05.10. Through the Gates
X THROUGH THE GATES Revelation 22:14.--R.V.
"Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in through the gates into the city."-- Revelation 22:14.--R.V. THIS has been truly called the last beatitude of the ascended Christ. It is characteristic of our dear Lord that, as He had shown us the way of Blessedness from the Mount on which He taught His disciples, so He should complete the cycle by this last crowning and significant benediction, which embraces certain conceptions that could not have been presented, because they would not have been understood, until the Cross had been borne, and the Blood shed.
It is interesting to note the very great alteration which the R.V. makes in the text, therein following the most approved ancient MSS. Formerly the words read thus: Blessed are they that do His commandments; and though it was clear that it would be impossible to do so, apart from His grace who bought us by His blood, and now waits to succor us by His Spirit--yet the stress of the verse was evidently on that obedience to commandment which savored strongly of the old covenant. To make entrance into the City of God depend primarily on obedience, was not perhaps what we might have expected, after all that is said in the Epistles about our absolute indebtedness for all to the unsearchable riches of God’s grace. Of course such obedience is due to the operation of God’s grace; of course, also, the work of God in the soul can only be attested and vindicated by its effect on our outward life; but we must feel that there is greater propriety in this final stress being laid on the redemption which was purchased for us by the Blood of the Cross. There seems a fitness in this emphatic reference to what Christ has done for us on the Cross, as distinguished from what we are called upon to do for Him.
I. THE HOMOGENEOUSNESS OF OUR SAVIOUR’S LIFE. The angels that stood beside the little group which gathered on the Ascension Mount, said emphatically: This same Jesus, which is taken up from you into Heaven, shall so come, in like manner. Evidently they had no thought that the passage of the centuries, less or more, would alter Him in one trait of His character, or in one aspect of holy helpfulness to the sons of men. However long the interval between His departure and return, however important the events that might transpire in the meanwhile, however lofty the dignity to which He might be exalted, He would always be the same Jesus--the same yesterday, to-day, and forever.
Some years ago I was privileged to make the friendship of a distinguished Indian missionary who, out of his intense devotion to the country which he had adopted for his Master’s sake, wore the native dress, ate the native food, and even sat in the native fashion. On his return to England on furlough, he still maintained these customs; and on my remonstrating with him, and suggesting that what might be suitable for India was unnecessary in England, he replied: " If I were to alter my style of living on my return to England, the natives might suppose that I had only put on the appearance of likeness to themselves, whereas I wish them to realize that for the love of Christ I have actually identified myself with their interests, and have become an Indian." This will assist us to realize how close is Christ’s identification with us. His Incarnation is not a semblance merely, like the robes of light in which He girds Himself. He has become one with us in a very real and literal fashion, and now that He has passed from our view He is not less the Son of man because He is the acknowledged Son of the Highest; and He pursues the same course of thought, action, and ministry, as when he sojourned on our earth, sat on the mountain, walked beside the lake, or floated across its heaving bosom.
What an illustration of this fact is presented here! He was sent to bless (Acts 3:26). When He opened His mouth and taught, He said, Blessed, blessed, blessed (Matthew 5:3, etc.). His hands dropped with the spices of blessing when He placed them on the latch of men’s hearts. Never was He happier than when He wove some benediction into His ordinary talk (Luke 7:23). He blessed the food men eat, and transformed a common meal into a sacrament. He was in the act of blessing with outspread hands, when He was severed from those who loved Him, and borne upward to heaven (Luke 24:50-51). The last view men caught of our Saviour’s person, was in the act of blessing, with outstretched hands, as when the priest came out of the temple and blessed the waiting congregation. It is in harmony, therefore, with all we know of Jesus, to find Him uttering such a benediction as this; and it is also in conformity with what He tells us will be His greeting to those who have faithfully obeyed and imitated Him: " Come, ye blessed of My Father."
Wherefore let us doubt not, but steadfastly believe, that this same Jesus is the same loving Saviour who, in the days of His flesh, so lovingly blessed all who came to Him, and who, from His throne in the glory, still stoops over our lives, with His hands full, pressed down and running over with the blessings which He desires to pour into our lives, making us most blessed forever, and filling us with joy by His countenance.
II. THE FORCE OF THIS METAPHOR.
"’Blessed are they that wash their robes."--This book is dominated by Hebrew methods of thought, and in the robe we must detect an allusion to character, which is to the soul what our clothes are to the body. Character is the robe in which the inner man arrays himself. Indeed, the word " habit " (and character is just the collection of our habits) is used alike of the material dress, and of the inner and moral life. When Joshua is described as standing before the Angel, clothed in filthy garments, and when the prodigal returns to his father in rags, we can but understand that their character is reflected in the condition of their dress: and that each is far removed from the purity of heart and behavior without which none can see the Lord. By nature the robe of our souls is splashed and foul. " All our righteousness," the prophet says, "are as filthy rags." And if our righteousnesses are such, what must not our wickednesses be! Not that all have gone to the same excess of riot, nor have dyed their robes to an equal degree of blackness; but that there is only One of the sons of Adam that has escaped some spot or stain or wrinkle. The Lamb was without blemish, and without spot: all else need to wash their robes of some pollution that has left its finger-mark upon them. The meek were not always meek; the pure not always chaste; the poor in spirit not always humble; and if it were not for the fountain opened for sin and uncleanness, the cleanliness of God’s home were forever an inaccessible ideal.
But, as this book so constantly tells us, there is a glorious possibility of becoming cleansed. " These," says the Seer, " have washed their robes and made them white in the Blood of the Lamb." And if they succeeded in this, we may, so long as "the Blood of Jesus Christ, God’s Son, cleanseth from all sin."
1. Be willing that the Holy Spirit should have entire control of the deepest springs of thought and motive, so that never again you may harbor the least thing that may grieve Him who bought you by His blood to be wholly His. Dwell much on His infinite and ineffable claims; and beware lest you count the blood by which you have been redeemed an unholy thing.
2. Spend much time in meditation upon that supreme act of the Divine Substitute, in virtue of which He died in the likeness of sinful flesh, that our old man should be annulled and brought to nought, that we should no longer serve sin. And let the cross put a finality to your subjection beneath, the reign of evil habit and desire. " In that He died, He died unto sin once . . . likewise reckon ye also yourselves to be dead indeed unto sin."
3. Ponder much the tenderness of Him who died on the Cross, and is now exalted to be a Prince and a Saviour; His great horror of sin; its cost to Him, and His ability to deliver the soul that trusts in Him from the tyrant evils that have too long devastated it. Thus a great hatred of sin will become your second nature, and that blessed penitence and compunction will be yours, which shall dissolve you in floods of penitential grief.
4. Remember, too, what Dr. Chalmers called the expulsive power of a new affection, and ask that the love of Jesus, as evidenced in His cross, may so constrain you that you may no longer live to yourself, but to Him who died and rose again.
5. Above all plead that promise of His, which so well embraces our deepest desires, and answers them: " Then will I sprinkle clean water upon you, and ye shall be clean: from all your filthiness, and from all your idols, will I cleanse you; I will put My Spirit within you, and cause you to walk in My ways." Let us claim that God would fulfil in us whatever He may mean by those great words. Oh, to live under the shelter of the Cross, beneath the flow of the cleansing blood, in fellowship with Him who came by water and blood--not by water only, but by water and blood. The Greek word might bear the force: Blessed are they that are washing their robes. That we have been washed once is not enough; we must go again and again to the Fountain opened for sin and uncleanness. Whenever we are conscious of the least defilement, and before it can breed and spread; whenever conscience accuses us; whenever we have lost our place and feel out of fellowship with God--we must get back again to the Laver, just at the entrance of the Holy Place.
Oh souls of men, defiled and unfit for God’s pure eye, will ye not seek the pardon and salvation which emanate from the Cross, and are to be received by faith, that ye too may have the right to the tree of life, and enter in through the gates into the city?
III. THE RESULTS THAT WILL ACCRUE.
"Right to the tree of life."--On the last page of the Bible, we meet with the tree of life, from which in the first pages we are told that man was warned away. But here the restrictions are removed. The Cherubim with flaming sword are withdrawn. God Himself gives us a right to come, and invites to eat abundantly of its precious fruit.
Why is this? Why may we take that from which our first parents were debarred? The answer is not far to seek. We have been redeemed by the precious blood from the consequences of our transgression. The proud spirit of independence and isolation from God has been replaced by a tender, humble, renewed spirit. Life will not now be spent in the energy of the self principle, but in living dependence on the true Vine; therefore the Life, which is life indeed, is the glad requisite and possession of the cleansed soul. It has become one of those sheep that hear the Shepherd’s voice, and of whom He said: I give unto them eternal life; I am come that they might have life more abundantly.
Right to enter in through the gates into the city.--Excluded from the garden at the beginning, man is welcomed to the city which hath foundations, when the mystery of redemption, of sin and sorrow, is complete. The garden stands for solitude, comparative sluggishness, and evanescence; the city for society, activity, and permanence. Who will not be glad to reach that city, and enter its gates! Like those of Peter’s prison, they will open to us of their own accord! And best of all, we shall have no perturbation or anxiety lest our presence there should be challenged. Pointing to the Blood which has cleansed us, we may insist on our right to be there, through the Blood of the Cross which has blotted out the handwriting that was against us, and opened to us a fellowship, which death cannot annul, with the great multitude of the saints. THE END