A Review by Milton C. Wilcox

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Oct 24, 1911

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 38, No. 42.

A Review

By Milton C. Wilcox

"Let the Revelation speak and tell what is truth. . . . Uplift Jesus as the center of all hope."

A Review

LAST week we completed our verse-by-verse and chapter-by-chapter study of the most wonderful book of the Bible. That study is not by any means exhaustive. Many were the leads which were not followed in the great mine; and in many of the rich veins of gold that were uncovered, the surface itself was barely worked. But we have learned many things.

1. We have learned this,— that it is a revelation to God's children. It is not a sealed book. It was not given to tantalize God's children. It is not a great mystical drama written for the entertainment of men, or to while away the time of the writer; it is a great revelation of God for His children. In both the beginning of the book and the close great blessing is pronounced upon those who will study and do it.

2. It is a revelation of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. It shows to us His wonderful character, His self-denial, His sacrifice. It reveals to us His work, which is not only the vindication of God's character of love, but which means also the everlasting triumph of His people and the utter blotting out of sin. He is the great Hero of this great drama of the ages. We see Him with the Father before the world was, the Creator of the heavens and the earth. We see Him when the great problem of sin entered the universe, stepping down from that high state and becoming one with the creatures that He Himself had brought into existence. We find Him as Michael the Archangel leading the angels of good against the forces of evil in the spiritual realms. We find Him stepping lower still and becoming one with the children of men, the Son of God yet the Son of Man. And even here He steps lower still and becomes obedient to death, giving His very life in order that He might redeem men,— the Lamb of God slain in purpose from the foundation of the world, but executed in fact on Calvary. But death could not hold everlasting righteousness; He breaks the power of the grave for Himself and all His, and ascends far above all principalities and powers, and sits in eternal triumph at the right hand of God, where He pleads as High Priest for His people, ministering to them constantly in great floods of light and love and power, to keep them through the trials and afflictions which they must undergo for Him in this world. We see Him again coming as the Reaper to gather the harvest of the earth, as the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, gathering His children home and taking to Himself His bride, the eternal kingdom, which shall nevermore know curse or sorrow.

3. We have seen, in this wonderful book of Revelation, the adversary of truth and righteousness and light and love. Failing in Adam, because of God's grace, he fails utterly in Christ Jesus; but failing in the person of Christ our Lord, he turns his whole power and skill and subtlety and machinations of evil against the truth of God. We see how he uses all the corrupt kingdoms of the earth for the accomplishment of his will. If he can not deceive, he will persecute; if he can not lead men to be willingly destroyed, he will violently destroy them — anything to blot and blast and blight the earth, and then charge it all, by his deceptions, to God. But we also see his end.

4. We see the agents of the adversary in this wonderful book, especially the mighty agents of church-and-state governments, symbolized by the beast. Such is every church-and-state government, such are all States which are wrapped up with class or religious legislation in any way. They have been modified by good men, held in check by noble souls who have protested, restrained by the power of God. But the principles upon which they are based have ever been evil, and this is revealed to us. But these church-and-state governments represented by the beast meet their doom as does the great adversary.

5. We also find in this wonderful book the church, the people of God. Born from above, entitled by her birth to the blessings and glory of God, she is still a wanderer, a stranger, a pilgrim, a sufferer in the earth, oftentimes torn by her own internal strife, wandering in error, driven by persecution into the fastnesses of mountains, hunted as was her Lord; yet merging from all a glorious, triumphant church, crowned at last by the Master with everlasting triumph, standing before His throne singing praise to God and to the Lamb.

6. It reveals to us, does this wonderful book, God's purpose concerning the earth, the earth burdened and cursed by sin, racked by the diseases which have fallen upon her through the sin of man, her primitive lord; melting in the fires of the last days kindled by the glory of God, which utterly wipe from her all the wrinkling dross of sin. But by the power of her blessed Lord there come forth a new heavens and a new earth, on which the blighting curse of sin shall never again rest.

7. And then there is revealed before the weary pilgrim a glorious, endless future. We are told again and again that we want a religion that is for the present, for this world — what matter what lies before? There is revealed to us in this wonderful book a religion for NOW, but the "now" will sometime take in the everlasting "then," and so God gives us the promise not only of the life which now awaits, whatever that may be in consequence of sin, but the life also which is to come, in the glory of God's righteousness and love.

Seven Sevenfold Prophecies

We have found, in this great drama of the ages, seven sevenfold prophecies, prefaced by the threefold blessing of God and the vision of our Lord Jesus Christ superintending His churches. The sevenfold prophecies are as follows:

1. The internal condition of God's church as represented before us by seven different churches. Chapters 2, 3. These seven complete the career of the church from the apostle's time to the close — Ephesus, the desirable condition of the apostolic church; Smyrna, the church in martyrdom; Pergamos, becoming connected with the world; Thyatira, the church of sacrifice during the Dark Ages; Sardis, the Reformation church falling away from the faith; Philadelphia, the church of brotherly love; Laodicea, the lukewarm, indicating a sordid lapse into insensibility as to real conditions. Yet God's call is out of Sardis, and out of Laodicea, into the condition of Philadelphia, the church which will met Him at His coming.

2. The second sevenfold prophecy is that of the seven-sealed book, opened by the prevailing power of our Lord Jesus Christ, revealing Him going forth on a white horse conquering and to conquer. Chapters 6 to 8: 1. And then follow war, plague, calamity, strife, and the very birth-pangs of nature; but through it all the white-horse rider goes forth for God, closing His work in the sealing of God's servants; and the four living creatures, looking forward to the glorious triumph, cry "Come" to Him whose right it is to reign. The last seal closes with silence in heaven, but with a song of triumph throughout all creation that Christ has come, Christ the Conqueror.

3. A sevenfold call to battle, represented by the trumpets, opening with the breaking up of the great Roman Empire, which controlled the world, followed by the darkening of the political heavens by Saracens and Turks, closing with the world-wide wrath upon the earth, and the kingdoms of the earth becoming the kingdom of our Lord and His Christ. Chapters 8-11. In the years of this prophecy of strife

God's Word bears double witness and the last phase of the Gospel goes forth.

4. Then follows the great sevenfold spiritual controversy, a controversy in the spiritual realms between Satan and Michael; Satan represented in the form of a dragon; Michael the Archangel, who becomes the Son of the woman; the woman, the church; the controversy, for the destruction of the church. Chapter 12. Satan's agents are represented by the heads, Babylonian sun- and nature-worship, Persian sun- and fire-worship, the Grecian pantheon- and art-worship, the iron monarchy of Rome a deified State, man in God's stead during the Dark Ages, back to tradition following that, and the full ripeness of apostasy and the persecuted church; the dragon still inspiring it all.

5. The dragon falls into the background, and we have the sevenfold persecutor which the dragon uses—the beast, this beast ex- [[FIGURE]] isting in seven different forms, represented by heads, each head giving a different phase to the beast; all inspired by the foe of righteousness—Babylon, Medo-Persia, Grecia, pagan Rome, papal Rome, apostate church-and-state Protestantism, and the last world-worship of the beast, which will come under the restoration of the Papacy. Chapter 13.

6. All this is presented before us again in a later phase in the seven-headed, scarlet-colored beast, upon which sits apostasy enthroned, guiding that beast to her own glory. The twelfth chapter of Revelation shows that the instigator of all evil and persecution is the dragon; the thirteenth chapter shows that that dragon uses the church-and-state governments of the world to persecute God's children; but in the last phase we are shown that there is an intermediate agent which Satan uses, and that is the great mystical harlot, Babylon, the mother of abominations in the earth, sitting upon the beast, representing the devil power, and in her hand a wine cup full of the filthiness of abominations with which she has deceived and made drunken the nations of the earth; and this same influence is potent all through the great antagonistic dynasties of earth. These have generally been restrained of God. He makes the wrath of men to praise Him; the remainder of wrath He restrains. And so it has been through all the periods of the past; and yet since our Lord Himself came, the church has been filling up what was left behind of the sufferings of her Master; great persecutions have come upon His people.

The last phase is yet to come, and this is clearly foretold in Revelation 17. In this threefold setting forth of the seven-headed opposers of the truth of God there are certain of these heads peculiarly emphasized. The chronological view-point of each line of prophecy is different. In other words, the "IS" of the prophecy comes at a different time in the reign of the beast power. That of chapter 12 is the beginning of the Christian era. The "IS" of the beast, the head ruling at that time, is that of pagan Rome. The chronological view-point of the 13th chapter, or the "IS" of the beast there, is during the 1,260 years of papal persecution; but the "IS" of Revelation 17 lies this side of the papal persecution; in the present condition of things in this world. It shows that the message of that chapter is that which is pending now; and God's great threefold warning of Rev. 14: 6-14 can be better understood, more fully appreciated and more clearly given, by the recognition of this great fact.

7. Last of all in this wonderful book comes the sevenfold dénouement. It is the last sevenfold act of the drama. We have the gathering forces of evil and good, with Christ the regnant One. We have the utter defeat of apostasy; we have the righteous and the wicked revealed in Christ's presence, the righteous able to endure the glory of His coming—in fact, rejoicing in it, the wicked perishing before His insufferable splendor. We have the desolated earth; we have the resurrection of the wicked and the final deception; we have the last great tragedy of Satan with all his host, root and branch, perishing in the overwhelming glory of God.

And then, the last development of all is the lifting of the curtain of the Revelation upon righteousness regnant forever. From this earth, cursed and blasted and blighted by sin, which God designed should be ever fair and glorious, that curse has been wiped away. Then it is said, "There shall be no more curse"—"no more falling away." "The throne of God and of the Lamb shall be in it; and His servants shall serve Him; and they shall see His face; and His name shall be in their foreheads." O, how long have the children been separated from their Father! They have believed Him, they have felt His presence, they have known His sustaining power; now they will see His face. The smiles of God shall wipe away all tears, illuminate all faces, cheer all hearts forever, in that kingdom which shall know eternal progress and everlasting joy.