The Pulpit Commentary — Revelation — Section 47

I. As A 'BEVELATto:N. "The Revelation of Jesu11 Christ" (ver., 1). 'A,rorcllAv,f,u 'l.,,croG Xp1ffllv- To "reveal" means to uncover, to disclose. A revelation is an unveiling of the bidden. What.ever has not appeared, whether things or persons, is hidden or coneealed from view. There are universes hidden from us as yet, that in the future may appear. There is only One Being in immensity that can reveal such things because be sees them, and that is God. Hence all that is known of "things which must shortly come to pass," or, indeed, things that will ever come to pas~ is " the revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave unto him." Observe that the revelation is Dimn11. Who can reveal the unseen and unknown but God ? Christ was once unknown. He revealed him. His advent to earth was a revelation of himself to man- kind. No one can reveal God but Christ, and no one can reveal Christ but God. But the object to which the revelation here refers is not any particular person, Divine or human, but the futwre history of mankind. This is hidden. "We know not what shall be on the morrow." « It is not for you to know the times or the seasons, which the Father hath put in his own power." He reveals the future history of mankind in two ways. 1. By disdosing its essential principles. All the events of human conduct are caused and controlled by two principles-good and evil. All human actiODll are traceable to one of these, and they are in constant conflict. 'l'he colossal image and the little stone, grace and truth, are ever here on this planet battling in human so.uls throughout the race. These principles Christ hath revealed, not merely in his teachings, hut in his agony and bloody sweat. They shone out in lightning, and broke out in thunder on the ghastly heights of Gulgotha.. He who understands these opposing principles can foretell all human history. He who thoroughly knows the laws of material nature can tell to the hour when a comet will sweep the heavens, when the tide will everstep its boundaries, when celestial eclipses will occur; even so he who duly appreciates the force and tendency of these opposing moral principles will not greatly mistake in hi& auguries of the fut11re of the race. "That which bath been is now, and that which is will be." 2. By the dispensations of Providence. Christ is the Maker and Manager of all human events. He is in all events; they are his comings to men, his advents. And present events are types and prophecies of the future. In this age the future can be seen, as in the buds and blossoms of this Svring you may see the buds and blOl!BOme of all the springs that are to be. II. As A RECORD. 1. Here is a commisslon from heaven to record certain things. "He sent and signified it by his angel unto his servant John: who bare record of the Word of God" ( ver. 2). "'Messenger' is the literal translation of ,lyylAov, and makes sense everywhere, which 'angel' does not, for the 'thorn in the flesh' wa.e not a.n angel." No one can tell who the angel or messenger was; probably Christ himself, A " revelation" is one thing, a " record " another. What we call the Bible is not a " revelation," but the "record" of a " revelation." The things to be revealed are "things which must shortly come to pass." What we call providence is never at rest; its wheels a.re ever in motion. In the case of every man, family, community, nation, there are things that "must shortly come to pass." Those things continue from period to period and from aion to aion, and however differing in form, are identical in spirit. These a.ll deserve "record." They are all streams from an inexhaustible fountain of life, branches from an eternal root of being. Things of the future grow out of the present by the eternal law of evolution. Countless generations will come a.nd go; new revelations will have to be recorded. And thus the Bibles of the race will multiply through a.ll time. 2. Here is a commission from heaven to reveal certain things, addr888ed to.a man. "His servant John." He is a man. Men, not angels, are to be the chroniclers of the Divine for man. John is here the commissioned chronicler. He was in all likelihood the same disciple whom Jesus loved, the author of the Gospel bearing his name, and he to whom the Saviour, on the cross, entrusted his beloved mother. 3. Here is a commission from heaven to record certain things, addressed to a man of tM highest moral cl1J1Js. He is here ()ll,lled his "servant," the servant of God- his willing, loving, loyal servant. In his Gospel he had borne " record of the Word of God, and of the teslimony of Jesus Christ, and of all things that he saw;' Heaven commissioJ;Js meu to record the things that are "coming to pa.ss," and the men to do it are men in thorough sympathy with the true, the btautiful, and the good. Moral goudneSi! is an essential 2ualification of a true historian. 46 THE REVELATION OF ST. JOHN THE DITINE. [CH. L 1-20.