---

I. The text presents the redeemed in heaven AS FORMING ONE BLESSED AND GLORIOUS SOCIETY. Man is formed for society, which not only furnishes some of his sweetest enjoyments, but is necessary to call forth the powers of his mind. Without it the best purposes of his being would be defeated; the benevolent principles of his nature would be rendered useless. His pleasures, from having no kindred soul to share them, would cease to please. Hence society is eagerly sought as essential to our happiness; but the pleasures which it is fitted to yield are greatly impaired by a variety of disagreeable circumstances, arising out of the imperfection of the present state. But it is otherwise with the society of heaven. There the honey is without the sting, and the rose without the thorn, and attachment and intercourse without any detraction or alloy. Their opportunities of intercourse are ample, and the pleasures which flow from it are of the purest kind. Here it is with difficulty that we can select from the crowd a few with whom we are disposed to unite in intimate fellowship; hut there are to be found all the great and the good who ever existed in the universe of God. Their intercourse is free and unreserved. The caution and concealment which we often find it necessary to observe in our correspondence with one another, are, amongst them, altogether unknown. One common principle of sympathy is diffused throughout the whole; and whatever each has to communicate finds a response in every bosom, and awakens a reciprocal emotion in every soul. Their attachment for one another is also sincere and ardent.

II. In the text the redeemed in heaven are represented as A SOCIETY OF VAST AMOUNT. Heaven is not to be viewed as a thinly peopled country, or a place of narrow and confined dimensions, containing only a few inhabitants. We are taught to conceive of it as a large and extensive empire, teeming everywhere with a happy and active population. When we think of the number who, during the long period of the Old Testament dispensation, lived and died in the faith of the Messiah to come — and of the still greater number who, since His coming, have believed in Him to the saving of the soul — the whole, taken collectively, will be found to be a countless multitude. To those who are now in the world of glory we must add the multitude who shall believe in the Son of God ere the gospel dispensation comes to a close; and then, who shall be able to calculate their amount?

III. In the text the redeemed in heaven are represented As COLLECTED FROM THE VARIETIES OF THE HUMAN RACE. Heaven is not the destined dwelling-place of any one class only of the human race. The gospel reveals a common salvation, and opens a path to heaven for all the diversities of the human race. Many have already "come from the east, and from the west, and from the north, and from the south, and have sat down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven"; and every day is adding to their number. No power shall prevent the universal diffusion of the gospel when "the time to favour Zion, even the set time, is come." Scepticism and infidelity shall find a grave. Pagan superstition shall pass away as the mist which rolls up the mountain's side disappears before the rising glory of the summer morn. Then "all the ends of the world shall remember, and turn unto the Lord; and all the kindreds of the nations shall worship before Him: for the kingdom is the Lord's, and He is the Governor among the nations." He shall take to Himself His great power and reign.

IV. In the text the redeemed in heaven are represented AS IN THE IMMEDIATE PRESENCE OF THEIR GOD AND REDEEMER. Even in this dark and distant world the people of God enjoy His gracious presence. To them He manifests Himself as He doth not unto the world. He blesses them with the knowledge of His character, and with a sense of His love; but here they see Him only obscurely. They see Him through the medium of His Word and ordinances, as in a mirror, darkly. It is otherwise in heaven. There He gives displays of His glory, of which the Shekinah, the bright shining cloud in which He appeared of old in the holy of holies, was but a faint and feeble emblem. There He is beheld, not in the dim vision of faith, but clearly, as with our bodily organs we behold the sun shining in the firmament. Even in heaven it is true, that as to His essence, God will be for ever unseen and unknown. But there He manifests Himself by such external tokens as show that He is near. The beams of His glory are so diffused over all that happy land, that all its inhabitants have the clear and intimate perception of His presence, and a full and distinct consciousness of abiding in it. They feel themselves to be walking continually in the brightness of His face!

V. The text represents the redeemed in heaven AS DISTINGUISHED BY SPOTLESS HOLINESS. From all that was imperfect in their character here below; from all that was wrong in their temper or disposition; from all that was feeble in their love and devotion; from all that was displeasing to the view of others, they are entirely and for ever freed. They appear "without fault before the throne of God."

VI. In the text the redeemed in heaven are represented AS ENJOYING THE HONOURS AND BLISS OF A TRIUMPH.

(D. M. Inglis.)

---

---

KJV: After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands;

WEB: After these things I looked, and behold, a great multitude, which no man could number, out of every nation and of all tribes, peoples, and languages, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, dressed in white robes, with palm branches in their hands.