Reading:
Revelation 1:12-17; Acts 17:31.
In our previous meditation, we were
occupied with the fact that it is IN a man that
God has determined to judge the world, and we were seeing
something of God’s conception of the Man whom He has
ordained to be the sphere and standard of His judgment.
Now we are going on with that in a closer analysis,
according to the characteristics of the Man as they are
presented in the portion we have just read.
But first of all, I would seek to
draw you strongly into the living present purpose of God
in so speaking to us. I am so well aware that this can
all be teaching, ideas, “truth” in a technical
sense. Unless we are very careful, it may just remain
that, and have no great effect upon us. We tried in our
first message to bring everything into the realm of
practical spiritual value, by pointing out the basis and
background of all God’s thoughts, purposes and
dealings with man, as found in the original divine
conception, when God said: “Let us make man in our
image, after our likeness”. The first, the constant,
and the final intention of God is to make man LIKE
HIMSELF. And the test of everything is just there
— how much we are like the Lord. It matters quite in
a secondary way (and, apart from this, it matters not at
all) how much teaching we give or have, or how much we
do, if, governing and surrounding it all, there is not
the one essential condition, that we are like the Lord
and that our hearts are set more upon that than upon
anything else; not upon the work, not upon the teaching,
not upon the success of our efforts in Christian
activity, but simply upon being like the Lord. In the end
that is going to be the determining factor as to how far
we have apprehended Christ, how far we have understood
Christianity, how far we have gone on in the spiritual
life. All that matters is that people should be seeing in
our lives, in a growing way, WHAT THE LORD IS LIKE,
that there should be coming into view — maybe all
too slowly, maybe in all too small a measure —
something of the likeness of the Lord in us. In all that
follows in these messages, I do want that you should
realise that that is the thing that matters — it is
all unto that.
Now, if God is set upon having man
like this and He still is, for He never, in Adam’s
failure, abandoned the intention to make man in His own
image, after His own likeness — if it is like that,
with all the resultant purposes which we mentioned in our
previous study, it is necessary for the Lord to show us
something of what He is like. We must see what the Lord
is like in order that, seeing, we may adjust to that, and
then commit to the Spirit of God and press toward that
attainment. So, when we come to this next part of the
first chapter of the Revelation, the Man presented in His
characteristics, we have the answer to that need. What is
the man like that God is seeking, and has already secured
in this Man — the standard, the model? What is he
like?
Just one more word. In the light of
what we were saying earlier as to God’s intention
for man, in likeness to Himself, fulfilling a tremendous
vocation and then coming to eternal glory, in that we
have the interpretation and the explanation of the spirit
and attitude of the apostle Paul, as we have it expressed
in the third chapter of the letter to the Philippians,
where, “counting all the gains as loss for the
excellency of the knowledge of Christ Jesus his
Lord”, he says that he “presses toward the mark
for the prize of the of God in Christ
Jesus”. It drew him out in that exhaustive way, in
that utter way, that complete abandonment. “Not that
I have already obtained...”; “but one thing I
do...”; “if by any means...”. It is not
that Paul was seeking salvation, but that he had seen the
meaning of Christ as God’s standard and God’s
goal for man. He had seen what the “on-high
calling” was — namely, to fellowship with
Christ in the position which had been given Him by the
Father.
So, you see, it is something rather
important that engages us at this time — far more
important than information and instruction in the Bible.
It is nothing less than our very destiny, according to
God’s fullest intention. It is what God means in our
having a being at all — and it is possible for us to
fail in this, to miss it.
Christ
God’s Horizon
Let us now come, then, to this
section in Revelation 1. Here is the Man who, as we said
in our previous meditation, has been tested — tested
down to the utter obedience of the death of the cross.
“I became dead” — He was approved by His
perfect faithfulness; and as the seal of His approval He
was raised — “I am alive for evermore, and I
have the keys of death.” “Now I am in a
position of absolute authority over all the forces which
have been set against the fulfilment of God’s
purpose.”
“I am the Alpha and the
Omega” (Rev. 22:13). That must be set at the
beginning of this contemplation. “I am the Alpha and
the Omega.” In that word in Acts 17:31, “the
man whom he hath ordained”, the Greek word
“ordained” implies “the man whom He has
made His horizon, His scope, His sphere, His
circumference, His set bound”: and in the Alpha and
Omega you have the bound of God, the beginning and the
end. Christ governs everything from the beginning to the
end; nothing is going to escape Christ, nothing is going
to escape God as to Christ. That is very important; we
may come to that later in a more particular way. But let
it be understood that God sums up and ties up everything
in Christ. There are many people who believe in God, who
would call themselves “God-fearing” people, but
they leave out what Christ means, and they will not get
through, they will not escape. God has made Christ the
ordained one, the horizon of everything. Everything from
God’s standpoint is horizoned by Christ.
The Son of
Man
Now, having established the setting,
the sphere — “I turned to see the voice... And
having turned I saw seven golden candlesticks; and in the
midst of the candlesticks one like unto a son of
man”. “Son of man” — that is
governing. We are not going to get away from that, the
Son of man. I need not remind you how often that title is
used of Him, and how in the great majority of cases it
was used by Himself of Himself; but it is helpful to
remember how it came to be used in the first place. The
title “Son of man”, as used by the Lord of
Himself, was first introduced at the time when He was
rejected by the Jews.
Prophetically, this is quite clear
from the Psalms. In the second psalm, you have the
“heathen raging”, “the rulers taking
counsel together” “against the Lord and against
his anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder,
and cast away their cords from us”. Then comes the
response of the Lord in heaven to their rejecting, their
casting out of the Anointed: “Yet I have set my king
upon my holy hill of Zion. I will tell of the decree:
Jehovah said unto me, Thou art my son; this day have I
begotten thee”. Now that was quoted, as you know, in
the prayer of the church in Acts 4, when it is mentioned
that Herod and Pontius Pilate, the Jews and the Gentiles,
combined to kill the Lord’s Anointed, and heaven
responded again.
From Psalm 2 to Psalm 8 is not a far
cry. In Psalm 2 you have the rejection of this Anointed
One in the first place by the Jews. In Psalm 8 you have:
“What is man, that thou art mindful of him? and the
son of man, that thou visitest him? For thou hast made
him but little lower than God, and crownest him with
glory and honour. Thou madest him to have dominion over
the works of thy hands.” Adam never was the son of
man, so in no full sense can it be made to apply to him,
except prophetically and symbolically. When the Jews had
rejected Christ as the Anointed and combined with the
Gentiles and the rulers to cast Him out and to strip off
His bands from them, He is brought back, not as the
Jewish Messiah, but as the Son of man, which universal
title went far beyond Israel. All men are gathered into
that.
“I became dead.” That is
the story of their rejecting and their casting out, their
thinking to have done with Him. Here He appears at the
beginning of the book of the Revelation: “I became
dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore”. “I
saw... in the midst of the candlesticks one like unto a
son of man” — not the Jewish Messiah, but the
Son of man — universal representation, inclusion.
It is MAN — that is the
point — the MAN whom He has ordained. Do keep
this all the time very much in mind, that what we have
here is not only related to and bound up with Him as an
isolated individual. He is representative of the
corporate man whom God is taking out of the nations to
bear His Name, and the things said here about Him are the
features of that corporate man, as well as of every part
of that corporate man, every individual man and woman.
Keep that in mind, otherwise you will be looking at this
objectively only, and it will not register anything in
your own heart.
Let us now look at Him as He is
given to us in John’s account, fragment by fragment.
A Garment
Down to the Foot
The first thing is: “Clothed
with a garment down to the foot, and girt about at the
breasts with a golden girdle”. “A garment down
to the foot.” All I am going to say about this,
because it is so largely reiteration, is that this is not
the priestly garment, but the governmental garment. It is
the garment of the governor, of the lord, of the judge.
It is the Son of man in the full place — “down
to the foot” — in the full place of authority
and government. It is man representative in government,
corresponding to what we said in our last meditation.
“Thou madest him to have dominion.” The very
purpose of man’s creation is that he might have
dominion. I simply remind you that in the letter to the
Hebrews, where Psalm 8 is quoted — “What is
man, that thou art mindful of him?” and so on —
that is linked with: “Thou crownedst him with glory
and honour” (Hebrews 2:7). “We behold him...
Jesus... crowned with glory and honour” — just
answering to the original intention of God.
A Golden
Girdle at the Breasts
“Girt about at the breasts with
a golden girdle.” The girdle is, as you know, a
symbol of strength for action. This One is in action,
that is quite clear, and He is girded with strength for
action, invested with authority and endued with power for
this administration. It is a golden girdle, depicting or
symbolizing the divine nature. And “girt about at
the breasts” is His faithfulness to the purpose and
will of God — His love, His faithful love. He is
called in this book the “Faithful and True”.
(Rev. 3:14, 19:11).
These are spiritual features. Let us
get away from the symbolism to the spiritual meaning, for
we are involved in this, we are included in this. In this
Son of man we are included, and if the purpose which is
realised in Him as representative compasses us, includes
us, the point is that THESE are the features which
make up the purpose, THESE are the conditions
which must obtain if God is going to reach His end in us.
This is going to be applied to the churches, and here is
the statement of the background against which God is
working. What it amounts to is this: Here is God’s
inclusive thought, mind, standard; you are called with
this great calling — this is the .
You have got to come into line with that, into conformity
to that. What is true in Him has to be true in you, the
individual, and in the corporate, the church. “Girt
about at the breasts with a golden girdle”. There is
to be a heart devotion and faithfulness to the revealed
thoughts of God concerning His people, concerning
ourselves. There has got to be the strengthening of us by
the divine nature to stand as God’s administrative
instrument to the world. There must be a heart strong
with faithfulness to what is according to God —
gold-girdled breasts mean a heart strong in its faithful
love and devotion to what is of God. We have got to be
found there.
You can have all sorts of things as
Christians, all sorts of Christian things; we can have
all the things that the churches had, and yet find the
finger of condemnation upon them, saying, “It is not
good enough, it will not do, it does not justify; with
all that, I cannot let you off”. We can be very
devoted to a teaching, to a movement, to any Christian
work, very busy indeed in all that sort of thing; it may
be very interesting or we may even be giving ourselves,
pouring ourselves out to it; and yet behind it all there
may be lacking some real love for the Lord Himself.
I would like to press that. It is so
possible for us — oh, God forgive us, we have all
failed so terribly in this matter — it is so
possible for us to be poured out in the ministry, and yet
to be slipping up all the time on things that are not
pleasing to the Lord, our hearts not girded with the
strength of a great faithful love to His thoughts. The
enemy is always trying to counter our testimony by
getting us to be in some way a contradiction, to be
inconsistent. You find nothing like that in this One,
nothing of that contradiction and inconsistency. His
heart is wholly girded with faithful love to His
Father’s thoughts and will. Is there not a place for
us to come to the Word of God a little more and see
whether, after all, with all our Christian activity and
devotion, the Word of God is not against us on many
things?
White Head
and Hair
“His head and his hair were
white as white wool, white as snow.” What is this?
Well, there are two things here. In the first place,
there is the mark of all time extended, exhausted, lived
out. There is such a thing, of course, as premature
grey-headedness; there is such a thing as becoming
grey-headed or white by reason of something abnormal; but
the normal grey-headedness or white hair is a mark that
time has been lived out, has been covered or is being
encompassed and exhausted, and for a white-headed man to
be in full vigour is a testimony to the fact that he has
defeated time and all that that means. In this
description of the exalted Christ, therefore, the
whiteness means that all that belongs to time or
corruption has been destroyed. This One is not a victim
of time or time’s conditions, of this world or this
world’s corruption: He outlives it, expands it,
triumphs over it. Time means death, sooner or later;
death means corruption triumphant. But this One is in
full vigour, girded with strength and authority and
standing forth. The further description is the picture of
one in full vigour, full of energy. This is not an old
man worn out. This is a young man, in youth, in vigour
— and white-headed. He has defeated all that time
represents, death and corruption overcoming. His white
hair is not a mark of old age. It is a mark of eternity
triumphing over time. He is as the “ancient of
days” (Dan. 7:9).
What is the spiritual value of that?
Well, you see, it means this, that the man according to
God will have vigour to the end, will have spiritual
energy to the end. I do not know what you feel about
that, but I am in revolt against finishing up in
exhaustion and emptiness, having no more to give to the
Lord’s people because I am too old. There may be a
challenge along that line, but my spirit revolts against
that. “They shall still bring forth fruit in old
age” (Psalm 92:14). We read that “the path of
the righteous is as the light of dawn, that shineth more
and more unto the perfect day” (Prov. 4:18). This
does not imply that circumstances get easier, that the
way becomes simpler and less complex, that the path
becomes more and more cheerful. No, it does not imply
that at all — rather the reverse. But I do believe
it must mean that inwardly, while the “outward man
is decaying”, the “inward man is renewed day by
day” (2 Cor. 4:16). That is something to claim, to
lay hold of — to beat time.
So let us stop looking for sympathy
by saying we are getting old. We do far too much of that.
The white hair of the exalted Christ is a mark of
corruption transcended in moral perfection, and that is a
mark of energy.
Eyes as of a
Flame of Fire
“His eyes were as a flame of
fire.” Here again there are two things. The eyes are
the seeing organs and faculties, and this — as is
borne out by a lot more that follows in this book —
speaks of spiritual intelligence and knowledge. Later you
will come upon seven spirits of God. That is the
perfection of spiritual intelligence, if you look at the
context. And here we have the eyes, the organ, as a flame
of fire. The fire searches, the fire tests, the fire
finds out, and the One here is in a state of active
knowledge. He is finding out. God will judge the world in
the Man whom He has ordained, and it will be because of
His perfect spiritual intelligence and the power of it.
That is not so remote as it may
sound in a statement like that. When we come face to face
with the Lord, with the Son of man, we know that He
knows. We do not take that as a theory, as just truth. We
cannot come into the Lord’s presence and be alone
with the Lord without knowing that He knows. It is no use
excusing ourselves, it is no use arguing, it is no use
covering up, it is useless to try to get round it. You
know that He knows what you are not wanting to uncover.
You are set in the light of His countenance and you
cannot get away from it. His eyes not only see, but they
search. They not only know, but they test. They are not
merely organs, but there is something about these organs
that registers on you, and you know you have to answer to
the Lord. It is well for us to recognise that.
But let us still remember that this
Son of man is representative. Would it not be grand if
our life, our testimony, our ministry, were like this
— that those whom we meet, and those who hear us,
have to say, “How did he know all about me? Who has
been telling him?” — and they will not believe
that no one has been telling and reporting and passing
on. Oh, that it might be like that in our ministry, that
people have to say: “No one could have known that
about me but God; that is God who has spoken to me and
dealt with me. No one knew that, that was something
hidden in my life from everybody else. God only knew
that, but it has been dragged out into the light.”
That is the meaning of “His
eyes were as a flame of fire”, and God would have
something like that about us. There being those other
features which have been mentioned, this should be one of
the consequences, that our presence has the effect of
making sinners uncomfortable, making sin incapable of
remaining hidden, bringing things to the light. It will
mean trouble — nevertheless it is very much better
than pouring out words in addresses and teaching and
nothing resulting. Oh, that God might be more in our
lives to bear this flaming witness against iniquity,
against sin.
The eyes are linked with the other
features. The eyes are connected, for instance, with the
heart: for this kind of thing — these eyes as a
flame, this witness, this knowing and this effecting
— is by way of a pure heart. The pure in heart see
God (Matt. 5:8). Effectiveness of witness is based upon
purity of heart.
Feet Like
Burnished Brass
The next thing here is: “His
feet like unto burnished brass, as if it had been refined
in a furnace”. Feet speak of our goings and our
ways. They are the means by which we move. And what makes
us move, what makes us go? There are some people who have
no reason for many of their movements. They just go
running about all over the place without any rhyme or
reason, without any sense at all. There are a lot of
people who just move by impulse. The Lord Jesus never did
that. Sometimes people tried to persuade Him to move, and
He would not — they could not get Him to move;
sometimes they tried to get Him to go one way, and He
went another; sometimes they tried to stop Him from going
— and He would go.
But in His goings, His movements,
His refusing to move, these feet of His were governed by
a certain incentive and motive. Motive should govern our
movements. Why did you do that? What is your motive? This
is very searching. Why did you go and live at so-and-so,
in such-and-such a place? You found a nice house there,
very comfortable surroundings? Why? Either your motive is
the Lord’s interests, or it is your own. Why do you
go to this place and that? Why these movements in your
life? By what are they motivated? What is the incentive
of your life?
Now, in the case of this One, this
Son of man, you can see in His walk here on earth the
motive and the incentive which governed. It was not the
judgments of men, not the interests of the flesh, not the
prizes and appeals of this world, not the shunning of
suffering. He moved only under the mighty incentive of
His Father’s will. His feet were purged in the
furnace as to their motives. The strength of His goings,
like brass, was the strength of the divine approval,
because His heart was set in the ways of the Lord.
Irresistible are His goings, strong because pure. Tested
and tried are His motives. The Lord bring us into line
with the Son of man. In all our motives and incentives,
our objects and our interests, the things which influence
us this way and that way, where we go, how we go, may He
bring us more fully under the government of His Spirit.
A Voice as
the Voice of Many Waters
“His voice as the voice of many
waters.” I think the meaning of that is quite
obvious. It speaks of power, commanding power. You cannot
stand against a flood — everything has to yield and
go with it. They said of Him when here that He spoke
“as one having authority” (Matt. 7:29). There
is a QUALITY about His speaking. It is not only
the volume, the sound as of many waters, but there is
such a quality about it. It is, in other words, not just
the force of His voice; it is not that He is shouting; it
is the character, the quality of it. He speaks, and
because He speaks out of a pure heart, out of this utter
devotion to the will of the Father, out of this life
which has no motives or incentives other than to be
well-pleasing unto God — because He speaks thus, He
has the support of heaven and nothing can withstand Him.
I believe our witness, our
testimony, our ministry, would be much more powerful,
persuasive — irresistible — if we were more
like the Son of man. That is what I am getting at. If you
and I want to speak with influence, with power, to speak
so that something happens, it must and can only be in so
far as there is Christlikeness behind the speaking, if
what is said is true in the life. This matter of speaking
with power is very practical. It is by the Holy Spirit in
a crucified and risen man. “I became dead,... I am
alive...” A crucified and risen man is the vehicle
of this speaking to such effect and with such power. On
the day of Pentecost, they were truly crucified and risen
men; in a very real way they had been crucified with
Christ and were risen together with Him; and a voice that
is going to carry weight has got to be the voice of a
crucified and risen man or woman. If it can be detected,
when we speak to others, that there is self-glory
influencing us; that, as we speak, we are influenced by
any motive, any interest, any consideration other than
the glory of God, the pleasure of the Lord; if it is not
true, and manifestly true, in our speaking, in our
preaching, in our teaching, in our talking to others,
that we have been crucified to the flesh, that ours is a
risen life with the Lord: if that is not true, there will
be no power in our testimony, no power in our words.
Power in speaking arises only from this spiritual
experience of being crucified with Christ and raised
together with Him.
Seven Stars
in His Hand
“He had in his right hand seven
stars.” The stars, He says later on, are the angels
of the churches, those who have influence and power in
the churches. A star is that which governs or is supposed
to govern, to govern in the night. It is a subordinate
governing instrument, subordinate to the sun and moon,
and here the stars, these angels — whoever they may
be, whatever they may be; we will not stay to discuss
that — represent the place of authority, the
governmental position, which is held in the church. He
has them in His right hand, and the right hand, according
to the Old Testament, is a symbol, first of all of honour
and then of power. Honour and power — the two things
go together. His authority to deal with the matter of
government and influence is because of the honour and the
power of His moral position.
A
Sharp Sword out of His Mouth
“Out of his mouth
proceeded a sharp two-edged sword.” We know from
other Scriptures what this two-edged sword is. It is the
Word of God; its action is for laying bare, for
discovering. His Word is a Word that lays open, lays bare
and gets down to the inner recesses of our thoughts, our
motives.
A Shining
Face
“His countenance was as the sun
shineth in his strength.” The countenance sums up
everything. It is the glory of God in the face of Jesus
Christ. “The sun shining in its strength.” You
may put up your parasol and it will destroy it! The sun
shining in his strength knows no resistance, no
restraint. There is no shrinking in timidity and fear on
the part of the sun. There is no shame that makes it want
to veil its face. There is no uncertainty about the sun.
There may be about the weather! — but there is no
uncertainty about the sun. He is forthright, he is
downright. He has no reason to shrink, to hold back, to
be afraid, to be timid. There is boldness, there is
assurance, there is certainty. I think that is what is
meant by the sun shining in its strength. It is terrible
when you get right into the real strength of the sun. The
sun shining in its strength. It is terrible when it does
not say, “I am very sorry, I would not do it if I
could help it”; it just does it! There is certainty,
definiteness, positiveness about the sun shining in its
strength.
God needs His church like that. He
desires that it should be possible to say of it:
“There is no doubt about it with them, there is no
question where they are concerned; they know the Lord! If
you touch them, you will get a positive note; you will
find something that gets rid of all your doubt, all your
uncertainty, all your questions.” Oh, for lives like
that! There is so much of the deviation and the
“shadow cast by turning” about us. One day you
will find us all right and the next day you will find us
all wrong. For a little while we are shining, and then
our sun has gone in. You never can be sure how you will
find some people, as to their spiritual life, from day to
day.
This Son of man is not like that. It
is a wonderful thing to go to those parts of the world
where, when you get up in the morning, you do not look
out to see if it is raining. You never do it. You know
that, for the greater part of the year, as sure as the
day comes the sun comes, and it shines. For a large part
of the year in those parts of the world you do not talk
about the weather. You know quite well that the sun will
be there before you, if you are not very early, and that
it will go on. Oh, for our lives to be like that —
sure, certain, reliable, trustworthy, to be counted upon,
positive, definite, real. “The sun shining in his
strength.” It is one of the glories of God that
there is with Him “no variableness, neither shadow
cast by turning”. In all this, remember, it is the
Son of man to whom we are to be conformed.
The Effect of
Seeing Christ
And finally, the effect. “When
I saw him, I fell at his feet as one dead.” Now two
things must be linked together. John commenced by saying:
“I was in the Spirit”. He finished this
presentation by saying: “I fell at his feet as one
dead”. What is the effect of this contemplation?
What is the verdict? If you are in the Spirit, there will
be an effect in the contemplation of Jesus Christ. There
must be something as a result. “I was in the
Spirit... I fell at his feet as one dead.” What do YOU
say about this? I am not saying that my presentation is
as good as John’s, I am not saying that I am as
inspired as he was, but we have been contemplating the
same Lord, we have been seeking to bring Christ into view
— His excellencies and glories and what He means for
us. Can we be other than deeply affected? Is there not
something challenging that brings us down inwardly before
the Lord? “Am I not found out? Am I not smitten? Do
I not realise how altogether short of this I come? Do I
not see that it is unto this that the Lord has called? Am
I not moved to make my calling and election sure? Is
there not the inspiring of something of that ‘one
thing I do... I press on toward the goal’ (Phil.
3:13,14)?”
What is the effect? What is our
verdict? A mental judgment upon the subject, the subject
matter, the presentation? What is it? We have failed
— I have failed, you have failed — if we are
not touched deeply in our hearts over this and come down
before the Lord to make the necessary adjustment. If we
are not moved with a new incentive to be like Him, it is
all a failure. God forbid! If it is not so with you, will
you ask the Lord to use the sword, the two-edged sword,
to lay bare?