Revelation 15:1-4 And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels having the seven last plagues… Without pretending to settle what events may be thus prophetically alluded to, we may safely consider our text as belonging to a glorious season, when Christ shall have mightily interfered on behalf of His people, and swept away those who have resisted His authority. The song is a song of exultation, sung by the righteous, and called forth by judgments which have overwhelmed the wicked. The song is one not only of thanksgiving to the Lord, but of exultation over the wicked, and of rejoicing in their destruction. We hardly know a more perplexing truth, nor one which more shows how vast a change will have passed over our feelings when we shall have put on immortality, than that of our acquiescing in the punishment of the wicked; yea, of our approving that punishment, and magnifying God for the vindication of His attributes. It is not merely that those whom wrath overtakes and consigns to perdition will be our fellow-men, beings of the same race, and therefore linked with us by most intimate associations. This were much; for this would seem enough to seal our lips, or cause lament to mingle with our song. But it must come to pass that, in variety of instances, there will be the division of families, so that whilst one member is with the Israelites, another will be with the Egyptians. And this division must be thoroughly known. We must believe that, with all the consciousness that some whom they tenderly loved have earned for themselves a heritage of shame and despair, the ransomed of the Lord will feel how the Divine attributes have been magnified in the punishment awarded to the impenitent, and join in praising their Maker for the manifestation of His justice. And this — however we may shrink from what appears so unnatural — this describes to us what is loftiest in Christian attainment, and what, therefore, may justly be looked for in our future state of being. I know that it would be Christian perfection to have God all in all; to make Him so completely the centre of the affections, or to be so lost in Deity as to have no will but His will, and no end but His glory. We proceed to observe that the song of the triumphant Church is described, not only as the song of Moses, but as that also of the Lamb. "They sang the song of Moses, the servant of God, and of the Lamb." Now we may be said to feel more at home with the song of the Lamb than with that of Moses; for this is a song of which, even now, we can strike some notes, whereas we look on that of Moses with a kind of awe and dread, as though it were not suited to such minstrelsy as ours. It is the song of grateful confession that we owe everything to the Redeemer, and that His blood and righteousness have been the alone procuring causes of deliverance from ruin and a title to immortality. And there is vast beauty in the retention of the name of the Lamb in the melodies of heaven. Were not the wounds of the Redeemer the arms with which He mastered the enemies of God? and what are they now but trophies of the unmeasured achievement? To appear therefore as the Lamb, "a lamb as it had been slain," in the midst of all the magnificence of the everlasting city, is to appear as the mighty Conqueror who led captivity captive. And if it be as the Lamb that Christ is most glorious, what but the song of the Lamb shall be most on the lips of those for whom He died? We doubt not there will be many and various hymns chanted in the celestial temple. Archangel to angel, cherubim to seraphim, and man to man, will roll sublime choruses, such as our speech cannot now embody, nor our thought embrace. But one hymn there will be which shall be peculiar to men. One anthem shall be heard in which none but those who were once ready to perish will be able to join, but which their voices will never be weary of uttering: "Thou wast slain, and hast redeemed us to God by Thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and people, and nation." "Great and marvellous are Thy works, Lord God Almighty; just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints." Such is a portion of the lofty anthem. To take this anthem in Rs largest application, we may say that it celebrates the greatness and the justice of God as displayed in the occurrences of the judgment day. And it is well worth your attention, that these two characteristics shall be finally declared to have distinguished the whole business of the judgment. It will be a great and marvellous work, when the tares shall have been separated from the wheat, all unrighteousness detected and exposed, the wicked banished, and the faithful exalted. The spectacle has never yet been presented to the inhabitants of this earth, so fraught with the manifestations of Omnipotence as shall be that of the general judgment. What display of power can equal that which will be given by the resurrection of the dead? And if the gathering together of the buried generations, reconstructed and reanimated, be the mightiest imaginable display of God's power over matter, what shall more declare His power over mind than that laying bare of all the secrets of men's hearts, on which the last sentences shall be founded, and by which they will be justified? Then you must add the portents and signs which are to herald the Judge: the storm and the calm alike proclaim that Omnipotence is there. But this is not the whole of the chorus. The Church affirms God's ways to be just and true, as well as His works to be great and marvellous. And this is a most important assertion, when considered as called forth by the transactions of the judgment. There is something overwhelming in the thought that the untold millions of the human population will undergo an individual scrutiny; that they will come, man by man, to the bar of their God, and each be tried by his own privileges and powers. We can hardly put from us the feeling that, in so enormous an assize, there will be cases comparatively overlooked, for which due allowance is not made, or in which the sentence is not founded on a full estimate of the circumstances. But whatever our doubts and suspicions beforehand, "Just and true are Thy ways, Thou King of saints," is the confession, you observe, which will follow the judgment. It is a confession, we are bold to say, in which the lost will join with the redeemed. The feeling in every condemned man shall be that, had there been none but himself to be tried, his case could not have received a more patient attention, or a more equitable decision. And we rejoice in hearing the chorus which is chanted on the glassy and fiery sea. It tells us that God will be justified when He speaks, and clear when He judgeth. (H. Mellvill, B. D.) Parallel Verses KJV: And I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvellous, seven angels having the seven last plagues; for in them is filled up the wrath of God. |
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