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 every- thing 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 renuncia- tion 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
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9$ VICTORY AND INTIMACY
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 vi. 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 wilder- ness, 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,
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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.
TI 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 possi- bility of a man living for Christ and keeping straight under suit- able 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."