IN Thyatira’s church, this is added to the victor in this spiritual battle, that from Christ he shall receive the morning star.
Begin by understanding this in the literal sense. He that overcometh shall receive spotless white raiment (3, 5). He that overcometh shall receive a white stone (2, 17). And so he that overcometh, shall also receive “the morning star” (2, 28).
Especially seen under Eastern heavens the Morning Star makes altogether the impression of a sparkling diamond. If the victor be given tokens of high honor, whether a gold neck-chain, or a glittering jewel, no higher token of honor is thinkable than one that images the Morning Star. Among Christian nations the token of honor became the Cross, but among Eastern peoples it is still a star. So has England’s Queen Victoria as late as 1861 instituted the order of the star of India; the king of Belgium for the Congo State in 1888 the order of the African star, and in 1875 the Sultan of Zanzibar the order of the Beaming Star. Cross and star you find together in the Austrian order of the Starry Cross instituted in 1688 as symbol of the victory over Islam.
When Christ portrays the redeemed who go into glory in the image of the Conqueror on earth, there is nothing more natural, than that the image is here employed of the decoration of a Star. Just before it had been stated, that the Victor received power over the Heathen, and as token of that high dominion, always in holy figurative speech, the badge of the Morning Star is attached to his hero-breast.
That this is figurative language, and that the victor does not himself receive the Morning Star, is already evident from the language here employed, which does not say: I shall give him one, but the Morning Star. For the redeemed who as Victors go into heaven, are thousands and yet again ten thousands, and yet there is but one Morning Star.
Not the Morning Star itself therefore is meant, but a symbolic badge of honor similar to the Morning Star in splendor.
As the Morning Star excels all our stars in glow and gleam and glistening, so shall the honor-token, which he receives who in this spiritual fight of faith perseveres to the end, and overcomes, in glory very far excel every earthly honor badge of victory.
Thus the Morning Star here is not the Christ, as in Rev. 22, 16 it reads: “I am the bright and Morning Star”; for on Patmos it is Christ Himself, Who gives the Morning Star as a badge of honor. Neither is the Morning Star here the brightness of the Gospel, as it reads in 2 Peter 1, 19, that the regenerated have the day star arise in their heart. For he who enters heaven, can not then for the first time receive the Gospel. What is said here, that Christ shall give the Victor the Morning Star, points to a token of honor and glory awarded to the Victor, altogether on one line with the white triumph raiment which is placed about his shoulders, and with the white stone in the seal-ring.
THE symbolicalness which is here expressed, is, be it mystical, yet altogether clear, provided you observe, that this badge of honor is token of the power over the heathen nature, in connection with which it is mentioned in one breath.
Holy Scripture always and unchangeably portrays the heathen nature in the image of night and darkness. He who becomes incorporated in the Mediator “is translated from the realm of darkness into the Kingdom of the Son” (Col. 1, 13). “The people that sat in darkness, already Isaiah sang, shall see a great light.” With the coming of the Gospel, says St. Paul, God hath commanded the light to shine out of darkness (2 Cor. 4, 6). Already Simeon proclaimed, that Christ would be “a light to lighten the Gentiles” (Heathen). Demons are “the rulers of this world, of the darkness of this age” (Eph. 6, 12). “Out of darkness God has called us,” says St. Peter 1: 2, 9, “into His marvellous light.” “We ourselves, we were formerly darkness, children of night, but, now, that the day star has risen in our hearts, are we children of the day, we have become children of light” (Eph. 5, 8).
It is light that triumphs over darkness, as the child of God, that overcomes, triumphs over the Heathen abomination.
Day comes when night is past, and it is the Morning Star, which images this transition from darkness to light, announces and makes it real.
The heathen nature has also falsified this glorious Morning Star in meaning. The Morning Star is, as we know, one and the same as the Evening Star, and to this the heathen nature addressed itself, and saw Venus in it, or also the Satanic power, represented by Isaiah in Nebuchadnezzar (14, 12). Venus and Lucifer!
But in God’s rich, wondrous Creation, taken and understood in its original significance, the Morning Star is ever the symbolic expression of light that triumphs over darkness, literally in nature when night gives place to day, and metaphorically in the Gospel and in Christ Himself, when the darkness of Heathendom is driven back, and the clearness of the Divine light of truth shines in the human heart.
And as the redeemed, who enters heaven, has taken part in the struggle between the Light and the Darkness, and from that struggle has come out as Victor, as he enters heaven he receives both power over the heathen, and as symbol of the same the token of the Morning Star.
BUT to him this token is not without meaning; it contains promise of reality. He who receives the triumph robe of white, has therein the guarantee of undefilable holiness. He who receives the white stone in the seal-ring, has therein guarantee of all selfknowledge penetrating all his being. And so he who receives the token of the Morning Star, has therein guarantee of inherent power over the realm of darkness.
“Power over the Heathen” is the power of resistance against the heathen nature from without; the Morning Star which he wears on his breast, is token of dominion over the heathen nature that once had room in his own heart.
The talisman, of which on earth, especially in the East, false dreams have been dreamed, becomes here holy reality.
This sign of the Morning Star is a guarantee which renders the soul inwardly invulnerable to every temptation which from the heathen nature crept into the heart.
The Morning Star is not merely a power outside of him—he receives, and he then possesses the Morning Star. By its glow and brightness that Morning Star averts every return of night and darkness. Under the beams of the Morning Star, on his breast, it continues eternal morning in his heart.
Darkness has no more power over him, night can no more come nigh him.
The Morning Star, which never leaves him, wards off every return of darkness in the soul.
AND so the antithesis is sharply drawn.
Here on earth the church militant, which battles under the sign of the Cross; above the church triumphant which triumphs under the sign of the Morning Star, taken both spiritually and externally.
Here on earth inside of one twenty-four hours the lovely light of sun setting again in darkness of night, presently in the realm of glory never more any twilight or night. For the Lamb shall be our light, and the splendor of the eternal morning shall endlessly rain down upon us. Does it not say in Revelation 22, 5: And there shall be no night there?
And equally so spiritually.
Here on earth believe and live and struggle under the banner of the Cross, and every time again the darkness of sorrow, the night of suffering coming upon us. Walking along through darknesses, and again being refreshed by the light of God’s friendly countenance.
But presently, when the fight has been fought and the victory gained, this shall end. Then for the victor it shall never again be night, but also never again shall the darkness of night enter his heart. His, then, shall be the Morning Star, and with it the assurance of never setting light be guaranteed to the life of his soul.
Our God eternally the Father of lights, and we as children of light surrounding His Throne.
Christ our Morning Star, and every one of us bearing the sign of the Morning Star in the heart forever redeemed from the power of sin.
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