AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII. PART IV.

THE EARTH-TRIAL. (CHAP. 14:)

"First-Fruits." (10:1-5.)

The manifestation of evil is complete; we are now to see God's dealings as to it. These acts of Satan and his ministers are a plain challenge of all His rights in Israel and the earth ; and further patience would be no longer patience, but dishonor. Hence we find now, as in answer to the challenge, the Lamb upon Mount Zion, -that is, upon David's seat; and as the beast's followers have his mark upon them, so the followers of Christ, associated with Him here, have His and His Father's name upon their foreheads. What this means can scarcely be mistaken.

Zion is not only identified in Scripture with David and his sovereignty, but very plainly with the sovereign grace of God, when everything intrusted to man had failed in Israel, priesthood had broken down, the ark gone into captivity in the enemy's land, and although restored by the judgment of God upon the Philistines, was no more sought unto in the days of Saul. He, though Jehovah's anointed king, had become apostate. All might seem to have gone, but it was not so ; and in this extremity, as the seventy-eighth psalm says, " Then the Lord awaked as one out of sleep, . . and He smote His adversaries backward. Moreover, He refused the tent of Joseph, and chose not the tribe of Ephraim, but chose the tribe of Judah the Mount Zion which He loved. … He chose also David His servant." Nor was this a temporary choice :as a later psalm adds, " For Jehovah hath chosen Zion ; He hath desired it for His habitation. This is My rest forever:here will I dwell, for I have desired it." (Ps. 132:13, 14.)

Thus, though the long interval of so many centuries may seem to argue repentance upon God's part, it is not really so :" God is not man, that He should lie ; nor the son of man, that He should repent." The Lamb on Zion shows, us the true David on the covenanted throne, and Zion by this lifted above the hills indeed. The vision is of course anticipative, for by and by we find that the beast still exists. The end is put first, as it is with Him who sees it from the beginning, and then we trace the steps that lead up to it.

But who are the hundred and forty-four thousand associated with the Lamb ? Naturally one would identify them with the similar number sealed out of the twelve tribes in the seventh chapter, and the more so that the Lamb's and His Father's name upon their foreheads seems to be the effect of this very sealing, which was upon the forehead also. No other mark is given us as to them in the former vision, of whom we read as exempted from the power of the locusts afterward. Here, if it is not directly affirmed that these are sealed, yet it seems evident, a seal having been often a stamp with a name; and the purpose of the sealing in the former case being to mark them out as God's, this is manifestly accomplished by the name upon them. This open identification with Christ in the day of His rejection might seem to be what would expose them to all the power of the enemy, yet it is that which in fact marks them for security. In reality, what a protection is the open confession of Christ as the One we serve ! There is, in fact, no safer place for us than that of necessary conflict under the Lord's banner ; and the end is glory. Here they stand-these confessors, openly confessed by Him on His side; and their having been through the suffering and the conflict is just that which brings them here upon the mount of royalty :it is " if we suffer, we shall also reign with Him."

Another inestimable privilege they have got, though clearly an earthly, not a heavenly company:they are able to learn a song that is sung in heaven. "And I heard a voice from heaven, as a voice of many waters, and as a voice of great thunder; and the voice which I heard was of harpers harping with their harps; and they sing a new song before the throne, and before the four living beings and the elders :and no one was able to learn the song, except the hundred and forty-four thousand that were purchased from the earth."

It is clear that the company here occupy a place analogous to that of the Gentile multitude of the seventh chapter, who stand before the throne and the living ones also. The vision in either case being anticipative, we can understand that earth and heaven are at this time brought near together, and that "standing" before the throne and "singing" before the throne involve no necessary heavenly place for those who sing or stand there. Here they stand upon Mount Zion while they sing before the throne,-if, that is, the singers are primarily the hundred and forty-four thousand, as many think. What seems in opposition to this is that the voice is heard from heaven, and that the company on Mount Zion are spoken of as learners of the song. On the other side, the difficulty is in answering the question, Who are these harpers, plainly human ones, who are distinguished from the elders, yet in heaven at this time ? Remembering what the time is may help us here. May they not be the martyrs of the period with which the prophecy in general has to do,- those seen when the fourth seal is opened, and those for whom they are bidden to wait-the sufferers under the beast afterward ? two classes which are seen as completing the ranks of the first resurrection in the twentieth chapter. These would give us a third class, evidently-neither the heavenly elders nor the sealed ones of Israel; and yet in closest sympathy with the latter. It could not be thought strange that these should be able to learn their song. And at the time when the Lamb is King on Zion, this third class would certainly be found filling such a place as that of the harpers here.

This seems to meet every difficulty, indeed:for their song would clearly be a new song, such as neither the Old Testament nor the revelation of the Church-mystery could account for ; while the living victors over the beast would seem rightly here to enter into the song of others, rather than to originate it themselves.

But they have their own peculiar place, as on Mount Zion, first-fruits of earth's harvest to God and to the Lamb, purchased from among men, (grace, through the blood of Christ, the secret of their blessing, as of all other,) but answering to that claim in a true undefiled condition, in virgin-faithfulness to Him who is afresh espousing Israel to Himself. In their mouth thus no lie is found, for they are blameless:and these last words we shall surely read aright when we remember that to those who have not received the love of the truth, " God will send strong delusion, that they may believe the lie" (2 Thess. 2:ii), and the apostle's question, "Who is the liar, but he that denieth that Jesus is the Christ?" and that " he is the antichrist who denieth the Father and the Son." (i Jno. 2:21, 22.) The names of the Lamb and of His Father are on the foreheads of these sealed ones.

The Everlasting Gospel,(10:6, 7.)

It is a foregleam of the day that comes that the first vision of this chapter shows us :but, although the day is coming fast, we have first to see the harbingers of judgment, and then the judgment, before it can arrive. Righteousness, unheeded when it spoke in grace, must now speak in judgment, that "the work of righteousness" may be " peace; and the effect of righteousness, quietness and assurance forever." (Isa. 32:17.)

In this way it is that we come now to what seems to us perhaps a strange, sad gospel, and yet is the everlasting one, which an "angel flying in mid-heaven," preaches to the inhabitants of the earth. And this is what his voice declares :" Fear God, and give glory to Him ; for the hour of His judgment is come ; and worship Him who made heaven and earth and the sea and the fountains of waters."

How any one could confound this gospel of judgment with the gospel of salvation by the cross would seem hard to understand, except as we realize how utterly the difference of dispensations has been ignored in common teaching, and how it is taken as a matter of course that the " gospel " must be always one and the same gospel; which even the epithet " everlasting " is easily taken to prove. Does it not indeed assert it ?-that the same gospel was preached, of course, in a clearer or a less clear fashion, all through the dispensation of law and before it ?

No doubt the everlasting gospel must be that which from the beginning was preached, and has been preaching ever since, although it should be plain that "the hour of His judgment is come" is just what with truth no one in Christian times could say. Plain it is too that the command to worship God the Creator is not what any one who knew the gospel could take as that. In fact, the gospel element, or glad tidings, in the angel message is just found in that which seems most incongruous with it to-day-that the "hour of His judgment is come." What else in it is "tidings" at all? That certainly is; and if serious, yet to those who know that just in this way deliverance is to come for the earth, it is simple enough that the coming of the delivering judgment is in fact the gospel.

Listen to that same gospel, as a preacher of old declared it. With what a rapture of exultation does he break out as he cries,-

" Oh sing unto the Lord a new song !
Sing unto the Lord, all the earth.
Sing unto the Lord, bless His name;
Show forth His salvation from day to day !
Declare His glory among the nations,
His marvelous works among all the peoples !

Tremble before Him, all the earth !
Say among the nations that the Lord reigneth;
The world also is established, that it cannot be moved:
He shall judge the peoples with equity.
Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice !
Let the sea roar, and the fullness thereof !
Let the field exult, and all that is therein !
Then shall all the trees of the wood sing for joy before
the Lord ;
For He cometh, for He cometh, to judge the earth.
He shall judge the world with righteousness,
And the peoples with His truth !" (Ps. 96:)

Here is a gospel before Christianity; and it has been sounding out all through Christianity, whether men have heard it or have not. And it is but the echo of what we hear in Eden, before the gate of the first paradise shuts upon the fallen and guilty pair,-that the seed of the woman shall crush the serpent's head. That is a gospel which has been ringing through the ages since, and which may well be called the everlasting one. Its form is only altered by the fact that now at last its promise is to be fulfilled. "Judgment "is now to "return to righteousness." The "rod" is "iron," but henceforth in the Shepherd's hand. Man's day is past, the day of the Lord is come ; and every blow inflicted shall be on the head of evil, the smiting down of sorrow and of all that brings it. What can he be but rebel-hearted, who shall refuse to join the anthem when the King-Creator comes into His own again ? The angel-evangel is thus a claim for worship from all people, and to Him that cometh every knee shall bow. F. W. G.

(To be continued.)