

belongs to the New Testament dispensation and is something having

relation to the specific work of the Lord Jesus Christ. Paul has this

in mind in saying (1 Corinthians xvi, 22), “If any man love not the

Lord Jesus Christ, let him be Anathema Maran-atha.” The Saviour had

given a foreshadowing of the same truth in telling his disciples,

“Whosoever therefore shall confess me before men, him will I confess

also before my Father which is in heaven.” We hear an echo of this in

the epistle to Sardis (Revelation iii, 5): “He that overcometh, the

same shall be clothed in white raiment; and I will not blot out his

name out of the book of life, but I will confess his name before my

Father, and before his angels.” The same truth is indicated by John in

his first epistle (1 John v, 12): “He that hath the Son hath life; and

he that hath not the Son of God hath not life.”

The character of men is not to be estimated solely by their actions,

and to make destiny depend upon them would hardly be just. Every act,

whether of word or deed, has its own standard of judgment. That which

determines its quality as good or bad is its fitness or unfitness to

its designed end; in this consists its conformity with its ideal. A

moral agent has, however, another standard of judgment. Goodness or

badness in his case is determined by the conformity of his motives,

purposes, and intentions with his ideal, which is the fulfillment of

the will of his Creator. Not only what he does, but why he does it,

enters into the estimate of his moral character. A perfect man would

be one in whom faith in the Son of God and experimental knowledge of

him are in unison, one whose conduct springs out of a living faith,

and in whom a correct faith is translated into actual and complete

righteousness of conduct.

It is a fact that upon the fundamental principles of ethics the

great religions of the earth do not differ so much from each other as

presumption leads us to anticipate. This agreement of the moral codes

occasions surprise and even perplexity upon the first appreciation

of the fact. But the explanation is simple and easy. These codes are

largely the result of observation upon the established and permanent

laws of the universe, deductions from facts with which testimony,

reason, and consciousness make men acquainted. The data being the same,

the conclusions reached are closely similar.

It is the motive power which they bring to bear upon men in order

to induce them to actual realization of and conformity to their

moral convictions that determines the superiority or inferiority of

religions. That which constitutes the distinguishing characteristic of

Christianity and gives it its immense preëminence over all other forms

of religious belief is that it reveals to us the cross of Christ as the

greatest motive power that can operate in human nature. To depreciate

or ignore the atonement is to leave out the differentiating element of

the religion of Jesus. “He that believeth on the Son hath everlasting

life: and he that believeth not the Son shall not see life; but the

wrath of God abideth on him” (John iii, 36). “We must all be made

manifest before the judgment seat of Christ; that each one may receive

the things done in the body” (2 Corinthians v, 10, Revised Version).

Wherever, indeed, the full revelation of the Lord Jesus Christ has not

been given to men they are to be judged by “the law written in their

hearts, their conscience also bearing witness” (Romans ii, 15). But

where the revelation has been made it is in likeness to him that the

test of character lies. And for the final determination of destiny

there must be, not only the books of words and deeds, but also the

“Lamb’s book of life.”

PART VII

The Ideal of the Kingdom

PART VII

=The Ideal of the Kingdom=

BY these long steps has the holy apostle brought us, through this

wonderful record of perils, conflicts, defeats, victories, judgments,

and blessings, to the conclusion toward which he has from the

commencement been tending; and in the two chapters which close the book

he depicts the ideal and perfect kingdom of Christ as it appeared in

his conception of it. As Ezekiel in his lonely captivity by the Chebar

was comforted with anticipations of a new Canaan and a new temple,

wherein Israel, purified by its sufferings and cleansed from idolatry,

should enjoy renewed and uninterrupted communion with Jehovah, so was

the exiled apostle of Patmos gladdened with a prophetic foresight of

new heavens and a new earth in which righteousness shall dwell, not

as a wayfarer or one that tarrieth for a night, but as a permanent

and eternal inhabitant. For the instruction of all the generations

to follow John presents his inspired conception of what the kingdom

of Christ in its purest and final form is, whether it be conceived as

existing in the heart of an individual believer, or as synonymous with

the Church, the body of believers.

We are certainly not compelled, and it may seriously be questioned

whether we are allowed, to interpret the concluding chapters of the

Apocalypse as a vision of the future heaven which awaits the just,

of the glorified and celestial state of believers who have passed

through the trials of earth and have entered into their final reward.

The probabilities are very strong that it is rather the vision of a

redeemed and purified earth, the victory which shall result here from

the complete ascendancy of Christ, which is presented to our faith

and hope. This interpretation of the vision would give consistency

and unity to the book. It would account for the discrimination which

is certainly made between the “city” and the nations which “walk in

the light thereof,” and also for the statement that the leaves of

the tree of life are “for the healing of the nations;” and it is

confirmed by the fact that in his first epistle, which was probably

written subsequently to the Apocalypse, John declared that it had not

been revealed or made manifest to him at that time what we shall be

when Christ shall be manifested to us in his heavenly glory (1 John

iii, 2)――a statement hardly to be reconciled with truth if the vision

of the Apocalypse is to be taken as a revelation of the heavenly state.

The careful student will not fail to observe that upon all questions

relating to the life beyond the grave the Bible preserves a marked

reticence; nor is there any more impressive evidence of its divinity

than this. To gratify a curiosity which might easily become morbid

is no part of its object and might defeat its more practical purpose.

While, therefore, it shows us the rent veil and opens the curtain

sufficiently to reveal to us a world lying beyond, it does not allow

us to penetrate further or uncover to us the mysteries hidden therein.

It is enough for us to know that a way leads from the holy place to

the holy of holies, and that Christ is that way, the life of the world

beyond as he is of this, and the truth and reality of both alike. It

is not certain that a revelation to us of the glories of the celestial

state would realize to us the satisfaction we anticipated. Even

were a revelation made to us in terms which we were able to grasp

and comprehend, that which would be blissful to our glorified and

transformed faculties might not seem so to our earthly ones, and the

revelation might become rather a stumbling-block than a stimulus. We

know that the prophecies concerning the Messiah in the Old Testament

were not only obscure, but even seemed to involve contradictions, which,

however, his advent in the flesh explained and reconciled. This may be

the case also in regard to the future state of the blessed. And God is

no less merciful, doubtless, in what he withholds than in what he

imparts.

It is the ideal kingdom of Christ here in its perfect and completed

form, and not the glorified realm above, which John so exquisitely

describes. The imagery he uses to adumbrate it may be glowing, but it

is not beyond what may be gathered, though in less poetic dress, from

other parts of the Scriptures. Even should it be conceded that the

picture is simply an ideal one, a dream of beauty not meant to be

realized, in fact, something the attainment of which lies beyond the

possibilities of this mortal life, still the presentation to us of the

perfect state can not be without its uses of help and comfort.

But it was not the cast of John’s mind to be pleased with imagined

fancies. It has been well said (in _Guesses at Truth_) that “in

character, in affection, the ideal is the only real.” It is not without

reason that John has so elaborately described the agencies with which

Christ has so amply endowed his Church and his disciples, and which are

sufficient, if rightly used, to reduce to actual experience all that is

portrayed as ideal.

In one of those graphic sketches which connect the Apocalypse so

closely with the gospels John convinces us that it is fact, and

not fancy, which has been engaging his pen. At the beginning of his

ministry upon earth Christ, we are told, was taken to “an exceeding

high mountain,” whence “all the kingdoms of the world, and the glory of

them,” were shown him; and Satan said to him, “All these things will I

give thee, if thou wilt fall down and worship me.” From this temptation

the Master recoiled with indignant rebuke. Instead thereof, he chose

deliberately the path of suffering and privation, the path that led

to the garden and the cross, to Gethsemane and Calvary. With full

appreciation of all it involved, he took the cup put into his hands

by the Father. In the closing scenes of the Apocalypse the battle is

supposed to have been fought, the conflict has ceased, and now John

himself stands, as Christ had stood, upon “a great and high mountain;”

and, behold, there was shown him “that great city, the holy Jerusalem,

descending out of heaven from God.” The cross has conquered, and the

kingdoms of the earth have become the possession of our Lord and of his

Christ. And he who himself overcame the world has given assurance to

all his followers, however humble, that they, too, may be victors.

Theories of the Church and kingdom of Christ, definitions of their

nature and mission, abound. Many have taken on them to specify

the notes or characteristic marks by which the true Church may be

identified. It cannot, therefore, fail of interest or profit to learn

what the holy St. John, the inspired apostle who leaned on the bosom of

Jesus, has to say of the tests by which we may try the spirits to see

whether they are of God. Under the veil of figure and metaphor, we have

the profound and long-studied conviction of one who was competent to

decide, and to whom the wisest of mankind may look up with reverence

for instruction. Nor need anyone have difficulty in determining for

himself whether the kingdom of Christ finds its realization in his own

soul, or long hesitate in identifying the true Church of Christ, which

is simply the kingdom of Christ ruling in society.

1. _The Distinctive Features of the Kingdom._――The first mark of the

kingdom upon which John lays stress is that it is supernatural in its

origin. The holy city that he saw descended “out of heaven from God.”

It came “down from God out of heaven, prepared as a bride adorned for

her husband.” It is not the resultant of any process of development or

growth from a prior state. Whatever preparation may precede and make

ready a basis for its reception, the kingdom itself is inaugurated

by the direct and personal agency of the Holy Spirit. Whatever

instrumentalities the Holy Ghost may use as his media, his is the

undivided quickening power. In this declaration the writer of the

Apocalypse and the author of the fourth gospel are in agreement. It is

he who records the words of the Lord Jesus, “Except a man be born of

water and of the Spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God” (John

iii, 5).

Another feature of this kingdom is that its mission lies specifically

in the realm of divine things. It has “the glory of God.” The name of

the city is, “The Lord is there” (Ezekiel xlviii, 35). Its God is its

glory. It is God’s witness in nature and to men of a power above and

beyond nature and man. There are natural means and agencies endowed

by the Creator to carry forward earthly work; but he has planted the

kingdom in the midst of mankind, and its one great business is to

testify of him. For the doing of this work the Church is accountable.

In whatever other tasks the Church may engage or whatever methods

it may employ in fulfilling its mission, its one supreme office and

distinct characteristic is to bear witness to a divine presence and

a divine power in the world. “In his temple doth everyone speak of

his glory.” All art, ritual, discipline, philanthropy, and economies

that do not directly lead to God, and have not for their purpose to

emphasize the need, the presence, and the inward experience of the

supernatural, are aside from the purpose of the kingdom and below its

ideal.

A third mark of the kingdom is that it has to do primarily with

the religious faculties. As the distinction between nature and the

supernatural is permanent and ineffaceable, so the Church and the

world can never be made to coincide, however widely the Church may be

extended or however thoroughly the world may be permeated by the spirit

of the Church. “The nations of them which are saved shall walk in the

light” of the new Jerusalem, “the kings of the earth do bring their

glory and honor into it;” but the distinction between it and them

exists and abides. It will be as true in the last days as when our

Lord first spoke the words, “My kingdom is not of this world.” However

omnipotent and omnipresent God may be in nature and the universe, he

can never be made identical with them; and, however thoroughly they

may be penetrated by his Spirit and come to perfect accord with him,

they can never be so lifted up as to rival or supersede his supremacy.

And, although common life and work may be sanctified by being done in

the spirit of Christ, and religious life may flow out from the central

source through all the ordinary and natural channels of our being, the

religious and the secular can never be made one. “Out of Zion shall

go forth the law, and the word of the Lord from Jerusalem;” but the

discharge of earthly duties and the reformation of earthly conditions

can never exhaust the obligations of man. There will still remain those

relations to the supernatural of whose existence and sovereignty it is

the preëminent mission of the Church to testify. The kingdom of God is

“righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.”

2. _The Central Principle of the Kingdom._――The central figure in this

kingdom is Christ crucified. It is the Lamb around whom all the imagery

of the apostle’s description gathers. The light――luminary, rather――of

the kingdom was “like unto a stone most precious, even like a jasper

stone, clear as crystal.” That this refers to Christ seems probable

from Revelation iv, 3, where it is said that he that sat upon the

throne “was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone,” and is

further confirmed by Revelation xxi, 23, where the Lamb is said to be

“the light” of the city. Moreover, it is said, “The first foundation

was jasper,” which is but confirmatory of what Peter had said in the

presence of John to the “rulers, and elders, and scribes:” “This is

the stone which was set at nought of you builders, which is become the

head of the corner. Neither is there salvation in any other.” (Acts iv,

11, 12.)

Still further, “The building of the wall of it was of jasper.” Christ

crucified is the defense and the bulwark of the kingdom. The atonement

of Christ is the most powerful argument the Church can use and

constitutes its strongest claim upon the reason and heart of men. It

is “the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” It is Christ crucified

that makes the separation between the kingdom and the circumjacent

world. It is not in its ethics that the distinguishing peculiarity of

Christianity lies, but in the preaching of the cross. In the opinion

of John any other definition of Christianity throws down Christianity’s

only wall of safety and separation.

Yet there is no exclusiveness about the kingdom. The city has three

gates on each of its four sides, facing the four quarters of the globe,

that all men may find ready access. “Every several gate is of one

pearl”――that pearl of great price which Christ said a man should be

willing to sell all that he has to buy, becoming eternally rich by the

exchange.

Nor is there any narrowness. Its length and breadth and height exceed

even those large measurements which Ezekiel thought to be ample enough

for the ideal temple he saw. “Whatsoever things are true, whatsoever

things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are

pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good

report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise”――all these

things belong legitimately to the kingdom. The kings of the earth may

“bring their glory and honor into it;” only that which “defileth” or

“worketh abomination” or “maketh a lie” is excluded. When once a man

in the center of his being is rightly adjusted to the Lamb of God, the

center of all being, he may unfold all his powers and give exercise to

every faculty of his renewed nature safely, wisely, completely, without

fear of infringement upon any other being or of going astray from his

Creator.

3. _Negative Characteristics._――Not less remarkable is the negative

side of the kingdom, the absence from it of many things with which we

are familiar. When an ideal has been attained much that was necessary

in the process of attainment falls away as obsolete; the scaffolding

which is used in the erection of a building is removed when the

building is completed.

There is a noticeable avoidance in the closing chapters of the

Apocalypse of any reference to the sacraments, to ritual, or to such

like means of grace. John saw “no temple therein; for the Lord God

Almighty and the Lamb are the temple of it.” “When that which is

perfect is come, then that which is in part shall be done away.” When

the consummation of the kingdom has been reached the relation of the

soul to its Creator shall not be through intermediate agencies, but

direct and intuitive.

There is no mention made of any special priestly class, for the promise

shall have its complete fulfillment to all, “Ye are a chosen generation,

a royal priesthood;” and all life shall be a priestly work and service.

Nor is there any allusion to the prophetic office as a separate

function. “They need no candle, neither light of the sun; for the Lord

God giveth them light.” “The anointing which ye have received of him

abideth in you, and ye need not that any man teach you” (1 John ii, 27).

The prediction of Jeremiah (Jeremiah xxxi, 34) has reached its time

of fulfillment: “They shall teach no more every man his neighbor, and

every man his brother, saying, Know the Lord: for they shall all know

me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, saith the Lord.”

Yet upon this point, more almost than upon any other, it is of the

utmost importance that we shall “distinguish the times.” We must

not assume, because these aids and appliances are not needful in the

perfected state of the kingdom, that they are not essential in the

formative period, and thus, at great risk and with imminent peril,

neglect or depreciate those means of grace which the Creator has deemed

necessary for our present condition.

4. _The Fruits and Results of the Kingdom._――They in whom the kingdom

rules shall have access to the tree of life, that heavenly wisdom of

which Solomon says, “She is a tree of life to them that lay hold upon

her: and happy is everyone that retaineth her” (Proverbs iii, 18).

“This is life eternal,” One greater than Solomon says, “that they

might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom thou hast

sent” (John xvii, 3). Their lives shall abound in fruitfulness. Their

ministry shall be, like the Lord’s, “for the healing of the nations,”

a remedy for all the spiritual and earthly maladies of mankind.

The curse of sin shall be destroyed, “and there shall be no more

curse.” “Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the law, being made

a curse for us” (Galatians iii, 13). “The blood of Jesus Christ his Son

cleanseth us from all sin” (1 John i, 7). And walking “in the light,

as he is in the light,” and being “pure in heart,” his followers shall

“see God.” “They shall see his face; and his name shall be in their

foreheads.”

* * * * *

Thus with this sublime vision closes this marvelous book. There is no

truth revealed elsewhere in the sacred Scriptures that may not be found

in its pages. So complete is it, indeed, that “if any man shall add

unto these things, God shall add unto him the plagues that are written

in this book.” Nor is there any truth revealed in this book which

may not be found elsewhere in the Scriptures, so perfectly does it

harmonize with all divinely inspired truth. Therefore, “if any man

shall take away from the words of the book of this prophecy, God shall

take away his part out of the book of life, and out of the holy city,

and from the things which are written in this book.”

The Apocalypse of St. John fitly closes the sacred canon; for, drawing

so much, as it does, from all the rest of God’s wonderful book, it

holds the truths derived therefrom in a coherent union never to be

dissolved or broken.

Index

Albigenses, 137.

Apocalypse. See Revelation.

Apostolic and present age,

resemblance between, 198.

Asceticism and worldliness contrasted, 148‒150.

Asceticism,

prevalence and danger of, 138, 139.

Atonement,

all-sufficiency of, 164, 165.

Babylon,

destruction of, 199;

relation of Church and State in, 179‒181.

Balaam, 147, 148.

Barbarism,

characteristics of, 244‒247;

possibility of reversion to, 74, 75, 243.

Beast,

scarlet colored, 186‒188.

Bible,

reticence of, 263.

Christ crucified,

the central figure of Revelation, 270, ♦271.

♦ “171” replaced with “271”

Christian liberty, 272.

Christianity,

antithesis between true and false, 184, 185.

Church and State,

interdependence of, 110, 249, 250.

Church,

conquering weapons of the, 110, 155, 202;

the ideal, 266, _ff._;

notes of the true, 266, _ff._;

separable from world, 269, 270;

supernatural origin of the, 267;

a witness to God, 268.

Church unity, 228, _ff._;

an apostolic hope, 230, 231;

how attained, 236, 237;

importance of, 232.

Daniel,

prophecy of four beasts in, 115.

David,

duration of dynasty of, 209.

Dragon, the;

divine protection from, 108;

hostility of, to the church, 107.

Dry bones. _See_ Ezekiel, vision of dry bones.

Emblem,

of seal, 39‒41;

of trumpet, 56, 57.

Epistles to seven churches of Asia,

their lesson to us, 34.

Euphrates,

reference to, in sixth trumpet, 72, 73.

Ezekiel,

prophecy of, 163, 164, 205, _ff._;

vision of dry bones, 207, 208.

False prophet,

marks of, 133.

False prophetism,

second wild beast a symbol of, 126.

Fifth trumpet. _See_ Trumpet fifth.

First trumpet. _See_ Trumpet first.

Forty-two,

symbolism of, 19.

Fourth trumpet. _See_ Trumpet fourth.

Gentilism,

mission of, 234.

Gnosticism perilous to Christianity, 136.

God, knowledge of;

how obtained, 59‒61.

Gog and Magog, 209, 240‒243, 252, 253.

Harvest scene,

meaning of, 157‒159.

Holy Spirit,

his work preceded by that of Christ, 141, 142.

Individuality an outgrowth of Christianity, 134, 135.

Inspiration and human genius, 84.

Interpretation,

principles of, 10;

reference to Old Testament necessary in, 13‒16;

structure of book a guide to, 11‒13.

Jewish ritual a key to emblems and symbols, 16.

Joel,

prophecy of, 155‒157.

Judaism,

its office in the plan of redemption, 233.

Knowledge of God through his works and word, 59‒61.

Lamb’s book of life, 254, _ff._

Lukewarmness,

evils of, 69, 70.

Man and the earth,

close connection between, 63, 64.

Manichæism, 137.

Mediatorial sovereignty, 45, 46, 214.

Michael the archangel, 109.

Millennium, 211, 212, 217, 218.

Mohammedanism illustrative of fifth trumpet, 70, 71.

♦Nicolaitans, 136.

♦ “Nicolaitanes” replaced with “Nicolaitans”

Nineveh,

special characteristics of, 178, 179.

Numbers,

importance of, 17.

Old Testament,

its relation to the New, 93‒95;

reference to it necessary in interpretation, 13‒16.

Palestine,

geographical seclusion of, 108, 109.

Paulicianism, 137.

Peculiarities distinguishing the Revelation, 9.

Plagues, the, 170.

Prophetical books,

importance of study of, 14.

Purpose of the Revelation, 9.

Resurrection,

spiritual, 224, 225.

Revelation,

general purpose of the, 9;

limitations of the, 81, 82;

theme of the, 23;

unity of the, 22.

Roman Empire,

policy of administration, 117, 118.

Rome,

Church of, 192, 193.

Sacraments,

absence of allusion to, 273.

Satan,

his power restrained, 219;

loosing of, 238.

Sea,

emblem of secular world, 113.

Seal,

emblematic meaning of, 39‒41;

loosing of, 44.

Sealed book,

meaning of, 41, 42.

Sealed elect, 50‒52.

Second trumpet. _See_ Trumpet second.

Second wild beast,

number of, 142‒148.

Seven churches of Asia,

spiritual condition of, 30.

Seven seals,

opening of, 46.

Seven,

symbolism of, 18.

Seventh trumpet. _See_ Trumpet seventh.

Simon Magus, 136.

Six,

symbolism of, 19.

Sixth trumpet. _See_ Trumpet sixth.

Theme of the Revelation, 23.

Third trumpet. _See_ Trumpet third.

Three and a half,

symbolism of, 19‒22.

Tree of life, 274, 275.

True prophet,

marks of, 129‒131.

Trumpet,

emblematic meaning of, 56, 57;

fifth, explanation of, 67‒71;

first, explanation of, 65;

fourth, explanation of, 66;

second, explanation of, 65;

seventh, explanation of, 97;

sixth, explanation of, 72‒76;

third, explanation of, 66.

Twelve,

symbolism of, 18.

Twelve hundred and sixty,

symbolism of, 19, 88, 109.

Two witnesses,

interpretation of, 79.

Tyre,

deleterious influence upon religion, 182, 183;

emblem of commerce, 181, 182, 195, 196.

Unity of the church. _See_ Church unity.

Vials,

vision of, 169.

Victory,

anticipation of, 150.

Vintage scene,

meaning of, 159‒165.

Witnesses, the two;

fulfilled in Law and Prophets, 87‒92.

Woes,

the three, 76.

World empires, 189;

recurrence of, impossible, 191.

World religions,

agreement of moral codes, 256, 257.

Worldliness and asceticism contrasted, 148‒150.

Worldliness,

blasphemy of, 123, 124;

definition of, 120;

first wild beast, a symbol of, 112;

recuperative power of, 122.