THE WHITE ROBES AND LIVING
FOUNTAINS OF WATER
Revelation 7:13-17
These beautiful verses (explanatory of the previous part
of the vision) we were unable to fully expound in the preceding chapter.
They are more, however, than explanatory—they contain some new and precious
unfoldings of the Heaven of the redeemed, which cannot be passed cursorily
or in silence. After the preceding revelations of judgment and terror, how
grateful and soothing to the Seer of Patmos must have been this lull in the
storm—this bright though momentary glimpse through the midst of the
tempestuous clouds! The words must have fallen on his ear like serenest
music. Let us, with him, enjoy the elevated calm.
Laying aside the perplexities of interpretation and
conflicting renderings which beset many other portions of the Book, let us,
under the direction, not of human commentator, but of John's celestial
guide, the member of the white-robed multitude—this Interpreter in the true
"Palace Beautiful," enter in spirit within the open door of the upper
sanctuary. The passage is like a mirror set in eternity, in which the
believer sees reflected his future character and condition. We all,
beholding as in a mirror our heavenly glory—are encouraged to look forward
to the time when we shall be changed into the same image from glory to
glory, by the Spirit of the Lord. The verses unfold to us the former
experience and condition of the Redeemed, under the twofold aspect of SIN
and SUFFERING.
(1.) It was a condition of SIN, "They have washed
their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." From the hour
when Abel was admitted a solitary representative of the glorified Church, to
the time when its voice shall become "as the voice of many waters and as the
voice of mighty thunderings," no human soul has ever passed, or ever can
pass, within the gate into the City, that has not been stained with guilt.
Every pillar in the Heavenly Temple is a ransomed pillar, bearing the
inscription, "The chief of sinners, but I obtained mercy." The whitest robe
there was once soiled with pollution—the holiest and purest member of that
redeemed family was once a rebel against the authority of the Being before
whose throne he is casting his crown.
What an encouragement, amid our struggles with
temptation, the buffetings of Satan, our proneness to backsliding, our
depressing consciousness of ever-present frailty and corruption, our defiant
pride and hardened unbelief, that this "bright array" have had thus an
identity of experience with ourselves—that they have passed through the same
"sloughs of despond;" been held captive in the same dungeons of Doubting
Castle; felt the same chains of corruption dragging them to the dust in
spite of every effort to rise heavenwards; and have finally reached their
thrones and their crowns covered with the scars of battle!
They are now glorified witnesses to the fullness and
freeness of the fountain opened for sin and for uncleanness. The Blood that
has been so precious to them may be equally precious to us, their robes may
be our robes—their Heaven may be our Heaven—their God may be our God. The
guiltiest there was not too guilty to be the recipient of one of these
shining garments; and there cannot, therefore, be a sinner on earth too
degraded or vile to listen to the Divine invitation, "Behold the Lamb of
God, who takes away the sin of the world."
(2.) But their past earthly condition was also one of
SUFFERING, "These are they who came out of great tribulation." And in
the conclusion of the verses we are led to infer something as to what this
tribulation was. When we are told they are to "hunger no more, neither
thirst any more," it is equivalent to telling us, that once they hungered
and thirsted, and fainted and groaned and were burdened. And in that most
exquisitely tender of all Bible delineations of divine love, God 'wiping
away all tears from their eyes,' we are informed that the place where these
Redeemed came from was a weeping world, where every eye was once dimmed with
tears.
God's Word does not conceal, but, on the contrary, rather
publishes and forewarns, that the road to Heaven is one of trial.
Christ prepared His people for the highway there being hedged with
tribulation, that if any would follow Him to the crown, it must be by
the way of the cross. "Beloved," says Peter, "think it not strange
concerning the fiery trial which is to try you, as though some strange thing
happened to you, but rejoice." These trials are the ladder-steps by which
the immortal spirits in this vision attained their bliss. We can almost
imagine ourselves listening to their varied testimony.
"God laid me," would be the experience and retrospect of
one, "on a bed of sickness. I was living a life of engrossing
worldliness. I was taking my health as a thing of course. I thought that the
strong frame, and vigorous pulse, and undimmed eye, could never, in my case,
be shattered or impaired. I had no thought of death—eternity I put
immeasurably away from me! He who gave me the abused talent stretched me on
a couch of pain. Year after year I was familiarized with the dim
night-lamp—the sleepless vigils—the aching head. Mine was the mournful
monotonous soliloquy, 'Would God it were evening! would God it were
morning!' But He allured me into the wilderness that He might speak
comfortably to me. I now praise Him for it all. Through the chinks of the
battered earthly tabernacle were admitted the first rays of the heavenly
glory. In the solitary night-watches my lips were first tuned for the
heavenly song. Heart and flesh fainted and failed me, but my tribulation led
me to Him who is the strength of my heart and my portion forever."
"I was reposing in the sunshine of earthly prosperity,"
would be the testimony of another. "The fabled horn of plenty exhausted its
ample stores in my lap. Riches increased; ah! I set my heart upon them; they
filled my waking and sleeping hours; my closet, my Bible, my family, were
sacrificed in the demon scramble. Life was a mad attempt to refute and
gainsay the great utterance of incarnate Truth—"A man's life does not
consists in the abundance of the things which he possesses!" At an
unexpected moment the crash came—the whole fabric of a lifetime (the
golden fabric) fell to the ground. Seated amid empty coffers, and
dismantled walls, and blighted hopes, I was led to bring the perishable
into emphatic contrast with the eternal. I too thank my God for it
all. But for that whirlwind-blast which swept over me, burying the hoarded
treasures of a vain existence, I would have died the fool that I lived. But
the loss of the gold which perishes, led me to the unsearchable
riches; to lay up treasure beyond the reach of bankruptcy and the
fluctuations of capricious fortune."
"I was an idolater of my family," another would
tell. "I was leaning too fondly and tenderly on some cherished prop—some
gourd in the earth-bower of my happiness. The prop gave way—the gourd
withered. But as some gentle spirit (be it that of husband, or wife, or
child, or brother, or sister) winged its flight to the realms of glory, it
brought me, as I was never before, into near and holy contact with the
Unseen. The tie snapped on earth bound me to the Throne of God—voices from
the celestial shore were heard saying, 'Come up here!' I was not disobedient
to the heavenly vision. Henceforward my heart was where my garnered
treasures were. And though every step of my saddened way was sprinkled with
tears, every one of these were needful—I could not have lacked one of them;
the pangs and voids of the smitten spirit, of which they were the outward
exponents, served to wean me from this poor world. These thorns
inserted in the earthly nest drove me to the wing, and allowed me not to
cease my flight until I had reached the golden eaves of the Heavenly Home!"
While, however, we thus speak of the Redeemed as a
tried and suffering band, we must not be misunderstood; as if we meant
that their sorrows brought them there, and were the procuring causes of
their white-washed robes and immortal bliss. No! Though these once weeping
sufferers had wept an ocean of tears, that could not have wiped away the
guilt of their sins. Observe, it is not "These are they who came out of
great tribulation," therefore are they before the throne of God; but, "These
are they who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of
the Lamb." It is not the tribulation which saved them, but the
Blood shed by the adorable Redeemer.
Suffering of itself never can conduct to Heaven.
The most fearful succession of trials can never certify to me that I am a
child of God. It is only when affliction is sanctified that I can
glory in it. In vain did the angel of old come down to Bethesda to "trouble
the pool," unless the diseased person stepped in. In vain does the Angel of
sorrow come down to the Bethesda pool of the human heart to trouble
it, unless the "troubling of the waters" be followed by "the washing of
regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit." "Affliction," it has been
well said, "never leaves us as it finds us. We have only reason to rejoice
in our tears, when they serve, not as, alas! is the case with many, only to
dim our eyes more to unseen realities—but rather, as the lenses of a
telescope, to bring nearer and more endearingly to view a the Better
Country."
Let us pass to the other great topic these verses bring
before us—THE HISTORY OF THE HEAVEN OF THE REDEEMED. They supply many
interesting and suggestive thoughts.
(1.) It is to be a state of PERFECT HAPPINESS.
This comprehends entire exemption from trial and complete freedom
from sin; in other words, a beautiful combination of Holiness and
Happiness. "You shall hunger no more!" There are there no more
longings that cannot be satisfied—blanks that cannot be filled—shadows which
mock the hand that would vainly grasp them. "You shall thirst no more!"
You who have been wasting your strength on nature's broken cisterns and
polluted streams, listen to this. "Thirst again," the attribute and
characteristic of universal humanity, is unknown yonder—where God Himself is
revealed as the Fountain of Life, and where we shall drink of the rivers of
His pleasures. "The sun shall not beat upon you!" Here on earth, your
journey is in a desert land; often you sigh in vain for shadowy palm or
sheltering rock, to screen you from the scorching heat of affliction. In
Heaven, that sun shall set to rise no more; and in its stead, God Himself is
to rise on you; for "they need no candle, neither light of the sun, for the
Lord God gives them light."
And it would seem from the glowing description, that this
felicity, though it is to be perfect all at once in kind, is to be
ever increasing in degree—a progressive felicity, advancing with the
years of eternity. The Lamb is represented as "feeding them"—opening
up new sources of enjoyment, affording new matter and new motive for praise,
fresh views of His own glory, brighter displays of Redeeming love! "The
Lamb shall lead them to living fountains of waters" as if there was an
insatiable longing in these Redeemed bosoms to know more of the Great
salvation, every fresh draught only quickening their desire to drink deeper
still.
And it is "THE LAMB" who shall lead them and feed them!
The Lamb and the Fountain are the two most precious words to the pilgrim in
the wilderness, and they are precious still in the land of everlasting rest.
Though in Heaven there is to be eternal freedom from sin and trial and
suffering, the remembrance of these is not to cease. This, we found in a
previous vision, is the song which the twenty-four Elders—the
representatives of the redeemed, love to sing: "You were slain, and have
redeemed us to God by Your blood, out of every kindred, and tongue, and
people, and nation!" Yes, and these memories of sin and sorrow, so far from
marring or interrupting, will rather quicken and intensify, the grateful
praises of the ransomed myriads!
"And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes!"
This tender and beautiful description would lead us also to infer that there
will be a gradual opening and unfolding of the wisdom of God's dealings with
His people on earth, until the tear-drops of the wilderness, still lingering
in their eyes, are all removed. Every providence will be cleared up, every
dispensation vindicated. With an eye once full of tears now
tearless; and a spirit once repining now giving utterance to
no murmur, every new morning will find the Redeemed reposing in serener
confidence and with profounder and more restful love, on the God whose hand
has obliterated the last trace of sorrow!
(2.) It is to be a state of GREAT GLORY. That once
suffering, but now triumphant multitude are represented as
having their station nearest the throne, "They are before the throne," and
He who sits upon the throne "tabernacles among them." We have previously
found the angels depicted as standing "around about the throne and
around the Elders" (the multitude of redeemed). This intimates the amazing
fact, that it is ransomed sinners who occupy the inner circle around the
throne! It is ransomed sinners who are honored with the nearest gaze of
Deity! What a wondrous glimpse does this open to us of Heaven!—to see angel
and archangel giving way to the redeemed from the earth, to let the
joint-heirs with Christ be partakers with Him on His Throne!
We listen to the song of the entire multitude—bright
armies of unfallen angels—principalities, and powers, gathered in to this
majestic festival of the Lamb, headed by cherubim and seraphim. One theme
thrills on every tongue—onward rolls the triumphant anthem, "Worthy is the
Lamb who was slain to receive power, and riches, and wisdom, and strength,
and honor, and glory, and blessing." But these surrounding voices are at
intervals silenced. From the one favored band in the vision who are "before
the throne," with festal palms in their hands and blood-bought crowns on
their brows, there rises alone the chorus, "He was slain for us!"
(3.) God Himself is to constitute the essence of their
enjoyment. In all the beauteous and varied imagery in which these verses
abound, the same grand idea is present in every clause. Is Heaven spoken of
as a Palace, and He as a Sovereign seated on the throne? the Redeemed
are represented as ranged before it, and the summit of their happiness
attained, when it is said of them, "Now are they before the Throne of God,"
gazing on His unveiled majesty.
Is Heaven described as a Temple, and the
occupation of the Redeemed that of High Priests in the regal Sanctuary?
Still He is the supreme object of their worship, "They serve Him day and
night, in His temple."
Again the figure is changed. These favored citizens of
the Heavenly Zion are pictured as a happy Flock reposing in the
meadows of glory. But what would they be without the presence of their
Shepherd? "The Lamb who is in the midst of the Throne" shall tend them, feed
them, guide them, enfold them!
Or do we behold them changing their posture of adoration,
and going in search of the living fountains of waters? While yet they were
inhabitants of earth, often were they seen in the attitude of pilgrims,
"coming up from the wilderness leaning on their Beloved." Behold them
now, coming up from the Throne; they are leaning on their Beloved still, "It
is the Lamb who leads them." It is a bold but fine conjecture of one of our
great poets, when he is telling of the bright consummation of that "Course
of Time" of which he sang, that there are moments in Heaven when the
Redeemed around the Throne hush their voices and go, as it were, amid the
solitudes of eternity, to hold communion with God alone.
But these words, from which the idea probably is derived,
tell us that there is no such thing as absolute solitude in Heaven.
The Ransomed may for a while lay aside their harps and retire from the
company of angels amid the sequestered fountains of waters; but still they
are not alone—the LAMB leads them and feeds them.
Once more—when, in the light of eternity, mysterious
earthly dealings are cleared up, and dispensations vindicated, every tear
removed—the most touching part in this office of tenderness is the hand
which wipes these tears away—still it is God—"And GOD shall wipe away
all tears from their eyes." Yes! He is the light of Heaven—the central glory
of that world of brightness. Tell what this world would be without the sun,
and you can form some feeble idea of what Heaven would be to the Redeemed
without HIM. There are many other powerful incentives to draw us to this
world of glory. Departed friends who have fallen asleep in Jesus are there.
Sacred are the voices which seem ever and anon to steal down in sweetest
cadence—the soft whisper of Heaven's own love—telling that though they
cannot come to us, there is a blessed meeting-place in their own inheritance
of light, which knows no parting. But in this vision of John's, there are no
other or subordinate motives mentioned. The lesser rays are swallowed
up in the glory that excels, and God is all in all!
Reader! if you are looking forward to taking your place
as a worshiper in the upper Sanctuary, the same Divine Being who will form
the center and focus of your bliss there, should form the center and
substance of your happiness here. Test the reality of your hopes by
this. What is it that is drawing you to Heaven? Is it some dreamy indefinite
idea of material splendor—a place of exemption from sorrow and suffering,
where every wish is satisfied, and the very fountain of tears is dried? This
may be, and doubtless will be, all true. But are its Mansions desirable,
because they are the dwelling-place of your God? If at this moment it were
divested of all its other attractions, would it be enough to know "God
shall be with them and be their God?"
This was David's Heaven, "I shall be satisfied when I
awake in Your likeness." This was Asaph's Heaven, "Whom have I in Heaven but
You, and there is none upon earth that I desire besides You." This was
Paul's Heaven, "Having a desire to depart and to be with Christ,
which is far better." This was John's Heaven, "It does not yet appear what
we shall be, but we know that when He shall appear we shall be like Him, for
we shall see Him as He is." Yes! it is interesting specially to note,
that to this mighty gazer of Patmos, to whom, in his apocalypse, had been
revealed so many visions of dazzling beauty, Heaven consisted not in
these—not in scenery, nor in any outward elements of bliss; but that the
essence of its happiness and glory was likeness to God—serving HIM with a
fervor that never wearies, and a love that knows no languor or decay.
What shall we say, then (as we sum up these
observations), of this dwelling-place of God's redeemed-Israel—this home of
the Church-triumphant? Is there nothing in all its endless bliss to fire our
ambition? Do the harpings of that innumerable multitude; these perennial
fountains of water; these palms ever green; these thrones ever bright; the
thoughts of sorrow ended; sufferings forgotten; tears wiped away; angels our
companions; above all, of God Himself our everlasting Friend and portion—not
urge us to break loose from the enthralling chains of earth, and to feel as
if there were nothing worth living for in comparison with this?
It is said of Anaxagoras, the philosopher, that one night
when in the act of studying the stars, his countrymen came to confer upon
him an inheritance, in token of their appreciation of his genius. His reply
was, "I wish it not—these heavens are my country." Can we say the same in a
grander, diviner sense? Are all earthly joys, and honors, and
pleasures a bauble, compared with what faith unfolds in the
splendors of immortality? Would that we might thus rise to the full
realization of that glorious heritage, to whose priceless blessings all can
be heirs through the blood of the Lamb. There are white robes for all—palms
for all—crowns for all—Heaven for all. This vision is one of many chimes
from the bells of Glory, gathering in the ransomed worshipers to the great
festival. Let us listen to the summons. Let us be putting on now our festal
garments, and prepare to take our place amid the rejoicing throng.