Bible Commentaries

Revelation 7:6

The Servants of God Sealed.

I. The passage from the book of Revelation selected as the Epistle for All Saints' Day, while it carries our thought onward to the glories of the world to come, is a most striking reminiscence of old Hebrew history. The constitution of the twelve tribes, the names of the sons of Jacob, come into view once more, as it were, on the threshold of eternity, even as the memory of childhood often grows wonderfully fresh again when an old man is about to pass into the other world.

II. We must not fail to notice the great comfort contained in the word "sealed." The expression seems clearly to imply two things: first, that those who bear this seal are recognised by God as belonging to Him; and secondly, that they are safe. As regards the safety of the saints, it is difficult for us to imagine any being endowed with free-will and subject to moral responsibility to be exempt from the possibility of failing; but if we were to follow speculation in such a matter, it would lead to no results. It seems to be clearly revealed to us that part of the blessedness of the saints will consist in their security.

III. Look at the broad, general fact that in the enumeration before us the tribe of Dan is omitted. Of what does this remind us? Surely of this: that in the great gathering of the saints at the last some who have had rich opportunities will not be there. Even in the course of Christian Church history hitherto, communities which were once full of hope have been quite or almost obliterated, just as rivers which in their earlier course flowed full and strong have been lost and become feeble in the sands. And as with communities, so with separate souls: those who have been equal in privilege will not be together in the end.

IV. Asher was an obscure and insignificant tribe, yet of Asher, as well as of Joseph, or Benjamin, or Judah, were sealed twelve thousand. Spiritual blessings do not depend on earthly fame and greatness, or on any questions of mere numerical proportion.

J. S. Howson, Our Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, p. 161.

Revelation 7:9

The Festival of All Saints.

The Festival of All Saints is related in conception to, yet distinct from, the Festival of All Angels. For while the latter speaks of angelic victory, the former speaks only of human victory over evil. It was considered to be the feast of the glorification of human nature by Christ. Now what is it which glorifies human nature? It is expressed in the name of this festival: it is saintliness.

I. There are many associations into which to enter is fame: companies of warriors, societies of science, bands of poets, circles of statesmen, orders of honour; but the most ancient, the most memorable, and the most continuous, continuous even for ever and ever, is the order of all the saints. For it is not only an earthly society; it does not belong to one nation alone; it does not seek its members only out of one age of history. It began with the beginning of the race. It has drawn its members out of every nation, and kindred, and tongue. It is existent in the world beyond the grave. The constant, ceaseless work of the society is the overthrow of evil.

II. The war against evil which the Head of the Church and all the army of the saints are waging now will end, not when the victims of evil are damned or destroyed, but when the evil itself in them is consumed. In every soul of man, by the giving of joy or the giving of suffering, by a thousand means, each fitted to a thousand characters, God will do His conquering work. Those who have already won the crown of saintliness are fellow-labourers with Him in the work of redemptive warfare. The power and the life of Christ are not only powerful and living upon earth: He is redeeming all in the other world. He continues to redeem.

III. Note some of the principles of the life of this great society, and apply them to the minor society of the English nation. (1) In the Church of Christ, each true member is an enthusiast in his work. His heart glows; his tongue cannot be basely silent, though often wisely silent. He feels inspired by the Spirit of God within him. He would rather die than be false to Christ. Ought not that to be the feeling of the citizen towards the nation, enthusiasm, not untaught and rude, but cultured by thought on great questions and tempered by the experience of the past? He who feels the enthusiasm of the Church of Christ ought above all men to be freed himself, and to free others, from political apathy. (2) Both the Church of Christ and the English nation have a glorious past. The Christian and the Englishman are both the children of heroes. The freedom of both in their several spheres has been that of slow and dignified growth, and is of that firm, rooted character which creates the reverence which makes love lasting. (3) In the vast society of which I speak, each man lives for his brother, not for himself; men are united by common love to Christ. We should recognise as Englishmen the same principle. (4) There is one last lesson which the Christian Church teaches us: it condemns, not only local, but also national, selfishness. The time has come in this age to carry out the same principle in the wide politics of the world; the time has come to regulate our relation with other nations by the words, "Do unto other nations as ye would that they should do unto you."

S. A. Brooke, Sermons, p. 290. Revelation vii., vers. 9, 10

The Blessed Saints.

I. The phrase "communion of saints," which is so often on our lips, reminds us that not only is there in heaven a society of just ones made perfect, but also on earth a band of servants of the Lord, who are pressing forward to the high mark of saintliness, who are living a saintly life by reason of their very endeavours to submit to the guidance of a loving Lord. We cannot have sympathy for the saints in heaven unless we have sympathy for the saints on earth, for all the good and noble souls who are working for the Lord in the Church on earth. If the phrase "communion of saints" is to be to us other than a fine-sounding one, emptied of all real meaning, if it is to be to us the centre of a realm of thought which we can never weary of exploring, we must first be assured that the transformation which the Lord has perfected in the saints has been commenced within ourselves. As He perfected that transformation in the saints in glory, so He is still carrying it on in the saints who walk yet on earth in the path of humiliation and duty, and so will He commence and carry it on if we will but trust in Him.

II. Holy men and women there have been in all branches of the Christian Church. Not all their names are inscribed on an earthly roll-call. The true calendar, from which not the name of the humblest saint is absent, is in the Lord's keeping. As we get to know more and more of those who have lived lives of holiness and usefulness, we feel that the limits of any one branch of the Church catholic are too narrow for the flow of our awakened sympathy; and we are fain to acknowledge that God's inspiring love acts upon the hearts not only of His children in our own Church, but also of His children in other Churches and in other lands, and that all Churches in which the life of Christ is manifested in the lives of His members form but one grand Holy Catholic Church.

H. N. Grimley, Tremadoc Sermons, p. 63.

The Communion of Saints.

I. This passage suggests (1) the universal character of the communion of God's people, and (2) the bond which cemented and still continues to cement it. All persons who are tempted to think that they and those who agree with them alone are in the right, all persons disposed to be exclusive in judging of the characters of others, may learn a lesson of wisdom and charity from the vision of St. John. If they could but look to the end, if they could see the battle of life with the eyes of God and of those whom His Spirit most inspires, they would see that as there are many mansions in our Father's house, so there are many roads that lead to them. Does not All Saints' Day witness for us, first, that all Christ's people are substantially one at heart; secondly, that many are Christ's people who are not thought so by others, and who hardly dare to think themselves so? If we can once believe that Christ, through His Spirit, is the sole Author of all good, we must believe this also. The belief in the communion of saints follows necessarily on the belief in the Holy Ghost.

II. Those whom St. John saw in this vision had all one distinguishing characteristic: suffering followed by purification—purification, not by their own unaided constancy, but by the blood of the Son of God. These are the marks which stamp Christ's servants, the passports which conduct through the gates of the holy city to the steps of the eternal throne. It is to the struggle, the terrible struggle, with temptation, the constant fall, the timid rising again; to the confession of weakness forced upon us by the consciousness of degradation; to the belief that Christ, in our utmost need, has come to us with a free and wholly undeserved pardon; it is to the wounds and scars which the battle has left on us, and which even the Physician of souls can never wholly efface on earth; it is to suffering, to what St. John truly calls "great tribulation," that we ascribe our admission into the kingdom of God. For the youngest, as for the oldest, life must be a process of purification; and that purification can only come from the Lord Jesus Christ.

H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons, p. 188.

The Great Multitude.

I. The multitude. The sight of a multitude is, in its way, as attractive as a magnet; we run to see the object which has gathered it together, and this may very properly be done in the present instance. (1) The vastness of the multitude is most remarkable; (2) the variety of the multitude is no less remarkable than the vastness of it: "of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues."

II. Their position. Attaching to their position there is evidently (1) a transcendent honour; (2) a superlative happiness.

III. Their adornment. We notice—(1) the spotless purity of their adornment: "white robes"; (2) its triumphal character: "palms in their hands."

IV. Their worship. (1) The song of their worship is replete with interest, the subject of it is salvation, the object God Himself. (2) The service of their worship is full of interest; it is full of both fervour and harmony.

E. A. Thomson, Memorials of a Ministry, p. 319.

All Saints' Day.

I. Let us ask, What is the use of festivals at all? Why should we keep our saints' days and our Christmas Day, our Good Friday and our Ascension Day? One day is not better than another, and all the bishops in the world cannot make it better, nor make it a different day from what it is. But is it not meet and right that we should celebrate our birthdays, as men and women born into the world, and celebrate our benefactors' days, as scholars of this or that foundation, or celebrate our victories or escapes, as sharers in the nation's weal and the nation's glory? and is it not at least as meet and right that as Christians, bound together by a common faith in Christ our Lord, we should celebrate our festival days too, and, lest men should pass over too lightly this or that scene in the Saviour's life, this or that act of devotion, and zeal, and heroic self-sacrifice on the part of His followers in bygone ages, that we should be called upon periodically to refresh our memories on this point or on that? The world at large is so careful and troubled about many things that we may well excuse it if here and there a Mary seems to sit with too rapt a gaze at Jesus's feet while her more active kinsfolk are toiling at life's daily labours.

II. Why should there be a festival for the saints unnamed and unknown? This festival was founded for the very purpose to preserve us from forgetting that men are very poor judges of who God's saints are. It is to remind us that, however much the world may require of us intellect, or knowledge, or strength, or position before it will give us any honour or allow us to take rank among its great ones, yet there is a company before the throne of the Lamb into whose rank the meek and lowly are welcomed, a company whose example on earth we should do well to imitate, and whose song in heaven we should strive to echo, "Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb."

A. Jessopp, Norwich School Sermons, p. 129.

References: Revelation 7:9, Revelation 7:10.—Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 270. Revelation 7:9-11.—S. A. Brooke, Church of England Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 55; H. P. Liddon, Ibid., vol. vii., p. 31.

Revelation 7:13

Heavenly Raiment.

I. Here, in the text, we are presented to a great, victorious company. These pure, victorious ones are as numerous as they are beautiful; from all nations they come; all languages have they spoken; yet have they all been beaten and bruised with the tribulations of the world, and they have come not only out of affliction, but out of great affliction. They were cleansed; their hearts were cleansed, and their garments too. Often in the world they were dressed in meanness, in shame, in sadness, in toil; but all is changed: instead of meanness there is splendour, instead of weakness strength, instead of a heavy heart garments of praise, instead of shame the robe of purity, instead of toil the dress and the palm that denote victory. But how came they to be dressed meanly in this world? Consider what dress is, and how, though it may represent you if you can attain it, you may be unable to attain the material of which to form dress corresponding to your true character. Our dress is made of that which the world around supplies to us. If it be a stupid world, we cannot be robed in such a dress of bright intelligence as we would fain put on; if it be an evil world, we cannot be robed in a joyful dress full of holy excellence. We cannot clothe ourselves as we could if the general sense of mankind were higher. The victorious ones had been clothed meanly (1) because the state of the world was evil, and (2) because their own state was imperfect.

II. He that cleanses his heart cleanses his raiment, and if your heart be refined by the fires of God, then all that is exterior to you will be washed by the waves of the world. Though all this beautiful apparel of saints in heaven is indeed the gift of God by the inward work of His Spirit, from within passing outwardly to the very body and the very raiment—I say, though it is the gift of God, in a certain true sense it is woven by ourselves. Man is but a worm, yet he spins material out of which God adorns heaven. "What are these?" said the reverend elder; "whence came they?" he cried with exulting tone. "Son of man, canst thou tell?" Let the youth of the world hear the voice of this elder. These are the choice ones of this earth, the chief in spiritual contests, the agonised, the disparaged, the killed, the flower of the Church's chivalry, who represent in their victorious love and beautiful apparel the whole company of the saved. In the flood and the fire they heard a voice say, "Onward!"; on the steep of the mountain they heard a voice say, "Upward!" And when a sad voice called, "All flesh is grass," the flesh of saint and of sinner, they could answer, "The grass that withereth is clothed in goodly raiment, finer its flowers than kings' robes; and are we not kings and priests unto our God? and, much more, will He not clothe us?"

T. T. Lynch, Three Months' Ministry, p. 70.

References: Revelation 7:13, Revelation 7:14.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii., No. 1040; A. Mackennal, Christian World Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 300.

Revelation 7:13-15

Who are Saints?

I. Notice what we certainly do not mean when we speak of men being saints of God. (1) I find no warrant for believing that the asceticism which appears to have so strange a charm for some minds is pleasing to God, and I find a great deal to convince me that it is even contrary to the spirit of Christian liberty. (2) As self-imposed pain, or discomfort, or poverty does not in any way make a man a saint, so neither is it necessary that there should be any pain or discomfort required of us at all I say it is not necessary; I do not say more. Suffering, even for Christ's sake, does not make a man a saint, but saintliness will make any man brave enough to suffer. (3) Mere blamelessness does not make a saint of Christ.

II. Who, then, is the true saint? Our text will lead us to the right answer. (1) First, the saints have passed through great tribulation. The first element of saintliness is sorrow for sin; the truest tribulation is that which remorseful grief for sin occasions. (2) The second element in this sanctity is this: that along with shame and sorrow for sin there should be also faith in the Saviour of sinners, for these saints had washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (3) The third element in this saintliness is a spirit of devotion. They are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple, not with a formal, ascetic devotion which trusts to times and places too exclusively. But surely there can be no true sanctity without the spirit of prayer, and that spirit of prayer cannot be kept alive without the frequent act of prayer also.

A. Jessopp, Norwich School Sermons, p. 139.

Reference: Revelation 7:14.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxii., No. 1316.

Revelation 7:14

We owe very little debt to those who take this out of the grand signification, and say that it belongs to the "multitudes" of Constantine, or the "Constantine age." I would far rather keep to the simple ideas of my childhood, and see in it nothing but a beautiful description of the saints in heaven. Now of all these beautiful words perhaps the most important, certainly the most instructive, is the word "therefore." For this is what we want to know, not, Are they happy? or, What do they? All that we may leave. There is no doubt about that. But why are they there? How did they come there? This is the question which concerns us.

I. And so I ask, Where in the sentence does "therefore" come? I observe that it comes after two things: "tribulation" and "washing," but directly and strictly only after "washing." We might disconnect the latter part of the sentence from the "tribulation," but we could not separate it from the "washing." The order might be that the "tribulation" leads to the "washing," and the "washing" leads to the glory. But it could not be the "tribulation" without the "washing," though it might be the "washing" without the "tribulation." Never think that affliction takes anybody to heaven. It very often conducts further from it. Affliction may lead to the fountain, and the fountain is in the road to the throne. If you go to the fountain, you will at last find yourself before the throne. But "tribulation," whatever it be, saves no one. Only "the washing the robes and making them white in the blood of the Lamb" ever does that.

II. It is very easy to misunderstand that word "tribulation." It sounds like something so very severe. But what I wish to point out is this: that the text does not say that the experience of saints must be very bitter, or the pain very intense. The word used is "friction," the rubbing which goes to make the fine polish or the exquisite edge. And it amounts to this: "These are they which came out of the refining processes of great friction." And what Christian has not friction?—the friction of his two natures clashing; the friction of his besetting sins; the friction of some character in the world with whom he has to do; the friction of some daily duty; the friction of a constant uneasiness; the friction of some weary trial, some continual sore. If there be no more, there is that. And that at least must be. It may not be of many sorts, or it may not be of great importance; but we have it twice—in St. Paul's exhortation to the Churches of Asia Minor and the elder's testimony to St. John—"We must through much friction"—it is the same word—"We must through much friction enter into the kingdom of God." It may be a comfort to some who have no overwhelming griefs, but who have abundance of wearing, harassing vexations, that even in that they may fulfil the condition.

III. But if the "tribulation" be the inevitable accompaniment, the cleansing is the essential and the primary cause of all saintship. For then has the "tribulation" done its work, when it has humbled and emptied the heart to such a sinking sense of sin as drives it to the fountain of the cross of Jesus. "They washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb." In the great temple of nature and truth; in the holy places of His handiwork; in the holiest of holies, in His Church, by day, after our feeble power, and by night, when we glorify God by our resting; in the sunshine of the consciousness of saints and the shadows of pain and impotence, we serve God; and this service of ours goes up acceptably through the very same perfume and the same incense of Jesus which makes the service of angels acceptable. And He who is present there is present here; and they know that we have Him, and we know that they have Him. They are perfect reflectors; we are imperfect reflectors. And these, the service, and the presence, and the image, are to be for ever and for ever; and they make "the communion of the saints."

J. Vaughan, Sermons, 14th series, p. 101.

Revelation 7:16

"No More" and "More.".

There are four things asserted here:—

I. All need is supplied: "They shall hunger no more, for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them." (1) Look at the source of the supply. This is sixfold: (a) love which passeth knowledge; (b) power to which nothing is hard; (c) wisdom Divine and infinite; (d) providence minute and universal; (e) oneness of feeling without check; (f) closeness of relationship. (2) Mark the character of the supply. This is in harmony with the source. The source is love, and the supply is generous. It is well sustained, suitable, varied, acceptable, and grateful to the recipient.

II. All desire gratified. There are four qualities clothing this gratification of desire. (1) It is pure, unselfish; (2) it is full, nothing left to be given; (3) it is wholesome and invigorating; (4) it is Divine, of a godly sort.

III. All trouble prevented. It is impossible for trouble to befall us when God places Himself between us and grief.

IV. All sadness taken away and kept away. Then—(1) weep not for the dead who have died in the Lord; (2) shrink not from a rapid approach to immortality; (3) make not heaven your god, or going to heaven your goal and your end, but remember, nevertheless, that God has heaven prepared for you; (4) praise your Saviour, to whom you owe heaven and every good.

S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 224.

References: Revelation 7:16, Revelation 7:17.—Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx., No. 1800. Revelation 7:17.—Ibid., vol. xi., No. 643; Talmage, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 233.