In our
previous meditation, we arrived at the consummation in
the book of the Revelation, and we were taking note of
the wonderful truth that is in the first three chapters
of the book of the Revelation, the whole question is the
question of love, love relating to many things, but all a
matter of love.
We now go
on to the issues of that love. Here we do really come up
against the vital point that, while the Lord is seeking
in His people that love - love like His own - there are
tremendous things hanging upon it. It is not just an
optional matter: everything hangs upon it. That is what
arises here when the Lord says, "To him that
overcometh." You know that is said to each of
the seven churches. Even where the Lord has not to point
out any serious delinquency, He still says, "I see
big issues bound up with this love, and everything hangs
upon it." So we will spend this little time in
looking at these great issues found in that final word to
each, to all, to us - "He that overcometh"; or
"to him that overcometh."
LIFE
IN FULLNESS
Ephesus;
and again we remind ourselves that the challenge there
relates to the all-inclusiveness of love, the first love,
and so, when we touch the matter of love in its fullness,
we expect to find an all-inclusive issue. That is to say,
we expect to find that the thing which is bound up with
an all-inclusive love is an all-inclusive outcome, and we
are not wrong in that expectation. Here it is -
"To him that overcometh, to him will I give to eat
of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of
God." Here, with love after this kind - the love
of God, the love of Christ, the love of the Spirit - is
bound up the whole question of life in its fullness: and
what an issue that is! There is a reference to the tree
of life in the Paradise of God. It is a backward look as
well as a forward one. It takes us to the beginning and
then to the end. We shall find that tree of life right at
the end of the book of the Revelation as the ultimate
thing. It was the first, it is the last; therefore it is
all-comprehending, this matter of love.
But you have to look
back to the beginning to see what a tremendous issue it
was and is. God, having first created the heavens and the
earth, and all things, then created man and set him in
that garden, and in the midst of the garden placed the
tree of life; and everything of the creation and
everything of man and everything of the Divine
heart-purpose was centered in that tree. It was the tree
of life. That is more than the animal life, more than the
human life, more than the natural life. That kind of
life, the animal, the human, the natural, was all there,
but there was a life that was not there except as
represented by the tree. As constituting a test,
symbolically it was there, but its real significance was
spiritual and unseen. And when man failed in this matter
of reciprocating the love of God, and doubted and
questioned and disbelieved and disobeyed - all of which
is the contrary of love - God made it impossible for that
man as he was, in that state, to have that other life;
and therefore the creation faded like a fading flower,
was disrupted, and man came under the terrible shadow of
judgment and death. Says Paul, "Through one man
sin entered into the world, and death through sin; and so
death passed unto all men" (Rom. 5:12). For the
very creation, for man himself, that life was essential
for God's purpose. Man never received it, and he lost it
on the ground of lost love, failure in love.
Now look at the Lord
Jesus. He came in the fullness of times. God sent His own
Son, the Son of His love, and when the Son stepped out
from His hidden years into the open, to assume definitely
His great life work, the heavens were opened and God
said, "This is my beloved Son" (Matt.
3:17). And John said of Him, "In him was
life" (John 1:4). Here He is, the embodiment of
a new creation, in whom is that life which Adam missed.
It is here in Him. "In him was life," that
other life, that different life, that Divine life. It is
in Him, and God says of Him, as embodying a new creation,
"in whom I am well pleased."
He is the Son of God's
love, He possesses the life which no man had ever before
possessed, He is the answer to all God's heart, God finds
His perfect pleasure and satisfaction in Him. But look at
Him. What do you see? Well, in this world amongst men, He
appeared outwardly no different from any other man. There
were repeatedly hints of something unusual about Him,
which at times were dimly discerned by others, but these
related to His nature and character and not to His
outward appearance. Apart from this, men saw nothing
different; even those closest to Him saw nothing. But
there came a day of which it is written, "And
after six days Jesus taketh with him Peter, and
James, and John his brother, and bringeth them up
into a high mountain apart. and he was
transfigured before them and his face did shine as
the sun, and his garments became white as the
light"; and all this was accompanied by the same
voice from heaven, saying, "This is my beloved
Son" (Matt. 17:1-8). Not a different
Christ, not a different Son, not another, it is the same
One. The life had been hidden, and now it blazed out. The
life had been a secret thing, and now it was divulged.
The life that was in Him was now seen to be what it was.
What a transfiguring life! His whole body transfigured,
aglow, agleam with Divine glory. Everything about Him was
glory, the glory of heaven, the glory of God, and it was
just the nature of the life that was in Him being given
an opportunity to express itself. And that is a parable
and a prophecy; for does not Paul tell us that the day is
coming when this body of our humiliation shall be
fashioned anew that it may be conformed to the body of
His glory (Phil. 3:21), when this corruptible shall put
on incorruption, this mortal put on immortality, and
death shall be swallowed up in victory? (1 Cor.
15:50-55). The life which we have received in Jesus
Christ is that kind of life. That is the extra life that
Adam never possessed, and you see it is all on the basis
of love, Christ's love for the Father. His was a love
which was unto death, that would battle through the
hordes of evil forces: that, in obedience to the Father's
will and for our salvation would cause Him to give
Himself into the hands of the evil forces and say,
"I am at your mercy, do your fell work; this is your
hour and the power of darkness" (Luke 22:53). All
this He was ready to do in obedience to the Father's
will.
The Cross
was right in view, and when on that mount Moses and
Elijah appeared, they spake with Him of the exodus that
He was about to accomplish at Jerusalem. They were
speaking with Him about His Cross. He was already under
the shadow of the Cross, had already accepted it in
principle, already yielded by every test to the will of
the Father. Love was triumphant already in Him. He was
going all the way, and the Divine love and the glory
broke out. This is the inclusive note from Genesis to
Revelation. Love is always linked with life and life with
love - that kind of life.
Is this to you merely a
beautiful theme, a lovely song? Does it matter to you
whether you have a body of glory? Or is it just a
negative matter with you, that you will be glad when you
have done with this one, and that is all there is to it?
Have you no concern for the glory that is to be? Are you
not interested in that great and marvellous statement
that we have been called unto His eternal glory (1 Pet.
5:10), to be glorified together with Christ when
everything of death shall be fully and finally quenched
and destroyed, and life - that Divine, uncreated life,
that unique life of Christ - shall show what it is,
manifest its nature, its qualities? The very glory of God
is in His life. It is a big issue, the issue of life.
We know
something of glory of this life even now; it is not
reserved only for the end . It is not so much in our
bodies, perhaps - although sometimes the Lord touches
even them with a touch of the powers of the world to come
and revitalizes them with His own life - but we do know
the whole question of life and death in our spirits, our
souls, and what a difference there is between life and
death! To sense death, to know something of death inside
us, in our spirits, in our souls, to be touched by, or to
be in an atmosphere of spiritual death, is an awful
thing. But what a glorious thing it is to be in an
atmosphere of Divine life! It is glory in our spirits
now. For those who have to live in a world in which there
is nothing of the Lord at all, it is all spiritual death,
whether it be secular or religious, and it is a horrible
thing. But it is a grand thing when you can escape that
and find yourself in the presence of the Lord amongst His
people and taste something of life. That is glory of a
spiritual kind inside. But think - that is going to be
manifested in its fullness for our whole being, including
our bodies! It is the prospect, the calling, of the
people of God, and it is all a matter of life.
But that
life is based wholly and solely upon this matter of love.
If you touch anything that is other than love - if you
touch hate, animosity, suspicion, prejudice, criticism,
jealousy, envy or any other thing that is contrary to
love - you touch death. It is horrible. When you meet
somebody who is eyeing you, not sure of you, suspicious
of you, oh, how helpless, how hopeless, the situation is;
you cannot get on, you are glad when you have passed, but
you are sad. You have met with a touch of death. You
touch love in another child of God coming out to you, and
oh, what a prospect fills the air, what possibilities
arise! There is a way through, everything possible where
there is love. That is the issue which bounds all, and
that is why you begin with the tree of life.
You end
with the tree of life, but it is in the garden, the
garden of Divine love. That tree can only thrive in the
soil of love. These are very practical matters with a
challenge. Do not forget that while you need people to
love you and show you love, so that your spiritual life
may grow and you may be released from smallness and
pettiness and limitation and be enlarged, other people
need your love to the same end; and you are not going to
enlarge other peoples' spiritual life by criticizing
them, by eyeing them. You are going to help their
spiritual enlargement by loving them with the love of
God.
This is
inclusive; it includes everything else. We are not
surprised, therefore, that when at Ephesus the matter of
first love is raised, which is love inclusive of all the
features of love, the all-inclusive question and issue
arises, namely, that of life.
NO
SECOND DEATH
You are
able then to pass on to break it up with what is said of
the church in Smyrna. The issue of love triumphant in
Smyrna was to be that the overcomer should have part in
the first resurrection. "He that overcometh shall
not be hurt of the second death." What is the
second death? Briefly, it is that death where there is no
recovery. It is the door finally closed, where there is
then a distinct and abiding separation between God and
man. All goes out in the second death: it is the end.
There is no hope beyond that door, no possibility of
life. But here in Smyrna, of him who is triumphant in
love it is said, "He... shall not be hurt of the
second death." Fullness of death shall be broken
and defeated and deprived of its prey. Love means that
you will never be allowed to be touched by that ultimate
despair of separation from God. That is no small thing.
If the end on that dark side is to be without hope, where
God is lost and the soul has gone out into the
everlasting desolation, never able to find God, it is a
big matter that we should never be touched of that. And
love triumphant, this kind of love in Smyrna which is
suffering love ("Be thou faithful unto death, and
I will give thee the crown of life") means that,
although it may cost you your earthly life, you shall
never be touched of the second death. You may know the
first death, in this sense, that you may go into the
grave, and that maybe at the hands of murderers; you may
have a martyr's grave, you may die because of the
opposition and suffering that is heaped upon you; but
that is only a first kind of death. There is a much
deeper and more terrible death than that, and if you are
faithful unto that first death, you shall not be touched
of the second. You will find you will be amongst those
who have completely conquered death. Now, whatever it
means to you to have to exercise the love which suffers
long, remember there is a big issue bound up with
suffering love. You who are putting up with things for
Christ's sake, who are enduring, who are suffering in any
way in love for the Lord, by that suffering love you are
in the way of cheating death in the end. You are
undermining the power of death, you are destroying the
very touch of death. Perhaps that wants explaining, but
there is the fact stated, that by suffering we conquer
death.
A
DEEP, SECRET LIFE WITH THE LORD
We come
now to the issue of love triumphant in Pergamum. It is
remarkable that to this church that had come into a state
of compromise from their failure to detect the inroads of
evil, because of the low condition of that love for God
which should normally be alert and sensitive to things
injurious to God, it is remarkable that to them this word
is addressed, "To him that overcometh, to him
will I give of the hidden manna, and I will give him a
white stone, and upon the stone a new name written which
no one knoweth but he that receiveth it." But
I can tell you in a word what it amounts to - that
there is some inner fellowship with God to be known which
is not the common lot of people; some inner knowledge of
God which is a secret thing to be possessed, which means
a very great deal. It is something to have a personal,
inner, secret knowledge of the Lord, a knowledge which
other people, not having, do not understand at all; you
know the Lord in your own heart and you are enjoying
something of the Lord in yourself; but you have to have
it to yourself, it is your own secret. Is there not
something in that for believers now? "The secret
of the Lord is with them that fear him" (Ps.
25:14). There is a mysterious something in the
inner life of some children of God and in their walk with
the Lord; they have a secret. They can never make other
people understand it, it is a mystery to others, but
there it is. It is their blessed possession, and oh, what
it means to them! And that is what is here. Hidden manna,
a white stone, a new name written thereon, His own name; "I
will set him on high, because he hath known my name"
(Ps. 91:14); and that distinguishes people who
know the Lord in some more inward and some deeper way
than the majority. It is not the ordinary kind of
knowledge to the Lord that is here.
And that
is said to the people whose great need was discerning
love, and the message, therefore, is that if you have
this love, you have a secret with the Lord. If this love
is in us, this first love, this complete love, this true
love for God, we have a secret life with God, God means
something to us in secret that He does not mean to
everybody. And we are elected to that: not that we are
favourites, but through suffering love we come to
discerning love. That is the sequence - suffering love,
then discerning love. Those who have the deepest and most
inward knowledge of the Lord are those who have suffered
most for and with the Lord. They have knowledge others do
not possess. So you move from Smyrna to Pergamum; from
suffering love to discerning love - through suffering to
the hidden manna, the mystery of a love-relationship with
the Lord in a knowledge which is not common knowledge.
A
POSITION OF POWER AND AUTHORITY
Thyatira -
seduced and corrupted, calling for uncompromising love.
What is the issue of that uncompromising love? "He
that overcometh, and he that keepeth my works unto the
end, to him will I give authority over the nations: and
he shall rule them with a rod of iron." Here we
are touching a tremendous principle. Do not materialize
that for the moment and picture yourself somewhere as a
reigning monarch over the nations of this earth, and that
sort of thing. That is not what I am getting at. It is
the principle that matters. Here you see, when love
triumphs over that state of compromise and mixture and
confusion and entangling of contrary things, and comes
right out into an uncompromising place of victory, you
are in a position of tremendous ascendency, of power to
govern. Test it the other way. You find a compromised
life, a mixed-up life, a life with contraries all
entangled; some of the world, some true Christianity;
some flesh, some Spirit, things which ought never to be
brought together. Will you tell me that such a life has
any power in it, any authority, any power of ruling and
reigning? Not at all! Was it not just in that connection
that the devil through Balaam seduced the corrupted
Israel, to bring Israel down from their high place as the
ruling nation among the nations, to rob them of their
spiritual government, to make them broken among the
nations, when God had said, "The Lord will
make thee the head, and not the tail" (Deut.
28:13)? That is the principle here. Love, uncompromising
love, brings into a position of power, of authority. You
will never pray through so that God comes in and does
things if your life is compromised, if there is any kind
of double life going on. You may pray until you cannot
pray any more, and the Lord will not come in, you will
not govern in prayer if the life is mixed up. Love, which
brings us out into an absolutely clear, pure, transparent
place before God, means we are put into a position of
great spiritual power. What that may be afterward we are
not going to stop to say. I merely indicate it. The
Church is going to rule in the heavenlies in the ages to
come, and in the letter to the Ephesians, where the
revelation of the Church and of its eternal calling and
vocation is presented to us most fully, love is the
triumphant note - "...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, that ye may be filled unto all the
fulness of God" (Eph. 3:18-19). That is set
there in relation to the Church. The Church is to come to
that place. There are big issues bound up with this
matter of love, both that of spiritual power and
ascendency now, and afterward throughout the ages to come
that of governing in the heavenlies, when the Church will
take the place occupied now by the evil principalities
and powers, the world rulers of this darkness. That is no
small vocation. It depends on first love. Such is the
lesson of Ephesus and of Thyatira. Right at the heart is
love, first love, full love, and the outcome of that is
authority over the nations.
OUR
NAME CONFESSED IN HEAVEN
Then comes
Sardis; and, because of its indefiniteness, the call for
distinguishing love, the love that marks you out; not
only that you are marked out by love, but love marks you
out. Do you think that is a distinction without a
difference? Not so. When you come here to this
distinguishing love, what is the word to that church? "He
that overcometh shall thus be arrayed in white garments;
and I will in no wise blot his name out of the book of
life, and I will confess his name before my Father, and
before his angels." Is this not
distinguishing love, love leading to distinction? - white
garments, and his name confessed before the Father and
the holy angels. Maybe I can help you by a very ordinary
illustration. I have a brother who is an engineer, and I
went to see him the other day and found him in his office
behind his engineering works where some sixty men, all
experts, were busy mostly on government work. I talked
with him for some time, and, being an opportunist, and
remembering that there was something I needed done to my
car, I said, "I have a little trouble with my car; I
wonder if you can do something about it?" He came
downstairs to look at the car, and then said to one man,
"Put that on the lift." He then sent for his
chief expert on that side of things, and when he arrived
said to him, "This is my brother; if ever he brings
his car in here, see to it, please, and see that the job
is done properly." "This is my brother" -
and the whole sixty men and all the works were at my
command! Everything there could be centered in my
interest at that moment. "I will confess his name
before my Father, and before his angels." "I
will say, 'This is My brother'" - and all heaven
will be interested. Love, honour in heaven; our names
confessed and honoured in heaven, when love distinguishes
us. Oh, we try to curry favour and get service and help
and status by being important before men, by putting on
airs, by making demands, by being something big. That is
the way in which men try to get recognition. But here it
says that love is the distinguishing thing in heaven. It
is love that makes you a distinguished person there. It
is love that will bring you before the Father and the
holy angels as one to be taken account of; and that is an
issue for now, not only for hereafter. Oh, if only we
have this love, the Father will take account of us.
"This is my beloved." The holy angels will take
account and put themselves at our service as beloved of
the Father. It will be because we are not only located in
the Son of His love, but in heart-fellowship with what
that love means, that we are marked out by heaven.
SPIRITUAL
SIGNIFICANCE
Philadelphia
marks the call for steadfast love, and so you expect in
the issue of steadfast love to find something that would
correspond. To Philadelphia the word is - "He
that overcometh, I will make him a pillar in the temple
of my God, and he shall go out thence no more: and I will
write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the
city of my God, the new Jerusalem, which cometh down out
of heaven from my God, and mine own new name."
"A pillar in the temple of my God." Again,
do not materialize, for later we read, "And I saw
no temple therein: for the Lord God the Almighty, and the
Lamb are the temple thereof" (Rev. 21:22). A
pillar in the place where God dwells, a pillar in the
house of God, the place of God's abode. A pillar, a
strong thing, carrying responsibility in the very house
of God. Steadfast love has that issue. "And I
will write upon him... the name of the city of my
God." He shall have the franchise of the
heavenly Jerusalem. He is a man of substance, a person
that counts, he is carrying weight, he is a freeman of
the new Jerusalem. "And mine own new name"; which
means "I commit myself to that man." Are these
things too big to grasp? They are not exaggerations, but
that is what is implicit in this statement, and all who
are of the character of Philadelphia, marked by steadfast
love, become a strength in the place of God's dwelling
and in His interest. They are people that count. Job said
of his days before his affliction that when he went out
everybody took account of him and bowed down to him and
honoured him. To be not self-important, but from heaven's
standpoint, with that kind of importance that is humble,
meek, altogether without arrogance or pride, to be of
great importance to God, in the presence of God,
important in the Church which is the new Jerusalem - love
is the thing that must characterize us. Do you desire in
a right way to carry weight, to signify something, to be
really a strength in the things of God, to stand before
the Lord as one who counts for something? Do you want
that? Do you know the way there? I wonder what you think
it is. Do you say, "Oh well, if I study, if I get a
lot of teaching and Bible knowledge, and am always busy
in the Lord's work, I shall become something"? No,
not at all! In the dealings of God with you, you will
find you will be emptied and brought down to nothingness
in yourself, until you reach the place of pure, selfless
love for the Lord for His own sake. Oh, there is a
difference even in loving the Lord - whether it be for
what He can do for us or for His own sake. You do not
want to be loved because of what you are able to do. You
want to be loved for your own sake. When it is like that,
and we get away from all our ambitions, all our craving
for recognition and reputation, and we love the Lord for
His own sake, we have attained a place of tremendous
importance - pillars of strength in the things of God, in
the temple of God, in the presence of God. Love is the
key to all spiritual significance.
SHARING
HIS THRONE
And
finally, Laodicea; poor Laodicea, with its mediocre kind
of testimony, neither hot nor cold, and the demand,
therefore, for fervent love with no mistake about it,
burning love, love at white-heat. What is the issue
hanging upon love like that? "To him that
overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with me in my
throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with my Father
in his throne." You have reached the
highest place now - throne-union with the reigning Lord.
All that that may mean we can never describe. Were we to
start, we should never be able to tell it; but it must
mean something that the Lord should say to people on this
earth - "On certain grounds you shall sit with Me in
My throne, you shall have the place that I have, you
shall share with Me the position to which I have
come." It must mean something tremendous. And He
says that is related to victory over mediocrity in the
matter of love. When you have this kind of love, fervent,
full, strong love, you will come to the place of
uppermost ascendency, the place in the throne.
You may
not remember all I have said, the detail may go from you;
but remember that in the Revelation the last times and
the last things are in view. If you forget all the
details, remember this one thing, that the ultimate, the
supreme issue of our life and union with God is bound up
with this question of love. How great, then, in
importance is this question of love. How great, then, in
importance is this question of His love being shed abroad
in our hearts by the Holy Ghost. What a wonderful thing
is His great love wherewith He loved us, when it is found
in us. It is both toward us and should be in us. The
Lord make it so!