(Revelation, Chapter i.)
"Since mine eyes were fixed on Jesus,
I've lost sight of all beside,
So enchained my spirit's vision,
Looking at the Crucified."
"The Lord Christ passed my humble cot:
I knew him, yet I knew him not;
But as I oft had done before,
I hurried through my narrow door
To touch His garment's hem.
"He drew me to a place apart
From curious crowd and noisy mart;
And as I sat there at His feet
I caught the thrill of His heart-beat
Beyond His garment's hem.
"Rare was the bread He broke for me,
As wine the words He spoke to me--
New life surged in, the old life died....
I cannot now be satisfied
To touch His garment's hem."[54]
Transfigured by a Look.
No one ever had a sight of Christ's face and forgot. No one ever gets a
sight of Him and gets over it. He is never the same man after that. He
doesn't want to be the same.
A look into the face of Christ is transforming. You see Him; and you can
never be the man you have been and be content. A change comes. You want
a change. You must have it. This longing is the beginning of the deeper
change. You can never be content again with being the man you have been.
It has always been so. It always will be so. For this is the natural
thing. In the dawning twilight of Eden God looked into the face of the
man he had fashioned. He drew very close to him, close enough to breathe
his own breath into his face. And the man looked out into God's face,
and took on God's likeness. So he became his own real self, as
originally planned.
But while man was yet young, sin looked him in the face. And the man
looked at sin with an evil longing look. And in that look he took in
some of what he saw. He was marred. The God image was hurt. He was not
the same man. And he knew it. He felt it. His eyes were never the same
after that exchange of looks with sin.
But God helped him. He didn't go away. He came closer for the sake of
the sin-hurt eyes. And whenever man has looked into that wondrous
God-face, even though seeing dimly and indistinctly, something within
him makes a great bound. He recognizes the original of his own natural
self. And he catches fire at the sight. A holy discontent springs up
within.
"Couldst thou in vision see
Thyself the man God meant,
Thou never more couldst be
The man thou art--content."
But you have to see Jesus as He was in His humanity to see yourself the
man God meant. And you have to see Jesus as He is now to see the God who
meant you to be like Himself.
It has always been so. This has been God's simple method with men He
would use. He has wooed and then wooed more, and a bit longer, gently,
persistently, up and away and apart until at last the man's eyes were
trained away from the lower glare enough to see the real things.
Then in some vision of the night, whose darkness helped hold back the
lower earth lights, God has looked a man in the face once again. Or,
perhaps in open day there came to him that which he could not describe.
But in his inner spirit he knew there was One with him whom yet his
outer eyes could not see, but who _could_ not be more real if his outer
eyes did see.
And in that presence there was a mingling of exquisite tenderness and of
limitless power that was overawing. Inconceivable purity and yet such an
unspeakable graciousness seemed blended in this presence. And the man
seeing was melted in his innermost being with the sense of tenderness,
and bowed in awe to the lowest dust in the sense of overwhelming power.
Those who have seen will understand how poor the words are to tell the
story. And those who have not may wonder a bit until they, too, have
seen.
Some Transfigured Men.
This it was that transformed that man of the early dawnlight named
Enoch, the seventh from Adam. He was the head of the leading family of
the race, the racial leader. He had lived well on into the seventh
decade of his life.
Then the change came. He recognized a Presence with him, one day. That
One unseen by unseeing eyes became real to him and then more real. He
yielded to His wooing. He companioned with Him daily. This came to be
the realest thing. And he was transformed by it. He grew constantly less
like what he had been, and more like what he was originally meant to be,
like his Companion. Constant contact restored the original likeness. He
was transformed before men's eyes, changed over from within.
Then one day the transforming forces had gone so far that he was
transferred to the upper levels, where all _see His face_, and his
likeness shines out of all faces. He never got over the sight that came
to him that early day.
It was this that wooed the man of Ur away from his ancestral home to be
a lonely pilgrim, a stranger among strangers. Nothing less or else could
have broken the early attachments, the strongest of the East. That
winsome wooing Presence became to him stronger than the strongest human
attachments of his family and home land.
This it was that steadied him through the loneliness, the homelessness,
the disappointments, the long delays, until it was the image of a new
man, a transformed man, a faith-begotten man, that at length looked at
him out of the eyes of his only begotten. This it was that steadied him
through the hardest test of all with that only begotten, the fire test
on Moriah. And that made the transformation yet fuller. For so he grew
the liker him to whose presence he insisted on yielding as each test
came.
So it was with that rare student of Egypt and Arabia. Trained in the
best that man could give in the University of the Nile, and then further
trained by absence from man in the University of the Desert, alone with
sheep and stars, shifting sand and immovable rock, he wasn't ready for
his task yet. He was well trained but not yet transformed.
The fires had to be kindled, purifying, melting, fusing fires. And only
fire kindles fire. The fire of the unburnt bush told him first of a new
kind of fire, uncatalogued on the Nile. The fire of a Presence burned
daily, not consuming him, but only the dross _in_ him, as he led his
race from Egypt to Sinai, out from the slavery of men up to the freedom
of the presence of God. And then for six weeks, twice over, he was in
the Presence of Flame on the Mount.
This it was that utterly changed him into the strongly gentle, patient,
tender-hearted, wise man who taught and trained, lived with and led, the
immature men and women whom God would weld into a nation, a God-nation.
He never got over those two long visits to the Mount, nor has the world.
It was nothing else than this, long years later, that made the rugged
man of the deserts brave the traitorous Ahab in his luxurious,
licentious court. Without it, the sight obscured, the vision lost, he is
a coward fleeing like a whipped dog before a bad woman, thinking only of
saving his own skin. It showed himself, his weak, cowardly self, to
himself.
A fresh vision that early morning in the mouth of the desert cave made
the yet deeper more radical transformation. That unutterably gentle
sound of stillness, too exquisite to be told, only to be felt by a
spirit in tune, _that_ left him not a whit less willing to brave danger
than before, but made over now into another sort, like him whose
Presence in the cave so melted him down.
This new, gentled, mellowed, strengthened Elijah reappears in the man
who received the birthright portion of his spirit. We know the new
Elijah by the spirit that swayed Elisha. The old spirit, fiercely
denouncing, calling down fire, slaying the priests, but with no
grief-broken heart under these stern needful things,--this we think of
familiarly as the Elijah spirit.
The new spirit, healing, teaching, sympathizing, leading, feeding,
fathering, the greatness of gentleness and patience, these
characteristics of Elijah's prophetic heir tell of the deep radical
transformation by the wondrous unseen Presence that early morning in the
mouth of the cave. This is the birthright gift of Elijah to Elisha.
Elijah had a spirit-sight of God, and he never got over it. He became
like Him into whose face he looked.
Heart Stimulant for the Brain.
But time fails, and words fail immensely more, to tell this thing. Let
him who would know that transforming sight get quietly alone with Isaiah
in the temple, and on bent knees linger unhurriedly, and listen, and
watch, and breathe out his prayer, and strongly wait until something of
the same brooding Presence be discerned that transformed this young
Hebrew messenger of God.
Then let him get alone with the Moses of the New Testament. For there
is no man who was so utterly transformed, and so quickly, as the man on
the Damascus road. The whole course of his character and life was
radically changed as by a lightning touch. This is the most striking
illustration of all. No man so reveals in himself the tremendous
transforming power there is in the sight of the Christ as does this
high-strung son of the Hebrew race.
But--words are such lame things. They cannot tell the story here. They
are all one has to use. Yet they'll never be understood except as the
light of experience shines upon them. When any one attempts to talk of
such a thing as this of seeing God or Christ, his words seem so poor and
lame and under the mark by the man who has had something of the vision.
And they either are meaningless and uninteresting, or else they seem
overstated, and quite beyond the mark to one who has had no inkling in
experience of the thing itself.
I recall distinctly the experience of a Danish friend in Copenhagen. She
had been trying to read in English a certain devotional book, but said
she couldn't seem to grasp the meaning of the English words. They eluded
her, and so the book didn't help her much.
Then she went through a time of sore stress of spirit in the sickness
and death of her mother. A new experience of the nearness of God came to
her. And then happening--as it seemed--to pick up the English book again
she was amazed and delighted to find how much better and more quickly
she knew the words and sensed the meaning.
It is only as the heart is fired that the brain awakens. Experience
gives the meaning to language. Without experience it is a dead language
in meaning even though it be one's own mother tongue. Only the man who
has caught something of the vision of Christ's face can understand the
strong words used in talking of such a vision.
It is most striking to notice that even when the glory of God's presence
was hidden beneath human wrappings in Jesus it still could be _felt_.
Men felt that presence though they knew not just what it was they felt,
nor why. When the glory came yet closer in the coming of Jesus, it must
be well covered up for the sake of men's eyes, that they might not go
blind at once; but its power of attraction could not be wholly hid.
So really human was Jesus in the outer circumstance of His life that His
brothers of the home couldn't believe he was essentially different from
themselves. But the attraction of that presence was felt constantly even
through the human hiding of it.
John of the Wilderness instinctively recognized that here was more than
the man he saw, and so obeyed His word. The crowds gathered eagerly in
the Jordan bottoms in even greater numbers than to hear John, drawn by a
power they felt they must yield to, and did yield to gladly.
From the first the crowds gathered thick about Him, Jewish aristocrat,
Samaritan half-breed and sinful outcast jostling elbows in their
eagerness to hear, drawn by a power they could feel, but could not
understand any more than they could withstand it. The children loved his
presence and touch.
The bad in life were as resistlessly drawn up to a new life as the
Greeks were drawn from clear beyond the blue waters of the Hellespont
into His presence. The crowds were irresistibly drawn to follow on that
last eventful journey to Jerusalem even while they felt "afraid."
It was the sight of the glory on the Mount that drew faithful John in
_with_ Jesus, and held him steady that awful night in palace and
courtyard, and that later brought poor blasphemous Peter back for
forgiveness. The two walking to Emmaus found their hearts all aflame,
though they supposed it was only the chance stranger of the roadway they
listened to.
Even those who hated Him were compelled to recognize the wondrous power
of His presence. The Nazareth hands that itched to seize Him were
restrained by His presence as He passed through their midst. Ten times
did the Jerusalem crowds attempt his life, and ten times were they
restrained by a power in Him that they could neither understand nor
withstand.
The men officially empowered to arrest Him return empty-handed,
confessing the overawing power of His words. That last week the leaders
that were hotly plotting His death felt the strange restraint of His
presence while He quietly sat in their very midst, and swayed the
crowds.
In the garden soldiers and priests alike were felled to the ground by
the power of His presence. So it always has been. No one has ever had a
sight of that Face, and gotten used to it, or gotten over it.
A Fresh Vision Needed.
But the thing we are specially needing to-day is a sight of Christ _as
He is now_. It seems a bit strange that we don't get this more. One
historic Church has Him fastened to a cross, never freed from the old
fastenings. Another has Him set in picture frame, behind glass. And the
multitudes prostrate themselves and reverently kiss the glass.
In widely differing Churches He seems quite covered up out of sight by
classical ritual, beautiful music, and impressive stately service. The
crowds gather and listen and bow low in hushed stillness. But,
apparently, _Him they see not_, else how different their conduct as they
come out, and their lives.
And yet as I have mingled with the worshippers in Catholic Churches in
the south of Europe, in Greek Churches in Russia, and in congregations
of the Church of England classed as "high," I have been caught by faces
here and there in the crowd that clearly were reaching out hungrily for
_Him_, and were having some sort, some real sort, of touch with Him,
too. Yet it seemed to be in spite of surroundings. The insistence of
their hunger pierces through these to Him. He seems hidden from the
crowd by them.
Scholarly orthodox theologians talk learnedly about Him, but Himself as
He walked among us and as He is now, Him it would seem that they see
not, at least not enough to burn through and burn out and burn up and
send men out aflame with the Jesus-passion. Philosophies about Him that
are classed as "liberal" and put attractively, yet have nothing of the
burn in them that reveals Himself.
The more modern Church of the more western world seems to have gotten a
new lease of aggressiveness in service, a new intensity in activities so
numerous as to be a bit bewildering sometimes. The wheels whir busily
and noisily. You feel them. But Him, the unseen presence that makes you
reverently wrap your face up out of sight, and stand with awed heart to
listen, _Him_ we seem not to see.
The wondrous quiet Voice that makes your heart burn within you with a
burning that cleanses and mellows and melts down, _that_ we seem to hear
only by getting away from the noise of the whirring wheels into some
quiet corner.
There are in every Church and nation those who seem to have the close
personal touch with Himself. Their faces and daily lives show the marks.
Their lips may not say so much, for they who see most can say least of
what they see. But the marks in the life are unmistakable.
Yet even here the sight of Christ emphasizes chiefly the personal side,
what He is personally to them. And what a blessed side that is only they
who know it know. They think of Him as a personal Saviour, and the heart
glows. They see Him at the Father's right hand interceding, and
gratefully remember that He will forget no name where there is a
trusting heart. They think of the Holy Spirit, the other Jesus, Jesus'
other self, always "alongside to help," alongside _in_side. And they
practise letting Him work out the Christ-likeness within themselves.
And all this is blessed, only blessed. They see Him in His personal
relation to themselves. But there's something more than this. No one
knew more of this blessed personal part than John. But John saw more
than this on Patmos. He saw Christ _as He is now_.
This is clearly a new sight of Christ. It was new to John. It would seem
to be new to us. It is new in the pages of this book. It is something
different from any sight seen before. In the Gospels we see Jesus the
_Man_. In carpenter shop and little whitewashed stone cottage, in the
ministering life clear from the Jordan bottoms to the healing touch at
Gethsemane's gate, and in the suffering clear up to the ninth hour of
that fateful day He is the _Man_, one of ourselves, though clearly more
even in His humanity than the humanity we are.
On the Transfiguration Mount the favoured inner three, the leaders, see
the glory within shining out through the Man. So bewildered are they
that the chief impression that remains is of a blinding brightness. Yet
this is up on a high mountain far away from the crowd, and from the
haunts of men.
As Stephen is being stoned his eyes are opened to see the Son of Man
standing in glory up at the Father's right hand. The Damascus traveller
sees an overpowering burst of glory out of the blue and hears a voice
speaking. In the epistles Paul pictures Him seated at the Father's right
hand with an authority greater than any other. All the power He has is
placed at the disposal of His followers on the earth. He Himself is
above in the glory.[55]
But in this very end of the Book John is given a _new sight of Christ_.
He sees Him _as He is now_. That is to say, this is the sight of Christ
as He is now _characteristically_. It is the distinctive sight that
stands out above all these others.
He _is_ at one's right hand in closest personal relation, through His
Holy Spirit. He _is_ at the Father's right hand in glory waiting
expectantly till the time is ripe for the next direct move on the earth.
But there's more than these. There's a sight of Him that overshadows
these. It is the characteristic sight that lets us see Him as He is
peculiarly _now_ in His relation to _affairs on the earth_.
Christ as He Is Now.
This new sight of Christ is the heart and soul of this crowning book,
this end-book of the Book.
It was out of this sight that this end-book grew. It is written wholly
under the spell of this new sight of Christ. It is a revelation both
_of_ Jesus Christ and _by_ Jesus Christ; first of, then by.
John begins his story by telling that he had gotten such a revelation,
and of the special blessing attached to reading and fitting one's life
to it.[56] Then follows his salutation to those for whom the revelation
was given, and the book written.[57] It is peculiarly a _Church_ book.
Its message is not peculiarly for individual followers, but for groups
of believers gathered together as Churches.
The salutation is absorbed with the One whom he has seen in the vision,
what He has done for us in shedding His blood, and that He is actually
coming again. "Behold He cometh with the clouds; and every eye shall see
Him, and they that pierced Him." The Jew is specifically designated: the
coming has special significance for the Jewish nation. And all the
people of the earth shall penitently mourn as they see Him. And then
like an endorsing signature from the One of whom he is writing comes the
sentence: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord God, who is and
who was, and who cometh, the Almighty One."
Then comes the new sight of the crowned Christ.[58] It was on a Lord's
day. John was on the lonely sea-girt isle of Patmos. He was alone,
brooding probably over some bit of the Word of God, and about the Jesus
of whom he had been so earnestly testifying. It was these that had
brought him to his lonely island prison. These ever burned within him,
the wondrous written Word, the immensely more wondrous Word made flesh,
of whom he had written, the Word that was God and became a Man and
walked the will of God.
And as he brooded he became conscious of the Spirit of God overshadowing
him, gentle as the soft breeze, noiseless as the fragrant dew, mighty as
an enveloping presence that filled his being and had possession of him.
Then a voice spake and the tone of authority in it was unmistakable.
"What thou seest, write." He was to see something. He was to tell what
he saw. There's a delightful touch of the simplicity of natural speech
here. He turned to _see_ the _voice_. And he saw Him who was the voice
of God to him. Then the sight is told in the same simplicity of speech.
There is a group of candlesticks, light-holders, made of gold. And in
the midst of the group there is some One standing. He is in outer form
like a _man_. But there is such an overpowering sense of divine glory
that John falls on his face as one dead. Yet through all this
overwhelming experience the impression of a man stands unmistakably out.
With keen, quick glance John takes in head and hair, eyes and feet,
voice and hands, mouth and face. A simple, natural man in every outer
particular like himself, a brother man, wearing man's garb and girdle.
This is the first impression indelibly stamped on John's mind.
But there's more, ah, much more than a man in this man! This is the
stupendous part. There is some One, other than man, and more than man,
possessing this man. The divine fills the human. It is this sense of the
glory filling the man that is so overpowering to John.
A glorious presence overshadows the man and shines out of Him, but never
obliterates nor makes the man less. That indescribable glory within
shining out through the man magnifies every part of His human being. The
head and hair are white, not like a pale or painted white, but a
transparent whiteness, an intense searching, glowing light shining out
from Him through the human head and hair.
The eyes are as a flame of pure fire, the feet like melting metal
glowing in fire. And the whole countenance was as the sun in its
noontime strength shining out of a rainless, cloudless sky. Humanity
enveloped in deity, yet remaining true, full humanity. God within man
immeasurably more than man, yet not overwhelming, not disturbing nor
obliterating, any part of his humanity, rather making every part stand
out more distinctly.
Is this incidentally a kind of parable? Is it something like this on an
immensely humbler scale that was meant for us men? God the Holy Spirit
dwelling in a man. He the chief one, the divine one, yet expressing
Himself _through_ the man, and doing it fully to meet the need of the
hour. His presence magnifying, vitalizing, and using every human power,
yet Himself the dominant personality.
It is most striking to note that this is the same in principle as every
appearance of God in the Old Testament pages. Sometimes He talked with
men when there is no suggestion made of any appearance or of what the
appearance was like. But wherever the appearance is spoken of it is
always either fire or some touch of the human kind or both.
In Eden He waits and speaks, two human things. He talks with Abraham as
a man talks, and ratified the covenant by passing fire through the
pieces of the covenant sacrifice.[59] It is as a simple, natural man
appearing at Abraham's tent door that He talks about Sodom. It is a
human voice speaking about Isaac, though no appearance is mentioned.
Moses sees a flaming bush, and hears a voice in the desert, and sees a
whole mount aflame while a voice speaks at Sinai.
And so it was always: the fiery presence-cloud in the Wilderness,
Joshua's Captain taking command, Manoah's angel ascending in the flame
of the altar, the voice in the night heard by Samuel, the flooding of
Tabernacle and Temple with the glory-presence, Carmel's fire descending,
Elijah's "still small voice," Isaiah's vision of glory and the voice,
Ezekiel's man of flame speaking, and Daniel's, both of the latter two
akin to this Revelation appearance.
But there is a distinctness and a fulness of description here greater
than at any previous time, yet the same essential thing as at every
appearance of God in Old Testament pages. The coming of Jesus among us
has brought God closer to us and made Him mean more. Jesus was God
coming closer and in a way that we could understand better and take hold
of more easily.
The Identifying Mark.
But let us reverently look a little closer that we may understand yet
better. There are certain characteristics of this Man of Fire that are
allowed to stand sharply out here. We are meant to look at them. This is
part of the purpose in the heart of Christ in letting us see Him as He
is here.
The sense of _purity_ is intenser than can be put into words. Fire is
pure. There is nothing so pure. It resists impurity. It burns it up. It
is most significant that this is the one thing familiar to us that
always accompanies the presence of God as He appears to men. It is
always in fire whether to speak His message of peace and love or to
remove the impurity of evil.
Our God is a consuming fire. Yet fire only consumes what can't stand its
flame. The fire reveals purity and makes pure. God is pure. The presence
within the man looked out in eyes of flame, in a countenance like the
sun, and feet like molten brass glowing in a furnace. There could be no
stronger statement of purity than this.
Then there is an overwhelming sense of _authority_. That seems the human
word to use, though the word seems to tell so much less than John felt.
John feels it more than he can tell it. He cannot tell it in words. His
limp figure lying flat on the earth tells what words never can. He had
seen the glory outshining in the Transfiguration Mount, but this is
unspeakably beyond that.
There was a voice like a trumpet. It commanded John to write. It says:
"I _became_ dead, and, behold! I _am_ alive forever more." It is an
authority over life to yield it up, and over death to put it to death,
and call life back, never again to be touched by the finger of death. No
such authority is known among men to-day. And this is further emphasized
in the quiet words: "I have the _keys_--- the control--of death and of
the whole spirit world."
But immensely more than all this to John was the intense feeling of
majesty which completely overpowered him. The sense of authority was
overwhelming. The items in the description can thus be catalogued, but
it is impossible to get the overwhelming sense of majestic authority
that came to John, except as he got it,--by a _sight_, something of a
sight of this great crowned Christ.
But _who_ is this? Is this not merely Ezekiel's vision repeated?[60] He
saw just such a vision, one in the likeness of a man, enveloped in fire,
and sitting on a throne. And the effect was the same as Ezekiel lies
flat on his face. Is it not the same as Daniel saw?[61] A _man_ clothed
in linen, aflame with inner fire, and the same authoritative voice, and
Daniel in a deep sleep of awe-stricken stupor with face on the ground?
He does indeed seem to be the same. The descriptions tally remarkably.
But listen. He speaks. And the sense of terrifying authority in the
voice that spake is gentled to John's tense ear in the quiet words that
come. Like the loving words that came to Daniel's quaking heart is the
personal message that came to John,--"Fear not." And with the words, as
ever, come the new sense of stilling peace within. "I am the First and
the Last, and the Living One."
Still it may be Ezekiel's Man even yet, or Daniel's. But listen: "and I
_became dead_." Ah! this identifies Him. Now we know for the first time
that this Man of Flame is Jesus our Brother-man. The cross becomes the
mark of identification. The form of the words as spoken fits in with the
sense of authority. With great strength of heart in carrying out a great
purpose He "_became_ dead."
This is Ezekiel's Man and Daniel's and _more_, unspeakably more. The Man
they saw has lived amongst us for a generation of time, and then given
His life clear out for us. He has become more in coming as Jesus. He
has taken human experience and suffering up into Himself. He was
Creator. He has become more--Saviour.
There is the same purity and authority speaking out here as there. But
here is _love_ speaking out as never was spoken out before. Here is love
_lived_ out; aye, here love is _died_ out, and never living so much as
when dying. Here is love putting death to death for us. Purity and
authority fastened on a cross! This is love such as man had never known,
and God never shown before. Calvary lets us see the love that burned in
the purity and controlled in the authority.
John's Man is Ezekiel's and Daniel's, but with the love shining out
through purity and authority, and outshining both. Yet that love is the
purity and authority combined in action. We don't know love only as we
know God. And we don't know God only as we know Jesus not living merely
but pouring out His life for men. This is love--that Man, that God-man,
but with the God-glory hidden within, using all His authority over His
life to fasten His purity on a cross with the thorns of our sin, and
then throttling death and bringing up a new sort of deathless life for
us. This--He--is love.
The Outstanding Characteristic.
But we haven't gotten to the heart of this yet. There is immensely more
here than even this. The distinctive thing, the characteristic thing in
this sight of Christ, is yet to be noticed. All of this can be gotten
from other sights of Christ. But notice now keenly _where this Man of
Fire is_. For this is the distinctive thing. He is not up in the
heavens, as in Ezekiel. He has not come on a special errand, as in
Daniel's experience.[62] He is walking _down on the earth_. His whole
concern is about affairs on the earth.
But note where He is on earth: not in Jerusalem, the Jew centre; not in
Rome, the world's ruling centre, nor in Athens or Corinth, the world's
culture centres. He is seen walking among a small group of candlesticks.
This is the centre of earth action for Him. This is _the significant
thing_ of this new sight of Christ. Let us look at it a moment to get at
the simple significance of the scene.
The candlesticks, we are told, are the Churches, the little groups of
followers banded together here and there. These small groups of Christ's
followers are called _candlesticks_ or lampstands.
There is no suggestion yet of their giving any light. No lighted candles
nor oily wicks are burning and shining. They are only candle_sticks_.
They are of gold, the most precious metal, but they can give no light,
they can only hold the light some one else supplies. The Man standing
amongst them is the light. The whole effect of the sight of Christ here
is that He is the light. The presence within the man shines out through
head and eyes and limbs, as light, intense dazzling light, even as the
sun in his strength.
Here is the distinctive thing. Christ's whole interest centres in the
earth. All heaven is bending over watching the run of events down here.
The intensity of His suffering and death tell the intensity of Christ's
interest in the movement of things on the earth. He has a plan. He has
put His very life into it. It centres wholly in the affairs of us men
down here. And it centres in His Church.
This quite upsets our common ideas about the centre of things down here.
We class London and New York as the great financial centres; Paris and
Berlin as the great fashion and military centres. Rome is the centre of
authority of the Catholic Church, and St. Petersburg of the Greek
Orthodox. The Man who holds all power in His hands, and on whose word
everything depends, quietly brushes all this aside with scarce a move of
His hand. The earth-centre of things is the Church. That is, the groups
of his followers banded together in various parts of the world.
Sometimes it is seen as a magnificent organization intimately connected
with the machinery of government. Sometimes as very small groups of
persons with no social standing, despised and reckoned as not worth
reckoning with. But this is the thing He is depending on for getting out
to His world. All His plans centre here.
He is the light. The light He gave and gives through nature, and within
every man's breast, has been awfully darkened through refusal and
neglect to use it, through stubborn self-will. It is so darkened that
ofttimes it seems to have been quite put out. His coming amongst us as
one of ourselves, living our life, dying on our behalf to free us from
sin, rising again victorious over death, sending His Holy Spirit to make
all this real and living to each of us,--this is the light at its full
shining, the flood-light.
He has made a plan for sending this flood-light to every one in every
part of the earth. That plan centres in His followers. He is the light.
The Church is the light-bearer, the candlestick. It is to hold _Him_ up
in such a way that men everywhere can get in direct touch with Him. When
He is held up, the darkness goes. The darkness can't stand the light.
This is the immensely significant thing here. This is the sight of
Christ needed to-day, a sight of Him as He stands _waiting_ on the
Church to carry out His plan for the earth.
The faithfulness of the Church is not measured by compact organization,
costly houses of worship, impressive services, eloquent scholarly
preaching, and a ceaseless round of organized activities. It can be told
only by how much of the spirit of the Christ who died is carried, in the
daily life of its individual members, into home and social and
commercial circles until men are compelled to feel its power in
conviction of the sin of their own lives.
Nor yet is it told by transplanting the western type of civilization to
far-away lands, with schools and hospitals and innumerable humanizing
influences. All this may be blessed. And it will be blessed and blest.
But it is the incidental thing. It is sure to follow where the Jesus
light is allowed to shine clearly through and out. It is quite possible
to have these good things without getting the real Christ. It is quite
impossible to have Christ Himself without such influences coming, too.
The emphasis must be not on these things, but on Him, Christ. Men need
Him. He answers the heart longing, and only He can. He changes the
nature, and nothing else is enough. The Church is to take the loving,
healing, personal Christ to men in the fulness of His power, and to all
men. This is the measure of its faithfulness.
What Christ Sees.
The tremendous question that crowds in here is this, What does this Man
of Fire see as He stands among His followers? And He tells us. This is
why the vision is given. He wants us to see things as they look to His
eyes of flame.
The Man and His message are one thing here. Chapters one, two, and three
belong together, and should be held together in our minds. We have put
the Man and His message as separate talks to get a clearer grasp of
each. But they are _one_.
Now we recall enough of the message to note this. Five-sevenths of the
light-holders are in bad shape. The lamps are smoky, badly smoked, and
cobwebbed. The light is dimmed. It can't get out through the lamp. The
crowds are standing in the darkness and falling into the ditch by the
side of the road.
Two-sevenths let the light clearly out. The others are an intermingling
of light and light obscured, but with the obscurity overcoming the
other. The net result is an irritating smokiness. And the movement
unhindered would naturally be toward a steady increase of smoky
irritation and obscurity until no light can get through. This is what He
lets us see that He sees.
Now the instinctive thing to do with a smoky lamp irritating nostrils
and eyes is to put it out. That is the first instinct. The second is to
trim the wick and do whatever else it needs to correct the smokiness.
_Yet He waits._ That first natural instinct is restrained. The
candlesticks are not yet moved out of their place. The light still tries
to get out through them. The human candlestick may yet do the needful
trimming and cleaning. With marvellous restraint He _waits_.
It is a tremendous scene that is stretched out here before us,--purity
and authority combined in One who is standing in the midst of impurity
and failure. The purity is more intense than we can grasp. The authority
is greater than any one can realize. The impurity, the failure, are bad
clear beyond what we can take in. The whole natural instinct here would
be a _cleansing_, instant and radical, a correcting of the evil. Yet He
waits. The purity would act through the authority; the authority
restrains the purity. Love quietly, strongly holds both in check. This
restraint, this inaction is tremendous.
Why this inaction? this restraint? And the answer is simple, and as
sweeping as simple. His plan at this stage shall have fullest
opportunity. His followers will be given full opportunity to the last
notch of time and the latest possibility of their being yet true.
All the intensity of His love, all the eagerness of His expectancy,[63]
all the fulness of His plan for the earth, yes all the millions of the
race, all the misery and ignorance, the sin and darkness, the millions
of babies being born into wretchedness, and the millions of
non-Christian women being held in slavery, and the countless numbers in
every land groping along in a darkness that not only can be felt, but
that is felt to the hurting point and then past that to the insensitive
stupor,--all this waits.
With a heart that feels all that any man is feeling and that breaks
under it, He waits that fullest opportunity shall be given His followers
to be true. If His Church is set aside it will be only at the last
moment when her failure is utterly hopeless. If the candlestick is
removed out of its place, it will be only after it has completely
removed itself out of all touch with the Light. A candlestick holding
out no light is an utterly useless thing to the man in the dark.
It is possible for the Church to be a magnificent organization, an
honoured institution, exerting immense influence in national politics,
enormously rich in gold and in scholarship and in traditions, and even
in carrying forward an aggressive missionary propaganda, and yet be
faithless to its one mission. If the Church should fail in this its one
mission, then the waiting time is over. The way is clear for the next
step in the world plan. And a momentous step that would be, beyond our
power to grasp. But the waiting time still holds out.
This is the simple, tremendous plea of this new sight of the crowned
Christ as He is shown here. The centre of the universe to Him is this
earth. The centre of things on the earth is His Church. The centre of
things in the Church is its giving Jesus the Light out to all the earth.
And if this be the way things looked to His eye at the close of the
first century, how, think you, do they look at this beginning of the
twentieth? Has that momentum of movement toward increasing smokiness
slacked? Is the waiting time nearly run out?
The present is a momentous time. Even men of the world speak of the
world-wide restlessness as pointing to some impending event of world
size. And he who is in some sort of simple touch with the spirit world
can feel the air a-thrill with the possibility of world events
impending, even while he wonders just what and when.
One in the Midst.
It is most striking how it came about that John got this sight of
Christ. The change was not in Christ's presence, but in John's eyes.
Christ did not come. He was there. John's eyes were opened. Then he saw
Him who stands watching and waiting. _Christ is here._ The Man of Fire
and of restraining love is here on the earth in the midst of His Church
looking and longing, listening, and feeling.
If only our eyes were opened to see! There standeth One in our midst
whom we recognize not. Wherever any company of believers banded together
as a Church to worship and pray and break holy bread are gathered, under
whatever local name or in connection with whatever Church communion, _He
stands in the midst_, this crowned Christ of the Patmos Revelation.
Our eyes need treatment. The hinge of the eyelid is in the will and in
the heart. A bended or bending will opens the eye. A brooding heart
opens it yet more in spirit vision. Then we shall see Him, _as He is
now_ in our midst, waiting our obedience.
Those forty days between the resurrection and the ascension are seen to
be illustrations of this. One can see through this Revelation sight that
this is one of the chief things the Master is teaching as He still
lingers on earth in His resurrection body.
Along the old Emmaus road, gathered about the evening meal in the
twilight, twice in the upper room at Jerusalem, He appears to little
groups of His faithful followers. Their hearts are burning with the
thought of Him, they are talking with both tongue and eyes about Him.
But that He is in their midst is the last thing to come into their
minds. Then their eyes are opened to see Him in their midst. It was a
forty-days' session in their training school. Then He said quietly as
His bodily presence goes up into the blue: "Lo! _I am with you all the
days until the end._" Their mission and His presence are inseparably
linked.
And it is striking again to note how John's Gospel ends. The others
describe the Ascension. John begins his Gospel with Jesus in the bosom
of the Father before the world was, and ends with Him walking and
talking with a little group of fishermen along the shore of the waters
of Galilee's Lake.
This is what the Church needs to-day, a sight of Christ _as He is now_.
Nothing else can save its life. And nothing less can save its mission
from utter impending failure.
And yet while the distinctive message here is for the Church, it is an
individual message, too. It is for each of us. I am the Church, as much
of it as I am, counted as one. You are the Church. The Church is made up
of you and me and the rest of us. I must take this message for as much
of the Church as I am. The Man of Fire is depending on me to be a
candlestick for His light. It is on me He is patiently waiting to obey
as fully as He means I should.
And on you.
A recent incident is told of a man whose name is a familiar one in the
financial world, who died a few years ago. He was the executive head of
one of our country's great railways. And a man of remarkable largeness
of insight and grasp, and of unusual power of execution. He dealt in
hundreds of millions as easily as most of us deal in dollars, and his
rugged honesty has never been brought into question. His greatest
achievement bulks big in the material structure of one of our great
eastern cities.
But his gigantic tasks ran his strength to ebb tide, and then it was
seen that the tide was running out. As he lay in the sick chamber a
minister called, whose ministry had touched large numbers of the men in
the railroad of which the sick man was head, and in the course of
conversation tactfully asked:
"Are you a Christian, Mr. Blank?"
"Yes," was the quiet, prompt reply that rather surprised the minister.
"How long have you been a Christian, Mr. Blank?"
"Two days," came the answer as promptly and quietly.
Feeling that there was an interesting story under these answers, the
minister gently pressed the question. Then the story came out.
"You know William, who handles freight out here at ----?" the sick man
asked.
"Yes."
"He showed me the way."
"William" had been a worthless, drunken man of the "down and out" sort.
He had been converted at some mission and been radically changed. He had
gotten employment at one of the freight-handling stations of this
railroad system. It was rough, hard work, but he had gone at it
earnestly in his purpose to live an honest life. And in his quiet,
earnest way he was always seeking a chance to speak to men of Christ as
a personal Saviour, until he became known throughout that part of the
system for his simple, earnest piety.
As the sick man realized the seriousness of things for him he had sent
for this William. The president of the road whose capitalization ran
into hundreds of millions sent for the rough-handed freight handler. And
William in his simple, earnest way had pointed the sick man to Christ.
And the man of millions had made a new sort of transaction. Christ and
he had an understanding.
And as the sick man told the minister the story he paused, and then
added, "_I have given my strength to the secondary things._"
This was the judgment of this shrewd man of big affairs as the new light
had come into his life at its close. Happily he had gotten the
readjustment of values in time for readjustment of personal
relationships. But his life's strength was gone.
If we might get the readjustment that would put secondary things in
second place, and put wrong and useless things clear out, _in time to be
of some use to our blessed Lord_.