1. Let us observe how these martyrs are designated. They had been slain _for the word of God, and for the testimony which they held_. But that is not the full expression of _Christian_ testimony. As we read in many other passages of the book before us, Christians have "the testimony _of Jesus_."[144] The addition needed to bring out the Christian character of the testimony referred to is wanting here. No doubt the saints of old looked forward to the coming of the Christ; but the testimony "of Jesus" is the testimony pertaining to Him as a Saviour come, in all the glory of His person and in all the completeness of His work. It is a testimony embracing a full knowledge of the Messiah, and the inference is natural and legitimate that it is not ascribed to the souls under the altar, because they neither had nor could have possessed it.
2. The cry of these "souls" is worthy of notice, _How long, O Master, the holy and the true_, where the word "Master," applied also in Acts iv. 24 and Jude 4[145] to God as distinguished from Christ, corresponds better to the spirit of the Old than of the New Testament dispensation.
3. The time at which the martyrs had been killed belongs not to the present or the future, but to the past. Like all the other Seals, the fifth is opened at the very beginning of the Christian era; and no sooner is it opened than the souls are seen. It is true that the Seer might be supposed to transport himself forward into the future, and, at some point of Christian history more or less distant, to console Christian martyrs who had already fallen with the assurance that they had only to wait _a little time_, until such as were to be their later companions in martyrdom should have shared their fate. But such a supposition is inconsistent with the fact that St. John in the Apocalypse always thinks of the Christian age as one hardly capable of being divided; while, as we shall immediately see more clearly, it would make it impossible to explain the consolation afforded by the bestowal of the _white robe_.
4. The altar under which the blood is seen may help to confirm this conclusion, for that blood is not preserved in the inner sanctuary, in that "heaven" which is the ideal home of all the disciples of Jesus: it lies beneath the altar of the outer court.
5. The main argument, however, in favour of the view now contended for, is to be found in the act by which these souls were comforted: _And there was given them to each one a white robe._ The white robe, then, they had not obtained before; and yet that robe belongs during his life on earth to every follower of Christ. Nothing is more frequently spoken of in these visions than the "white robe" of the redeemed, and it is obviously theirs from the first moment when they are united to their Lord. It is the robe of the priesthood, and at their very entrance upon true spiritual life they are priests in Him. It is the robe with which the faithful remnant in Sardis had been arrayed before they are introduced to us, for they had not "defiled" it; and the emphasis in the promise there given, "They shall walk with Me in white," appears to lie upon its first rather than its second clause.[146] Again, the promise to every one in that church that "overcometh" is that he "shall be arrayed in white garments;"[147] and it is beyond dispute that the promises of the seven epistles belong to the victory of faith gained in this world, not less than to the perfected reward of victory in the world to come. In like manner the Laodicean church is exhorted to buy of her Lord "white garments" that she may be clothed, as well as "gold" that she may be enriched, and "eyesalve" that she may see[148]; and, as the two latter purchases refer to her present state, so also must the former. When, too, the Lord is united in marriage to His Church, it is said that "it was given unto her that she should array herself in fine linen, bright and pure;" and that fine linen is immediately explained to be "the righteous acts of the saints."[149]