The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

comforting and strengthening to faith to discover in the vision we now consider, a
description of the assumption of Divine authority, and the exercise of Divine power
operating to accomplish the overthrow and destruction of this last great anti-Christian
combination. The visions of Revelation that follow this one all relate to the last great
conflict of this Age between truth and error--a conflict which is exhibited in several
different stages. The part that the last members of the saintly class will have in these final
scenes will, it seems to us, be that of giving a simple testimony to the Truth--a testimony
given in a fearless yet meek, humble, and submissive spirit--submissive to the Father's
will, realizing that He will not permit any experiences to come to them that will not be for
their good and His glory. This testimony will be like the last testimony of Christ given to
the religious rulers of the Jews, and the civil power of Rome. It will be well that the true
followers of the Lamb examine carefully those Scriptures that describe the Master's
attitude and final testimony to those powers that then existed--the one, the Jewish
religious power, the instigator and accuser; the other, the Roman civil power, the executor
of the decrees of the former.
From the foregoing it is obvious that the vision we now consider--the Lamb standing on
Mount Zion--brings us to the beginning of the most thrilling period in the history of the
true Church, and the world; indeed, to the momentous events that occur in connection
with the overthrow of the enemies of Truth, and the establishment of Christ's Kingdom. A
careful study of the vision can hardly fail to produce the conviction that the Lamb
standing on Mount Zion is a symbolical representation of Christ's assumption and exercise
of kingly authority. Carefully searching the Scriptures to discover the significance of this
symbolism we find that the symbol of the literal Mount Zion of old, the place where the
typical David's throne was located, is frequently employed to picture this assumption and
exercise of Divine authority and power over human affairs; this authority and power
being vested in Christ. As one writer, commenting on the visions of the apostasy,
described in chapter 13, and connecting this vision with them, has truthfully said:
"The manifestation of evil is complete; we are now to see God's dealings as to it. These acts
of Satan and his ministers [described in chapter 13] are a plain challenge of all His rights in
[spiritual] Israel and the earth; and further patience would be no longer patience but
dishonor. Hence we find now, as in answer to the challenge, the Lamb upon Mount Zion,
that is, upon David's [antitypical] seat; and as the beast's followers have his mark upon
them, so the followers of Christ, associated with Him here, have His and His Father's
name upon their foreheads. What this means can scarcely be mistaken.
"Zion is not only identified in Scripture with David and his sovereignty, but very plainly
with the sovereign grace of God, when everything intrusted to man (in King Saul's day)
had failed in Israel--priesthood had broken down, the ark gone into captivity in the
enemy's land, and although restored by the judgment of God upon the Philistines, was no
more sought unto in the days of Saul. He, though Jehovah's anointed king, had become
apostate. All might seem to have gone, but it was not so; and in this extremity, as the
seventy-eighth Psalm says, 'Then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep, . . . and He smote
His adversaries backward. Moreover, He refused the tent of Joseph, and chose not the