The Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him, to shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass; and he sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: who bare record of the Word of God, and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw. Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.
John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne; and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty. —Rev. i. 1-8.
Many have tried to interpret this book; one after another has failed; such is the general opinion among educated men. I suspect the assertion is not wide enough; it should be extended from a single book of the Bible to all the books of the Bible; from the books of the Bible to every book whatever which contains any truths that are worthy to be sought after. Those who try to interpret fail; the writer is found to have uttered thoughts which they have not comprehended or fathomed; others come with their rules and measures, and confound their predecessors, and are confounded in turn themselves. It is with the simplest Gospel as with the Apocalypse; it is with the poem, classical or English, as with the Gospel. Commentators have become a by-word; almost every reader fancies he has apprehended something in the writer they have handled, which they have overlooked or distorted.
But every reader, perhaps, discovers some time or other that this commentator, or that, has helped him to perceive something which he did not perceive before. He discovers that he, too, has the ambition to circumscribe his author by certain rules and theories of his own devising. He begins to suspect that each man might help his neighbour if he were more childlike, and reverenced the subject of his study more, and tried to learn laws, not to impose laws. That criticism which is not the criticism of a teacher looking down upon a pupil, but of a pupil looking up to a teacher, may after all have most discernment in it, and may bring the highest reward. Such criticism all are qualified to exercise. Some may carry away more, some less; but each will be shown something which may make his intellect clearer, his heart purer, his acts more consistent.
1. The verses which I have read to you speak of the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ the Son of God, which God gave to Him. The opening of the book, therefore, takes us at once beyond the book. That which is revealed is not a doctrine—not anything which can be expressed in terms—but a living Person. The letters do not make or give the Revelation. God gives it. We do not disparage the letter when we say this; we adhere religiously to the letter. We contradict the book when we put it in the place of Him from whom it comes. We contradict the express language, not of the Apocalypse, but of the whole Bible.
2. How strictly I shall try to follow the letter of this chapter, and of all subsequent chapters, you will see when I speak of the clause which follows. “To shew unto his servants things which must shortly come to pass.” I should be obliged to repeat myself if I dwelt upon the force of that clause here. The expression, The time is at hand, and several other expressions in this passage, will presently bring it under our notice.
3. “He sent and signified it.” The word “signified” is not a lazy one, for which a number of equivalents might have been found. The Apocalypse, as all have confessed, is a book of signs. That is assumed to be one cause of its obscurity. If we could but get the emblems all rendered into the common forms of speech, we think that we should understand it perfectly. Are we sure that signs and emblems, supposing them to be divinely chosen, may not be the best and simplest helps to the apprehension of truths which, if they were presented in what we call the common forms of speech, must remain obscure? Are they not a common, human method of discourse, which perplexes the doctor more than the peasant, just because the doctor is not in communion with the facts of life as the peasant is? If the Revelation is indeed to be of a Person, may not the signs denote his actual presence, while abstract words would only express some notions about him?
4. In this book, then, as in all the preceding books of the Bible, God Himself is set forth as speaking to men through words or signs. Whatever methods or persons may be used as the media of the revelation, He is the Revealer. He takes off the veil which hinders that which is near to us from being known to us, or the veil over our hearts which hinders them from discerning it. That is to be remembered before we turn at all to secondary agents. Here one of them is said to be an angel. “He sent and signified it by his angel to his servant John.” I take this name as most would take it, to denote a messenger from another world. But I must remind you that it is also used to denote men living in this world, like in all respects to their fellows, committing sins, certain to die. I must remind you that when it is so used the writer does not say, “Now I am applying the word in a different sense from that in which I applied it before.” He evidently desires us to feel that the sense is the same. He believes that the presence of mortal accidents, or the absence of them, does not interfere with the primary fact that those of whom he speaks are messengers of God, receiving light from Him, imparting that light to those for whom he designs it. If there is anything spiritual in man, it must be susceptible of such communications; if there is nothing spiritual in man, the Bible would not have been written; there would have been no need of such a book; no possibility of it. But I think we shall learn from this, more than from any preceding part of the Bible, how the dreams of men respecting an invisible world and its inhabitants are substantiated; how their thoughts of an intercourse between that world and this may become, not fantastical and superstitious, but calm and orderly.
5. “He sent and signified it by his angel to His servant John.” Great difficulties have been felt by students in identifying the writer of the Apocalypse with the writer of the Gospel and the Epistles. The earliest ecclesiastical historian gives a hint of another John to whom many have been willing to assign the composition of this book. The latest and most advanced school of German Rationalists has rejected this opinion. The disciples of that school give the Apostle credit for a work in which they can detect nothing but vehement Jewish prejudices and hostility to St. Paul. They, however, like those who seek another author, perceive the greatest contrast between the Apocalypse and the Gospel. That they refer to the second century. And supposing the superscription of this book did not answer to the contents of it—supposing it were not a revelation of Jesus Christ the Son of God, but merely a collection of predictions concerning the future—I do think it would require an overwhelming amount of external evidence to persuade us that it could proceed from him who wrote of the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world; who reported the dialogues with Nicodemus, with the woman of Samaria, at the Feasts of Tabernacles and of the Dedication. There is an amazing difference between the two books, while we adhere to the popular notion respecting one of them, such as I think we can never practically forget, however we may force ourselves into an opinion of their common origin. But if we assume the writer to be capable of defining his own intention, and if that intention is visible through every after vision and prophecy, I believe no person was so likely to write of the fall of Babylon or of the New Jerusalem, as he who bore record of the “Word of God and of the testimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw.” There is a peculiarity in that description which a Sophist could not have reached. He might have spoken of the Son of Thunder, or of the beloved Disciple. He might have spoken of the Theologian who wrote about the Divine Word. In this sentence are combined the opposite characteristics of those writings which the Church has received as St. John’s. The writer of the fourth Gospel discourses more than the other evangelists of that which is high and mysterious. He sets forth more than the other evangelists that which is visible and palpable. He never separates one from the other. In the simplest language he presents the simplest acts of his Master as manifestations of His eternal character and nature. Those objects which commentators have found it hard to reconcile, and which have led them into the most contradictory theories respecting the fourth Gospel, are blended here with childlike art. How they are blended in the Apocalypse itself, we shall see as we proceed.
6. “Blessed”—this is the next sentence—“is he that readeth, and they that hear the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein: for the time is at hand.” This benediction has been quoted again and again by writers who have wished to fix our attention upon this book, and to overcome the listlessness or despair with which so many are disposed to regard it. “Have we not here a Divine promise,” they have asked, “that we shall be better for engaging in this study? Ought we not to rely upon that promise and to hope for results, even if the disappointments of previous students have been ever so numerous?” The force of the argument, very strong in itself, has been weakened in the minds of numbers by the clause with which the verse concludes. If indeed the teacher of the seventeenth, or the eighteenth, or the nineteenth century could persuade his hearers that the time which is said to be at hand, were the year, or the decade, or the half-century which would follow that wherein he was speaking, he might have a good prospect of engaging their thoughts, even if they were deeply absorbed in other pursuits and interests. Accordingly this has been a common effort of interpreters. That date must belong to events which occurred in a period just preceding our own; this must point to some which are to come forth out of a not distant future. But if the seventeenth-century commentator was not wrong in his anticipation, then it strikes the hearer or the reader that the nineteenth-century commentator must be wrong in his. If the seventeenth-century commentator was wrong, why should his successor be more fortunate in his guess, or, at all events, why should we desert certainties for the sake of inquiring whether he is so or not? And there is always another and more serious suspicion lying behind these. Did not the original writer use words in their simple, natural sense? If he told the readers and hearers of his day that the time was at hand, did he not mean them to understand that it was at hand? Can he possibly have designed that what he expresses so definitely should be taken indefinitely? Can he have supported a Divine promise with an assurance which was belied by the event, or else with what in an uninspired writer we should call a pious fraud?
7. I confess, my brethren, that these questions seem to me in the last degree serious and awful. I can only find one answer to them. I take the words in their most direct and straightforward sense. I believe that the time of which St. John wrote was at hand when he wrote. I as little suppose him to have been mistaken about its nearness, as I suppose him to have been a wilful deceiver. I do not, however, admit the promise to be less good for the seventeenth, or eighteenth, or nineteenth centuries, because I suppose that events occurred in the first century which were of transcendent importance; which denoted the termination of an age; which deserved to be described as the Apocalypse of Jesus Christ the Son of God. Before I could hold that this passage was emptied of any of its worth or reality to us because the revelation was made centuries ago, I must change the meaning of one of the words that occur in the course of it; at least, I must abandon the scriptural interpretation of that word for a vulgar heathen interpretation of it. St. John speaks of the words of this prophecy. Were Prophecy a mere announcement of future events—had it no other force than that which the Babylonian soothsayers and prognosticators gave to it—I should confess at once that when an event has occurred, any prophecy which has to do with that event is exhausted, except, perhaps, as an evidence for the fidelity of the predicter. But the Jewish prophets, so far from desiring to be identified with these soothsayers and prognosticators, regarded them with horror, and protested vehemently against those of their countrymen who, while mimicking their acts, dared to adopt the sacred language, “The burden of the Lord,” or “The Lord hath said.” Prophecy, according to their use and understanding of it, is the utterance of the mind of Him who is, and was, and is to come. Events, days of the Lord, crises in national history, were manifestations of His everlasting mind and purpose. The seer was to explain the past and the present; only in connexion with these did he speak of the future. He told what curses men were bringing upon themselves by transgressing the laws which individuals and nations were created to obey. He told how the purposes of the Divine Will were developing themselves in a regular progression in despite of the opposition of all self-will. He told how they would move on steadily till all that God designs for man, for this universe, for His own glory, has been accomplished. This is Prophecy, if we take our notion of it from the books which we receive as authoritative, if we do not contract and distort them that they may fit some conception which we have derived from another source. But if it is so, why should an event that has passed be less full of might and significance to us than one that is to come? If we can find an interpreter to tell us what its signification is, may not that signification be of the profoundest interest to one period and another? May not each period get some glimpse of it which another had not? May it not connect that glimpse with events of which it has the experience, events passing in God’s world, events therefore subject to the same law, the consequences of similar doings, pregnant with results not dissimilar to those which the Prophet has discoursed of? Surely there may be a blessing upon the hearers and readers of his oracles, though they believe that his oracles were not ambiguous; that he never trafficked with words in a double sense. Surely times may be at hand to men in every generation which may render it most needful that they should try to enter into the meaning of the times which were at hand in his generation. Surely as an age, or, as we sometimes call it, a dispensation of God, advances towards its consummation, the need may become greater, and the hope that we shall be permitted to profit by past illuminations and past mistakes and confusions, greater also.
8. In trying to set forth the idea of Prophecy, which I discover in the earlier Prophets of his nation, I have borrowed some words from the next passage in this chapter. At first you might regard that passage as merely a devout rapture. The more you reflect upon it, the more I believe it will explain the whole purpose of the book. “John to the seven churches which are in Asia: Grace be unto you, and peace, from him which is, and which was, and which is to come; and from the seven Spirits which are before his throne; and from Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first begotten of the dead, and the prince of the kings of the earth. Unto him that loved us, and washed us from our sins in his own blood, and hath made us kings and priests unto God and his Father; to him be glory and dominion for ever and ever. Amen. Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him. Even so, Amen. I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord, which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty.”
To these seven Churches St. John declares the Revelation which God has made to him. It is the Revelation of Him who is, and was, and is to come; it is the Revelation of Him in His own perfect and absolute nature as the source from which all the grace and peace that ever have been known by any of His creatures, that ever can be known, have proceeded. It is the Revelation of that one Spirit—seven being the perfect number, the expression of unity amidst variety—who dwells in their Churches: who bestows on them their distinct graces and gifts; who binds them into one; the Spirit of Grace and Peace. It is the Revelation of Jesus Christ, who has these three titles and descriptions: (1) That He is the faithful and true Witness of the Eternal God—He in whom the Spirit dwells without measure, He who sets forth His Father as the perfect Goodness, and Truth, and Love; (2) That He is the first begotten of the dead, the Conqueror of man’s enemy, the Conqueror for all the family of God; (3) That He is the Prince of all the kings of the earth; the actual Lord over men, to whom all must at last do homage. What He is, and what He has accomplished for our race, cannot be set forth in cold and dry propositions. The expression of it must be in thanksgiving to Him that hath loved us with a love that is and was and is to come; to Him whose love has manifested itself in act and suffering; to Him whose acts and sufferings have been for the deliverance of men from the sins which set them at war with Him and with each other, and were the cause of their misery; to Him who has not been contented with washing us from our sins in His own blood, but who has made us kings under Him; rulers over ourselves, rulers over the earth to which we are naturally slaves; who has made us priests under Him, to offer up holy sacrifices to God and His Father; to Him be glory and praise for ever and ever.
9. I have spoken of this as the Revelation or Apocalypse. And I believe as you proceed with the study of the book, you will find that it is occupied throughout with that Divine Name into which the Christian Churches are baptized, in which all are living and moving and having their being. Such an Apocalypse must be for all times that were to follow; as all times that had been before were preparing for it. The full Revelation of this Name must be the Revelation of Revelations; that which throws light upon every other. But how is it with the words which follow? “Behold, he cometh with clouds; and every eye shall see him, and they also which pierced him: and all kindreds of the earth shall wail because of him.” Adhering to the order of the words, and to the letter of them, I cannot doubt that they were intended to tell the seven Churches how they should contemplate the dark events which were to happen in their time; the time of a tremendous crisis in the Roman Empire; the time of the overthrow of the Jewish Polity. In the dark clouds of that time they were to own the coming of the Son of Man. The Judge was there; confessed by the consciences of all men; confessed by the consciences of those who had pierced Him as a blasphemer and a malefactor. The Churches should be able to interpret these signs. They should know what luminous form was behind the clouds; should hear, in the wailings of the kindreds of the earth, the wailings after that very King and Deliverer whom they had rejected, and before whom they trembled.
10. I do not wish to anticipate what may be said better on future occasions respecting these seven Churches, or this awful Name, or this coming with clouds. I take these verses only as a series of indications which the book is to unfold. In that light also I receive the concluding verse, which is repeated in the vision that follows. It may, as some have thought, have been transferred by accident from that place to this. But we want to be reminded at the outset and in many ways Who is the subject of the book, that we may never be tempted to behold in it only a number of scattered rays of light without a centre from which they have issued and to which they converge. We want to be reminded that it is not enough for us to trace all things and all men to their origin, unless we can also find the end for which they exist. We want to know that only a living person can be the Alpha and Omega, the starting-point of Creation and its final Rest.
I shall rejoice if I am able to give you a few hints respecting this great book which will assist your own readings in it. I am sure it will reward the study of the layman quite as much as of the priest; that it need not tempt him into any fantasies, but may deliver him from a multitude of fantasies; that God may use it to guide us through dark roads and tangled thickets, in which we are all likely to lose our way; that it will become intelligible when we ask its help in practice rather than in speculation. The blessing on him who hears, and on them that read, is one of those which will not pass away. May it descend upon us richly from Him who is the Author of all blessings!