PART II
Fundamental Principles on which the Kingdom is Based. Emblem of the Seals.
With the fourth chapter the symbolical part of the Revelation begins, and continues to the end of the book. In that portion of it upon which we now enter, and which includes chapters iv–viii, 1, the emblem of a seal is employed so frequently as to make it the distinctive feature. We are told of a book “sealed with seven seals” which none but the Lamb is worthy to open. Then we are told of the opening of these seals, with visions accompanying the successive loosing of them. And, lastly, a specific number of persons sealed in their foreheads are shown us, following which an innumerable company is seen gathered before the throne of God. It behooves us to ascertain the typical meaning of a seal; and if we succeed in so doing the purpose of the writer will be disclosed.
1. The Emblem of the Seals.—The seal has been usually taken as signifying concealment or secrecy; sealed things have been regarded as synonymous with hidden things. And very much conjecture has been offered as to what were the hidden mysteries contained in the sealed book or scroll. But, whatever secondary meaning the seal may have, concealment is not its principal one. A seal denotes, primarily and specifically, ownership, not secrecy. The sealing of anything implies that it is, or is claimed to be, the property of him who affixes the seal. The outward stamp is the declaration that the owner makes of his rights and is the official token of his authority. It is the mark of lordship or seigniority. Any concealment of contents therein involved is a secondary consideration.
Some illustrations from Scripture will substantiate this interpretation.
When it is said (Romans iv, 11) that Abraham received “the sign of circumcision, a seal of the righteousness of the faith which he had,” it is meant that he then became in a special sense the personal property of Almighty God and entitled to all the protection of Omnipotence.
“He that hath received his testimony hath set to his seal [‘hath set his seal to this,’ Revised Version] that God is true” (John iii, 33), means that the assured conviction of God’s reality and faithfulness has become the personal possession of the believer, something which belongs to him of right.
“Him hath God the Father sealed” (John vi, 27) means that God officially ratifies and acknowledges as his own what Christ does, and attests it with the stamp of authority.
When Pilate sealed the sepulcher where Christ was laid (Matthew xxvii, 66) it was meant that the tomb became the property of the Roman empire and was under the guardianship of its officials, and that whoever tampered with it must be prepared to try questions with Cæsar.
“Ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit” (Ephesians i, 13) means that ye received as your own possession, in your own personal experience, the earnest of your inheritance; the gift of the Holy Spirit attests your rightful claim to it.
These examples will suffice to indicate the scriptural meaning of the seal. We have only to apply this meaning to the solution of the problem before us. “A book written within and on the back side,” that is, completely, all over, with no blank or empty space, is seen lying in the right hand of God on the throne. Plainly, this book with its contents signifies something over which the divine Being asserts supreme sovereignty, which he claims as his of right and alone. And the number of the seals—seven—indicates that this sovereignty is complete, undivided, perfect.
What the contents of the book were we may infer from the preceding chapter (iv), in which we are shown the court of the Lord God omnipotent, with his loyal and obedient servants and hierarchies worshiping him and saying, “Thou hast created all things, and for thy pleasure they are and were created.” The book with its seals is a symbol of the fundamental truth of all truths, that all things and beings in this universe, whatever and wherever they are, belong originally and normally to the Creator. His sovereignty over his creatures is absolute, illimitable, and eternal.
It is quite in accordance with John’s cast of mind (and this furnishes no slight evidence as to the authorship of the Revelation) in unfolding to us the plan of redemption to take his stand at that period in the past, far back and without date, when God was all in all, and when sin had not entered to dispute his supremacy; just as in his gospel he commences, not with the Christ in the maturity of his powers, or even incarnate in the flesh, but with the preëxistent Word who was “in the beginning,” “was with God,” and “was God.” Profoundest of all the apostles, his mind reveled in the contemplation of beginnings and ends, of the primeval origin and final consummation of things, of the alpha and omega of creation.
But along with this vision of sovereignty came the coincident remembrance of the universe as it is, disordered and in rebellion; of a sinful world wandering from its orbit, disputing the supremacy of its Maker and God, and in unequal and hopeless conflict with Omnipotence. Into whose possession should it pass, and who could assume the reins of power which seemed to have fallen from the hands of the Creator?
A thought similar to this appears to have passed through the mind of Isaiah when he turned from the vision of the throne “high and lifted up,” with the seraphim veiling their faces in the presence of holy Majesty, to the spectacle of himself and the world, and cried, “Woe is me! for I am undone.”
So John “wept much” when, after this view of immaculate purity combined with almightiness, he contemplated a sinful world powerless to dispute what it would not willingly obey. Who was there worthy to “open the book” and to “loose the seals thereof,” and thus to bring back creatures to their rightful allegiance? If they would not submit, yet could not resist, the result could be only disaster, for the heavens must rule, and successful rebellion was impossible.
But there came to John hope and help, as there had come also to Isaiah; and to both from “the altar.” As John looked he beheld the “Lion of the tribe of Judah,” but in the form of a “Lamb as it had been slain,” take the book from the right hand of God and proceed to break the seals.
Now, if a seal is the emblem of ownership it follows that the authorized and permitted loosing of a seal must mean the transference, or delegation, of proprietorship. And this is the meaning here. There is an endowment—donation, rather—of authority, and the change in possession is published. That which belonged to and had been under the rule of the Father is consigned to and becomes the possession of the Son. And the change is not simply one of sovereigns, but of the ground principle of sovereignty; not only of rulers, but of methods of rule. The song of the “elders” and “living creatures” is now, not “Thou didst create,” but “Thou hast redeemed us to God by thy blood.” There is presented to us, in fact, a picture of the mediatorial sovereignty of the Son of God. We see the inauguration of the kingdom of Christ, the fundamental principle of which is, “Ye are not your own;” for “ye are bought with a price: therefore glorify God.” It was written in the Psalms, “The Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession.” John was looking upon the fulfillment of that decree.
Of this mediatorial kingdom of Christ, thus presented to us in symbol, so much is said in the Bible that only a few texts need to be referred to out of the many which might be cited. Our Lord himself said of it that the Father “hath committed all judgment unto the Son” (John v, 22). And again, “All things are delivered unto me of my Father” (Matthew xi, 27). And still again, “All power is given unto me in heaven and in earth” (Matthew xxviii, 18). So in Hebrew ii, 8, it is recorded, “Thou hast put all things in subjection under his feet.” And Paul has written, “Then cometh the end, when he shall have delivered up the kingdom to God, even the Father; when he shall have put down all rule and all authority and power. For he must reign, till he hath put all enemies under his feet” (1 Corinthians xv, 24, 25).
2. The Opening of the Seals.—In the exercise of his sovereignty the mediating and atoning Lamb assumes the authority committed to him, and the history of redemption begins. We approach the heart of this wonderful book, and its great purpose begins to reveal itself. But the unfolding of that history has been so different from the conception of it that was possible even to an apostle that “blindness in part” would happen to us all if we had not the revelation of God’s plans made known to us in order to check despondency and animate to labor.
John was one of those to whom the Master had said, “Behold, I send you forth.” He had heard and has recorded the prayer of the great High Priest, “As thou hast sent me into the world, even so have I also sent them into the world.” He had received the great commission, “Go ye therefore, and teach all nations.” He had been taught that Christians were to be “the salt of the earth” and “the light of the world” and were to “occupy” until Christ comes again. What expectation more reasonable could he entertain than that redemption, proceeding from the heart of the Father, consummated in the sacrifice of the Son, and applied by the ever-abiding Spirit, would move forward without let or hindrance from its commencement to its glorious realization? And this is implied in the vision of the opening of the first seal: “Behold a white horse: and he that sat on him had a bow; and a crown was given unto him: and he went forth conquering, and to conquer.” The first stroke of God’s providence always drives the kingdom well forward. It is the subsequent ones that try men’s faith.
When the promise of the seed which should bruise the serpent’s head was given to Eve, and, following that, a son was born to her, was it not natural that, in the fullness of her faith, she should exclaim, “I have gotten a man from the Lord?”
When Almighty God, who had just beaten down Pharaoh and Amalek and written the law with his own fingers, said to Moses, “As truly as I live, all the earth shall be filled with the glory of the Lord,” could the prophet have any doubt that the ark of the covenant would move triumphantly onward until it came to perfect rest in Canaan?
There is much to show that the apostles of Christ anticipated the speedy conquest of the world by his kingdom. The conversion of thousands at Pentecost, the multitude of accessions which followed, the obedience of a great company of priests, the appearance of miracles all conspired to foster this expectation. The morning hour of every reformation is bright and golden. It is later on that clouds gather and the skies darken. Painful realities soon shake men out of such sunny dreams, and banish such fond illusions as did the murder of Abel, the lusting after the fleshpots of Egypt, the imprisonment of Peter, the defection of Ananias, the martyrdom of Stephen and James. And as the pendulum of hope swings so easily to the extreme of despair, and every little Ai seems to our alarmed imagination a walled Jericho, nothing can be conceived more helpful to faith and courage than to learn that such things must needs be, and to be comforted at the same time with the assurance that, though in the world we shall have tribulation, yet Christ has overcome the world and we must not lose heart.
This is the purpose for which the visions accompanying the opening of the seals were given to John. The second seal signifies war; the third, famine; the fourth, pestilence; the fifth, martyrdom; the sixth, revolutions that seem to “shake the heavens, and the earth, and the sea, and the dry land.” These are strange instruments to do God’s will, ♦unlooked-for messengers to perform his bidding. But not only all things, but all events as well, are under the sovereignty of Christ; and in spite of these obstacles, and perhaps by means of them, his kingdom moves forward. And when the seventh and last seal shall be broken, when every messenger shall have been delegated, when the last needed encouragement shall have been given and the last enemy destroyed, then will come the unbroken and eternal Sabbath of rest.
3. The Sealed Elect.—The third part of this section comprises two visions: first, of the “hundred and forty and four thousand,” out of the twelve tribes of Israel, sealed in their foreheads; and, then, of a great multitude out of all nations and peoples, clothed in white robes and bearing palms in their hands. The purpose of these visions is to show that God’s ownership extends, not only to things and events, but to persons as well. “The Lord knoweth them that are his.”
There need not be any hesitation in interpreting these visions as referring to Jewish and Gentile Christians respectively. The same distinction between the two is made in chapter xiv, 1–6, where the hundred and forty-four thousand who stand on Mount Zion singing a song which no others could learn, namely, the song of Moses and the Lamb, are marked off from those in every nation and people to whom the angel flies with the everlasting Gospel.
It is not meant, surely, that the number one hundred and forty-four thousand is to be taken in an absolutely literal sense. The definite number in all probability stands for a great multitude. How large the number of believing Israelites was in the days of the apostle we have no means of determining. That it was large may be fairly inferred from Acts xxi, 20. And in the great day of accounts the number may be seen to be beyond our largest calculation.
Still less are we authorized to impute this separation of Jew from Gentile to any national exclusiveness on the part of John. No apostle of the circumcision was any more emphatic than was Paul, the apostle of the Gentiles, in asserting that the order of salvation is, first, the Jew, then, the Gentile, and that “God hath not cast away his people which he foreknew,” although “blindness in part is happened to Israel, until the fullness of the Gentiles be come in.” And what part the Jew may yet play in bringing about that fullness no man is able to predict.
Moreover, there is no inferiority implied in the privileges and graces which the great multitude enjoys as compared with the sealed elect. They are kings and priests unto God; they are clothed with the robes of victory and joy. And the images by which their nearness to Christ and their participation in the fullest measure of nourishment, safety, and felicity are expressed are not elsewhere exceeded in the Revelation. The description of their triumph seems to anticipate the consummation of the ideal kingdom of Christ, with which the closing chapters of the Apocalypse are replete.