THE VISION OF THE SEALED
Revelation 7:1-8
The sixth chapter, as we have seen, contains a
description of the opening of the first six seals of the prophetic roll. We
regarded these as presenting a synopsis of the history and experiences of
the Church, from the beginning of the Christian era to the end of the world;
the terminating one of the series containing a vivid, but unmistakable,
description of the Day of Judgment. The cry had just fallen on the ears of
John, from the terror-stricken myriads, "The great day of His wrath has
come, and who shall be able to stand?" Can we wonder that, after such words
and such a scene as this, the Apostle should feel himself awed and
confounded? If such be the tremendous judgments on a guilty world, could he
fail to have the question suggested to him, What as to the safety and
security of believers—the Family of God? In the midst of that deluge
of predicted wrath, could the ark be relied on to ride out the
storm? Was there any sure provision made by the Church's great Head to
shield and shelter His own people until the indignation be over and past?
There is a pause before the opening of the seventh
seal—an episode or interlude, as it has been expressed, in the epic drama—in
order to answer this question. The unsettled spirit of the spectator is
calmed by a two-fold vision. Although the chapter commences with the words,
"After these things," we are not to infer that what follows was intended as
a historical continuation—a chronological sequence to the
preceding revelations. That could not be, if we are correct in considering
the Sixth seal as referring to the Judgment-day.
These six seals, in accordance with that interpretation,
must be taken as complete in themselves, commencing with the picture of the
crowned Conqueror riding forth on the white horse of triumph, and ending
with that same majestic Being coming amid symbols of dreadful majesty to the
great judgment day. With that closing catastrophe the series ends; and any
visions subsequently given, can only be additional illustrations, by a
new set of symbols, of the antecedent ones. Although, therefore, the two
figures of the present chapter may point with a more special application to
"the time of the end," and the judgments immediately preceding the Second
Advent, their consolatory words embrace the whole existence of the Church.
They are spoken for us, and for our age, as well as for the days of
Augustine, or for the mysterious Armageddon era of an unrevealed future.
The First vision contains a representation of the
security of the Church on earth. The Second, of the bliss of the Church in
Heaven. In other words, the safety of the Church militant, and the glory of
the Church triumphant. It is the first of the two which is now alone to
occupy our thoughts.
The Security of the Church on Earth
John beheld "four angels standing on the four corners of
the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not
blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree." We shall come
immediately to the figurative interpretation of these symbols: but we are
not precluded, in the first instance, from accepting them in a literal
sense, as representing the elements of nature delegated to the keeping of
Angels. Winds, and earthquakes, and tempests are not the capricious
outbreaks of unregulated mechanical force. The 'laws of nature' are, in the
loftiest sense, the exponents and expressions of God's higher will. "He
holds the winds in His fists." "He gathers the waters in the hollow of His
hand." "He makes the clouds His chariot." "The Lord sits on the
water-floods; yes, the Lord sits King forever." Let us not dethrone and
undeify the great Maker and Sustainer, by substituting for His sovereign
rule what are called the laws and sequences of nature. "In an instant, I,
the Lord Almighty, will come against them with thunder and earthquake and
great noise, with whirlwind and storm and consuming fire." Isaiah 29:6. God,
indeed, works by law. He is a God of order—not of confusion. But the world's
vast machinery, with all its varied and intricate movements, is not less
under His supervision and control than higher moral agencies.
It was an elevating theme of comfort to the awe-struck
Apostle, amid the moral hurricanes that were threatening to break forth,
that even the forces of nature were under the governance and
regulation of the great Lord of all. Though man sees them not, and science
in her pride may smile at the fantasy, there are sentinel-angels—angels of
repression and restraint—holding back the impatient winds, controlling the
tempests, and calming angry seas; offering no hurricane to go forth on
its mission of vengeance until He gives the word.
It offers a lesson of soothing consolation to many a
stricken heart. That lightning which struck down my child was an arrow out
of the quiver of God! That wave which swept him from the vessel's side! That
hurricane which overthrew my dwelling, and buried loved ones in the ruins,
had their pathway marked out by God. He brings forth the lightning out of
His treasuries! He gives the sea its decree! He walks on the wings of the
wind! And if we have been mercifully shielded from accident; if lightning
and tempest have passed us by unscathed, and the waves that have submerged
other boats have brought ours to the desired haven—without casting one doubt
on the order and stability of physical laws, let us think of John's imagery
as the true and ultimate cause of our safety—the angels of God, at His
omnipotent bidding, holding back the winds of the earth, "that the
wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree."
But if it be admissible, in the first instance, to give
to the vision this natural and primary meaning, doubtless its language has a
higher significance with reference to moral tempests, and the
merciful subordination of these to the controlling will and purposes of the
Most High. This interpretation is brought out with greater force and
significancy in the verse which follows. John was attracted by the sight of
"another Angel ascending from the east (or the sun-rising)."
This new celestial visitant has been considered by some as only one of the
many glorious hosts of the skies, though more glorious and honored than his
fellows. But are we not abundantly warranted in according to him a loftier
nature still? May we not rather recognize him, under another name and
figure, as the crowned Conqueror of the opening seal—the great Angel of
the Covenant? His place of advent is from "the sun-rising"—the region of
glad hope and rejoicing; an emblem, moreover, more than once used in
connection with Christ's Person and glory. Had not the father of the Baptist
previously described his coming Savior as "the Day-spring from on
high," giving light to the dwellers in darkness and in the shadow of death?
Had not that Savior thus announced Himself, "I am the Light of the
world?" And as the figure of 'ascending from the east' tells of life as well
as light, had not the Apostle of Patmos asserted of Him in his opening
Gospel, "In Him was Life, and the life was the Light of men?"
This mightiest of Angels—this mightier than angels—had in
His hand "the seal of the living (or "the life-giving") God;" and He
cried—as if claiming superiority over the four angels to whom it was
given to hurt the earth and the sea, "saying, do not hurt the earth, neither
the sea, nor the trees, until we have sealed the servants of our God in
their foreheads." If it be objected to such an interpretation, that the
phraseology used, "our God," would be out of place in the lips of the
co-equal Son—it is not really so. All throughout the Book of Revelation, in
reference to the adorable Person of Christ, there is a beautiful blending of
the Divine and the human—the majesty of Deity with the assumption of the
true though sinless manhood. Were not these His own words in the days of His
flesh—not in a moment of profound humiliation, but in the hour of glorious
triumph, when the trophies of His great victory were lying scattered around
the mouth of His sepulcher, "I ascend to my Father and your Father, to my
God and your God?" The Apostle Paul too speaks of God as the God
as well as the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.
In the same loud voice, then, which met us in the opening
chapter of the Book, this magnificent Being utters His command to the four
angels of the four winds. He calls on them to keep these in check until they
receive His summons. Zechariah's Horseman in the midst of the
myrtle-trees is again recalled, who had his angel-retinue behind him, so
that no myrtle branch could be touched until they had His authority to do
so. However scriptural and however comforting may be the thought of the
ministry of angels, let us ever think of them as subservient to
Him whose pleasure they fulfill. As in the case of Mary of old, these bright
Beings are in themselves unable to dry a tear and take the load off a
sorrowful heart; no answer can they give to the quest of the anxious soul,
"They have taken away my Lord, and I know not where they have laid Him."
But, as it was in her experience also—when the great Redeemer whose deserted
tomb they had been watching comes to her, as she stood weeping and
disconsolate—the tears which angels fail to wipe away are wiped away by Him.
In our hours of trial, when we listen to the deep moan of
the moral tempest—when all is brooding night around us—when in our
darkened skies, star after star, it may be, of earthly hope has been
quenched from sight, let us turn toward the eastern horizon, Heaven's own
region of hope and consolation. Let us look for that "ascending Angel" of
light and life, saying, "My soul waits for the Lord more than those who
watch for the morning; I say, more than those who do watch for the morning."
In Bunyan's "Pilgrim's Progress," the window of the
chamber called Peace, in which Christian lay, "opened toward the
sun-rising." Steadfastly gazing on Him thus so appropriately symbolized,
let us take the inspired words as alike a prophecy and a promise, and that
too for a darkened heart as well as for a benighted world, "Unto you who
fear My name shall the Sun of Righteousness arise with keeling in His
beams."
There is a special purpose here spoken of in
connection with the sudden advent of this Angel of the Dayspring. It was
to repress judgment, only until a certain object was
attained—until the true servants and people of had been "sealed on their
foreheads." The language employed reminds us of those faithful few in the
days of Ezekiel, who, when dreadful judgments were about to burst on
Jerusalem, had a mark set on their foreheads by the man clothed in linen
with the inkhorn at his side. John heard the number of those that were thus
sealed. He minutely records them—12,000 of each tribe of the children of
Israel. Israel being the figurative, representative name of the
Christian Church: in all, 144,000—the number symbolic of
completeness. The whole of the tribes too were included—the lowliest as well
as the greatest—the crouching servile tribe of Issachar as well as
the Lion tribe of Judah. What was this, but, under the most beautiful
and expressive of figures, to proclaim that of the Church which Christ
has redeemed, not one shall be missing—that "all Israel shall be saved?"
As in that most memorable of incidents in Old Testament
story, when the Hebrew people stood on the shores of the Red Sea and made it
echo to their song of triumph, there was not so much as a hoof left
behind, not a child or infant that had perished amid the roar and
heaving of the surging waters—all were saved with a great salvation!
So is it with the true Israel of God in every age. The floods may
have lifted up their waves and made a mighty noise; but "the Lord on high is
mightier than the noise of many waters—yes, than the mighty waves of the
sea." Their experience is, "We went through the flood on foot; there we
rejoiced in Him." A greater than Moses—the triumphant leader of His
ransomed people—as He stands on the earthly shores of His stupendous
victory, can say, "Those whom You gave Me I have kept, and none of them is
lost!"
John, as we have seen, had just been the witness of
terrific revelations, "the sea and the waves roaring, and men's hearts
failing them for fear." He had beheld the earth moved, and the
mountains carried into the midst of the sea, the waters thereof
roaring and troubled, the mountains shaking with the swelling
thereof. He had seen direful invaders—Plague, Pestilence, Famine, Death—go
forth on their baleful mission. He had heard the cry of innocent blood
ascending from the base of the altar. He had seen dreadful signs in sun, and
moon, and falling stars; and voices more appalling still, calling for
shelter from Infinite wrath.
Oh! when upon the vision of the Apostle there bursts this
aggregate of terror—terrors greater far than those which desolated of old
the doomed cities of the plain—what does the great Covenant Angel say to His
servant John, (the Lot of the Apocalypse)? It is in the spirit of the words
which were uttered to that same dweller in Sodom, as the sun in his case too
was rising upon the earth, "Hurry! For I can do nothing until you are
there." (safe in 'Zoar', an emblem of heaven)
Not a bolt can descend upon the world to destroy it,
until all the people of God be gathered in, and the number of His elect be
accomplished. Individual trials—personal afflictions—the Church
collectively, and believers individually, must and will endure; they have a
heritage of tribulation: but their spiritual safety is
unassailable. Every member of the tribe of true Israel is sealed on his
forehead by the seal of the living God—God's own indelible mark of election
and adoption—God's own pledge of inviolable security. The deluge may sweep
as it may, but the Covenant Ark, containing its sacred 144,000, will rise
buoyant on the waters. The Lord, as in the case of Noah's family, has 'shut
them in;' and that Ark will do battle with the storm, until it is anchored
on the top of the true Ararat—the Mount of everlasting 'rest'—surrounded by
the new heavens and the new earth.
Let us rejoice in this covenant safety. Let us
rejoice—not indeed that we are exempt from the trials of life, for that we
are not, but that God will allow no trial to be sent but which is for our
good. There was an Angel for every wind; there is a restraint
on every judgment. He will not tempt us above that we are able to bear. Of
that true "God of tempests," natural and moral, it is sublimely said, "He
arrests His rough wind in the day of His east wind." If we have this SEAL,
this mark of God upon us, it will form a mighty amulet (a
charm) to dispel all real evil during life. It will be like the blood
sprinkled on the lintels and door-posts of old, when the destroying Angel
passes by. It will form a glorious passport in the hour of death into the
regions of bliss. And, as if to make sure that none shall be missing on the
great Day of Judgment, "He shall send His angels with a great sound of a
trumpet, and they shall gather together His elect from the four winds, from
one end of heaven to the other."
But, in closing our contemplation of this vision, let us
bear in mind that the sealing, which has its precious lesson of
security and safety, has also its solemn lesson of responsibility.
Sealing indicates property, possession, appropriation, on the part of the
sealer. As the sealed of God, we are the property of Christ. "You are
not your own, you are bought with a price." The ancient seal contained the
name of the king, who put his own mark on his slaves or servants. That seal
of John's vision, set on the foreheads of His true Israel, has engraven on
it, so to speak, the very name of God. Part of the promise to the Church of
Philadelphia, in a preceding chapter, is this, "I will write upon him the
name of my God, and the name of the city of my God." The writing of the
name should indicate preparation and readiness to enter the celestial city.
Is it so with us? Does our character correspond with our charter of heavenly
citizenship, demanding as a qualification that "holiness without which no
man can see the Lord?" Christ calls us here "the servants of our God." Have
we risen to any true realization of the grandeur and the destiny of such a
name as this?