Revelation 6:9-11 And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God… We may gather with all certainty from this wonderful revelation of the inner mysteries of the heavenly court, first, that God has a fixed time for the end of the world. It is also here revealed to us that God has fixed that time according to the measures of the work which He has to finish; even as Christ had a work to finish on earth; so that we read, again and again, that His "hour was not yet come." In like manner now in heaven, He has a definite foreseen scheme for the administration of His mediatorial kingdom; and according to the accomplishing of this work will be the time of His coming. 1. He has shadowed out to us the nature of the work that He has to do before the end comes; that is, to make up a certain number whom God has foreseen and predestinated to life eternal (Malachi 3:17; Matthew 24:31; Hebrews 11:13, 40). Whether this secret number be measured by the fall of angels, as some of old were wont to believe; whether the companies of angelic ministers shall be filled up by the redeemed of mankind, we know not, but we know certainly that, until the foreseen number is completed, the course of this turbulent world shall still run on. 2. Again, in this gathering out of the mystical body of His Son, God is carrying on the probation of mankind. In the inscrutable secrets of His providential government, He is so ordering the strife of the seed of the woman with the seed of the serpent, of the Church with the world, as to fulfil the manifold purposes of love and of long-suffering. (1) And, first, we see that this long-permitted strife is ordained for the perfecting of His saints. By it our patience, meekness, faith, perseverance, boldness and loyalty to Christ are ever tried; and by trial made perfect. (2) And this mysterious work, as 2. has an aspect of love towards the saints, so it has an aspect of long-suffering towards sinners. It is thus that God gives them a full season for repentance. He gives all things for our salvation — warnings, blessings, chastisements, sorrows, sicknesses, words of fire, and sacraments of love; He stays His hand, and leaves the sinner without excuse, that at the winding up of this weary life, "every mouth may be stopped, and all the world become guilty before God." 3. And now, from all this, we see what ought to be the master-aim of our lives, that is, to make sure of our fellowship in that mystical number. (Archdeacon Manning.) Parallel Verses KJV: And when he had opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar the souls of them that were slain for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held: |
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