The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

Lord, present with His Church, would speak to her and through her by many tongues, in
many languages."
We are next informed that St. John beheld proceeding out of the mouth of this symbolic
personage, a sharp two-edged broad sword.
"No part of the description could more thoroughly convince us that the description of our
Lord given here is a symbolic one than does the statement that out of His mouth
proceeded a two-edged sword. As a symbolic picture, however, it is full of meaning,
speaking to us of the Word of the Lord, the sword of the Spirit, 'sharper than any twoedged
sword.' (Eph. 6:17; Heb. 4:12.) It reminds us that our Lord's words are not onesided,
not directed merely against sin in one class, but that His Word is sharp, cutting in
every direction, that sin is reproved by Him as much when found in His most earnest
followers as when found elsewhere."
The two edges of the sword cutting both ways is a striking symbol of the penetrating
power of the Truth, or of the Word of God, proceeding from the mouth of God's
messengers. In Isa. 49:2, a prophecy referring to Christ, it is said: "And He hath made my
mouth like a sharp sword," and in Hebrews we read, "The Word of God is quick, and
powerful, and sharper than any two-edged sword."
"And His countenance as the sun shineth in his strength." The overpowering splendor of
the sun is here used to describe the majesty and glory of the countenance of Christ. This
figure is employed frequently in the Scriptures. "Let them that love Him [the Lord] be as
the sun when he goeth forth in his might." (Judges 5:31.) "And He shall be as the light of
the morning, when the sun riseth, even a morning without clouds."--2 Sam. 23:4.
Thus closes the description that St. John gives of the glorious personage of our Lord in His
conduct and office as these stand related to His followers, the members of His Body, and
their experiences throughout this Gospel Age. It is probable, too, that the vision was
designed to impress upon the mind of St. John and of all Christ's followers a sense of the
glory and majesty of His person, and thus enable him to appreciate the authoritative
character and importance of the messages he was to receive and which he was to send to
the seven Churches, particularly named by the "voice" he heard. And the full significance
of the symbolical personage can be understood only by viewing it in the light of, and in
connection with, the history of the true Church symbolized by the golden lampstands.
St. John next describes the first effects that the seeing of the vision had upon him: "And
when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as dead" (verse 17), that is, as if he were dead--deprived
of sense and consciousness. He was completely overwhelmed with a sense of his own
littleness. It is not probable that he would immediately recognize who was represented by
the personage of the vision--not probable that the personage looked at all like the One
whom he was accustomed to seeing and conversing with sixty years before. The effect
upon St. John was the same as that produced upon Daniel when he saw a heavenly
messenger; the same also as that produced upon Saul of Tarsus as he beheld a vision of the
same Divine One.