05 The Warrior Lamb

Chapter 5 THE WARRIOR LAMB Workmen of God! oh lose not heart, But learn what God is like, And in the darkest battle-field Thou shalt know where to strike.

Thrice blest is he to whom is given The instinct that can tell That God is on the field when He Is most invisible.

Then learn to scorn the praise of men, And learn to lose with God, For Jesus won the world through shame, And beckons thee His road.

It has been said truly that the reach and scope of Christ’s gospel are so large, that we cannot follow all its lines. There is an under-lying unity which we cannot thoroughly master — the action of a great principle, which we are not able to express except by a paradox. Thus Christianity binds together statements apparently intensely opposed, and we are prone, for refuge, to fall into the easy and misleading habit of accepting one side of the truth and ignoring the other. In Jesus Christ paradox reaches its climax. All contradictions meet in Him, and are reconciled so quietly, so without strain or effort, as to assure us that in Him we have found the full truth. He is the Lamb, the very ideal of innocence and gentleness, and yet He is the Judge, the enemy, the warrior. And here we have Him figured as the great antagonist of the beast, whom He is ultimately to subdue. The spiritual lesson is the same, whatever view we take of the person before the apostle’s mind, and whether or not we believe in a future historical realization of the vision. It is sufficient for our purpose to say, that the beast represents that element in man against which Jesus Christ fights. We shall look at two things — First, the foe ; and secondly, the manner in which the Lamb fights against him and overcomes.

I

First, then, we have the beast — the foe in man. As we have seen, when John wrote this book, the power of the beast seemed dominant in the world. Forms of evil, strange, terrible, and overpowering, prevailed and made themselves manifest in glaring and appalling clearness. Now, while the power of the beast element in man is not now so palpable, while there are signs, as we shall see, that it is in a measure weakened, not even the blindest can deny the extent and the depth of his sway. It is true that great efforts have been made to disguise the hideous face of evil. It is true, speaking generally, that in our popular literature the worst forms of animalism are suppressed, and the delicacy and reticence of society in speaking on certain themes, or rather their complete banishment, are to some extent proofs of progress. It is true that the slaves of evil and the tempters to evil do not ply their trade so unrestrainedly as once they did, and it is true that the hearts and consciences of Christian people have been awakened, as perhaps never before, to their responsibilities in connection with the disfigurements and perils of national life. But, after all, is there much to congratulate ourselves upon? In our great cities the forces of the law seem to be paralyzed in the face of certain iniquities which lift themselves unabashed, and press themselves in their most hideous forms upon the notice even of the most innocent. The best and the most earnest lovers of their kind, have been driven into the deepest perplexities as to how legislation is to cope with evils that seem almost too great for its force. Many of the purest and noblest spirits of our time have been forced to the conclusion, that it is hopeless to expect the destruction of certain evils ; that nothing more is possible than to regulate and control them. Nor is there so much to congratulate ourselves upon in our literature. The taint may not be so gross, but it’s there, though in a subtler form, and not less seductive because it is somewhat disguised ; and though much is suppressed, we have now and then terrible indications of what lies behind and beneath that silence, and finds expression in its own place and time. The development of intellect and culture has done nothing to destroy the power of beasthood. Nay, the intellect has often been used to devise new refinements of sin, and from under the decorous exterior, ever and anon leap out startling manifestations of the animal. Even in the best this power is often agonizingly felt. Some of the holiest lives the world has ever known have been darkened and shortened through struggles with the animal nature — the changed soul in the unchanged body, fretting in its prison. And this is the explanation of the astounding falls from high position and profession that often terrify us, and which lead all wise men to pray with St Augustine — "The Lord deliver me from that wicked man myself." It is not our business to inquire how far the intellect itself is distorted and perverted through the passions. A striking phrase in one of the prophets says, that the sins of the people are written upon the horns of the altar, and much of our popular religion, with its poor and shallow conceptions of sin and righteousness, may take its rise from man’s sin. At any rate, the fact remains that the power of the beast, is as it has been, the mightiest in the world.

II

Against this enemy the Lamb of God wars. We shall consider his war mainly as the Lamb of God, but there is another side which must not be overlooked:

1. The punitive and terrible side of Christ’s nature is manifested in his war against sin. That there is such an aspect of the gentle Christ is clearly taught in the Old Testament, where men are warned to kiss the Son lest He be angry, and they perish in the way when his wrath is kindled but a little. The revelation of the New Testament does not supersede although it supplements the Old. It is in this book of Revelation that we read of Jesus Christ having eyes like a flame of fire, and feet like fine brass — eyes of flame to show His knowledge of man’s sin, and the indignation it kindles in him, and feet like fine brass to show the active energy which follows upon His clear perception of evil and His indignation against it. We must take the whole Christ as He is presented to us ; and indeed the beauty and preciousness of the gentle aspect is greatly limited, and lowered when we ignore the other side in which he appears as the Judge and Avenger of evil. This punitive and destroying energy of Christ is a fact of history as well as a fact of Scripture. All along history we have examples of institutions contrary to the will of Christ which have suddenly perished, not merely from an internal process of decay, nor because of the power of their enemies amongst men, but simply by the destructive energy of a Christ who, grown weary of them, lifted his heavy foot to crush them. When friends predicted a long lease of life, when foes were faint at heart because the strength opposed to them seemed so great, in a moment, to the amazement of all, such institutions have suddenly vanished to the utter confusion of too confident prophets.

We do not need to go further back than to the crash of slavery in America. How little likely that seemed from any human point of view, and yet how sudden, complete, and miraculous the overthrow was, hardly explicable, save as a manifestation of the destroying energy of Christ.

Why and when does Christ use this destructive power ? He uses it because these things cannot be sanctified, and He uses it when the last hope of reformation from within has utterly vanished. Then force becomes a remedy, and force is applied. Hoary tyrannies, blood-cemented, are thrown to the ground. Churches, institutions, nations, individuals are visited with complete destruction, trampled beneath His feet in ruin. But this never happens until every hope of reformation is exhausted. Christ is able to turn with clean hands to a watching world, and say of every institution thus visited, " I gave her space to repent." His patience exceeds our own, and often when we say, ’ Cut it down, why cumbereth it the ground ? " He answers, "Let it alone this year also." Only, His coming in judgment, if it be slow, is sure, and institutions which will not listen to the voice of pleading and warning may hear the sound of the approaching footfalls of the Son of God coming to destroy them. The destruction He inflicts is complete. When some great evil vanishes from the world we know assuredly that, come what may, that horrid head at least shall never be reared again. With that wrong we are done for ever. When Christ does His work He does it effectually.

2. Although, as we have said, force in one sense is a remedy as against irreclaimable foes like these, yet there is a sense in which force is no remedy, for the true victory is the victory over the will. That is the victory which Christ values — not the victory of destruction, but the bringing of the rebellious will into loving allegiance to Him. And so He fights against the beast by His cross. His apostle, Paul, took for the motto of his strange and bold invasion of the world, " God forbid that I should glory, save in the cross." The antagonist to the sin of man is the grace of God in Christ.

(1) The cross tells us, first of all, that the antagonist of sin is not man, but God. Man’s antagonism to sin has always been short-lived and futile. All experience teaches that man is not able to prevail against sin. Our own experience is full of testimonies to the same truth to the vanity of our resolutions and struggles, to our certain and absolute defeat. Now, to men who, having lost hope, have almost given over the conflict, the cross is the message that God has taken the field, that He has ceased any more to be invisible, far off, or questionable ; that He has come to us in the person of His Son to help us in our else vain struggle against faults, and sins, and crimes. How wonderful the change from questioning whether there was a God at all, from conceiving Him, if we believed Him to exist, as an Avenger and a wrathful Judge ! We pass into a certain and clear knowledge of God — a knowledge which shows Him as the friend fighting for us in the battle against sin.

(2) The cross tells us that the attribute by which God fights against sin is His love. The very fact that Jesus Christ appeared in the flesh showed that God had made common cause with us ; and the fact that Jesus died upon the cross is the declaration that upon God’s part all hindrance is removed, and that His will, yea, His yearning desire, is that men should be reconciled to Him. It is by the sunshine of His love that He melts our hard hearts. Force is no remedy. Force may break in pieces the ice, and yet every fragment remains hard ; " sunshine makes it flow down in sweet water that mirrors the light that loosed its bonds of cold." The thunder of threatening may appall us, the power of God may humble us and crush us, but it is the love of God that brings back the lost, and wins the wayward heart, and quenches the fire of lust, and makes us His true children.

(3). The cross tells us that the crowning attribute of God is love. Love, as it were, is throned and sceptered, and uses all the other attributes of God as her tools and instruments. They all are but the "ministers of love, and feed her sacred flame." God is love. This is the message, above all others, that has gone to the heart of the world.

(4). Jesus Christ fights with His cross, and behind the cross are the energies of the Spirit. The cross is preached by faithful men who have Christ’s spirit in them, and work in a strength which is not their own, Jesus Christ is represented in this book as the Lord of the seven spirits and the seven stars. He differs from all other teachers in being able to pour out His Spirit ; and the way in which this Spirit works in the world is generally through men called, and chosen, and faithful, who are filled with that Spirit, and gain victories through its power. He has, as it were, in one hand the full flagon — the seven spirits ; in the other the empty vessel the seven stars. He pours life from one into the other. And when a Church is dying He sends stars — men like Wesley and Whitfield — to blow the embers into flame ; and every one fighting in this war of the Lamb has behind him, if he seeks them, the energies of this Divine and all-victorious Spirit. So then our confidence in the spread of religion depends on this — " I believe in the Holy Ghost." All opposition outside the Church, and all skepticism within it, are met by this answer. If we are sure that it is the war of the Lamb that we are fighting, then no matter what opposition of circumstances there may be ; no matter what combinations may be formed against us ; no matter what earthly obstacles and difficulties may rise ; we are to do our work with cheerful confidence, springing from our trust in the Divine Spirit, who will not fail us, and who is stronger than them all.

III

Such is the war the Son of God is fighting, and after eighteen hundred years of this war of the cross, what are we to say of the results ? Is the cross marching on to victory ? Now, whatever history lay behind us, we should have to say of what lies before us that " our hopes are bright as the promises of God." But is it possible for any one to look on the history of these years and not see the onward march of the cross of Christ ? Christ our Lord was a new birth. Christianity was a new energy breathed across the world. It is not without reason that all the years since He came have been called years of the Lord. The innumerable lives of virtue, the deathbeds of triumphant peace, the hundreds and thousands in every land who have not counted their lives dear to them for His sake, the innumerable host of believers taken home, the great company still militant, the energy and the hope with which Christianity has ever gone forward to annex new fields these are enough to rebuke our despondency, and to assure us that the Lamb is to conquer in His war. And what changes the cross has wrought upon society! Much that is evil still lingers, but, compared with the time of John — as one of our chief thinkers says — life seems now like a trained and serious manhood beside a wild and passionate childhood. And if there is much that still discourages and depresses us, let us remember that evil is to grow as well as good. Both grew together until the harvest. We wrestle with invisible powers, not affected by the progress of civilization, nor moved, save to enmity, by Christian influences. These forces exist, they have existed, and they will grow. Let us not be surprised at new and malignant outbreaks of the powers of evil — outbreaks which men of the world would indignantly deny to be possible. Many students of Scripture believe that as evil and good both grow, so at last they will come in conflict at the end of the world in a great struggle, in which the evil will be utterly put down, the close of the dispensation thus being in an evening red with blood. Whether it be so or not, let us not be alarmed at evil, not terrified by its growth. Let us behave as those who have been warned of this, who are prepared for it, and who are assured through all of the final triumph of the good.

2. How are we who are engaged in the war of the Lamb to look upon our weapon? Turn back and we see how in the worst and most fatal storms, the hopes of the kingdom of God and its springs of recovery have never been destroyed. Turn back and see how its language is for the many, not merely for the few. See how it meets the needs of the highest as well as the lowest — of Shakespeare, and Bacon, and Newton, as well of the poor who can hardly spell the words they trust in. Even as all men are equal before the facts of life, so all men need equally the grace of God in Christ. See how Christianity still exists after everything that undermines and ruins ideas and institutions has done its worst. See how even in our own day it still sends the thrill through men that it sent through them at first. See how in an age of culture the coarsest and crudest form of Christian teaching moves and sways the hearts of men, stirring them to the very depths. And shall we give up a faith like this, with all the overcoming and regenerating forces that are stored in it, with all its powers for righteousness, and all its hopes for men before the ominous aspects and prophecies of the hour, because of the ways of thinking of some of the leaders of the present generation? God forbid.

" O Lord, in Thee have I trust, let me never be confounded." "This is the victory that overcometh the world, even our faith." The bearer of this standard alone we count upon in the spiritual conflict wherein all Europe is engaging or engaged. "All the old signs and quarterings will soon be in the dust. The proudest banners of the earth are already tripping up their clansmen, or are bound in shreds around wounds they cannot staunch. If God would send us some young brave spirits to spur bareheaded in the stifling tumult, with a cross displayed on a fair white field, we might again subdue the world."