An Exposition of Revelation .pdf

way of government ("before his throne"). How different from the truth of the same Spirit sent forth
from heaven, and baptising the saints into the one body of Christ here below! But there is no just
ground for thinking of created spirits or angels in this connection any more than in Rev. 5: 6. Never do
the seven Spirits pay worship to God; and the reason is, that they mean God's Spirit. It is only in
Christianity and the church that we know God as He is — Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. In
government, whether of Old or in Apocalyptic scenes, He is not so revealed. But it is an offence
against truth to mix up Creator and creature. It is the completeness of the Holy Ghost's energy as an
overruling power. What the application of this may be depends on the context where it is used. It is in
relation to Christ dealing ecclesiastically in Revelation 3, and again in His relation to the earth in
Revelation 5; but it is always the Spirit in full variety of governmental power, rather than the same
Spirit viewed in His unity as forming the church into one body. This we have had already in the
Pauline Epistles, where the proper sphere of the Christian as a member of Christ's body is treated
especially, and indeed only there.
God as such is thus introduced in Old Testament style and character, but applied to New
Testament subjects in a far larger way; the Holy Ghost also is similarly brought before us; and so too
with our Lord. "And from Jesus Christ, the faithful witness, the firstborn of the dead, and the prince
[or, ruler] of the kings of the earth." Indeed there is nothing more remarkable, especially when we bear
in mind who the writer is, than the absence here of Christ's proper relationship to the children of God.
Revelation of grace is precisely what is not found in this book, if one search into the character of its
visions generally. "Jesus Christ" appears as the Faithful Witness. This clearly He was on the earth
when man wholly failed. In a very different tone it was John's topic everywhere. We may look on the
Lord as gone up to heaven, where Paul loved to contemplate Him glorified; but John habitually points
to Christ the eternal Word and Son as He was here below. If he speaks of Him as the Lamb above, the
description is founded on His having been the rejected sufferer on earth. Next He is "the firstborn of
the dead." This too He was on earth. Satan, who had the power of death, had nothing in Him; but by
the grace and for the glory of God He died, and rose victorious, the Firstborn of the dead. Again, as
"the prince of the kings of the earth," He waits to be displayed when He comes by-and-by to earth. But
what He is now for us in God's presence and does in heaven in activity of grace is exactly what we
have not given us here. There is the most careful exclusion from the book of His heavenly position as
Head or even our High Priest. Even the present grace which livingly connects Him with the Christian
is left out.
Thus the Lord Jesus is here brought before us as Man on earth, required specially for the
purpose of this prophetic book. God was announced in His own eternal being; the Holy Ghost in His
varied fulness of governmental power; the Lord Jesus in that which connected Him not with heaven
but with the earth, even if risen from the dead, and the coming King of kings. He is for this and
perhaps other reasons put in the last place.
But when Christ is named, the voice of Christians is at once heard. This is so much the more
remarkable, because it is one of the sweet exceptional ripples which cross the ordinary current of the
book at the end as well as at the beginning. It is not so when the course of the visions is fairly entered
on. Before these begin Christians are heard, as the bride is after the visions close. The name of Jesus is
enough to stir the heart, for those who know Him as we do, in a suited doxology. He may not be
described in His relationships peculiar to us, but He who is described is the One that loves us and that
we love. So we say, "To him that loveth us" (for this is the true reading and rendering, not merely that
"loved" us) — "to him that loveth us, and washed us from our sins in his blood; and he made us a
kingdom, priests to his God and Father; to him [be] the glory and the might unto the ages of the ages."
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