Mystery of the golden cloth; or, The riven veil, by Jasper Seaston [!] Hughes

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MYSTERY OF wrn^

Chap. Copyright No..

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CHAPTER I. Revelation I

THE REVELATION OF JESUS CHRIST.

Here we drop our own allegory. It was but an echo of a thousand loftier strains which inspired it, a stepping stone to their approach. The singular genius of the Eevelation has wakened a new song in the hearts of myriads by a melody whose rhythm they could not catch, but, drawn on by a charm as yet lacking intelligibility, have yearned for the joy of its light as the mariner on the troubled sea at night yearns for the break of day. Victor Hugo when he had himself become an exile, sat down to read with a new heart and fresh interest this wondrous book, and said, "In reading the poem of Patmos some one seems to push you from behind. The dread entrance, vaguely outlined, rouses mingled terror and longing."

How charmingly simple is this statement of its author, "I, John, your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience which are in Jesus, was in the isle that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesus." Ah! where is this, your kingdom, solitary man? Did your king banish you into exile, or was it the other? It was for claiming to be the son of God that Christ was put to death and for daring to preach His resurrection that His apostles were persecuted, killed or exiled. Here is the last of them. In exile for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus here tranquil, on a rock mid tumultuous seas from that desolating storm which swept down upon the church in the time of that second Nero, here calm, confident and triumphant. It was the time of the deepest trial to the young church. Titus, under the emperor Vespasian, had laid Jerusalem in the dust and had put out the smoke upon her altar forever. The church which had been in constant expectation of the return of her Lord was now quickened in the hope of His return; for whatever may have been explained as the cause of His delay He had, as it was understood, connected that coming with the desolation of Jerusalem and had said "this generation shall not pass away till all these things come to pass." Paul, who had written to the saints at Thessalonica to be not over distressed about their dead who had died while looking for the Lord's coming from heaven, which he and they both expected, said "we which are alive and remain till the coming of the Lord shall not precede them,'^ was himself now dead about two years when Jerusalem fell. James had long ago been slain, and Peter had closed his ministry with a martyr's glory. The "pillar apostles" . were dead except this one about whom Peter asked when he had been foretold of his own martyrdom — "what is it to thee if he tarry till I come." The vexing -and fiery persecution of Nero was at a distance in the past. The desolation of Jerusalem raised a new agitation in the life and hope of the church. "The coming of the Lord," which Christ Himself had so closely connected with that event, quoting from the "prophet Daniel," led the Disciples to a new and profound study of Daniel's prophesy with a view to that coming, and, as we shall see, two of its great visions form the very framework on which this story is laid. In answer to the question "what shall be the sign of thy coming" He had cited the desolation of Jerusalem, and as that event stretched further and further behind them there was a growing lukewarmness, and spiritual decadence had begun as at Sardis and Laodicea.

The time of painful emergency had come and patience was on trial, when an explanation of his Lord's delay must be given, for His living witnesses were now few. He had said "this generation shall not pass away till all these things be fulfilled.'' The mind of the exile is filled with a thousand wonderings in solitude when his Lord appeared to him with the Revelation. Till now the disciples had been gazing into heaven looking for His return ''as ye saw Him ascend." They had been slow to learn that Christ must die and rise again from the dead, and though forewarned of it often, were disheartened at His death and returned to their nets and were unbelieving when told of His resurrection as of an idle tale and they stood gazing and amazed when He ascended out of their sight;, and though He returned to them in power on the day of Pentecost they continued to gaze "heavenward for His glorious appearing with His angels to possess His kingdom and to reign with themselves on thrones over Israel and the world. The suspense had become agonizing when John was exiled, for, in addition to the promise as they understood it that this generation should not pass away till all these things be fulfilled, there was a rumor current that John, the Bosom Disciple, should not die but should tarry till Christ should come as He Himself tells us.

The minds of the believers would grow slowly but surely amid these wondrous events. The crowning act was here to transpire. The succession of the wondrous events were the personal ministry of Christ,. His death upon the cross. His resurrection to life. His ascension to glory the day of Pentecost and last His glorious appearance to John in Patmos. Great prophesies are given in times of great emergencies. The persecution of the infamous Xero was more to divert attention from himself, charged with the burning of Rome, than from any fear of the new sect, and it is doubtful if his persecution extended to any large degree into the provinces where this book was directed to be sent, but there was another Nero — FlaviuB

Domitius — whose aim was the extermination of the church from the earth, which the churches in all the provinces where John^s later life was spent, must have sorely felt.

The emperor Domitioon carried heathenism to its climax. Till now the church, so dear to the heart of the exile, had not seen heathenism in its direst form.

Domition was the twelfth of the Eoman Caesars. He not only caused himself to be worshipped as a god, but was the first to cause himself to be placed upon the legal papers as ^'the Lord God Domitius." He had himself deified in the public documents and thus while living assumed honors which had formerly been allowed only to. the dead; and so cancels a hitherto distinction.

In the isle of Patmos is an exile whom Domition has banished and to him his risen Lord comes back and addresses him to explain the promise of His coming and these mysterious words, "what is it to thee if he tarry till I come."

Here is the climax of sin met by the climax of revelation. To this lone survivor who tells us four times his name is John and now near the close of his life, Christ appears and says to him, "I aril He that was dead and behold I am alive forever more and have the keys of death and of Hades." "I am Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the first born from the dead, the ruler of the kings of the earth." "He that loved us and loosed us from our sins by His own blood and made us to be a kingdom, to be priests unto God and His Father." The exile says, "I was in the spirit on the Lord's Day and I heard behind me a great voice as of a trumpet saying, Vhat thou seest write in a book and send it to the seven churches.' " There, serene where the storm had driven him; a book is to be written. This is our order for the woven mystery. It is the revelation from God. How intensely the circumstances incite our quest for its secret! The first chapter seems a title page with the spiritual and official portrait of the hero arrayed in the mystic emblems of spiritual royalty to wage a spiritual warfare. In this chapter he is five times called Jesus Christy but never again so named till the mystery is finished. Here is a suggestion of design, of mystery. The area of the maze enlarges.

"And I turned to see the voice which spake with me and being turned I saw seven golden candlesticks and in the midst of them one like to the Son of Man clothed with a garment down to the foot and girt about the breast with a golden girdle and his head and his hair were white, white as wool, white as snow, and his eyes were as • a flame of fire, and his feet like unto burnished brass as if it had been refined in a furnace, and his voice as the voice of many waters, and he had in his right hand his seven stars and out of his mouth proceeded a sharp two edged sword, and his countenance was as the sun" shineth in his strength." Ah! He who once sank under a Eoman cross and the jeers of a sinning world, pressed by the mob, has come again, now victorious, first born from the dead, made alive forevermore, now from heaven most glorious whence He ascended in a cloud, now the leader of the deathless race to follow. He is come! Now with a great voice as of a trumpet He declares His authority louder than in Herod^s court when He stood before His own sinful nation and declared Himself the Son of God and King of the Jews. What speaks this for them alas! and for all His enemies? For such professions He was arrested, tried, sentenced and put to death under the world-wide Eoman rule, betrayed by His own people, forsaken by His disciples. To the Jews who hated Him He had said, "I am the Son of God;" to Herod's court that feared Him, "I am the King of the Jews," and to His disciples who forsook Him, "I am the Christ." Above His cross was written in three languages the mock inscription, "This Is Jesus, the King of the

Jews/^ the irony to the Roman officers^ the doom to the Jews' nation, and the ensign of salvation to the jnst.

On one side that act expressed the world's judgment on all true reformers, and on the other, the love and tribulation and patience of the saints illustrated by the exile himself. To all, such death or exile may come, but denial never. "For of a truth against the Lord and against His annointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate with the Gentiles and the people of Israel were gathered together to do whatsoever thy hand and thy council determined before to be done.'' The world took up arms against Him, for it knew Him no*t. He was despised and rejected. They crucified Him, and bribed the soldiers to deny His resurrection; they killed His chosen stars for preaching it, and had now banished John, the last, into exile doomed to solitude, despised and rejected of men like his Master.

But of such situations God is most mindful. It was to Moses in the lonely mountain of Midian, a refugee from the brick yards of Egyptian serfdom and an exile from home and kindred, that God appeared in the burning bush and commissioned him a deliverer of His oppressed children. To Noah, and to Abraham, when they had estranged themselves from their kindred by their loftier righteousness, God appeared, saving the one by the ark from the watery wastes to begin a new world, and the other by leading him from the altars of idolatry into a far country, afterward to be made his own; and to Daniel while a captive in exile far removed from "the pleasant land" where the wailing singers "hung their harps upon the willows and wept when they remembered Jerusalem," there God revealed His purposes concerning all ages. So to John in solitude among the rocky cliffs of far away Patmos whence persecution had driven him, God appears in the person of His Son with the last Revelation of God to man till "He come with clouds and every eye shall see Him." "I was in the isle that is called Patmos for the word of God and for the testimony of Jesns/' This is his short story that he had borne testimony for Jes-QS. That he conld not do with impunity. That was a denial of this world's right to rule. It was for claiming the right to be -king that Christ was slain, and that John, His servant, was banished. He had flnng back the lie in the face of this accusing world by testifying to "that which we have heard and which we have seen with onr eyes, and have handled with our hands of the Word of Life which we declare unto you.'' The sinful powers that slew his Lord remain sinful and brutish and unrelenting as when Herod and Pontius Pilate and the Gentiles and the Jews forgot their mutual hatreds for one hour in their greater common hatred of the Christ. Ah! they are met again, the crucified and the- exile, face to face, far from the stormy scenes of Calvary. "What is it to thee if he tarry till I come?" John is in the flesh but he says, "I was in the spirit." His Lord is in glory but now also here present with him, near enough to be seen^ to hear him, to touch him.

"Lord, and what shall this man do?" inquired Peter, who, seeing that disciple follow who had before leaned on Jesus' breast at supper. Now Jesus had said to Peter, "H I will that he tarry till I come, what is that to thee?" And that saying went abroad among the disciples that that disciple should not die. That tradition has floated on down the stream of time, and may still be heard till this day among the folk-lore of Europe where the reappearance of "Prester Yahonnes," as he is called, from some long sequestration on the earth, is thought to be as imminent as the reappearance of his Master from the skies. But here, so sure as love is faithful to its promise, he does come to John, the exile. "I was in the spirit on the Lord's Day and heard behind me the voice of a trumpet, and having turned I saw seven golden candlesticks, and in the midst of them one like to the Son of Man clothed with a garment down to the foot and girt about the breast with a golden girdle/' The mob of world powers has made a failure. He is not dead, but alive and manifest here, and is now with the exile whom with his brother James He once named Boanerges — sons of thunder; but now creates him master scribe of the world and chief of prophetic seers, commands him to write in a book and to send it to the seven churches which are in Asia, at Ephesus, at Smyrna, at Pegamos, at Thyatira, at Sardis, at Philadelphia, and at Laodicea. The actual number of churches in the world was much greater than seven, and even in Asia Minor, as we know, but these by some method of selection or of representation are called "The Seven Churches.'^ This raises the question whether there is not here a lowering, or annulling of numeral values to meet the higher purpose of some unusual narration? It deeply challenges our attention. In the same sentence he calls the one spirit of God "the seven spirits which are before His throne." Here is numeral excess. It is enigmatical. As we know the spirit of God to be one by the positive teaching of scripture, we here strangely find it raised to a new mystical value in seven. Some occult but high purpose must lie under the adding a plural and multiple value to what we have so well fixed as an unit. If by the seven spirits the one spirit is meant, then we have a cancellation of numerical value, and a mystic value in seven that supersedes it, a spiritual meaning, a sign that shall give to the factors of the narration he is about to give, a value and power suited to the higher purpose of Him "who spoke as never man spoke.'' Here is a hint we shall read on a higher plane.

But beside the seven spirits, which express all spirit, and the seven churches, which express all churches, we have the seven stars as though they expressed the full spiritual firmament. He holds the seven stars in His right hand. What vast suggestion may be contained in this manner of speech! It is written here into his salutation — '^Grace to you and peace from Him which Is and which Was and which Is To Come; and from the seven spirits which are before His throne, and from Jesus Christ, etc." The salutation of God with full titles and of the seven spirits, and of the Christ bearing aloft in His right hand His seven stars, while He walks amid the seven golden candlesticks, which are His wondrous seven churches. A new value by the process of some spiritual algebra is here expressed, waiting the unknown factors to round out its mighty import. By the same wondrous process we observe with amazement the breaking up of the unity of the Almighty name. To Abraham God said, "I am the Almighty;" to Moses He said, '^Tell Pharaoh I am that I am," verb of ever being; but here by an act of transcendant audacity if not of authority, the name of Deity is boldly broken into three words of time and of spiritual utility, and of lofty import by new magnitudes of purpose for the vast theme of the book which the exile is commanded to write. "Grace to you and peace from Him which Is and Which Was and Which Is to Come." Time is here divided into three divine epochs by these new names of the Almighty. The full list of Almighty names is here given as expressing the totality of divine power. We see and identify God by all these great titles. "I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord God, which Is and which Was and which Is To Come, the Almighty." Such method of dividing time was never till now heard of. The same division of time is observed in the order given to John to write "the things that are, and the things thou sawest, and the things which shall come^to pass hereafter." Here is a remarkable co-ordination of the division of time made more wonderful by the titles of the Christ who says, "I am the Alpha and the Omega., the first and the last, the beginning and the end." This writing is to cover the field of time, past, present and future. Such words lift the heart to heights hitherto unknown, to tell the story of the hero as related to all time in the vast and awful imagery of heaven, earth, sea, etc.

It is "the revelation of Jesus Christ which God gave to Him to show to His servants; the gospel of Christ, by Christ.'^ It chooses to recognize these things by its own transcendence of view. We must ascend in the spirit to receive it as John did. The things of the present, past and future are not to be taken as things in general, but things as they stand related to the Alpha and the Omega. Things the exile and his suffering brothers longed to know. So short a book as this, the limit of a single vision, must view the onwardness of all ages by some very abridged method. It must deal with essences, not with externals, and with conditions, not places, with principles, not persons.

There is in this story at least a chief personality, the hero, and John, his revelator, but localities, externalities and lesser personalities are sunken from view, giving bolder relief to "the Alpha and the Omega," who gathers unto Himself the ends of time. There are three things to be noted in this salutation. -1. Never before nor after this one occurrence, does the Holy Spirit hold a place between the names of the Father and the Christ. This imports a lesson by transposition. In this dispensation, the spirit did precede the announcement of the coronation of Christ on the pentecost succeeding His ascension, and this transposition of the usual order points to that fact. 2. N'ever before was the Spirit spoken of as "the seven spirits'^ or 'announced as being before the throne of God. 3. Never before was the*name of God formally divided into three words of time — present, past and future, to show the epochs of Eevelation time. What a daring liberty is this of transposition and of destroying numeral values that a higher order may be taken, an order in which numbers shall be raised to a higher office than mere units of things. But in such an undertaking how may the past, the present and the future be contained and conveyed with mental distinction? That will require an extraordinary method, and here that method is employed.

THE THINGS THAT ARE.

1. The things that are, that is to say, the things that were then present and current at the time of the exile's vision, are expressed in the seven letters to the seven churches. These are seven open letters, as distinguished from a later sealed book which followed and was contained in seven sealed messages afterward called "the little book."

2. The open letters were addressed to seven actual churches at Ephesus, at Smyrna, at Pergamos, at Thyatira, etc.

3. They present the relations of things then present in the relation of the churches to the world and to God between which they stood as suffering witnesses and lights.

THE THINGS PAST.

The things past are rewritten in sign language or cryptic signals. This is therefore a double writing. The past supports the story of the future as shadow supports substance. It is ' represented as a book in the right hand of Him that sat upon the throne "written both within and on the back." The past thus becomes the divine prologue expressed in occult or cryptic signs as the basis of the divine apologue of the things of "the hereafter" told in allegory and symbol of the hero, the divine Logos. The substance of the past becomes shadow of things future. The things unknown and future are to be expressed by "the things that do appear." The future is by this means shown to be an enlargement^ or fnlfillment of the past. They are thus written together and co-ordinate as parts, of one great whole. We read it as we would read the writing on a palimpsest where we can trace the old dim letters lying under the new as a pattern^ the new has followed but heightened in effect. Only by the clear recognition of the division of time into past^ present and future^ can we find ground that will support the subject matter. This is the division not of chronological^ neither of logical^ but of intensely Christological time, the division of sacred epochs.

The story must illustrate the thesis "I am the Alpha and the Omega, the ruler of the kings of the earth, who was in the beginning with the Father." We are to deal with Revelation time so fixed that even the name of the Almisfhty is broken into three divisions and made to yield to its purpose. John is told to "write the things Which are and which thou sawest, and which shall come to pass hereafter/' just as we have seen the spirit and the churchy and the stars yield their numeral values to a new ofhce they are to serve in illustrating the new magnitudes of spiritual commensuration in the purposes of the Almighty. But it completes the assurance of the beginning and on-going and consummation of time to find, as we do, that the name of the Almighty undergoes a change with the end of Revelation. time. In its earlier occurrences, i, 4-8 and 4-8, three times we read "Him that IS and WAS and IS TO COME." But at a point in the story where His coming is declared to have occurred, the future is dropped and we have only "HE that IS and WAS," xi, 17 and xvi, 5. By this mighty sign is the present and the future and the on-going of time signified and assured. He is the First and the Last and His is the story of all time. This is even further pledged by the uplifted hand of the angel of God when he swears that "when the seventh trumpet is about to sound, then is finished all the promises which God made to His servants, the prophets/'

But these divisions of time receive subdivisions in the two major series, the Seals and the Trumpets, and are confirmed later, in other two series to be considered in their respective places in the field of vision yet before ns. These are not to be argued, but only to be seen, for we are following a seer and not a logician. We shall not need the logical mind so much as the seeing heart. We are warned of some unusual method, and a blessing is offered to him that reads and keeps the words written therein. John says, "And when I saw Him I fell at His feet as one dead. And He laid His right hand upon me saying, ^fear not,. I am the first and the last, and the Living One and I was dead and behold I am alive forevermore and have the keys of death and Hades. Write therefore the things which thou sawest and the things which are and the things which shall come to pass hereafter.' ''

The mystery of the seven stars which thou sawest in my right hand and the seven golden candlesticks. The seven stars are the angels of the seven churches and the seven candlesticks are the seven churches.

This closes for the present the words of Christ's direct commission to John. He will next speak to His churches. His explanation of the mystery of the seven stars leaves us still wondering, no nearer an understanding than when He called those angels only stars. What other names have they besides "stars" and "angels?" That we shall presently see. Himself He clearly reveals. "I am He that was dead and behold I am alive forevermore." He that loved us and washed us from our sins in His own blood and made us to be a kingdom and to be priests unto our God. His enemies once east lots for His garment, but now He is clothed in a white garment down to the foot and girt about the loins with a golden girdle they cannot touch. His head and hair once flecked with blood are now fleecy as triple white, "white as wool and as white as snow/^ His eyes once dim with tears are like flames of fire, and his feet that trod the wine-press of man's wrath alone, now gleam like molten brass in the furnace. Like a lamb dumb before his shearer. He opened not His mouth before His accusers, but now there proceeds out of His mouth a sharp two-edged sword with which to smite the nations; and His voice, once but a monotone, is now like the sound of many waters. There He is walking in the midst of the golden candlesticks, the churches here in this world, and holds aloft in His right hand His stars to whom He said, "No man shall be able to pluck you out of my hand,'' and here the last and lone star in Patmos says, "And He laid His right hand upon me and said ^fear not.' " How close are the candlesticks, the stars and the lamp-keeper!

We have to keep the parts intelligible. 'He walks in the midst and holds His stars in His right hand. Localities are effaced as if heaven and earth were annexed without a seam or line to mark. John is in the spirit, and yet in Patmos; Christ is walking in the midst of the churches, which are here in the earth in seven cities, and yet in sight and in hearing and in touch of John. It is vision, it is a mystery; we cannot divide between the things known by sense, and the things known by faith. The groundling may not see. The .lines between the sensible and the spiritual are absent. Here are seven cities of Asia and Patmos named, but beyond these, and the name of John. we shall not find again, either a place or a personality named. But we will keep a close watch upon Christ and His associate powers, the seven stars, the seven spirits, and the seven churches which are so closely related to Him. Christ's number alone has not yet changed. The Almighty name is given in three; the Spirit, and the Church and the Apostles are all in sevens. Neither time nor death separates Christ from His apostles and churches. We shall meet with his proper name no more till the mystery be ended, and never again with His apostles only as they can be seen through new symbol names that express, their relations to Him. To them He said ^^Lo, I am with you alway to the end of the world." We are now to note well that Christ has explained to us three mysteries: The one spirit as seven spirits before His throne, the seven candlesticks are the seven churches, and the seven stars which are the seven angels to the seven churches are the Apostles.