Reading: Revelation 4 and 5.
We come now to the final presentation which is the
consummation of the truth concerning the cherubim. Here in the book of the
Revelation the cherubim, under the title of the 'living ones', appear in
connection with four and twenty elders. They are so closely related that they
move together; their activities are one, their utterances are one,
and their position is one. We bear that in mind, and leave it for the moment.
The great shout, the great proclamation, in connection with
the elders and the living ones is that through the great redemptive work
of the Lamb as slain in the midst of the throne, they have been constituted
a kingdom and priests unto God. They are united in this great
proclamation, this declaration, this statement of what they are, redeemed unto
God out of every nation, and made a kingdom and priests.
Now go back to the Old Testament, and if you read in the two
books of the Chronicles (1 Chron. 23, 24 and 2 Chron. 5) you have
the type of this. There you find that under David and Solomon the sons
of Aaron, the priests, were divided into twenty-four courses. They were
divided by lot, which means that they were not selected by preference or
by special favour. It was not selecting because of certain things which
made them more favourable for their position than others. They were
selected by lot; they all stood the same chance of coming into this position.
Over them were placed twenty-four elders, twenty-four courses of
priests, and twenty-four elders placed over them, an elder to a course. Then the Levites also were divided into twenty-four courses. These priests were
arrayed in white raiment.
Taking that as a very brief Old Testament background of
typology and illustration, they represent twenty-four rulers in the
House of God. They were twenty-four priestly rulers, elders, arrayed in
white garments. They are priests, and they are elders, or rulers. It is very
easy to see from the type the meaning of the antitype in heaven in the book of
the Revelation. They are in governmental position in heaven and,
as a mark of their authority and kingliness, they are wearing a crown of
gold upon their heads.
The Throne
Going back to the book of Chronicles, these priests brought
the ark into the oracle, the most holy place, and placed it under the
cherubim in the very presence of God, typically in the very heavenlies
itself, for the most holy place is a type of the heavenlies. We know that the
veil (which was Christ's flesh) being rent, opened a way right into the
presence of God, right into heavenly union and fellowship with God. The
cherubim are associated with this movement of the priests who bring in
the ark of the Testimony. It is the throne where the cherubim are. It is
a throne of grace to the Lord's people under the precious blood and its
protection. It is a throne of awful judgment to those who are not under the
protection of that blood. It is a throne! God rules there! And the priests
come into the presence of the throne!
Coming to the Revelation and the antitype, here are four and
twenty elders, priests and kings, and associated as one with them are
the living ones, the cherubim. What does all this mean? It is highly
symbolical. What does it represent? I think, and as far as I can see from
the Word, it means this: The living ones represent the church in general;
the elders crowned represent the church in its governmental position in
heaven, and the end of God which was His design for His church, the place
of the throne, the place of government.
Swiftly run your eye right back to the beginning in Genesis 3. Hebrews 2 says, "Thou crownedst him (man) with glory and
honour... thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet." But
man failed, he broke down, he lost his dominion. Through sin, through
unbelief, through disobedience, he forfeited the great place of government in
fellowship with God, and that man never attained to God's purpose for him. He died; he became a dead one. All in Adam die and are spiritually
dead. All outside of Christ are dead in trespasses and sins. From the
standpoint of God's thought about life, none live outside of Christ, all in
Adam have died. That divine, eternal, incorruptible and indestructible
Life is shut off from sinful man. He can only know it on the ground of the work
of the Lamb slain.
Pass your eye right down the ages to Revelation, to the
consummation, and what do you have? The Lamb slain, in the throne, and living ones representative of the whole church; and then God's thought and
intention expressed in the elders (dominion, kingship, a kingdom and priests). What Adam lost is at last realised in the church, living ones, alive with the very
Life of God, His gift of eternal Life. But what is the
ultimate expression and outworking and issue of that Life? It is the throne; it is
dominion. The elders and the living ones moving together declare that it
is in virtue of that shed blood, "For thou wast slain, and hast
purchased unto God by thy blood, out of every nation..." It is because of
that blood, the blood of the Lamb, that they have come to the end which God
eternally intended. This is salvation. There is something in this which
is more than just escaping hell and being saved from sin. God's thought was
more than that man should live a sinless life. God's thought was that
men should come to that fulness in fellowship with Himself where they
reign with Him for ever and ever.
Death Abolished
This book of the Revelation is prophetic. Notice how chapter 4
is introduced: "Come up hither, and I will show thee the things
which must come to pass hereafter." It is looking on to the end, the
consummation. It brings into view a time which is not time - for time shall be
no more - when all death shall have been abolished. That is not just
dying in your body and going from this world. Death, the last enemy, the
enemy of God's eternal purpose in man, the death in which all outside
of Christ abide, though multitudes of them do not know or realise, that death shall have been abolished. There shall be no more death nor curse
any more, but a universe of living ones. But, more than that, a throne in
view for living ones. Is it not striking that chapter 3 closes with, "He that
overcomes, I will give to him to sit down with me in my throne..." and
chapter 4 goes straight on with the throne, and the living ones, and the four
and twenty elders, leading right up to chapter 12, "And they overcame him because of the blood of the Lamb." God's full thought is represented in
the overcomer who comes to the throne to reign. God's provision for that is
the power of an all-conquering Life, a Life conquering death,
conquering hell, conquering the dragon, and rising to the very throne.
This is not all fiction. While much is symbolism and the
typology associated with it, inside of that there are great heavenly
and spiritual laws. And when you strip these laws, these principles of
symbolism and typology, you come to the great central realities of God's
creating and redeeming purpose: that man should live by the power of an
endless Life, and that that Life and the power of that Life should
eventually bring him to a place of dominion in God's creation. Over against the fact
that God has intended that, and in His Son, by the blood of the Lamb, has
provided the power of that indestructible Life, there are multitudes still
dead, and multitudes who are not living in the power of that Life, and
multitudes even of the Lord's people who have the Life but who are not rising
to overcome in virtue of that Life.
The appeal of the great consummation to our hearts is this,
that God has intended this and nothing less, and everybody stands the
same chance, and is in the way of it. There are no favourites, for there is
nothing in us by nature qualifying us for this; there is nothing which gives us
an advantage over others. All are called, all are in the running for a
throne, all are on the same footing of the precious blood and the risen Life of
Christ. God's thought is not that we should just escape hell, not even just
become possessors of eternal Life. God's thought is dominion in His
coming Kingdom, the Kingdom of His Son. We hear the apostle calling
to us, "Give diligence to make your calling and election sure" (2
Peter 1:10).
The Greatness of the Gospel
There is little more to say. The end has been brought before
us. The Spirit of God must move in relation to God's great thought,
but surely this is a tremendous appeal. In the first place it magnifies the
work of the Lord Jesus, what His Cross means, what the shedding of His blood
means; God's end against which all hell set itself; God's end which
seemed to be involved in disaster, failure, and a state which made it
appear utterly impossible of realisation, spread over ages of sinfulness.
God's end nevertheless, in spite of all that earth and hell do, realised
in the blood of the Lamb. It magnifies the work of the Lord Jesus, and surely
it presents to us the greatness of salvation. Oh, ours is not a little Gospel. Ours is not
a small salvation. It is a mighty thing; it ends in the throne
of this universe, to be occupied by living ones! It makes salvation appear what
it really is, a great thing. "So great salvation", says the apostle.
It is surely a challenge and an appeal, firstly to those who
are not saved, who are definitely not living ones, not having been
born again. Surely this so great salvation, this matchless purpose of God
in salvation, in redemption, ought to lift us off the mere level of
trifling, of dilly-dallying, and oh, it must mean that we cannot control this salvation, cannot govern it. No one can say, "Well, I am waiting! I do
not say that I never will be saved, but I am not ready yet! I am watching!
Perhaps some day!" You cannot control or govern a thing like this. God has
not put it within our power to say when we will be saved. God says, "Now
is the accepted time" (2 Cor. 6:2). You cannot say that you will be
saved tomorrow, or next week. God says, Now! Now! and it may be now
or never! But what a loss! What a loss to have missed all that
God intended and provided for through the sacrifice of His Son! It is too
big a thing to trifle with, to try and bring within the compass of our
holding and governing, saying when we will have it and when we will not
have it. If we are not saved it must lift us off a level like that, and
show us that this is not something small enough for us to hold for ourselves, to
handle, to manipulate. It is not as though it were a cheap thing, and if
we are inclined we will have it but if we are not inclined we will not. Let us
look at it in these dimensions, its magnificence, its majesty, its
costliness, what it cost God, what it cost God's Son, what the end of it all is, the
immensity of this salvation, and say: As for me, God have mercy upon me if I do
not capitulate to this! You can understand why they sing, and why
they fall down before Him that is on the throne, and cast their crowns
down. Why?
It means this, Oh! Wonder of all wonders in the universe, that
ever we should have been privileged to have any part in this
salvation! That is a different attitude from, "Well, I may or I may not!" It is the
marvel of our having been allowed to come into God's salvation in Christ.
Those who really do know Christ and redemption always marvel at the
grace of God. They know that they have found something which is priceless.
The Crown as Reward
For those who are in Christ surely this is an appeal, as this
very book presents: "Let no man take thy crown." It is an appeal to go
on to the full end. That is God's thought, reigning together with Him, but there is always an
'if" connected.
"If we suffer, we shall also reign with him." "To him that overcomes will I grant to sit with me in my throne."
That would not be said if everybody was automatically an overcomer. It is
the appeal to go on to God's full end, and not to fall short. This is the
encouragement in suffering, the encouragement in adversity. Salvation is not
a reward. Salvation is the gift of God's grace to those who have no
merit, no worthiness. The throne is a reward; the crown is a reward. For
what? For suffering, enduring, going on in spite of all the opposing
odds, the result of letting go all for the Lord, the issue of that Life of His energising us, bringing us to the throne.
The question arises: Are you a living one? That is where we
begin. Have you commenced with the possession of eternal Life in
Jesus Christ? Are you a living one to begin with? After that the question
is, how much are you a living one? Not only, do you have Life, but, how
much are you living by that Life? The whole question from Genesis to
Revelation is Life; Life as the basis, and Life as the energy unto God's full end.
So the apostle says, "When Christ who is our life shall appear, then shall we
be manifested with Him in glory" (Col. 3:4). The issue of Christ
our Life is manifestation in glory with Him. We are called "unto His
eternal glory" (1 Peter 5:10). That glory is the shining out of His Life in fulness.
We have to answer the challenge and the appeal. Are we living
ones? Are we going on in the Life? Is the Life having a free, full
course in us? Are we checking it, arresting it, hindering it, or are we wholly,
utterly capitulated to that Life, to let that Life have its full, free
course in us, obedient to its laws? It will bring us to the throne if that
is so, and we shall be the fulfilment of this promise, the four and twenty elders,
that is, the church represented in government in the throne. The Life is
manifested in its fulness in the elders, and it is all by reason of the
blood of the Lamb that has been slain.
Let the symbolism go if you cannot understand the whole thing,
if it mystifies you. I confess that the cherubim represent far too
much for me to grasp. I am only giving you the things which are clear. There
are a good many things that are beyond our understanding yet. But if you
will strip it all of symbolism, the types, the figures, and view the
clear-cut principles, it is simply this:
God, from eternity, meant man to be in the place of dominion. He
created him with that object. Adam lost the power by which man would have been energised unto that had he not sinned, and
that to which he would have come as the result of that energy. Another
Adam came and recovered by His own blood. We are called into the fellowship of God's Son through faith in Him and His redeeming work by
the Cross, and are given eternal Life, and are set, by the possession of
that Life, on the highway to the throne. All the potentialities of government in
the Kingdom of God's Son which is yet to be are in the Life which
we possess through faith. It is for us to live according to the dictates
of that Life, to learn how to live on the basis of divine Life, to be obedient
to its laws and faithful to all its energising within us. It is a great thing
to have eternal Life within, constant energy to bring us at last to full victory,
and to reign with Him for ever and ever.
The Lord convey His own message to our hearts, and lead us
into a fuller abandonment to Him and His purpose.