AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII.

PART IV. THE EARTH-TRIAL. (CHAP, 14:)-Continued.

The Fall of Babylon,(5:8.)

That the message of judgment is indeed a "gospel" we find plainly in the next announcement, which is marked as that of a "second" angel, a "third" following, similar in character, as we shall see directly. Here it is announced that Babylon the Great has fallen :before, indeed, her picture has been presented to us, which we find only in the seventeenth chapter. The name itself is, however, significant, as that of Israel's great enemy, under whose power she lay prostrate seventy years, and itself derived from God's judgment upon an old confederation, the seat of which became afterward the center of Nimrod's empire. But that was not Babylon the Great, although human historians would have given her, no doubt, the palm ; with God, she was only the type of a power more arrogant and evil and defiant of Him than the old Chaldaean despot, and into whose hands the Church of Christ has fallen,-the heavenly, not the earthly people. It is an old history rehearsed in a new sphere and with other names,-a new witness of the unity of man morally in every generation.

The sin on account of which it falls reminds us still of Babylon, while it has also its peculiar aggravation. Of her of old it was said, "Babylon hath been a golden cup in the Lord's hand that made all the earth drunken :the nations have drunk of her wine; therefore the nations are mad." (Jer. 51:7.) But it is not said, "the wine of the fury of her fornication." This latter expression shows that Babylon is not here a mere political but a spiritual power. One who belongs professedly to Christ has prostituted herself to the world for the sake of power. She has inflamed the nations with unholy principles, which act upon men's passions, (easily stirred,) as we see, in fact, in Rome. By such means she has gained and retained power; by such, after centuries of change, she holds it still. But the time is at hand when they will at last fail her, and this is what the angel declares now to have come. Babylon is fallen, and that fall is final:it is the judgment of God upon her ; it is retributive justice for centuries of corruption; it is a note of the everlasting gospel, which claims the earth for God, and announces its deliverance from its oppressors. But we have yet only the announcement :the details will be given in due place.

The Warning to the Beast-Worshipers, (10:9-13.)

A THIRD angel follows, noted as that, and belonging, therefore, to the company of those that bring the gospel of blessing for the earth. That it comes in the shape of a woe, we have seen to be in no wise against this. Babylon is not the only evil which must perish that Christ may reign ; and Babylon's removal only makes way at first for the full development of another form of it more openly blasphemous than this. The woman makes way for the man,-what professes at least subjection to Christ, for that which is open revolt against Him. Here, therefore, the woe threatened is far more sweeping and terrible than in the former case ; there are people of God who come out of Babylon, and who therefore were in her to come out (chap, 18:4). But the beast in its final form insures the perdition of all who follow it:"If any man worship the beast and his image, and receive his mark in his forehead or in his hand, the same shall drink"-or "he also shall drink "-"of the wine of the wrath of God which is poured out without mixture into the cup of His indignation ; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb; and the smoke of their torment ascendeth up forever and ever; and they have no rest, day nor night, who worship the beast and his image, and whosoever receiveth the mark of his name."

It is the beast who destroys Babylon, after having for a time supported her:his own pretension tolerates no divided allegiance, and in him the unbelief of a world culminates in self-worship. Here God's mercy can only take the form of loud and emphatic threatening of extreme penalty for those who worship the beast. In proportion to the fearful character of the evil does the Lord give open assurance of the doom upon it, so that none may unknowingly incur it. Here "the patience of the saints" is sustained in a "reign of terror" such as has never yet been.

Faith too is sustained in another way, namely, by the special consolation as to those who die as martyrs at this time:"And I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, ' Blessed are the dead that die in the Lord from henceforth.'" That is clearly encouragement under peculiar circumstances. All who die in the Lord must be blessed at any time ; but that only makes it plainer that the circumstances must be exceptional now which require such comfort to be so expressly provided for them. Something must have produced a question as to the blessedness of those that die at this time ; and in this we have an incidental confirmation-stronger because incidental-that the resurrection of the saints has already taken place. Were they still waiting to be raised, the blessedness of those who as martyrs join their company could scarcely be in doubt. The resurrection having taken place, and the hope of believers being now to enter alive into the kingdom of the Son of Man at His appearing,-as the Lord says of that time, " He that shall endure to the end, the same shall be saved " (Matt. 24:13),-the question is necessarily raised. What shall be the portion of these martyrs, then, must not remain a question ; and in the tenderness of divine love the answer is here explicitly given. Specially blessed are those who die from henceforth :they rest from their labors; they go to their reward. The Spirit seals this with a sweet confirming "yea"-so it is. Earth has only cast them out that heaven may receive them ; they have suffered, therefore they shall reign with Christ. Thus accordingly we find in the twentieth chapter, that when the thrones are set and filled, those that have suffered under the beast are shown as rising from the dead to reign with the rest of those who reign with Him. Not the martyrs in general, but these of this special time are marked distinctly as finding acknowledgment and blessing in that "first resurrection," from which it might have seemed that they were shut out altogether.

It may help some to see how similar was the difficulty that had to be met for the Thessalonian saints, and which the apostle meets also with a special "word of the Lord" in his first epistle. They too were looking for the Lord, so that the language of their hearts was (with that of the apostle), " We who are alive and remain unto the coming of the Lord." They had been "turned to God from idols, to serve the living and true God, and to wait for His Son from heaven ;" and with a lively and expectant faith they waited.

But then what about those who were fallen asleep in Christ? It is evident that here is all their difficulty. He would not have them ignorant concerning those that were asleep, so as to be sorrowing for them, hopeless as to their share in the blessing of that day. Nay, those who remained would not go before these sleeping ones:they would rise first, and those who were alive would then be "caught up with them, to meet the Lord in the air." This for Christians now is thus the authoritative word of comfort. But the sufferers under the beast would not find this suffice for them; for them the old difficulty appears once more, and must be met with a new revelation.

How perfect and congruous in all its parts is this precious Word of God! And how plainly we have in what might seem even an obscure or strange expression -" blessed from henceforth"-a confirmation of the general interpretation of all this part of Revelation ! The historical interpretation, however true, as a partial anticipatory fulfillment, fails here in finding any just solution.

The Harvest and The Vintage. (10:14-20.)

In the next vision the judgment falls. The Son of. Man upon the cloud, the harvest, the treading of the winepress, are all familiar to us from other Scriptures, and in connection with the appearing of the Lord. We need have no doubt, therefore, as to what is before us here.

The "harvest" naturally turns us back to our Lord's parable, where wheat and tares represent the mingled aspect of the kingdom, the field of Christendom. "Tares" are not the fruit of the gospel, but the enemy's work, who sows not the truth of God, but an imitation of it. The tares are thus the 'children of the wicked one,' deniers of Christ, though professing Christians. The harvest brings the time of separation, and first the tares are gathered and bound in bundles for the burning, and along with this the wheat is gathered into the barn. In the interpretation afterward we have a fuller thing:the tares are cast into the fire, and the righteous shine forth as the sun in their Father's kingdom.

Here the general idea of harvest would be the same, though it does not follow that it will be a harvest of the same nature. In the harvest-time there are crops reaped of various character :the thought is of discriminative judgment, such as with the sheep and goats of Matt. 25:There is what is gathered in, as well as what is cast away, and hence the Son of Man is here as that. The vintage-judgment is pure wrath:the grapes are cast into the great wine-press of the wrath of God, and thus it is the angel out of the altar, who has power over the fire, at whose word it comes. The vine of the earth is a figure suitable to Israel as God's vine (Is. 5:), but apostate, yet cannot be confined to Israel, as is plain from the connection in which we find it elsewhere. But it represents still apostasy, and thus what we have seen to have its center at Jerusalem, though involving Gentiles also far and near. Thus the city also outside of which the wine-press is trodden is Jerusalem, as the sixteen hundred furlongs is well known to be the length of Palestine. Blood flows up to the bits of the horses for that distance-of course, a figure, but a terrible one.

Both figures-the harvest and the vintage-are used in Joel, with reference to this time:" Proclaim ye this among the nations; prepare war:stir up the mighty men; let all the men of war draw near; let them come up. Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruning-hooks into spears:let the weak say, I am strong. Haste ye, and come, all ye nations round about, and gather yourselves together:hither cause Thy mighty ones to come down, O Lord ! Let the nations bestir themselves, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat:for there will I sit to judge all the nations round about. Put ye in the sickle, for the harvest is ripe :come, tread ye, for the wine-press is full, the vats overflow; for their wickedness is great. Multitudes, multitudes in the valley of decision ! for the day of the Lord is near in the valley of decision. The sun and the moon are darkened, and the stars withdraw their shining. And the Lord shall roar from Zion, and utter His voice from, Jerusalem ; and the heaven and the earth shall shake :but the Lord will be a refuge unto His people, and a stronghold to the children of Israel."

Thus comes the final blessing, and the picture upon which the eye rests at last is a very different one. " So shall ye know that I am the Lord your God, dwelling in Zion My holy mountain :then shall Jerusalem be holy, and there shall no strangers pass through her any more. And it shall come to pass in that day, that the mountains shall drop down sweet wine, and the hills shall flow with milk, and all the brooks of Judah shall flow with waters, and a fountain shall come forth of the house of the Lord and water the valley of Shittim. . . . And I will cleanse their blood that I have not cleansed :for the Lord dwelleth in Zion." F. W. G.

(To be continued.)