destructive and consuming brightness; but it shall be as
"the light of the morning, when the sun riseth, even a
morning without clouds ; as the tender grass springing out
of the earth by clear shining after rain." Such will be the
effect of the dawning of the light of the holy city, the Bride
of the Lamb, upon a stricken and terrified earth, to which,
as brought at last under the applied power of redemption,
she will minister together with Him the pure blessings of
goodness.
Nor will her ministry be that of love only it will also
be the ministry of grace. Her very name teaches this ;
for she is not called the Bride of Christ merely, but the
Bride of the Lamb. Love was known in paradise, but re-
demption has brought in grace ; it has caused grace to
abound where sin abounded. Accordingly we read of the
heavenly city having, not the throne of God merely, but
" the throne of God and of the Lamb" And it is from
this throne, thus established in the supremacy, not of
power only, but of grace, that the river of life issues on
either side of which grew the tree of life, whose leaves, it is
said, "were for the healing of the nations." Nothing can
more plainly mark the relation of the heavenly city to
another sphere external to itself, in which sorrow and sick-
ness, as the consequences of sin, still linger. Being itself
under the shelter of the power of God in redemption, and
having itself tasted of the blessedness of grace (for they who
inhabit that city will have been sinners, once dead in tres-
passes and sins), it will not be slow to apply the ready
instrumentality so graciously provided to meet the need of
those still dwelling in the unredeemed and sinful body below.
ON REVELATION XXI. 359
The ready hand of love will be put forth from the heavenly
city to stop the avenues of sorrow in the earth beneath ; and
the workings of death, when it yet lingers, will be checked
by the ministration of a more abundant power of life. And
although she from whom and through whom these blessings
will be ministered, will never enter upon a fallen earth so as
to dwell therein, but keeps herself apart in pure and hea-
venly separation until her heavenly Bridegroom has subdued
every enemy and made all things new, yet the ministration
of blessings from her is unceasing from the moment that
she becomes the Bride of Him who will then be known as
the Lord of the whole earth ; for how could it be otherwise
where there is love that yearneth to give, and need crying
to receive and stores inexhaustible to be given and grace
that has removed every hindrance ? And accordingly we read
that her twelve gates (which were all of pearl, for it is the
holy city) were ever open towards all the four winds of
heaven : " on the east three gates ; on the north three gates ;
on the south three gates, and on the west three gates." And
even as blessing emanated thence throughout all the earth,
so also was the grateful homage of the nations returned, as
if in recognition of its goodness. tf The nations shall walk
by means of the light thereof, and the kings of the earth do
bring their glory and honour unto it. And the gates shall
not be shut at all by day : for there shall be no night there.
And they shall bring the glory and honour of the nations
unto it."
They will bring it, no doubt, mediately. For, as of old, no
offering could be brought by the worshipper further than
the outer court of the temple, and the priests alone could
minister at the altar, or enter into the sanctuary ; so here,
likewise, none but the priests of Israel, i. e. the risen Church
of the first-born, will be able to enter into this city whose
gates are of pearl, and her streets like unto fine gold. But
there will be another city on the earth the earthly Jerusa-
lem the " beloved city," whose " gates also shall be open
360 THOUGHTS ON THE APOCALYPSE.
continually ; they shall not be shut day nor night, that men
may bring there the forces of the Gentiles, and that their
kings may be brought." It is the earthly city that will form,
as it were, the exterior court of the temple of God ; and
whilst itself owning the better glory of the heavenly city, will
yet be the place where the nations can resort to own the supre-
macy of the city of God, and to render homage to Him who
dwelleth therein. Accordingly, the names of the twelve
tribes of the children of Israel were severally written on
the twelve pearl gates of the heavenly city, as if to indicate
that it stood in a special relation to them that it was their
sanctuary and that their priesthood alone, that is to say the
risen saints, could enter within its walls ; so that, although
the twelve gates did look east, and west, and north, and south,
and did embrace the scope of the whole earth for blessing, yet
it was not apart from Israel. The gates, guarded by angels,
were specially their gates and they were made the mediate
link between the nations and the city of God. The remark-
able words of Moses, that ' ' when the Most High divided to
the nations their inheritance, when He separated the sons of
Adam, He set the bounds of the people according to the
number of the children of Israel," are thus perhaps ex-
plained. God, when He undertakes the government of this
earth, will return to His own original principles when He
first divided the sons of Adam. He had His own intentions
respecting Israel even then and they will be fulfilled in their
season so that the arrangements of the nations shall be
adapted to the arrangements of that princely people from
whom, and through whom, their order, and dignities, and
regulations shall flow.
But whilst the faithfulness of God to His earthly people,
and the honour reserved for them, is indicated by the inscrip-
tion of the names of their patriarchs on the gates of the
heavenly city, yet a different and far higher honour is as-
signed to those who have followed Jesus ; for the foundations
of the wall of the city bore " the twelve names of the twelve
ON REVELATION XXI. 361
apostles of the Lamb." Their labour has not been in vain
in the Lord. It was by means of the truths which the
apostles ministered, that the people of God were first sepa-
rated into their heavenly separation on the earth; and whilst
girt about thereby, as by a wall, the Church was strong
against its enemies without, and separated to God and bless-
ing within. Those truths, indeed, were not recognised in the
world as beautiful, or glorious; they little shone in the
eyes of men like clear jasper ; nor did the Church itself
long value its separation, or keep with holy foot within the
sacred inclosure. The walls have been cast down, and there
is " burning instead of beauty." Nevertheless the truths
so ministered are eternal for they are the word of God :
" Sanctify them by thy truth : thy word is truth ; " and they
will one day be recognised in their preciousness and beauty,
when the city of God shall appear. The same blessed truths
by which we now seek to fortify the weak and fainting heart
the same truths that we press as involving separation from all
that is simply of the earth, are the truths which will be then
fully recognised by those within, and those without, that city,
as having given it its everlasting strength its everlasting
separation also unto God, His holiness, and His glory. The
symbol sufficiently expresses His estimate of their precious-
ness a resplendent wall of pure jasper.
I have said separation unto the glory and holiness of God ;
for the city and the street of the city were alike of pure gold,
like transparent glass. We read of gold in the inner courts
of the tabernacle. It was the emblem of divine excellency
the type of the divine nature of Christ, in its full excel-
lency, as appreciated in heaven ; and, therefore, found only
in the inner courts. The priests ministered in a golden
sanctuary; the altar the table the vessels the boards
and the mercy-seat were all golden. But they did not
stand on gold neither did they dwell in mansions of gold.
They stood with unshod foot upon the earth, surrounded in-
deed by what was heavenly and divine ; but not themselves
362 THOUGHTS ON THE APOCALYPSE.
standing in the power thereof, nor in competency of action
according thereunto. But they who belong to this heavenly
city, seeing that they are to dwell with Him who hath said,
' ' Bone of my bone, and flesh of my flesh " with Him who
is to inherit all things His spouse and His companion, ar-
ranging with Him and for Him the things of His household
exhibiting the character, and habits, and order, which
beseem the palace of the great King must be able to live
where He liveth, and to walk where He walketh, even with
a foot that fears no contrast with the transparent purity on
which it treads. It is a condition too great to be compre-
hended by any save those who have powers of apprehension
and appreciation derived immediately from God. The city
could only be measured by a golden rod. But when this
was applied, it was found to be perfect ; it was a cube the
emblem of entire perfection.
Such is the place designed for the development of that
economy which distinctively belongs to the redeemed. We
know not what new worlds what new things may be
dependent thereon, or how angels may learn therein the
manifold wisdom of God. It will be the place in which they
who have known sin and the curse, who have seen failure in
others, and failure in themselves, and learned the value of
grace and the need of Almighty power to strengthen and to
uphold, will find themselves consciously set as a seal upon
the heart and a seal upon the arm of Him who loved them
with a love stronger than death, and commissioned them to
act in the power of the same love towards others.
Such are some of our prospects. " He said unto me,
These words are faithful and true : and the Lord God of
the spirits of the prophets hath sent His angel to show unto
His servants things which must come to pass speedily. And
behold, I come quickly: blessed is he that keepeth the
words of the prophecy of this book." The prospects of the
world, as given in this book, are, Babylon, Antichrist, judg-
ment: of the Church, the Throne, the Heavenly City, and.
ON REVELATION XXI. 363
sovereignty together with Christ. Faith recognises both ;
the latter as its own portion the former as that which
affords to it the occasion of watchfulness, service, and testi-
mony. He to whom it was given to see these visions of
glory, ate also the book that became in his belly bitter.
The former was for his comfort in hope ; the latter supplied
him with the subject of his testimony " against (ETTI) many
peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings."
There is an awful fixedness given to the condition of the
world by the words, " He that is unjust, let him be unjust
still; and he that is filthy, let him be filthy still." Strictly
taken, they would unchangeably determine the condition of
men, from the moment that the Lord uttered them ; in which
case, for the last eighteen hundred years, conversion would
not have been, and the Bride would have ceased to say,
" Come." But it has not been so. The Spirit and the
Bride have said, even as they still say, " Come;" and they
who have heard, have said, " Come;" and many have come,
and taken of the water of life freely. But the fact of these
words having prophetically passed the lips of Jesus, not
only marks the time when they will be fully ratified, as
being very nigh, when the sentence shall finally go forth,
and the doom of each be irrevocably fixed, according as his
work shall be ; but they may be understood also as intimating
that from that hour forward, even till the day of His ap-
pearing, there should be no change in the general aspect of
mankind ; but that they should remain in all essential fea-
tures what at that hour they were. " The generation was
not to pass away." Its moral characteristics were to con-
tinue and become deepened. Already the mystery of ini-
quity had begun to work already there were many Anti-
christs. The Churches also had begun to fail in their
testimony ; He knew the consequence, and that nothing now
remained but the interference of His own Almighty hand.
Yet in testifying to the Churches, He cannot but speak
words of comfort ; for He hath loved them, and freed them
364 THOUGHTS ON THE APOCALYPSE.
from their sins by His own blood, and He hath made them
a kingdom priests unto His God and Father ; and there-
fore we find Him speaking of Himself, and saying, " I am
the Eoot and Offspring of David, and the Bright and
Morning Star." Sweet words of comfort, which the
Churches, whether fallen or unfallen, have to treasure
during the period of their sojourn here, as the pledge of
the earthly and heavenly blessings, which, in the title of
His redemption, He will yet cause to arise like the
morning light, upon a disordered and ruined world.
He has been planted in the earth as the root to David
and to David's house of all those blessings promised in the
covenant " ordered in all things and sure," although as yet
it hath seemed not to grow. Dishonoured and despised as
<e a root out of a dry ground," and even uprooted from the
earth, He nevertheless liveth hidden with God, being the
Root of David still. And in due time He shall be mani-
fested again, and then "the branch of the Lord shall be
beautiful and glorious, and the fruit of the earth shall be
excellent and comely for them that are escaped of Israel."
But He is " the Offspring " as well as " the Root of David."
Experience has taught us that, however sure the source,
however excellent the blessings given, yet that they are
originated in vain for such as we, unless there be also pro-
vided as a depository, one fitted to preserve that which is
given a nail driven in a sure place. And such is Jesus.
Being the offspring, and therefore the heir, of David's house,
on Him, as such, all the glories of that house by inheritance
devolve ; in Him they find their safe resting-place, and are
secured for ever.
But He is not merely a root planted in the earth, nor the
heir merely of an earthly house. He has other essential
glories of His own. " Before Abraham was, I AM." He
is " the Root and Offspring of David, AND the Bright and
Morning Star." I have already spoken of the star as the
symbol of distant and unearthly glories derived from high.
ON REVELATION XXI. 365
and unknown spheres, into which the eye of man, as man,
can never penetrate. It is in such glory, strictly unearthly
and divine, that Jesus will come. It will be the true light
of God's own glory and holiness arising suddenly on the
deep darkness of the world's night. It will not be at first
"the sun arising with healing on his wings" (for the day-
star precedes the sun) ; but it will be the sudden visitation of
strange and distant glory, suddenly breaking in upon the
abyss of darkness beneath. He will come as the Son of God
" in His own glory and in His Father's glory, and in the
glory of the holy angels," and it is into such glory that
" they who are His at His coming " are to be taken ; for
His promise is, " To him that overcometh will I give the
morning star."
Such are our expectations ; all resting upon the suffici-
ency of the redemption that is in His blood ; for His own
words are, "Blessed are they that wash their robes,* that
they may have right to the tree of life, and may enter in
through the gates into the city." It is not difficult to con-
ceive the joy with which they who have been made person-
ally like their Lord, and shared in the brightness of His
glory as the morning star, and seen the earth quail before
His judgments, will enter on the arrangements of that hea-
venly city, which shall spread over the ruined scene, peace,
and joy, and blessing. May our souls then be settled in the
grace of this redemption ! May we see the darkness around
us in the light of the testimony of this book, and in the
light of the glory also, which is ready to be revealed ; and
then we shall be able, with chastened and understanding
hearts, to rejoice in His appearing, and to say, " Come
quickly, Lord Jesus."
* Such is the true reading.
THOUGHTS ON THE APOCALYPSE.
CHAPTER XXIX.
llotts an gtfrtlathnt XXI,
AT this verse (verse 9) a new chapter should commence.
The preceding eight verses had described the introduction of
the Heavenly City as the Bride of the Lamb into the new
earth which the heavenly Bridegroom had created for her.
During His millennial reign over the old earth, He subdues
every enemy, and afterwards, causing all former things to
pass away, by His almighty power as God, He makes all
things new. The first eight verses of the twenty-first chap-
ter describe the Heavenly City ushered into the new earth
thus created as an inheritance.
But in the ninth verse the subject changes. We go back
to a previous period, and learn the relation of the Heavenly
City to the old earth during the millennium. The
Heavenly City commences to exist at the beginning not
at the close of the millennium. We might therefore be
expected to inquire what its relation to the earth during
the millennium will be ; and this inquiry is answered in the
passage before us.
It must carefully be observed that the descent of the
Heavenly City mentioned in the tenth verse is different from,
and in time prior to, the descent which is mentioned in the
second verse. In the latter case it descends into the new
earth ; in the former case it descends towards, but does not
NOTES ON REVELATION XXI. 367
enter the millennial earth. During the millennium its posi-
tion is intermediate between Heaven and earth ; just as the
Holy Place in the Tabernacle where the priests ministered
(to which it is the antitype) was intermediate between the
Holy of Holies which represented Heaven itself, and the
outer court where Israel worshipped on the earth. There
was contiguity and connection between the various courts of
the Tabernacle ; but they were different, and had different
services. Accordingly, throughout all the millennium there
will be a careful distinction maintained between the heavenly
places with all pertaining thereunto, and the earth and the
things therein. The inhabitants of the Heavenly City will
minister to the sickness and need of the millennial nations;
(see Rev. xxii. 2), but the Heavenly City itself will never
enter this fallen earth. It will wait until all things have
been made new and suited to Him who is the Second Adam
the Lord from Heaven. Then, and not before, it will be
said fi the Tabernacle of God is with men."
The contrasts are very marked between the millennial and
the new earth. In the millennial earth there will be the
possibility of disobedience (Zech. xiv. 17), and consequent
plague (Zech. xiv. 18) j there will also be death (Isaiah Ixv.
20), that last enemy not being destroyed till the close of
Christ's millennial reign and not death only, but destruc-
tive judgment, as is seen when fire comes down from Heaven
to devour those who apostatise at the close of the millennium.
None of these things can occur in that new creation of which
it is said, " there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor
crying, neither shall there be any more pain ; for the former
things have passed away." Rev. xxi. 4.
Our knowledge of the millennium, as to the earthly blessings
then to be granted to Israel and the nations, is gained almost
exclusively from the Old Testament. We there learn how
glorious the name of the Lord God of Israel will be made
throughout all the earth ; but we should know little of that
glory which is to be set above the heavens, if we had not
368 THOUGHTS ON THE APOCALYPSE.
the visions of the Revelation. If holiness, peace, and joy
are to be maintained in Israel and Jerusalem ; if they are to
be made " a praise in the earth," it is because they will be
subjected to the supervision and control of those whose un-
earthly glories the visions we have been considering in the
Revelation are intended to unfold. The glories of the risen
61 Church of the first-born " are given there.
We must carefully remember, however, that the highest,
because everlasting, blessings of the millennial saints are not
found in those parts of Scripture which describe their
earthly prosperity and glory ; nor even in those which declare
the majesty and excellency of the glorified beings who will
watch over and minister to them from above. The parts of
Scripture from which we derive our fullest knowledge of the
essential and eternal blessings which will pertain to millennial
Israel, and to all who, like them, shall be " sanctified by
faith," are the Epistles those same parts of Scripture
which now teach us our essential blessings. This has been
strangely overlooked by some who, because Israel do not
belong to " the Church of the first-born " have therefore ex-
cluded them from the Church, and have written as if there
were two gospels two ways of salvation two kinds of
Christianity; one for us now, another for Israel in the
millennium.
But all this is delusion. When the Apostle says that " in
the flesh no good thing dwelleth" that " they that are in
the flesh cannot please God " that " flesh and blood cannot
inherit the kingdom of God," he states eternal principles of
truth, which will be as true in the millennium as now. So
likewise, when he says, that all in whom the Spirit of God
dwells are (as estimated by God) " in the spirit and not in
the flesh that all such are " children," " heirs of God and
joint heirs with Christ" and that all who receive the gift
of righteousness through faith shall finally " reign in life ; "
he states great and eternal principles of blessing, which will
be as true of the millennial saints as of ourselves. Any truth
NOTES ON REVELATION XXI. 369
that is founded on what man is in the first Adam as fallen, or
on what redeemed man is in the second Adam, must be ail
eternal truth. There is no saintship, either in the millen-
nium or now, apart from regeneration; and all who are
regenerate are united with Christ risen ; and all who are
united with Him will be like Him, and will see Him .as
He is, and will bear His heavenly likeness in the new
creation. It is not merely " the church of the first-born"
that Christ has loved, He has loved " the Church;" and
the Church is a name that comprehends all the redeemed.
" The Church of the first-born " will be complete when
the Lord returns ; they will have a peculiar compen-
sation for their peculiar sorrows, for they will share the
glories of their Lord's millennial reign; but the Church
will not be Complete until the millennium ends, and
they shall share the glories of their Lord's eternal reign,
when the new heavens and new earth shall be made,
and when all the redeemed " shall reign in life through One
Jesus Christ." It is observable too, that, up to the hour
when the new earth is created, the Heavenly City to which
the Church belongs retains the title of Bride of the Lamb,
and, as such, is introduced into the new heavens and new
earth. The fact of the Heavenly City being formed at the
commencement of the millennium, no more prevents indi-
viduals from being afterwards added thereunto, than the
fact of the earthly Jerusalem being spoken of as (( married
to the Lord " at the beginning of the millennium, prevents
individual Israelites from being afterwards born into its
blessings. The symbols which denote the Church are cor-
porate symbols ; and corporate symbols always admit of
being indefinitely enlarged in comprehensiveness.
Circumcision, the early " sign and seal " of the covenant
of grace, when it was first formally made with Abraham, is a
type pre-eminently Israelitish. And what does circumcision
indicate ? Not the improvement of the flesh, as some have
said; but abscision of the flesh, and consequent separation
370 THOUGHTS OX THE APOCALYPSE.
from it. And how is this antitypical circumcision effected ?
It is effected by God through the death and resurrection of
Christ, with whom God has united all the redeemed. In
Christ they are brought into that new condition of being
into which nothing that is of the flesh enters. In Him risen,
they are " circumcised with the circumcision made without
hands." Such is the explanation of the type of circumcision
as given by the Apostle in the Colossians. So early was it
indicated that the great distinctive blessing that attaches to
all, who are, by faith, children of Abraham (whether they
may live in the millennium or before) is separation into that
new condition of heavenly being, into which union with