This evening, leaving aside very much that might be said as arising out of the first chapter of the Book of Revelation, I am going to confine myself to a word on the first clause of the book:
The revelation of Jesus Christ.
We might rightly change that word from revelation to unveiling. That is even nearer to the original word than “revelation”: the unveiling of Jesus Christ.
As we move on into this book, we move into a situation which really does need speaking to. On the one hand, it is a situation of spiritual decline, failure, weakness, and many other conditions and features which even the Lord Himself, in all His grace, had to deplore.
There was need for the renewing of the life of His people and the restoring of those primary values of their beginning.
Then it was a situation of great, great difficulty—many difficulties: suffering, trials, adversities from various quarters and of various kinds. The Christians of that time were actually in a time of much adversity and were moving yet more deeply into suffering.
Of one of these churches the Lord said that they were about to suffer, that they were about to be cast into prison, and that they were going to have tribulation for a specified time.
It was a time when Christians actually needed real help and stimulus, and needed to be prepared for further battle, further conflict, further suffering. These are the two main aspects of the general situation.
And we stand back and ask, in the light of those things: How did the Lord, and how does the Lord, meet that need? Indeed, we might say, how does the Lord ever meet a great need? What is that which will supply the need, and that which alone will supply it, and be the key to the problem—the answer to the demands and the assured ground of recovery, renewal, and fortification in suffering?
The answer has ever been, and always is, a new revelation of the greatness of Jesus Christ—an unveiling of His glory.
That is the very platform, we may say, from which the Lord moves into these situations and into all the situations which follow in this book. He prefaces everything with this fresh revelation, or unveiling, of His own personal greatness.
You know, that has ever been the way.
Abraham was called upon to make tremendous decisions and sacrifices. In his native country and city there was a marvellous and rich civilization, a very full life; and without assurance that his movement would be justified, he was called upon to move with these orders:
Get thee out of thy country,
And from thy kindred,
And from thy father’s house,
Unto the land that I will show thee.
“I will show it thee when thou gettest there.” A tremendous move—very costly and very testing. But if you have wondered how it was that Abraham went through, met all the tests, and at last survived, you have, I think, the answer in these words:
The God of glory appeared unto our father Abraham, when he was in Mesopotamia.
If ever that happens, you have something to move on. You have a background. You have something that will again and again come to your rescue in time of difficulty.
Moses was called upon to undertake a tremendous responsibility. We know the whole story now. Moses was not altogether ignorant of what he had to face in Egypt and afterwards, and we may wonder sometimes how he got through and kept to the course.
But we know that he met God face to face. It could be said equally that the God of glory appeared to him. Reference is made several times in the Bible to that encounter with God in the bush.
He endured, as seeing Him Who is invisible.
That was the secret of his sustenance.
Joshua was called, a young man, to face tremendous responsibilities and undertakings in the ridding and clearing of that country, and in bringing such a people into possession of all that was bound up with it. He knew them.
No wonder the Lord had to repeat one word to Joshua continually, to get him on the move: “Be strong and of good courage.” How did the Lord give Joshua the basis? He lifted up his eyes and saw the Captain of the host of the Lord.
From that time it was all right: “You go on and go through.”
Isaiah was a young man in a very, very difficult day—one of the very, very cloudy days in Israel’s history. He was taking up his great prophetic ministry in the face of great difficulties and threatening problems. How did he get through?
I saw the Lord sitting upon a throne, high and lifted up.
That is the answer.
Paul—was there a man who had to face greater difficulties, antagonisms, sufferings, perils, and whatnot than that man? How did he get through? The Lord appeared unto him. He saw the greatness of Jesus Christ.
Stephen triumphed as he saw the heavens opened and the Son of Man standing at the right hand of God. So we could go on.
Here the Lord’s people had come to a point where there was going to be a devastating blow struck at their corporate life. They were just on the point of that final siege of Jerusalem in that dispensation, when everything was going to be shattered and scattered.
The great shaking was about to take place. All that the Lord Jesus Himself had foreshadowed—“not one stone left upon another,” and all those other terrible things—was about to take place within a very little time.
How were the believers going to get through?
The Lord took a man—we do not know now exactly who it was; some say one, some say another—but He took a man to write what we call the Letter to the Hebrews.
And you see how he begins: O, most matchless unveiling of the greatness of Jesus Christ:
Who being the effulgence of His glory,
And the very image of His substance.
The greatness of Jesus Christ. The Lord was saying through that letter, “If only you can get that as your foundation, you will go through it all. You will not go back, as you are being tempted to do—as perhaps you are contemplating doing. You will go on, you will go on, if only you see how great your Lord is.”
So He laid the foundation for the survival of faith. Survival, at least, because that is the issue. It all comes up in the eleventh chapter: the survival of faith on the ground of an apprehension of the greatness of Christ.
And now you come to this Book of Revelation. Again, you are in the presence of these things. On the one side, spiritual decline, failure, breakdown, loss; on the other side, suffering, growing suffering, terrible afflictions for the church.
How will the one be remedied and recovery take place? What is the key to a renewing of spiritual life when it has got to a low ebb? How shall they go on through the tribulation, and the tribulations, and come out in victory in the city of God?
Well, the answer is again the Lord’s only answer. It always has been His one answer, always successful—the only one that will be successful in any situation of need: a new unveiling of the greatness of the Lord Jesus.
But, O dear friends, these are words. These are words. When we say these things, we all agree: “But they are true. That is right. We know it.” But, having said it, all we can say is like that; then we are so helpless. We are so helpless because it is a thing, and not talking about it.
If only, by the Holy Spirit—there is no other way, no other means—we could catch a new glimpse of His greatness, how many problems would be solved, questions answered, and needs met.
If only it could be like that. How overwhelming it would be! And when I say “overwhelming,” I mean how much would be overwhelmed—like a tidal wave making all these rocks upon which we threaten to flounder as nothing, sunk beneath it and disappeared from view.
Now, that is not just language. Look: who is writing this? It is the Apostle John.
The Apostle John—yes, that man who walked with Jesus, listened to Him, watched Him at work, and then at the supper, and another time, sat next to Him and put his head upon His breast. The most familiar picture: a man alongside of a Man, close association, very devoted, very affectionate.
I never could understand why John always called himself “the disciple whom Jesus loved.” But there you are. It showed that there was a kind of familiarity—perhaps a sacred, holy familiarity—between John and Jesus, very human.
Listen: that same man says, “When I saw Him, I fell.” The same Jesus and the same man:
I fell at His feet as one dead.
If that One had not, in His great mercy, come and laid His hand upon him and said, “Fear not; I am the first and the last. I am the living One,” John would have been there as a dead man.
Same Jesus—but look at the transition from the Jesus of history to the Christ of glory. That is the difference. That is the difference from the John of the Gospel to the John of the Revelation. It is a marvellous and mighty movement.
He never felt like that when he walked the earth with Jesus, devoted as he was—perhaps sometimes over-confident and self-assured. With his fullest consciousness of who Jesus was, it was not until he saw Him glorified that he went down helplessly, prostrate like a dead man.
I say, it was a great transition from the Jesus of history to Christ in glory.
My dear friends, I take nothing whatever from the values and blessings of the Gospels, and I say—and I am just sometimes a little afraid—that we dwell too much upon the Jesus of history and fail to see, or to remember, that the men who wrote those four Gospels wrote them long after Jesus was glorified.
They did not, at some point toward the end of His life, when they perhaps began to sense that He would not be with them much longer, get away and decide to write the story of His life—His birth, His manhood, His teaching, and His miracles—as a human story, as an earthly story.
They had all the mighty facts and realities of His resurrection, ascension, and heavenly glory, which they were seeking to crowd into that story of His life here, and to say, “That One was this One.”
That was not just Jesus of Nazareth. That was the mighty Son of God from heaven. They were crowding every incident with the fullest apprehension that they had of the glorified Christ, now at the right hand of God.
Not just a human story. That is the only way in which to preach the gospel from the Gospels.
You notice, when after His ascension and glorification they preached or wrote, how little—how remarkably little—they ever said about the three and a half years. A fragment here and there. They said very little about His teaching, His miracles, and His work about Palestine—very little indeed.
They were all occupied with this One Who had been crowned with glory and honour. That was their message. That One—Jesus of Nazareth, if you like—Who went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed of the devil: a sort of passing reference to all that, a summary. But God raised Him. God honoured Him.
It will not get us very far just to be occupied with the incidents of His life, however precious they are. If we are going on and going through, we need an apprehension of that fullness of glory that is His now—the greatness of Christ.
You see, dear friends, it is because—just because—He has been robbed or stripped of His essential greatness that we have the deplorable conditions which have obtained in Christendom.
Liberal theologians have stripped Him of His deity. What is the result? O, devastating results in the impact of Christ upon this world. They have made Him a lesser Christ than He is.
The philosophers have just made Him one in their gallery of great and wise men. Against that tendency, even with the Christians in Corinth, Paul wrote in his first letter: taking something from the Lord Jesus and just putting Him amongst other great and wise men.
The Gnostics of Colossae—what were they doing? They had a theory of angelic ranks and orders, from the highest order of angelic beings down, down, down to the lowest subordinate. And they put Jesus perhaps at the top, but nothing more than an angelic being, robbing Him of His essential Person: very God.
The comparative religionists, all along and in our own day, are saying, “Well, there are great founders of religions—Buddha, Confucius, Mohammed, and Jesus,” and like that. You see the subtlety? Just like that: a comparative, not an absolutely supreme and unique One.
And the humanists—the humanists of our time—are inflating and glorifying man and humanity to such a point that, after all, humanity will be deified one day, will reach godhead, and Jesus is only, after all, the Superman.
So it goes on. It is all this panic-work to reduce the size of Christ, to make Him less than He is, that has done so much mischief.
My point is this, dear friends: if we lose, if we lose, the essential greatness of Christ in our consciousness—or if we fail to have it—ours is going to be a lesser spiritual life than it could be, and we are going to break down under the stress and strain of adversity.
The only thing for every need is this recovery: the recovery of His greatness.
Now here, you see, He is presented, and He is presented in the language of deity. It runs very close. At some points you cannot distinguish between the humanity and the deity; you do not know whether God is speaking of God or of Christ. The fact is, He is speaking of the One Who is both.
But the title by which He is presented in this matchless, incomparable unveiling is “Son of Man.”
The personal greatness of the Son of Man, Who is at the same time Son of God—very God.
We have referred to the Letter to the Hebrews, and we need to call it in now for our help in this matter. We read into it, ignoring chapter divisions, and begin with this:
The effulgence of His glory,
And the very image of His substance,
Appointed heir of all things,
Through Whom also He made the worlds.
And then we come to that other passage:
What is man, that Thou art mindful of him?
Or the son of man, that Thou visitest him?
Thou madest him a little lower than the angels;
Thou crownedst him with glory and honour,
And didst set him over the works of Thy hands:
Thou didst put all things in subjection under his feet.
But not yet do we see all things subjected under his feet. But we behold Jesus, Who was made a little lower than the angels, that by the grace of God He should taste death for every man, crowned with glory and honour.
Here is the Son of Man in His own personal greatness. See Who He is: the effulgence, the express image. See His appointment, heir of all things. See His instrumentality and agency: through Him the ages were made.
Son of Man—how great this One is! You would not think all that when you saw Him walking about Palestine, perhaps. But that same One is now here before John, with these devastating events before Him; that same One now revealed, unveiled, as to what He is essentially in His Person—Who He is, what position He holds.
He is here as the heir of all things, come for His inheritance. The rest of the book sees Him working it out—the securing of that inheritance of which He is the heir. And in the end, what a glorious inheritance comes into view in the last chapters of this book. This is His.
This is the greatness of the Son of Man. But, you see, we are completely defeated in any attempt at a true—not exaggerated, but true—unveiling of Jesus Christ.
There is His personal greatness. But as Son of Man, we have in that very term His representative greatness.
Borrow again from the Letter to the Hebrews. First, He is appointed heir of all things. Then, He is the Captain of their salvation, bringing many sons to glory. The word “Captain” there would be better translated “the Pioneer of their salvation”—the One Who goes before to lead them into that to which He Himself has entered.
That, of course, is the substance of the Letter to the Hebrews. He has gone before. He has entered into the heavens. He has passed through the heavens. He has gone the whole way and reached the end as the Pioneer of the many sons being brought to glory, and those whom He calls His brethren.
His representative greatness: as there at the end, in fullness, in glory, He represents all those whom He is going to bring and is bringing. His representative greatness—how great it is!
We sing it, we read of it: a great multitude which no man can number, out of every tribe and kindred and tongue—thousands, ten thousands of thousands. Language is taxed to breaking point to describe the fruit of the Son of Man.
And He is the Representative in glory of them all. How great is His Person and His representation.
And then, His official greatness. That is seen through this book and again in the Letter to the Hebrews: His official greatness as High Priest. What a great High Priest He is, according to that book.
What a tremendous thing He does. Think of it: through history, altar after altar, sacrifices of lambs and goats and bulls and other things—blood enough to fill an ocean—all through the centuries, day after day, and never reaching an end so far as effectiveness was concerned.
But in one offering—only one—far beyond the millions of sacrifices on Jewish altars, one only: how great His sacrifice and His priesthood, as He offered Himself without spot unto God once for all.
Here in this book, as the other side of His official greatness, is His description as King of kings and Lord of lords.
What a thing to say in a day when that tyrant of Rome was dominating the world and assuming lordship over all lordships, seeking to subject every power to himself—not only on earth, but in heaven, claiming deity.
In that day, in that day, the unveiling of Jesus Christ as King of kings—yes, Nero amongst them—and Lord of lords. His official greatness.
I am not going to try to add to that, dear friends.
To sum up: I believe we would have a very much better kind of convert if they were presented with a very much greater Christ.
And I would say to anyone who does not know in their own life and experience salvation in Jesus Christ—what it means really to be born again; use whatever word or phrase or language you like, saved, redeemed, born again, whatever—you know what it means to be really a child of God, and to know it.
To know it. To be able heartily to join in with the Apostle John when he said:
Behold what manner of love the Father hath bestowed upon us,
That we should be called children of God;
And such we are.
To be able to join in like that and say, “And such we are,” with that conscious affirmation of its truth.
If that is not where you are, I would say to you: Jesus would be your Saviour, the Forgiver of your sin, and many other things to you. He is far, far greater than you can think or imagine.
Salvation takes its greatness from the measure of the Saviour. If you want a great salvation, see what a great Saviour He is.
And remember that because of what He is—because of what He is—you need have no fears in putting your trust in Him. You need not fear that you, as some people put it, will not be able to keep it up. No, you will not; but He will.
He will be able to keep you up. Any of you He can keep up. He is great enough.
We need a greater unveiling—or an unveiling—of the greatness of Jesus Christ to get a better kind of Christian, for the recovery from our spiritual losses and declensions and failure, and deliverance from all these things which are so abhorrent to us and to Him.
There is only one way—only one way, really: just see His greatness. If we do that, we cannot live on a little level in this matter. It will be true; it will be a tremendously effective thing.
The other day we went to the Planetarium in London. Have you been to that? Well, you have been overwhelmed with amazement, I am quite sure. But the thing that was with me all the time, and afterward, as I listened to the little man giving his lecture, was this: How can ever a man be a little man when he is dealing with these things all the time?
I suppose it is possible, even for a fellow of the Astronomical Society, to be a little man—a petty man in character. I do not know; this is not what I am saying about this man, but it is possible.
But it is not possible—it is not possible—to have a revelation of the greatness of Jesus Christ and be a little person. O, for our enlargement, our ennoblement, our deliverance from our pettinesses—all this which is so despicable. What is the answer?
A new grasp of His greatness. That is all.
And then, if we are suffering, if we are knowing adversity and trial, and the clouds seem to be gathering, accumulating, and increasing, how will we get through?
Only thus: by getting away and asking, seeking, and pursuing in prayer a new heart-revelation, an unveiling, of Jesus Christ.
And I am sure that will do it. The Lord give it to us.