Reading: Revelation 21 and 22.
We
have now reached the end, with this symbolic or pictorial
presentation of what constitutes God’s end: and it
is surely very impressive, and a very significant thing,
that, as we come to the end and are given to see the
city, the phrase “the Lamb” touches everything.
Seven times in connection with the city that phrase
occurs. Everything is based upon the Lamb. The Lamb gives
character and meaning to everything. When the angel said,
“Come hither”, he might just as well have said,
“I will show you the Lamb”; for it is all the
fruit of the Lamb, and that sums up everything in the
Bible. As we have been seeing, the Lamb reaches right
back to what God purposed and intended — a people
answering to the heart and mind of God — and the
Lamb has secured it. Here it is, secured, and this is
what it is like. That people is here represented as
“the holy city, new Jerusalem”, and identified
as “the Lamb’s wife” — such a mixture
of similes that we are compelled to draw back, and say,
“Well, it can only mean that that people is
characterized by two things in one: the city ever and
always stands for government, the seat of government; the
wife, according to God’s mind, always stands for
love: put those two things together and you have the sum
of the whole history — it is the government of
love.” And that is the meaning of the Lamb, the Lamb
of God.
Then
that inclusive truth, the government of love, is analysed
for us, in the sevenfold reference to the Lamb. Without
anything like a full or exhaustive study of the content,
we just light upon a single point in each reference.
The Foundation and Wall of Love
You
notice, then, to begin with, the first mention of the
Lamb after being presented in connection with the bride
— that is, after the statement, “I will show
thee the bride, the wife of the Lamb”. The first
reference to the Lamb after that comes in verse 14:
“And the wall of the city had twelve foundations,
and on them twelve names of the twelve apostles of the
Lamb”. I am not going to touch upon the phrase
“the apostles of the Lamb”. The foundations
bear the inscription of the Lamb. But what is this wall?
What does it stand for? Well, many of you know quite well
that a wall is that which includes and excludes and
declares that within this demarcation a certain state of
things obtains, while a different state of things obtains
without. We speak of it as a “testimony”, the
wall of testimony. Here is a “wall great and
high”, and when you look at the dimensions of this
city wall, you find that it is very great in extent, as
well as in height. It just speaks of the fullness of
Christ in terms of love. It is a big area — there is
a lot inside; and it surely does correspond, as we were
saying in our previous meditation, to Paul’s words
in his Ephesian letter (3:17-19) — “That ye...
may be strong to apprehend with all the saints what is
the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know
the love of Christ which passeth knowledge” —
“the knowledge-surpassing love of Christ”. That
is the wall — “the knowledge-surpassing love of
Christ”. This people, then, to pass from the
typology and symbolism and imagery — this people,
this redeemed people, is the embodiment of the
knowledge-surpassing love of Christ.
The
length: it takes us back to eternity past, to the Beloved
of the Father — so beloved that the Father gave Him
a mighty inheritance: through Him, by Him, unto Him, were
to be all things created (Rom. 11:36; Col. 1:16). He,
says the apostle, was “heir of all things”
(Heb. 1:2). The Beloved; the first-begotten of the
Father; the heir of all things — “that he might
fill all things” (Eph. 4:10); and the purpose was to
sum up all things in Christ. That is the measure of the
Father’s love for the Son. The Father speaks of Him
as “My beloved Son”. All the mighty vast extent
of the love of God is centred in Christ. That is the
length of it — from eternity to eternity. And then
“his grace, which he freely bestowed on us IN the
Beloved” (Eph. 1:6); that is, He made us heirs of
that same love, so that the very love which He has for
His Son is transferred to us. We were “chosen in him
before the foundation of the world”, and on into the
ages of the ages to come. That is the length of His love.
Its
depth is seen in its being redeeming love — cutting
deep down under and beneath the uttermost iniquity.
The
height — “and hath seated us together with him
in the heavenlies” (Eph. 2:6).
And
the breadth — “Whosoever”: “...his
only-begotten Son, that whosoever believeth on him should
not perish, but have eternal life”.
You
see the mighty, all-embracing love of Christ — and
at last there is a people found in that. The foundation
of everything is the Lamb, as embodying God’s great,
redeeming love, and in the end there will be this great
testimony to the greatness of God’s love. It is a
strong foundation. Sometimes you may be tempted to
despair — and well might we despair of ourselves;
and perhaps we might despair of others too. Sometimes we
might wonder if ever we shall get through and come out at
the end all right. Many questions, indeed, arise in us,
forced up by the power that is against us, the strength
of everything, of all that we have to meet both within
and without. Yes, it is tremendously strong, but His love
is stronger. There is a foundation here that cannot be
shaken. It is mighty redeeming love, as suggested by this
very name — the Lamb: a mighty foundation. Well, if
we are there at last in the city — and do not
objectify that: we ARE the city, by grace —
if we are components of that, we shall never be able for
one moment to say anything about it but: Oh, the strength
of His love! It is a deep and mighty foundation. That is
very simple, but very blessed. It is the beginning.
His Cleansing Love
And
then you notice in verse 27 — “There shall in
no wise enter into it anything unclean, or he that maketh
an abomination and a lie: but only they that are written
in the Lamb’s book of life”. Leave the last
word for a minute and get the value of the other. Here is
access into the city, or having a place in this: and how
do we have a place? Yes, by His love — but oh, by
His CLEANSING love! Really there is nothing that
can cleanse and purify more mightily than true love. The
Lord is dealing with us in chastening, yes, disciplinary
suffering, but we are told quite definitely that it is
because He loves us. And here His love must work in a
cleansing way. You notice that these are the things that
are not according to the Lamb — unclean,
abomination, lie. These are the things that the Lamb of
God destroyed. The “unclean” — He is a
Lamb without spot and without blemish. He destroys in
Himself everything unclean and unholy; and by His mighty,
mighty work of the Cross He will present this Bride to
Himself “not having spot or blemish or any such
thing”. — “Abomination”: that is a
word that would take us through a very great deal of the
Bible, and we dare not stay at the moment with it. It is
that which God abhors: an abomination to God. What is it?
If pride is an abomination to God, if pride was the thing
that commenced all the mischief — when pride was
found in Lucifer’s heart and all the trouble came
from that proud conception — we can understand that
pride is the root-sin and that everything of pride is an
abomination to God. And the Lamb is just the opposite
— emptied of all self, all pride. You find the Lamb
is the synonym for meekness, not pride. He by His own
blood would purge us of that abominable thing. —
“That maketh a lie”: yes, it was a lie that
started the course of iniquity from the “liar from
the beginning”. Everything untrue, everything false,
everything that is not absolutely clear and transparent,
open, capable of standing the searching eyes of Him whose
eyes are as a flame of fire: all that is dealt with by
the Lamb. A state of purity is brought about.
“Having the glory of God: her light was like unto a
stone most precious, as it were a jasper stone, clear as
crystal”; absolutely clear.
So
then, this access, this franchise of the city, this right
to be there, comes by the sanctifying work, the
continuous cleansing, of His precious Blood, and the
deepening application of His Cross to all that falsehood
and pride and uncleanness that there is in us. It is His
sanctifying love.
Life From the Throne
“He
showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal,
proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb”
(Rev. 22:1). Life from the throne. What throne is
this? It is of God, yes, and of the Lamb. We have seen
through the pages of the book of the Revelation the Lamb
in the midst of the throne; the Lamb as the centre of
worship, of adoration; the Lamb in the place of
supremacy, of dominion. What is this supremacy?
We are
dealing with principles, not with figures. Sometimes the
figurative and symbolic gets in our way. We cannot help
getting a certain kind of mentality which visualizes
things. It would be ridiculous to literalize here. To
talk about a wife being a city and a city being a wife is
absurd. But, you see, you are dealing with principles,
and here you have a throne, which speaks of government,
dominion, power, authority, victory; and life coming out
of that — life coming from the victory of the Lamb.
How
can I make that helpful? Perhaps in this way. We are
concerned in these meditations with the followers of the
Lamb, those who “follow the Lamb whithersoever he
goeth”. This means that, if we in fellowship with
Christ are baptized into His death, as an experience, not
once nor twice, but ever more deeply, so that there is
being brought about a continuous decrease of ourselves,
in painful death-experiences of many kinds, in order that
we may know the power of His resurrection
proportionately, that is bringing us into a place of
great strength, great power, great authority. This power
of His resurrection, working in life triumphant over
death, does put us in a strong place. If you know what it
is to be taken into a very desperate situation where, but
for God, it is the end, it is death, and then God comes
with the power of resurrection, you have a tremendously
strong position. You are able to say, “Now I know:
this is no theory with me, no fiction, no mere doctrine:
I know beyond any question the power of His resurrection,
the power of His life as triumphant over death”.
That is governmental. You can never govern in a really
spiritual way by just having a doctrine of resurrection.
It does not bring you personally into any place of power
to believe in resurrection as a matter of truth, but go
through it, know it in your own experience through
desperate situations, and you are established. That is
the principle of the throne — coming to know life as
triumphant.
You
will recall that Ezekiel saw this river — and
wherever that river came, death was overcome, life
triumphed. Right down even to the Dead Sea, wherever the
river came everything lived. It is the mighty power of
life, His life, the life of the Lamb imparted to us, a
tremendous thing. Simple as a statement, but not simple
when it comes to going through the experience to know it.
But it is a very powerful position to be in when you are
able to say to other people, “Look here, I have been
in your desperate plight; I have more than once been in
the place where it seemed to me to be an utter end; and I
have known the coming in of the Lord to bring me right up
out of that, right back into life”. That is a
powerful position to be in. It will have very great
influence and weight, be of the greatest value. The river
comes out of the throne, and it is the throne of the
Lamb; that is, it is the government of a life laid down
and raised again. I am only talking about the rest of the
New Testament. God raised Him from the dead, and that is
something you cannot get over, that is a mighty thing,
that is the impact of the throne. “I am... the
Living one; and I became dead, and behold, I am alive
unto the ages of the ages, and I have the keys of death
and of Hades” (Rev. 1:17,18, R.V.M.). That is
the throne, authority in the power of resurrection life,
and that is found here in the people at the end, a mighty
thing that God is doing now.
Light Through Suffering
Then
we pass back again to chapter 21:23 — “And
the city hath no need of the sun, neither of the moon, to
shine upon it: for the glory of God did lighten it, and
the lamp thereof is the Lamb”; the margin says,
“and the Lamb, the lamp thereof”. It does not
matter which way you put it; it means the same. What we
have said about life is also true about light. Light is a
governmental thing, it governs. But what is meant here is
that you come into light through suffering. You come to
possess light and radiate light by way of the Cross.
“The Lamb is the lamp”. Light is not a mental
thing: that is to say, it is not just a matter of having
a store of mental knowledge. That is not light. It is
possible to have an enormous amount of doctrine and truth
and never be luminaries, that is, never register impact
upon darkness. Real light is experimental: that is to
say, it is the fruit of experience, the experience of
suffering.
How
have you children of God come to know what you do know of
the Lord, that real kind of knowledge of the Lord which
is so precious to us, which means so much and which makes
you in that measure of value to others? It is through
suffering, it is through the difficult way the Lord has
led you, it is through the work of the Cross that He has
wrought in you. “The Lamb is the lamp” —
suffering leading to knowledge, to light, to
understanding. It is the only way. These people at the
end will be in the good of a great and wonderful
revelation which has come by their fellowship with Christ
in His sufferings. It is very true. It may not be too
comforting from one standpoint, but it is true; and it
ought to help us to realise this: that the Lord, in the
way in which He is dealing with us, in the sufferings
which He allows to come upon us, is really seeking our
education, that we may have a knowledge of Himself which
can only come that way, and which is a peculiar kind of
knowledge of tremendous value to us and through us to
others. We do not learn in any other way. It is the Lamb,
always the Lamb-principle, the way of suffering and
sacrifice and self-emptying, that brings us into the
knowledge of the Lord. “The Lamb is the lamp
thereof”; and, just as it is deeper death unto
fuller life, so it may often be deeper darkness unto
fuller light.
The
Lord seems to lead us in a way where we are less and less
able naturally to understand Him. He gets us altogether
out of our natural capacity, beyond our capacity for
interpreting His ways. We just do not know what the Lord
is doing, or why He is doing what He is doing; yet it is
the way by which we come to a very real kind of inward
knowledge of Himself. It may not be capable of
explanation in words to anybody, but we know, somehow or
other we know, and that is a mighty thing, a mighty power
of knowledge. It is light through the Cross.
The Wife of the Lamb
“Come
hither, I will shew thee the bride, the wife of the
Lamb” (Rev. 21:9). These people answering at
last to God’s deepest desire and fullest intention
must be a people in the good of the preciousness of
Christ. I think that is what is meant by the wife of the
Lamb. Peter puts it this way: “For you therefore
that believe is the preciousness” (1 Peter 2:7)
— the old version is, “he is precious”
— the preciousness of Christ, an apprehension of how
Christ is to be desired above all others. And this
preciousness has been wrought inwardly. He has, indeed,
seen a preciousness in her — “Christ... loved
the church, and gave himself up for it” (Eph. 5:25)
— preciousness as of a pearl of great price. But
somehow or other with these people that has been turned
the other way, and they have come to such an appreciation
of His love for them that He has become endeared to them
unto an uttermost abandonment to Him. “For this
cause” — and this is the heavenly law of
marriage — “for this cause” to leave
everything else for the one, means just this: such an
apprehension of the preciousness of Christ that all is
for Him, with no reserve whatsoever. That is the
principle of the wife. What the Lord would seek to
produce in us, in growing measure, is that apprehension
of His value which draws us out to Himself ever more
deeply and fully, in this wonderful relationship of
unreserved abandonment to Him as our Lord.
The Lamb the Temple
“And
I saw no temple therein: for the Lord God the Almighty,
and the Lamb, are the temple thereof” (Rev. 21:22). What
is a temple for? Well, the temple is the immediate seat
of God, just where you expect to find God — and the
Lamb is the temple. We shall find God in Christ
crucified, Christ offered for us, Christ our Lamb. It is
in Him as such that we shall ever meet the Lord. There
are many people who are trying to find God without and
apart from Jesus Christ crucified, and they cannot do it
and they never will. Oh, what pathetic and tragic cases
there are like that. We have heard them. “Yes, I
believe in God; I pray to God”. “What does that
mean to you?” “Oh, well, it means a lot to me
to believe that God is; it helps me to think about
God”. “But what is the effect in your
character? Does that really mean victory over sin, does
it really mean salvation?” “Oh, now you are
talking about things that I do not know anything
about”. “Where does God’s Son come in, and
His work on the Cross — His atonement for sin?”
“Oh, no, I cannot accept that”. And so, with
all their believing in God, they are walking either in
the darkness or in the shadows; for there is no way to
God but by Christ crucified. You will never come to
God’s end in any other way. He is the one in whom
alone you will find God. Christ crucified, Christ your
atonement, your sacrifice: that is the meeting place of
God with your heart and of your heart with God.
God’s place is there. “God was in Christ
reconciling the world unto himself” (2 Cor. 5:19);
and you will never find God or reconciliation anywhere
else. These people are the ones who have found God, and
they have found Him in Christ and they know that the Lamb
is the temple.
The Throne of the Lamb
“And
there shall be no curse any more: and the throne of God
and of the Lamb shall be therein” (Rev. 22:3). We
have spoken about the throne and what it means —
governing; but, again, how far-reaching and comprehensive
is this truth, that it is Christ crucified who solves all
problems, who really governs all the situations. We are
carried back to Paul’s letter to the Corinthians,
back, indeed, to that terrible situation amongst the
believers in Corinth. What a deplorable state of things
existed there. It was a condition that might take the
heart out of any man. You might say, “How can we
handle a situation like this? How can this be cleared
up?” And Paul had to sit down with the whole
situation and think it out and pray it over, and then he
arrived at one conclusion. “I determined not to
know anything among you, save Jesus Christ, and him
crucified” (1 Cor. 2:2). Then see how he applies
that. He applies Christ crucified to their divisions, to
their lawsuits, and to the whole situation, and then he
resolves it all into one word — love (1 Cor. 13).
That can solve it, and that will solve it. Every problem,
every situation, can be cleared up by that love of God in
Christ Jesus expressed in the Cross. Yes, the Cross
governs. It is the throne.
When
we have said all that, and it is only so very little,
what do we arrive at as the ultimate meaning? I think it
is in verse 24 of chapter 21. “And the nations
shall walk amidst the light thereof: and the kings of the
earth do bring their glory into it”. Here we
have the secret and principle of service. (And do
remember that, when you are dealing with principles, you
are not dealing with past, present and future. This
picture must not be wholly referred to the future. All
this must not be regarded merely as something yet to
come. The consummation may be future, but the principles
are eternal, they are always present.) The principles of
service, of others being ministered to, others deriving
profit and benefit — is that it is only possible as
the Lord’s people are in fellowship with the Lamb AS
THE LAMB: that is, in fellowship with Him in His
sufferings, in the way of His Cross. That is the only way
to be of value to anyone else. You can never really serve
other people’s spiritual life by study, by the
accumulation of knowledge, or by any technical means
whatever. The measure in which other people are benefited
or helped by you will be just the measure in which you
know the Lamb-life, the way of the Cross.
And
again I come back to this that has been said so often in
these studies. It will be the measure in which we follow
the Lamb, as the LAMB, and what that word means in
all its content, that will be the measure of our present
and eternal value to God in others — just that
measure. Therefore, if the Lord seems to be taking you
more than ordinarily into sufferings; if it does seem
that yours is an unusually hard way, and the Lord’s
hand seems to be very heavily upon you: do interpret in
the light of this ultimate issue in the whole book of
God, that others are to get benefit, others are to come
into some good through the way He is taking you.
That
really is the way of service. The principle of service is
suffering: you cannot get away from it. And the measure
of value is the measure of your fellowship with Him in
His sufferings. I repeat, that we cannot get away from
this — it is true. Perhaps some are now able to
recognize this, and to see quite clearly that, if the
Lord has been able to use them, it has been because of
the deep way in which He has led them — and that is
the justification of it. It is the Lamb everywhere,
stamped upon everything, and ultimately it works out in
value. “The nations... walk by the light
thereof”: they derive their value from this thing
which, wherever you look, from circumference to centre,
has the Lamb on it. God is going to impress and stamp His
people with the Lamb, and so He will secure that
instrument, that vessel, that channel of universal
blessing, upon which He has set His heart.