And the other weapon is his blood. He is “clothed with a vesture dipped in blood.” “He treadeth the wine press of the fierceness and wrath of Almighty God.” In no way could the cross be more explicitly indicated. Lifted up from the earth upon it, he draws all men unto himself. It is “Christ crucified” who is the “power” and “wisdom” of God. No weapons more carnal than these does he employ; none other do we need. By them the beast and the false prophet are overcome, and both are “cast alive into a lake of fire.”
PART VI
Progressive Steps by Which the Ideal Kingdom of Christ is to be Realized
PART VI
Progressive Steps by Which the Ideal Kingdom of Christ is to be Realized
The twentieth chapter of the Revelation is one full of the most important matter. It describes the stages through which the kingdom of Christ must pass in order to attain its ideal state. The key to its solution is to be found in a careful and close study of the prophecy of Ezekiel, between which and it so exact a parallelism exists that neither can be understood without a comprehension of the other. A just appreciation of this fact would have precluded many of the ingenious but untenable hypotheses which have based themselves upon this section, and will now serve to throw light upon what seems obscure and almost undecipherable.
The Book of Ezekiel consists of two distinct parts, the dividing line between which is the siege and capture of Jerusalem. The earlier part of the book is a record of the many and gross idolatries and sins into which Israel had been tempted and fallen. The sum of these amounted to a spiritual infidelity and adultery which justly deserved the anger of Jehovah. And it was the sad and painful task of the prophet to repeat the solemn warnings with which he had been intrusted of impending and terrible doom.
Succeeding this are denunciations by the prophet of severe and crushing judgments upon the surrounding nations, from whose intercourse Israel has received deadly harm, being corrupted by contact with them, both in peace and war, and more especially in a lowered spiritual life. This part of the Book of Ezekiel comes to an end in chapter xxxiii, 21, where the mournful announcement is made to the prophet that the predicted blow had fallen: “One that had escaped out of Jerusalem came to me, saying, The city is smitten.” It was a conclusive proof of his authority to be considered a true prophet of God, but not less deplorable on that account.
The remaining part of the book is taken up with brighter themes. Out of the nettle, danger, God has plucked the flower, safety. The fall of Jerusalem, which seemed to involve its disappearance from history, is the means of its salvation. The pages of the prophet are bright with his predictions of an Israel raised to a new and higher ideal, and restored thereby to the favor of God. The steps by which this happy condition is to be brought about are successively unfolded to us and occupy the book to its close. The false shepherds (chapter xxxiv), the unworthy and unfaithful rulers who, like the thieves and hirelings of whom Jesus spake (John x), fed themselves and cared naught for the flock, are to be removed; and God offers himself to be a shepherd to Israel, searching his sheep, seeking them out in the cloudy and dark day, binding up that which was broken, and bringing again that which was lost—a beautiful predictive type of the Messiah, the good Shepherd who laid down his life for the sheep.
In addition to this, the false prophets and unsafe guides whom Israel had followed are to be taken out of the way, and God promises in their stead to put his Spirit within Israel, cleansing them from all their filthiness and their idols and giving them a new heart and a new spirit (xxxvi, 25–27). This promise of spiritual regeneration is illustrated by the vision of the valley of dry bones (xxxvii, 1–14). At the word of the prophet “the bones” which lay whitening in the valley “came together, bone to his bone,” assuming the form and appearing in the likeness of men. But something more than human preaching was required, for as yet the forms were without life. Then the “breath” of the Holy Spirit entered into them, like the wind whose sound was heard on the day of Pentecost, “and they lived, and stood up upon their feet, an exceeding great army” of actual and real men.