The Revelation of Jesus Christ - The Herald

"The number seven is used throughout the Apocalypse in a symbolic sense, and is
admitted to be expressive of completeness or perfection. Why should the 'seven Churches'
be an exception to the rule? Were the seven local Churches, the names of which are given,
the only light-bearers or candlesticks? Did the light entirely cease to shine when these
Asiatic Churches ceased to exist? Let these seven Churches, or candlesticks, be regarded as
a sevenfold or perfect representative of the one Church, in its responsibility to Christ, as
His light-bearer or witness before the world, and we have an interpretation at once
consistent with the entire character of the book, and sufficient to account for the selection
of seven local Churches, the divers states of which furnish for this a sevenfold or perfect
view of the whole professing body."
5. To individuals in the churches, existing in every generation since St. John's day. As one
has well said:
"In dealing with these epistles, every man, of every age, has a Divine thermometer
whereby to tell exactly where he or his church stands in Christ's judgment, and one
constructed and delivered to him by Christ Himself for this specific purpose. They tell
what Christ's judgment of each of us is, and what we may expect in the great Day of His
coming. In every age, and in every congregation, Christ is walking among His churches,
with open, flaming eyes; and these epistles give us His opinion of what His all-revealing
glance discovers."
6. In a prophetic sense, they all apply to seven distinct periods or epochs of the Church
since St. John's day.
7. In a very special sense, to the period in which we find ourselves as Christians today.
One writer who has given very close attention to the unfolding of these seven messages
has noted that each one embraces seven distinct parts, which fact of itself is of very deep
significance: first, an address--"Unto the messenger . . . write"; second, a citation of some
one or more of the sublime attributes of the speaker, Christ--a different one for each
particular Church; third, an assertion of Christ's complete knowledge of the sphere, duties,
and doings of the persons or churches addressed; fourth, a description of the state of each,
and such interspersions of praise and promise, or censure and admonition, as the case
required; fifth, an allusion to His promised coming, and the character it will assume to the
persons described; sixth, a universal command to hear what is said to all the churches; and,
seventh, a special promise to the ultimate victor or overcomer.
In the last four, the order of succession of these parts is different from the first three, and
the call to "hear" the messages is placed after the promise to the "overcomer"; but in each
one, these seven parts may be distinguished, thus showing that there is a fullness, a
completeness about the whole, which proves that in their significance and application they
cannot be confined to the few particular Churches to which the messages were originally
addressed.