01.01. THE CONQUERING CHRIST.
Chapter 1 THE CONQUERING CHRIST " Behold the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world ! "
John 1:29 "And I beheld, and lo, . . . a Lamb as it had been slain."
One of the disciples of the Baptist who heard his proclamation of the Lamb of God was John, afterwards the apostle and writer of the Apocalypse. Long years had passed since that hour. The Baptist slept in a bloody grave. The young fisherman had learned to know Jesus with a larger knowledge, and to love Him with a love more than life. He had found in Jesus depths which he had little dreamed of, on that day by the fords of Jordan ; and now, in his rocky Patmos, with the waves dashing round him, in a scene so unlike the earlier one, and himself most changed of all, the heavens were opened, and the vision of his Lord granted to him again. Is it not beautiful and significant that the words in which he tells of what he saw through the door opened in heaven read like an echo of those spoken so long ago, and never to be forgotten? - " Behold the Lamb ! " " And I beheld, and, lo, . . . a Lamb !" The word for lamb is, indeed, different, and in the difference lies a pathetic and lovely lesson ; for that employed to describe the heavenly state of the exalted Christ is humbler than that used by the Baptist, being a diminutive form, which we might represent by lambkin. But the whole ring of the sentence is like that of the original proclamation in the Gospel. If we further notice that the fourth Gospel alone has preserved this testimony of the forerunner, and that John alone of New Testament writers uses this name for Christ, and that it occurs in the Apocalypse some twenty-five times, we see how deeply his first teacher’s words had sunk into his heart, and how constantly, as years advanced and his experience widened, he had found them assuming new meaning. Happy is it for us if life but reveals to us the fulness which lies in our earliest glimpses of Christ, if our old age can repeat the creed of youth with deepened significance, and if we can hope that heaven itself will but give us a clearer vision of the same Christ, in the same character as we had dimly seen Him amid the confusions and sorrows of earth ! The purpose of this sermon is to gather into one view the Apocalyptic uses of this name for Jesus Christ, and thus to try to bring out the remarkable fulness and variety of the representation of what Christ is to men, thence deducible. We may arrange the whole roughly in four classes, and consider the teaching of the Apocalypse as to the slain Lamb, the enthroned Lamb, the Shepherd-Lamb, and the Warrior-Lamb.
I We have first the representation given in the words of our second text - the slain Lamb, the Sin-bearer for the world.
If we recur for a moment to the testimony of the forerunner, and try to throw ourselves back to his standpoint, and to ask the meaning on his lips of that remarkable saying, we shall better understand the vision in Patmos. The aspect in which Jesus appeared to the last of the Old Testament prophets was necessarily moulded by Old Testament facts, and if we seek what these may have been, we shall not go far wrong if we point to a triple source for that testimony of his, in the Lamb of history, the Lamb of ritual, and the Lamb of prophecy. As for the first of these three, recall the pathetic question and answer which passed between Abraham and his son as they traveled to the mountain of sacrifice. " Where is the lamb for the burnt offering?" said the unconscious son, bearing the wood for the pile. " My son," said the father - and how hard it must have been to have steadied his voice to say it, and to look the confidence which he did not feel ! - " God Himself will provide the lamb." The despairing father was " wiser than he knew," and the event shamed the little faith which he had in his own words. Surely that utterance, floating down from the sacred past, helped to shape the Baptist’s speech, and the remembrance of it suggests the interpretation of the " Lamb of God," as being the Sacrifice appointed and provided by God Himself.
Further, a second source, confluent with the former, is the Lamb of ritual, whether the daily sacrifice or the Paschal lamb. In this connection it is to be noted that John in his Gospel lays stress on the fact that, by reason of the remarkable rapidity with which death followed our Lord’s crucifixion. His sacred body escaped the cruel indignity practiced on the two robbers to hasten their end. He sees therein the fulfillment of the prescription concerning the Paschal sacrifice, " a bone of it shall not be broken," and thus by that one passing allusion identifies Jesus with the Passover - an identification which is also distinctly asserted by our Lord in His institution of the Last Supper.
Further, we must take into account also, and perhaps chiefly, the Lamb of prophecy - the great picture of the meek and suffering Servant of the Lord in the second part of Isaiah. " He was led as a lamb to the slaughter, and as a sheep before her shearers is dumb, so He opened not His mouth." But not meekness only was predicated of this Sufferer, but also that in some mysterious fashion He should " bear our griefs and carry our sorrows," and that the Lord should " make to meet on Him the iniquity of us all." The coincidence of representation is too striking to be fortuitous ; and the interpretation of the words of the Baptist, which takes no account of the words of the prophet, may be admired for its courage, but scarcely for its clear-sightedness.
If we give due weight to these three sources - history, ritual, and prophecy - we shall be shut up to the conclusion that the title given by the Baptist to Jesus is a name of function rather than of character. It is a transparently inadequate explanation to make the Name a mere expression of meekness or of innocence. True, these qualities must and do attach to the Sacrifice which is to avail for men, but it is not these qualities, but the fact of sacrifice, which is insisted upon in the title. That is made certain as having been the Baptist’s meaning by his own following words, which place the point of comparison between Jesus and " the lamb " in His sin-bearing rather than in His disposition. And how strong and emphatic the description of His mighty work is ! He " taketh away " by taking on Himself. The burden is not "sins," but "sin;" as if all the black deeds were gathered into one huge mass, enough to crush any shoulders but His on whom it is laid. The universality of His work of bearing, and bearing away sin, is put in the strongest form by the addition - " of the world." So far the Baptist carries us. John had heard and dimly understood his words. But much had happened since then to open their depths to his gaze. He had stood by the cross, had seen his risen Lord, had received His guiding Spirit, had learned through long years his own and the world’s need, had pondered and prayed and preached and lived, and so had come to know how "the blood of Jesus Christ cleanseth from all sin." Therefore, with whatever sacrifice of congruity of metaphor, the vision which he sees when heaven opens is "a Lamb as it had been slain." Whatever may be said about other points of comparison as being present in the Baptist’s use of the emblem, the sacrificial import of the vision in Revelation is settled by that one expression. "As it had been slain" leaves no doubt that Christ’s death, and nothing else, is in the seer’s mind ; and that to that fact he would lead us as the centrepoint of all else which we can know about Him, and as the foundation of all that He has further to reveal of His glory and power. That symbolical representation is a vivid and picturesque way of saying that, in heaven as on earth, Christ’s sacrifice is efficacious and necessary. Much besides may be contained in the symbol, but this is plainly its lesson, that there is no heaven nor any cleansing but through the blood of the slain Lamb. For earth and heaven, to the last moment of time and all through the dateless cycles of eternity, Christ’s sacrifice is men’s need, and is present before the throne as the medium of all blessings to sinners here who struggle to be saints, and to saints there who were sinners. Purity, peace, life, and all other Divine gifts, are ours and theirs, because the " Lamb as it had been slain " is before the throne. " This Man, when He had offered one sacrifice for sins for ever, sat down on the right hand of the throne of God." This is the aspect of Christ with which we must begin, if we would know Him in the full greatness of His gifts and sweep of His work. Unless we do, we shall have but an unworthy conception of His wondrous love and an inadequate estimate of His all-healing power. The Christianity which strikes out the sacrifice on the cross from its idea of Jesus has not fathomed the depths of His mercy nor of our need. The wounds of humanity are not to be stanched by one who is but a meek and pure pattern man, however stimulating and lovable such a figure may be, but need for their binding up a wounded hand. A Christ without a cross is an impotent Christ. He can neither bless nor sway. It used to be believed that adamant was soluble only by the blood of a kid. The adamantine heart is melted by nothing else than by the sacrifice of that unblemished and spotless Lamb. Take away that figure from the vision of the future, and the vision itself melts into mist, and instead of the solid certainties of a real and accessible home of all blessedness and perfection, there remains but a great Perhaps, shimmering uncertainly in the vapor, and in our hearts the aching doubt of its reality and of our power to reach it, if real it be.
II A second group of passages presents the enthroned Lamb. The vision from which our second text comes shows the Lamb between the throne and the ring of worshipers, and in other places of the Apocalypse we read of " the Lamb in the midst of the throne," and, still more remarkably, of " the throne of God and of the Lamb," as if joint possessors of the one seat of majesty. These are but symbolical ways of proclaiming the truth that the cross leads to the crown, that the dominion of Jesus is founded upon His suffering and death, that the many crowns which He wears are His by right of His having worn the crown of thorns. That Divine Word, which became flesh for our sakes, returned to the glory which had been its home before the world was ; but it bore a new companion with it - even the humanity which it assumed, and which died for our salvation. Manhood is exalted to the sovereign place in the universe. The slain Lamb is the enthroned Lamb. This vision brings clearly into view the activity of Jesus in His heavenly state, as well as His sovereign exaltation. For the ground plan of the universe is contained in it. In the centre rises the throne. Round it afar off are gathered the living creatures, the representatives of the fulness of creature life ; and the elders, the representatives of redeemed humanity ; and between these and the throne stands the slain Lamb, through whom all communications between the throne and the worshipers pass. By Him all blessings flow out, and by Him all praise rises up. " By Him all things consist." By Him the creatures receive their meat according to their hunger and capacity. By Him redeemed manhood receives all its graces and hopes. He is the Channel of all good, and bestows all fulness on an else empty world. He is the Medium by which thanksgiving, devotion, aspiration, hope, dare to clasp the else inaccessible seat of God. Nor is this the only thought enforced by the vision, for its subsequent part tells how this throned Lamb took into His hand the book with seven seals, and as He broke them one by one, set loose as it were the mighty forces which were to mould the world’s destiny. Jesus Christ is the Lord of history. The hand that was pierced on the cross holds the helm. The voice which cried, "It is finished!" says to His servants, who ride upon the mysterious horses of the vision, " Go ! " and they go on their errand of woe or gladness. He is the King of nations. Do we not see that, in spite of all the talk about Christ having done His part and Christianity being worn out, the principles and powers that spring from His cross are more and more becoming the guides of the " civilized " world ? Much of the evidence of His rule is plain to all who are not blinded by antagonism and prejudice, and the fact of His rule should be the unalterable conviction of every Christian soul, for its own peace amid noisy rebellion. But we need purged eyes to see that great sight which John saw in Patmos.
It is of the utmost importance for the vigor of Christian life to keep clear and vivid that present activity of our Lord. We have not only to look back to His cross, but upwards to His throne. We have not only to rejoice that He was wounded for a world’s transgressions, and to adore Him who was slain for us, but to think of Him as at the right hand of God, ready to help and royal to defend all who love Him. The nobleness, peacefulness, and strength of our lives largely depend upon our having that vision of the enthroned Jesus ever before us. It will give substance and nearness to the else shadowy and remote thoughts of heaven, if we feel that He is actually there in the manhood which is ours, and actually wielding the energies of omnipotence on behalf of our feebleness and for effecting the mighty purposes of His death. The distant land is more real and less distant when one dear vision fills it, and our Brother is known to be there. We shall have more vivid conceptions of Him, when our thoughts are not only directed to Him as to an historical figure in the past centuries, but embrace Him as at this moment working for the completion of that great work, which, though in one aspect it was " finished " when He bowed His head and died, in another will not be completed till the voice from heaven proclaims, " It is done. The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdom of our God and of His Christ."
It is difficult to keep that vision clear before our eyes, amid our low cares and sense-bound thinkings. But how small and poor the noise of Ephesus and the storms of persecution would seem to John, when the heavens opened and showed him the throned Christ ! There is no reason why that sight should not bless us as really as it blessed him. He saw " the things that are," and they are to-day and for ever. It was no transient splendor which he saw, nor was he befooled by the phantasms of his own imagination. To him was granted but the Apocalypse or the unveiling of what was always there, behind the curtain. For us, too, it will be drawn back, if we will. It is but a thin separating veil, which will soon be rent asunder, and may at any time be drawn aside, for faithful eyes to gaze lovingly on the glories which it partially hides. How small cares, and sorrows, and joys, and aims of this life would look if we really saw, with the inward eye whose revelations are more trustworthy than those of sense, the enthroned Lamb, the Mediator of the fulness of God, and the Arbiter of the fates of men ! If we would purge our vision from earthly stain, we too should have it granted to us to see this great sight, and to walk all the day in the light of the countenance of the present and exalted Christ.
III Another group of passages gives the figure of the Shepherd-Lamb. In that tender description of the perfected flock that came out of great tribulation, which has solaced so many sad hearts with a glimpse of the blessedness of their dear ones gone, we read that " the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall shepherd them, and shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life ; " and in another vision we hear of the redeemed as "following the Lamb whither soever He goeth." Of course the coloring of this representation, like all the symbolism of the Apocalypse, is derived from the Old Testament, and carries us back to many a sweet ancient word of psalmist and prophet. Especially is there an allusion in the former of these passages to the words of Isaiah 49:10, and it is noteworthy that the same office which the earlier words ascribed to God is here unhesitatingly attributed in even higher form to the Lamb.
There is a striking anomaly, and at first sight incongruity, in that daring symbol, that the Lamb is the Shepherd. But the reality underlying the symbol is that Jesus Christ, by His death, becomes the Guide, Protector, and Nourisher of men. We may perhaps venture still further to draw from the incongruity of the symbol the great truth that the Leader of men is one in nature with the men whom He leads. The Shepherd is Himself a Lamb, and is our Leader just because He shares our nature. But that is not in the intention of the seer, and can only be taken as a permissible ploy of allusion on our parts.
We are on firmer ground when we see in this sweet metaphor the thought that the Christ who died and reigns is the eternal Pattern for us, whether on earth or in the calm perfection of Mount Zion. Here we have to go after the Shepherd and Overseer of our souls, who has left us an example that we should tread in His steps. Here we follow afar off, lingering, straying, and all unfit to tread in His footprints. There " they shall follow the Lamb whither soever He goeth," with complete imitation, and steps not unequal to His. But for both states, to follow Him is blessedness and to be like Him is perfection. Nor shall that future be without advance. There will be growing approximation to Him, a more perfect conformity to His likeness, a fuller appropriation of His life, and an ever increasing nearness to Him which shall fill eternity . with freshness, and make its joys and service ever new. The symbol suggests that the slain and enthroned Lamb is, by both characteristics, the Source of security and the Author of nourishment. True, there will be no outward dangers to guard against ; but the reason why " they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, neither shall the sun strike upon them, nor any heat," is, " for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall be their Shepherd," and therefore are they safe from evil, and replenished with all good. He is the eternal Source of satisfaction for heaven as for earth, and is Himself the Fountain of living waters to which He leads the flock. Heaven is Christ, and Christ is Heaven. The future state of the redeemed is stable blessedness and full delight, not because of physical changes or added glories, but because Christ is theirs, and the full issues of His cross and reign are reaped by them in their following the Shepherd-Lamb, and sharing with Him His glories. The relation of the flock to the shepherd in the good pastures of the mountains of Israel above is in some respects the opposite of that experienced here, and in others the completion of it. There we shall have no valley of the shadow of death, no ravenous beasts to prowl round the fold and pounce upon the wanderers from the flock, no dark gorges, no stony ways, no thirsty deserts, no straying in the wilderness and tearing the fleeces among thorns, no losing sight of the Shepherd, and panting with panic fears. There the Shepherd needs no weapons- neither rod to smite nor sling to defend. If we give ourselves to His gentle guidance here, where all these terrors and hindrances are, He will bring us thither where they are not ; and if, with stumbling steps, we try to follow Him as we best can in this rough road, He will seek us when we wander, and restore us when we faint, and bring us to the one fold, where we shall be near Him, and at rest for evermore. But there is a grim verse in one of the psalms which tells us of another shepherd whose flock consists of those self-destroying souls, who will not take the Lamb for their Sacrifice, King, and Guide. Of these we read, " Death shall be their shepherd," and the fold to which they are driven is the shambles. The choice is before us. Shall we be of the flock of the good Shepherd, or of that which is marked for the slaughter ?
IV The final group of passages to which we direct attention represents Jesus as the Warrior-Lamb.
" These shall war against the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them ; for He is Lord of lords, and King of kings." So is the conflict between the vassal kings of the beast and the conquering Christ described in one vision of this book, while in that portraying the final conflict, though the name with which we are here concerned is not employed, the same title is given to the victor, which in the passage just quoted is ascribed to the Lamb. " He hath on His vesture and on His thigh a name written. King of kings, and Lord of lords." The very strangeness and incongruity of the combination of the ideas of the Lamb and of warfare is part of the felicity of the symbol. For so is the thought set forth that Christ conquers by gentleness, and that the instrument by which He subdues is the great manifestation of His love in His sacrifice. But, further, the paradox of the Warrior-Lamb hints at the terrible possibilities of destructive wrath which lie as dormant in that gentle Christ. The same double aspect of His character and energy is set forth in the striking juxtaposition in the context of our second text : " Behold, the Lion of the tribe of Judah . . . and I beheld, and, lo, a Lamb." Nothing is so terrible as the wrath of gentle love and patience. No wonder that the rebels against the long-suffering, meek Christ, when they see Him coming in the clouds of heaven, call despairingly on rocks and hills to crush them, if thereby they may be hid from the " wrath of the Lamb." Divine love is not incapable of anger. The Lamb of God is the Lion of Judah. Let us not trifle with His power to smite and rend. The Lion of the tribe of Judah is the Lamb of God. Let us trust and take refuge in His power to heal and save. But this vision of the conquering gentleness, which overcomes by sacrifice, derives still further significance when contrasted with its antagonist. The Lamb and the Beast are the two powers arrayed against each other. Now, it is profitless to ask whether there has been or will be a personal manifestation of the tendencies which are embodied in that image. It is more to the purpose to inquire. What makes the beast a beast, whoever or wherever he may be ? And the answer is not far to seek. What did God mean manhood to be ? Is not union with Him, in love, desire, and obedience, the ideal for man ; and does not the humanity which is separated from him and self-centered, sink to the animal •level, and become like, and therein beneath, the beasts that know not the Divine hand that feeds them, and can have no other object than themselves in their dumb and narrow lives ? The God-centered man is truly a man ; the self- centered man is somewhat less than a man. Where these self-regarding impulses are supreme the animalizing process is complete, and "the beast" is the perfection of that imperfection - the embodiment, as it were, of self separated from God. Against that sinful self hood Jesus fights now, and He will help us, if we will, in our daily struggle with the beast in our own natures. If we will open our hearts to the cleansing of His sacrifice, the authority of His reign, the guidance of His Shepherd’s care, He will fill them with power which shall make us victorious over all in ourselves that draws us away from God, and " the lion and the dragon " that are in us we " shall trample underfoot." The Warrior-Lamb is the Hope of each soul struggling with its own evil and seeking to help its fellows. He is the Hope for the world. They who understand the meaning of His sacrifice, enthronement, gracious guidance, and protection, cannot but be confident that He will cast out evil, and that the fruit of the travail of His soul shall be rich and ample and eternal enough to satisfy even the universal love of His heart, and to correspond to even the might of His sacrifice and the unspeakable price with which He has redeemed the world. For ourselves, all depends on our beginning with the vision of the slain Lamb. The call comes to each of us, " Behold the Lamb of God, that taketh away the sin of the world ! " Our sins are in that gigantic mass beneath which He sank fainting, but which He has borne away. Have we laid our hands, like the offerers of old, on the head of the sacrifice and thus associated ourselves with Him by faith ? Have we ever truly cried, " O Lamb of God, that taketh away the sins of the world, have mercy upon us " ? If we truly and habitually live obeying the merciful call to behold Him, then in life He will be for us Sacrifice, King, Shepherd, Champion. If we look to Him through the mists and clouds of time, His face will beam upon us and make the darkness light about us. When He leads us through the valley of the shadow of death and the swellings of Jordan, He will be with us ; and when we open our eyes again, after the brief darkness, and wipe the cold waters from our faces, our first sight in heaven will be the Lamb in the midst of the throne, and He will lead us among the good pastures of the sunlit hills, where no foes nor fears will disturb, nor sin and sorrow vex any more for ever.