Revelation
Pergamos: the Promise to the
Overcomer
(Rev. ii. 17.)
THE promise to the overcomer in Pergamos claims our
deepest attention. As always in these epistles, it emphasizes the condition of
those to whom it is addressed; and we have seen that this is not merely a past
condition, but a stage in the development of what is all around us today; so
that the exhortations and warnings suited to it have for us no less force than
ever. In fact they should have more, as we stand face to face with that
development, - as the fruit, ripe and multiplied, is before our eyes. But the
promise to the overcomer, while reminding us of the departure and decay already
so far gone, is not shrouded with the gloom of this. On the contrary, it is
bright with hope, and full of the joy which for the Christian can spring out of
whatever sorrow. It breathes the spirit of what the apostle speaks of as our
portion ever, "not the spirit of fear, but of power and love and of a sound
mind." It is Christs word of encouragement for those who in the strife of
the battle-field look to the Captain of their salvation; and it carries us
beyond the scene of strife to the inheritance already sure to us, although
through trial and suffering is the path by which it is ordained to reach
it.
The promise has two parts, which are in beautiful relation to one
another. The manna, as is evident, speaks of Christ Himself, and of our
apprehension of Him, the white stone is a sign, on the other hand, of His
appreciation of us. How blessed is the interchange of affection thus expressed!
How touching the appeal to it where the heart of His beloved is so manifestly
wandering away from Him! The manna is wilderness food: it fell only there, in
Egypt it was not yet known; arrived within the borders of the land, it ceased.
It was divine provision for those to whom God was an absolute necessity, whom
He had brought into a place where was no natural provision, where they were
wholly cast upon Him. It was this necessity which was their claim upon the
tender compassion of their great Deliverer. He had, indeed, made Himself
responsible to answer to it, and all their varied need was thus to draw out new
witness of divine resources, - riches of glory - power and love alike.
The wilderness does not speak of any natural condition. Egypt is the natural
condition, and Egypt is a very fruitful land. There were many drawbacks there,
no doubt, which would in general be freely acknowledged. Plagues smote there as
elsewhere, and an oppressive tyranny brooded over it: but the one, they might
hope individually to escape; the other, they bore in company with a multitude.
But the productiveness of the soil no one could question: "We remember the fish
which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks,
and the onions, and the garlic: and now our soul is dried away, there is
nothing at all but this manna before our eyes."
The promise of the
manna is, then, for the wilderness, but it is the overcomer in Pergamos who
alone knows the need of the wilderness. Those who have settled down in the
world proclaim by the fact how little they find the world such; and this
character of the overcomer confirms our view of the state spiritually of
Pergamos itself. Here it was no longer the state of individuals merely, but of
the mass; and not even a secret state, but avowed openly in deed if not in
word. Thus, then, the Lord speaks to him who, true to his calling, finds in
Himself his one necessity and satisfaction. "Bread shall be given him, his
water shall be sure." Yea, "meat which endureth unto everlasting life," and
water which shall "be in him a spring of water, springing up to everlasting
life."
And this may remind us that the manna, of which the Lord speaks
in the promise here, although it be the manna of the wilderness, is not,
nevertheless, what was partaken of in the wilderness. The "hidden manna" was
that put by command of God into the ark, and carried into the land, that
aftergenerations might see the bread wherewith He had fed them in the
wilderness." In this case it was, of course, not eaten; but the Lord promises
to the overcomer here that he shall eat it; clearly in the blessed place which
for us has in the highest degree the character attributed to the land of
Canaan, - a place "where the eyes of the Lord are continually:" the wilderness
food is still to be enjoyed when the wilderness is passed forever. The hidden
manna was the memorial sample of what had fallen long before: it is typically
the abiding remembrance of what we once tasted, - the fresh taste in eternity
of Christ as enjoyed by faith down here.
We may thus see (and it is
good to see,) how closely connected the life to come is with the present.
Do we not miss much by separating them as widely as we sometimes do? and by
supposing that, apart from all experiences and attainments here, all elements
of blessing will be found in equal degree in the cup of eternal joy, when our
lips are once at its brim? by imagining that if "when that which is perfect is
come, that which is in part shall be done away," then all present effects of
lack of communion, or of that knowledge which results in and implies communion,
will be necessarily passed also; not allowed to abate in any wise the eternal
portion? Is this what the words of the apostle indeed assure us of?
For
each one of us, no doubt, the state will be perfect, the partial condition will
be done away. That is surely so. When the bud is ripened into the flower, the
perfect condition is reached; it is a bud no longer. Does it follow from this
at all that the flower is in no wise dependent upon that bud which is passed
away? We know it is dependent. So when it is no longer a condition of faith,
but of sight, - no longer seeing through a glass, darkly, but face to face, the
present knowing not the knowledge itself, but the manner of it - will have
passed. We "shall know," not as afar off any longer, but in the presence of the
things known. That is, "as we are known," as He to whom all things are present
knows us. It does not speak of the measure of knowledge, but of the manner of
it; for who could suppose the measure of it to be Gods omniscience? And
it is of the manner of it, face..to..face knowledge - the apostle
speaks.
Rather will the limits of our knowledge there be defined, and we
shall be conscious of them, - spared - thus the strain of searching into the
unsearchable, and delivered from the temptation of aspiring to what is beyond
our sphere. There will be, of course, complete satisfaction with the limits
whatever they may be. But this, then, removes the thought of any necessary
equality of knowledge among the redeemed themselves. The "new name written,
which no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it" is a proof of this in the
words before us. And the hidden manna is another proof. For the partaking of
that which fell in the wilderness is only possible as a recalling of experience
once known. It is not a fresh experience, but a past experience enjoyed afresh.
Christ is no more there the humbled One of which the manna speaks; and the
hidden manna was carried into Canaan, not belonged there. It was strictly a
memorial of the past, and as this, has its significance. The experience which
we gain here is gained forever; the joy is not for a moment, the meat endures
unto eternal life: the fruit of the Sorrow we pass through is not reaped all
amid the sorrow, but reaped above all, there where the harvest is an abiding
one. Blessed be God, it is so.
Some imagine a common height of blessing
to which grace lifts in result all partakers of it, which leaves no practical
issue for eternity of whatever is difference in the life and ways on earth.
Others would cut off, as contrary to the grace which remembers our sins and
iniquities no more, the very memory of them within us, as if it would spoil the
eternal blessedness. Others, again, - and this is a most common mistake, -
would confound the fruits of grace, which we enjoy in common, with the rewards
of grace, which have respect to responsibilities fulfilled. All these are alike
errors, and lead to practical consequences which are of grave
importance.
Sonship, heirship, membership in the body of Christ, are
alike pure gifts of divine grace, and in no wise of work. They are ours once
for all, and never withdrawn from us. How blessed to realize that these are,
after all, our very chiefest blessings, which we have in common! How much less,
comparatively, must the reward of our work be, and the reward of Christs
work, which they all are! How precious to know that every child of the
Fathers love shall be clasped to the Fathers heart alike, - that
there shall be no more distance for one than for another! Yet it is not every
one who is clear as to salvation who is clear as to this, But were it
otherwise, who could, without presumption, anticipate any nearness at all? But
the many mansions of the Fathers house have room for all, and the
Fathers heart has surely no less room. "What manner of love hath He"
indeed "bestowed upon us, that we should be called the sons of God!" But it is
His love, and let us enjoy it to the full without a remnant of fear. Let not
one shadow of legality darken the joy of it. And this love shall be justified
in its fullest expression also, for "we shall be" - one as much as another, - "
like Christ, for we shall see Him as He is."
It is not, perhaps,
wonderful that as we contemplate such blessings as these we should be tempted
to think that there surely cannot be left room for any difference whatever. To
be like Christ ! - all altogether like Him! Think of it, ye His beloved, the
fruit of His work, the purchase of His precious blood! Who could imagine,
indeed, that the fruit of our work could make any difference here! For whom
could it be but in the most absolute wonderful love, with power to accomplish
its desires in us? Shall any thing hinder that accomplishment, then? No,
nothing! What is stronger than what manifested itself in the cross? What can
rob it of its glorious reward?
Yet unspeakably great as all this is,
still he that has an ear to receive the Scripture testimony will surely find
that, beside the common blessing which every one of Christs own shall
get, there are distinctive and individual blessings, which are not, therefore,
the same for all. "To reward every one according as his work shall be." - "
Rule thou over ten . . . rule thou over five cities." - " Hold that fast which
thou hast, that no man take thy crown." These passages, and such as these, are
unmistakably clear also. Nor can it be urged that it is only in temporary not
in eternal awards that such distinctions can have place. The hidden manna and
the white stone are not of this character, and they both speak of what is the
result of the earthly walk.
And again, it is in no wise true that the
very sins of which God says, "I will remember them no more" shall not come up
before the judgment-seat of Christ. They surely shall. "God," says the
Preacher, "shall bring every work into judgment, with every secret thing,
whether it be good or whether it be evil." "We must all be manifested before
the judgment-seat of Christ, that every one may receive the things done in his
body, whether it be good or whether it be evil." Are these things
contradictory? They are equally parts of Gods perfect and eternal Word.
Nor is there the slightest difficulty even as to their reconciliation, if we
may speak of reconciliation as needful. God will indeed remember our sins no
more; but does any one imagine that His memory will fail in the least as to one
of them? Against us He will not remember them. No displeasure on their account
shall ever darken His glorious face. Never will He upbraid us with them. It is
we who shall "give account of ourselves to Him." Shall it be only of whatever
good, little or much as it may be? Shall we present ourselves as sinless ones,
who have had no need of redeeming blood? Standing in the glory and perfection
of Christs likeness as we then shall be, our memories shall be fully
alive with all the past, so as to give a faithful record of it before the
throne of truth. All mists, all uncertainties, all errors, will be gone
forever. How blessed to be clear of them! Then how bright will Gods grace
appear! how perfect His wisdom! Not, surely, with reference to an angels
course, but to that of a fallen, erring, yet redeemed man. And the memories of
our sins, would we be then without them, when without them the whole world
would be an impenetrable darkness still, and the very song of redemption could
not itself be sung!
And it is declared of some who build upon
Gods foundation gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, stubble, the
day shall declare it, for it shall be revealed with fire, and the fire shall
try every mans work of what sort it is. If any mans work abide
which he has built thereon, he shall receive a reward; if any mans work
be burned up, he shall suffer loss; yet he himself shall be saved, yet so as
through the fire. No matter of what class of believers this speaks, the
principle announced is - reward to some, to others loss, while yet both alike
are saved ones. Thus the promise of the hidden manna appeals solemnly, while
most encouragingly, to us. Our life is not cut off by so broad a division the
eternal one as some would have it; while there is a division as plain as it is
serious. The days of human responsibility end with the life here. It is for the
things done in the body that they are judged or rewarded, and for these only.
Thus these days exercise an irreversible influence over the life to come: the
hidden manna and the white stone are eternal recompenses of the present
time.
In another sense, as to the hidden manna, it is but that "the
meat" that faith lives on now is but the "meat that endureth to everlasting
life." So that the spiritual experiences of the present pass on as memories
into the eternal joy beyond. But as memories with none of the dullness which
attaches to such things now; for then is the day of manifestation and of
recompense, and the memory then will far outdo the experience now.
We
pass through trial and adversity, through a world in truth a wilderness, a
place of utter dependence, in which faith feels, amid the darkness, for the
strength of the everlasting arms. And here we learn, as no where else could we
learn, the grace that is come down to us. We are like those that go down to the
sea in ships, and that have their business in the deep waters, - men that see
the works of the Lord, and His wonders in the deep. "A brother is born for
adversity," and in adversity we learn the touch of a brothers hand; yea,
"there is a Friend that sticketh closer than a brother," and how blessed to
realize in Him who sticks so close the very Lord of glory Himself! Not a kindly
and gracious Protector merely, from His own sphere of unchanging blessedness,
but One hand in hand, travelling the same road, ministering of His own cup of
consolation, displaying sympathies which have been developed in the self-same
path, but of sorrows voluntarily endured that He might so minister to us.
Precious humiliation, upon which the heavens once looked down in
wonder! but of which none can know in truth the deepest meaning, save those who
have drunk of the cup of the pilgrim, and in actual poverty been enriched by a
greater poverty of Him for our sakes come into it. It is this which makes the
hidden manna so impossible to be tasted except by one who has tasted the manna
in that wilderness where alone it fell. After-generations in Israel might
indeed see the food wherewith the Lord fed them in the wilderness, but that was
all. He who had been in the wilderness alone could say of it, "I know its
taste." When the people were despising it as light food, in touching appeal to
us the Lord through the historian describes its taste. We can little indeed
describe a taste; only at all by comparing it to some other familiar one, and
so here: "its taste was as the taste of fresh oil," - the ministry of the Holy
Ghost; but in another place, "it was like wafers made with honey:" that speaks
of Him whom the Holy Ghost declares to us.
The land promised to
Israel was described in its riches as a "land flowing with milk and honey." It
is the figure of natural sweetness; very sweet, but not to be partaken of too
freely, nor allowed to be put into that which was offered to God. But the manna
was not honey, and though having the sweetness of it, could be fed upon
continually. All the sweetness of human affection and intimacy is found in the
"Son of Man," but with no element of corruptibility in it. Honey easily
ferments and sours, but in this sweet intimacy there is absolute stability: it
is a love which can be relied on at all times, where the human has become one
with the divine, - the divine makes itself realized in what we can apprehend
and enter into as most truly human.
This is the taste; but to know it,
you must taste it. No description will convey it rightly to you; and to know
the grace of Christ's humiliation, you must have been in the wilderness, and
there learned to say, "All my fresh springs are in Thee." If "a brother is born
for adversity," it is only adversity that can rightly make you know that
"brother." In the land, amid all its glories, the manna was "the hidden manna."
In the wilderness it was not hidden; and to those who had gone the journey
through the wilderness, the manna, even in the land, was not really hidden. In
the glory of heaven we shall know in the Man, Christ Jesus, some steps (and
surely wonderful ones) of His surpassing condescension; nay, a "Lamb, as it had
been slain," it will call forth the unceasing homage of all there; but the
manna gives the personal application of this grace to a need which in heaven
will no longer exist: it must be enjoyed there as knowledge gained in quite
other circumstances. And here the wilderness will at last yield its harvests to
us, the desert left behind will blossom as the rose.
For how will those
spiritual experiences so full of joy to us here bloom in the sunlight of
eternity into glorious recollections, when all that hinders shall be forever
removed; when the divine ways. shall be seen in all their holiness, all their
wisdom, all their grace! Our senses are here at the best so dull, the power of
the Spirit so little known, Christ is after all so little in His transcendent
beauty enjoyed! Then, face to face with His glory, seeing Him as He is, and
able to measure somewhat truly the depths of His descent from the heights
before us, how will the King in His beauty, our blest Lord and Saviour, be
revealed!
But it is time to turn round upon ourselves, is it not? and
to ask of ourselves, How much material for this joy hereafter are we gathering
here? And this suggests another question: How much need have we of Christ day
by day? how much hunger and thirst have we after Him? These are very strong
terms, as they are evidently also the terms of Scripture. All the labour of man
is for the mouth. Hunger and thirst are controlling things. Yet says the Lord,
"Labour not for the meat that perisheth, but for that meat which endureth unto
everlasting life." Do we indeed by comparison not labour for the one as we
labour for the other? and which one is it - in calm, sober, reality - that we
labour for?
We have life, perhaps, - eternal life, - salvation. Blessed
to have these. With the rest thus gained, have we started for the goal outside
the world? or are we practically living much as others in it, - the days filled
up with a routine of things imposed by the various masters (customs,
mens thoughts of us, the claims of society, and what not) which rule
there? It is one thing or other; outside the world, and in opposition to it, or
in it, and floating with its stream.
In this last case, there will
either be no felt need, or none that Christ can be counted on to meet. Much may
be pleaded as to duties, which are merely artificial, and untruly covered with
so fair a name. But whatever may be the plea, the daily need and ministry of
Christ is a thing unknown. Great needs may demand Him, but life is not made up
of these.
Briefly to consider now, however, the second part of the
promise - the "white stone": - The two parts of the promise are inseparably
connected with one another. The appreciation of Christ by the soul is the
necessary basis of His answering approbation. The white stone speaks, as has
been said, of this approbation. It was the token of approval, dropped by voters
into the urn of old, with the name of the candidate approved upon it. But the
name here is a new name, known only by Him who gives and by him who receives
it. The name, in Scripture, is always significant and descriptive of the one
who bears it. To know Gods name is just to know what He is, to know His
character; and the new name here speaks of the character for Christ of him upon
whom it is conferred, some character which He approves. It is a peculiar link
between the Lord and the one approved, a peculiar something that we are for
Him. It implies some trial, as the former part of the promise, and speaks of
His estimate of how it has been endured, - of something especially noted as
pleasing to Himself. It is not publicly noted or rewarded, however. Such
rewards, of course, there are; but this is another and a deeper thing. Still
more than the hidden manna is it an individual joy, not shared by the general
company of the redeemed, - the one secret link, as it would seem, between the
Lord and the individual saint. Is it worth seeking, this approbation of His? Is
any thing else in comparison? Is it not marvellous that we can barter the
priceless eternal joys for things which perish in the using, even if they did
not also entail upon the soul a feebleness from which oftentimes there is here
no recovery. We pity the inebriate, possessed by his passion for what rivets
upon the ever-increasing load which will at last destroy him; but oh what
sorrow should we have for the Nazarites of God, endowed with the limitless
possession of the Spirit of God, to know the things that are freely given to us
of God, yet drunk with the spirit of the world, His enemy, and squandering the
precious gifts of God for the husks of the swineherd! We have no words that are
worthy or of power to rebuke it; but let us hear the apostle : - "Ye adulterers
and adulteresses, know ye not that the friendship of the world is enmity with
God? Wherefore, whosoever will be a friend of the world is the enemy of
God."
"Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. .
. . For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the
eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the
world passeth away, and the lust thereof; but he that doeth the will of God
abideth forever." "Wherefore awake, thou that sleepest, and arise from the
dead, and CHRIST shall give thee light."
"For ye are all the children
of the light, and the children of the day: we are not of the night, nor of
darkness. Therefore let us not sleep, as do others; but let us watch and be
sober. For they that sleep sleep in the night, and they that are drunken are
drunken in the night; but let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the
breastplate of faith and love; and for a helmet, the hope of salvation. For God
has not appointed us unto wrath, but to obtain salvation through our Lord Jesus
Christ, who died for us, that, whether we wake or sleep, we should live
together with Him."
Yes, and that life is now begun with us; the
eternal life has for us begun. May the words ring in our ears at least until
they lay hold completely of our hearts and lives: "To him that overcometh will
I give to eat of the hidden manna, and will give him a white stone, and on the
stone a new name written, which no man knoweth saving he who receiveth it."
"Overcometh"- not in the world merely, but now in the church; not in
circumstances in which he is not, but in the precise circumstances in which he
is; - "overcometh:" do you, do I, know well, and from quite familiar
experience, what it is to overcome?
Chapter
Nine - Thyatira: the Reign of the World-Church
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