Bible Commentaries
Revelation 2

Verse 7

The Tree of Life

To him that overcometh, to him will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.— Revelation 2:7.

The Church at Ephesus had an early history full of promise. St. Paul addressed to it a noble and eloquent Epistle; but in the end of it he gave emphatic warning of spiritual dangers, and charged the Ephesian Christians to put on the panoply of God that they might “stand in the evil day.” The same Apostle, in an address to the elders of the Church, warned them that “grievous wolves” would enter into the fold “not sparing the flock.” His exhortation to them to watch, and the subsequent admonitions of St. John, were not without good effect. Firm discipline was maintained; false apostles were detected and repudiated; a libertine sect tried to obtain a footing, but was deservedly scouted. And yet a temptation had made some way among the orthodox Christians of Ephesus. Their fault was a decay of spiritual affection; there was a waning of their first love. There were, it is true, work, labour, patience, intolerance of evil men, spiritual discrimination, unfainting perseverance. The Ephesians saw through the pretensions of those who falsely claimed apostleship; they resisted the wiles of the Nicolaitans, who would have sapped their very life through fleshly indulgences. But, with all that was good among them, they had left their first love. The process had not produced lukewarmness, as in Laodicea; nor was there, as in Sardis, the chill of death. But the cooling process had begun; the fervour of first love was gone. Whatever individual exceptions there might be, this was the condition of the church as a whole. The overcomer, in Ephesus, therefore, would be the man who rose above the tendencies to waning love, the man in whose heart love continued not merely to abide, but to deepen and intensify. Health and strength might fail, inducing physical languor; age might come stealing on, with its feebleness and loss of enjoyment; but even unto death would love continue, profounder, more ardent and more fit for service and sacrifice in the end than in the beginning—able to take up the glorious challenge, “Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors, through him that loved us.” To this victor, loving on in spite of all deadening and benumbing influences, a very great promise is given: “To him that overcometh, to him will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.” The Nicolaitans promised sensual enjoyment, as in an earthly paradise, in the gratification of the appetites of the flesh; the Christian victor shall inherit the paradise of God, and shall eat of the tree of life in the midst thereof.

I have a recollection of a book I read when a boy called Danesbury House. It was written in order to illustrate the value of temperance. Though it is forty years since I saw it, or read it, there is a scene in that book which has remained with me all my life. It describes one of the boys of the house who had become a victim of drink. By the grace of God he determined to break the habit and to overcome. The picture is given of the struggle in his room, of his turning to the Bible and opening at this text, “To him that overcometh I will give to eat of the tree of life.” And the picture is drawn of that young man, broken by indulgence, his will weakened by drink, falling on his face and covering the Bible with his tears as he prayed to overcome. And the end of it was he did overcome, and became completely reclaimed. That has haunted me all my life. It seems to me that to overcome temptation, even one temptation, is to taste of the tree of life. To overcome all temptations is to eat of the tree and dwell in the paradise of God. 1 [Note: R. F. Horton.]

I

Access to the Tree of Life

“The tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.”

1. The word “Paradise” has a curious history. Originally it was a name given to certain royal pleasure parks in which the sovereigns of ancient Persia took delight; a vast tract of enclosed country abounding in natural forest, timber as well as cultivated fruit trees; a place half park, half orchard, with springs of clear water keeping cool the meadow-lands, as well as open glades for sport, with here and there a terraced garden gay with flowers. Such was the scene styled first a Paradise. The Hebrews learned the word through their captivity in the East, as the Greeks learned it a little later during the campaigns of Alexander; and when the Old Testament came to be translated into Greek it was by this borrowed name that scholars interpreted the ancient garden of God, which had been man’s primeval seat in his golden age of innocence. Thus it became fairly naturalized among the Jews, and in our Lord’s time it had come to be transferred from Eden to the site of that Hades where the disembodied spirits lived—the region where all the Jews were believed to await Messiah’s coming.

In the New Testament the word “Paradise” is to be found only three times. Its first occurrence is in the great word of our Lord addressed to the penitent malefactor on the cross “To-day shalt thou be with me in Paradise.” What the rude outlaw understood by the gracious words of his great Fellow-Sufferer that day could be nothing but this, that when death should release them both from their agony they should be received together among the righteous dead—he, undeserving child of Abraham, received beneath the favouring of Israel’s martyred Christ and King. On each of the two other occasions in which the term “Paradise” occurs in the New Testament it is used in a new sense—to describe the heaven of the Christian. The first time it recurs is where St. Paul is boasting of his rapture from earth to the immediate seat and vision of God—“caught up into Paradise” he writes, “and heard unspeakable words, which it is not lawful for a man to utter.” The last time the word occurs, which is in this text in Revelation, it is again used as an equivalent for heaven—the final home of the beatified saints. Of this celestial Eden restored to men we have a description, very familiar to all of us, in the closing chapters of this same Apocalypse—a description which has coloured all the imagery of Christendom and its sacred songs.

That Eden of earth’s sunrise cannot vie

With Paradise beyond her sunset sky

Hidden on high.

Four rivers watered Eden in her bliss,

But Paradise hath One which perfect is

In sweetnesses.

Eden had gold, but Paradise hath gold

Like unto glass of splendours manifold

Tongue hath not told.

Eden had sun and moon to make her bright;

But Paradise hath God and Lamb for light,

And hath no night.

Unspotted innocence was Eden’s best;

Great Paradise shows God’s fulfilled behest,

Triumph and rest. 1 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, Poetical Works, 162.]

The Paradise of God can no more be determined locally than the original Garden of Eden. It is no more invisible than visible. It belongs to a region of another kind of experience than that of the senses. A paradise of God—we shall get the meaning of it by being of it. Let us repeat it to ourselves day and night for a week: “The tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.” The meaning of it will begin to clear itself without effort. It is a state, a condition of experience which is closely connected with Jesus. It is not in a particular locality; it is in Him, or, rather, He is in it. It is a place where His thought has become the atmosphere and His life the life. 2 [Note: R. F. Horton.]

2. It is touching to see, in the later Jewish literature, how conscious men were of that shut door which Adam had closed against himself and his posterity; and in their books a favourite image of the goodness of the end was that then the prohibition should be withdrawn, and men should come back to what they had lost. In the Book of Esdras we read, “For you is Paradise opened and the tree of life planted”; and in Enoch, “No mortal is permitted to touch this tree of delicious fragrance till the Great Day of Judgment; but then it will be given to the righteous and the humble.” In this Book of Revelation the image comes again and again: “Blessed are they that wash their robes, that they may have right to the tree of life.” It had become a symbol of all that men had lost in their existence, which only God could restore. It was a symbol of great depth of meaning; for when men talked of the hope of Eden they confessed that what they lamented daily was not a fresh disaster or exclusion, but an old one, running back to Adam and the beginning.

In the first glimpse of the Garden that is given us in the Book of Beginnings we are shown a picture of the ideal home of innocence, of the soul of the untried child of humanity. But there falls a shadow upon the picture as we note the entrance of sin, which results in the loss of innocence and the expulsion from the Garden and the unsheathing of the flaming sword to guard the sacred Tree of Life.

But there is given us another picture of the Garden in that other Book of Beginnings, the revelation that was given to John of the new heaven and the new earth. Beautiful is the Garden now as when it first sprang fresh from its Maker’s hand. The gates are open to the four quarters of the wilderness. The flaming sword is in its sheath, and One like unto a Son of Man, clad in white robes and wearing a crown of victory, stands to welcome the returning exiles. As they come, they come by way of a Cross in the wilderness and along the banks of a glorious river, whose source they find to be in the Garden, where it waters the Tree of Life, of which they may now freely eat. One Garden is lost to us—we may not go back to Eden. But there is another Garden we may gain—it is ours to go forward, and the way of the Cross will lead us to its gates. 1 [Note: J. B. Maclean, The Secret of the Stream, 138.]

3. Men who have little thought of the sin of Adam have yet a haunting sorrow because of what they have lost in life. There is a real pathos in the common legend of a golden age coming first which Greeks and Romans cherished, when existence was sweet and fresh and right, and all men lived in peace. The Jews also thought of a blessed spring-tide of the world. Man’s life began in a garden with flowers and streams, and God walked with him there, till by the one disobedience the charm was broken, and Adam must go out to a world with thistles instead of flowers, with labour and sickness and dying. They believed in God enough to believe that Eden was not lost, though no wandering horsemen ever came to encamp in it, or water their horses in its rivers, or caught sight of the flashing sword of God’s angel who kept the way of entrance. They believed that there was a way back, but they tried in vain to find it. To some the story of the earthly paradise, standing at the head of the Bible history of man, has seemed a mere fable or myth, with no more truth in it and of no more account than the dream of a golden age; to some it has seemed an allegorical method of setting forth, as for children, the sinlessness and happiness of man’s original estate and the misery of departure from God, true only in the sense in which the “Pilgrim’s Progress” is true; to some the outward and literal have been all in all, and under the influence of a strong fascination they have even dreamed of discovering some lingering traces of the garden, or at least finding out where it lay. In vain: every trace of it has vanished as completely as the dew from last summer’s grass. The paradise of promise and hope is the paradise of God; no earthly garden, however fair, no restoration (through a cancelled forfeiture) of the paradise that has withered and died; in the paradise of God grows the tree called “the tree of life.”

The tree of life was as significant a symbol of life-giving Divine power to the Asian Greeks as to the Jews, though in a different way. Trees had been worshipped as the home of the Divine nature and power from time immemorial, and were still so worshipped in Asia Minor as in the ancient world generally. On some sacred tree the prosperity and safety of a family or tribe or city was often believed to depend. When the sacred olive-tree on the Acropolis of Athens put forth a new shoot after the city had been burned by the Persians, the people knew that the safety of the State was assured. The belief was widely entertained that the life of a man was connected with some tree, and returned into that tree when he died. The tree which grew on a grave was often thought to be penetrated with the spirit and life of the buried man. The tree of life in the Revelation was in the mind of the Ephesians a Christianization of the sacred tree in the pagan religion and folk-lore; it was a symbolic expression which was full of meaning to the Asian Christians, because to them the tree had always been the seat of Divine life and the intermediary between Divine and human nature. The problem which was constantly present to the ancient mind in thinking of the relation of man to God appears here: how can the gulf that divides human nature from the Divine nature be bridged over? how can God come into effective relation to man? In the holy tree the Divine life is bringing itself closer to man. He who can eat of the tree of life is feeding on the Divine power and nature, is strengthening himself with the body and the blood of Christ. The idea was full of power to the Asian readers. 1 [Note: W. M. Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, 247.]

4. “To him will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God” is the mystical expression of the great truth that Jesus can incorporate us in His own life, and make us sharers of His own joy. He is in paradise. If we are in Him, we are in paradise.

Why should a Divinely sustained and everlasting life be promised as the reward of victory, seeing it is the present possession of all believers? For thus runs the testimony of Scripture: “He that believeth on the Son of God hath everlasting life”— hath this life already; it is already kindled and shrined in his breast. “This is the record, that God hath given to us eternal life, and this life is in his Son. He that hath the Son hath life.” Not only is all this true, but it is pre-supposed in the promise given in the text to the overcomer. For it is to be borne in mind that the earnest, enjoyed in this life, is of the same nature as the future felicity and glory. While the life eternal in its beginnings is a present possession of the believer in Jesus, yet in its glorious fulness, or what Jesus calls its “abundance,” it shall be also the future reward of him that overcometh. Hence St. Paul writes to Timothy, “Lay hold on eternal life”; and the Apostle John says, “This is the promise that he hath promised us, even eternal life.”

It will not meet us where the shadows fall

Beside the sea that bounds the Evening Land;

It will not greet us with its first clear call

When Death has borne us to the farther strand.

It is not something yet to be revealed—

The everlasting life—’tis here and now;

Passing unseen because our eyes are sealed

With blindness for the pride upon our brow.

It calls us ’mid the traffic of the street,

And calls in vain, because our ears are lent

To these poor babblements of praise that cheat

The soul of heaven’s truth, with earth’s content.

It dwells not in innumerable years;

It is the breath of God in timeless things—

The strong, divine persistence that inheres

In love’s red pulses and in faith’s white wings.

It is the power whereby low lives aspire

Unto the doing of a selfless deed,

Unto the slaying of a soft desire,

In service of the high, unworldly creed.

It is the treasure that is ours to hold

Secure, while all things else are turned to dust;

That priceless and imperishable gold

Beyond the scathe of robber and of rust.

It is a clarion when the sun is high,

The touch of greatness in the toil for bread,

The nameless comfort of the Western sky,

The healing silence where we lay our dead.

And if we feel it not amid our strife,

In all our toiling and in all our pain—

This rhythmic pulsing of immortal life—

Then do we work and suffer here in vain. 1 [Note: P. C. Ainsworth, Poems and Sonnets, 9.]

II

Access through Christ

“To him will I give to eat of the tree of life.”

1. Every word of the text might stand our scrutiny, and none calls for more careful examination than the word “give,” indicating that Christ is the bestower of the reward. He who overcomes might seem to have earned something, and the reward be his by right. But in the Kingdom of God there is no thought of meriting. All faithfulness in duty has its reward, and many Scriptures declare that the reward is in some way proportioned to the work, so that a man may actually reap the thing which he has sown. And yet has any man who has known God ever dared to think of Him as in his debt? At every stage of life such a man is apt to be impressed by his own extraordinary mercies; the element of grace in life, of things better than he has worked for, bulks largely in his view. And when he comes to the end, and the question of the wages due to him comes up for settlement, the thought of self-assertion is far away; for the least of God’s rewards has in it something that passes human expectation. A man might humbly ask only to be within the door, to have a sight, however distant, of that Face; but to be within the door includes the whole—“a far more exceeding and eternal weight of glory.” And those to whom that blessedness is given take it not as the deserved return for their poor services on earth, but as one last miracle of the grace of God, who gives men what they never could have earned; and they take it from the hands of Him who “overcame the sharpness of death, and opened the kingdom of heaven to all believers.” For it is Christ who says, “I will give,” Jesus Christ risen and enthroned, who has ascended on high, and has received gifts for men.

The result of our Lord’s varied teaching about life is to exhibit it as the ultimate and fundamental form of human good, the highest and the deepest blessing which man can in any wise attain; and that especially because it is what most closely links him to God, and may most truly be represented as issuing from God’s own being. But while the disciples were being led by this gradual and often indirect guidance to esteem rightly the preciousness of life, they were learning also in like manner that the life thus highly exalted was in some sense embodied in the person of their Lord. After the earlier days of intercourse had brought them to recognize Him as a trustworthy teacher concerning life and the way to attain it, nay as Himself a giver of it, they soon came to feel that when He was giving them life He was giving them of Himself, for they received it after a fashion which the externality of such terms as “given” and “gift” renders them incompetent to describe. 1 [Note: F. J. A. Hort, The Way: the Truth: the Life, 109.]

2. In the text Jesus Christ claims to be the Arbiter of men’s deserts and the Giver of their rewards. He has said that He will give to all the multitude of faithful fighters who have brought their shields out of the battle, and their swords undinted, the gift of life eternal. In Christ risen from the dead we have, says St. John, the assurance of things which the past never had. The tree of life is promised, which was denied to Adam. The Eden of earth’s sunrise had a beauty of its own, yet, fugitive and ill-secured, it was not fit to last; but the things which Christ brought in are not to be withdrawn. If He undid by His long warfare an old disaster, it is for ever; the salvation of Jesus is irreversible. The text at least implies that there is some power in Jesus Christ to give lost things back again; and those who know His work must have seen startling resurrections of old things—purity returning to those whose life had been sullied, hope returning to some who had sinned their chances all away. “I will restore to you the years that the locust hath eaten,” says God. All is not lost; and Christ holds the secret of how to give it back to men. Eden is not lost, it is with God; and through the grace of God we may see what life took from us—the wishes too great, the hopes too fair, the knowledge too wonderful. After all, it is a heathen fancy that the golden age is behind; it is the thought of those who erred, not knowing the Scriptures nor the power of God; and we should learn from Jesus Christ to trust Him to do better for us than the best the past has seen.

Of all the various ways in which the imagination has distorted truth none has worked so much harm as reverence for past ages. It is this which inspired poets with the notion of a Golden Age, in which the world was filled with peace, and crime was unknown. And it is this same principle which diffused a belief that in the olden time men were not only more virtuous and happy, but attained to a larger stature and lived to a greater age than is possible for their degenerate descendants. 1 [Note: A. W. Momerie.]

The Golden Age is in the future, not in the past, whatever the poets may say. We look back with humiliation to one Garden, the defiled and deserted Paradise of Eden: we look forward with joy and hope to another Garden, the glorious and incorruptible Paradise of Heaven that shall never be destroyed. 2 [Note: J. B. Maclean, The Secret of the Stream, 136.]

3. In the promise “I will give” there is involved the eternal continuance of Christ’s relation to men as the Revealer and Mediator of God. Not only when the victor crosses the threshold and enters the Capitol of the heavens, but all through the ages, Christ is the Medium by which the Divine life passes into men. True, there is a sense in which He shall deliver up the Kingdom to His Father, when the partial end of the present dispensation has come. But He is the Priest of mankind for ever; and for ever is His Kingdom enduring. And through all the endless ages which we have a right to hope we shall see, there will never come a point in which it will not remain as true as it is at this moment: “No man hath seen God at any time, nor can see him; the only begotten Son, which is in the bosom of the Father, he hath declared him.” Christ is for ever the Giver of life, in the heavens as on earth. There all the blessedness and the existence, which is the substratum and condition of the blessedness, are ours only because, wavelet by wavelet, throbbing out as from a central fountain, there flows into the redeemed a life communicated by Christ Himself.

The immortality which Christ proclaimed in His own Person and life had indeed been adumbrated in deeds of valour and lives of heroic self-sacrifice, but as a revelation of life, of the true and proper life of man, it was as new as it has ever since been unique. “I am come that they might have life” was the burden of all He taught and did and suffered: and but for that “coming” it is impossible to conceive of our eyes being opened to the measureless possibilities of our spiritual life. When St. Paul exclaimed in the simple rendering of Luther, “Christ is my life,” he defined what immortality really is. The triumph lies in the instinct to triumph; the extension of life in the quality of the life. 1 [Note: T. J. Hardy, The Gospel of Pain.]

To be a Christian is to have a new life in the soul. Christ Himself lives in each one who believes in Him. St. Paul puts it very graphically when he says that he is dead, crucified with Christ, that is, as to his old life. Then he adds: “Yet I live; and yet no longer I, but Christ liveth in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me.” These words reveal the secret of St. Paul’s wonderful life. It was Christ living in him that made him the man he was. This is the secret of every transfigured life. There is no other way to get it. We must open our heart and let Christ enter into us and fill us. He is ever eager to do this, and will possess us just as far as we yield our life up to Him. 2 [Note: J. R. Miller.]

III

Access for the Victor

“To him that overcometh.”

Whilst access to the tree of life is a gift, we cannot miss the fact that there is a condition—the gift is only “to him that overcometh.” In all God’s greater gifts there is a certain condition of congruity. These noble things cannot be passed from hand to hand like sums of money; even Christ can give only to those who are in a condition to receive. “If ye forgive not,” He said, “neither will your Father forgive you.” Now, as to this condition of overcoming, it tells us how St. John conceived of the Christian life. To him it was a course of overcoming the world and one’s self, and he found its earliest impulse in that great victory of the cross.

1. Here is life promised in all its range and detail; in all its clear meaning and wide power: life through all eternity. But how hard a promise it is: “to him that overcometh will I give,” leaving all with ourselves. Christ does not say here—I give thee life that thou mayest overcome; but, Overcome and the life will be thine. The responsibility, the start, the strain He leaves upon our own wills; even as His Apostle intends, where he says, not “accept the faith,” but “fight the good fight of faith.” Yes, it is stern; but how true to our experience. Did we ever pass through a temptation in which we did not feel: Here even God cannot go before us, nor stand instead of us. Otherwise it were not worth the name of temptation; it were not in any wise our temptation. For who is it that is to be tempted, tested, put to proof and trial? Is it God or Christ? It is ourselves. But precisely as the loneliness and rigour of such an experience come home to us, God has begun to fulfil His promise of life. For it is in the bare realization of ourselves—and all the more if it even come upon us for the moment without any religious mitigation of its solitude and its pain—it is in this very moment, of lonely responsibility and unmitigated strain, that life begins. It is the necessity and prerogative of our manhood that in its moral conflicts, God, who has assuredly called us and is ready to help us, must wait for a decision and victory which shall be our own. However clear His call,—and all our salvation starts from that,—however near His help, we have to decide, we have to overcome.

Bishop Welldon in one of his sermons to the boys at Harrow, of which famous public school he was for many years head-master, spoke of the many bright lads whom he had known as scholars—pleasant, popular, courteous, and frank—of whom every one spoke well, but who never dreamt of such a thing as self-discipline or self-denial, who made no effort, who would never do what was irksome or unpleasant. After these boys left the restraints of school, a subtle, surprising change came over them. Some from mere self-indulgence lapsed into open sin; others became simply do-nothings, amusing themselves in sport or luxury or worldly ways, doing little or nothing of good to any human being. They lacked any power of overcoming; and this it was which proved so dangerous or fatal to their lives. “Since this is so,” said Dr. Welldon preaching in the school chapel, “I put to you the pointed question—to every one of you—what have you ‘overcome’? Has there in your life been any battle, any victory? Are there any scars upon your breast, or any laurels on your brow? Is there any habit, any disposition, any desire of which you can say, ‘I have fought and I have overcome it; it is beaten’? Yes, I know you will be brave in the face of danger; but oh! that I could be sure you would be equally brave in the face of temptation. You will conquer others; but, my boys, will you conquer yourselves? What does God ask of you—of every Church, of every person? It is one thing—one thing only. It is not that he should be great or clever or adventurous. It is that he should ‘overcome.’ ‘To him that overcometh,’ to him who is patient and strong, to him alone is given the amaranthine crown.” 1 [Note: J. E. C. Welldon, Youth and Duty, 249.]

There was once on a door in Edinburgh a motto, and it ran: “He that tholes overcomes,” and a lad passing the house on his way to school read the motto, but did not understand it. He came home and asked: “What is the meaning of that word ‘thole’?” He was told by his parent it meant to bear with patience—“he that tholes overcomes.” The boy, passing that motto day by day, formed the resolution that he would thole, that he would bear with patience. That boy eventually became the founder of the great Edinburgh firm of Chambers, and he attributed the extraordinary success of his life to realizing the meaning of that motto, “He that tholes overcomes.” 1 [Note: R. F. Horton.]

2. But the question is, “Can we overcome?” Is it to be assumed the victory is easy? Is it easy to overcome the obstacles, the difficulties of life, to overcome the temptations in our own nature and in the world around us, to overcome ourselves and stand supreme over that lower self which is of the earth earthy? Is it possible to overcome? The prize is beautiful. The promise is a vision. But is it possible? We can overcome if there is an adequate power behind, and that adequate power is there—Christ, who is the reward of overcoming. It all turns upon that. The power by which we can overcome cannot be said to be ours. It would be a contradiction in terms to say it is. We have to overcome ourselves. What is the power to overcome the self? It must be another. It is Christ. “This is the victory that overcometh the world.” “Be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” He can enable every one to overcome. The victor can conquer only in one way. If we trust in Christ we shall get His power into our hearts, and if we get His power into our hearts, then “we shall be more than conquerors through him that loved us.” The power of sin is great, but His power is much greater. Temptation is dazzling and sometimes seductive; but He can give us the victory. Actual sin is overcome by an actual Saviour.

I saw some time ago a beautiful remark. Among the Irish labourers who come over every year to the harvest in England was one who was accustomed to come to the same place year after year. He was of a sullen, moody nature, but one year he came completely changed—bright, joyful, ready to help, encouraging every one. They asked him what the cause was, and they twitted him, and made humorous suggestions about the change that had come over him. At last he turned to them all and said: “You are quite right about the change, but you are wrong about the cause. The truth is, I found the greatest friend in the world, Jesus, and my heart is just full of joy.” That was his answer. I cannot see how it could be better or truer. When you have found Jesus, you may be sad in a sense, and sick and weary in a sense, but your heart is full of joy. He has given you “to eat of the tree of life, which is in the Paradise of God.” 2 [Note: Ibid.]

3. Let Christ Himself be our example, whose whole life on earth was a warfare with the powers of evil; who found its crises and its agonies in the hours when He was alone with the Father; “who in the days of his flesh when he had offered up prayers and supplications with strong crying and tears … was heard for his godly fear.” Let us follow Him, who was tempted in all things like as we are, till by feeling our fellowship with Him in agony and the awful difficulty of doing the Father’s will, we shall also share His faith that we have this conflict to endure just because we can bear it, just because of our freedom, and just in order to realize that we are alive. “As I also overcame, and sat down with my Father in his throne.” Our Lord Jesus conquered all opposed to Him. In their presence He never fainted, He never failed, He never suffered defeat. Calm, confident victory rests upon every page of the sacred story. As one reads the narrative of conquest, one is amazed at the prolific and abundant spiritual energy which everywhere confronts the powers of ill. Our Lord overcame the world; He never bowed to the enticements or the glitter; they would make Him a king of the worldly order, but He rejected the allurement and went away to pray. He overcame the flesh; His life is characterized by order and beauty; on the one hand there was no harsh asceticism, and on the other hand there was no unseemly excess. He overcame the devil; they met again and again; “the prince of this world cometh”; he was ever coming, but he came to no purpose, and he achieved no triumph. Our Lord was always victor over the antagonists which stand in our path to-day.

There is, perhaps, no one term whose significance is less truly understood than that of overcoming. When Jesus said, “In the world ye shall have tribulation; but be of good cheer; I have overcome the world,” there was something meant quite different from its commonly received interpretation. Many persons have translated it to imply that in this world—this present life—tribulation is the appointed lot of man; but that death will end this, and by that event we “overcome the world”—that is, enter into joy and peace as inevitable conditions of the life beyond. But is there not undoubtedly a far deeper and nobler meaning than this? The “world” does not refer merely to life on this planet—the threescore years and ten allotted to man in this present state of existence—but rather it has reference to a condition. By “the world” is meant all that materiality which must be overcome before one can enter into that state of mind which is the kingdom of heaven, and which may be the condition of life here just as surely as hereafter. We overcome only as we rise to the spiritual plane. “Be of good cheer,” said Jesus: “I have overcome the world.” Where He has gone we may follow. If He overcame the world, so may we. It is not easy; it is possible. Not being easy to achieve, it is, when once attained, a condition so easy that it preserves itself and progresses by its own momentum. One who is succeeding in living to any perceptible degree the spiritual life rather than the material, realizes for himself the profound truth in the assertion of the Christ, that His yoke is easy and His burden is light. There is in it the peace which indeed passeth all understanding, and the joy that the world can neither give nor take away. Believe and love—all the duties of the world and all the privileges of heaven are condensed in those three words. Believe and love. Not only trust, but know, believe. Hold fast to the conviction that the forces of life are Divine. Come into harmony with them, and thus live above the plane on which discord is possible, thus overcome the world. 1 [Note: Lilian Whiting, The World Beautiful, 161.]

4. After every temptation conquered, after every self-indulgence refused, after every duty accepted and patiently performed, we do feel, in a hundred fresh impulses of moral vigour and hopefulness, this life which those enjoy who overcome. He who conquers is a new man—fresh, elastic, confident. The skies are bright above him, and his heart is clear within. There is given to him an enjoyment of God’s world denied to other men; and at the same time a power of patience with things that are evil, for he has already conquered these in himself, and knows that their day is determined. What a generous trust in others our victories over ourselves give us! What an eye for the good that is in them! What a power of encouraging that good! While about us is the atmosphere of peace which springs from the faith that God reigns.

When Philip Henry was thirty years old, he noted in his diary that “so old and no older was Alexander when he conquered the great world; but I have not subdued the little world, myself.” 2 [Note: J. Moffatt, The Golden Book of John Owen, 159.]

A life of renunciation appeared to Francis as the goal of his efforts, but he felt that his spiritual novitiate was not yet ended. He suddenly experienced a bitter assurance of the fact. He was riding on horseback one day, his mind more than ever possessed with the desire to lead a life of absolute devotion, when at a turn of the road he found himself face to face with a leper. The frightful malady had always inspired in him an invincible repulsion. He could not control a movement of horror, and by instinct he turned his horse in another direction.

If the shock had been severe, the defeat was complete. He reproached himself bitterly. To cherish such fine projects and show himself so cowardly! Was the knight of Christ then going to give up his arms? He retraced his steps and springing from his horse he gave to the astounded sufferer all the money that he had; then kissed his hand as he would have done to a priest. This new victory, as he himself saw, marked an era in his spiritual life.

This victory of Francis had been so sudden that he desired to complete it; a few days later he went to the lazaretto. One can imagine the stupefaction of these wretches at the entrance of the brilliant cavalier. If in our days a visit to the sick in our hospitals is a real event awaited with feverish impatience, what must not have been the appearance of Francis among these poor recluses? One must have seen sufferers thus abandoned, to understand what joy may be given by an affectionate word, sometimes even a simple glance.

Moved and transported, Francis felt his whole being vibrate with unfamiliar sensations. For the first time he heard the unspeakable accents of a gratitude which cannot find words burning enough to express itself, which admires and adores the benefactor almost like an angel from heaven. 1 [Note: Paul Sabatier, Life of St. Francis of Assisi, 26.]

The Tree of Life

Literature

Bickersteth (M. C), Unity and Holiness, 129.

Cox (J. C.), The Gardens of Scripture, 147.

Culross (J.), “ Thy First Love,” 103.

Dean (J. T.), Visions and Revelations, 16.

Fraser (D.), Seven Promises Expounded, 1.

Gordon (A. J.), Yet Speaking, 131.

Lee (W.), From Dust to Jewels, 146.

Macgregor (W. M.), Some of God’s Ministries, 286.

Mackay (G. P.), Immortality on God’s Terms, 39.

Maclaren (A.), Expositions: Epistles of John to Revelation, 187.

Maclaren (A.), The Victor’s Crowns, 1.

Matheson (G.), Sidelights from Patmos, 17.

Momerie (A. W.), The Origin of Evil, 306.

Peck (G. C.), Old Sins in New Clothes, 57.

Ramsay (W. M.), The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, 246.

Scott (C. A.), Revelation (Century Bible), 139.

Smith (G. A.), The Forgiveness of Sins, 156.

Vaughan (C. J.), Lectures on The Revelation, 24.

Welldon (J. E. C.), Youth and Duty, 243.

Christian World Pulpit, xii. 206 (G. T. Coster); xxix. 248 (J. O. Dykes); lxxvi. 113 (R. F. Horton).

Dictionary of the Bible, iii. 671 (S. D. F. Salmond).

Examiner, Oct. 27, 1904 (J. H. Jowett).

Verse 10

Fidelity and its Reward

Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.— Revelation 2:10.

1. It was to the believers at Smyrna, or rather to their official representative, to the person who was called “the angel of the church” there, that this exhortation was sent. It is generally believed that, when the Book of Revelation was written, the “angel” of the Smyrnean Church was Polycarp—the aged disciple of St. John—who, rather than deny his Master, Christ, perished on the scaffold, having made that noble confession which has sounded through all the ages: “Eighty and six years have I served my Lord Christ, and He has done me no wrong. How can I blaspheme my King who saved me?”

2. For the Church at Smyrna, the exhortation had a special fitness, inasmuch as it contained a covert allusion to the political history and also to the physical aspect of the city which could not possibly have applied to any other of the places mentioned by St. John in his Apocalypse.

(1) The reference to Smyrna’s history is in the words “Be thou faithful,” which every Christian in the city would understand. The motto was stamped, as it were, on her very stones. Her inhabitants had for centuries been the steady and devoted allies of the Roman people. When not a few of the peoples throughout Asia Minor had sought to weaken the power of the Cæsars, the Smyrneans had shown not the least desire to do so, but had kept rigidly aloof from all combines or conspiracies. When serious difficulties arose for their trusted friends, the Romans, whose army was suffering from the intense cold and other hardships of a winter campaign against Mithridates, the citizens of Smyrna readily stripped themselves of the garments that they could do without, and dispatched them to the seat of war for the benefit of the Roman soldiers. This signal instance of the fidelity of the Smyrneans was generally known; their reputation for faithfulness was well established. Accordingly, to those of them composing the Church at Smyrna, the exhortation of the Apostle would have the tacit force of a compliment, and would thus at once win their attention to the duty it enjoined—that just as in civic affairs they had been staunch and true to Cæsar, so in religious matters they should manifest unfaltering fidelity to Christ.

(2) Again, the words, “I will give thee the crown of life,” also had a peculiar fitness to Smyrna—a reference which the Christians who resided there could not fail to appreciate. Smyrna has been called “the city of life”; and its life and brightness are the characteristics that at once impress a visitor. It has been likened in shape to a glorious statue sitting with its feet in the sea. Until within a few years the hill into which the city runs back, and which was likened to the head of the statue, was crowned with the ruins of what had been a magnificent and apparently impregnable castle. This is what was known as the Garland or Crown of Smyrna. One of the great teachers of the place besought the citizens not to be satisfied with a crown of buildings, but to strive to have as its crown pure, patriotic, just and good men. These, he said, are the true garland of a city, its prize, its mark of supremacy—not stone walls, but true and pure citizens. In the words, therefore, which St. John addressed to the Christians of Smyrna there was this further compliment. It was as if he said to them, “I know that ye are citizens of no mean city, that verily yours is a queen among the cities of the earth, but though you are justly proud of it, let me tell you of a crown fairer than any that the world can show or any that the world can dream of—a crown not of material but of spiritual beauty—the crown of life that is for ever, and that is reserved in heaven for all such as, believing in the Lord and serving Him, continue faithful unto death.”

I

The Call to Fidelity

“Be thou faithful unto death.”

1. The Church at Smyrna was in the midst of suffering. Was not that enough? and shall she not be told that her sufferings were drawing to an end, that the night of weeping was gone by, and that the morning of joy was about to dawn? So we might think; but God’s thoughts are not as our thoughts, nor His ways as our ways, and we are like children bathing on the shore:

Buried a wave beneath;

The second wave succeeds before

We have had time to breathe.

How often does it happen in the Christian’s experience that one burden is laid upon another, and that one wave succeeds another, till he seems left desolate and alone upon the earth. Yet even then he has no assurance that his sufferings are at a close. The consolation afforded to him is, not that there shall be a short campaign, but only that, whether long or short, he shall be more than conqueror through Him that loved him.

(1) To us, the words of the text are partly metaphorical; but they had no metaphorical meaning when they were written. The persecution of Nero had told the Christians what they might expect. Death was the least pain which the world against them had in its quiver. They were hunted like the wild beasts of the woods. They were tortured, exposed to the hatred of the crowd who cheered the lion and the wild bull that tore and dragged them to death. Through these physical woes, as well as through the spiritual struggles that we have, the early followers of Christ had to persevere, were they to be faithful. Those who kept the faith were obliged to look agony of body and death in the face. Men who began the Christian race had then to count the cost, and resolve to pay it. They had to give up all, or at least be ready at a moment to give up all—home, friends, wealth, worldly honour—and to take Christ instead, and death.

(2) The Christians of Smyrna were about to suffer more heavily than ever; their enemies were apparently to prevail. They were to be cast into prison; and let us remember that the Roman Empire did not imprison for punishment as we do. They would not burden the State with the support of a number of prisoners. Every man who was in prison was there awaiting either his trial or his death. His trial would end in acquittal, or scourging, or fine, or exile, or death. Some of these poor, struggling, much-maligned Christians would be called upon to seal their testimony with their blood. “Be thou faithful unto (not until) death” is the message, not merely through tribulation and poverty and slander, but up to the point of dying; there is no other way to the crown of life; “you must suffer,” is Christ’s message, “or else be unfaithful.” There is no other way to escape suffering save by being untrue, and the message is, “Be thou true and let the devil do his worst.”

We, too, in our place and way and measure, may be called upon to suffer in reputation, substance, or even in health and life, for the sake of our absolute fidelity to our Master and His cause. Erasmus confessed that he was not constituted of the stuff of which martyrs are made, and many of us feel a similar misgiving concerning ourselves. But if we resolve to be on the Lord’s side He will wonderfully strengthen and deliver. The golden-crested wren is one of the tiniest of birds; it is said to weigh only the fifth part of an ounce, and yet, on frailest pinions, it braves hurricanes and crosses northern seas. It often seems in nature as if Omnipotence worked best through frailest organisms; certainly the omnipotence of grace is seen to the greatest advantage in the trembling but resolute saint. Give me the spirit of those who are faithful unto death! 1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson, The Gates of Dawn, 311.]

2. To what were the Christians of Smyrna called to be faithful—to a selfish aim, to a political cry, to a cause which offered them material rewards? No, faithful unto death, to goodness, to truth, to purity of life, to an ideal life, invisible, beyond the world; to Christ and to such passionate personal love of Him that it was easier to die in agony than to betray His name; faithful to that spirit of His which loved men even unto death, which forgave enemies, whose work was at all risks to overthrow evil and to die that wrong might die; faithful unto death in the cause of man, which Christ made the cause of God. And for this, what support? All they had is contained in that conception of a mighty spiritual kingdom, of which the head was God in Christ, of which all who loved Him were the body, whether dead or living, for time and earth did not disturb their unbroken communion one with another. They were citizens of an eternal Kingdom. They on earth, beaten, driven, tortured, were not left alone; they were the care of angels, they were watched by all the noble dead with unfaltering interest. They ran their race in the arena of the universe, not uncared for, since every Christian heart was praying for them; not without the sense of higher sympathy, not even without the sense of glory, for out of sight, but in most real existence, a cloud of witnesses encompassed them. Solemn, beautiful faces, solemn with the calm of eternal rest, beautiful with the light of holy triumph, watched them with inspiring eyes, and among them One, the Leader and Perfecter of faith, a form like unto a Son of Man, who Himself had done and suffered for the truth—whose power and life was theirs by prayer, and who spoke ever in their ears, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.”

(1) The word “faithful” here is from the root which means to be convinced. Fidelity is born of conviction, and conviction must have a groundwork and foundation. What then is this faithfulness that is enjoined? The faithfulness of the saints is the assurance of the faithfulness of Jesus. A deep conviction of His fidelity produces their fidelity. Wherever a man, woman, or child under any circumstances of pain or testing is deeply convinced of the fidelity of Christ, they are immediately and necessarily faithful themselves. It is as though He had said to them, “You are going to be cast into prison; ‘the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried.’ Be faithful; believe still. Live within the limit of a great assurance. Do not question Me; do not doubt Me; depend on Me.” The Lord did not mean, “Gather yourselves up and go through.” He simply meant, “Trust Me.” He did not intend to advise them to gird up their loins and be determined that they would see the business through. That is ever a poor and sorry way of attempting to pass through times of testing. He meant rather, “Trust Me; let Me be your courage. I am alive, and I was dead. I have gone to the limit of this matter. There is no depth I have not fathomed, no darkness I have not penetrated. Be faithful, follow Me, not in the effort of a strenuous determination, but with the ease of a simple trust.”

Bishop Collins died whilst on his way in the Messageries Maritimes liner Saghalien from Constantinople to Smyrna, whither he was going to hold a confirmation. Clothed in his purple cassock his body was laid to rest under the marble floor of the nave of the Church of St. John the Evangelist.

There, then, his body lies,—in the bosom of that Church of Smyrna, to whose Angel St. John was bidden to write, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” To the first known Bishop of that Church—perhaps already Bishop when the Apocalypse was written—the martyr Ignatius wrote, praising his “resolution in God, settled as upon an immovable rock.” “Be watchful,” he added, “possessing a spirit that never slumbers.… Where work is hardest, great is the gain.… The time demands thee.… Stand firm like an anvil under the stroke. It is the part of a great athlete to receive blows and to conquer. Study the times, looking for Him who is above time, eternal, invisible, who was made visible for us—intangible, impassible, who for us was made passible and for us in every way endured.” 1 [Note: A. J. Mason, Life of William Edward Collins, 185.]

(2) The great Sender of the message makes the claim. We are bound to Him personally. He asks for our loyalty, our personal loyalty to Him, and in that loyalty we shall conquer; because the Christian life is sustained by faith in a personal life, a personal power, and a personal love. We are not supported by abstractions, by adherence to abstract principles of righteousness and truth. Man requires a living fount of power, something warm with life and love; and such is the support of the Christian life. We are held in our course; we are sustained in all the darkness and the trial and persecution and apparent defeat by cleaving to a great heart that was large enough to sacrifice itself for us, and a great loving, throbbing hand that is strong enough to save us.

As in Westminster Abbey at the coronation of King George v. I saw the Prince of Wales kneeling before his father and uttering the old feudal covenant, I thought of how, in ancient times, the old Saxon retainers used to come to him whom they called their lord, whose lands they held, and used to kneel there before him, and put their hands in his, and to say to him, “Dear my Lord, I become liege-man of thine, for life and limb and earthly regard, and I will keep faith and loyalty to thee for life and death, so help me God.” And I would to God that we might all in spirit be found kneeling before the Lord of all of us, putting hands of trust in His, and saying to Him with earnestness and sincerity of soul, “Dear my Lord, I become liege-man of Thine for life and limb and earthly regard, and I will keep faith and loyalty to Thee for life and death, so help me God.” 2 [Note: C. Silvester Horne.]

3. Faithfulness is victory. When the world kills off the faithful man because it cannot bend his will and take him away from his loyalty, it is not the man that is defeated; it is the world. The world does its last cowardly act, and therein makes its last confession of impotency. The man has conquered it. It can do nothing with him, and when it puts him to death it admits that it has been defeated by him. The Christian conquered the world when he sang at the stake? The Christian conquered when he could fearlessly stand before the tribunal that condemned him, when he talked of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come until the judge quaked before him? No, do not be misled by appearances: it is the loyal man that conquers, the man that is true to principle, that in a way compels the world to persecute and destroy him, because he is stronger than the world in which he lives. “I know that persecution and death are upon thee, but be thou loyal; be thou faithful; thou shalt be victorious, and thou art already victor, in being loyal.” The truly strong life is the life that can defy circumstances, that can make every failure a stepping-stone to a nobler resolve, that can maintain its integrity when all the world is against it.

Faithfulness unto death is God’s standard for human life. On this He bases His judgments. As we apply this standard, our views on many things undergo a radical change. We come to see that the thing of value is not speed but endurance. The real hero is not he who makes the fastest schedule but he who lasts the longest. There are those who go up like a rocket and come down like a stick. It is the power to hold on that wins. Great Britain’s most famous general once said that the difference between the soldiers of his country and those of another was not that the English soldier was braver than other soldiers, but that he was brave five minutes longer. It is endurance that wins the crown.

The thing of value is not achievement but fidelity. It is not what we accomplish but the way we accomplish it. It is our ideals, our principles. It is not success that God looks at, but the struggle. Success is a cheap thing, it is merely relative; but struggle is an affair of eternity, it is a spiritual asset. 1 [Note: J. I. Vance, Tendency, 229.]

4. The text does not mean merely, “Be faithful until death calls you away.” The passage is very frequently quoted with a mistaken meaning, as if it simply meant, “Be faithful as long as you live; do not give up while life lasts.” But it means far more than that; it means, “Be faithful, even though it costs you your life. Be faithful unto prison, be faithful unto persecution, yea, though you be in the presence of the executioner—for faithfulness may entail death—be faithful up to that highest sacrifice of life itself if necessary on the altar of loyalty to Jesus Christ.” “Unto death” is thus an intensive, not an extensive, term. Christ does not mean, merely, “to thy life’s end,” contemplating life under aspects of time, but “to the sharpest and worst which the enemy can inflict upon thee, even to death itself.” “Dare and endure,” the words would say, “the worst that evil men can threaten and inflict, even death itself.” It is true that Christian fidelity must continue to the close of life. Our Lord’s promise is to “those who endure to the end,” that “they shall be saved.” He also said that no one, putting his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God. It is true, no soldier of the cross can win the fight, and wear the honour of victor, who turns from the foe in the day of battle. But, as has been said, the text points out not so much the duration as the intensity of our fidelity. It is, “Be faithful to the enduring of all trials, privations, sufferings, imprisonments, tortures, even to death itself. Endure everything for Christ, and the crown of life shall be yours.”

In ancient heroic story there is one figure of which I often think. It is the figure of the old pilot who was sailing his boat in the crisis of a storm on the great tempestuous Ægæan Sea, and in his extremity he was seen to stand erect and cry, in his old pagan way, “Father Neptune, you may sink me if you will, or you may save me if you will, but whatever happens I will keep my rudder true.” Everyone can say that. It is not for us to decide our own destinies. It is not for us to say we shall not be over-whelmed by certain storms; it is not for us to say we shall never go under. We do not know how hard the trial is yet to be. But this we can say: “Sink me if you will, or save me if you will, but whatever happens I will never drift, I will steer straight, I will keep my rudder true.” By God’s grace everyone can do that. 1 [Note: C. Silvester Horne.]

While abhorring war, M. Coillard always had the strongest sympathy with the military profession. His mind seemed to move in its imagery. Christianity, as he conceived it, was the march of an ever-victorious army; to him it meant a loyalty, not a philosophy, still less a ceremonial system. He had no other ambition than to be “a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” “A French general,” he once wrote, “told his aide-de-camp that the politeness of a soldier was obedience; and I myself hold that in all circumstances our duty to our Master is fidelity.” 1 [Note: C. W. Mackintosh, Coillard of the Zambesi, 106.]

She was now in Armenia. The roads were beset by Kurds, who twice attacked her caravan. In one of the wretched hamlets through which she passed, a young Armenian, with whom she spoke about the faith, said to her, “We don’t know much, but we love the Lord Jesus well enough to die for Him.” Here, amongst the Armenians, she realized again what the horrors of this infamous persecution meant for a timid, defenceless people, less manly than the Nestorian Rayahs, in many ways less lovable, but like them, “faithful unto death.” 2 [Note: A. M. Stoddart, The Life of Isabella Bird, 239.]

Be faithful unto death. Christ proffers thee

Crown of a life that draws immortal breath:

To thee He saith, yea, and He saith to me,

“Be faithful unto death.”

To every living soul that same He saith,

“Be faithful:”—whatsoever else we be,

Let us be faithful challenging His faith.

Tho’ trouble storm around us like the sea,

Tho’ hell surge up to scare us and to scathe,

Tho’ heaven and earth betake themselves to flee,

“Be faithful unto death.” 3 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, Poetical Works, 277.]

II

The Reward of Fidelity

“I will give thee the crown of life.”

For this faithfulness what reward is promised? An inheritance incorruptible and undefiled, “the crown of life”; not the material rewards so commonly and so coarsely promised, not a life of earthly happiness, but the life which is in God and of God; immortal union with Justice, Purity, and Truth; the transformation of all selfishness into love, so full, so great, so undying, that never for one moment, through all eternity, they would think of themselves again.

Some superfine individuals have called the religion of Christ vulgar because it cannot trust to its own intrinsic excellence, but must encourage its supporters by the promise of rewards. But in answer to this objection on the part of exquisitely and delicately made natures, let me say, in the language of one of my old teachers, there is no fear of becoming vulgar in the company of Christ, who not only promised rewards to His followers, but Himself worked and suffered under the spur of reward; for do we not read, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now set down in the majesty of the heavens”? 1 [Note: H. F. Henderson, The Eye Witnesses of Christ, 144.]

1. The promise is very full and very rich. This crown that He promises is the crown of royalty. It is more. It is the crown of royalty victorious. It is still more. It is the chaplet that adorns the brow of the victor who comes laden with spoils, the crown of royalty, the crown of victory, the crown of added wealth. It is the crown of life, life which reigns because it has won, and reigns moreover in possession of spoils obtained through conflict. The life is the crown. What wondrous light this flings back upon the process! This pressure of tribulation is not accidental and capricious. Out of the tribulation we shall have our triumph. Out of the darkness we shall come to light. That is the whole philosophy of suffering. When presently all the tribulation is passed, and the painful processes of the little while are over, and the last grim pressure ceases, then we shall be crowned with life, then we shall know the meaning of life.

O that thou wouldest understand the great good of Tribulation! This it is which blots out sins, cleanses the soul, and produces Patience: this in Prayer inflames it, enlarges it, and causes it to exercise the most sublime act of Charity; this rejoices the Soul, brings it near to God, causes it to be called, and to enter, into Heaven. This it is which tries the true Servants of God, and renders them wise, valiant, and constant. This it is which makes God hear them with speed.… It is this which Annihilates, Refines, and Perfects them: and finally, it is this which of earthly, makes Heavenly Souls, and of human, Divine; transforming them, and uniting them in a wonderful way with the Lord’s Humanity and Divinity. 1 [Note: Michael de Molinos, The Spiritual Guide.]

2. Notice the compensation! “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.” What thou sacrificest thou shalt receive again. And that is not all. The life received is not the equivalent of the life that has been given up. The life that is placed on the victor’s brow is not a duplicate of the life that was laid down on this earth. This poor life laid down is not of so much value after all; at best it soon passes away, and is very superficial and frail. All the glory of it is as grass, and “all the goodliness of it as the flower of the field.” But the life that is won through the sacrifice of this life is a life eternal, profound, joyous, infinitely great and glorious—a life in some wonderful way like the life of God Himself.

“A crown of life.”—Of what fashion shall such a crown be? St. Paul speaks of an amaranthine crown, contrasting it with earth’s fading crowns of victory. And later in this Book of Revelation we read of crowns of gold.

We may hope to discern in celestial crowns every adornment of all possible crowns. Gracefulness of leaves, loveliness of flowers, endearment (if I may call it so) of tendrils, permanence of gold, lustre and tints of jewels. Such crowns I hope to see on heads I have venerated and loved here.

Meanwhile, because our dear Lord, flower of humankind and comparable with fine gold (though fine gold sufficeth not to compare with Him), was contented on earth to be crowned with a crown of thorns; let us be patient, contented, thankful, to wait on in hopes of a crown of life and glory. 2 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, The Face of the Deep, 65.]

3. Do not forget the Giver. “ I will give thee.” Jesus Christ is to be the rewarder of men. It is from Him the gift must come, because, after all, it is a gift. We cannot merit it or obtain it in any way except as a free gift. It will no doubt bear some proportion to the life we have lived, and the victories we have won, but, after all, we cannot earn it. It is infinitely more than we could have earned or merited. It was earned on the cross. But whatever our future glory shall be, it must come from Jesus Christ; and “all power is given unto him in heaven and in earth.”

William Hunter, the martyr apprentice of Brentwood in Essex, was executed at his native village on 26th March 1555. He was allowed to converse with his friends beforehand in the parlour of the Swan Inn. His father prayed that he might continue to the end in the way that he had begun. His mother said she was happy to bear a child who could find in his heart to lose his life for Christ’s sake. “Mother,” he answered, “for my little pain which I shall suffer, which is but a short braid, Christ hath promised me a crown of joy. May you not be glad of that, mother?” 1 [Note: J. A. Froude, History of England, v. 507.]

4. Are we counted so capable of faithfulness of heart that God believes we shall despise the rewards of the world in comparison with the spirit of Christ offered to us and the life in it as reward? Is it possible that God believes in us so much as to expect of us faithfulness unto death? Have we truly a Father whose care is our perfection, a Saviour who is watching us daily that we may be freed from sin; and can we, so weak, so much the creatures of impulse, so vain, so wavering, be faithful unto death? It is an inspiring thought that God can believe in us so much. We are not called on to face the lions for our faith. But there are things in life which are death—even worse than death itself; there are pains as deep as those the martyrs bore which we have to bear in silence, with no encouragement but the voice of God within, and that voice we do not always hear. There are wild contests we have sometimes to wage alone, night after night, day after day, when it seems that the inner conflict must become known to all around us, so vivid is our consciousness of it; and yet we know that there is no help in man for us, that we must conquer (if we conquer) in a solitude of heart which makes life as ghastly as a cruel dream. Then it is something to recall this text, and let the noble words sound in our ears their cry to courage and their promise, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life!”

The sharpest trials of life may not be ours, though few there are who do not touch one or another; but, even without them, there are difficulties enough in ordinary life to try our fidelity to God. When we have to go on day by day, contending with a passionate or a sluggish nature—limiting the one, enkindling the other—meeting small temptations every hour, so that watchfulness must never be relaxed; when no sooner is one wrong-doing laid in the grave than another rises up, so that the sword of life is never in the scabbard; when we know that this will go on for years till death comes—then, not to give way to angry weariness, not to brood over the battle, but to take it frankly as it comes, as part of the day’s work; to make of high endeavour an inward light “which makes the path before us always bright”; to conquer the chill of custom and the weight of commonplace, and be inspired always by an inward thought; to pour into life such love of God and man that all things will grow beautiful and worthy to be done; and to look forward, persevering to the last—

From well to better, daily self-surpast,

this is to be faithful unto death, and for these things there is “the crown of life.”

Wherever a man’s post is, whether he has chosen it of his own will, or whether he has been placed at it by his commander, there it is his duty to remain and face the danger, without thinking of death, or of any other thing, except dishonour. 1 [Note: Plato, The Apology of Socrates, cap. 16 (Church’s trans., p. 56).]

I rejoiced in God, and made my complaint to Him, because He permitted me to undergo such afflictions; yet the recompense was great; for almost always, afterwards, His mercies descended upon me in great abundance. The soul seemed to come forth as gold out of the crucible, most refined, and made glorious to behold, our Lord dwelling within it. These trials afterwards are light, though they once seemed to be unendurable; and the soul longs to undergo them again, if that be more pleasing to our Lord. And though trials and persecutions increase, yet, if we bear them without offending our Lord, rejoicing in suffering for His sake, it will be all the greater gain. 2 [Note: The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus (ed. 1911), 278.]

A missionary is seated in the courtyard of an Indian house. In a circle opposite is a native family—husband, wife, sister, and some children. They are the first-fruits of a year’s toil in Armur, and have come now for the seal and test of their faith—baptism.

“ Why do you wish baptism?” we asked of them.

“ Because we belong to Jesus. Did not He die for us? We are His.”

“ But if you are baptized, great trouble will assuredly come. You will be out-casted. When neglected and persecuted by old friends what will you do?”

“ We believe in Him. Will He not help us?”

“ How long will you serve Him?”

Glad and spontaneous was the answer from all three: “Chachudaka—Till death.” 1 [Note: G. M. Kerr, in The Foreign Field, Dec. 1910.]

Triumphant Love, oh, keep us pure

By Thine own passion to endure,

Till every heart in Thine shall beat—

Our Sun, our Shadow from the heat—

And no false sun or shade allure!

Let never a dream of hate immure

Our life within its prison secure,

Nor Self its treadmill-round repeat,

Triumphant Love!

If Thou to hardship now enure

The soul, in this life’s overture

To greater music, we entreat

That we, through darkness, death, defeat,

May triumph in Thy triumph sure,

Triumphant Love! 2 [Note: Annie Matheson, Maytime Songs, 15.]

Fidelity and its Reward

Literature

Albertson (C. C.), The Gospel According to Christ, 231.

Brooke (S. A.), Sermons, ii. 140.

Brooke (S. A.), The Ship of the Soul, 94.

Brown (C.), Heavenly Visions, 55.

Corlett (J. S.), Christ and the Churches, 45.

Dewey (O.), Works, 227.

Henderson (H. F.), The Eye Witnesses of Christ, 140.

Hodge (C.), Princeton Sermons, 320.

Hyde (T. D.), Sermon Pictures for Busy Preachers, i. 202.

Jellett (H.), Sermons on Special and Festival Occasions, 166.

Little (J.), The Day-Spring, 300.

MacIlveen (J.), Christ and the Christian Life, 161.

Mackenzie (W. B.), in The Home Preacher, 130.

Milligan (W.), The Book of Revelation (Expositor’s Bible), 46.

Morgan (G. C.), A First Century Message, 57.

Norton (J. N.), Every Sunday, 495.

Price (A. C.), Fifty Sermons, viii. 185.

Ramsay (W. M.), The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, 251.

Reynolds (H. R.), Notes of the Christian Life, 353.

Scott (J. J.), The Apocalypse, 59.

Swing (D.), Sermons, 138.

Thomas (J.), Myrtle Street Pulpit, iii. 1.

Trench (R. C.), Commentary on the Epistles to the Seven Churches in Asia, 110.

Vaughan (J.), Sermons (Brighton Pulpit), vi. (1869), No. 593.

Williams (I.), Sermons on the Epistles and Gospels, iii. 22.

British Congregationalist, June 29, 1911 (C. S. Horne).

Christian World Pulpit, xv. 204 (T. Hammond); xviii. 257 (E. P. Hood); lvii. 230 (H. Moore).

Church of England Pulpit, lxii. 157 (J. D. Forde).

Churchman’s Pulpit: Lenten Season, v. 99; Easter Day and Season, vii. 394 (J. Wiseman); Sermons to the Young, xvi. 13 (W. Bruce), 598 (R. G. Soans).

Homiletic Review, lxv. 408 (J. Oliver).

Preacher’s Magazine, v. 223 (T. Puddicombe).

Verse 17

Victory and Intimacy

To him that overcometh, to him will I give of the hidden manna, and I will give him a white stone, and upon the stone a new name written, which no one knoweth but he that receiveth it.— Revelation 2:17.

The Church at Pergamum, to which this promise is addressed, had a sharper struggle than fell to the lot of the two Churches whose epistles precede this. It was set “where Satan’s seat is.” Pergamum was a special centre of heathen worship, and already the blood of a faithful martyr had been shed in it.

There were two houses in the city which represented the two forces that made life a battle for the Christian. One was the Church of Christ, and the other was the temple of idolatry. Heathen vice and heathen pleasure had such a sway in Pergamum that it seemed to be Satan’s capital. In the palace of the idol the Adversary’s throne was set and his court gathered. All that was grand and popular and pleasant was on the side of evil. When a man left that gorgeous temple in the great square he left everything that appealed to ease and pride and ambition. When he entered the poor little church in the back lane he entered into conflict with his heart and with the world. That single renunciation of the sweets and successes of life was but the beginning of the strife. In the church itself were some who taught that the Christian need not break with his former life in choosing Christ. Let us say to ourselves that the idol is nothing, and so let us go to the temple feasts, and take part in the foul and wild joys of the heathen. Let us be friendly with the people, and bring no unnecessary hardships on ourselves.

At once we see that the dingy, hidden church is, indeed, the portal of the one true temple, all glorious and eternal. Let these worshippers of the Christ be faithful to Him, and soon they shall pass in and be at home there. Let them keep from the meats of the idol shrine, and they shall feast on the best in the house of God. Let them refuse to be votaries of the foul altar, and they shall be very priests of the Holy of Holies. Let them forgo the society of the heathen, and they shall be the close and particular friends of Him who is the visible Divinity of the heavenly sanctuary. They shall be fed with “hidden manna”; they shall receive “a white stone, and upon the stone a new name written, which no one knoweth but he that receiveth it.”

I

The Hidden Manna

“To him that overcometh, to him will I give of the hidden manna.”

1. The reference is to the golden pot of manna which was preserved in the ark, under the mercy-seat, along with Aaron’s rod and the tables of the covenant. The manna was taken from off the sand of the desert, put into an urn, and placed, for all ages, in the Holy of Holies, in remembrance of the desert food, and as a type of something better yet to be revealed.

This hidden manna was both like and unlike the manna of the wilderness; it was connected with it, yet also separate. It was of heaven originally ( John 6:31); it came down to earth; it was taken into the holiest of all, the emblem of the heaven of heavens; thus it was both of earth and of heaven. It was of the wilderness, yet not in it. It was originally corruptible, yet made incorruptible; once a daily gift, spread over all the sand of the desert, now gathered into one small vessel, and laid up there once for all. It was in the ark, covered with the blood, beneath the cherubim and the glory; food that could be reached only through blood, and could be only for those whom blood had redeemed. Man had eaten “angels’ food”; but now this had become the food of men—not only of men here, in weakness and wandering, but also of the glorified in the New Jerusalem.

2. Those who remember with what fulness St. John, and he alone, records the teaching in which his Master claimed to be the Bread of God, the living bread that came down from heaven, of which, if a man ate, he should live for ever, as contrasted with the manna in the wilderness, which had no power to save from death, will be ready to admit that the words now before us must have recalled that teaching, and that the manna which was to be the reward of the conqueror was the fruition of the ineffable sweetness of that Divine presence. Those who resisted the temptation to join the idol’s feast in the idol’s temple should be admitted to that heavenly feast in the eternal temple, which was also the palace of the great King.

The food of God is thus set over against forbidden food. The Christians here first addressed had eaten food offered to idols. In opposition to this is the promise of the “hidden manna.” “Not as the world giveth give I unto you.” Christ contrasts the world’s food, as that which never satisfies, with His love and sympathy, which alone satisfy the cravings of the soul.

In course of one of his Sunday evening addresses to the students of Edinburgh University, Professor Drummond remarked: “I was talking last Sunday to a man who said that though he could live for Christ at the close of the meetings, or could even for a month or so keep straight, yet after that his new life went down and was lost. Now, this proves two things. It proves the possibility of a man living for Christ and keeping straight under suitable conditions, and it proves also that if a man tries living without the Bread of Life he will flag and die. You can’t live on air. You can’t live on one another. You can’t live on what I say; but you can live on the Bread of Life, which is Jesus Christ. The problem of Nutrition is the fundamental problem of physiology, the fundamental problem of living beings. So exactly is it the fundamental problem of the Christian life.”

He then drew a long analogy between physical and spiritual nutrition in the terms of physiology. “But the closest parallel I can draw is that which we see in life and read of in tales, where one man is the sustenance and life of another, or more often where a woman is the sustenance and help of a man. Something which is very pure, which is fresh, which is high and lofty—why, it throws an influence around the base life which elevates and ennobles that miserable life to the level of its own. Not in a day. Not in a year. But in a long continuous process which works unseen. How is it done? By abiding in the presence of that which is pure and noble. One life affects the other, and the weak becomes stimulated and roused; there are the elements of growth. So a man who abides in the presence of Jesus Christ in some mystical way appropriates, unconsciously and unavoidably, the life and character of Christ, so that he is built up like Him. That is the whole process. It is perfectly simple and perfectly natural. The point of importance is this, that it is quite impossible to go on at all in the spiritual life without living in the immediate presence and fellowship of Christ. This is to reach the Supreme. This is to be nourished and strengthened for life.” 1 [Note: G. A. Smith, The Life of Henry Drummond, 493.]

How richly in the desert Israel fared,

By God’s own hand with food angelic fed,

Which with the dew around the camp was shed.

That other dew, brow-drenching, they were spared

In tilling thorn-cursed ground—sad burden shared

By all for Adam’s sin; but ate their “bread,”

As from a table in the desert spread,

“Without their labour,” or their thought, “prepared.”

So God’s salvation, the true bread from heaven,

In rich completeness is before us set,

Fresh with the Spirit’s dew, and freely given:

But not without the labour of Another,

Toils, tears, and thorny crown, and bloody sweat,

Of Him who is God’s Fellow and man’s Brother. 2 [Note: Richard Wilton.]

3. The sustenance promised to the conqueror is hidden food. When the manna was given to the Israelites a golden vessel full of it was stored in or near the ark. When the first Temple perished, the rumour ran that the ark of the covenant, and the objects associated with it, had not really perished. No one knows what became of the ark. It is mentioned in the days of Solomon ( 1 Kings 8:21), and after that not at all in the historical part of the Old Testament. But the Jewish tale ran, and still runs, that when the first Temple perished under Nebuchadnezzar the ark had escaped the fate of the other vessels of the house of God, which were carried to Babylon, and had been successfully hidden in one of the thousand caves with which the limestone rock of Palestine is honey-combed, where still, if the tradition be true, it may await a chance discovery. St. John’s readers would be perfectly familiar with the tale, for it stood in their Bibles though it does not stand in ours. The Book of the Maccabees tells that “Jeremiah came and found a chamber in the rocks, and there he brought in the tabernacle, and the ark, and the altar of incense, and he made fast the door. And some of those that followed with him came there that they might mark the way and could not find it. But when Jeremiah perceived it he blamed them, saying, ‘Yea, and the place shall be unknown until God shall gather the people together again and mercy come; and then shall the Lord disclose these things, and the glory of the Lord shall be seen, and the cloud.’ ”

We can see, then, what the promise of the hidden manna would mean to these Jewish Christians—for most of St. John’s readers, no doubt, were Jews—God’s secret known, the ark revealed, the scattered people of Israel gathered together again, the Bread of Life restored to them, but restored in truer fashion, for their “fathers did eat manna in the wilderness, and are dead,” but Christ had promised that “My Father shall give you the bread of heaven.… I am the bread of life … he that cometh unto me shall not hunger.”

(1) The manna was in its very nature and origin something hidden, something unknown and wonderful. The name is supposed to be derived from the wondering question of the Israelites as they saw the strange thing lie on the ground: “Manna?” or “What now? What is it?” It was like coriander seed, sweet as honey; but what it actually was Israel never learned to know. It fell for nearly forty years with the dew from the womb of the morning, a gift direct from the hand of God. It came from the storehouse of heaven, where it lay hid with God, and this was all that the people knew of its origin; and in this very ignorance was certified to them this glorious fact that it was inexhaustible, a supply measured by no breadth or fertility of corn-fields.

Silently it fell,

Whence, no man might tell,

Like good dreams from heaven

Unto mortals given,

Like a snowy flock

Of strange sea-birds alighting on a shore of rock;

Silent thus and bright

Fell the manna in the night.

Silently thus and bright,

In our starless night,

God’s sweet mercy comes

All about our homes;

Whence, no man can see,

In a soft shower drifting, drifting ceaselessly.

Till the morning light

Falls the manna in the night.

Thus His mercy’s crown,

Bread of life, came down;

At our doors it fell,

Whence, no man might tell,

Silent to the ground;

Softly shining thus through the darkness all around,

Snowy, pure, and white,

Fell the manna in the night.

(2) Jesus, whom the manna typifies, is now hidden from view. The manna was there in the golden pot, and kept in the Holy of Holies, and miraculously preserved from year to year, so that it saw no corruption. The people had never seen it, neither had the priests, neither are we told that the high priest ever did, on that one day in the year when he entered that inner sanctuary. What a thrilling figure of Him who said, “I am the bread which came down from heaven.” He is our “hidden Manna” which saw no corruption. He has entered, not the Holy of Holies that was here on earth, but heaven itself. He is laid up for us in heaven. He is hidden from us now, even Him whom having not seen we love. But presently we who are made by Him priests unto God and His Father shall have boldness through His blood to enter into the Holiest. Then we shall see the now “hidden Manna,” then feast our eyes and hearts on the sight of our glorified Saviour. Then the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed us, and lead us to the living fountains, i.e., the very springs and source of life. So that then we “shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more.” The “hidden Manna” shall then be revealed; the Lamb shall be our light, and our God our glory.

The suggestion of mystery in this “hidden manna” was calculated to arouse the immediate interest of the Christians of Pergamum. For this was known as the City of Mystery. Its tutelary divinity, Aesculapius, was worshipped under the symbol of a serpent. It is said that the porches of his temple were crowded in the night-time with worshippers tarrying there in the hope of having dreams and visions. Pergamum was the centre of the Oriental occultism of those days. Its merchants carried on a profitable business in charms, amulets and cabalistic letters. Its smooth sheep-skins were famous the world over as Pergamenae chartae, which we have shortened into “parchment.” 1 [Note: D. J. Burrell, The Cloister Book, 46.]

II

The White Stone

“And I will give him a white stone.”

Commentators differ as to the meaning of the “white stone,” and Dr. Maclaren came at length to regard it as the mere vehicle for the name, with possibly some subsidiary thought of innocence and purity. Perhaps the language is vague and indefinite just because it means and hides so much.

1. The giving of the stone is evidently a mark of the highest distinction, and there is much to be said for the view that the reference is to splendid gems, called Urim and Thummim (that is, lights and perfectnesses), enclosed within the folds of the high priest’s breastplate which none but the high priest ever beheld.

The white stone which Jesus bestows excels the Old Testament gems. The Urim and Thummim were but dead stones, and lay but on the breast. They were but outward symbols of God. This white stone is lustrous with the very light which is God, and it is hidden within the breast itself. The upshining of faith, the fardarting beams of hope, and the outspreading glow of love are glories born of God’s own glory. A Divine nature begins at the centre of the human nature. And as the Christian obeys it, it grows. As he wars against his evil loves and ambitions, a strange, sweet light dawns in the secret of his heart. To his gladdened eyes there is revealed a purity and a beauty not there of old, and not given by any hand but God’s. However tiny and dim that gem may be, as his eye lights on it he knows it to be the diamond of a Godlike goodness. He knows by that token that he is now a priest. However unfit, and however slackly he uses his grand privileges, he has the loftiest dignity open to mortal. He wears the veil through which the inner splendour glimmers, and the eternal voices are faintly heard. Soon with wondering awe, but no fear, he shall pass within and be for ever with the Lord.

The hidden manna and the white stone are not merely united in time, belonging both to the wilderness period of the history of God’s people; they are united as both representing high-priestly prerogatives, which the Lord should at length impart to all His people, kings and priests to God, as He will then have made them all. If any should be privileged to eat of the hidden manna, who but the High Priest, who alone had entrance into the Holy Place where it was laid up? If any should have knowledge of what was graven on the Urim, who but the same High Priest, in whose keeping it was, and who was bound by his very office to consult it? The mystery of what was written there, shut to every other, would be open to him. 1 [Note: R. C. Trench.]

2. But there is another suggestion. In ancient times the white stone was often the symbol of acquittal. In the symbolism of colours, which, as having its ultimate root in the impression of pain or pleasure made upon the senses, might almost be called natural, and is, as a matter of fact, all but universal, white, in its brightness and purity, had been associated with joy and gladness, with victory and triumph. So, in a practice which, though originating, it was said, with the half-civilized tribes of Thrace or Scythia, had become general, days of festivity were noted with a white, those of calamity with a black, stone. Thus, when the vote of an assembly as to the guilt of an accused person was by ballot, white stones were the symbol of acquittal, black of condemnation. It has, accordingly, been contended, with at least much plausibility, that this is the significance of the “white stone” in the promise now before us. The conqueror in the great strife with evil, whatever opprobrium he might incur in the sight of men, whatever sentence he might receive at the hands of an earthly judge, would be received as justified and acquitted by the Eternal Judge. Yet, on the other hand, it can scarcely be said that the symbol of a mere acquittal would be an adequate expression of the reward promised to him that overcometh. A verdict of “not guilty,” which, on this interpretation, would exhaust the meaning of the promise, could hardly take its place as co-ordinate with the “crown of life,” or with “the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God.”

The Greek commentator Andreas sees allusion in the words white stone to the white pebble, by placing which in the ballot-box the Greek judges pronounced the sentence of acquittal (ψη̃?φοι σώζουσαι , they were therefore called), as by the black of condemnation; a custom expressed in the well-known lines of Ovid ( Metam. xv. 41, 42):

Mos erat antiquus, niveis atrisque lapillis,

His damnare reos, illis absolvere culpae.

But, not to speak of a grave fault common to this and almost every other explanation of these words which is offered, this one is manifestly inadequate; the absolving pebble was not given to the acquitted, as this is to the victor, nor was there any name written upon it. 1 [Note: R. C. Trench.]

3. Once more the reference may be to the tessera hospitalis, the tally or token of hospitality employed by the ancients. At a time when houses of public entertainment were less common, private hospitality was the more necessary. When one person was received kindly by another, or a contract of friendship was entered into, the tessera was given. It was so named from its shape, being four-sided; it was sometimes of wood, sometimes of stone; it was divided into two by the contracting parties; each wrote his own name on half of the tessera; then they exchanged pieces, and therefore the name or device on the piece of tessera which each received was the name the other person had written upon it, and which no one else knew but he who received it. It was carefully prized, and entitled the bearer to protection and hospitality.

Some such tessera, or ticket—a stone with the name of the guest written on it—was given to those who were invited to partake, within the precincts of the temple, of the feast that consisted wholly, or in part, of the meat that had been offered as a sacrifice. On this view the second part of the promise is brought into harmony with the first, and is made more directly appropriate: he who had the courage to refuse that tessera to the feast which defiled should receive another that would admit him to the supper of the Great King.

Plantus, in one of his plays, refers to this custom. Hanno inquires of a stranger where he may find Agorastocles, and discovers to his surprise that he is addressing the object of his search.

“If so,” he says, “compare, if you please, this hospitable tessera; here it is: I have it with me.”

Agorastocles replies, “It is the exact counterpart; I have the other part at home.”

Hanno responds, “O my friend! I rejoice to meet thee; thy father was my friend, my guest; I divided with him this hospitable tessera.”

“ Therefore,” said Agorastocles, “thou shalt have a home with me, for I reverence hospitality.”

4. Closely associated with the stone of hospitality was the stone of friendship. It was a tender custom in classic times which has not quite died out of a prosaic modern world. Two friends would sometimes plight friendship in a beautiful way by dividing between them a small tablet, oftenest in the form of a small piece of white marble or ivory. It is done sometimes to-day, at all events in country districts, with a ring. Each portion of the broken tablet bore upon it a symbol known only to the friends. When once this token had been given or received, the friends were bound to one another for ever, and not for life only, for the broken fragments could be handed from father to son, and no matter how many generations had passed, if the holder of one half of the tablet presented it to the holder of the other half, he could claim from him shelter, protection, defence in the courts of law against all adversaries, and every privilege that the first holder could have claimed. So Christ seems to say, He that conquers shall plight troth with Me. He and I will break the tablet of friendship together. We will bind ourselves together for time and for eternity, “for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.” If he claims My help he shall have it, freely, ungrudgingly. I will be his Friend in everything. He shall live with Me. We will sup together. I will divide all I have with him. All the treasures of God shall be his. All that is Mine shall be his.

There is a lovely German poem of the Middle Ages, by one Weruher, which has not yet found a translator. It is something like this—

Thou art mine and I am Thine,

I will make Thee sure of that,

I will lock Thee in my heart,

I will close its outer door,

I will lose its little key,

Thou canst then no more depart. 1 [Note: W. P. Workman, in A Book of Lay Sermons, 156.]

In his notes of 1854 Ruskin says: “This holding the name in the white stone is very suggestive as well as mysterious. In one sense the White Stone may be the Heart—always a stone, compared to what it ought to be; yet a white one when it holds Christ (‘Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God’).” 2 [Note: Ruskin, Fors Clavigera, vii. § 23 (Works, xxix. 302).]

5. Above all else the white stone is a sign of public honour. It is given to “him that overcometh.” And so it has been suggested that the reference is to the gladiatorial combats which were so marked a feature of classic times. They took place in those huge amphitheatres which are to-day more wonderful in their ruins than most modern buildings in their completeness. In them, as in all shows, there were honoured seats, and among these were places for old gladiators, heroes of the arena, who in many a fight had won the title to rest. The diploma of these heroes was a white stone, and on it was engraved the number of the victories its possessor had won and the names of the victims he had slain. So, it has been suggested, when life’s long battle is won, Christ will give His heroes (gladiators in a far nobler warfare, gladiators in the struggle with sin) a white stone of victory, a title of admission to a place, and a place of special honour, in the “cloud of witnesses.”

He who held this stone was entitled to be supported at the public expense, had free access to all the festivities of the nation, and was regarded as illustrious in all great gatherings. Thus he who wins the moral battle of life will be publicly honoured. A crown of glory is prepared for him, which the Lord, the righteous Judge, shall give unto him at that day. He will have free admission into all the honours of eternity.

The Saxon name of the family was originally spelt Livingstone, but the Doctor’s father had shortened it by the omission of the final “e.” David wrote it for many years in the abbreviated form, but about 1857, at his father’s request, he restored the original spelling. The significance of the original form of the name was not without its influence on him. He used to refer with great pleasure to a note from an old friend and fellow-student, the late Professor George Wilson of Edinburgh, acknowledging a copy of his book in 1857:—“Meanwhile, may your name be propitious; in all your long and weary journeys may the Living half of your title outweigh the other; till after long and blessed labours, the white stone is given you in the happy land.” 1 [Note: W. G. Blaikie, The Personal Life of David Livingstone (ed. 1880), 2.]

In The Book of the Sparkling Stone the subject is the mysterious stone of which the Spirit says in the Apocalypse: Et dabo illi (vincenti) calculum candidum, et in calculo nomen novum scriptum, quod nemo scit nisi qui accepit ( Revelation 2:17). This stone, according to the monk of the forest of Soignes, is the symbol of Christ, given to His loved ones only, and like a flame which images the love of the eternal Word. And then again we have glimpses of those dark shadows of love, from which break forth uninterrupted sobs of light, seen in awful flowers through the gradual expansions of contemplation and above the strange verdure of an unequalled gladness. 2 [Note: M. Maeterlinck, Ruysbroeck and the Mystics, 78.]

Have you not heard

Of the fair white stone,

With its written word

By one soul known,

And the Lord alone? 3 [Note: Emily Hickey.]

III

The New Name

“And upon the stone a new name written, which no one knoweth but he that receiveth it.”

1. The ideal function of a name is to give an accurate and complete description of the thing that it denotes. Of course names are, practically, very far from performing this function, and the names applied to individuals very often express anything but the truth. But the metaphor of the text is based on the ideal name, and not the actual. It is in this way that we are to interpret such phrases as “the name of Jesus” and “the name of God.” It means the essential life of Jesus, of God, and all the relations that this life assumes. But we must not fall into the mistake of thinking that the “name” denotes a bundle of abstract qualities, which you may separate from the actual living person. It is rather the person in the totality of his life and its manifestations. The life that manifests the qualities is essential to the name.

The readers of this letter, who possessed the key to its comprehension, hidden from the common world, could not fail to be struck with the analogy between this New Name and the Imperial title Augustus. That also had been a new name, deliberately devised by the Senate to designate the founder, and to mark the foundation of the new Empire: it was an old sacred word, used previously only in the language of the priests, and never applied to any human being: hence Ovid says: “Sancta vocant augusta patres” ( Fast., 1:609). That old word was appropriated in 27 b.c. to the man who had been the saviour of Rome, and whom already the popular belief had begun to regard as an incarnation of the Divine nature in human form, sent down to earth to end the period of war and introduce the age of peace. This sacred, Divine name marked out the man to whom it was applied as one apart from the world, standing on a higher level, possessor of superhuman power in virtue of this new name and transmitting that power through the name to his descendants.

The analogy was striking; and the points of difference were only to the advantage of the Christian. His new name was secret, but all the more efficacious on that account. The readers for whom this letter was written—the Christians of Pergamum, of all Asia, of the whole world—would catch with certainty the hidden meaning. All those Christians, when they were victorious, were to be placed in the same position as, or rather higher than, Augustus, having a New Name, the Name of God, their own secret possession, which no man would know and therefore no man could tamper with by acquiring control through knowledge. As Augustus had been set above the Roman world by his new name, so they would be set above the world by theirs. 1 [Note: W. M. Ramsay, The Letters to the Seven Churches of Asia, 310.]

2. The name, then, expresses the character, the nature, the being, the meaning of the person who bears it. It is the man’s own symbol,—his soul’s picture, in a word,—the sign which belongs to him and to no one else. Who can give a man this, his own, name? God alone. For no one but God sees what the man is, or even, seeing what he is, could express in a name-word the sum and harmony of what He sees. To whom is this name given? To him that overcometh. When is it given? When he has overcome. Does God then not know what a man is going to become? As surely as He sees the oak which He put there lying in the heart of the acorn. Why then does He wait till the man has become by overcoming ere He settles what his name shall be? He does not wait; He knows his name from the first. But—although repentance comes because God pardoned—as the man becomes aware of the pardon only in the repentance, so it is only when the man has become his name that God gives him the stone with the name upon it, for then first can he understand what his name signifies. It is the blossom, the perfection, the completion, that determines the name; and God foresees that from the first, because He made it so; but the tree of the soul, before its blossom comes, cannot understand what blossom it is to bear, and could not know what the word meant, which, in representing its own unattained completeness, named itself. Such a name cannot be given until the man is the name.

My heart was tender and often contrite, and universal love to my fellow-creatures increased in me. This will be understood by such as have trodden in the same path. Some glances of real beauty may be seen in their faces who dwell in true meekness. There is a harmony in the sound of that voice to which Divine love gives utterance, and some appearance of right order in their temper and conduct whose passions are regulated; yet these do not fully show forth that inward life to those who have not felt it; this white stone and new name is only known rightly by such as receive it. 1 [Note: The Journal of John Woolman (ed. 1903), 48.]

3. The “new name” had been used by Isaiah and Jeremiah for expressing the new life of blessedness in store for those to whom it was applied. The land that had been forsaken and abandoned to destruction should be called “Hephzibah,” as once more delight of her Lord. The daughter of Zion, that had sat desolate as a widow, should be “Beulah,” as a bride over whom the bridegroom once more rejoiced. Jerusalem herself was to be known by the mystic name of “The Lord our Righteousness.” In his own case and that of his brother, as in that of Simon Barjona—in Peter, the “Rock,” and Boanerges, the “Sons of Thunder”—the Apostle had known a new name given which was the symbol of a higher life and a character idealized in its gifts. And so in this case the inner truth that lies below the outward imagery would seem to be that the conqueror, when received at the heavenly feast, should find upon the stone, or tessera, that gave him the right of entrance a “new name,” the token of a character transformed and perfected, a name the full significance of which should be known only to him who was conscious of the transformation, just as in the experiences of our human life, “the heart knoweth its own bitterness; and a stranger doth not intermeddle with its joy.”

When little children are baptized they receive a name, inalienable. Its possession means “given to God.” Our surname is our old name. Our baptismal name, the name suggestive of our new nature is our new name for earth. When admitted into heaven, we shall receive a new name, Christ’s name and ours. “I will write upon him mine own new name.”

When the angels that await me,

Meet me at my entering in,

With what name of love and music

Will their welcoming begin?

Not the name so dimmed with earth stains,

Linked with thoughts of grief and pain,

No, the name which mortals give me

Will not be my angel name. 1 [Note: A. W. Lewis.]

4. The new name becomes ours by communication from Christ “I will give him a new name”—a deeper, a more inward, a fresh knowledge and revelation of My own character—as eternal love, eternal wisdom, all-sufficient, absolute power, the home and treasure and joy and righteousness of the whole heart and spirit. That is the representation uniformly given in Scripture with regard to all the change and glorifying of human nature which follows upon the entrance into the life beyond. It is ever set forth as being the consequence of a fuller knowledge and general possession of the name—the manifested character of Jesus Christ our Lord. The words of the Apostle John, who wrote the Apocalypse, mean the same thing without metaphor, as his words here in their metaphor: “We shall be like him, for we shall see him as he is.”

The name is inscribed upon the beholder as the sun makes an image of itself on the photographic plate. If thou wouldest see Christ, thou must be as Christ; if thou wouldest be as Christ, thou must see Christ. “We all, with unveiled faces mirroring,” as a glass does, “the glory of the Lord, are changed into the same image.” 1 [Note: A. Maclaren, The Unchanging Christ, 230.]

5. This new name is known only to its possessor. That, of course, is true in all regions of human experience. Did ever anybody describe a taste so that a man that had not tasted the thing could tell what it was like? Did ever anybody describe an odour so as to do more than awaken the memory of someone who had once had the scent lingering in his nostrils? Have all the poets who have been singing from the beginning of the world described love and sorrow, joy and hope and fear, so as to do more than kindle the reminiscences of men as to their own sorrows and joys? If he has not known the love of a child, no talking will ever make a man understand what a father’s heart is. Religious experiences are not unlike ordinary human experiences in this matter. It is not possible to communicate them, partly because of the imperfection of human language, partly because we need in all departments sympathy and prior knowledge in order to make the descriptions significant at all.

We have our own heart, with its own love and its own aspirations. We have our own tasks and responsibilities and failings. Hence our need of God is not the need of any other soul; it is just our own need that He meets, and so we have our own special view and experience of Him. The harder, the stranger, our lot may be, the more distinct are our dealings with Him to whom we pray, on whose Spirit we depend, in whose goodness we are being exercised. We cling to Him, not as the great God of all, but as our own Father, in whose heart we have our own place, and into whose character we have our own insight.

Thus comes it that my own sense of God is a name for God known only to Him and to me. You would need my heart, my history, to be indeed myself, before you could understand all that I mean and feel when I say, “God, my Father.”

Nowhere do we find on earth that picture of society reconstructed by the idea of Jesus, society around the throne of God, which shines out upon us from the mysterious promises of the Apocalypse; the glory of which society is to be this—that while the souls stand in their vast choruses of hundreds of thousands, and all chant the same anthems and all work together in the same transcendent duties, yet each bears the sacred name written on the flesh of his own forehead, and carries in his hand a white stone, on which is written a new name which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it. It is individuality emphasized by company, and not lost in it, because the atmosphere in which the company is met is the idea of Jesus, which is the fatherhood of God. 1 [Note: Phillips Brooks, The Influence of Jesus, 99.]

You would be ashamed not to know the name and use of every piece of furniture in the house, and we ought to be as familiar with every object in the world—which is only a larger kind of house. You recollect the pretty story of Pizarro and the Peruvian Inca: how the Inca asked one of the Spaniards to write the word Dio (God) upon his thumb-nail, and then, showing it to the rest, found only Pizarro unable to read it! Well, you will find as you grow older that this same name of God is written all over the world in little phenomena that occur under our eyes every moment, and I confess that I feel very much inclined to hang my head with Pizarro when I cannot translate these hieroglyphics into my own vernacular. 2 [Note: Letters of James Russell Lowell, i. 182.]

O Name, all other names above,

What art Thou not to me,

Now I have learned to trust Thy love

And cast my care on Thee!

What is our being but a cry,

A restless longing still,

Which Thou alone canst satisfy,

Alone Thy fulness fill!

Thrice blessèd be the holy souls

That lead the way to Thee,

That burn upon the martyr-rolls

And lists of prophecy.

And sweet it is to tread the ground

O’er which their faith hath trod;

But sweeter far, when Thou art found,

The soul’s own sense of God!

The thought of Thee all sorrow calms;

Our anxious burdens fall;

His crosses turn to triumph-palms,

Who finds in God his all. 1 [Note: Frederick Lucian Hosmer.]

Victory and Intimacy

Literature

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Brown (C.), The Letters of Christ, 47.

Burns (D.), Sayings in Symbol, 72.

Burrell (D. J.), The Cloister Book, 45.

Foster (J. M.), The White Stone, 1.

Fraser (D.), Seven Promises Expounded, 20.

Hall (N.), in The World’s Great Sermons, vi. 87.

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