THE REWARDS FOR OVERCOMERS
By D. M.
PANTON, B.A.
That
by ‘overcomers’ our Lord does not mean believers
in general, the mixed mass of the saved, but - as the word implies - a faithful and conquering section only,
is put beyond all doubt by one crucial and decisive case. "Thou hast a few
names," He says to the Sardian Angel (Rev. 3: 4) - ‘names’;
as though looking over the Angel’s shoulder at the church roll lying open
before Him - who, because clean-robed, should one day walk with Him in white. These ‘few,’
walking in sanctity, cannot be the only regenerate souls in Sardis; for the
Lord accepts the whole church as an ‘ecclesia,’
that is, a body of the vitally ‘out-called’;
and the ‘dead’ Angel himself, who is not among
the ‘few names,’ is reminded of his conversion -
"Remember how thou hast received,
and didst hear." Throughout 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. Every one of the Churches our Lord thus
separates into two sections: only a perfect church could consist of one
division alone, and He names no such church: seven times He holds out peculiar
glories matching exceptional nobility, and seven times the gravest warnings (by
implication) ever given to the servants of God. In the words of Bengel:- "There is a remarkable
difference between each address and each promise. The address has immediate respect to the seven
Churches in Asia, and consequently also to all churches and pastors, in all
times and places: the promise, on the other hand, is given forth to all
spiritual conquerors, not excluding those in
THE TREE OF LIFE
The
first promise takes us back into the dawn of the world. It is
[* "These promises all refer to the blessings of the future
state of glory" (Alford).]
** "There can be no reference here
admitted to the lower
THE CROWN OF LIFE
The
only two churches which are blameless are the only two which are warned of
persecution; and the promise to
[*
"Before the end no man is crowned; though from
the beginning, and throughout all the conflict, the crown is held out and
exhibited as a reserved treasure" (Stier).
When one of Napoleon's generals asked
him for a marshal's baton, "It is not l,"
said Napoleon, "that make marshals; it
is viciory."]
THE WHITE STONE
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 the hidden manna"
- hidden because, as angels’ food (Psa. 78: 25) and bread of heaven (Psa. 105: 40), it is at present invisible* - "and I will give
him a white stone" - both white and lustrous, probably a diamond -
"and upon the stone a new name written, which no
one knoweth but he that receiveth it" (Rev.
2: 17). This marvellous gift is
probably a duplicate of the Urim and Thummim; on which appears, in divine crystal vision (of old
seen by the High Priest alone) a new name; a new name expressive of a new
blessedness, and a consequence of the new life kept new. The
conferring of a new name by our Lord always signified final approval as Kingdom
saints: so, in human honours, Scipio Africanus,
or
[* "The hidden manna
represents a benefit pertaining to the future Kingdom of glory" (Lange).]
NATIONAL AUTHORITY
The
promise to Thyatira reveals, among other things, the critically important truth
that these promises and warnings are purely and solely Millennial. "He that
overcometh, and he that keepeth" - 'watchfully
performs, obeys' (M. Stuart.) "my
works" - both the example and the precepts of Christ* - "unto the end" - 'therefore
these promises are never fulfilled in this life; the end of trial or probation,
or of life, is here meant' (Moses Stuart)**
- "to him will I give authority over the nations"
- 'I will make him king' (Moses
Stuart) - "and he shall rule them with a rod
of iron" (Rev. 2: 26). "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. The Only Begotten Son of God imparts to His
brethren, in so far as their sonship has been confirmed by victory, His own
power over the nations." That this royal rule is confined to the
Millennium is certain from nations shattered as pottery: 'crushed or shivered as multitudinous fragments collapsing
into an heap' (Alford): because
rebellious nations, foretold as in the Kingdom (Zech.
14: 18), are unknown in the
[*
Here is a grave proof that believers who, on principle, dissociate themselves
from the body of our Lord's teaching on the ground that it is ‘Jewish’ will, in that day, experience the saddest
disillusionment.
**
"So long as a man still lives on the earth,
however far he may have attained, he cannot say, I have overcome" (Hengstenberg). The highest that is now possible is a
strongly assured hope: "We desire that each one of you may show the same
diligence unto the full assurance of HOPE even to
the end" (Heb. 6: 11).
***
"He that overcometh shall be present at the first
entrance and dawn of my true Kingdom over the
nations, and share it with me" (Stier).
The comment of Victorinus is:-
"I will give him the first resurrection."]
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" (Rev. 3: 5). The little band of the
undefiled bursts into glory in the dawn. 'They who have kept
their garments here, as a few in Sardis had done, shall have brighter garments
given them' (Trench), glittering robes: 'the bright
garments,' as Dr. Stier says, 'are something other and greater than the clean,
of which they are the reward.' As Dean Alford says: 'They
have kept their garments undefiled: they of all others then are the persons who
should walk in the glorious white robes of heavenly triumph.'*
[*
"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" (E. G.
Craven, D.D.).]
THE IMMOVABLE PILLAR
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, for any cause,
either of 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" (Rev. 3: 12).
The victor’s probation is finally over:
stability in grace culminates in stability in glory: more than a ‘living stone’ quarried by grace for the heavenly
THE THRONE
‘The
rewards (as Dr. Stier says) close on their
highest peak: the severest rebuke of all is counterpoised by the most lustrous
promise of all. 'It gathers all the promises into one' (Alford). To the Laodicean the
Lord says:- "He that
overcometh, I will give to him to sit down with Me in my throne";
(the Eastern throne is much ampler and broader than ours: Trench):* "as I also
overcame, and sat down with my Father in His throne" (Rev. 3: 21). Our Lord’s throne, as separate from the
Father’s, is purely and solely the Messianic, the Millennial; for
it never appears before or after the Kingdom: and therefore the proof here is
beyond challenge or doubt that, whoever the overcomer is, to him, and to him
alone, belongs a share in Millennial Royalty. None can ever share the eternal Throne of God
and the Lamb. It is obvious that though
the lukewarm Laodicean is converted - "as many as I love I rebuke and chasten"
(Rev. 3: 19)** - co-session on the Lord’s Throne is impossible
to him as a lukewarm Laodicean, in
momentary peril of being spewed out of the mouth of Christ. 'This enthronization,'
as Prof. 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.' The
overcomer (the Lord says) conquers in the sense that He conquered;
"even as I also overcame":
which, obviously, is not conversion, but life-long sanctity. Thus to a believer’s grossest carnality is
presented, so long as the day of grace has not yet merged into the day of
wrath, the most golden reward; and 'these promises,'
as Dr. Seiss has said, 'are
to brace up the courage of the Church, to carry her to the pitch of bearing the
cross and crucifying herself with Christ, and actualizing her professed
expatriation from this world.'
[*
"‘In my
throne’ (See Greek text), which occurs nowhere
else" ( A. Plummer, D.D.).]
**
A proof of his conversion past all doubt is his ‘star’
shining in the Upper Sanctuary (Rev. 1: 16),
locked in the grasp out of which none can pluck.]
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FOOTNOTES
EUMENIA
An
extraordinary proof that a Laodicean believer can
nevertheless (through grace appropriated) achieve the summit of devotion before
he dies is found in the neighbourhood of
THE THRONE
Yet
beyond all approaching cataclysms of the end, good and evil, Scripture lifts
the vision of the Throne. "So you intend to be a
reformer of man’s morals, young man," said an aged peer to Wilberforce.
"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, the end
will be - ‘Sit
with Me in my throne.’"
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