2 John 1 - Nicoll William R - The Sermon Bible

2 John 1

2Jn 1:1 Truth the Bond of Love.

Consider the moral atmosphere which surrounded, and the motive power which created and sustained, that strong bond of affection which bound the heart of St. John to the Christian lady and her family.

I. The atmosphere of this friendship was sincerity: "Whom I love," not in the truth (there is no article in the original), but "in truth." Not "truly": St. John would have used an adverb to say that. What he means is that truth-truth of thought, truth of feeling, truth of speech and intercourse-was the very air in which his affection for this Christian lady had grown up and maintained itself. And the word which he uses to describe this affection points to the same conclusion. It does not mean instinctive personal affection-affection based on feeling and impulse, such as exists between near relations; still less does it denote that lower form of affection which has its roots and its energy in passion and sense. It stands for that kind of affection which is based on a reasoned perception of excellence in its object; and thus it is the word which is invariably used to describe the love that man ought to have for God. But such a love as this between man and man grows up and is fostered in an atmosphere of truthfulness. It is grounded not on feeling or passion, but on a reciprocal conviction of simplicity of purpose; and being true in its origin, it is true at every stage of its development. It is mortally wounded, this "love in truth," when once it is conscious of distinct insincerity. When once it has reason to doubt the worthiness of its object, when once it falters in its utterance of simple truth, from a secret fear that there is something which cannot be probed to the quick or which cannot bear the sunlight, then its life is gone, even though its forms and courtesies should survive. It may even be strengthened by a temporary misunderstanding when each friend is sincere. It dies when there is on either side a well-grounded suspicion of the taint of insincerity.

II. What was the motive power of St. John's love? St. John replies, "For the truth's sake, which dwelleth in us, and shall be with us for ever." He adds that all who know the truth share in this affection. Here we have an article before "truth." "The truth" means here, not a habit or temper of mind, but a body of ascertained fact, which is fact whether acknowledged or not by the mind to be so. What is here called "the truth" by St. John, we should in modern language speak of as "the true faith." This was the combining link, as sincerity of purpose was the atmosphere, of the affection which existed between this Christian lady and St. John. Among the counteracting and restorative influences which carry the Church of Christ unharmed through the animated, and sometimes passionate, discussion of public questions, private friendships, formed and strengthened in the atmosphere of a fearless sincerity and knit and banded together by a common share in the faith of ages, are, humanly speaking, among the strongest. One and all, we may at some time realise to the letter the language of St. John to this Christian mother. Many of our brethren must realise it now. They have learnt to love in truth, not by impulse; they have learnt to bind and rivet their love by the strong bond of the common and unchanging faith. All who know anything of Jesus Christ know something of this affection for some of His servants; some of us, it may be, know much, much more than we can feel that we deserve. Such love is not like a human passion, which dies gradually away with the enfeeblement and the death of the nerves and of the brain. It is created and fed by the truth which "dwelleth" in the Christian soul, and which, as St. John adds, "shall be with us for ever." It is guaranteed to last, even as its eternal object lasts. It is born and is nurtured amid the things of time; but from the first it belongs to, and in the event it is incorporated with, the life of eternity.

H. P. Liddon, Easter Sermons, vol. ii., p. 195.

Reference: 2.-Spurgeon, Morning by Morning, p. 299.

2Jn 1:3 Grace, Mercy, and Peace.

We have here a very unusual form of the apostolic salutation. "Grace, mercy, and peace" are put together in this fashion only in Paul's two epistles to Timothy and in this the present instance; and all reference to the Holy Spirit as an agent in the benediction is, as there, omitted. The three main words, "Grace, mercy, and peace," stand related to each other in a very interesting manner. The Apostle starts, as it were, from the fountain-head, and slowly traces the course of the blessing down to its lodgment in the heart of man. There is the fountain, and the stream, and, if I may so say, the great still lake in the soul into which its waters flow, and which the flowing waters make; there is the sun, and the beam, and the brightness grows deep in the heart of God: grace, referring solely to the Divine attitude and thought; mercy, the manifestation of grace in act, referring to the workings of that great Godhead in its relation to humanity; and peace, which is the issue in the soul of the fluttering down upon it of the mercy which is the activity of the grace. So these three come down, as it were, a great, solemn marble staircase from the heights of the Divine mind, one step at a time, to the level of earth; and blessings are shed along the earth. Such is the order. All begins with grace; and the end and purpose of grace, when it flashes into deed and becomes mercy, is to fill my soul with quiet repose, and shed across all the turbulent sea of human love a great calm, a beam of sunshine that gilds, and miraculously stills while it gilds, the waves.

I. The first thing, then, that strikes me in it is how the text exults in that great thought that there is no reason whatsoever for God's love except God's will. The very foundation and notion of the word "grace" is a free, undeserved, unsolicited, self-prompted, and altogether gratuitous bestowment, a love that is its own reason, as indeed the whole of the Divine acts are. Just as we say of Him that He draws His being from Himself, so the whole motive for His action and the whole reason for His heart of tenderness to us lies in Himself.

II. And then there lies in this great word, which in itself is a gospel, the preaching that God's love, though it be not turned away by, is made tender by, our sin. Grace is love extended to a person that might reasonably expect, because he deserves, something very different; and when there is laid as the foundation of everything "the grace of our Father and of the Son of the Father," it is but packing into one word that great truth which we all of us, saints and sinners, need-a sign that God's love is love that deals with our transgressions and shortcomings, flows forth perfectly conscious of them, and manifests itself in taking them away, both in their guilt, punishment, and peril. God's grace softens itself into mercy, and all His dealings with us men must be on the footing that we are not only sinful, but weak and wretched, and so fit subjects for a compassion which is the strangest paradox of a perfect and Divine heart. The mercy of God is the outcome of His grace.

III. And as is the fountain and the stream, so is the great lake into which it spreads itself when it is received into a human heart. Peace comes, the all-sufficient summing up of everything that God can give and that men can need, from His loving-kindness and from their needs. The world is too wide to be narrowed to any single aspect of the various discords and disharmonies which trouble men. Peace with God; peace in this anarchic kingdom within me, where conscience and will, hopes and fears, duty and passion, sorrows and joys, cares and confidence, are ever fighting one another, where we are torn asunder by conflicting aims and rival claims, and wherever any part of our nature asserting itself against another leads to intestine warfare, and troubles the poor soul. All that is harmonised, and quieted down, and made concordant and cooperative to one great end when the grace and the mercy have flowed silently into our spirits and harmonised aims and desires.

A. Maclaren, British Weekly Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 99.



3Jn 1:2 Spiritual Prosperity.

I. Of what, in the language of the world, is commonly designated prosperity, perhaps the two main elements are wealth and power. There is a wealth, a power, of the soul. (1) There is, in no exclusively metaphorical sense, a riches of the soul. Money, property, worldly goods, are not more real possessions than thought, knowledge, wisdom. Nor are the outward comforts and luxuries, the gratifications of sense and appetite, that may be procured by the former, more literally a man's own, what belongs to him, what makes him richer, than are warm affections, a fertile imagination, a memory stored with information, and, above all, a heart full of God's grace. (2) Power. We may be inwardly as well as outwardly powerful. In the little world within the breast there are stations of rank, dominion, authority, to which we may aspire, or from which we may fall. There is an inward slavery, baser than any bodily servitude; there is an inward rule and governance of a man's spirit, an object of loftier ambition far than the possession of any earthly crown or sceptre.

II. Note the reasons for which this soul-prosperity should be regarded in our desires as the standard or measure of outward prosperity. (1) Destitute of inward grace, it is neither for a man's own good nor for that of his fellow-men that he should be possessed of outward wealth or power; (2) and if a man's soul be right with God, the possession of these outward advantages is both safe for himself and profitable for others.

J. Caird, Sermons, p. 218.

References: 2.-Preacher's Monthly, vol. ii., p. 463. 4.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xix., No. 1148.

3Jn 1:6 This short letter opens for us a window into the past, and shows us a little incident in the inner life of an unnamed Church. Some travelling evangelists, apparently from Ephesus, the residence of the Apostle, had gone forth armed with what he modestly calls "somewhat which I have written," and had found their way to a city where they had been hospitably welcomed by a certain Gaius or Caius. But in that little community there was an ill-conditioned dog-in-the-manger, who, in his touchy self-importance, thought that he was somehow aggrieved by the Apostle's recommendation, and sought to revenge his insulted pre-eminence upon the innocent evangelists, refusing to receive them because he would not receive the Apostle, and even going so far as to threaten excommunication to their sympathisers. So the evangelists went back to Ephesus and told their story, and the Apostle appears to send them once again to the same place, and gives them this letter, partly in order to express his satisfaction with the work of Gaius and partly in order to prepare the way for their future reception. The words of my text are the gist of the Epistle in so far as it concerns the evangelists and their host. They seem to me to suggest three general thoughts: (1) the motive and aim of the missionary worker; (2) the standard for the missionary helper; (3) the honour common to them both.

I. The motive and aim of the missionary worker: "For the sake of the Name they went forth." Now I need not remind you how in Scripture the name is more than a collection of syllables. It is the expression of the nature of the person or thing to which it is applied. In reference to a person it tells us not only who, but what, he is; and, in fact, we may say it is tantamount, or all but tantamount, to the whole revelation of Jesus Christ, the sum of all we know about Him-His nature, His character, His work. Here, then, is the one motive, as for all Christian life, so eminently for missionary work. Every other will fail us; it is far deeper than compassion for souls; it is the parent of compassion for souls. For the sake of the Name, and for that alone, let us see to it that we do our little bit of work, whatsoever it may be. As long as our Churches live by that Name, so long will there go forth man after man driven out to carry it. Let them falter in their allegiance to the supernatural, Divine, sacrificial elements of the Name, and the missionary impulse will become spasmodic spurts, and will die like water out of a pipe when the pressure is slacked off. Only he who can with all his heart say, "There is none other name under heaven given among men whereby we must be saved," is worthy to be His chosen vessel to bear it to the Gentiles.

II. The standard for missionary helpers. And so mark here the standard for missionary helpers. I have read my text with the alteration which you will find also, I think, in the Revised Version, which substitutes for "after a godly sort" the literal and most pregnant rendering "worthily of God." That is the standard. It bids us consider what He is. The dignity of the recipient should in some measure be expressed by the preciousness of the gift. It bids us consider what He has given us, and how He has given it. "He that receiveth you receiveth Me, and he that receiveth Me receiveth Him that sent Me." Worthily of God-He is in His servants; treat them as you would treat Him if He stood before you.

III. The honour common to workers and helpers. Here is this great thought, that workers and helpers alike may have the joy and the confidence of believing that the truth works with them, and they with it. Think of the honour this lays upon us and the greatness with which it invests our work. Some great artist will strike out the outline of some immortal picture and labour upon it, and then he lets all the anonymous little painters that belong to his school and are animated by his spirit come with their feebler brushes and lay a tint or two on. Jesus Christ lets us, His scholars, work upon His great picture, permits us to co-operate with Him; His truth cannot reach its ends-namely, that men should recognise it-without our co-operation. "Ye are My witnesses, saith the Lord"; and some eyes that are too bleared to gaze upon the unveiled sun may be drawn to a belief in and a love for it if they see its tints spread out in prismatic beauty even by the misty vapours of our poor individuality. We are fellow-helpers with the truth, and that should make us know that our work is grave. Think of the confidence that should inspire us in doing our service. We are working with the strongest thing in the world in the line of the Divine purpose; we can do nothing against the truth, but for the truth; and when the net result of all the activities, furtherances, and antagonisms is summed up it will be found that the only thing that lasts is that truth and the work of the men that helped it. To oppose it is like fighting against the western gales or trying to counteract gravitation. Let us fling our work into the line of the Divine purpose, and be sure of this: that the truth will help us if we help it.

A. Maclaren, Christian Commonwealth, October, 1892.

Reference: 8.-W. M. Punshon, Christian World Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 81.



References: Jude 1-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. viii., No. 434. Jude 3. Ibid., vol. xxvii., No. 1592; Preacher's Monthly, vol. ii., p. 292; J. Edmunds, Sermons in a Village Church, p. 162; J. Keble, Sermons for Saints' Days, p. 424. 5.-Clergyman's Magazine, vol. v., p. 32.

Jud 1:9 War in Heaven.

I. Contention in the world of spirits. In such passages as these the curtain is for a moment lifted up, and we behold war-"war in heaven." The struggle between good and evil is by no means limited to what we see in this world. The area of the conflict is far-extended. The din of distant battle-fields reaches the spiritual ear. Shadowy forms are seen in deadly fight beyond any regions with which our present thoughts are familiar. The victory, indeed, is not doubtful; but the fight is very real, and it is a fight in which we ourselves are closely concerned. Contention-this is a condition of our present state upon earth. We cannot be on Christ's side without contending. We are called, indeed, to peace, but it is equally true that we are called to war.

II. One thing in this passage comes out clear to our apprehension: that the disposal of the body of Moses is viewed in the spiritual world as a matter of some considerable moment. The angels take an interest in the burial of the great lawgiver. The tomb of Moses, if it had been known, would probably have had a significance in subsequent history very different from the burying-place of Machpelah or the sepulchres of the kings of Judah. There would, to say the least, have been a great risk of idolatrous veneration connected with the top of Mount Pisgah. That place might have become the Mecca of the Jewish world; for in the human mind there is a natural love of pilgrimages and of relics.

III. Michael durst not bring against the devil a railing accusation. What is the meaning of this? It could not have been fear in the sense of cowardice; we cannot suppose that fear of that kind can have exerted influence over an archangel. No; it was the fear of taking on himself what properly belonged to God; it was the fear of doing that which was indecorous; it was the resolve that he would not lose his self-command. "The Lord rebuke thee." Retribution belongs to God, and we must wait His time.

J. S. Howson, Our Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, p. 128.

References: Jude 9.-Expositor, 1st series, vol. iii., p. 10. 12.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xiv., No. 797; Preacher's Monthly, vol. v., p. 126. 13.-Homilist, 2nd series, vol. iv., p. 528. 14, 15.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxii., No. 1307.

Jud 1:17 Practical Use of the Epistles of Paul.

I. The remarkable man whom God specially raised up to carry the Gospel to the Gentiles must himself be familiar to us if we would study his epistles profitably. In order to have an intelligent idea of what Paul was and what work he had to do, we must extend our reading in some measure over the history of the time, and, indeed, over that of the ages which preceded. Again, besides forming in our minds some sufficient idea of the circumstances of the writer, we should also know those of the persons to whom these Epistles were written. Very much, indeed, of the doubt and difficulty which hangs over many passages of St. Paul, arises from persons not being able to enter into his character and the circumstances under which the words were written.

II. For every Gospel, for every Epistle, it is absolutely necessary that we should have a consistent, intelligent idea of the person and office of our Lord. He is the centre of them all; in all He is set forth. Unless we know Him, we cannot know them. The spiritual mind must not stand alone in the study of Scripture, but it is of all the chief and crowning qualification. Though it without others may be weak and limited, others without it are altogether powerless. The cottager with the spiritual mind knows more of the Bible than the theologian without it, but the theologian with it stands in the highest position of all.

H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. v., p. 291.

Jud 1:19 The difference between the sensual and the spiritual is in some cases most evident; in others it is most subtle. There are men who never have an idea beyond the lowest self-gratification; they live for it; they boast of it. We need not analyse the moral peculiarities of such men. There are others, however, whose sensuality, though more refined, is not less potent in impairing the finest capacities and tendencies of the soul. Who are they? (1) Men who live entirely within the sphere of the visible; (2) men who look at actions without inquiring into motives; (3) men who look at their own profits, not at the benefit of the commonwealth; (4) men to whom the social is more than the spiritual; (5) men to whom the present is more than the future. Who are the spiritual? There is a noble sense in which the poet is spiritual; so is the musician; so is the painter. Such men translate ideas into language, into sound, into form. There is, however, an infinitely nobler sense in which the term "spiritual" is used: the sense which involves the presence and dominion of the Holy Ghost in the soul of man. The Holy Ghost can be received only through the work of Jesus Christ.

Parker, City Temple, vol. i., p. 61.

Reference: Jude 1:9 .-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. iv., No. 167.

Jud 1:20 I. Prayer is the Divinely appointed means of obtaining all the promised blessings needful for our spiritual and eternal welfare. This truth is quite clear to the student of Scripture. The lips of eternal truth have uttered words which prove the necessity of prayer, and also prove the omnipotent efficacy of prayer: "Ask, and it shall be given you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you: for every one that asketh receiveth; and he that seeketh findeth; and to him that knocketh it shall be opened"; "If ye, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give good things"-give the Holy Spirit-"to them that ask Him." "Be careful for nothing," says St. Paul, "but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." God says, "Open thy mouth wide, and I will fill it." What wonder, then, if those who neglect the means of grace and prayer grow into a state of spiritual poverty and destitution! "They have not because they ask not," or, if they ask at all, they "ask amiss"-they ask coldly; they ask carelessly. They talk much about God in public, but talk very little with God in private. They are known to engage in exercises many, but not devotional ones. They are seen in numerous attitudes, but seldom on their knees. Therefore the Holy Ghost is not fully given, because not fervently and properly implored.

II. We cannot lay down any specific rule as to the length of our prayers; this will at all times depend upon the circumstances in which we are placed. The best prayer that was ever composed is a very short one, but we must not forget that He who composed it while on earth spent whole nights in prayer.

III. What we want in our prayers is a sincerity of soul, a hard-breathed earnestness, such a feeling as marked the wrestling Jacob when he said, "I will not let Thee go except Thou bless me." Another reflection on the subject of prayer is that we should endeavour, in Divine strength, to keep up a communion with God right through the day. "Pray without ceasing"; walk with God, live in God, and wait on God, for He says, "Them that honour Me I will honour." Again, when we approach our God in prayer, we should cherish a spirit of reverential awe. It is our duty, before we bow the knee in supplication, to seek to have our spirit suitably affected by the consideration of the majesty of the Being we address, for we speak in prayer to Him before whom heaven's highest archangels presume not to appear but with veiled faces; we speak in prayer with Him who chargeth those angels with folly, and in whose sight the very heavens are not clean.

W. W. Lane, Church Sermons, vol. i., p. 153.

Jud 1:20 Christian Morality Based upon Christian Faith.

I. The ethics of Christianity are in close connection with its doctrines. The Christian's character is to be built up, as St. Jude tells us, on the strong foundation of the Christian's most holy faith. "Christianity purports to be, not a system of moral teaching only, but a system of revealed facts which centre in our Lord, and on which moral teaching is to rest" Try to make out a scheme of practical Christianity detached from the Christian creed, and you are attempting a hopeless task; if you tear away the dogmas, the precepts lose their sanction and motive power. A writer of eminence, who stands apart from Christian orthodoxy and thinks that there is a want of masculine breadth in the current moral teaching of the Churches, yet declines to hold "any Church dogma responsible for this insufficiency," predicts that it would take centuries to establish any morality on a non-Christian basis, and affirms that the ethical teaching of the present day, to be influential, ought to grow out of Christianity. Truly it ought, for Christianity is a life as much as a creed, a life which, "in virtue of its distinctive doctrine, is nourished with a richer goodness than all other religious life."

II. What is the animating principle of a life that is truly and effectively Christian? It is faith in the living Christ as a personal Saviour, Divine and human, who is not only the example to be imitated, but the very source of that moral power and that spiritual life which are to make imitation possible. It is the Christ of St. Paul and St. John, the Christ of the catholic creeds, who has been the true Author of all that purity, tenderness, devotedness, which has made Christian morality a new thing in the world.

W. Bright, Morality in Doctrine, p. 15.

References: Jude 2:0 .-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xii., No. 719; Preacher's Monthly, vol. viii., p. 168.



Jud 1:20-21 "But ye, beloved," living amongst these careless ones, shall be a little flock, known to their Father, and their Shepherd, and their Guide, marked out in strong contrast to the children of the world. Their rule is the will of One who is invisible; they walk not by the sight of their eyes, nor by the hearing of their ears. It is these persons whom redemption binds with its threefold cord of power, love, and wisdom.

I. "But ye, beloved." These men are the objects of love, not from the world, but from the Father. God looks on them with perfect approval. Not that they are perfect in themselves, but that they are united to His beloved Son, in whom He is perfectly pleased. They are the salt of the earth, keeping it from ruin. And what lesson may these, God's servants, learn? "Building yourselves up in your most holy faith." There is but one foundation-other can no man lay-and that one is already laid by God. But every man must build thereon; and the building which he is to rear is himself.

II. But what are the various steps and details of this holy work? The question is answered by following the text. (1) "Praying in the Holy Ghost." The life of these men is a life of prayer. (2) They keep themselves in the love of God. There is but one thing that can separate us from the love of God, and that one thing is our own will, our own act and deed. And how can we keep ourselves? Let us watch and pray, and use all means of grace, that we fall not from our place in Christ, for thus only can we forfeit the Father's love. (3) The believer has also a hope full of immortality: "Looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." Dwelt in by the Holy Spirit, received into and kept in the perfect love of the Father, they shall be endowed with eternal life by the mercy of the Redeemer. Thus the three Persons of the Trinity cooperate in the work of saving man, enter into and abide in the believer's soul.

H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. i., p. 395.

How to Keep in the Love of God.

I. Consider this central injunction, the very keystone of the arch of a devout Christian life: "Keep yourselves in the love of God." The secret of all blessedness is to live in the love of God. We may dwell at rest, like the inhabitants of some deep, sunken dell, which is all still, without a breath to move the thick blossoms on the loaded tree, even whilst winds are raving and waves thundering away on the iron-bound coast. "Keep yourselves in the love of God."

II. Further, notice the subsidiary exhortations which point out the means of obeying the central command. (1) The first means of securing our continual abiding in the conscious enjoyment of God's love to us is our continual effort at building up a noble character on the foundation of faith. (2) "Praying in the Holy Ghost." Such prayer is the true help for the builder; his right attitude is on his knees.

III. Notice the expectation attendant on the obedience to the central commandment: "Looking for the mercy of the Lord Jesus Christ unto eternal life." The consciousness of Christ's present love is the surest ground for the hope in His future mercy.

A. Maclaren, The Unchanging Christ, p. 170.

Reference: Jude 2:0 , Jude 2:1 .-E. Garbett, The Soul's Life, p. 354.

Jud 1:21 A Christmas Morning Talk with Children.

I. Love is a fire that wants a great deal of keeping. "Keep yourselves in the love of God." When I am writing in my study sometimes, what do you think takes place? The bright, warm fire goes out. It dies, as you say, of its own accord. I have not poked or attended to it, and it simply goes out. It was lighted; the coals were red; but through my neglect they turned black and cold. It is not enough for you as children to feel now and then love to Jesus; you must "keep yourselves in the love of God." My young friends are to be little Christians every day, and that is the beautiful ideal of the Gospel of Christ. You are not brought to the Christian temple only on great festivals like the Passover, but every day you are to feel Jesus Christ, your Saviour, near you; you are to trust Him; you are to put your little hearts into His precious keeping; you are to realise that the fire wants keeping up.

II. There are many ways of keeping the fire in. The first is to put some coals on it. "Where there is no wood the fire goeth out." A little child cannot do without reading, and every little hymn is "wood on the fire," every remembered text is timber, every quiet counsel of father and mother is fuel on the fire; so also is every good sermon that children can understand. Feed it yourselves by thinking about Jesus Christ and quietly, when no one is with you, offering your prayer to God that your fire may grow warm and bright; for it is the fire of God.

III. "Keep yourselves in the love of God," because at Christmas-time you see especially what God's love is. Love is not a mere sentiment. Many little folks who weep the most do not feel the most. It is very nice to see a little child fling its arms round its mother's neck and say, "Oh, I do love you so." The mother says what Christ says: "I am glad, my darling; but if you love me, keep my commandments." If you are to keep yourselves in the love of God, you must try to be like Him.

IV. "Keep yourselves in the love of God," because love lasts for ever. Many things we can only keep for a little while. I shall part with my faith and hope, but "charity never faileth." Keep yourselves, then, in the love of God, in its spirit, in its beauty, in its unselfishness and sacrifice, for if God laid down His life for us, we ought also to lay down our lives for the brethren.

W. M. Statham, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxviii., p. 408.

References: Jude 2:1 .-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxii., No. 1285; Homilist, 3rd series, vol. iii., p. 352; T. Binney, Christian World Pulpit, vol. ii., p. 24. 23.-Ibid., p. 350; Preacher's Monthly, vol. x., p. 40. 24, 25.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xi., No. 634.



Rev 1:4 A reason why the Holy Ghost is called "the seven spirits" is found in that remarkable sevenfold action by which He works upon the soul of a man, for though the influences of the Holy Ghost are indeed very many, and the enumeration of them might be extended very far, they do range themselves, with a very singular exactness, under seven heads.

I. To open the heart like Lydia's; to show us what we are; to make us feel sin, and specially sins done against Christ-that is the Spirit's first work.

II. The Spirit shows us Christ. Every day's experience proves that we can only know Christ by the Holy Spirit. There is no other power that ever can or will reveal Christ to the sinner's soul.

III. The Spirit comforts. I place this office here, for all the Spirit's comfortings have to do with Jesus Christ. I believe the Holy Ghost never comforts a man but through Christ. He never uses the commonplaces of men's consolation; He never deals in generalities: He shows you that Jesus loves you; He shows you that Jesus died for you, that God has forgiven you. So He makes Christ fill an empty place. He exhibits the exceeding loveliness and sufficiency of Christ's person.

IV. After this the Spirit proceeds to teach the man, who is now become a child of God. He fits the heart to the subject, and the subject to the heart. Hence the marvellous power and the singular sweetness there is when you sit under the Holy Spirit's teaching.

V. For where He teaches, there He sanctifies. There is never a good desire but it was He who prompted it, and never a right thought but it was He who imparted it. It is He who gives the higher motive, and makes the heart begin to point to the glory of God.

VI. He is the Intercessor who "maketh intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered."

VII. He seals the soul which He has made His temple. As some proprietor when he goes away puts his mark upon his jewels, so the Holy Ghost fastens you to Christ, that nothing may ever divide you. He gives you a comforting assurance that you are a child of God; He makes in the soul a little sanctuary of peace and love.

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, 8th series, p. 156.

Rev 1:4-5 I take the words simply as they lie here, asking you to consider, first, how grace and peace come to us "from the faithful Witness"; how, secondly, they come "from the First-begotten from the dead"; and how, lastly, they come "from the Prince of the kings of the earth."

I. Now as to the first of these, "the faithful Witness." All of you who have any familiarity with the language of Scripture will know that a characteristic of all the writings which are ascribed to the Apostle John-viz., his Gospel, his Epistles, and the book of the Revelation-is their free and remarkable use of the word "witness." But where did John get this word? According to his own teaching, he got it from the lips of the Master, who began His career with these words: "We speak that we do know, and bear witness to that we have seen," and who all but ended it with these royal words: "Thou sayest that I am a King. For this cause came I into the world, that I should bear witness unto the truth." Christ Himself, then, claimed to be, in an eminent and special sense, the Witness to the world. He witnesses by His words; by all His deeds of grace, and truth, and gentleness, and pity; by all His yearnings over wickedness, and sorrow, and sinfulness; by all His drawings of the profligate, and the outcast, and the guilty to Himself; His life of loneliness, His death of shame.

II. We have grace and peace from the Conqueror of death. The "First-begotten from the dead" does not precisely convey the idea of the original, which would be more accurately represented by "the Firstborn from the dead," the Resurrection being looked upon as a kind of birth into a higher order of life. (1) The resurrection of Jesus Christ is the confirmation of His testimony. (2) Faith in the Resurrection gives us a living Lord to confide in. (3) In Him and in His resurrection life we are armed for victory over that foe whom He has conquered.

III. We have grace and peace from the King of kings. He is the "Prince of the kings of the earth," (1) because He is "the faithful Witness"; (2) because in that witness He dies; (3) because, witnessing and slain, He has risen again.

A. Maclaren, A Year's Ministry, 2nd series, p. 3.

Rev 1:4-5 The Catholic Church.

Let us recall what would be the general aspect of the Church of Christ, born into actual life on the day of Pentecost, as it passed away from under the dying eyes and hands of this very last Apostle left on the earth, who had seen the Lord. What would any one have found who had looked in upon it at the close of the century? What picture would he have painted? What would have been his primary impression? A good deal of detail may be hidden from us, but we can be fairly sure of the broad features that strike the eye, and we can be quite certain of the character of its inner secret.

I. And, first, it would show itself to him as a corporate society, a social brotherhood, a family of God. This family, this brotherhood, he would have discovered, had widely over-spread the empire, and in doing so distinctly followed the line of the Roman imperial system. That system, we know, was a network of municipalities gathered together into metropolitan centres. And the Christian society repeated in its own way, on its own methods, the general feature of this imperial organisation. Its life lay in towns; its ideal was civic; each city in which it established itself was a little centre for the suburban and surrounding districts. It was becoming clear its note was to be catholic. That was the outward society.

II. And inside what did the believer find? He found, first, a fellowship of holy and gracious living. To understand what this meant, try to recall the epistles of St. Paul, for you can feel still throbbing, as we know, in those epistles the unutterable ecstacy of the believers' escape out of what had before been their proverbial and familiar existence. St. Paul bids them keep ever in mind the old days from which they have fled-fled as men fly from a wild and savage beast whose breath has been hot upon them, whose fangs and claws have been, and are still, too terribly near. We may read and enjoy the noble classical literature in which the old pagan world expressed, through the lips of its prophets and philosophers, its higher aspirations and its cleaner graces; but here in St. Paul we can still touch, and feel, and handle the ghastly history of the common pagan life, such as it was really known in provincial cities. The ideal of holy living, which before had been a weak dream, a dream that became daily more confused and despairing, was now a restored possibility. It had become possible that a whole society, a whole community of men and women, should live together for the purpose of high and clean life, with a positive hope of attaining it. That was the new attraction; that was the great change that had come over the situation-a change from losing to winning. To pass from one state of things to the other was to pass from death into life; It was to them an undying and an unutterable joy.

III. It was a society of holiness, and a society of help, and then a society of help and holiness for all alike, out of every race, and at all social levels. Here, again, we know, was the secret of its power. A career of moral and spiritual holiness opened out to all women and to slaves. And how was it held together? Not by being a society of holiness, or a society of help; but its one indomitable and unswerving article of creed was that all this outward and visible organism was the outcome of a life essentially supernatural, invisible, not of this world, unearthly, spiritual, with which life believers stood in unbroken communion; for in their very midst, moving through the golden candlesticks, was an energising presence, loved as a friend is loved, known and clung to as a Redeemer, worshipped as God Himself is worshipped-One who was as verily near, present, and alive with them as He was in the days of His flesh among the friends whom He had chosen. From His spiritual life they drank their life, united to it as limbs of one body to the head-by inseparable union. Of this unalterable union every good word spoken, every good act done, by each and all, was the true and the natural fruit. This union was sustained by the constant intercourse of worship, and, above all, by that central act in which all worship concentrated itself and round which all services of prayer and praise grouped their office: that act in which the Church on earth ate of the living bread-"the bread of eternal life, of which whosoever eateth shall never die."

H. Scott Holland, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliii., p. 360.

Rev 1:5 Christ's Present Love and its Great Act.

I. Consider the ever-present, timeless love of Jesus Christ. John is writing these words of our text nearly half a century after Jesus Christ was buried He is speaking to Asiatic Christians, Greeks and foreigners, most of whom had not been born when Jesus Christ died, none of whom had probably ever seen Him in this world. To these people he proclaims, not a past love, not a Christ that loved long ago, but a Christ that loves now, a Christ that loved these Asiatic Greeks at the moment when John Was writing, a Christ that loves us nineteenth-century Englishmen at the moment when we read. (1) This one word is the revelation to us of Christ's love as unaffected by time. (2) Then, further, that love is not disturbed or absorbed by multitudes. (3) Another thought may be suggested, too, of how this present, timeless love of Christ is unexhausted by exercise. (4) Again, it is a love unchilled by the sovereignty and glory of His exaltation.

II. Notice the great act in time which is the outcome and proof of this endless love. The one act in time which is the proof and outcome of His love is the deliverance from sin by His blood. What a pathos that thought gives to His death! It was the willing token of His love. He gave Himself up to the cross of shame because He held us in His heart. There was no reason for His death but only that "He loveth us." And with what solemn power that thought invests His death! Even His love could not reach its end by any other means-not by mere goodwill, nor by any small sacrifice. Nothing short of the bitter cross could accomplish His heart's desire for men. We have no proof of Christ's love to us and no reason for loving Him except His death for our sins.

III. One final word as to the praise which should be our answer to this great love. Our praise of Christ is but the expression of our recognition of Him for what He is and our delight in, and love towards, Him. Such love, which is but our love speaking, is all which He asks. Love can only be paid by love. Any other recompense offered to it is coinage of another currency. The only recompense that satisfies love is its own image reflected in another heart. That is what Jesus Christ wants of you.

A. Maclaren, A Year's Ministry, 2nd series, p. 305.

Rev 1:5 Look at the text-

I. As a statement of a fact. "The blood of Jesus Christ, His Son, cleanseth us from all sin." The reasons for this arrangement are not with the theological reasoners, but they are among the secret things which belong to God. But just as the body is washed by pure water, so are we washed from our sins in Christ's own blood.

II. As the most perfect illustration of Jesus's love. (1) Dying for us was grief, sorrow, self-denial, trouble, a cup of gall to Jesus Christ, just as His temptations were fiery trials. (2) Nothing can be so precious as love thus proved.

III. As a matter of consciousness. "Looking unto Jesus," we begin to hate evil, to be weaned from the love of sin, to love righteousness; we "cease to do evil and learn to do well."

IV. As an incentive to praise and as a theme of praise. Praise is the expression of holy, happy, devout feeling; and such expression must be acceptable to God. Divine revelation is Divine expression. Creation is expression by the absolute and infinite God. "He that offereth praise glorifieth Me."

S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 232.

References: Rev 1:5 .-W. J. Knox-Little, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xiii., p. 248; Preacher's Monthly, vol. iii., p. 321; vol. viii., p. 240. Rev 1:5 , Rev 1:6 .-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxix., No. 1737; W. Cunningham, Sermons, p. 146; Homiletic Quarterly, vol. iii., p. 87.



Rev 1:5-6 The Christian Priesthood.

I. It is amongst the most common, and certainly not the least dangerous of the errors of the day, to identify the Church with the clergy, as though the laity were not to the full as much one of its constituent parts. Our common forms of speech both encourage and prove the mistake; for we speak of a man as "designed for the Church" when preparing for the clerical profession, and we speak of him as "entering the Church" when he takes holy orders. The whole Christian community is made up of priests. We are not speaking of what that community may be by practice, but only of what it is by profession; of what it ought to be, and of what it would be if it acted faithfully up to the obligations it had taken on itself. When settled in Canaan, the Jews were far from proving themselves a "kingdom of priests," for they turned aside after false gods, and dishonoured, in place of magnifying, the name of Jehovah. But supposing them to have been a nation of righteous men, not only outwardly in covenant with God, but consecrated in heart to His service, then it is easy to perceive that they would have stood to all surrounding countries in the very position in which the tribe of Levi stood to themselves; they would have been witnesses for the Almighty to the rest of the world, standing in the midst of the vast temple of the earth and instructing the ignorant in the mysteries of truth. And beyond question what the Jewish nation might have been, that may be the Christian Church; that would it be if its every member acted up to the vows which were made for him at his baptism. Let a parish of nominal Christians be converted into a parish of real Christians, so that there should not be one within its circuit who did not adorn the doctrine of the Gospel; and what should we have but a parish of priests to the high and living God? Christian nations stand in the same position to heathen nations as Christian ministers to Christian congregations. They have much the same duties to perform-the same power of witnessing for God, the same opportunities of supporting the great cause of truth. In the one case as well as in the other there may be a great want of fidelity. The priesthood in the persons of the nation, just as the priesthood in the persons of individuals, may be grievously disgraced, and its obligations forgotten, and its duties not discharged; but all this interferes not with the fact that there has been an ordination, a solemn setting apart to the service of God, whether of a people or an individual.

II. Every man who has been received by baptism into the Christian Church has been invested with a priestly office, and shall be hereafter dealt with according to the manner in which that office has been performed. If the Church as a body is to be a kingdom of priests, it follows that every member of that Church, in his individual capacity, can be nothing less than a priest. The priestly office, indeed, is no longer what it was as regards the ministers of the Church; but it is not one jot altered as regards the members of the Church. It is not what it was as regards the ministers, because they have not to make atonement by the offering up of sacrifice; but it is what it was as regards the members, because their ministrations are still to be those of a holy life and consistency and steadfastness in maintenance of truth.

H. Melvill, Penny Pulpit, No. 1707.

Rev 1:6 I. (1) The substitution in the Revised Version of "a kingdom" for "kings" places the promises of the new dispensation in direct connection with the facts of the old. The language of St. Peter and St. John was no novel coinage. It was merely an adaptation to the Israel after the Spirit of the titles and distinctions accorded of old to the Israel after the flesh. There was a holy nation, a peculiar people, a regal priesthood, before Christianity. It was only enlarged, developed, spiritualised, under the Gospel. The mention of the kingdom links Sinai with Zion, the old with the new. (2) But also, if we lose the idea of the kingdom, we lose with it the most valuable idea of the passage. A kingdom denotes an organised, united whole; it implies consolidation and harmony. It is not enough that we should realise the individual Christian as a king; we must think of him as a member of a kingdom. Solitariness, isolation, independence-these are ideas inseparable from the kingly throne; but this is not the true conception of the disciple of Christ. He is before all things a member of a body. The kingdom of God, the Church of Christ, exists for a definite end. Its citizen kings have each their proper functions; perform each their several tasks; contribute each their several gifts to the fulfilment of this purpose.

II. And how shall we define this purpose? Will you tell me that the Church was planted for the saving of individual souls-your soul and mine? Will you say that its design was the amelioration of human society? These are only intermediate and secondary objects in its establishment. Its final end and aim is far higher than this. It is nothing less than the praise and glory of God. So the kingdom is a priesthood. Its citizen kings are citizen priests also. Under the old dispensation one nation was selected from all the nations. We are the heirs of its privileges, its functions, its ministrations. A nobler service, indeed, is ours. The theme of our praise and thanksgiving, the human birth, the human life, the passion, the resurrection, of the incarnate Son of God, the theme of all themes, far transcends the conceptions which inspired the worship of the old dispensation. But so far as regards this idea of a kingdom which is also a priesthood, the Church of Christ now is the direct continuance or the immediate development of the Church of the Israelites. Realise your consecration as priests first, and then learn to exercise your priestly functions.

J. B. Lightfoot, Sermons on Special Occasions, p. 191.

Rev 1:6 I. The man who does the will of God rules a kingdom within himself. In one aspect God is the King of the kingdom; in another aspect the Christian himself is king. Self-rule is one of the first lessons which Jesus Christ teaches His disciples, and it is a lesson which is more or less interwoven with all others.

II. The man who lives unto Christ, and who lives for Christ, rules others. (1) By the truth which he has received, and which he avows, he rules thought, opinion, ideas, doctrines, creeds. (2) By the principles upon which he acts the Christian disciple rules the consciences and hearts of other men. (3) By his character the Christian forms and moulds the characters of others. (4) By his conduct the Christian regulates the actions of others.

S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 251.

Rev 1:6 I. The sacrifice-what is it? The Christian's sacrifice is himself-himself in work, himself in worship, himself in suffering, himself in the whole of life, and himself in death.

II. What is the altar? The altar of our sacrifice is our opportunity. God gives us the means of rendering others service, and He brings those who require the ministrations of which we are capable under our notice or into personal contact with us. This is the altar of opportunity.

III. What is the temple? The temple in which a Christian serves as a priest is every place in which he lives and moves. Under the Levitical law there was one God-chosen place of sacrifice; under the dispensation of the Gospel the whole earth is hallowed ground.

S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 263.

Rev 1:6 I. "Unto Him." Why unto Him? (1) He loved us from everlasting; (2) He has washed us from our sins in His own blood; (3) He has made us kings and priests.

II. "Glory and dominion"-regal rule; imperial rule; rule everywhere; dominion over all; the government seen to be upon His shoulder, the sceptre known to be in His hand, the crown visible on His head.

III. "For ever." How little there is that one would wish to be for ever. What echoes do the words awaken, "To Him be glory and dominion for ever and ever"!

S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 274.

References: Rev 1:7 .-H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Waterside Mission Sermons, No. 12; Homiletic Magazine, vol. vii., p. 341. Rev 1:8 .-Homilist, 2nd series, vol. iii., p. 481; W. Landels, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxiii., p. 129.

Rev 1:9 The Fellowship of the Kingdom of Patience.

I. The ultimate basis of our fellowship we find where we find everything-"in Jesus," for such is the literal phrase of our text. But it is hard to say here whether the individual or the community comes first. Both are in Jesus; "the Head of every man is Christ," and "He is the Head of the body." Union with the Lord, personal union, is the precious secret and deep foundation of all our fellowship. "He that is joined to the Lord is one spirit." The spirit common to Him and to His people makes them partakers with Christ and all His interests, even as Christ becomes a Partaker with us and all that is ours. The Christian is no longer his own; he has come out of himself; he has a new life, breathes in a new world, the sun, and the air, and the nourishment, and the life, and the end of which is the Lord. He is a man still, but a man in Christ.

II. Christ's presence is in the Church of earth; His glory, and ornaments, and symbolic attributes are all taken from the lower sanctuary; His right hand is strong with the power of a human-angel ministry. The candlesticks that receive their light from Him reflect on Him their glory. Hence the fellowship of Christ's kingdom has its sphere in the visible Church or Churches established throughout the world-the Churches, for they are seven; the Church, for seven is, as we see by the seven spirits, the symbol of unity in diversity. All true Churches are one in the unity of this common object: the kingdom of Jesus.

III. Every one of us is a companion in the service of the kingdom of the Cross. Such it is now, whatever its coming glories may be. The service of this kingdom has for its fundamental law personal self-sacrifice; no law was more constantly, none more sternly, none more affectingly, enforced by our Lord than this. Only by much tribulation do we enter into the kingdom of God; only by much tribulation does it enter into us.

IV. Tribulation worketh patience, is a principle of personal religion which we may carry into our relation to the great fellowship. The kingdom is one of slow development, and all who serve it must wait in patience, which is, like charity, one of its royal laws. Our apocalyptic patience has to do with the future; it is the "waiting for the end." We must labour in the patience of uncertainty. The Lord is at hand; but we must be found labouring as well as watching.

V. The glorious consummation will surely come. The bright prospect precedes our text and sheds its glory on it. "Behold, He cometh!" was the inspiring assurance in the strength of which the last Apostle greeted the Church: "I John, your brother and companion in this hope." Then will the kingdom be revealed without its ancient attributes of tribulation and patience.

W. B. Pope, Sermons and Charges, p. 64.

The Kinghood of Patience.

That is a very remarkable phrase, "the kingdom and patience." Kinghood, instead of being dissevered from patience, is bound up with it; the kingly virtues are all intertwined with patience and dependent on it. The kingdom, the Divine kingdom, is inherited through faith and patience; and the kingly man is the patient man.

I. In Jesus there are these two elements: dominion and patience. Nothing is more beautiful than the patience of Christ as related to His uncompromising fidelity to His standard of duty and of truth, His holding by His principles while He holds on at the same time to those slow, backward pupils in the school of faith and of self-sacrifice. Christ's mission, in its very nature, involved long, patient waiting. It was the mission of a sower, sowing seed of slow growth. The harvest of Christ's ideas was not going to be reaped in three years, nor in a hundred. He was content to await the slow growth of the Gospel seed, the slow pervasion of the Gospel leaven, to wait for the consummation of a sovereignty based on the spiritual transformation wrought by the Gospel. His course in this stands out as the sublimest illustration of patience in all time, and stamps Him as the true King of the ages.

II. Christ therefore by His own example, no less than by His word, commends to us this kingly virtue of patience. Each morning we wake to a twofold fight: with the world outside and with the self within. God help us if patience fail; God help us if there be not something within which keeps firm hold of the exceeding great and precious promises, which will not suffer faith to fail that He that hath begun a good work will perfect it, which is not disheartened at slow progress, and which, spite of the tears and the dust, keeps our faces turned toward the place where we know the crown and the glory are, though we cannot see them.

M. R. Vincent, The Covenant of Peace, p. 234.

Rev 1:9 (R.V.)

I. Note the common royalty: "I John am a partaker with you in the kingdom."

II. Note the common road to that common royalty. "Tribulation" is the path by which all have to travel who attain the royalty.

III. Note the common temper in which the common road to the common royalty is to be trodden. "Patience" is the link, so to speak, between the kingdom and the tribulation.

A. Maclaren, The Unchanging Christ, p. 247.

References: Rev 1:9 .-J. M. Neale, Sermons for the Church Year, vol. i., p. 50. Rev 1:9-16 .-Homilist, 3rd series, vol. v., p. 266.

Rev 1:10 The Lord's Day.

I. What is the meaning of the expression, "the Lord's Day"? Does it mean the day of judgment, and is St. John saying that in an ecstacy he beheld the last judgment of God? Undoubtedly "the day of the Lord" is an expression often applied to the day of judgment in the Old and New Testaments, but such a meaning would not serve St. John's purpose here; he is plainly giving the date of his great vision, not the scene to which it introduced him, and just as he says that it took place in the isle of Patmos, thus marking the place, so he says that it was on the Lord's Day, thus marking the time. Does the phrase, then, mean the annual feast of our Lord's resurrection from the dead-our Easter Day? That day, as we know from the Epistle to the Corinthians, we are to keep "not with old leaven, neither with the leaven of malice and wickedness, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth"; but it could hardly have served for a date, because in those days, as some time afterwards, there were different opinions in the Church as to the day on which properly the festival should be kept. If the Lord's Day had meant Easter Day, it would not have settled the date of the revelation without some further specification. Does the phrase, then, mean the Sabbath day of the Mosaic law? If St. John had meant the Sabbath, the seventh day of the week, he would certainly have used the word "Sabbath"; he would not have used another word which the Christian Church, from the day of: he Apostles downwards, has applied, not to the seventh day of the week, but to the first. There is indeed no real reason for doubting that by the Lord's Day St. John meant the first day of the week, or, as we should say, Sunday. Our Lord Jesus Christ has made that day in a special sense His own by rising on it from the dead and by connecting it with His first six appearances after His resurrection.

II. What are the principles which are recognised in the observance of the "Lord's Day" by the Church of Christ? (1) The first principle embodied is the duty of consecrating a certain portion of time, at least one-seventh, to the service of God. This principle is common to the Jewish Sabbath and to the Christian Lord's Day. And such a consecration implies two things: it implies a separation of the thing or person consecrated from all others and a communication to it or him of a quality of holiness or purity which was not possessed before. (2) A second principle in the Lord's Day is the periodical suspension of human toil. This also is common to the Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Lord's Day. The Jewish Sabbath and the Christian Lord's Day, while agreeing in affirming two principles, differ in two noteworthy respects: (1) they differ in being kept on distinct days; (2) in the reason or motive for observing them. The Christian motive for observing the Lord's Day is the resurrection of Christ from the dead; that truth is to the Christian creed what the creation of the world out of nothing is to the Jewish creed; it is the fundamental truth on which all else that is distinctively Christian rests, and it is just as much put forward by the Christian Apostles as is the creation of all things out of nothing by the Jewish creed. (3) A third principle is the necessity of the public worship of God. The cessation of ordinary work is not enjoined upon Christians only that they may while away the time or spend it in self-pleasing or in something worse. The Lord's Day is the day of days, on which Jesus our Lord has a first claim. In the Church of Jesus the first duty of the Christian is to seek to hold converse with the risen Lord.

H. P. Liddon, From the Christian World Pulpit.

Christianity would seem to have altered the law of the Sabbath precisely where we might have expected it might be altered-in those parts which were of positive, not of moral, obligation. Our Saviour, who, being the coeternal Son of God, is Lord also of the Sabbath day, modified the mode in which it is to be hallowed partly by relaxing the literal strictness of the precept, "Thou shalt do no manner of work," and permitting works of necessity and of mercy, but principally by removing the false glosses with which superstition and human traditions had disfigured the true meaning of the commandment.

I. Even if the Decalogue or the Fourth Commandment were abrogated by the Gospel, and the Lord's Day were but a Christian ordinance sanctioned by our Lord, either immediately by His own presence and approval, or mediately by His Apostles acting under the inspiration of the Holy Spirit, we should still be bound to keep it in the same way as if it were the Sabbath transferred from the old dispensation to the new, if, at least, the early Christians may be admitted as witnesses of the meaning of what on this supposition was their own ordinance. With them the first day of the week was not a day of unnecessary work or a day of amusement, but a holy day, set apart from the rest for special public worship and cheerful thanksgiving. So much, indeed, might be inferred from the very name, "the Lord's Day." Chrysostom, Augustine, and others warned Christians against the example of the Jews of their days who made the Sabbath a time for dancing, banqueting, and luxurious self-indulgence. The truth is, Christians held the first day of the week to be the Lord's Day, and kept it as such, not with idle scrupulosity, but with honesty of purpose. Accordingly any work, however laborious, if necessary or compulsory, they would have done with a quiet conscience; but unnecessary work they would have felt a sin. A slave unable to obtain his freedom would have done his master's bidding unhesitatingly and cheerfully; a free man would not have followed his worldly calling on the Lord's Day. Amusements would have been felt more discordant with the Lord's Day than work. They were not necessary; they could not be compulsory; they had nothing to do with the special service of God for which that day was hallowed. They were, therefore, simply wrong. "It is commanded you," writes St. Augustine, "to observe the Sabbath spiritually, not as the Jews observe theirs, in carnal ease-for they wish to have leisure for their trifles and their luxuries-for a Jew would be better employed in doing something useful in his field than in sitting turbulently in the theatre."

II. It is a matter of little practical moment, then, the obligation on which our observance of the Sunday rests. Whether it is the primal Sabbath, re-enacted on Sinai and continued in the Christian code with modifications in its positive and non-essential details, or whether it is the Christian ordinance of the Lord's Day to be understood and interpreted by the practice of the early Christians, it is undoubtedly a day set apart and holy to the Lord. It is His special portion of our time, dedicated to Him for His glory and for our good. Its peculiar duties are public worship, religious meditation and instruction, and the celebration of the Lord's Supper in remembrance of Christ. Its spirit is a calm and collected mind, undisturbed by worldly cares and unexcited by worldly amusements, in tune with holy thoughts and the exercises of religion, and open to all the cheerful influences of home and family affection, and charity, and benevolence.

III. With this general principle before us, (1) we must be very slow to judge and very cautious to condemn others for their manner of observing the Lord's Day. They have the same rule with us; they are to apply it by the aid of their own conscience. To their own Master they stand or fall. (2) But though indulgent in our judgment of others, we must not be too indulgent of ourselves. Scruples and nice distinctions, indeed, austerity and gloom, the obedience of the letter, not of the spirit, are alien, it has been said, to the true character of the Christian Lord's Day; and he who is free from such scruples and doubts, as he is always the happiest, will often be the holiest man. A healthy faith and a devout heart will usually discern by a kind of spiritual instinct what may and what may not be done. But the important practical rule for all of us is this: "Let every one be fully persuaded in his own mind." (3) We must be careful not to impose needless labour on others, and should help and encourage them, as well as we may, to enjoy rest on the day of rest. "If thou turn away thy foot from the Sabbath, from doing thy pleasure on My holy day, and call the Sabbath a delight, holy of the Lord, honourable, and shalt honour Him, not doing thine own ways, nor finding thine own pleasure, nor speaking thine own words, then shalt thou delight thyself in the Lord; and I will cause thee to ride upon the high places of the earth, and feed thee with the heritage of Jacob thy father; for the mouth of the Lord hath spoken it."

J. Jackson, Penny Pulpit, New Series, No. 627.

References: Rev 1:10 .-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. ii., p. 267. Rev 1:10-20 .-Expositor, 1st series, vol. ii., p. 115. Rev 1:12-17 .-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. vii., No. 357.

Rev 1:13 Objective Faith.

I. If we were asked to fix upon the most prominent want in the spiritual life of the present time, we might perhaps not untruly say that it is the want of objective faith. We fail to grasp the realities of the spiritual world, and live in shadows. Visions pass before us, and we believe that in them is our life, but where is the entranced consciousness of their reality? Where is the abiding feeling of their substance, their power? Where is the fresh, warm faith which ever sees One like unto the Son of man moving amid sacraments, and taking the shape of human symbols? Where is the rapturous conviction that pierces at once through the veil of visions and sees the well-known features by a perpetual inspiration? And yet this is undeniably the character of the faith which has drawn the soul to God at all times, and it was to perpetuate this life of faith that in the Revelation our Lord chose symbols wherein to enshrine His presence.

II. Consider some of the bearings of this law of spiritual life. (1) The symbolic visions of the Revelation are an argument in favour of the sacramental teachings of the Church, of the system which represents sacraments as outward forms containing and conveying grace. (2) Again, as objective faith is the means of sustaining the spiritual life, so is it the true antidote of one of the great dangers which beset the soul in times of strong religious excitement: that of morbid self-contemplation. Our safety is to lose our own consciousness in the greater consciousness of the unseen world. (3) Once more, the same truth holds good as to our progress in any single grace. We gain more by looking on what is perfect than by striving against what is imperfect.

T. T. Carter, Sermons, p. 170.

References: Rev 1:13 .-Spurgeon, Evening by Evening, p. 343. Rev 1:14 . -Talmage, Old Wells Dug Out, p. 231. Rev 1:17 .-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxvi., No. 1533; G. Macdonald, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xxxiv., p. 215.

Rev 1:17 The Keys of Hell and of Death.

I. Looking back upon His incarnate course below, our Lord testifies that He, the Eternal, Living One, died in the verity of His human nature. The solemnity and grandeur of this allusion to His death and the wonderful way in which it is connected with His person as the fountain of life conspire to make this testimony of the ascended Lord unspeakably impressive. We cannot but be struck with the fact that, in His review of His past among men, our Lord makes His having died sum up all. It is impossible to do justice to the risen Saviour's words unless we make them the measure of the design of the Incarnation itself. God became man that the Living One might become the dead.

II. "Behold, I," the same who died, "am alive for evermore." Undoubtedly there is here an undertone of triumph over death, such as becomes Him who by dying conquered the last enemy. It is as if the Lord, who confesses that He was dead, asserts that notwithstanding He still and ever lives. In virtue of His essential life, He could not be holden of death, but continued in His incarnate person to live evermore. Having died for mankind, He now lives to be Lord over all, or, as St. Paul says, "Christ both died and rose and revived that He might be Lord of the dead and the living." His own testimony is, "I am alive for evermore." It is His eternal encouragement to His troubled Church and to every individual member of it.

III. No Christian dies but at the time when the Lord appoints. There is a sense in which this is true of every mortal, but there is a very special sense in which the death of His saints is cared for. Their life is precious to Him, and He will see that without just cause it shall not be abridged by one moment. To him who is in Jesus there can be no premature end, no death by accident, no departing before the call from above. The Lord Himself, and in person, opens the door and receives the dying saint.

W. B. Pope, Sermons and Charges, p. 19.

Love in the Glorified Saviour.

I. When the Man of sorrows had ceased to walk in sorrow, and He that was acquainted with grief had all tears for ever wiped from His eyes, do we find that He in any degree laid aside His human sympathies, that He had less love, less compassion, less feeling, for our infirmities? Because, as it seems to me, this was an important crisis in His course. He is lifted far above all personal yearning for human companionship. Receiving the homage of the principalities and powers in the heavenly places, does He still invite to Him, will He still give rest to, the weary and the heavy-laden? This demand of our backward, unready, wayward souls He has fully satisfied. He called Mary by her name, and entrusted her with words of comfort to those whom He still knew as His brethren: that He was ascending to His Father and their Father, to His God and their God. Nor was this the only proof given of His love and sympathy on that memorable day: "Go your way; tell His disciples and Peter that He goeth before you into Galilee."

II. We have in the risen Saviour all that our hearts can desire. Not one of His human sympathies has been lost by His resumption of glory; not one of the attributes of Divine omnipotence has been limited by His taking human nature into the Godhead. He remains as He was even when on earth: perfect man. He is in communion with our whole nature. Not a sigh is uttered by any overburdened heart which He does not hear; not a sorrow in the wide world but it touches Him. And herein is the great lesson for our infinite consolation and encouragement: that the Son of God, high as He is above all might, and majesty, and power, is not too high to be a dear Friend to every one among us; that love can never die; that among the glories of the Godhead itself it is uneclipsed, not obscured, but is highest in the highest, and of men, and of angels, and of God Himself, is the brightest crown and the most blessed perfection.

H. Alford, Quebec Chapel Sermons, vol. iv., p. 189.

The Living Christ.

This sublime apocalypse is the climax of revelation. It carries us forward from narrative to prophecy, from facts to truths, from present conditions to permanent issues. It crowns the story of redemptive agencies with a vision of redemptive achievements. It is a book of completions, of finishing touches, of final results. It takes up the broken threads of history, and weaves them into the fabric of eternity. It turns our gaze from what has been and is around us, to what is and shall be before us. Above all, it advances our thought from the Christ of history to the Christ of eternity. It translates for us the Man of sorrows into the crowned and conquering Lord of a supreme spiritual empire.

I. This text is Christ's new introduction of Himself to the Church militant, an introduction of Himself from above to His disciples left below. It is the revelation of Himself in His lordship, clothed with the authority and resource of spiritual empire. On His head are many crowns; in His hands are the keys of mastery; to His service yield all God's powers. But I want you to note that right in the centre of this shining vision the old familiar Christ of the Gospels is made clearly discernible. Not only does He introduce Himself as the Living One with the keys, but as the One who became dead, the One therefore who lived and moved within the range of men's observation. Christ was not content to show Himself in His glory, endowed with the splendour of Divine power. He was careful to claim His place on the field of history, to reaffirm His identity as the Son of man, to revive the facts of His incarnate life, and to link what He is in heaven to what He was on earth. The human brow is visible through the Divine halo. The hand that grasps the sceptre bears the nail-marks of the tragedy. His eyes, albeit that John saw them as flaming fires, recall the tear-drops which fell at Bethany and over Jerusalem. And it is the Christ Himself that throws into promise these lineaments of His humanity. He permits us to look at His crown, but while as yet we turn to look at it He lifts before us the vision of His cross, He unveils for us the splendours of His throne, ay, and He bids us to look at the steps which led up to it and at the inscriptions which they bear, and the heavenly writing spells Bethlehem, Nazareth, Gethsemane, Calvary, Olivet.

II. The historic Christ, who lived, spake, worked, died, and rose again in our midst, is our ultimate ground of verification for the great spiritual truths and hopes which inspire and quicken us today. We are asked to believe that it is possible for us to be just and to believe in lofty and generous thoughts of God and man which today happily fill the Church-we are told we can believe these apart from history; we can accept them as sentiments kindled in us by the direct operation of the Spirit of God. There is a truth in the assertion, but only a half-truth. For in the last analysis of things my faith in these high truths about God and about man runs back for verification to the life God lived amongst us and the sacrifice which He wrought in our behalf.

III. But the text tells us we must not stop there, that the Christ of history is only the beginning, that the cross of Christ is only the finger-post that Christ is yonder and lives, that Christ is here inside and lives, and that the faith of Christ bids us turn from distant history when we have built upon it to find Christ here and now, a living presence in our own hearts and in the world. The grand and fatal blunder of evangelical theology is that it stops with the cross of Calvary, stops before Christ. It forgets that He rose again and lives; it forgets that, while by His death we are reconciled to God, it is by His life that we are saved. It forgets, or is only beginning now adequately to remember, that, while our great structure of faith rests upon solid foundations on the earth, it builds and caps its towers away up in the heavens. It will not do for you and me to stand on the slopes of Olivet gazing up at the departing Christ, or our conception of Christ and of His Gospel, and our character, experience, and hope, will suffer disastrous impoverishment. The men of Galilee had all the facts of Christ's life, and after the Resurrection they had some appreciation of their meaning and scope. But they had no adequate Gospel, they had no large and compelling Christian life, until the Christ of eternity revealed Himself unto them. Although Christ's last words to His disciples were, "All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth; go ye out and preach," He immediately checked Himself and said, "Not yet; not yet: tarry ye in Jerusalem until ye be endued with power from on high." And that power was the vision of Christ, that pentecostal baptism of the risen Lord, that personal experience of Christ's return and indwelling.

C. A. Berry, British Weekly Pulpit, vol. iii., p. 49.

References: Rev 1:17 , Rev 1:18 .-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii., No. 1028; W. Cunningham, Sermons, p. 187; W. Brock, Christian World Pulpit, vol. x., p. 312; A. M. Fairbairn, Ibid., vol. xxix., p. 97; Homiletic Magazine, vol. x., p. 269.

Rev 1:18 Death.

Death has been scoffingly called the preacher's commonplace, but a commonplace truth, like a commonplace person, is often only a name for one with whose appearance we are very familiar, and whose character we are too indolent to probe. We limit the word "dissipation" in our moral phraseology to one or two particular forms of self-destruction; but in scientific language our whole existence is one long dissipation of energy. Life is but an episode in the universe of dying.

I. Dying may be converted into a daily sacrifice, offered up to love. First, there is the very exuberance of life's energy and joy. Indulge that to the utmost in the lust of the flesh and as the pride of life, and its speedy end will be decay of the body, decay of the affections, decay of the mind; but sacrifice your flesh by discipline, in communion with your Lord, and you will gather daily fresh strength of body, and with it of mind and of affection, to be converted into fresh channels, and in its turn to be employed, not as an instrument of pleasure, but of usefulness and work.

II. Turn to the intellectual life, and you will find it fraught with the same double possibilities of death and sacrifice. Use thought as a means to pleasure, and it will crumble at your touch, and you will die murmuring the foolish murmur, "There is one end to the wise man and to the fool." Sacrifice it to the help of others, cost the sacrifice what it may, and Wisdom will be justified of her children, for they will have learned that she is a loving spirit.

III. For the life of thought carries us on once more to the life of love. Turn round upon and accept the limitations of love, and offer them in sacrifice, and by sacrificing overcome them. Christ has sacrificed life, and thought, and love to you, that you may receive back the love you gave Him with the addition of that infinite love which is His essence, and all the thought you gave Him made perfect in His infinite wisdom, and the life that you gave up to Him translated into His eternal life of glory.

J. R. Illingworth, Sermons, p. 1.

Rev 1:18 The text shows-

I. That we must look higher than a natural agency for the account of the death of a single individual. Of course here, as in other departments of His administration, our Lord works by second causes. Disease, violence, and natural decay are His instrumentality. But who calls the instrumentality into play? Who sets it at work? Who first touches the hidden spring? Undoubtedly the great Redeemer. Death is a solemn thing, a thing of vast moment, and cannot be decreed except immediately by Him. The key is in His hand exclusively; the great summons goes forth from His presence, and is spoken by His lips. The Jewish doctors have a saying that there be three keys which God reserves exclusively for Himself: the key of rain, the key of birth, and the key of death. We Christians will accept the proverb, only observing that this authority is at present delegated to One who is Partaker at the same time of two whole and perfect natures-of the manhood no less than of the Godhead.

II. Again, death is often regarded in the mass, and on a large scale, a view which derogates altogether from its awfulness and solemnity. Death is the transaction of an Individual with an individual, of Christ the Lord with one single member of the human family. For every individual the dark door turns afresh upon its hinges.

III. Death is no way the result of chance. The death of each person is predestined and forearranged. Christ Himself trod the dark avenue of death; He Himself passed into the realm of the unseen. There are His footsteps all along the path, even where the shadows gather thickest round it, as there were the footsteps of the priests all along the deepest bed of Jordan. "Though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me."

E. M. Goulburn, Occasional Sermons, p. 241.

The Keys of Hell and of Death: an Easter Day Sermon.

It is our risen Saviour's own grand chant of victory; it is our living Lord's own loving assurance to His Church of what that resurrection life shall be to us. And He puts to it His own "Amen." To every other truth we place that seal, but to this only He. And He only can who knows the power of that risen life. And therefore His own heart seals what His own hand hath done, that it may be His Church's portion: "Amen." "I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death." You will observe that Christ uses an expression which confines this particular character of life to Himself: "I am He that liveth, and was dead," the One only "dead" who "lives."

I. It is the risen life of Christ to which we are united, and by which we live. The previous life of Christ on the earth was rather the life of substitution. The life which He took from this day is the representative life; that is, it is our life. Is not it a true Easter thought, a child of resurrection, that we ought to be happy, very happy, much happier than we are, if only for no other reason but because Jesus, the Jesus we copy, rose to happiness, and is a "Man of joy"? This day we commemorate the greatest triumph that the universe has ever seen. Into the great empire of the prince of darkness, Christ, Christ in His solitary strength, without man or angel, made His bold invasion; He penetrated into the very strongholds of his power; He crushed his "head"; He bore away the insignia of his kingdom; and when He came back again, this day, He held in His hand "the keys" of all Satan's empire. The door of paradise, so iron-bound by its once cruel devastator, was unlocked and thrown wide open. The sword which fenced it lay buried in His breast; and the power over all the deep and the horrid walls of eternal misery was vested in Jesus only. There is no prisoner but he who is "the prisoner of hope," no death but the death which is the seed of life, no sorrow that can pass the threshold of this little life, and no power to sin or fall again when once we enter there!

II. By the same power and pledge even now, it is He, and He alone, who can undo the iron shutters and the fast-bound chains of some dark, hard heart, and let in the light of truth and the sunshine of pardon and peace. It is He, and He alone, who can "bind the strong man" in a sinner's heart, and bid the man go forth into the free ranges of that large "liberty wherewith He makes His people free." And I love to know that it is He who holds already "the keys." For who so well as He, our Brother, who has gone through all life and all death, and has sympathy with all, and who has proved what it is to live in such a world as this, with all its sufferings and all its sorrows, and what it is to die, and to be buried, and to lie in the dark, cold tomb, and to come out of it to live again, and to walk our paradise, and to enter our heaven, and to live there that human life of which He trod every step in its proper order, from the cradle to the tomb and from the tomb to the throne-who like Him could be a real presence in life, in death, in the grave, in paradise, in eternity, who can, in the exactness of His own perfect truth, say, "I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore, Amen; and have the keys of hell and of death"?

J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons, p. 126.

Rev 1:18 The Life of the Ascended Christ.

I. It is very hard for us to realise the truth that Christ lives the same in will and nature as when He stilled the waves on Galilee and raised the widow's son from the dead, not because His living still is a mystery before which the stubborn reason refuses to bow, but only because, in spite of His Gospel and the many triumphs of the Christian faith, the world is still so heathen. The wheat grows, and with it the tares, and the tares grow rank and strong, and the harvest is not yet. But such discouragements to faith have always been since Christ first came on earth, and our remedy against the overwhelming mass of evil that is in the world lies in our individual personal warfare against it. Stand idle in the world's market-place, and everything is dark, and hope has fled. Take service under the Master of the vineyard against one evil influence, lay but one idol in the dust, feel that the kingdom of righteousness numbers you also among its subjects, and then, though a cloud has before hid the ascended Saviour from your sight, lo! the vision of Stephen is repeated: you see the heavens open and Jesus standing on the right hand of God.

II. Should a visitor go his way and say, "I came to see how Christ looked in a Christian country, and I found many spurious Christs and many miscalled gospels, but the Christ of St. Luke and St. John I did not find," why he speaks but idle words; for wherever there is at work the Spirit of righteousness there is the Son of man, the ascended, the ever-living Christ, not in the sects, not in our little systems, which are born and perish in a day, not in the petty cobwebs men may spin, but in a million inarticulate prayers, in the numberless acts, and words, and thoughts of righteousness and love that every day go up to heaven from obscure saints, men and women struggling to be true and good against temptations to be bad of which we can form no idea. "Behold, I am alive for evermore."

A. Ainger, Sermons in the Temple Church, p. 310.

The God-Man in Glory.

The glorified humanity of Christ in heaven is the source of encouragement and stimulus to His people amid the trials and conflicts of earth. Not to John only, but to all His people, and not in reference to any one source of fear, but in reference to the whole of their spiritual conflict, Christ says, "Fear not: I am He that liveth, and was dead; and, behold, I am alive for evermore."

I. The position of the believer here is one of conflict. Christ, it is true, has called him to peace. But this peace is peace with God; peace of conscience; peace in the prospect of judgment and eternity; peace in the order and harmony of a restored moral nature. It is not peace with sin; it is not peace with Satan; it is not peace with the empire of darkness. All these are the enemies of God and of Christ, and no man can enter into a covenant of peace with God through Christ without finding himself by that very act placed in a position of antagonism to all the powers and principles of evil. Hence the Christian life is constantly compared to a warfare, for which believers are to be constantly prepared, and in which they are steadfastly to persist.

II. Why is the human nature of Christ exalted to the throne of heaven? (1) He is there as the assurance of the acceptance of His work. The work of Christ was the work which the Father had given Him to do, and it was in human nature that He undertook to do it. He is there because He finished the work which the Father had given Him to do. (2) Christ is in heaven in human nature to attest the perpetual sufficiency of His one sacrifice. He has offered His body unto God as a living sacrifice, and now there is no more offering for sin. (3) Christ is in heaven in glorified human nature as the pledge and promise of the final redemption of all that are His. (4) He is not only in the heavenly glory in our nature, but He is there in that nature to prosecute the work of our final redemption.

W. L. Alexander, Christian Thought and Work, p. 273.

Rev 1:18 I. How is the perpetuity of Christ in heaven connected with the work of our justification? The priesthood of Christ being perpetual, yet employing but a single sacrificial act, it must consist in a constant reference to that sacrifice of which His own blessed person stands in heaven as the undying memorial. The interests of the universe are dependent on His fiat, yet, amidst all those complicated interests, He is still a Man and busy for men. The human heir of eternal life is regarded as something altogether peculiar and consecrated. Angels look forward with eager interest to the hour when they who by so singular a connection are now "one in Christ" shall enter into the visible unity of His eternal kingdom.

II. But in relation to His overthrow of sin the eternal life of Christ is yet more distinctly the fountain of blessing to us in being the immediate source, not only of justification, but of holiness, not only of gracious acceptance into the favour of God, but of all the bright train of inward graces by which that favour effectuates itself in us. On Christ's life is suspended the prostration of moral evil in the universe. It shall continue to exist, but only as the dark monument of His triumph; it shall exist, but in chains of feebleness and defeat.

III. Christ is alive as the eternal Conqueror and Antagonist of sin and death. Christ, Himself exalted to glory, fixes the barriers to the energies of pain and death; annihilates not the foe, but imprisons him; makes him the accursed minister of His own dread vengeance, and publicly manifests to the universe that, if misery exists, it exists only as a permitted agent in the awful administration of God. He, the source of life, is still predominant over all and known to be so, known yet more deeply to be so as the life He gives is mantling around Him into intenser glory. Life and happiness again are one, for happiness is bound up in the very essence and nature of the life that Christ bestows; they are inseparable as substance and quality, as the surface and its colour.

W. Archer Butler, Sermons Doctrinal and Practical, 1st series, p. 164.

References: Rev 1:18 .-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xv., No. 894; J. Baldwin Brown, Christian World Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 389; Preacher's Monthly, vol. vii., p. 220.

Rev 1:20 Note the fitness of the symbol of the golden candlestick.

I. In its position. The golden candlestick stood within the Holy of holies, hidden from the view of all without by the curtain, formed in blending shades of blue, scarlet, and purple, curiously embroidered with figures of cherubim. The high-priest was guided by its soft yet steady light when he entered the holy place once every year to make atonement for the sins of the people. The Church of Christ still waits without the veil, and sheds a blessed light to show the world the Saviour.

II. Again, the symbol of the golden candlestick reminds us very beautifully of the office of the Church. It does not sanctify, nor save, but it does hold forth the true light and shed its brightness on a darkened world. The Holy of holies had no window to let in the light, and had the golden candlestick been taken away, or its lamps left untrimmed, all would have been profoundest darkness. How eloquently does this symbol speak of the necessity for the Church to stand up as the light-bearer of Him who is "the Light of the world."

III. The golden candlestick symbolically taught the unity of the Church. The seven branches were not separate lamp-bearers, but parts of the same candlestick, the seven lights all blending harmoniously into one. And so with the several apostolic branches of the Holy Catholic Church: all belong to Christ, and borrow light from Him.

IV. Again, the symbolical teaching of the text points out the source of life to the Church. Day by day the golden lamp was supplied with fresh oil by the attendant priest-oil made from olives bruised in a mortar. Even the consecrated lamp, set apart for the uses of the sanctuary, required to be constantly fed. In like manner the Church would be left in darkness and gloom should the illuminating grace of the Holy Spirit be withdrawn.

V. The symbol suggests the beauty of the Church and its holy services.

VI. The image of the text reminds us of the value of the Church.

J. N. Norton, Golden Truths, p. 105.

Reference: Rev 1:20 .-Expositor, 1st series, vol. viii., p. 202.