EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII.

PART VII. (Chap. 19:5-22:) THE CONSUMMATION.

Marriage of the Lamb.(Chap. 19:5-10.)

The harlot is now judged. The judgment of the I whole earth is at hand. Before it comes, we are permitted a brief vision of heavenly things, and to see the heirs of the kingdom now ready to be established in their place with Him who is about to be revealed. A voice, sounds from the throne:"Give praise to our God, all ye His servants,-ye that fear Him, small and great." It is not, of course, a simple exhortation to what in heaven can need no prompting, but a preparation of hearts for that which shall furnish fresh material for it. The response of the multitude shows what it is:"Halleluiah! for the Lord our God, the Almighty, reigneth." The power that was always His He is now going to put forth. Judgment is to return to righteousness. Man's day is at an end, with all the confusion that his will has wrought. The day of the Lord is come, to abase that which is high and exalt that which is low, and restore the foundations of truth and righteousness.

The false church that would have antedated the day of power, and reigned without her Lord, has been already dealt with ; and now the way is clear to display the true Bride." The marriage of the Lamb is come, and His wife hath made herself ready." But the Church has been some time since caught up to meet the Lord :how is it that only now she is " ready " ?In the application of the blood of Christ, and the reception of the best robe, fit for the Father's house assuredly, if any could be, she was then quite ready. Likeness to her Lord was completed when the glorified bodies of the saints were assumed, and they were caught up in the air. The eyes from which nothing could be hid have already looked upon her, and pronounced her faultless:"Thou art all fair, My love:there is no spot in thee." What, then, can be wanting to hinder the marriage? A matter of divine government, not of divine acceptance; and this is the book of divine government. Earth's story has to be rehearsed, the account given, the verdict rendered, as to all " deeds done in the body." Every question that could be raised must find its settlement:the light must penetrate through and through, and leave no part dark. We must enter eternity with lessons all learnt, and God fully glorified about the whole course of our history.

What follows explains fully this matter of readiness :" And it was given unto her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure; for the fine linen is the righteous acts of the saints." We see by the language that it is grace that is manifest in this award. We learn by a verse in the last chapter how grace has manifested itself:" Blessed are they that have washed their robes (R. V.), that they might have right to the tree of life, and enter in through the gates into the city." But what could wash deeds already done? Plainly no reformation, no " water-washing by the Word." (Eph. 5:26.) The deed done cannot be undone ; and no well-doing for the future can blot out the record of it. What, then, can wash such garments ? Revelation itself, though speaking of another company, has already given us the knowledge of this:"They have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." (Chap. 7:14.) Thus the value of that precious blood is found with us to the end of time, and in how many ways of various blessing,! It is not, then, the best robe for the Father's house:that robe never needs washing. It is for the kingdom, for the world, in the governmental ways of God with men, that this fine linen is granted to the saints. Yet they take their place in it at the marriage supper of the Lamb; for Christ's love it is that satisfies itself with the recognition and reward of all that has been done for love of Him. This is what finds reward; and thus the hireling principle is set aside.

"And he saith unto me, 'Write, Blessed are they that are bidden to the marriage supper of the Lamb.'" Blessed indeed are they that are bidden now ! Alas ! they may despise the invitation. But how blessed are they who, when that day comes, are found among the bidden ones ! I leave for the present the question of who exactly make up the company of those that form the Bride; but the Bride assuredly sits at the marriage supper, and the plural here is what one could alone expect in such an exclamation as this. There seems, therefore, no ground in such an expression for distinguishing separate companies as the Bride and the "friends of the Bridegroom." The latter expression is used by the Baptist in a very different application, as assuredly he had no thought of any bride save Israel.

"And he saith unto me, 'These are the true words of God.'" Of such blessedness, it would seem, even the heart of the apostle needed confirmation. Then, as if overcome by the rapture of the vision, "I fell down at his feet," says John, "to worship him. And he saith unto me, 'See thou do it not:I am a fellow-servant with thee and with thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus :worship God :for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.'"

All prophecy owns thus and honors Jesus as its subject. All that own Him, the highest only the most earnestly, refuse other honor than that of being servants together of His will and grace. How our hearts need to be enlarged to take in His supreme glory ! and how ready are we in some way, if not in this, to share the glory which is His alone with some creature merely! Rome's coarse forms of worship to saints and angels is only a grosser form of what we are often doing, and for which rebuke will in some way come; for God is jealous of any impairment of His rights, and we of necessity put ourselves in opposition to the whole course of nature as we derogate from these. " Little children, keep yourselves from idols."

Judgment of the Living at the Appearing of Christ.

(Chap. 19:11-21.)

The prophecy pauses not further now to dilate upon the blessing. There is needed work to be done before we can enter upon this; and the work is the "strange work" of judgment. The vision that follows is as simple as can be to understand, if there are no thoughts of our own previously in the mind to obscure and make it difficult. And this is the way in which constantly Scripture is obscured.

Revelation, as the closing book of the inspired Word, supposes indeed acquaintance with what has preceded it, and the links with other prophecy are here especially abundant. The kingdom of Christ is the final theme of the Old Testament, upon which all prophetic lines converge; and the judgment which introduces it is over and over again set before us. The appearing of the Lord, and His personal presence to execute this, are also so insisted on, that nothing but the infatuation of other hopes could prevail to hide it from men's eyes. In the New Testament, the same things face us continually. As we are not considering it for the first time here, it will be sufficient to examine what is in the passage before us, with whatever connection it may have with other scriptures, needful to bring out fully the meaning of it.

Heaven is seen opened, the prophet's stand-point being therefore now on earth, and a white horse appears, the familiar figure of war and victory. It is upon the Rider that our eyes are fixed. He is called " Faithful and True " _known manifestly to be that-and in righteousness He judges and wars:His warring is but itself a judgment. For this, His eyes penetrate as a flame of fire; nothing escapes them. Many diadems-the sign of absolute authority-are on His head. And worthily, for His name in its full reality-name expressing (as always in Scripture) nature-is an incommunicable one, beyond the knowledge of finite creatures. But His vesture is dipped in blood, for already many enemies have fallen before Him. And His name is called-has been and is, as the language implies,-"The Word of God." The gospel of John shows us that in creation already He was acting as that; and now in judgment He is no less so.

Is this revealed name any thing else than His incommunicable one ? It would seem not. The thought would appear to be in direct refutation of the skeptical denial of the knowledge of the Infinite One as possible to man. We cannot know infinity, but we can know the One who is infinite,-yea, know Him to be infinite:know His name, and not know His name. The Infinite One, moreover, Christ is declared here to be,-no inferior God, but the Highest.

In the power of this, He now comes forth ; the armies that are in heaven following their white-horsed Leader, themselves also upon white horses, sharers with Him in the conflict and the victory, clothed in fine linen, white and pure. It is this fine linen which we have just seen as granted to the Bride, and which needed the blood of the Lamb to make it white. It is therefore undoubtedly the same company here as there, only here seen in a new aspect, even as the Lord Himself is seen in a new one. It is communion with Himself that is implied in this change of character. What He is occupied with, they are occupied with; what is His mind is their mind:so, blessed be God, it will be entirely then. None then will be ignorant of His will; none indifferent or half-hearted as to it. Alas ! now to how much of it are even the many willingly strangers ! and it is this willing ignorance that is so invincible :for all else there is a perfect remedy in the Word of God; but what for a back turned upon that Word ?

The Lord comes then, and all the saints with Him. How impossible to think of a providential coming merely here ! "When Christ, who is our Life, shall appear,"says the apostle, "then shall ye also appear with Him in glory" (Col. 3:4.) " Know ye not that the saints shall judge the world ?" he asks elsewhere. Judgment is now impending:"out of His mouth goeth a sharp sword, that with it He may smite the nations." So Isaiah:"He shall smite the earth with the rod of His mouth, and with the breath of His lips shall He slay the wicked." (Chap, 11:4.) It needs but a word from Him to cause their destruction ; while it is judgment no less according to His Word :it is that long and oft threatened, slow to come, but at last coming in the full measure of the denunciation. Patience is not repentance.

" And He shall rule them with an iron rod "-" shepherd " them, to use a scarcely English expression. This is, of course, the fulfillment of the prophecy of the second psalm, and decides against the still retained "break them " of the Revised Version. It is the shepherd's rod^this rod of iron, used in behalf of the flock:as He says in Isaiah again, " The day of vengeance is in My heart, and the year of My redeemed is come; and I looked, and there was none to help, and I wondered that there was none to uphold :therefore Mine own arm brought salvation unto Me, and My fury, it upheld Me." (Chap. 63:4,5.) This is distinctly in answer to the question, therefore art Thou red in Thine apparel, and Thy garments like him that treadeth in the wine-fat?" and to which He answers, " I have trodden the wine-press alone." Here also "He treadeth the wine-press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God."

Would it be believed that commentators have referred this to the cross, and the Lord's own sufferings there ? And yet it is so; though the iron rod, with which the treading of the wine-press is associated in this place, is something that is promised to the overcomer in Thyatira (chap. 2:27)-" To him will I give power over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron, even as I received of My Father." We have but with an honest mind to put a few texts together after this manner, and all difficulty disappears.

"And He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written-' King of kings and Lord of lords."

Now, in terrible contrast to the invitation lately given to the marriage supper of the Lamb, an angel standing in the sun bids the birds of the heaven to the "great supper of God," to feast upon earth's proudest and all their following. Immediately after which the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies are seen gathered together to make war against Him who sits upon the horse, and against His army. We are no doubt to interpret this according to the Lord's words to Saul of Tarsus,-" Saul, Saul, why persecutest thou Me ?" But we have seen the idol thrust into Jehovah's, temple, and know well that Israel's persecutors rage openly against Israel's God. They are taken thus banded in rebellion, and judgment sweeps them down ; the beast and the false prophet that wrought miracles before him (the antichristian second beast of the thirteenth chapter) being exempted from the common death, only to be cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone, where at the end of the thousand years of the saints' reign with Christ we find them still.

The vision is so clear in meaning, that it really has no need of an interpreter; and we should remember this as to a vision, that it is not necessarily even symbolic, though symbols may have their place in it, as here with the white horses of that before us, while the horses whose flesh the birds eat are not at all so. The "beast and the kings of the earth" furnish us with the same juxtaposition of figure and fact, the figure not at all hindering the general literality of fact. In these prophecies of coming judgment, the mercy of God would not permit too thick a vail over the solemn truth. This is the end to which the world is hastening now, and God is proportionally taking off the vail from the eyes upon which it has been lying, that there may be a more urgent note of warning given as it draws nigh. "Who hath ears to hear, let him hear !" F. W. G.

(To be continued.)