Thoughts on the apocalypse

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Accession No. b\/ & Class No.

Contents

CHAPTER

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS

I. ON REVELATION I. . . . . . . .10

Chapter I-aok

XX. NOTES ON EEVELATION XIV. ...... 232

XXL ON REVELATION XIV. AND XV 242

XXII. NOTES ON REVELATION XV. AND XVI 253

XXIII. ON REVELATION XVII. AND XVIII. . . . .263

XXIV. ON REVELATION XVIII 288

XXV. NOTES ON REVELATION XVII. ... . 304

XXVI. ON REVELATION XIX., XX., AND XXI 330

XXVII. NOTES ON REVELATION XIX., XX., AND XXI. . . . 344

XXVIII. ON REVELATION XXI 354

XXIX. NOTES ON REVELATION XXI 366

APPENDIX B . 376

ERRATA.

Page 28, line 30, for "hich " read " which."

Page 151, line 16, eorwree should have a mark of reference to the foot-note.

Page 169, line 2, for " their outward " read " in their outward."

Page 179, line 32, for " ripTraaOri " read " r/pTraorffy."

Page 198, line 34, for " if you will " read " if thou wilt."

Page 201, line 18, for " appeared has " read " appeared had."

Page 206, line 22, for " On his heads" read « On his horns."

Page 209, line 2, for " definite of " read " definite or."

Page 209, line 4, for "that or" read « that of."

Page 210, line 13, for " (eTTTjyev) " read " eV^er."

Page 219, line 33, for " irap£fj.€o\r]v " read "

Page 225, line 22, for " (KaQrivevoig) " read

Page 227, line 32, /or " follow with them " read " follow them."

Page 236, line 23, for " r/yopaa-^ueVoi " read " r/

Page 240, line 27, /or " actions " read " action.

Page 301, line 34, /or " the dominion " read " the abomination.

Page 322, line 15, for " 6 cupwv " read " 6

Page 374, line 21, /or " VTTOTTO^IOV " read

IT seems wonderful, that any, who reverence the Scripture and know what true Christianity really is, should be able to persuade themselves, that the history of the world has been one of progress in righteousness and in the knowledge of God. What period in the earth's history has not been marked with the plainest evidences of disastrous failure? Paradise was created, and man was placed in it innocent and happy. But man sinned, and ruin entered. After the fall, God introduced new light, unfolded his promises of grace, and granted also many natural mercies. But evil instantly put forth its energies ; the arts of civilization apart from God were spread by Cain and his descendants throughout the earth; wickedness reigned; and the flood came.

When the flood departed, eight persons descended from the ark, all of them acquainted, at least outwardly, with the true God. They had seen His judgments ; and, being themselves delivered, were ushered into a new world, supplied with new knowledge and fresh covenanted mercies. It was promised that while the earth remained, " seed-time and harvest, cold and heat, summer and winter, day and night should not cease; and God blessed Noah and his sons." Thus, not in darkness and misery, but with light and blessings consciously received from God, mankind commenced their new existence in a recovered earth. Yet only

B

£ THOUGHTS ON THE APOCALYPSE.

a few years passed, before their confederation at Babel evinced their determination to attain greatness apart from God. Scattered under His hand, yet not repenting, they gave themselves over to idolatry, which so rapidly and so universally prevailed, that even Abraham's kindred, when God called Abraham, had begun to serve other gods. So early commenced that night of heathenism under which more than two-thirds of the world is at this moment buried. The separation of Abraham and of Israel was a bright spot in the midst of the darkness. To Israel were (( committed the oracles of God." But Israel failed (as they will one day themselves confess) to work any deliverance in the earth. Their light became dim at its centre, and was at last turned into darkness, so that the name of God was blasphemed among the Gentiles because of them / and now special wrath, or, to use the words of our Lord Himself, " days of vengeance " have come upon them, and will rest on them " until the end." The Church dispensation followed. The Church, when it first appeared in the earth, maintained its testimonies not unworthily of Him whose name it bore. It was the pillar and ground of Truth ; salt that had not lost its savour ; a light set on a hill. For a season, the Pentecostal Church in Jerusalem shone brightly. The Gentile Churches succeeded ; and, for a while, shone also as true lamps of the sanctuary. But even before the Apostles died, decay was, in them too, visible. The Epistles, especially the later ones, were full of warning and reproof. If, said the Apostle, ye Gentiles, who have been graffed into Israel's olive tree, become disobedient and (f continue not in God's goodness, ye also," like Israel before, " shall be cut off." They did not continue in God's goodness — worldliness and corruption reigned; until at last Christianity, perverted Christianity, casting off the likeness of Nazareth, deliberately assumed the garments of earth, and sought to reign as if enthroned, apart from Christ and His Truth; even whilst that Truth and its servants were yet

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. O

suffering. Constantino and the Roman. Empire were not unwilling to accept the alliance of a body that was ready to consecrate the world's energies, and to bless evil in the name of Christ. The results speedily followed. Mohammedanism, superstition, infidelity, soon spread their wings of darkness over the very regions in which the Apostles laboured ; and up to this present hour, those nations peculiarly sleep the sleep of a double death.

There have, indeed, been periods, when God has interfered to rekindle some light, that His Truth might be preserved from utter extinction. But these periods of revival have not, in result, proved exceptions to the general rule. The light given (though individuals have received it and been blessed) has, as to its general reception, been perverted or quenched. The stream, of evil, checked, perhaps, for a moment, has only gathered strength by the delay ; and has either overflowed the barrier, or, else, forced for itself some new channel, in which it rolls on more proudly and destructively than before.

The Protestant era affords a marked example of the merciful interference of God. Protestantism found existing in the earth, a body that professed to be the unfallen Church of God. The Church of Rome claimed to be what the Apostolic Church once was — "the pillar and ground of the Truth." It claimed also to have (what no Church in this dispensation ever can have) that place of supremacy and rule over the nations, which is reserved exclusively for Israel and for Jerusalem, when the day of their repentance and forgiveness shall at length have come. This claim, Protestantism rejected. The pretended Church and its Traditions were disowned, and the Bible only recognised as speaking with the infallible authority of God.

If Protestantism had adhered to the Scriptures only ; if it had diligently sought out Teachers really qualified for their service by the Holy Spirit; if it had abandoned ritualism, and faithfully maintained that all who are " of faith" are " sanctified" and, as regards acceptance, "perfected

THOUGHTS ON THE APOCALYPSE.

by the offering of the body of Jesus once ;" if it had distinguished between those who made credible confession of the Gospel., and those who manifestly were servants of the world ; we should have seen in its history, a spectacle far different from that which it now presents. There are, indeed, among Protestants, many whom God has reserved unto Himself — men who have not bowed the knee to Baal ; but what are the Protestant nations as a whole? Popery rages on the one hand, and Infidelity on the other ; whilst the voice of the true Church of God has waxed so feeble, as to be heard little more than the wail of a child in the midst of the fury of the midnight storm.

When Protestantism, in striking off the shackles of superstition, leads those whom it has freed, immediately and only to the word of God, its work is blessed. But if, careless of Truth, or shunning conflict, it disown or hide the distinctive doctrines of the faith ; if, for the sake of conciliating others, and effecting the union of men as men, it consent to unholy compromise; if natural conscience — dark, deadened conscience, be pronounced man's sufficient rule ; if they who receive the Scripture, and they who mutilate or add to it, be deemed equally worthy of positions of moral influence in society and in. government ; if the mind of man, apart from the guidance of revelation, be judged competent to give right moral order to the earth ; if, as has been of late affirmed, the regulations of government are to be independent of Scripture and all regard to revealed truth — if such be the principles by which the chief of Protestant nations (aided too in these efforts, not unfrequently by real Christians) is striving to stamp a new character on the earth, it is evident, that success in these efforts will effect a more radical subversion of Truth, and a more effectual rejection of Scripture, than has ever been known since the light of Christianity was first kindled in the earth. The formalism of the Pharisee may be easily exchanged for the liberalism of the Sadducee ; but the yoke of superstition is in vain broken, if the only

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. O

liberty gained be the liberty of the unregenerate mind of man. The liberty of self-will is not the liberty wherewith Christ maketh free.*

Few, I suppose, can seriously meditate on that which is now passing around them, without some misgivings as to the future. Yet if the mind be possessed with the thought of the dignity and perfectibility of the nature of man ; if it be ignorant alike of the corruption of the human heart, and of the presence and power of Satan ; it can easily deceive itself into the belief, that society has within itself the elements of its own rectification; and with that thought, it will satisfy itself and silence every apprehension. Others again, who have some reverence for the Scripture, knowing that it speaks of a season when the knowledge of the Lord shall pervade all nations, hastily assume that all things are happily tending towards that end ; and refuse to examine what the Prophets have written respecting the conclusion of this present age of evil. Indeed, until of late, the almost universal belief of Protestant Christians has been, that they had wellnigh passed through the great and terrible hour of Antichristianism — that the final judgments appointed to Jerusalem and the nations were almost exhausted, and that the course of events was rapidly tending towards the peaceful

* It may perhaps seem strange, that in speaking of Protestantism, we should have to refer so exclusively to its national and governmental aspect. If Protestantism had discerned the sin of the day of Constantine, and had steadily drawn the line of separation hetween the Nations and the Church, we should have been able to trace its history in the separate path which the family of faith would have trodden, and should have sought within that family, and not in the world, for the results of its labours. But even spiritual Protestantism early sold its energies to the nations and their governments. In fleeing from Popeiy, it rushed into the courts and camps of those, who (however they may for their own purposes resist certain ecclesiastical forms of evil) have ever hindered the developments of truth, and will finally seek to crush them altogether. Yet even now, Protestant ChristiaDs seem little aware of the path which the nations secularly are about to tread, and the end to which that path is tending.

D THOUGHTS ON THE APOCALYPSE.

rest of the millennial day. Recently, however, many have been awakened from this fatal dream. Turning more simply to the Scripture, they have found, that although the promised kingdom of peace shall at last surely come; yet we have^rs£ to consider the testimony of that roll long since given to Ezekiel, but not yet exhausted, whereon is written both for Israel and the nations, " lamentation, and mourning, and .woe." The book of the Revelation enlarges on and confirms the testimony of that roll.

One of the chief hindrances, perhaps, to understanding the book of Revelation, has been a neglect of Old Testament prophecy. The prophecies of the New Testament, are, of course, supplemental to those of the Old ; and should be considered first. The wickedness and blasphemies of Antichrist and the nations that follow him, at the period so often termed in Scripture " the time of the end," — the unequalled season of tribulation that is to fall on Israel in Jerusalem, immediately before their final deliverance by the appearing of the Lord in glory — these and kindred subjects were familiar to the early disciples, (for they were Jews who had received the testimonies of the prophets,) and they were therefore prepared to receive the additional instructions of the Lord and His Apostles — instructions expressly intended to complete the outlines that had been before given.

One part of the Old Testament Scripture which has been especially neglected, is that which speaks of the now approaching hour, when, hardened and impenitent, Israel shall be regathered to Jerusalem, there to receive the last terrible inflictions from the hand of their God. " Son of man, the house of Israel is to Me become dross : all they are brass, and tin, and iron, and lead, in the midst of the furnace ; they are even the dross of silver. Therefore thus saith the Lord God : Because ye are all become dross, behold, therefore I will gather you into the midst of Jerusalem. As they gather silver, and brass, and iron, and lead, and tin, into the midst of the furnace, to blow the fire upon it, to

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 7

melt it ; so will I gather you in Mine anger and in My fury, and I will leave you there, and melt you. Yea, I will gather you, and blow upon you in the fire of My wrath, and ye shall be melted in the midst thereof. As silver is melted in the midst of the furnace, so shall ye be melted in the midst thereof; and ye shall know that I the Lord have poured My fury upon you." How little has this solemn passage been considered ! Yet this is the period so often mentioned in Daniel, as f< the last end of the indignation" against Jerusalem. It is the period also, of which the book of Revelation, in all its visions of judgment, mainly treats.

If we consider the present condition of the Jews, we cannot marvel at the sore judgments which are yet to be sent upon them. Nationally, they still remain under the weight of those awful words, " His blood be upon us and on our children :" and although many are breaking the bonds with which Rabbmism has bound them, yet it is only to gain the liberty of Sadducean liberalism. Thus we find a recent and influential writer among them, exultingly anticipating the time, when Mohammedans, Jews, and Christians^ assembling around Mount Zion, shall with like acceptance, " all waft their orisons to that Heaven, where sits in Divine majesty, the Lord of Hosts and the God of Israel." Yet what is this but Deism ? Men admire it and call it charity. Multitudes even of those who profess the name of Christ, in their anxiety to escape the responsibilities of definite truth, welcome and applaud the thought. A point of union for men as men is desired ; and this, negation of Truth and the pursuit of some common earthly good, most readily supply. Around such a centre, the indifferentism of Pagan, Mohammedan, Jewish, and Christian scepticism can gather. Such will be the road by which men will enter on their last great confederation against Jehovah and His Christ, until they shall openly say, " Let us break their bonds asunder, and cast away their cords from us."

The rising importance of the Eastern or Greek division of the Roman Empire, can hardly have escaped the observation of those who have noted what is passing among the nations. Greece, Egypt, Syria, the coasts of Asia Minor, and, in part, Jerusalem, are becoming more and more connected with the arts, civilization, and commerce of Western Europe. The provinces which these and other such names represent, formed the Eastern or Greek part of the Roman Empire — an empire which we know from the Scripture will again re-appear in a corporate, though divided, form, before the closing events of "the end of the age" are ushered in. Throughout all the changes of the middle ages, the distinctness of the Latin and Greek divisions of the Roman Empire have been discernible — God having preserved them, because they are appointed, together with Israel in Jerusalem, to form the mainspring of the world's energies during the last hours of its evil history. Greek, Latin, Hebrew, were the languages written over the Cross ; and the nations which those languages represent, will yet again be found in terrible confederacy against Jehovah and against Christ. At the Cross, men were allowed to accomplish their purpose — no judgment was sent forth against them — it was the time of long-suffering mercy — there was then One who said " Father, forgive them, for they know not what they do :" but the coming day of apostasy will have to be met, not by mercy, but by vengeance. God has not in reserve any other sacrifice for sins ; and if that which He has provided and proclaimed be rejected — if despite be done to that Spirit of Grace which now bears witness to that sacrifice, nothing can remain but <( judgment and fiery indignation which shall devour the adversaries."

The Revelation, in its prophetic parts, belongs to the closing hour of human history. It does not profess to record the progressive steps by which, during the last 1800 years, men have advanced toward their final greatness — for in that case it must have been a history of the world ; it seeks not, therefore, to detail the means by which the final point of human

INTRODUCTORY OBSERVATIONS. 9

greatness is reached; but it teaches us the character of that greatness, and reveals its doom. The manner and the place in which the combined apostasy of man, of Israel, and of a large section of professing Christendom, will be finally developed; the mode of the interference of God in chastisement, and then the mission of His Son in judgment, are declared in the Revelation. It presents to us the world already standing in full possession of its last prosperity ; and then reveals the manner in which the Almighty hand of outraged goodness interferes to crush the proud power of evil, and to bring in everlasting righteousness. It reveals also, in various visions, the different aspects of the glory of those who, after having known the tribulation and endurance of the kingdom of Jesus during the period of the Truth's suffering, will share their Master's risen glory and reign with Him in life, when the time comes for Truth to be exalted.

The Revelation assumes the path of human progress to be, at present, evil ; it assumes the failure of the Church's testimony ; it assumes that Christ's servants will never behold the establishment of Truth in the earth, until judgment shall first have wrought its work, and they have themselves been taken to their heavenly mansions of glory. This the prophets had declared ; this the teaching of the Lord Jesus had confirmed; and to this the captivity of John in Patmos bore testimony. They, consequently, who are unprepared to admit these things, are unprepared to understand the Revelation. A film is on their inward eye which needs to be removed before they can receive the instructions of this Book.

CHAPTER I.

ALTHOUGH the great object of the Revelation is to communicate instruction respecting the future, especially concerning the Nations and their evil, yet before it enters on these things, it first directs our attention to the condition of those to whom this instruction was addressed. It was addressed to the Churches — " I, Jesus, have sent mine angel to testify unto you these things in the Churches." The Churches were numbered among " the things which are," respecting which John was commanded to write. "Write therefore the things which thou hast seen and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter." Accordingly, the Churches and their condition, especially in relation to Him who was seen walking in the midst of the candlesticks of gold, is the subject of the chapter before us, and of the two that follow.

The Church in Jerusalem — the first that had been constituted on earth, had disappeared before the Revelation was given. Its light had early waned ; and the destruction that fell on Jerusalem finally scattered it. But the Gentile Churches, among which St. Paul had chiefly laboured, yet remained; still holding, although in diminished power, a place of united and separate testimony. Left in a world teeming with evil, and which Satan was leading into increased distance from God, they were experiencing the dangers and trials of that which is emphatically termed in

ON REVELATION I. 11

Scripture " the evil day." Called into a path of Nazarite separateness in the Truth, they had peculiar laws, peculiar principles. Subjects of a heavenly Head, taught and sustained by the Holy Spirit sent down from heaven, they had heavenly laws, heavenly prospects, heavenly testimonies. Whilst Israel was blinded, and whilst the nations were, (what they will be to the end,) fierce and devouring monsters destroying the earth, they — the church — were set as a peculiar people in the midst of peoples, a peculiar kingdom in the midst of kingdoms, having Christ risen and glorified as their Priest and King ; set to confess Him thus, whilst He is yet rejected in the earth; to own their union with Him in glory, and to seek likeness to Him in suffering obedience here. The place which grace had given them above, was one of union with Christ in unearthly glory. They were seated in heavenly places in Christ Jesus, their risen Representative and their Head ; and therefore a place of corresponding excellency was assigned to them in the earth, — corresponding, I mean, as to its separateness, heavenliness of principle, and power of testimony.

Up to the time when the Revelation was given, the Gentile Churches had continued to hold their separate place of united testimony. They were still separate from the world ; were still united one with the other ; were still shining as lights in the darkness. Each Church that had been anywhere gathered throughout the earth was deemed worthy of being represented before God by "a candlestick of gold;" and seeing that they had a collective brightness too (for the catholic unity of the one body was as yet unbroken) that collective brightness was fitly represented by seven* candle-

* " Seven " is here used as the number that symbolizes completeness. These churches therefore, selected by the Lord in order to afford a complete representation of the practical condition of Gentile Cliristianity at that time, are to be regarded as representing all Gentile Christianity — Gentile Christianity, as it then was, in the aggregate ; when it possessed local unity and catholic unity too. The first was symbolized by each of

THOUGHTS ON THE APOCALYPSE.

sticks shining together. In their several localities each Church separately shone ; but they had also unity one with the other : they spake the same things, they walked in the same paths ; and therefore their light, as it shone on the world around them, shone in the power of collective brightness. That brightness indeed was beginning to wane ; in some of the Churches the light was becoming very dim; nevertheless as yet their honoured place of united testimony was not forfeited : they could still be represented by candlesticks of gold before God — a symbol which He had Himself appointed to express His sense of their high calling in the earth.

To one, like John, instructed in the Scriptures, a candlestick of gold was a well known symbol. A candlestick of gold had stood in the inner court of the Temple (that court which represented "heavenly places not made with hands," Heb. ix.) and had there typified that which the redeemed shall finally be, when, in union with their risen Lord, they shall for ever shine in the sanctuary of God. The prophet Zechariah too, when taught in vision respecting the millennial glory of Israel in the earth, was shown ' f a candlestick all of gold" — a symbol of that which Israel will be, when they shall manifestly become the light of all nations. But what Israel will be, that, as to light, Churches gathered from among the despised Gentiles already were. They were

the candlesticks regarded individually ; the second by all the seven collectively. At Ephesus for example, all the saints who dwelt in that city were gathered into visible communion with each other. All light was with them; everything else in Ephesus was darkness; and therefore one candlestick fitly represented their condition. There was one point of concentrated light. But what each Church was in its own locality, that all the Churches unitedly were to the world around them. They were together separated ; had a common calling and service ; were alike one to the other; were ordered and nourished by the same hand. This was catholic unity, symbolized by the seven candlesticks standing together with the Lord in their midst. The proper unity of the Church is gone, if either of these be wanting.

ON REVELATION I. 13

already candlesticks of gold. Forestalling, as to this, the blessing of millennial Israel, they were already shining in the power of that heavenly light, which, if it had been sustained, would have met and mingled with the brightness of the millennial day. That future hour, indeed, when it shall at last be said to Israel, " Arise, shine, for thy light is come," circumstantially differs widely from this present hour of darkness, for the Truth will no longer then be found in suffering and reproach — the time of its triumph will have come. Its light shall then no longer struggle with darkness that comprehends it not; but set in a sphere of kindred purity, it shall go forth in its brightness and prevail — " For Zion's sake will I not hold my peace, and for Jerusalem's sake, I will not rest, until the righteousness thereof go forth as brightness, and the salvation thereof as a lamp that burneth." Yet, although the light with which Israel will lighten the earth in that future day, may be in brightness more excellent, and be more abiding (for it will never wane nor be scattered, as it has waned and been scattered in this, our dispensation of failure) yet, these are but circumstantial differences ; they affect not the essential excellency of that light, which is the same light, whether it shine in the midst of the brightness of the millennial day, or in the darkness of this present hour of evil; whether it shine to be maintained in its purity and lustre, or to be marred by unfaithfulness and failure. The same kind of symbol, therefore, which denotes the place of millennial Israel, is here applied to the Churches gathered from the Gentiles. Not, indeed, that they were so estimated in the judgment of man : they were not regarded in the earth as candlesticks of gold; it was only the expression of their value as estimated before God.

John had been conversant with the Churches as to their practical circumstances in the earth. He had been with them as their " brother and fellow-partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and patience in Jesus." He had laboured among them and watched over them, as one who had learned from the great Shepherd to love and care for the sheep. But now, removed for a season from the practical sphere of thought and action, he was taken as into a heavenly sanctuary, where the Churches which he had known on earth were symbolically represented by seven candlesticks of gold. He was not taken in vision to the seven cities in which the Churches locally were, there to see a separate candlestick in each city : but the golden candlesticks were seen together; not in the several cities, but in a hidden and heavenly sanctuary — a symbolic Holy Place. There they stood, as representatives of that which was external and distant, the value and excellency of which, they were intended to express as that value was estimated before God. The Lord, the candlesticks, and the stars, were seen out of earthly connexion; but that which the candlesticks and the stars denoted, namely, the Churches and their ministry, was found amidst the scenes of earth external to that symbolic sanctuary.

It was the part of the Churches to discern and to value their high calling, and to seek to maintain themselves in practical correspondency with their heavenly pattern. They were set to shine with the light of God in a dark world which Satan ruled ; and though the place of their service and testimony might locally vary, yet their light was one ; it was kindled from the same source ; it belonged to the same sanctuary. They were together the pillar and ground of God's heavenly Truth ; and the maintenance of that Truth among men, was made mainly dependent on the faithfulness of their testimony. Unity hadbeen given them. Although locally separate, they were practically one. He who walked in their midst, holding, as He himself said, the stars in His right hand, was the unseen centre of their union; and another bond was supplied by the presence of those, who, like Timothy and Titus and St. -Paul whilst they yet lived, remained unlocalized, " having no certain dwelling place," and exercised a general authoritative superintendence over all the Churches ;