T[ One of the most profound and suggestive legends of ancient Greece was the legend of the Sphinx. The Sphinx, according to the old story, was a monstrous creature, half human, half animal, who had a riddle to propound to any travellers who passed her way. What exactly the riddle was does not matter to us just now. All that concerns us is that here was a creature pro- pounding her riddle to men and exacting their lives as forfeit if
REVELATION i. 17, 18 57
they failed to answer it. Traveller after traveller, the legend says, tried and failed and perished. But at last there came one who discovered the answer, and the Sphinx, her secret discovered, ! destroyed herself. Whenever I think of that Greek legend I feel that from first to last it is nothing but a parable of death. Death is the Sphinx. Ever since the world began death has been in it propounding to mankind this tremendous riddle, " If a man die, shall he live again ? " — challenging them to discover her own secret, saying to them, " Explain me or pay the forfeit in a life passed in fear and bondage." And generation after generation tried to dis- cover the secret and explain the riddle. The greatest sages and philosophers and teachers tried and failed. The psalmists and prophets of the Old Testament tried and failed. Death remained the terrible and inscrutable Sphinx. But there came One at last who " became dead " and went down into the grave, and on the morning of the third day came out of it again. And now He says to the world, " I have the key." ^
3. The keys of death and Hades are in the hand of Him who is seated on the judgment-seat. " He openeth, and no man shutteth ; he shutteth, and no man openeth." Nor is the consolation derived from the thought that all power is in the hand of Jesus Christ. That would be an untrustworthy source of comfort. For the Christian would not desire or wish that the power should be strained on his behalf, or that an unworthy verdict should be given. For on that day it will be found that those who obtain the sentence of acquittal and of reward have become worthy of their place in the Father's Kingdom. They have become the righteousness of God in Christ. They have become like Christ, have really obtained the Spirit of adoption, and have learned the language of the Father's family, and are really the sons of God. The final procedure recognizes all that has been done for them, and all that i# accomplished in them, and the verdict is given accordingly. Justified by grace, and yet judged according to works, is the final wonder of the Christian experience.
The weary child, the long play done, Wags slow to bed at set of sun; Sees mother leave, fears night begun, But by remembered kisses made To feel, tho' lonely, undismayed. Glides into dreamland unafraid. ^ J. D. Jones, The Gospel of Orace^ 128.
58 FEAR NOT
The weary man, life's long day done, Looks lovingly at his last sun; Sees all friends fade, fears night begun, But by remembered mercies made To feel, tho' dying, undismayed, Glides into glory unafraid.
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 (Ji.W^even 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 Kevelation, 187.
„ „ The Victor's Crowns, 1.
Matheson (G.), Sidelights from Patmos, 17. Momerie (A. W.), The Origin of Evil, 306. Peck (G. C), Old Sim in New Clothes, 57. Ramsay (W. M.), The Letters to the Seven Cliurches 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. 0. Dykes) ;
Ixxvi. 113 (R. F. Horton). Dictionary of the Bible, iii. 671 (S. D. F. Salmond). Examin&r, Oct. 27, 1904 (J. H. Jowett).
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.— Rev. ii. 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 " griev- ous wolves "would enter into the fold "not sparing the flock." His exhortation to them to watch, and the subsequent admoni- tions 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 inten- sify. Health and strength might fail, inducing physical languor ; age might come stealing on, with its feebleness and loss of enjoy-