Revelation 5:6-7 And I beheld, and, see, in the middle of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the middle of the elders… The mystical scene before us is the appearance of the Lord, once crucified, once sacrificed, and now the Conqueror, in the heavenly sanctuary; at, and then upon, the heavenly throne. It is the ascension, it is the triumph of the Lord ascended, shown to us in sign and symbol, from the point of view of heaven. It is a new fact, a new phenomenon, in the holy region. The Lord of propitiation, of redemption, is seen here as the immediate fountain-head for earth, the sacred point of radiation downward, of the sevenfold Spirit. To the Spirit, I venture to believe, refer not only the seven mystical eyes but the seven horns, the symbol of perfect spiritual power. I wish to speak of our union by the Holy Spirit with our exalted Lord; of the life of the true members in their Head through the Divine Lifegiver, that Head being the Lamb that was slain. Now, the union of Christ with His people and of them with Him is a truth which may be described, in the light of the New Testament, as not only a great truth of spiritual life, but the truth of truths. It is related to all other kindred doctrines as that which combines, harmonises, and explains them. It appears as the end where they appear as means. Hither they gather and converge. If any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of His. That word, "the Spirit of Christ," reminds us of Him who is the earthward eyes, who is, as it were, the effluent presence for His Church below, of the exalted Lamb. The Paraclete comes, and behold He mediates and makes for the Christian's soul and self a presence of the Lord which somehow is better, far better, for the Christian in this his pilgrimage and tabernacle than even the joy and glory, if it were granted, of His Saviour's corporeal proximity. It is "in the Spirit" that the saint, that is to say the genuine Christian here below, "has access" in Christ unto the Father. It is those who are "led by the Spirit" who are in truth and deed, not in a certain sense, but in reality and nature, "the sons of God" in His Son. It is "by the Spirit" that they "mortify," they continuously do to death, "the deeds of the body," in the power and name of Christ. It is "by the Spirit" that they "walk" in Christ. It is "because of the Spirit dwelling in them," a truth full of deep significance as to the nature of the body of the resurrection, that "their mortal body shall be quickened" in the day when their Lord from heaven shall change it into likeness to His own. Of that harvest the indwelling Spirit is the first-fruits. Of that inheritance He is the earnest. So the sevenfold One is sent forth into all the earth, as the eyes, as the presence, of the exalted Lamb of the blessed Sacrifice. It is by Him, and by Him alone, that that presence is in the Church and is in the Christian. "Sent forth into all the earth": from the presence of the blessed, from the heaven of heavens, into all the earth; from the heart of God to the heart of man; from amidst the song of the heavenly elders to you and to me, to the concrete circumstances of our life to-day, to the stones and dust and thorns and pollutions in our path, to the snares and the illusions, to the crowds and to the solitude, of earth. Yes, He is sent forth into the present, the visible, the temporal. He is intended, He intends Himself, to be no dreamy abstraction above our heads and hearts, but to be the inmost Friend, the living strength, the infinitely ready and versatile resource and expedient, of the hour of your temptation and of mine. Over the real "deeds of our body," He is able to give victory. Our tremendously real "infirmities," He is here and now able to subvent, to "help," to transfigure into strength, as to us who look for Him He "makes perfect in our weakness" the strength of the Lamb who has overcome. He is able so to undertake our feeble, our erring steps, that we shall "walk by the Spirit," and, in a blessed reality of deliverance, "not fulfil the lusts of the flesh," yea, in all the range of the meaning of that phrase. He is able, and indeed He is willing, here and now, to take and shew to us the things of that Christ of whom He is the eyes and presence here below. He is able to make all the flying days and hours of inestimable and never-returning time sacred to us, and yet to take out of them all anxiety; to fill the heart with the things eternal and yet to open to it as no other touch can do all that is truly rich and beautiful in the things of this life. He is able, in a word, having united us to Christ, to make that union "a living, bright reality, a possession" that we use as well as have, in the whole of life. "All these things worketh that one and the self-same Spirit, dividing to every man severally as He will." And, meanwhile, He worketh thus as the eyes, as the presence, of the Lamb. All is drawn from, all is related to, Christ, still Christ, Christ glorified, Christ crucified. Ah, be that in its turn recorded and remembered. Of whom is this Holy One the presence? Whose life, and love, and peace, and power does He convey and mediate to the heart and life He has Himself regenerated, breathing where He listeth, but so breathing that "thou hearest the sound" of the heavenly wind in the being that He vivifies? It is not a merely abstract Christ, if I may use the phrase. It is not merely archetypal goodness, righteousness, truth and beauty, It is the Lamb that was slain. It is the propitiation. It is the sinner's Prince of peace. (H. C. G. Moule, M. A.) Parallel Verses KJV: And I beheld, and, lo, in the midst of the throne and of the four beasts, and in the midst of the elders, stood a Lamb as it had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God sent forth into all the earth. |
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