So generally accepted seems to have been this symbolical use of numbers that it appears even in such pure and simple prose as the gospels. The evangelist Matthew, in recording the genealogy of our Lord, divides the period between Abraham and Christ into three cycles with fourteen generations in each, or forty-two in all. This period is exactly coeval with Judaism as a distinct dispensation; and forty-two is, as we have seen, one of the interchangeable forms of the number three and a half. Inasmuch as the actual number of generations was, as is generally agreed, more than forty-two, and some principle of accommodation must have controlled the evangelist in choosing it, we have a right to conjecture that the symbolism was so well established that no erroneous impression would be conveyed.
Using these rules of interpretation as a guide, it will be found that many, if not most of the obscurities which have made this book so perplexing and incomprehensible will be removed. A unity of purpose will be seen pervading it. It will no longer appear anomalous and outré, but harmonious with the rest of the oracles of God; a book for the perusal of every individual believer, no matter how simple and unlearned he may be; having direct reference to his heart-experience and his moral conduct; a vade mecum for the journey of life through whose aid he may safely encounter the dangers and surely overcome the hindrances he may meet.
The great theme which the inspired writer and apostle here sets before us is the mediatorial kingdom of our Lord Jesus Christ. The principles which lie at the basis of that kingdom—the oppositions, external and internal, to its beginning and completion, the agencies, divine and human, upon which reliance must be placed to achieve success, its superiority to and triumph over all hostile forces, and all these both in the heart of each individual Christian and in that aggregation of Christians which we call the Church—are here delineated as they were revealed to Saint John.
The theories which make of this book an anticipation of history, and which find in the events of the last nineteen centuries continued fulfillments of its predictions, or which confine those fulfillments to the periods either near the primitive age or near the future and final scenes of the drama of time are regarded as being not wholly erroneous, but incomplete and partial.
That the great purposes of divine Providence are continually finding their fulfillment in the history of men and nations is a truth not confined to this book, but spread throughout all the sacred Scriptures. The laws of the divine administration are very exact; they can be neither obeyed nor disregarded without the necessary accompaniments of legitimate and appointed consequences. There is no improbability at all that moral and spiritual truths may have their processes and cycles of development, just as natural things have their seasons and times of maturity. Whether the events that have occurred, the organized bodies, secular or religious, that have appeared on the field of the world, were in the mind of the apostle as he wrote is a question neither affirmed nor denied. What is meant to be said is that the Revelation does more than merely predict results. It goes down into the profound region of causes and reveals the continuity of the plans of the divine Being. However ingenious or plausible, therefore, the explanations put upon the prophecies of this book by the theories spoken of above, it is not confined to them. As long as the world lasts there will be, in every age and in the experience of every believer, a fulfillment of the truths here set forth. Its warnings and comforts will never be out of date. Its promises and its threats are alike imperishable, for they are a part of that “word of our God” which “shall stand forever.”
A definition of the phrase “kingdom of Christ” is nowhere attempted in the Revelation. It was not needed in an age when the theme was the staple of preaching and teaching. To show that it must not be confounded with the visible Church was the purpose of the epistles to the churches of Asia with which the Apocalypse begins. The fundamental principle upon which the kingdom is founded, the universal sovereignty of Christ based upon his redemptive work, is taught under the emblem of the seals. The writer then advances to the instrumentalities, natural and supernatural, by means of which the kingdom is to be brought to its consummation. The antagonisms which the kingdom must encounter from foes without and within are next plainly revealed, and, lest the revelation may cause discouragement, prophecies of sure and final victory mingle with warnings. The retributive resources of the kingdom, the just judgments which fall upon its foes, and especially upon the false and counterfeit Church, are taught under the emblem of the vials. The next section discloses to us the stages of progress through which the kingdom ascends to its complete establishment, and the signs by which we may test its advance or detect its decline. And finally, with that glowing picture of the ideal kingdom as it shall be realized on earth when the Galilean shall have conquered, a picture so beautiful that our highest conceptions of heaven seem embodied in it, the divine seer closes his rapturous vision.
PART I
The Seven Churches of Asia
Revelation of Saint John the Divine