Reading:
Revelation 4,5.
When we commenced this series of
studies with the first chapter of the book of the
Revelation, we said that the book of Genesis and the book
of the Revelation bound the whole history of this world:
one the beginning, the other the ending. The very first
phase of that history is governed by man and the tree of
life. The book of the Revelation opens not with that man,
but with the MAN — the new creation Man
— and brings us to the tree of life. These two
things underlie the whole of the history from the
beginning to the end, from the beginning of Genesis to
the end of Revelation — man and the tree of life. In
other words, the overruling factor throughout the whole
of history is this matter of life in a man, or life in MAN.
That is the great issue. Around that, in relation to
that, concerning that, everything goes on.
The Dominant
Factor of Life
Here, in this book of the
Revelation, you can see how this is prominent and
dominant. In the first chapter, we have seen the
presentation of the Man living, the living Man, the Man
of the new creation, the Son of Man, as He is there
called, who announces concerning Himself: “I am...
the Living one; and I was dead, and behold, I am alive
for evermore.” That governs all that will follow.
We come to chapter 4, and here the
great factor, nearest to the throne, the very centre and
heart of the universe, is that which is symbolized in the
four cherubim, or “living ones”. (“Beasts”,
in the Authorised Version, and “creatures”, in
the Revised Version, are misleading. It is simply “living
ones”, or “living things”.) Here, right at
the heart of things, next to the throne, is a symbolic
embodiment of LIFE, and the ascendant feature of
that fourfold symbolism is MAN. We see elsewhere
in the Scriptures how, with the cherubim, the man feature
dominates the whole.
Passing into chapter 5, we find the
creation brought into view in this symbolic
representation. The whole creation — the lion, the
ox, the eagle, the man — creation fourfold is
represented there, in a LIVING state. Here it is
the whole question of redemption, the redemption of the
creation. You will notice that it is again summed up in
the matter of LIFE: the whole creation redeemed
unto life, found now through redemption in a state of
life, in virtue of the work of the Lamb slain.
And later, as the book begins to
come to its end and to sum things up, we are introduced
to the tree of life, with its universal benefit; and then
the “river of water of life, bright as crystal,
proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb”
(22:1), and everything living where the river of life
comes. And the last glorious sound and voice in the book
of the Revelation is: “And the Spirit and the bride
say, Come... And he that is athirst, let him come: he
that will, let him take the water of life freely”
(22:17).
So we see: the first thing in
Genesis — life; the last thing in Revelation —
life. That is a very brief and imperfect summary, in
order to indicate how dominating is this matter of life.
“I am He
that Liveth”
Let us for a minute go back to the
beginning of this book of the Revelation — because
it is the summation of history from beginning to end
— and look at the language used here by the Son of
man. “I am... he that liveth”, “the
Living one” (Rev. 1:17,19). That is a
discriminating statement. It quite obviously suggests
that He is unique. If I were to say to you, “I am
alive!”, you would reply, “And so am I! You are
not so very different from me!” Ah, but, you see,
when the Lord Jesus here makes this announcement, no one
can say in the same way, “I am alive.” As the
beginning, as the first and the last, as the firstborn of
the dead, as the representation of God’s thought, He
stands alone. “I am he that liveth”. He is
evidently distinguished by a life not elsewhere
possessed. “In him was life”, says the same
writer (John 1:4). “I am he that liveth.” How
much is contained in that word “liveth”! If you
want to see the content of that word as used by John
— what this life means, what its potency is, its
tremendous effectiveness, its rich potentialities —
you should go right through the book of the Revelation.
This life gets right to the very throne of the universe
and is there in the place of government.
“I am he that liveth; ...I
became dead.” What is the significance of that?
Oh, wonder! — it is this. “When I accepted,
yielded to, went into death — when I ‘became
dead’ — I did so in order that I might take on,
as a wrestler, a boxer, a fighter takes on an opponent,
the full force of death, and enter into a mighty conflict
with death. It was not just that I passively died, that I
was crucified here, but I deliberately BECAME DEAD.”
In the other words of John: “No one taketh it away
from me, but I lay it down of myself... This commandment
received I from my Father” (John 10:18). “I
laid down My life. Deliberately, consciously, knowing
exactly what I was doing, with full intelligence and
meaning, I became dead, in order to take up this mighty,
terrible enemy, to take him on and to rend him, to break
his power and subject him entirely to Myself.”
“I became dead, and behold,
I am alive unto the ages of the ages.” This is a
life which will never see death again; this is a life
which has no death ending; this is a life which will
never, never again come under the power of death. “I
am alive unto the ages of the ages, and I have the
keys” (the symbols of authority) “of
death and of Hades.”
“The
Firstborn Among Many Brethren”
Well, if that were all, that would
be something — that would be a great deal for us:
for all that is truly for us, on our behalf — not on
His own behalf, but on ours — and all that is
gathered into Him for us to possess through faith. But
then we come to the next phase, a further phase, of this
matter. For He as the new creation Man is not alone. He
is “the firstborn from the dead” (Col. 1:18),
“the firstborn among many brethren” (Rom.
8:29). He is the Head of a Body, and so now what has been
true in His case has to be made true — not
theoretically and doctrinally, but actually true —
in the whole of this new creation man, collectively and
corporately. That is what lies behind these messages to
the seven churches. In effect it amounts to this: “Through
faith in Me, through faith in the meaning of My death and
resurrection, you become possessors of My life — of
that very life which in Me has overcome death. I gave you
that life, eternal life, and you, possessing that life,
have been subjected, like Me, to the ordeal of testing,
the testing out of that life as to its quality, its
potency. What has happened to you? What has happened to
the testimony of that life in you?”
Well, we find that in the majority
of the churches, as representing the whole history of the
church, the greater part has not lost its life, but has
allowed its life, in differing measures, to succumb to
the power, the onslaught of death. It has not been
proved, through the faith and the attitude and the stand
taken, to be what it is. The testimony of Jesus IS
this, but the testimony, in terms of life absolutely,
unreservedly triumphant over death, has been in measure
lost. For various reasons, on differing grounds, the life
has not been made to manifest itself in its mighty
qualities of holiness and purity and in its tremendous
power and energy.
The risen Christ is saying: “You
have been put to the test in the presence of death, as I
was.” Not, of course, in the sense of redemption,
atonement; that does not apply to us. There were other
aspects of the meaning of the cross, but its innermost
meaning was this, that He met the full force and range of
spiritual death in this universe and destroyed it, in
Himself — a Man for man. “Now”, He says,
“I pass on that life to you, and with it I pass on
the testimony, My testimony — ‘the testimony of
Jesus’. You are in this world, placed in this world,
not guarded, kept, from the assaults of spiritual death,
but subjected to it in numerous, almost countless, forms
and ways. This force of death is allowed still to remain
and to assail you — whether openly or secretly,
manifestly or hiddenly. In every conceivable way, and
many inconceivable ways, this one thing is at work, this
power of death, and you are there to prove that I became
dead and am alive for evermore, that I destroyed death
and am henceforth alive in the power of an indissoluble,
eternally deathless, life.”
The Certainty
of the Ultimate Triumph of Life
As we know, the churches, and the
church which they represented, largely failed. But then
suddenly we leave the failure of earth conditions, all
that is going on down here, and the voice calls us up
higher. “Come up hither, and I will show thee...”,
and in the Spirit we are caught right away from the
earth. We see a throne; and, immediately encircling the
throne, in touch with the throne, we find these living
ones — a representation in the presence of God of
life absolutely regnant, triumphant; life reigning.
“throne” is the great word here — a
throne, and thrones — and that which pre-eminently
characterizes them is life. The throne is exercising its
great authority and dominion in terms of life, because
there is a Lamb there who has abolished death and is
alive for evermore.
Because God has that testimony right
there in the throne, in His very presence, there is going
to be an ultimate triumph, an ultimate glorious triumph.
The churches may fail in part, the individuals that make
up the churches or the church may lose their testimony,
may stumble along the way, may go down before death again
and again, but the end of the story is a tree of life and
a river of water of life. It is life absolutely
triumphant at the end, because it is secured in Him who
is the beginning.
Eternal Life
the Occasion of Satanic Opposition
What is the value of this? To begin
with, it says to us that this life, this eternal life
that we have received, is the very occasion of all that
we experience of satanic opposition. For it is the
saints, it is believers, who know so much more of this
than anyone else. All that we are allowed to undergo of
opposition, of suffering, of knowing spiritual death
— what is the explanation of it all? Physical death,
of course, is universal; but this spiritual hostility in
terms of death, to kill you, to kill your testimony, to
destroy your note of triumph, to do anything that covers,
hides, beclouds or eclipses this life — the very
life itself is the occasion of it.
Do understand that, if you had not
got the life, the enemy would not be after you as he is.
Our possessing the life is the continuation of the
testimony of Jesus that He has conquered death, and it is
that testimony that the enemy is after. We compose the
church, and it is the church which is His Body, which is
the vessel of the testimony of Jesus — and the
testimony of Jesus is that He became dead and is alive
for evermore, and all that that means — it is the
church which is the object of terrible hatred, animosity,
vindictiveness, on the part of the enemy, to destroy that
testimony of Jesus. This is no new truth to many, but may
the Lord bring it home to us both as a challenge and as
an explanation. It is not that the enemy does not like
you or me. It is that life — the regnancy of that
life, and the testimony of its mighty victory — that
he is after. It is the life which is the occasion of all
the trouble, the explanation of all our strange
experiences.
But then, blessed be God, the
message here is also that, though we may fail many times
and grievously, our testimony may for a time become
eclipsed, we may know the overflowing of death in spirit
or in other ways, the end is a picture of complete
deliverance from death, the end is the full triumph of
life. And that is not something said as of a future
thing. Thank God, many have enough proof of this in their
spiritual history. There are many who know that they have
more than once seemed to “touch bottom”. Again
and again, in our spiritual history, we have got down so
low that it seemed no recovery was possible. We have just
come to despair, come to the place of giving it all up:
it seems so impossible and hopeless; we are such a
failure. But the Lord has given us an experience of life
again and again. We have come up, have we not? We have
just been amazed that it was ever possible that we should
have come up again, but we have. It was not that we
struggled out of the mire, it was not that by some
tremendous effort of ours we got ourselves clear. No, no
effort was possible, but we had the life, and although
for the time being we seemed to be crushed, almost
buried, and we did not feel that we had any divine life
at all, nevertheless the Lord has borne with us and has
done this very thing.
Oh, yes, we are responsible very
often. If we had been more watchful, if we had stood our
ground, if we had laid hold of the Lord more continually,
very often it need not have been. But there are
experiences where, in spite of ourselves, we seem to be
encompassed and overwhelmed by death. In spite of all our
laying hold of the Lord, we have gone into an experience
of terrible darkness. Everything seems to have gone. And
then, apart from ourselves — save that, in some
weak, very weak way, we have still hoped in the Lord,
still looked to the Lord, still feebly trusted the Lord
— the Lord has sovereignly come in and we have been
raised up again. And as we look back upon it (apart from
those times when it was due to some sin on our part), we
look back upon many experiences where we cannot say
definitely that it was because of this or that — it
just happened, it came on us, we found ourselves in an
awful conflict with death — and we have to say:
Evidently the Lord was allowing us to know death in order
that we might know life again, that this thing should not
be something we talk about, a theory of ours, a teaching,
but that it should become really living in us, that we
should be the living embodiment of the truth.
The
Embodiment of Life in a Man
This brings us to the very point
that we are trying to stress all through: that this
testimony has got to be IN man, it has got to be THE
MAN HIMSELF — not merely something to teach. As
truly as it was in His case, the Son of man, so it has to
be made in our case, as in the Son of man. This matter of
life has got to be expressed in man-terms, it has to be a
man-way of expression and manifestation. Life is
assailed; yet marvellously, and often strangely beyond
our understanding and comprehension, causing us to be
wonders to ourselves, resurrection has taken place. It
will be like that to the end. Many people have the idea
that if they have eternal life they are going to have a
glorious time. It is all going to be so wonderful —
life, wonderful life, life more abundant — they are
going to be on top always. No, you are not! The very fact
that you have that life will mean that it will be tested
to the utmost, in order that it may be proved in people,
in human beings, that there is One who has conquered
death and all that death means.
And it does not stay there. In the
beginning, when man sinned and the sentence of death was
passed upon him through his sin — “in the day
that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die”, and
he did die, for death is severance of relationship with
God — then the creation was placed under the curse
because of the man. But here you have the Man — the
new Man, the new-creation Man — perfected,
established; and then the whole creation is seen to come
into redemption of life, as Paul says in Romans 8. But
before the creation can come into its life, the sons of
life have got to be manifested, and this life has got to
be made manifest in them as triumphant over death.
When you come into the realm of
resurrection life, of divine fullness, the river flows
and flows and flows. We are not just containers given a
supply for the day — we are channels. It begins
somewhere else high up in the Man in the glory, and comes
flowing down as a river, and it will go on and on. This
is life! The testimony of Jesus is the testimony of life.
When we really touch the Lord Jesus, we touch life, and
if He is present in His Body, the church, in even a small
representation, there ought to be a testimony of life. It
is not a matter of so much light and truth, but of life,
growing life.
The rest of the book of the
Revelation, from chapter 6 onwards, deals with all that
stands in the way of life. The church having been brought
to account on the question of this testimony of life in
Christ, the Lord then takes up the judgment of this
world, as to that which gives ground for death, and deals
with it and progressively passes it out, until it is all
judged and put away and a new creation in life is
established.
Now, if you have lost heart, take
heart! If you have come near to giving up, do not give up
yet. HE is not dead yet! Your Lord has gone up,
and there is still a testimony up there governing. The
throne, that throne, governs, and the end is going to be
life. Let us stand for it — you stand for it! Do not
accept death. The enemy is all the time wanting us to
accept death, he is holding it out to us in one form or
another and wanting us to take it, whereas the Word says,
“Take life!”, “Lay hold on life!”
The Lord help us, so that He may
have in us an unbroken testimony right to the end.