"The
Revelation of Jesus Christ, which God
gave unto Him, to shew unto His servants things which
must shortly come to pass; and He sent and signified it
by His angel unto His servant John" (Rev. 1:1).
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
civilization, 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 fullness 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.
The Personal Greatness of the Son of
Man
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
recognize 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 fullness, 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.