WHAT on Patmos Jesus called out to John was a call to arms, a call to battle. It must be struggle, battle to the end. And then there will be peace, O surely, but only then. Not until the end has come. “He that overcometh,” he shall be honored with brightness and be enriched with every blessing of salvation. But whether you overcame or succumbed, is only decided for every one of us at our dying, and the tokens of victory will be handed out to us, not immediately after our dying, but only in that illustrious day, when Christ returns upon the clouds, and this world passes away, and the new earth under the new heaven shall praise God eternally.
This is what the whole Revelation on Patmos impresses so deeply upon us. The world as it now is, is permeated by sin, and as we personally go into death, the world also shall once go into death together with all her nature-wealth, with all her splendid development, with all what in the course of centuries she has brought forth and from her womb shall still bring forth. “This world passes away, and the lust thereof.” But … as for us, who are of Christ, also in and through dying there is a continuance of our being, and that hidden being shall once rise from the dead, so there is regeneration, so there is resurrection also for the world. She goes into death, all things go into death, but once Christ shall make all things new.
This world passes away, but a new world comes. And this depends on Christ. Were He to let go of her, she would forever sink away in death, and continue in death, and that once she shall come forth again new in the lily whiteness of purity, with the flush of eternal youth upon her face, and then shall glisten in incorruptibility and glory, is because the Word became flesh, because God’s Only Begotten Son became man and because He is appointed of the Father as Head of our human race, and in His saints has personally united that race to Himself.
So the world passes away, she goes into death, but Jesus holds her fast, by His Incarnation and in His saints, and this shall once be the triumph when Christ, with His saints, in that regenerated world shall reign in glory.
This of course applies only to those who belong to Jesus, have been incorporated in Jesus, have become partners with Him in a common lot.
To draw you away from Jesus, is the awful design of the prince of the world. To make you hold fast to Jesus, is the Divine drawing and the ministry of God’s angels.
Away from Jesus, or forever bound to Jesus, that is the battle, life’s combat, the struggle.
He who in dying is thus securely anchored to Christ, that he can no more be loosed, is the victor, his is the soul that has overcome, and to him Jesus whispers still in his dying: He that overcometh, shall inherit all things (Rev. 21, 7).
LET it not surprise you, that by His revelations on Patmos Jesus impresses so definitely, and with such penetrating seriousness that character of combat and of struggling upon the whole existence of His saints upon earth.
The danger of choosing peace rather than strife, is so menacing to God’s children, and when herein they once move amiss, the spirit from the abyss abuses their very thirst after peace, unobservedly to unravel the tie of their heart to Jesus, and make the prize of the victor, the crown of life to be lost by them.
Combat is a hard necessity, the homesickness of our soul continues to go out after peace. David is a transition. Only in Solomon comes peace.
Once shall all struggle be ended, and it will be peace, rest, Sabbath in God eternally.
But woe to him, who reaches after that peace, before the battle shall have been fought. And yet the devout mind inclines so readily, to draw itself back from the turmoil of battle; withdrawn from the world to shut oneself up in some holy retreat; to be indifferent to the honor of victor; and to want by way of some quiet bypath, apart from the combat of spirits, to enter heaven.
And yet, this were the same as though Jesus had quietly remained in Nazareth, and had evaded the struggle unto death. This were a Bethlehem without Golgotha. This were playing with an holy ideal, and avoid what must realize that ideal.
Therefore Jesus declared to His disciples already before His dying with so great emphasis: “I am not come to bring peace on the earth, but the sword.” And for this reason this same Jesus on Patmos warned once again all His saints against peace too hastily claimed, called them to a struggle, which could not cease until the end should come, and impressed it upon them even seven times, that peace should once come down from heaven, but that that peace could only be the portion of him who overcame, i.e., of him who had persevered in the combat until his dying day and had stood true in battle until his latest breath.
THE church militant on earth seeks the spiritual field of battle from duty, from stress of conviction, because the conflict is laid upon her, because not to fight would be cowardly betrayal and denial of Jesus. And Jesus knows that duty and conviction, to be of avail, call for inspiration, and only by enthusiasm work wonders.
He who runs in a race feels his exhausted strength stimulated to new effort, when he thinks of the crown of honor that awaits the victor.
Therefore, even in the Sermon on the Mount, Jesus constantly points to the reward that comes, when God shall recompense to us in public every alms and every prayer.
Jesus Himself in His humanity was carried in His conflict with death by looking to the crown, that awaited Him as Conqueror. Was it not foretold the Messiah already in Isaiah 53, 10: “When he shall have made his soul an offering for sin, he shall see his seed, he shall prolong his days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in his hand.” Oh, understand Jesus’ conflict humanly.
Did it not resound on Patmos: “He that overcometh, even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne”? Think also of that deep word: “The corn of wheat which falls into the ground and dies, brings forth fruit” (John 12, 24).
To inspire His saints, to hearten their courage to persevere, to stimulate their enthusiasm, Jesus has portrayed them in the image of the Victor, and promised them sevenfold reward and honor.
Figurative language, if you will. In forms borrowed from earthly splendor of victory and coronation. But even so figurative language full of ecstatic reality. As no victorious general on earth was ever crowned, so shall the least of His brethren, in the presence of the angels of God, once be honored, fêted, decorated and coronated before the face of his God. No honor wherewith Christ Himself is crowned, which shall not reflect upon him. Nothing shall be held back from him. He that overcometh shall inherit all things.
Do you ask, whether all this apart from struggle, and without victory, can not be the part of all God’s elect; since no one can pluck them out of the Father’s hand; then see here the answer. For God’s elect everything is foreordained, thus foreordained also that they will fight on to the end; also that to the end they will overcome. And thus also that the reward and the crown which Jesus holds before His saints, is the means ordered of God, to stimulate them to the fight, to enable them to maintain their stand in that fight, and in that fight to crown them with victory and glory.
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