At the beginning of the
book of the Revelation, we find, on the one hand, a
situation of spiritual loss and failure, weakness, and
many other conditions and features which even the Lord
Himself, in all His grace, has to deplore. Through His
servant John He sends a series of letters to seven
representative churches, aimed at securing the renewing
of the life of His people, and the restoring of those
primary and primal values of their beginnings. Then, it
was a situation of many difficulties - sufferings and
trials and adversities from various quarters and of
various kinds. The Christians at that time were both
actually in a time of much adversity and were moving yet
more deeply into suffering. To one of these churches the
Lord said that they were about to suffer, they
were about to be cast into prison; they were
going to have tribulation for a specified time (2:10). It
was a time when Christians both actually needed real help
and stimulus, and needed to be prepared for further
battles, further conflicts and further sufferings. These
were the two main aspects of the general situation.
In the light of those
facts, we stand back and ask: How did the Lord, and how
does the Lord, meet that need? Indeed, we might say: How
does the Lord ever meet a great need? What is that which
alone will supply the need, and be the key to the
problem, the answer to the demand, and the assured
ground, both of recovery and renewal, and of
fortification for the suffering? And the answer has ever
been, and always is: A new revelation - an unveiling - of
the greatness of Jesus Christ. That is the very platform,
we might say, upon which and from which the Lord moves
into these situations, and into all the situations that
follow in this book. He prefaces everything with this
fresh revelation or unveiling of His own personal
greatness.
That has ever been the
way. Abraham was called upon to take tremendous
decisions, to make immense sacrifices. In his native
country and city, with its marvellous and rich
civilisation, he had a very full life indeed; and,
without assurance that his movement would be justified,
he was called upon to move under sealed orders. 'Get thee
out... unto a land which I will show thee.' 'I will
show... when you get there!' It was a tremendous move,
very costly, and very testing. But if you have wondered
how it was that Abraham went through, met all the tests,
and at last survived, you have, I think, the answer in
these words: "The God of glory appeared unto our
father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia" (Acts
7:2). If ever that happens, you have got something to
move on; you have got a background; you have something
that will again and again come to your rescue in a time
of difficulty.
Moses was called upon
to undertake a tremendous responsibility. We know the
whole story now. Moses was not altogether ignorant of
what he had to face, in Egypt and afterward; and we may
wonder sometimes how he kept to the course and got
through. But we know that he met God 'face to face'; it
could be said equally that 'the God of glory appeared' to
him. Reference is made several times in the Bible to that
encounter with God in the bush. And we are told that
"he endured, as seeing him who is invisible"
(Heb. 11:27). That was the secret of his sustenance.
Joshua was called as a
young man to face very great responsibilities and
undertakings, in the ridding and clearing of that country
of those ten kingdoms, getting that people in - such a
people - he knew them! - to possess the land, and all
that was bound up with it. And no wonder the Lord had to
repeat one word to Joshua continually, to get him on the
move. 'Be of good courage'; 'be strong and of good
courage'; 'only be of good courage... only be strong'
(Joshua 1:6,7,9). How did the Lord give to Joshua the
basis? He 'lifted up his eyes' and saw the 'Captain of
the host of the Lord' (Joshua 5:13,14). From that time it
was all right; he could go on and go through.
Isaiah was a young man
in a very, very difficult day, one of those very cloudy
days in Israel's history. He was taking up his great
prophetic ministry in the face of great difficulties and
threatening problems. How did he get through? 'I saw the
Lord, high and lifted up', he said (Is. 6:1). That is the
answer.
Think of Paul - did
ever a man have to face greater difficulties, oppositions
and antagonisms and sufferings and perils, more than that
man? How did he get through? He saw the Lord, or the Lord
appeared to him. He saw the greatness of Jesus Christ.
Stephen triumphed as he
saw 'the heavens opened, and the Son of Man standing at
the right hand of God' (Acts 7:56). So we could go on.
Some thirty years
later, the Lord's people had come to a point where there
was going to be a devastating blow struck at their
corporate life. It was just on the point of that final
siege of Jerusalem, when everything was going to be
shattered and scattered; a great earth-shaking was about
to take place; all that the Lord Jesus Himself had
foreshadowed, '...not one stone left upon another...',
and all those other terrible things, were all about to
take place within a very little time. How were the
believers going to get through?
The Lord took up a man
- we do not know now exactly who it was; some say one and
some say another - but He took up a man to write what we
call 'The Letter to the Hebrews', and he begins with an
almost matchless unveiling of the greatness of Jesus
Christ! The Lord was saying through that letter: If only
you can get that as your foundation, you will go through
it all. You will not go back as you are being tempted to
do, as perhaps you are contemplating doing. If only you
see how great your Lord is, you will go on. So He laid
the foundation for survival of faith - for that is the
issue; you know how it all comes up in the eleventh
chapter - the survival of faith, on the ground of an
apprehension of the greatness of Christ.
And then we come to
this book of the Revelation, and again we are in the
presence of these things: on the one side, spiritual
declension, failure, breakdown, loss; on the other side,
suffering, growing suffering, terrible afflictions for
the Church. How will the one be remedied and recovery
take place? What is the key to a renewing of spiritual
life when it has reached a low ebb? How shall they go on
through the tribulation and the tribulations, and come
out in victory in the City of God? The Lord's only
answer, His one answer, which has always been successful,
and is the only one which will be successful in any
situation of need, is a new unveiling of the greatness of
the Lord Jesus.
But oh, these are but
words! When we have said these things - and we would all
agree that they are true - we are still so helpless,
because it is the thing that matters - not talking
about it! If only, by the Holy Spirit - and there is no
other way, no other means - we could catch a new glimpse
of His greatness, how many problems that would solve,
questions that would answer, needs that would meet! How overwhelming
it would be! - and when I say 'overwhelming', I mean,
how much would be overwhelmed! A mighty tidal wave,
making all these rocks, upon which we threaten to
founder, as nothing; they are sunk beneath it, disappear
from view.
Now that is not just
language. Look - who is writing this? It is the apostle
John. The apostle John? Yes, that man who walked with
Jesus of Nazareth, listened to Him, watched Him at work,
and, at supper, and at other times, sat next to Him, and
put his head upon His shoulder - the most familiar
picture of a man alongside of a man, in close, devoted,
affectionate association. John always called himself 'the
disciple whom Jesus loved': it showed that there was a
sacred, holy familiarity between John and Jesus, marked
by very human terms and language.
Yet that same man said:
'When I saw Him I fell, as one dead.' It is the
same Jesus, and the same man; but - 'I fell to the ground
as one dead.' And if that One had not, in His great
mercy, come and laid His hand upon him, saying, 'Fear
not, John: I am the first and the last; I am the Living
One', John would have been there as a dead man. It was
the same Jesus - but look at the transition from the
'Jesus of history' to the Christ of glory! That is the
difference. From the John of the Gospels to the John of
the Revelation it is a marvellous and mighty movement! He
never felt like that when he walked with Jesus, devoted
as he was. With his fullest consciousness of who Jesus
was, he was at most perhaps sometimes awestruck and
awe-inspired. It was not until he saw Him glorified that
he went down, helplessly prostrate, like a dead man. It
was a great transition from the Jesus of history to the
Christ of glory.
Now, I take nothing
whatever from the values and blessings of the Gospels,
when I say that I am sometimes afraid that we may dwell
too much upon the Jesus of history, and fail to remember
that the men who wrote those four Gospels wrote them long
after Jesus was glorified. You notice, they did not, at
some point toward the end of His life, when they perhaps
began to sense that He would not be with them much
longer, get away and decide to write the story of that
life - of His birth, and His manhood, and His teaching,
and His miracles - as a mere human, earthly story. When
they wrote, they had all the mighty facts and realities
of His resurrection, ascension and heavenly glory, which
they were seeking to crowd into that story of His life
here, as those who would say: 'That One was This One!
That was not just Jesus of Nazareth - that was the mighty
Son of God from Heaven!' They were crowding every
incident with the fullest apprehension that they had of
the glorified Christ - Christ, who was now there at the
right hand of God! They were not just writing a human
story.
That is the only way in
which to preach the Gospel from the Gospels. Do you
notice, when after His ascension and His glorification
they preached or they wrote, how little, how remotely
little, they ever said about the three-and-a-half years?
- just a fragment here and there. They said very little
about His teaching and His miracles and His walk about
Palestine. They were all occupied with this One
who had been 'crowned with glory and honour' - that was
their message. Yes, there was that other One - Jesus of
Nazareth, 'who went about doing good, and healing all who
were oppressed with the devil' - a sort of passing
reference to that earthly phase, a summary... 'But God
raised Him'! God honoured Him, this One! It will
not get us very far just to be occupied with the
incidents of His earthly life, however precious they are.
If we are going on and going through, we need an
apprehension of that fulness of glory that is His now -
the greatness of Christ.
It is, indeed, just
because men have robbed or stripped Him of His essential
greatness, that we find, down the centuries, the
deplorable conditions that have obtained. Our 'liberal'
theologians have stripped Him of His Deity; with what
result? Oh, devastating results in the impact of Christ
upon this earth! They have made Him a lesser Christ than
He is. The philosophers have just made Him one in their
gallery of great and wise men. It was against that
tendency even with the Christians in Corinth that Paul
raged in his first letter - taking something from the
Lord Jesus, and just putting Him amongst other great men.
The gnostics of Colossae - what were they doing? They had
a theory of angelic ranks and orders, from the highest
order of angelic beings down to the lowest subordinate;
and they put Jesus, perhaps at the top, but as nothing
more than an 'angelic being', robbing Him of His
essential Person. He is Very God!
The 'comparative
religionists', all along and in our own day, are saying,
Well, there are great founders of religions - there is
Buddha, and Confucius, and Mohammed, and Jesus... and
so on. You see the subtlety? - a comparative, not an
absolutely Supreme and unique! And then there are the
humanists of our time, inflating and glorifying man and
humanity to such a point that, after all, humanity will
be deified one day, will reach God-head - and Jesus is
only, after all, the Super-Man! So it goes on, and it is
all these things, this Satanic work, to reduce the size
of Christ, to make Him less than He is, that has done so
much mischief. If we lose, or fail to have, the essential
greatness of Christ in our consciousness, ours is going
to be a lesser spiritual life than it could be, and we
shall break down under the stress and the strain of
adversity. The only thing for every need is the recovery
of His greatness.
Now here He is
presented in the Revelation, and He is not presented in
the language of Deity, although it runs very close. At
some points, you cannot distinguish between the humanity
and the deity. You do not know whether John is speaking
of God or of Christ at certain points. The fact is, he is
speaking of the One who is both. But the title, as we
have already seen, by which He is presented in this
matchless, incomparable unveiling, is 'Son of man'. Let
us now consider the personal greatness of the Son of Man,
who is, at the same time, Son of God, Very God.
We have referred to the
Letter to the Hebrews, and we call it in now for our help
in this matter. We read from it, and we begin with this "effulgence
of his glory", and then we read: "Whom
he appointed heir of all things" -
appointed heir of all things! - "through whom...
he made the ages..." and so on. "But
one hath somewhere testified, saying, What is man, that
thou art mindful of him, or the son of man, that thou
visitest him? Thou ... didst set him over the works of
thy hands: thou didst put all things in subjection under
his feet... We see not yet all things subjected to him.
But we behold him who hath been made for a little while
lower than the angels, even Jesus, because of the
suffering of death crowned with glory and honour, that by
the grace of God he might taste death for every
man."
Here is the Son of Man
in His own personal greatness. See who He is: 'the
effulgence...', 'the express image...' See His
appointment: 'heir of all things'. See His
instrumentality and agency: 'through whom the ages were
made'. The Son of Man - how great this One is! You would
not think that, when you see Him walking about Palestine
- not all that! You do not recognise Him. But that same
One is now here before John, with these devastating
effects; that same One, now revealed, unveiled, as to
what He is essentially in His Person; who He is; what
position He holds. He is here as the Heir of all things
come for His inheritance. And the rest of the book sees
Him working it out - the securing of that inheritance of
which He is the Heir, and, in the end, of a 'new heaven
and a new earth'. What a glorious inheritance comes into
view in the last chapters of this book! This is the Son
of Man; this is His greatness! But we are completely
defeated at any attempt at a true, not exaggerated,
unveiling of Jesus Christ. There is His personal
greatness.
But as Son of Man, we
have, in that very title, His representative
greatness. To borrow again from the Letter to the
Hebrews, where first He is appointed Heir of all things,
then He is the 'Captain of their salvation', 'bringing
many sons to glory'. The word 'captain' there would be
better translated the 'Pioneer' of their salvation - the
One who goes before to lead them into that into which He
Himself has entered. Of course, that is the substance of
this Letter to the Hebrews. He has gone before; He has
entered into the heavens; He has "passed through the
heavens"; He has gone the whole way, and reached the
end, as the Pioneer of the many sons being brought to
glory, whom He calls His 'brethren'. His representative
greatness, as there at the end, in fulness, in glory -
for there He represents all those whom He is going
to bring and is bringing - how great it is! We read in
the Revelation of a 'great multitude which no man can
number out of every tribe and kindred and tongue...
thousands... ten thousands of thousands...' Language is
taxed to breaking point to describe the fruit of the
sufferings of the Lamb! And He is the Representative in
glory of them all. How great is His Person and His
representation!
And then, His
official greatness. That is seen through this book of
the Revelation, and again in the Letter to the Hebrews.
His official greatness, as High Priest - what a great
High Priest He is, as according to that book; what a
tremendous thing He does! Think of it: through century
after century, sacrifices of lambs, and goats, and bulls
and other things - blood enough to fill an ocean - all
through the centuries, day after day, and never reaching
an end in effectiveness where sin was concerned: but He,
One Offering - only one! - went far beyond the
millions of sacrifices on Jewish altars. How great was
His sacrifice, and His priesthood, as He offered Himself
without spot to God, once for all.
And here, in this book,
as the other side of His official greatness, we have His
description as 'King of kings, and Lord of lords'! What a
thing to say, in a day when that tyrant at Rome was
dominating the world, assuming lordship over all
lordships, and seeking to subject to himself every power,
not only in earth, but in heaven, since he claimed deity.
In that day, the unveiling of Jesus Christ is
'King of kings' - yes, and Nero amongst them! - 'and Lord
of lords'.
To sum up: I believe we
would have very much better converts if they were
presented with a very much greater Christ. To anyone who
does not know in their own life and experience salvation
in Jesus Christ, what it really means to be born again -
to be really a 'child of God', and to know it -
to be able to join in heartily with this apostle John
when he said, 'Beloved, now are we the children of God...
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon
us, that we should be called children of God, and such we
are!' - to any such I would say this. While Jesus would
be your Saviour, the Forgiver of your sins, and many
other things to you, He is far, far greater than anything
you can imagine. Salvation takes its greatness from the
measure of the Saviour. If you want a great salvation,
see what a great Saviour He is. And remember that because
of what He is, you need have no fears in putting your
trust in Him; you need not fear that you may not be able
to 'keep it up'! No, you won't, but He will; He will be
able to keep you up - He is great enough! We need an
unveiling of the greatness of Jesus Christ, to get a
better kind of Christian.
For the recovery from
our spiritual losses and declensions and failures, and
deliverance from all these things which are so abhorrent
to us and to Him, there is only one way, and that is,
really to see His greatness. If we do that, we cannot
live on a 'little' level. I recently went to the
Planetarium in London. The thing that was with me, while
listening to the lecture, and afterward, was, how ever
can anyone be 'little' when they are dealing with these
things all the time! I suppose it is possible even for a
Fellow of the Astronomical Society to be a 'little' man
in character (I am not implying this about this man, but
it is possible!) But it is not possible to have a
revelation of the greatness of Jesus Christ and remain a
little person! Oh, for our enlargement, our ennoblement,
our deliverance from our pettinesses, and all this which
is so despicable! What is the answer? A new grasp of His
greatness - that is all!
And then, if we are
suffering; if we are knowing adversity and trial; if the
clouds seem to be gathering, and increasing, how will we
get through? Only by getting away, and asking, seeking,
pursuing in prayer a new heart revelation, a new
unveiling, of Jesus Christ, and that will surely do it.
First published in "A Witness and A
Testimony" magazine, January-February 1960, Vol 38-1