* Michael Field, Mystic Trees, 131.
The Redeemed.
Literature.
Alexander (W.), Verhum Grucis, 127.
Barry (A,), Sermons Preached at Westminster Abbey ^ 247.
Bonar (H.), Light and Truth : The Kevelation, 190.
Brooke (S. A.), The Spirit of the Christian Life^ 237.
Conn (J.), The Fulness of Time, 200.
Dearden (H. W.), Parochial Sermons, 55.
Gibson (E. C. S.), The Revelation of St. John the Divine, 105.
Grimley (H. N.), Tremadoc Sermons, 63.
Hyde (T. D.), Sermon- Pictures for Busy Preachers, i. 189.
Johnson (J. B.), A Commentary on the Revelation of St. John, 77.
Jones (J. S.), The Invisible Things, 220.
Maurice (F. D.), Lincoln's Inn Sermons, ii. 267.
Milligan (W.), The Book of Revelation (Expositor's Bible), 124.
Paget (E. C), Silence, 208.
Komanes (E.), Thoughts on the Gvllectsfor the Trinity Season, 293.
Rossetti (C. G.), The Face of the Deep, 231.
Skrine (J. H.), The Heart's Counsel, 90.
Stone (S. J.), Parochial Sermons, 81.
Swete (H. B.), The Apocalypse of St. John, 99.
Trench (R. C), Sermons Preached for the Most Part in Ireland, 360.
Vaughan (C. J.), Lectures on the Revelation of St. John, 191.
Christian World Pulpit, xliv. 174 (J. M. "Wilson).
Churchman's Pulpit : All Saints, xv. 363 (J. S. Jones).
t )i
it
s The REDEEMEr»D.
After these things I saw, and behold, a gf feat multitude, which no man could number, out of every nation, and of all tri^bes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb'l, arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands ; and they cry with a gnleat voice, saying, Salvation unto our God which sitteth on the throne, and un\}-0 the Lamb.— Rev. vii. 9, 10.
1. The Letters to the Seven Churches of ^ Asia end with the third chapter of the Apocalypse. The fourth a ^-nd fifth chapters describe two great acts of worship. In the fourth c^^ihapter God is worshipped as the Creator. The four Cherubim, or^ Living Creatures, repre- senting all created life, are seen in perjjpetual adoration of their Maker. The four-and-twenty Elders— t, 'he patriarchs of the Old Covenant and the apostles of the NeV v— fall down before the throne and worship God, saying, " Worth^y art thou, our Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the hc^nour and the power : for thou didst create all things." j
The fifth chapter introduces the grieat work of redemption. The Lamb appears in the midst of th |e throne, typical of the eternal Son, the Eedeemer of the world. ^ As He takes the BooL' of Doom from His Father's hands, the f /our Living Creatures and the four-and-twenty Elders fall down be] fore Him and sing a new song, the song of the redeemed. The anjj^el chorus pours forth its chant of thanksgiving to the Lamb, and ^every creature in heaven and earth and sea joins in the act of ador ation.
Then at the ninth verse of the sevc^nth chapter this second great act of worship enters on a new f^'tage. The congregation, which hitherto has been drawn from tl?ie twelve tribes of Israei\ is now seen to be a great multitude wh'ich no man can number, and it is taken from every nation upon tl^ie earth.
2. The redeemed are at worship. Wl|iere are they ? They are in heaven, no doubt. But heaven is not to be identified with the world to come. Life before the throne ^si.^'^'^ °''i'&J5s?e!ifu.i^ life
»73
174 THt redeemed
wherever spent, if it is d,ninatcd by a joyful consciousness of the Divine Presence and Gloy, And he adds that the present picture must be correlated with ..^t of chapters xxi. and xxii.
The text suggests, fir^^ the number of the redeemed; second, their variety; and thii^^ their unity— their unity being seen (1) m their position or standing; (2) in their character; (3) in their feehng; and (4) in^^heir occupation.
The N^ibejj qf the Kedeemed.
1. "A great multitude, which no man could number." It is a vision. But St. John ^ad some material to work upon. Says Harnack, "The vigour ^nd the variety of the forms already assumed by Christianity ,j, these quarters are shown by the seven epistles to the Churche^ i^ the Johannine Apocalypse, by the whole tenor of the book,^^^ by the Ignatian Writings."
H Tacitus the careful Roman historian, in writing of the persecution of the Christians, under Nero in 64 A.D., says of their number that they were ^ huge multitude— " ingens multitudo." ihe expansion of Christianity in the first years of its existence is (me of the marvels of history. When it first began to be preached -X was ridiculed and lampooned by the ablest satirists of the day.
/7 ?Jr ?"^® ^^^ charged upon its followers. The believers m the Christ were tort^^^ed, mutilated, thrown to wild beasts. Yet in spite of everything the church grew, grew and increased rapidly m numbers and ii power.
Seventy years after the founding of the very first Gentile church in Syrian Antiof^h, Pliny wrote in the strongest terms about the spread of Ch^^igtianity throughout remote Bithynia, a spread which in his view, already threatened other cults through- out the province. Sever,ty years later still the Paschal contro- versy reveals the existen^je of a Christian federation of churches, stro^chmg from Lyons tfo Edessa, with its headquarters situated at Eome. Seventy yeai^g later again, the Emperor Decius— the fierce persecutor— declared he would sooner have a rival emperor in Eome than ( a Christian bishop. And ere another seventy years had passeoj^ the cross was sewn upon the Koman colours.^