In fine, there are few passages, even in the Holy Scriptures, which for sublimity and grandeur can be compared with these revelations concerning the Lord's coming. One of these is the account of the creation, of the innocence, sin, and fall of man, and therein of the origin of evil in this world. Another is the history of the incarnation, life, sufferings, and death of Jesus Christ: His eternal purpose to save sinners by the sacrifice of Himself; His leaving 'the glory which He had with the Father before the world was' (John xvii. 5); His birth of a virgin; His meekness and resignation; His prayer on the cross for His murderers; His cry of spiritual desolation, which darkened the sun, and caused the earth to tremble through all her marble bones; His last words of faith and trust: "Father, into thy hands I commend my spirit" (Luke xxiii. 46): in all history there is no sublimity equal to this, unless it be in these unveilings of heaven, earth, and hell which are given us in the Apocalypse of St. John the Divine.

8 I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord God, who is, and who was, and who is to come, the Almighty.

In the English Bible we have also 'the beginning and the ending,' but this clause is not found in the best manuscripts; yet it properly represents the true sense, for alpha and omega are the first and last letters of the Greek alphabet, between which, of course, all the others are included; consequently they represent the whole. There was a similar use of the first and last of the Hebrew letters, which may have originated in the conception of writing as containing all knowledge and wisdom, especially the whole truth of divine revelation. Hence we may understand the expression, here applied to God, as signifying that He is the source from which all things originate, and the end in which they terminate, in the sense of the words: "He is before all things, and in Him all things consist (Col. i. 17). In Him we live and move and have our being" (Acts xvii. 28). The meaning of 'who is and was and is to come' has been given (14).* Among the incommuni

* Such references are to preceding pages of the book.

cable attributes of God, that one which is expressed by 'the Almighty' is here selected for emphasis. The Greek word which is so rendered signifies by its etymology 'the AllRuler,' and in the Septuagint it is used as equivalent both to 'the Lord of hosts' and to 'the Almighty.' There can be no doubt but that it is intended to include both these ideas here, i. e. omnipotence and universal dominion. He who speaks these words, which seem to be appended as a sort of seal to the preceding announcement concerning the Lord's coming, to give the strongest assurance that the prophecy shall be fulfilled, is simply 'the Lord God, the Almighty,' without reference to any distinction of persons: but as they are subsequently applied to Himself by the Lord Christ (Rev. xxii. 13) He may properly be understood as here claiming this universal dominion, and as asserting His power to establish and maintain it, in accordance with a declaration of His elsewhere: "All power is given unto me in heaven and in. earth" (Mat. xxviii. 18).

In conclusion, the Coming of the Lord, as here announced, was regarded by the apostles and early Christians as the great hope of the church. For they are represented as 'looking for the blessed hope, even the glorious appearing of the great God and our Saviour Jesus Christ' (Tit. ii. 13); and elsewhere, as we have seen (20), their state of mind is described by many similar expressions. This hope seems to have too little place in the Christian experience of our time. We must try to recover it, for which we shall find abundant reasons in these visions, closing with the words: "I come quickly. Amen, come, Lord Jesus."

III

PATMOS ECSTATIC VISION THE SEVEN CHURCHES 19-11

Immediately after the announcement of his subject, we have the account which the author gives of himself, of the place where, and of the state of mind in which, he received these visions; also, of a command given him to write them down, and send them to seven particular churches. In this brief record we shall find several very interesting and signifi

cant statements.

9 I John, your brother and companion in the tribulation and kingdom and patience in Jesus, was in the isle that is called Patmos, for the word of God and the testimony of Jesus.

In these words he addresses himself to the readers and hearers of his book, upon whom his blessing has just been pronounced, as their brother and fellow-partaker in the tribulation and kingdom and patience which came to them from their being 'in Jesus,' as the branches are in the vine (John xv. 1-6), in order to awaken their sympathy and interest, and to confirm them in the patient endurance of the trials through which they were passing to the glories of the coming kingdom.

The island to which he had been banished, as he here seems to intimate, for his fidelity in witness-bearing to the word of God and to his divine Master, still bears the name of Patmo, being situated near the coast of Greece in what was anciently called the Icarian sea. Probably it had been selected as the place of his banishment because it was small, rough, and desolate, though now it contains 4 or 5000 inhabitants. It has a Greek church, and an old monastery, supposed to have been built by one of the Christian emperors of Constantinople, called the Monastery of St. John the Divine, whose library is said to contain many ancient and valuable

manuscripts. About half way up the highest mountain on the island there is a cave which an ancient tradition not improbably designates as the abode of the Seer whilst he received these revelations. At this time, about the year 95 or 96 of the Christian era, 25 or 26 years after the destruction of Jerusalem, he must have been 80 or 90 years old. Domitian, who was then upon the throne of the Roman empire, was a very corrupt and abandoned character, distinguished, even among the emperors of those times, for his wanton cruelty. In his reign a fierce and bloody persecution raged against the Christians, which, however, had commenced before under the insane Nero, when St. Peter and St. Paul obtained their martyr-crowns. It was near the close of Domitian's reign that St. John was banished to Patmos, where he seems to have remained only a short time, probably not more than a year, for he was set at liberty when that tyrant was assassinated in the year 96. The account of his banishment which has come down to us is as follows: "The apostle John was apprehended by the Proconsul of Asia, and sent to Rome, where he was miraculously preserved from death when thrown into a cauldron of boiling oil. The idolaters, who pretended to account for such miracles by sorcery, blinded themselves to this evidence, and the tyrant Domitian banished John to the island of Patmos, one of the Sporades, where he was favored with those heavenly visions which he has recorded in the Apocalypse." This is related by Tertullian, a very eloquent, learned, and pious man, who lived in the second century, near enough to the time to be perfectly acquainted with all the circumstances; nor do we know anything inconsistent with its literal truth; also, it may be regarded as the more probable, because there must have been some reason why St. John was banished, instead of being put to death, as were his fellow-apostles, and this reason may have been his miraculous preservation as here related. For we may be sure that no human power, nor any property of matter, nor any force of nature, could avail to destroy his life until he had received, and had communicated to the church, these wonderful revelations.

10 I was in the Spirit on the Lord's Day: and I heard behind me a great voice, as of a trumpet, 11 saying, What thou seest write in a book, and send it to the seven churches: unto Ephesus, and unto Smyrna, and unto Pergamus, and unto Thyatira, and unto Sardis, and unto Philadelphia, and unto Laodicea.

'The Lord's Day' occurs nowhere else in Scripture, but we have the best of reasons for understanding the expression as designating the first day of the week, upon which our Lord rose from the dead, in consequence of which it became the Christian Sabbath.* It may properly be called Sunday, as the day of celestial radiance.

But what does our Seer mean by his being 'in the Spirit' on that day; in which state he seems to have been while all these visions were made to pass before his interior faculties? In answer to this question, we may observe that the word ExoTaois, ecstasy, which in the New Testament is commonly used to express this mental state, signifies a standing out of one's self, or as we say, being in a transport. It is of frequent occurrence, being mostly rendered by the word 'trance.' Thus it is said that St. Peter 'fell into a trance' (Acts x. 10), or, more precisely, 'an ecstasy fell upon him,' when he saw the vision concerning the centurion Cornelius. Speaking of it himself he says, 'In an ecstasy I saw a vision' (xi. 5). St. Paul also expresses himself in a similar manner, saying, 'Whilst I prayed in the temple, I was in an ecstasy' (xxii. 17); and he describes another such rapture in the words: I knew a man in Christ. . whether in the body. . or out of the body, I cannot tell, God knoweth, such a one caught up into the third heaven. . into Paradise; and he heard unspeakable things, which it is not lawful for man to utter” (2 Cor. ii. 24). We have many examples of this spiritual rapture in the Old Testament prophets, who describe it as 'the Spirit of God coming upon them,' as their 'being in the Spirit of God,' and 'in the visions of God.' It seems to have been common also in apostolic times, and not unknown in

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* For the evidence that it is truly the Sabbath, see Wisdom of Holy Scripture, xiii.