come; because thou hast taken | gry, and thy wrath is come, and to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. 18 And the nations were anthat it never could be put down; it had been set up among all nations, and could not be overthrown; the "kingdom was that which shall not be destroyed;" Dan. vii. 14. That train of measures was put into full and complete operation, which were to evangelize the world, in spite of all opposition. When the kingdom of God came with power, the crisis took place; then the gospel passed out of its state of humiliation into its state of power and great glory. the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy 26 THE JUDGMENT WAS SET AND THE BOOKS WERE OPENED;" then "the Son of man came with the clouds of heav. en;" then "was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all people, nations, and languages, should serve him," &c. See Daniel vii. 9-14. All these events were simultaneous. How strange it is, then, that expounders of the Bible have separated so widely the judgment from the establishment of the kingdom. The judgment commenced 18. The nations were angry. This when the kingdom of God came with agrees exactly with the testimony in power. That this judgment was to the 2d Psalm, viz., that the heathen take place when the Son of man came raged and the people imagined a in his power and glory to reign, is vain thing, at the time when God set evident from a great variety of texts. his king upon the holy hill of Zion, For instance, take one: "For the Son the place where Judaism had pre- of man shall come in the glory of his vailed. The time of the dead. This, Father, with his angels; and then he too, was the time of the dead that shall reward every man according to they should be judged, a subject that his works. Verily, I say unto you, will be more fully considered when There be some standing here, which we come to the 20th chapter and 12th shall not taste of death, till they see verse. It was the time of the re- the Son of man coming in his kingward of the faithful Christians, for dom;" Matt. xvi. 27, 28. To this although they were in great difficul- agrees precisely the testimony of ties, they were saved. It was the the Lord Jesus in the Apocalypse: time of signal retribution to their "And behold, I come quickly; and enemies, who were overwhelmed in a my reward is with me, to give every common destruction. To this Peter man according as his work shall be;" referred when he said, "For the time xxii. 12. Does not this assert the reis come that judgment must begin at warding of men according to their the house of God; and if it first begin works? and what else can the judging at us, what shall the end be of them of the dead, small and great, intend? that obey not the gospel of God? Did it not take place shortly after the And if the righteous scarcely be revelator prophesied? Mark the lansaved, where shall the ungodly and guage, "Behold, I come quickly." the sinner appear?" 1 Peter iv. Professor Stuart maintains that the 17, 18. The great mistake of com- coming of Christ was to take place mentators in regard to this judgment speedily; and he classes all the prehas been, that they have placed it at dictions in the Apocalypse to this the giving up, or CLOSE of Christ's effect together. "The plain and obkingdom; whereas it is certainly rep-vious sense [of en tacher] is speedily, sented as being set up when the kingdom of God came with power. Then "the Ancient of days did sit," and "the thrones were cast down;" then quickly, shortly; so ho kairos engus in Rev. i. 3, plainly interprets it. See also Rev. ii. 16; iii. 11; xi. 14; xxii. 7, 12, 20." — (Com. on i. 1.) Here, servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and it will be seen, the professor classes all these passages together, and supposes them to refer to something that was speedily to take place. We inquire again, then, if men [the dead in ignorance, in trespasses, and sins] were to be rewarded according to their works at the coming of Christ, which was then near at hand, why need we look any further for it? We here apply the professor's words, which we find in another of his books, but on the same subject: "What John declared would take place shortly, happened according to his prediction; and if so, the dispute whether it is all to happen over again [we place the italics as he did] after so many centuries, cannot be a dispute of much interest or importance. One fulfil ment is enough." (Hints on Prophecy, 2d ed., 1842, pp. 141, 142.) But let us take another view of this matter. In the verse before us it is said, "And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth;" xi. 18. Here the nations are described as being in existence as nations. "Thy wrath is come," as mentioned vi. 17: "For the great day of his wrath is come, and who shall be able to stand?" Lightfoot says, "One would think the final dissolution of all the world were spoken of; but look in ver. 16, and you find the very same words that our Saviour applies to the destruction of that people [the Jews.] They said unto the mountains, Fall on us, and hide us, &c."-(Works, vi. 291, 292.) "Thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead that they should be judged;" i. e., the time of the dead that they should be judged is come also; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth. 19 And the temple of God that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants; the time for the latter had also come; Rev. xxii. 12. Did not the revelator look on all these things as taking place at the same time? We have shown that the nations were angry when God set his king upon his holy hill of Zion. The heathen raged; the people imagined a vain thing; Psa. ii. Christ was exalted to reign over and judge the nations, to break them with a rod of iron, and dash them in pieces like a potter's vessel. Some said, "We will not have this man to reign over us;" Luke xix. 14. They were angry. Jesus' wrath came upon them. "But those mine enemies, which would not that I should reign over them, bring hither, and slay them before me;" Idem, 27. It was at the time of the exaltation of Christ to reign in power and glory upon his mediatorial throne, that he gave reward unto his servants and to the saints, and them that feared his name, small and great; it was then that he destroyed them who destroyed the land by their iniquities. The above argument is strengthened by the consideration, that God's judgments are in the earth. On this point the sacred writers are very explicit. "Verily, he is a God that judgeth IN THE EARTH;" Рsa. lviii. 11. The Saviour said: "For judgment I am come into this world." Again, he said, "The Father judgeth no man, but hath committed all judgment unto the Son;" John ix. 39; compare John v. 22. Now, if God has committed all judgment unto the Son, and if Jesus came into this world to fulfil the high appointment of executing judgment, then the judgment must be in this world. Hence Jesus said, on another occasion, "Now is the judgment of this world;" John xii. 31. See, also, 1 Peter iv. 17, 18. The revelator says, "The great day of was opened in heaven, and there | lightnings, and voices, and thunwas seen in his temple the ark derings, and an earthquake, and of his testament; and there were great hail. his wrath is come; and who shall be able to stand?" vi. 17; and again, "Fear God and give glory to him, for the hour of his judgment is COME;" xiv. 7. All this agrees with what Solomon said, Prov. xi. 31. 19. Temple of God was opened in heaven. From this verse we see that the old temple on Mount Zion was gone. The revelator saw that it had answered the purpose for which it was erected, and had been levelled with the dust. It shall be built no more. Here, for the first time in the Apocalypse, the temple is spoken of as being destroyed, demolished, gone. But as Paul showed the Hebrews that there was nothing good in Judaism which was not more than made up by Christianity, so the revelator, after having announced the fall of Judaism and the triumph of Christianity, and the demolition of the temple, showed that the Christians had a temple still. "The temple of God was opened in heaven." This is a manifest allusion to the passing away of the temple on Zion, and to its being succeeded by the spiritual or heavenly temple of the gospel. Jesus foretold that the time should come, in which men should cease to worship God on Gerizim or Zion, but should worship him (wherever they might be) in spirit and in truth. "The temple of God was opened in heaven." It was a heavenly, spiritual temple. All had access to it. In this spiritual temple was the ark of the new covenant. This covenant was written, not on tables of stone, nor on parchment, but in the minds and hearts of the people; and Paul called it a new one, because the former had "waxed old and was ready to pass away Heb. i. 10-13. There were lightnings, and voices, &c. But all opposition to the gospel was not done. Wicked men would still oppose it; though the ܐܐ܂ Son of man would ride forth conquering and to conquer; and this ineffectual opposition, which was to continue for a time, is denoted by the lightnings and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake and great hail." Thus have we brought our commentary on the Apocalypse to the end of the 11th chapter, and to the conclusion of the second great division of that book. The 12th chapter will commence a subject entirely new, viz., the opposition to the Christian church by the power of Rome. CHAPTER XII. We Preliminary Considerations. come now to a new matter altogether. At the close of the 11th chapter we finished the account of the fall of Jerusalem, and the abolishing of the first covenant, and of the triumph of the gospel on the ruins of Judaism, the prophecies of which are contained in what we call the second great division of the Apocalypse. The 12th chapter (which we are now to consider) contains the beginning of the description of the persecution of the Christians by the pagan and civil power of the Roman Empire, and more especially of the city of Rome itself. The 12th chapter commences the second prophecy. In chap. i. 3, the revelator said, "Blessed is he that readeth, and they that hear, the words of this prophecy, and keep those things which are written therein for the time is at hand." The prophecy here referred to extended to the end of the 11th chapter; and when the revelator was about to close up that prophecy, the angel said to him, "Thou must PROPHESY AGAIN, before [not the Jews only, but] many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings," (x. 11,) referring to the nations and rulers of the Roman Empire. The mystery A CHAPTER XII. clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon ND there appeared a great her head a of God was finished when the seventh (or last) angel began to sound; x. 7; the sounding of the seventh angel is mentioned chap. xi. 15; and the events announced by the seventh trumpet are described from that verse to the end of the 11th chapter. So that the SECOND PROPHECY, or the prophecy concerning the Roman Empire, begins at the commencement of the 12th chapter. crown of twelve The signifies sign, or metaphor. woman which John saw, was a sign, or metaphor, of an extraordinary character. The scene was laid in the heavens, i. e., in the region of the sun, moon and stars. She had the moon under her feet, and consequently is described as being in heaven, - - not the invisible dwellingplace of the Almighty, but the apparent place of the heavenly bodies, It is now necessary, first of all, to the firmament. A woman clothed remember, that the events of the 12th with the sun. A woman, in metachapter are not consecutive in order phorical language, is used to signify of time to those described in the pre-a city, a nation, a state or body policeding chapters; but the succeeding tic. This method of representing portions of the Apocalypse double nations and cities under the symbol back, as to time, upon all the former parts of the book. In fact, we are not sure that the event with which the 12th chapter opens, is, of all the events in the Apocalypse, the earliest in point of time. John was to write things that were past, as well as those that were future. "Write the things which thou hast seen, and the things which are, and the things which shall be hereafter;" i. 19. The events described at the opening of the 12th chapter, are those which he had seen; they were not in the nature of a prophecy, but a history, written in a highly allegorical style. The events of the seventh trumpet are all de-how is she become tributary! She scribed in chapter 11th. The seventh was the last trumpet, for we do not read of any further trumpet. There is no eighth or ninth trumpet. This shows us conclusively, that the series of events embraced in the seven trumpets are all described; that part of the Apocalypse is completed. The reader is directed to our remarks at the end of the tenth chapter. With this premonition, we are prepared to commence the exposition of the chapter. of women, was copied from the eastern by the western world. Rome has long been known under this figurative description. And we have all seen Britannia represented as a woman. Among the Roman coins is one of the Emperor Vespasian, on the reverse of which is a captive woman, hanging her mournful head, and the inscription is, Judea. - (Woodhouse.) How readily this brings to mind the words of Jeremiah: "How doth the city sit solitary, that was full of people! how is she become as a widow! she that was great among the nations, and princess among the provinces, weepeth sore in the night, and her tears are on her cheeks: among all her lovers she hath none to comfort her all her friends have dealt treacherously with her, they are become her enemies. Judah is gone into captivity because of affliction, and because of great servitude: she dwelleth among the heathen, she findeth no rest: all her persecutors overtook her between the straits:" Lam. i. 1-3. There will be no doubt then 1. Great wonder in heaven.—The in the reader's mind, that the Old Greek word here translated wonder, Testament writers adopted the meta 2 And she, being with child, | cried, travailing in birth, and phor of a woman to represent a city, nation, or people. So Jerusalem was represented; and as that city is used as a figure of the holy city, New Jerusalem, or the gospel covenant, that covenant is represented in the same manner. See Isa. liv. 5, 6: "For thy Maker is thy husband; the Lord of hosts is his name; and thy Redeemer the Holy One of Israel; the God of the whole earth shall he be called. For the Lord hath called thee as a woman forsaken and grieved in spirit, and a wife of youth, when thou wast refused, saith thy God." St. Paul certainly borrows this figure from the very passage we have quoted from the prophet. He compared the two covenants to two women. These things, said he, "are an allegory." "For this Agar is mount Sinai in Arabia, and answereth to Jerusalem which now is, and is in bondage with her children. But Jerusalem which is above is free, which is the MOTHER of us all;" Gal. iv. 25, 26. And then Paul proceeds to make a quotation from the very passage in Isaiah from which the above quotation was made. The new Jerusalem, or new covenant, then, is described as a woman, a mother. Those Jews who were converted to the gospel, were said to be born again, born of water and the spirit, the symbol of truth operating on the mind; and by a similar figure were said to be "children of the covenant," by whose power they were brought forth. "Ye are the children of the prophets, and of the covenant which God made with our fathers, saying unto Abraham, And in thy seed shall all the kindreds of the earth be blessed;" Acts iii. 25. ¶ Clothed with the sun; i. e., she had on a raiment of light. This figure too is derived from the prophets, for God is said to cover himself with light as with a garment ;" Psa. civ. 2. Hence he is said to be a sun and a shield, and to give grace and glory; lxxxiv. 11. The woman was adorned with nothing earthly; she was arrayed in pure and heavenly light. The moon under her feet; -i. e., she was above all lesser lights; she was clothed with the sun, and therefore outshone all other orbs. Paul seems to represent the two covenants by the figures of the sun and moon. The old covenant was the lesser light. It had a glory before the appearance of the greater; but that glory was to be done away. The new covenant had a greater glory. "For if the ministration of condemnation be glory, much more doth the ministration of righteousness exceed in glory. For even that which was made glorious had no glory in this respect, by reason of the glory that excelleth;" 2 Cor. iii. 9, 10. How beautifully, then, is the new covenant represented in "allegory," by "a woman, clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet." We cannot conceive of a finer metaphor. The revelator seems to have designed to express the precise idea conveyed by Paul in the quota. tion just made. The woman was the representative of the greatest moral light the world hath ever seen, or will see, viz., the covenant of the gospel; and hence she is described as being above the low condition of this sub-luna world. A crown of twelve stars. What a crown, with stars as jewels! These doubtless represented the twelve apostles of the Lamb, who were afterwards to be called and appointed as ministers of the truth. Their names were to be written on the twelve foundations of the heavenly Jerusalem; xxi. 14. If the seven stars, in Rev. i. 20, are "the angels of the seven churches," so are the twelve stars, in the woman's crown, the twelve angels of the new covenant, or the twelve apostles. 2. Travailing in birth. This is the same metaphor employed by Isaiah : "As soon as Zion [the name of the new covenant] travailed, she brought forth her children;" Isa. lxvi. 8. |