(1) Mere tribulation will not necessarily make the robes white. Tribulation, or affliction, or oppression — call it which you will — is overruled by a miracle of Divine grace so as to benefit the believer, but in and of itself it is not the cleanser but the defiler of the soul. Affliction of itself does not sanctify anybody, but the reverse. Afflictions of themselves arouse to an unwonted energy the evil which is in us, and place us in positions where the rebellious heart is incited to forsake the Lord. This will be seen if we consider the matter closely. The great tribulation is, under some aspects of it, a sin-creating thing, and if the victorious ones had not perpetually gone to the blood they would never have had their garments white. It was that alone that made and
* J. Macpherson, Life and Labours of Duncan Matheson, 70.
202 THE NOBLE ARMY OF MARTYRS
kept them white; they were familiar with the atonement and knew its cleansing power.
(2) It is the blood of the Lamb that washes out the stains and makes the garments white. How often did the martyrs have their garments stained and soiled when enduring a violent death in the arena ; but in the very act of shedding their blood they became identified with Christ and so entered into the fruits of His victory. Kobes that are washed in the blood would be expected to come out red ; why should the result be so unlike the process ? Because the process of sacrifice which makes me pure must leave no trace of itself. The blood which washes out my stains would, if perpetuated, be itself a stain. There can be no cross in my completed life. There is a shadow in its dawn, but not in its day. There is a struggle in faith ; there is a struggle in hope ; but there is no struggle in love. There are some cures which leave a scar ; the disease is gone, but the red mark is left which tells of pain. Not all blood washes white. There are struggles in which I conquer, but from which I yet come down with the shrunk sinew ; the battle is over, but, even in the daybreak, the wound remains. I have won the fight, but I have lost youth's elastic spring ; I halt upon my thigh. But the cross of Christ leaves on me no print of the nails. It heals its own scar. It dries its own blood. It wipes its own tears. It not only redeems, it restores my soul. It has no after-effects — no lameness, no sight of men like trees walking. There is no sense of langour, no feeling of soreness, no memory of pain. The cross of yesterday becomes the crown of to-day ; the thorn of my winter is made the flower of my spring. The heart's bleeding is staunched when law is one with love.
(3) Each individual in the triumphal throng had to perform his part in cleansing his robes. They washed their own robes and made them white. Faith is a fact embedded deep in their history, for it links their present blessedness with their past experience. All-important and blessed record! We are not told where they were born, where they died, or in what style they lived, whether in royal palace or smoky liovel ; whether in their natural characters they were brilliant or humble, wise or foolish. This only is recorded, and this of them all — they believed on Jesus; they trusted to His cross; they came guilty to the fountain which was opened there, and out of it they went, washed
REVELATION vii. 14 203
and white, to heaven. If anything in the experience of the re- deemed on earth be meant beyond this, it is their renewed and continual application to His blood for the pardon and cleansing of every day. Washed once for all and in one sense clean every whit, they need yet daily to wash the feet from the soil of sin that cleaves to them through time. And it is characteristic of Christ's redeemed ones that the nearer they get to heaven the more completely they depend on the atoning death of Christ; in all the world none but Christ, and in Christ nothing that absorbs them so much as " him crucified."
^ While to those who are without, the necessary, the meri- torious death of Christ remains the stumbling-block and stone of offence, the chosen point of attack, ever openly assaulted, ever secretly undermined, to those who are within, the Stone thus set at nought and rejected is still the head of the corner ; it is still the tried stone, the sure foundation, the Eock whereof Faith speaks, "Set me upon it for it is higher than I," Love's sure, abiding Pillar of remembrance, whereon Love's secret is written and graven with a pen of iron for ever. To them who believe Christ is precious. . . . The death of Christ is that which most powerfully attracts the heart of man to God, and this because it is the strongest proof of love. Love kindles and calls forth love ; " We count that," says John of Wessel, " to be the most lovable which we know to be the most loving." The love of Christ has achieved the greatest things, and hence must produce the most powerful effects; it has displayed the greatest devotedness, and consequently must possess the strongest attractive power.^ 1 Dora Greenwell, The Ccrvenant of Life (ed. 1898), 47.