[87] Comp. 2 Chron. xxxii. 7, 8.
[88] Ps. ix. 7.
[89] Chap. xxi. 11.
[90] Isa. vi. 3.
[91] 1 Pet. ii. 6, 8.
[92] Heb. xii. 28, 29.
[93] Ps. xcix. 1.
[94] Exod. xxvi. 1.
[95] Comp. _Bible Educator_, vol. iii., p. 290, where the writer has discussed this subject at some length.
[96] Rom. viii. 21.
[97] Job ix. 26.
[98] Gen. iii. 24.
[99] Ezek. i. 13, 14.
[100] Chap. vi. 1, 3, 5, 7.
[101] Chap. xv. 7.
[102] Chap. xix. 4.
[103] Exod. xxv. 20.
[104] Ps. xviii. 10.
[105] _The Apocalypse, with Notes and Reflections_, p. 69.
[106] Ps. cxlviii. 1-3.
[107] Ezek. ii. 9, 10.
[108] John i. 45.
[109] Gen. xlix. 9.
[110] Isa. xi. 1.
[111] 1 Chron. xxviii. 4.
[112] Col. i. 26.
[113] 1 John ii. 8.
[114] Hos. vi. 2, 3.
[115] John i. 36.
[116] John xix. 36.
[117] The point now spoken of has been doubted. A full discussion of it by the present writer will be found in _The Expositor_ for July and August, 1877.
[118] John xix. 30.
[119] Chap. i. 18.
[120] Chap. i. 18.
[121] 1 Pet. i. 11
[122] Col. iii. 11.
[123] Col. i. 15-20.
[124] Rom. ix. 5.
[125] Rom. viii. 21.
[126] Heb. ii. 5.
[127] 1 Pet. i. 12.
[128] Luke xv. 10.
[129] 1 Tim. iii. 16.
[130] Eph. iii. 10.
[131] Ps. xlvi. 1-7.
REV. vi.
With the sixth chapter of the Apocalypse the main action of the book may be said properly to begin. Three sections of the seven into which it is divided have already passed under our notice. The fourth section, extending from chap. vi. 1 to chap. xviii. 24, is intended to bring before us the struggle of the Church, the judgment of God upon her enemies, and her final victory. No detail of historical events in which these things are fulfilled need be looked for. We are to be directed rather to the sources whence the trials spring, and to the principles by which the victory is gained. At this point in the unfolding of the visions it is generally thought that there is a pause, an interval of quietness however brief, and a hush of expectation on the part both of the Seer himself and of all the heavenly witnesses of the wondrous drama. But there seems to be no foundation for such an impression in the text; and it is more in keeping alike with the language of this particular passage and with the general probabilities of the case to imagine that the "lightnings and voices and thunders," spoken of in chap. iv. 5 as proceeding out of the throne, continue to re-echo over the scene, filling the hearts of the spectators with that sense of awe which they are naturally fitted to awaken. We have to meet the Lord in judgment. We are to behold the Lamb as "the Lion of the tribe of Judah;" and when He so appears, "the mountains flow down at His presence."[132]
The Lamb then, who had, in the previous chapter, taken the book out of the hand of Him that sat upon the throne, is now to open it, part by part, seal by seal:--
And I saw when the Lamb opened one of the seven seals, and I heard one of the four living creatures saying as with a voice of thunder, Come (vi. 1).
Particular attention ought to be paid to the fact that the true reading of the last clause of this verse is not, as in the Authorised Version, "Come and see," but simply, as in the Revised Version, _Come_. The call is not addressed to the Seer, but to the Lord Himself; and it is uttered by one of the four living creatures spoken of in chap. iv. 6, who are "in the midst of the throne and round about the throne," and who in ver. 8 of the same chapter are the first to raise the song from which they never rest, saying, "Holy, holy, holy, is the Lord, God, the Almighty, which was and which is and which is to come." The word _Come_ therefore embodies the longing of redeemed creation that the Lord, for the completion of whose work it waits, will take to Him His great power and reign. Not so much for the perfecting of its own happiness, or for deliverance from the various troubles by which it is as yet beset, and not so much for the manifestation of its Lord in His abounding mercy to His own, does the creation delivered from the bondage of corruption wait, as for the moment when Christ shall appear in awful majesty, King of kings and Lord of lords, when He shall banish for ever from the earth the sin by which it is polluted, and when He shall establish, from the rising of the sun to the going down of the same, His glorious kingdom of righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Ghost.