REWARDS FOR OVERCOMERS
By D. M. PANTON
The Seven Churches to whom our Lord writes stand (as Victorious, the first of all
commentators on the Apocalypse, says)
for the entire Church, the complete society of the saved, the Church universal;
and after the Lords unerring finger has separated its sanctified members from
the unsanctified, the spiritual from the carnal, the conquerors from the
conquered, He discloses stupendous
glories and incalculable perils, both made wholly contingent on faithfulness or
unfaithfulness, up to the moment of the Advent.
The same exhortation at the close of all the
seven epistles [to overcome] denotes the
victory of a stedfast life of faith over temptations and trials, and over all
adverse things in general (Lange). Throughout all the Letters it is he
that overcometh not an overcoming
church, nor even an overcoming group, but the solitary saint shining like a
star above a corrupt church and a midnight world. Seven times our Lord holds out peculiar
glories matching exceptional nobility, and seven times the gravest warnings
ever given to the servants of God. In the words of Dean Alford:- The power here spoken of is
that which shall be conferred on the saints when they shall inherit the earth
and reign with Christ in His [Millennial] Kingdom.
The
first Church named is Ephesus, and to its Angel He says:- To him that overcometh - a verb
without an object; not an overcomer of some specific object only, but a
victor altogether one who perseveres in his Christian course (Moses Stuart):
to him - throughout the overcomer is singled
out with peculiar emphasis, to him, and to him only will
I give to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God (Rev. 2: 7). Paradise
is the abode of the blessed dead [in Sheol / Hades], whither our Lord went [immediately
after death] with the dying Thief: the Paradise of God is
[* There can be no reference
here to the lower
The Crown
The
only two churches which are without blame in the Letters are the only two which
are warned of persecution; and the promise to the overcomer in
[*
It is not asserted in this passage that the names of any who shall finally perish
were ever entered in the Book of Life, nor is it necessarily implied - MNGSTENBERG.]
A Secret Name
To
the overcoming Pergamite is promised a reward second to none in its exquisite wonder:
it is the loftiest peak of intimacy with God ever revealed in the Bible, and
ever experienced in eternity. To him that overcometh,
to him will I give of the hidden manna - hidden because, as angels
food (Ps. 78: 25) and the bread of heaven (Ps. 105: 40) it is at present invisible and I will give him
a white stone - white and lustrous, probably a diamond and upon the stone a new name written, which no one knoweth
but he that receiveth it. This
marvellous gift is probably a duplicate of the Urim and Thummim on which
appears, in divine crystal vision, but seen by the High Priest alone, a new name expressive of a new blessedness,
and the consequence of a new life kept now.
A token of reward and approval from the Son of
God (Dean Alford), will be
for ever a secret between the overcomer and his (or her) Lord; an innermost
shrine known only to these two for all eternity.
Royalty
The
promise to Thyatira reveals the critically important truth that these promises and warnings are purely and
solely Millennial. He that overcometh, and he that
keepeth watchfully performs, obeys
(Moses Stuart) my works - both the example and the precepts of Christ
unto the end
- therefore the promises are never
fulfilled in this life: the end of trial or probation, or of life, is
here meant (Moses Stuart)
to him mill I give authority over the nations, and he shall rule them with a rod of iron:
I will make him King (Moses Stuart). He who conquers,
as Dr. Swete says, is he who keeps: works are in these addresses to the Churches constantly used as
the test of character. That this
royal rule is in the Millennium is certain from nations being shattered as
pottery, crushed or shivered, as multitudinous
fragments collapsing into a heap (Alford);
for rebellious nations are unknown in the Eternal State. The iron sceptre,
says Dr. E. C. Craven, is not promised to the Church Militant, as an organization,
and not to individuals in the present state of conflict, but to those who, at
the end, should appear as conquerors. Or as Dr.
Steir says:- Assuredly it is the
White Robes
The
Sardian promise gives, more than any other, the direct relationship between
sanctity and glory. He that overcometh shall thus be arrayed in white garments;
and I will in no wise blot his name out of the book of life; and I will confess
his name before my Father and before his angels. In the words of Archbishop Trench:- They who have kept
their garments here, as a few in
A New Name
The
Philadelphian reward reveals peculiarly the stability of coming glory. He that overcometh,
I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go out thence no
more: expelled no more for ever, either by external foe or internal
sin: and I will write upon him the name of my God, and
the name of the city of my God, and mine own new name. The victors probation is finally over:
stability in grace culminatds in stability in glory: more than a living stone
quarried by grace for the heavenly
Enthronement
The
rewards (as Dr. Steir says) close on
their highest peak: the severest rebuke of all is counterpoised by a promise
which, as Dean Alford says, gathers all the promises into one. To the Laodicean Angel the Lord says:- He that overcometh I will give to him to sit with me in my
throne; the Eastern throne is much ampler and broader than ours (Trench): as I
also - as I correspondingly overcame, and
sat down with my Father in his throne. Our Lords throne, as separate from the Fathers,
is purely and solely the Messianic, the
Millennial: so the proof here is beyond challenge or doubt that to the overcomer alone belongs Millennial
Royalty: none will ever share the throne of God and the Lamb. The overcomer (our Lord says) conquers exactly
as He did: that is, this royalty is not
hereditary, but achieved by life-long sanctity. Though the Angel is converted as many as I love I rebuke and chasten (Rev. 3: 19), co-session on Messiahs Throne is
impossible so long as he is a lukewarm Laodicean, in momentary peril of being spewed out of the mouth of Christ. This enthronement, as Moses Stuart says, will be granted to all
who prove to be final victors in the contest with the world, the flesh, and the
devil. An aged Peer said to Wilberforce:-
So you intend to be a reformer, young man: that - and
he pointed to a picture of the Crucifixion - is the end of reformers. Is it?
replied Wilberforce: I have read in an old Book this,
- I am he that liveth, and was dead, and behold
I am alive for evermore. That is the end, not death
but dominion; and if we be faithful, it is co-session on the Throne.
Hearing Ears
We
do well to heed the warning of Hengsteriberg:- So long as a man still lives on the earth, however far he
may have attained, he cannot say, I have overcome. To every one of the Seven Churches our Lord
says:- He that hath ears to hear, let him hear what the Spirit saith - is
saying to the churches.* Have we ears to hear? An intelligent young woman once remarked that
she became a Christian upon hearing her very first sermon; and yet she was not
converted until she was twenty-one years of age, and she had been a church
attendant from childhood. She had heard
hundreds of sermons, but until that sermon in her twenty-first year she had never
heard one. God
grant us ears that hear.
[*
Our Lord dictated the Letters to the Seven Churches: the Holy Spirit repeats
them to all churches throughout all the world, in all time.]
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