Exegetical and Hermeneutical Commentary of Revelation 7:17

Rev 7:17. For the Lamb, &c. Interpreters are not agreed in the proper meaning of this description. Some understand it of the peaceful and prosperous state of the church on earth; and certainly, in some cases, very strong expressions of prophetic style are to be softened to a sense which will agree to a happy state of the church in this world. But others, who observe the force of these expressions, and how much they agree with the descriptions of the new heavens and new earth, ch. 21 understand it of the happy state of the church for one thousand years, which they also suppose to be a resurrection state of the martyrs. I shall only observe, says Lowman, that as the time of the one thousand years is, according to the order of this prophesy, very distant from the time to which this part of it refers, I can by no means suppose the spirit of prophesy designed that this description should be applied to the state of the millennium; and though the description may be softened to such a sense, as may represent the peaceful and prosperous state of the church under Constantine, yet I think it rather refers to the complete happiness of the martyrs and confessors in heaven. See on Rev 7:10.

Inferences.With what kindness, care, and tenderness does God indulge his people, by giving them seasonable respites from the troubles of this evil world! Yea, so great is his favour toward them, that, for their sakes, he mercifully averts public judgments from those nations of the earth that permit them to live in peace and safety; and when, through the corruption of mankind, persecutions and dangerous errors threaten the faithful, he will take effectual care of them; and has a vast many thousands of them here below, who own, honour, and serve him. How should it animate their faith, patience, and courage, under all their tribulations for Christ, to think of the glorious, final, and eternal issue of them to persevering believers. God, in the riches of his grace, will abundantly more than compensate their severest hardships for his sake. Innumerable multitudes of them, from among all nations, shall shine in the brightest robes of purity, righteousness, and glory, being made white by the blood of the Lamb; and they shall triumph, as with palms of victory, joy, and praise in their hands; and shall worship God with un-wearied and uninterrupted pleasure in his heavenly temple above. God himself, as sitting on his throne of glory, will dwell, in the most immediate and delightful manner, among them, to banish all uneasiness far from them; and he, as the original fountain, and Jesus Christ as the purchaser and immediate bestower of all possible blessedness, will refresh and completely satisfy them with the most refined and transporting, substantial, and noble enjoyments, ever fresh and flowing, to the utmost of their enlarged capacities and desires. And O, with what cheerful acclamations in heaven will they disclaim all merit of their own, and ascribe the entire glory of their salvation to the free grace of God through the atoning sacrifice of his Son! And with what harmonious concert will all the holy angels join in celebrating the praises of God’s perfections, and of his works of nature, providence, and grace! To whom, together with the Lamb, be ascribed all glory for ever and ever. Amen.

REFLECTIONS.1st, The winds and storms of persecution are now for a while hushed in peace, and the church enjoys undisturbed tranquillity, while ministering angels, at the command of the great Angel of the covenant, who bore the impress of the living God, and seals his believing people with the Holy Spirit of promise, restrain for a while the desolating judgments which had before destroyed the earth.

2nd, The saints, who are here sealed out of the twelve tribes, are the emblems of the faithful saints of God converted to the power of Christianity out of the Jewish church. The tribes of Dan and Ephraim, as ring-leaders in idolatry, are omitted, a brand of just reproach being set upon them for such apostacy from God. Note; God’s people are always in some glorious measure sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise.

3rdly, We have a glorious scene of the happy state of the church, either during the millennium, as some suppose, or when the faithful shall have finally entered into their eternal rest.
1. They are a great multitude which no man could number; the blessed fruit of the preaching of the gospel over all the world.
2. They stand before the throne and before the Lamb, with holy boldness and sure acceptance, clothed with white robes, the emblems of honour, joy, and purity, and palms in their hands, in token of their glorious victories obtained over all their foes; for all God’s faithful saints shall assuredly be finally triumphant over their foes.

3. They lifted up their voices in loud hallelujahs, crying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb; all glory, praise, and adoration be ascribed to Him who has graciously regarded us, and exalted us to such dignity and happiness, mean and miserable as we once werelet it be ascribed to the grace and blood of the Lamb, who gave himself to be slain for our redemption.

4. The angelic hosts stood round about the throne, encompassing the elders and living creatures, and immediately joined in their adorations; and falling on their faces, worshipped God, saying, Amen! Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. The inhabitants of heaven have all one mind and employment, ceaseless in the praises of their common Lord. May we now delight to join their songs, and prepare hereby for the happy service of eternity!

4thly, While St. John, with holy rapture, beheld the heavenly vision, one of the elders questions him, whether he understood what he saw, and knew who these were, and whence they came? With humble acknowledgment of his ignorance, and desire of information, he replied, Sir, thou knowest. The elder thereupon kindly undertook to inform him.

1. These, says he, are they who came out of great tribulation, through various afflictions and the fire of persecution, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb: they owe their exaltation and glory to that precious blood of his, which he permitted to be shed for their sakes. Therefore, being thus redeemed to God by him, and having been enabled to approve their fidelity to their divine Master in the midst of the greatest extremities, they now receive a rich equivalent for all that they have suffered; for they are before the throne of God.

2. He informs him of the distinguished dignity and glory to which these once-suffering saints are admitted. They are admitted to the immediate presence of the Eternal Majesty, and serve him day and night, in his celestial temple, without ceasing: and he that sitteth on the throne, shall dwell among them for ever, as the author and source of their eternal felicity. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more, knowing no more those painful cravings, neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat; no fire of persecution, nor furnace of affliction or temptation, shall there be ever apprehended: for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne, possessed of all dominion and power, shall feed them with his rich provision, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters, to refresh and comfort their souls, which from his presence shall drink in pleasures as out of a river: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; no sin, no sorrow shall be there, nor one salt tear trickle down their faces; but unutterable and uninterrupted consolations shall be their eternal happy portion. Bring me, dear Lord, to share this blessedness among thy saints in light!

Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke

REFLECTIONS

READER! while we look with holy meditation at this vision which John saw, and mark the four Angels holding as they were commanded, the four winds of the earth, from going forth to destruction; until the Lord had done his gracious purpose towards his servants; Let us behold our Almighty Jesus ascending from the East, to mark, his own against the day of tribulation! And while we see him so gracious to his Israel, and while we see him so gracious to his Gentile Church also, to which you and I belong, oh! for grace, to stand impressed with this most certain assurance that He is the same watchful, loving, and all lovely Lord now, as he was then. He is; He must be Jesus Christ; the Same yesterday, and today, and forever. Oh! then, depend upon it, that he hath sealed, he doth seal, and he will seal, every individual one of his redeemed.

And, Reader! let you and I behold our Jesus, (if so be, by regeneration you can call him yours,) encircled with his blood bought sons and daughters, now on his throne. Hath Jesus washed their robes, and will he not wash ours? Hath he made them white in his blood, and shall ours remain uncleansed? Hath he loved his Church only in heaven; and doth he not regard his Church upon earth? Did Jesus show so much attention to his beloved at the time here shown, and would not suffer the winds or wars to come on; until that he had sealed his redeemed, and will he behold Our exercises, our difficulties and tribulations, and look on unmoved? Oh! no, thou dear REDEEMER! thou art still the Lamb, and still in the midst of the throne. All power is thine, in heaven, and in earth. And such is thy love to thy poor ones below, that thou art watching over them night and day, lest any hurt them, and whoso toucheth them, toucheth the apple of thine eye! Oh! how sure, how safe, how blessed are all thine, both in earth and heaven.

Reader! let us seek grace, to eye Christ unceasingly, as in the midst of the throne. He hath all divine attributes, all divine blessings, all suited grace, all suited mercy. To Him may all his people come. In Him they find all suited fulness. From Him they receive the every needed grace. And to Him offer all praise and glory. Lord! hasten the hour, when thy whole Church shall be round thy throne, and thou shalt have wiped all tears from off all eyes. Amen.

Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

17 For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.

Ver. 17. Shall feed them and lead them ] An allusion to Psa 23:2 , where David seems to resemble powerful and flourishing doctrine to green pastures, and the secret and sweet comforts of the sacraments to the still waters.

And God shall wipe away ] A metaphor from a nurse, which not only suckleth her dear child crying for hunger, but also wipes off the tears.

Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)

Rev 7:17 . goes with (“living waters”) though prefixed for emphasis, like in 1Pe 3:21 ( cf. Rev 16:3 ); a favourite Johannine idea. In Enoch xlii, xlviii, the fountains contain wisdom which is drunk by all the thirsty, though in the centre there is also “a fountain of righteousness which was inexhaustible”; elsewhere in the division of Sheol assigned to the spirits of the righteous there is “a bright spring of the water of life” (Rev 22:9 ) in accordance with the Pythagorean belief that the dead suffered from thirst in the underworld (Luk 16:24 , cf. Dieterich, 97 f.). In the familiar vignette of ancient Egyptian eschatology, the deceased kneels before Osiris who pours out to him the water of life (the motto being that the soul may live ); cf. Renouf’s “Hibb. Lect.,” p. 141, and for “living” waters as divine, R. S. 127. In the ideal realm of the good Shepherd-King Yima, Iranian belief saw neither hunger nor thirst for the faithful, and found no place for death ( cf. Rev 21:4 ) or falsehood (Rev 21:8 ) of any kind (passages and parallels in Bklen, 133 f.). , a touch of local colour for Asiatic Christians, since sheep and shepherds were a common feature in the Lycos valley ( C. B. P. i. 40 42); but the heaven of the Apocalypse is, in Semitic fashion, pastoral or civic, with touches of Babylonian splendour, unlike some later apocalypses, e.g. , that of Peter (15 f.) where the Hellenic conception of Gods garden in the next world predominates (Dieterich, 19 f.). Briggs explains the variants (Rev 7:15 ) and . (Rev 21:3 ), . (Rev 21:4 ) and . (Rev 7:17 ) as variant translations of and ; but, like (Rev 13:16 ), . (Rev 7:3 , etc.), these are probably nothing more than rhetorical variations. Unlike the synoptic tradition ( e.g. , Mat 2:6 ) and the fourth Gospel (Joh 10:1 ; Joh 10:18 ), the Apocalypse confines Christ’s shepherding to the future life (see also Rev 2:26-27 ). In Isa 53:6-7 , the wayward roving habits of sheep express the temper of God’s people, whilst the patient submissiveness of a lamb for sacrifice denotes the function of God’s servant; in the Apocalypse, the latter (not the former) occurs. The saints are God’s flock in heaven, not on earth (contrast 1Pe 2:25 ; 1Pe 5:2 f.).

Whatever elements have been employed in the following series (Rev 7:8-11 .) of trumpet-visions, no adequate data exist to prove that John has edited a Jewish or Jewish-Christian source here any more than in 6. The vision, which forms the result of the breaking of the seventh seal (Rev 8:1-2 ), opens, after a prelude (Rev 7:2-5 ), in Rev 8:6 and does not close till Rev 11:19 ( cf. Rev 8:5 ).

Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson

Psalms

TWO SHEPHERDS AND TWO FLOCKS

Psa 49:14 . – Rev 7:17 .

These two verses have a much closer parallelism in expression than appears in our Authorised Version. If you turn to the Revised Version you will find that it rightly renders the former of my texts, ‘Death shall be their shepherd,’ and the latter, ‘The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall be their Shepherd.’ The Old Testament Psalmist and the New Testament Seer have fallen upon the same image to describe death and the future, but with how different a use! The one paints a grim picture, all sunless and full of shadow; the other dips his pencil in brilliant colours, and suffuses his canvas with a glow as of molten sunlight. The difference between the two is partly due to the progress of revelation and the light cast on life and immortality by Christ through the Gospel. But it is much more due to the fact that the two writers have different classes in view. The one is speaking of men whose portion is in this life, the other of men who have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. And it is the characters of the persons concerned, much more than the degree of enlightenment possessed by the writers, that makes the difference between these two pictures. Life and death and the future are what each man makes of them for himself. We shall best deal with these two pictures if we take them separately, and let the gloom of the one enhance the glory of the other. They hang side by side, like a Rembrandt beside a Claude or a Turner, each intensifying by contrast the characteristics of the other. So let us look at the two-first, the grim picture drawn by the Psalmist; second, the sunny one drawn by the Seer. Now, with regard to the former,

I. The grim picture drawn by the Psalmist.

We too often forget that a psalmist is a poet, and misunderstand his spirit by treating his words as matter-of-fact prose. His imagination is at work, and our sympathetic imagination must be at work too, if we would enter into his meaning. Death a shepherd-what a grim and bold inversion of a familiar metaphor! If this psalm is, as is probable, of a comparatively late date, then its author was familiar with many sweet and tender strains of early singers, in which the blessed relation between a loving God and an obedient people was set forth under that metaphor. ‘The Lord is my Shepherd’ may have been ringing in his ears when he said, ‘Death is their shepherd.’ He lays hold of the familiar metaphor, and if I may so speak, turns it upside down, stripping it of all that is beautiful, tender, and gracious, and draping it in all that is harsh and terrible. And the very contrast between the sweet relation which it was originally used to express, and the opposite kind of one which he uses it to set forth, gives its tremendous force to the daring metaphor.

‘Death is their shepherd.’ Yes, but what manner of shepherd? Not one that gently leads his flock, but one that stalks behind the huddled sheep, and drives them fiercely, club in hand, on a path on which they would not willingly go. The unwelcome necessity, by which men that have their portion in this world are hounded and herded out of all their sunny pastures and abundant feeding, is the thought that underlies the image. It is accentuated, if we notice that in the former clause, ‘like sheep they are laid in the grave,’ the word rendered in the Authorised Version ‘laid,’ and in the Revised Version ‘appointed,’ is perhaps more properly read by many, ‘like sheep they are thrust down .’ There you have the picture-the shepherd stalking behind the helpless creatures, and coercing them on an unwelcome path.

Now that is the first thought that I suggest, that to one type of man, Death is an unwelcome necessity. It is, indeed, a necessity to us all, but necessities accepted cease to be painful; and necessities resisted-what do they become? Here is a man being swept down a river, the sound of the falls is in his ears, and he grasps at anything on the bank to hold by, but in vain. That is how some of us feel when we face the thought, and will feel more when we front the reality, of that awful ‘must.’ ‘Death shall be their shepherd,’ and coerce them into darkness. Ask yourself the question, Is the course of my life such as that the end of it cannot but be a grim necessity which I would do anything to avoid?

This first text suggests not only a shepherd but a fold: ‘Like sheep they are thrust down to the grave.’ Now I am not going to enter upon what would be quite out of place here: a critical discussion of the Old Testament conception of a future life. That conception varies, and is not the same in all parts of the book. But I may, just in a word, say that ‘the grave’ is by no means the adequate rendering of the thought of the Psalmist, and that ‘Hell’ is a still more inadequate rendering of it. He does not mean either the place where the body is deposited, or a place where there is punitive retribution for the wicked, but he means a dim region, or, if I might so say, a localised condition, in which all that have passed through this life are gathered, where personality and consciousness continue, but where life is faint, stripped of all that characterises it here, shadowy, unsubstantial, and where there is inactivity, absolute cessation of all the occupations to which men were accustomed. But there may be restlessness along with inactivity; may there not? And there is no such restlessness as the restlessness of compulsory idleness. That is the main idea that is in the Psalmist’s mind. He knows little about retribution, he knows still less about transmutation into a glorious likeness to that which is most glorious and divine. But he conceives a great, dim, lonely land, wherein are prisoned and penned all the lives that have been foamed away vainly on earth, and are now settled into a dreary monotony and a restless idleness. As one of the other books of the Old Testament puts it, it is a ‘land of the shadow of death, without order, and in which the light is as darkness.’

I know, of course, that all that is but the imperfect presentation of partially apprehended, and partially revealed, and partially revealable truth. But what I desire to fix upon is that one dreary thought of this fold, into which the grim shepherd has driven his flock, and where they lie cribbed and huddled together in utter inactivity. Carry that with you as a true, though incomplete thought.

Let me remind you, in the next place, with regard to this part of my subject, of the kind of men whom the grim shepherd drives into that grim fold. The psalm tells us that plainly enough. It is speaking of men who have their portion in this life, who ‘trust in their wealth, and boast themselves in the multitude of their riches . . . whose inward thought is that their house shall continue for ever . . . who call their lands after their own names.’ Of every such man it says: ‘when he dieth he shall carry nothing away’-none of the possessions, none of the forms of activity which were familiar to him here on earth. He will go into a state where he finds nothing which interests him, and nothing for him to do.

Must it not be so? If we let ourselves be absorbed and entangled by the affairs of this life, and permit our whole spirits to be bent in the direction of these transient things, what is to become of us when the things that must pass have passed, and when we come into a region where there are none of them to occupy us any more? What would some Manchester men do if they were in a condition of life where they could not go on ‘Change on Tuesdays and Fridays? What would some of us do if the professions and forms of mental activity in which we have been occupied as students and scholars were swept away? ‘Whether there be knowledge it shall cease; whether there be tongues they shall vanish away,’ and what are you going to do then, you men that have only lived for intellectual pursuits connected with this transient state? We are going to a world where there are no books, no pens nor ink, no trade, no dress, no fashion, no amusements; where there is nothing but things in which some of us have no interest, and a God who ‘is not in all our thoughts.’ Surely we shall be ‘fish out of water’ there. Surely we shall feel that we have been banned and banished from everything that we care about. Surely men that boasted themselves in their riches, and in the multitude of their wealth, will be necessarily condemned to inactivity. Life is continuous, and all on one plane. Surely if a man knows that he must some day, and may any day, be summoned to the other side of the world, he would be a wise man if he got his outfit ready, and made some effort to acquire the customs and the arts of the land to which he was going. Surely life here is mainly given to us that we may develop powers which will find their field of exercise yonder, and acquire characters which shall be in conformity with the conditions of that future life. Surely there can be no more tragic folly than the folly of letting myself be so absorbed and entangled by this present world, as that when the transient has passed, I shall feel homeless and desolate, and have nothing that I can do or care about amidst the activities of Eternity. Dear friend, should you feel homeless if you were taken, as you will be taken, into that world?

Turn now to

II. The sunny landscape drawn by the Seer.

Note the contrast presented by the shepherds. ‘Death shall be their shepherd.’ ‘The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall be their Shepherd.’ I need not occupy your time in trying to show, what has sometimes been doubted, that the radiant picture of the Apocalyptic Seer is dealing with nothing in the present, but with the future condition of certain men. I would just remind you that the words in which it is couched are to a large extent a quotation from ancient prophecy, a description of the divine watchfulness over the pilgrim’s return from captivity to the Land of Promise. But the quotation is wonderfully elevated and spiritualised in the New Testament vision; for instead of reading, as the Original does: ‘He that hath mercy on them shall lead them,’ we have here, ‘the Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne shall be their Shepherd,’ and instead of their being led merely to ‘the springs of water,’ here we read that He ‘leads them to the fountains of the water of life.’

We have to think, first, of that most striking, most significant and profound modification of the Old Testament words, which presents the Lamb as ‘the Shepherd.’ All Christ’s shepherding on earth and in heaven depends, as do all our hopes for heaven and earth, upon the fact of His sacrificial death. It is only because He is the ‘Lamb that was slain’ that He is either the ‘Lamb in the midst of the Throne,’ or the Shepherd of the flock. And we must make acquaintance with Him first in the character of ‘the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world,’ before we can either follow in His footsteps as our Guide, or be compassed by His protection as our Shepherd.

He is the Lamb, and He is the Shepherd-that suggests not only that the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ is the basis of all His work for us on earth and in heaven, but the very incongruity of making One, who bears the same nature as the flock to be the Shepherd of the flock, is part of the beauty of the metaphor. It is His humanity that is our guide. It is His continual manhood, all through eternity and its glories, that makes Him the Shepherd of perfected souls. They follow Him because He is one of themselves, and He could not be the Shepherd unless he were the Lamb.

But then this Shepherd is not only gracious, sympathetic, kin to us by participation in a common nature, and fit to be our Guide because He has been our Sacrifice and the propitiation of our sins, but He is the Lamb ‘in the midst of the throne,’ wielding therefore all divine power, and standing-not as the rendering in our Bible leads an English reader to suppose, on the throne, but-in the middle point between it and the ring of worshippers, and so the Communicator to the outer circumference of all the blessings that dwell in the divine centre. He shall be their Shepherd, not coercing, not driving by violence, but leading to the fountains of the waters of life, gently and graciously. It is not compulsory energy which He exercises upon us, either on earth or in heaven, but it is the drawing of a divine attraction, sweet to put forth and sweet to yield to.

There is still another contrast. Death huddled and herded his reluctant sheep into a fold where they lay inactive but struggling and restless. Christ leads His flock into a pasture. He shall guide them ‘to the fountains of waters of life.’ I need not dwell at any length on the blessed particulars of that future, set forth here and in the context. But let me suggest them briefly. There is joyous activity. There is constant progression. He goeth before; they follow. The perfection of heaven begins at entrance into it, but it is a perfection which can be perfected, and is being perfected, through the ages of Eternity, and the picture of the Shepherd in front and the flock behind, is the true conception of all the progress of that future life. ‘They shall follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth’-a sweet guidance, a glad following, a progressive conformity! ‘In the long years liker must they grow.’

Further, there is the communication of life more and more abundantly. Therefore there is the satisfaction of all desire, so that ‘they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more.’ The pain of desire ceases because desire is no sooner felt than it is satisfied, the joy of desire continues, because its satisfaction enables us to desire more, and so, appetite and eating, desire and fruition, alternate in ceaseless reciprocity. To us, being every moment capable of more, more will be given; and ‘to-morrow shall be as this day, and much more abundant.’

There is one point more in regard to that pasture into which the Lamb leads the happy flock, and that is, the cessation of all pains and sorrows. Not only shall they ‘hunger no more, neither thirst any more’; but ‘the sun shall not smite them, nor any heat, and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.’ Here the Shepherd carried rod and staff, and sometimes had to strike the wandering sheep hard: there these are needed no more. Here He had sometimes to move them out of green pastures, and away from still waters, into valleys of the shadow of death; but ‘there,’ as one of the prophets has it: ‘they shall lie in a good fold, and in a fat pasture shall they feed.’

But now, we must note, finally, the other kind of men whom this other Shepherd leads into His pastures, ‘They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’ Aye! that is it. That is why He can lead them where He does lead them. Strange alchemy which out of two crimsons, the crimson of our sins and the crimson of His blood, makes one white! But it is so, and the only way by which we can ever be cleansed, either with the initial cleansing of forgiveness, or with the daily cleansing of continual purifying and approximation to the divine holiness, is by our bringing the foul garment of our stained personality and character into contact with the blood which, ‘shed for many,’ takes away their sins, and infused into their veins, cleanses them from all sin.

You have yourselves to bring about that contact. ‘ They have washed their robes.’ And how did they do it? By faith in the Sacrifice first, by following the Example next. For it is not merely a forgiveness for the past, but a perfecting, progressive and gradual, for the future, that lies in that thought of washing their robes and making them white in the blood of the Lamb.

Dear brethren, life here and life hereafter are continuous. They are homogeneous, on one plane though an ascending one. The differences there are great-I was going to say, and it would be true, that the resemblances are greater. As we have been, we shall be. If we take Christ for our Shepherd here, and follow Him, though from afar and with faltering steps, amidst all the struggles and windings and rough ways of life, then and only then, will He be our Shepherd, to go with us through the darkness of death, to make it no reluctant expulsion from a place in which we would fain continue to be, but a tranquil and willing following of Him by the road which He has consecrated for ever, and deprived for ever of its solitude, because Himself has trod it.

Those two possibilities are before each of us. Either of them may be yours. One of them must be. Look on this picture and on this; and choose-God help you to choose aright-which of the two will describe your experience. Will you have Christ for your Shepherd, or will you have Death for your shepherd? The answer to that question lies in the answer to the other-have you washed your robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; and are you following Him? You can settle the question which lot is to be yours, and only you can settle it. See that you settle it aright, and that you settle it soon.

END OF VOL. I.

Fuente: Expositions Of Holy Scripture by Alexander MacLaren

shall = will.

feed = tend, or shepherd. See Rev 2:27. Mic 5:4.

living, &c. The texts read “fountains of waters of life” (App-170.) See Rev 21:4. These two verses: refer to Isa 49:8-10; Isa 25:8. Jer 31:9, Jer 31:10-25. Eze 47:1, Eze 47:12.

Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics

Rev 7:17. [87] ) preceded by not, often has the meaning of but.- ) John saw : ch. Rev 5:7. In this place alone he says, : comp. , 1Co 6:5.- [88] ) The natural construction would be, ; but is put first for the sake of emphasis (as , 1Pe 3:21), and is, as it were, one compound word, so that it may be, zu den Lebens-Wasser-brunnen. See App., Ed. ii.-) Again see App., Ed. ii. Wolf joins and , below, ch. Rev 22:19. And thus in one sentence John may have written , and below .[89]

[87] Ver. 14. , those who are coming) Therefore their number is not yet complete, and for this very cause so much the less to be exactly defined (ver. 9).- , in the blood of the Lamb) The number of this multitude cannot be reckoned; and therefore it comprises the blessed dead even of the Old Testament: and they have their own part also in the blood of the Lamb.-V. g.

[88] AB Vulg. read : Rec. Text, without old authorities, . Cypr. changes the order, fontes vit.-E.

[89] ABCh Vulg. Cypr. 310, have : Rec. Text, without good authority, .-E.

Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament

God

Adonai Jehovah. Isa 25:8.

Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes

The Lamb as a Shepherd

For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life: and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.Rev 7:17.

1. The seventh chapter of the Apocalypse contains the vision of the multitude which no man could number, which is among the most familiar and most highly treasured passages in the book. The meaning of the vision stands little in need of explanation; its value is not to be enhanced by exposition. It speaks straight to the heart of every Christian. The picture of the Church triumphant, drawn out of every nation, and of all tribes and peoples and tongues, offering the praise of heaven to God and the Lamb; the question, Who are these? and its answer; the description of their privileges as the flock shepherded by the Lamb, the people of Gods own carethese things speak for themselves. It is one of the many beautiful glimpses of the heavenly life which St. John gives us in this book of celestial visions. For a moment the veil is drawn aside, and we see the white-robed ones who have passed through great tribulation to their rest and reward. The figures used are suggestive of perfect and uninterrupted joy. The toils and pains and weariness of our mortal life have no place in the land of pure delight. Hunger and thirst are unknown. There is no want or unsatisfied desire. No sleep is needed, for the days work never tires, and the night is bright and animated as the day. The sunlight never burns, and there is no hot fever in the blood. The eyes are never dim with sorrow, for all tears are wiped away, and the purest and deepest longing of the religious soul is realized, for He whom they have loved dwells among them, and they do always behold His face.

2. The passage from which the text is taken is to a great extent made up of citations from the Old Testament. Isaiah furnishes St. John with his imagery and his language. They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them (Isa 49:10), and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces (Isa 25:8). But the quotation is wonderfully elevated and spiritualized in the New Testament vision; for instead of reading, as the Original does: He that hath mercy on them shall lead them, we have here, the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd, and instead of their being led merely to the springs of water, here we read that He leads them to fountains of waters of life.

I

The Lambs Place of Honour

1. Not in the confines of heaven, not on its distant borders, does the Lamb stand who shall pasture the redeemed. In the very centre and seat of power He has His place: He is the Lamb in the midst of the throne. There are few grander pictures in the Bible than St. Johns conception of the heavenly Kingdom. It is like one of those drawings by Dor of the Paradise of Dante, in which there is circle within circle of wheeling angels. That is the kind of vision which St. John had of glory, as if from its utmost and dim verge it were filled with ranks and choirs; and as the circles drew nearer and nearer to the centre, they were composed of nobler and more glorious beings. In the very centre of that mighty confluence was a throneit was the throne of the immortal and eternal God. And in the very centre of the throne, standing in front of it, there was a Lamb. And not any angel from distant rank or choir; not even the flaming cherubim or glowing seraphimnot these, but the Lamb in the midst of the throne shall feed them. That means that the redeemed shall be fed not only gently, but by one who stands in the place of sovereign power. None can gainsay Him there; none can with-stand Him; none can contest His access to green pastures. The Lamb who feeds them is in the midst of the thronethe sceptre of universal power is His now.

All the universe and its forces are being administered for purposes of redemption. The Lamb rules and He rules as the Lamb. How calming to feel this, to look up from the turmoil of this visible, flaring, and lying worldfrom the shows and shams and the tinted scene of the theatre; from all in life that startles and appals, to Him who sits above it all. From Him all things proceed, and to Him they return in circular flow. The shadows are all passing; the reality is behind. Nothing lasts; our trials are all hasting away to oblivion; let the wind rave as it will, we look at the Christ who abides. How small all our conflicts and ambitions seem to be, how transient and easily borne our sorrows, when we look up as John looked from the rock and the wild waters to the serene King, against whose changeless purpose all the waves of time and circumstance break in vain.1 [Note: W. R. Nicoll, The Lamb of God, 50.]

2. The first words which St. John ever heard of Jesus were words that described Him as a Lamb. When he was a disciple of the Baptist, drinking in inspiration from that stern teacher, he had heard these words fall from the Baptists lips, Behold, the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world. The Apostle was a young man then, aflame with eager hope, and the words of the Baptist sank deep into his heartso deep that through all his after years he loved to think of Jesus as the Lamb. What experiences St. John had had, and what a vast deal he had suffered when he came to write this Book of Revelation! Life and the world were different to him now from what they had been in the desert with the Baptist. Yet in Revelation some seven-and-twenty times John repeats the sweet expression Lamb of Godthe first words he had ever heard of Christ. Christ in heaven to-day is the very Christ who walked by the banks of Jordan. Here it is the Lamb in the midst of the throne. Here, in the glory, it is the Lamb slain, as in Isaiah it had been a lamb led to the slaughter. And we feel at once that not all the height of heaven, or all the inconceivable grandeurs of Gods throne, have changed the nature or the love of Him who was pointed to beside the Jordan. Somehow, we are prone to think that our Saviour in the glory must be different from what He was long ago. We know that He is no longer rejected and despised, and we know that the body of His humiliation has been glorified, until insensibly we transfer these changes from His outward nature to His heart, as though death and resurrection had altered that. So do we conceive Christ as far away from us, separated from the beating of the human heart; glorious, yet not so full of tender brotherhood as in the days of Capernaum and Bethany. That error is combated by the vision of the Lamb in heaven. Purity, gentleness, and sacrifice are there. The wrath of the Lamb grows terrible just as we remember that that wrath is love rejected and despised. And in the last Judgment, when the Lamb shall be our judge, it will not be the majesty of God that will overwhelm us; it will be that we are face to face, at last, with the love and with the sacrifice of Christ.

The wrath of the Lamb must be a wrath that can be justified. It is not, like so much of the anger of this world, unreasonable, hasty, and vindictive. It is the wrath of the Lamb, most gentle, most pitiful, most merciful, most long-suffering. Some have said that the wrath of the Lamb must be terrible because it is love turned to anger. There is no fire, it has been said, like the sheen of a dead affection; no enemy like one that has once been a friend. To be wroth with one we love doth work like madness in the brain. But while this is true of men, we cannot affirm it in the same way about Christ, because this very excess of resentment and passion is often an infirmity and a sin. We may say that in Christ, as the flame of love is purer and stronger, so the flame of anger may be; but we cannot say that anything in His anger is passionate or vindictive. The truth pressed on us is that we shall have no defender when the Lamb ceases to plead for us. No one is so abundant in the resources of mercy and patience, and when His resources are exhausted, on whose shall we fall back?1 [Note: W. R. Nicoll, The Lamb of God, 115.]

Every fibre in Dean Churchs frame quivered with righteous passion against the cynical indifference to cruelty and wrong which dominated London Society at the time of the Bulgarian agitation. He saw a moral judgment at work, sifting the people. Freedom, righteousness, the honour of England, the belief in the Divine government of the world, all were at stake in the momentous issue. He found himself beset on all sides by a political and social temper which was worldly, godless, immoral, and he flamed with prophetic wrath. The wrath of one so sensitive, so delicate, so appreciative, so balanced, so wise, was like nothing else that I have ever known. Its heat was so utterly devoid of mere personal interest; it was the heat of moral judgment, of sheer holinessthe heat of the Apocalypse.1 [Note: H. Scott Holland, Personal Studies, 234.]

II

The Lamb as Shepherd

1. Christ is the Lamb, and He is the Shepherdthat suggests not only that the sacrificial work of Jesus Christ is the basis of all His work for us on earth and in heaven, but the very incongruity of making One who bears the same nature as the flock to be the Shepherd of the flock is part of the beauty of the metaphor. It is His humanityHis continual manhoodall through eternity and its glories, that makes Him the Shepherd of perfected souls. They follow Him because He is one of themselves, and He could not be the Shepherd unless He were the Lamb. All Christs shepherding on earth and in heaven depends, as do all our hopes for heaven and earth, upon the fact of His sacrificial death. It is only because He is the Lamb that was slain that He is either the Lamb in the midst of the throne, or the Shepherd of the flock. And we must make acquaintance with Him in the character of the Lamb of God, which taketh away the sin of the world, before we can either follow in His footsteps as our Guide or be compassed by His protection as our Shepherd.

This beautiful multitude in Heaven will be led by the Lamb. Very meek must they be whom the Lamb shall lead: very pure, not to shame Him who is without blemish and without spot: very innocent, to be made one flock with Him.2 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, The Face of the Deep, 238.]

Before the creation of the world we were destined to be His flock, and He was appointed to be our Shepherd. Even if mankind had not strayed away from the paths of righteousness, the relation of shepherd and flock would have existed. But having so strayed He took our earthly form upon Him to arrest our wanderings and to lead us back to the fold. Jesus is our Shepherd, not only during our earthly pilgrimage, but also through eternity. He ever liveth to be our loving Master and Friend. I will come again, and receive you unto myself; that where I am, there ye may be also. In the many mansions of the Fathers house the flock of the redeemed shall hunger no more, neither shall they thirst any more, neither shall the sun smite them, nor any heat; for their Good Shepherd, Jesus, who hath mercy on them, shall feed them and lead them to fountains of living waters, and God Himself shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.1 [Note: A. F. Mamreov, A Day with the Good Shepherd, 84.]

Beyond the human region, out among those Eternities and Immensities where Carlyle loved to roam, there is that which loves and seeks. This is the very essence of Christian faith. The Good Shepherd seeketh the lost sheep until He finds it. He is found of those that sought Him not. Until the search is ended the silly sheep may flee before His footsteps in terror, even in hatred, for the bewildered hour. Yet it is He who gives all reality and beauty even to those things which we would fain choose instead of HimHe alone. The deep wisdom of the Cross knows that it is pain which gives its grand reality to love, so making it fit for Eternity, and that sacrifice is the ultimate secret of fulfilment. Truly those who lose their life for His sake shall find it. Not to have Him is to renounce the possibility of having anything: to have Him is to have all things added unto us.2 [Note: J. Kelman, Among Famous Books, 322.]

How fair and green yon blessed field

Beyond dark Jordans flood reveald!

Eternal waters from the Rock

Fall ever for that happy flock;

The Shepherd Lamb with endless care

Among them moves and guides them there.

Yet we who tread the desert still

Share even now that Shepherds skill;

The sands indeed around are spread,

The sun beats heavy overhead,

But where He leads us, there is traced

A long Oasis through the waste.

Our Elim still beside us moves,

With brimming wells and shadowing groves;

The mystic Rock is aye at hand

To cool and water all the land;

The Lords green footsteps now create

Heavens foretaste in our pilgrim state.

Then let us live as those who know

Eternal joys begun below;

Staff, shield, and sword, we need them yet,

For foes and traitors still beset;

But aye let harps and songs abound;

Were marching through Emmanuels ground.1 [Note: H. C. G. Moule, In the House of the Pilgrimage, 13.]

2. The ministry of the Good Shepherd does not close when He has brought back a lost sheep to the fold, and the wilderness is not the only scene of its activities. In the unknown land into which our friends pass, and from which no messages come back to us, redeemed souls still need His guiding hand. They are not left to explore for themselves the mysteries of the strange world into which they have gone, and to discover its riches. He tends His own there just as graciously as in this hard, bleak sphere of peril and distress. They have faded from our view, old and young alike, and we can do nothing more to help them. But they are still under the eye and the hand of the Good Shepherd. He who guided the outgoings of His first disciples amidst the hills of Galilee and by the lake shore, through the plains of Samaria and in the highlands of Juda, will guide the quests of the celestial life. The hand that multiplied the bread on earth will minister the mystic manna. The holy feet that went before the disciples will lead into the pathways of the living fountains. The old pastoral fellowship is re-established. He will give of the best things of His Kingdom on high just as freely as He made the disciples share every blessing of His own lot upon earth. The life to come will be infinitely varied, and the Lord Himself will show the way into the mysteries of its manifold blessedness. He shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life.

The rendering unto fountains of waters of life is more literal than that of the A.V.; still more literally we might render, unto lifes water-springs; the emphasis is strongly on the word life. In chap. Rev 22:1, the water of life is as a river proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb. In comparison with the passage in Isaiah (even by the springs of water shall he guide them) the thought has taken a more distinctly spiritual meaning: the middle term will be found in the teaching of Jesus; cf. Joh 4:14, The water that I shall give him shall become in him a well of water springing up unto eternal life; also Joh 7:38.1 [Note: C. Anderson Scott.]

The Lamb will tend His people as a shepherd tends his flock (the word translated feed in the A.V. has this force), and will lead them to the springs of the water of life. The Twenty-third Psalm rises at once to our minds. The Lord who was Davids shepherd (Psa 23:2), who was the Good Shepherd who sought and brought home the lost for whom He died (Luk 15:4; Joh 10:11), does not forget the shepherds work in heaven. He who made His people to drink of the brook in the way (Psa 110:7), who gave to those who came to Him the water which alone would quench their thirst, leads them now to the springs of the living water, and makes them drink of the river of His pleasures (Psa 36:8). Significantly enough the springs of this living water are in the throne itself. Ezekiel saw the stream issuing forth from the Temple (Eze 48:1), but in the city where there is no temple we are carried to the very throne of God, to find the well-spring of every gladness. In this emblem of the water we have another allusion to the Feast of Tabernacles. Among the ceremonies observed at the feast was that of drawing water; the priest drew a vessel of water from the brook of Siloam, and poured it out in the temple-court by the altar of burnt offering, and the people sang the words, With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation (Isa 12:3). Here the Lamb, who is also the High Priest, leads His people to the springs of the water of life.2 [Note: W. B. Carpenter, The Revelation, 104.]

3. Of old the Good Shepherd made His flock to lie down in green pastures; He led them beside the still waters. These were the far-off streams, but now they have reached the well-head of all; they have come to living waters of life; and more than waters, to fountains. What a pathetic and ennobling summary of life is the old Eastern saying, In the morning, mountains: in the evening, fountains! And here it is in its highest fulfilment. Think of these spirits as now far up in the heights of glory! They lie down and drink deep of the very innermost fountain, where lifeGods lifepours itself, fresh and full, into their very being. This is more than even sonship, it is the life Divine that breathes and beats beneath the sonship. This is more than service, this makes the heart burn in sacrifice, and the lips break forth in song. This is more than subjection, this elevates not only before but to the throne of God. It is life, fountain life, the well of life springing up in them from the Divine fountain into everlasting life. Now, indeed, they comprehend with all saints the length and the breadth, the depth and the height; now they know the love of Christ that passeth knowledge, and are filled with all the fulness of God.

Dr. Schaffs old friend Godet wrote to him in 1892 a loving letter of farewell, in which he said: God has already blessed us both, and the 103rd Psalm should be our psalm. Farewell, my dear old faithful friend. Again let me repeat to you one of the last words of Tholuck. One of his old students was visiting him and recalled that he had once said that when one was old and feeble, one must put oneself into the arms of the Good Shepherd to be brought home by Him. Tholuck looked at him without seeming to understand, and then he spoke these words, Ein alter mder Mann, ein guter treuer Hirte (An old tired man, a good faithful Shepherd). That which was true for our dear teacher is now true for us. Let us rest our tired heads and hearts, often bruised, upon the Good Shepherd. The nearer one comes to the end, the more one is inclined to look back to the beginning and that with a deep feeling of humble thanks. I have eighty years behind me; this is goodness enough, and each new day I regard as a donum superadditum. Happy are we who are able to look peacefully behind and ahead, thanks to the blood which flowed for us and the Holy Spirit who will keep us to the end and in the communion of our glorified Brother and Saviour.1 [Note: D. S. Schaff, The Life of Philip Schaff, 448.]

III

God as Comforter

1. The last touch in this picture sets forth the Eternal God as the Comforter of His saved people. And God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. Through all earthly vicissitudes He had been their light and salvation, illuminating their gloom, turning their mourning into joy, and appointing them beauty for ashes. It is an old relationship that He resumes and consummates. Not only is He the object of worship upon the throne; He comes nearer still to the redeemed multitude, healing all the smarts of earth, and dispersing the last memory of pain. The great tribulation leaves no scar or tear-stain upon the ransomed universe. The description reaches completeness in this exquisite and comprehensive promise. We can imagine a man placed under sunlit skies, breathing the exhilarating air of a new-created world, looking forth upon domains of unshadowed beauty, secure against privation and distress, welcomed into rare and gladdening fellowships, and yet sighing at some plaintive memory of the past, or chilled by the uprising of a bygone trouble. But these final words of the text leave no room for such forebodings. In winning and gentle friendship, God comes to each spirit of the redeemed from among men, and sweetens every hidden spring of bitterness and distress. We may be tempted to think that there are tragic and haunting memories which will steal into the high and holy place. Some griefs are so vast and mysterious that they threaten to make us pensive amidst the angels. It is difficult to see how some distresses can be obliterated, for no finite ministry can conjure them into oblivion. But the things impossible to the uttermost human sympathy and gentleness are possible to God. When God puts His hand upon the fountain of mortal tears, the fountain is sealed up for ever.

The eldest of the three [Ladies of Sorrow] is named Mater Lachrymarum, Our Lady of Tears. She it is that night and day raves and moans, calling for vanished faces. She stood in Rama, where a voice was heard of lamentationRachel weeping for her children, and refusing to be comforted. She it was that stood in Bethlehem on the night when Herods sword swept its nurseries of Innocents, and the little feet were stiffened for ever which, heard at times as they trotted along floors overhead, woke pulses of love in household hearts that were not unmarked in heaven. Her eyes are sweet and subtle, wild and sleepy, by turns; oftentimes rising to the clouds, oftentimes challenging the heavens. She wears a diadem round her head. And I knew by childish memories that she could go abroad upon the winds, when she heard the sobbing of litanies, or the thundering of organs, and when she beheld the mustering of summer clouds. This Sister, the elder, it is that carries keys more than Papal at her girdle, which open every cottage and every palace. She, to my knowledge, sat all last summer by the bedside of the blind beggar, him that so often and so gladly I talked with, whose pious daughter, eight years old, with the sunny countenance, resisted the temptations of play and village mirth, to travel all day long on dusty roads with her afflicted father. For this did God send her a great reward. In the spring-time of the year, and whilst yet her own spring was budding, He recalled her to Himself. But her blind father mourns for ever over her; still he dreams at midnight that the little guiding hand is locked within his own; and still he wakens to a darkness that is now within a second and a deeper darkness. This Mater Lachrymarum also has been sitting all this winter of 184445 within the bedchamber of the Czar, bringing before his eyes a daughter (not less pious) that vanished to God not less suddenly, and left behind her a darkness not less profound. By the power of the keys it is that Our Lady of Tears glides, a ghostly intruder, into the chambers of sleepless men, sleepless women, sleepless children, from Ganges to the Nile, from Nile to Mississippi. And her, because she is the first-born of her house, and has the widest empire, let us honour with the title of Madonna.1 [Note: De Quincey, Suspiria De Profundis (Works, xiii. 365).]

2. What need that God should wipe away the tears when the Lamb has led to the living waters? Would not joy follow as a matter of course? If our hunger and thirst have been taken away, if our eyes have already rested on the sparkling fountains, surely God need not interpose to dry our tears; will not Nature do that? No. Ones first joy is not brought back by restoring ones first surroundings. Grief itself robs us of something; it breaks the elastic spring. The child cries after it has ceased to be hurt. The hurt has put it in the valley, and the painlessness cannot at once lift it to the mountain. Someone must put right the spring, must restore the capacity for joy. The fountains in vain will sparkle if the heart has lost its shining. And so, this one ray, the tenderest of the heavenly visionone bar, the sweetest of the heavenly musicmarks the close of the text. It reminds us of perhaps the noblest passage in Handelthe Dead March in Saul. When the music surges free and escapes all gloom in the great burst of joy after the funeral wail, then at its highest there comes in a tremulous minor strain which makes the glorious vision of the swelling triumph more heroic and exultant as we see it through tears. Another touch could not be added to the vision; but it can be made more thrilling and pathetic by a hint of the great tribulation that is gone, by flashing it for a moment and unexpectedly through the dimming tears once so sad and familiar; and that touch is given in the words which close this vision, which, beginning with tribulation, ends with tears, but leaves the whole space between calm and undimmed. The mighty Hand that bore away their sins, and led them in royal majesty, touches them with more than a mothers yearning. And God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. Tribulation gone from their steps; sin washed out of their hearts; now all the fountains of their tears are dried up. Truly the right hand of the Lord hath done valiantly in its mighty deeds of salvation; but this, its last touch of ineffable pity, moves us to the uttermost with the tenderness as well as the omnipotence and infinitude of love Divine.

Meanwhile to us, as we look up to that vision, is given the sweet pain of noble tears, and we feel rising within us the longing desire of the Great Dreamer, who in his vision followed the pilgrims from the City of Destruction to the City of the New Jerusalem, till he saw them go in at the gate. And after that they shut up the gates; which, when I had seen, I wished myself among them.

A great sorrow after a time becomes idealized. It presses at first with overpowering weight, but gradually it rises till it becomes a thing of contemplation on which we can dwell with calmness, and which leaves a mellowing influence behind. One has seen the dew, bequeathed by the darkness, weigh down the flowers heads, but sunlight relieves the pressure, dries up the tears, and leaves only their memory in refreshment and fragrance.1 [Note: John Ker, Thoughts for Heart and Life, 125.]

What will be the complete rest to which we are aspiring when all the history of the world is wound up and God is all in all! What retrospects of home repose, and wanderings here and there, of earthly histories wrought out and consummated! How can we conceive of a complete joy if those we love are not there with us? I dare hardly turn my eyes this way. It is like the beginning of an agony to think of Eternal separation; it seems as if it would fill Eternity with tears. What is that view of Truth that will wipe all tears away? What that consent to the Divine Rectitude which cannot permit a diminished joy even when the wicked are silent in darkness? I need help for such thoughts as theseGod bring all we love safe within that circle of glory. God grant we may have no loves on earth that will not be everlasting.2 [Note: Letters of James Smetham, 140.]

The summer of 1826 was, I believe, the hottest and driest in the nineteenth century. Almost no rain fell from May till August. I recollect the long-continued sultry haze over the mountains of Lorne, Loch Etive daily a sea of glass, the smoke of kelp-burning ascending from its rocky shores, and the sunsets reflecting the hills of Mull and Morven in purple and crimson and gold. I can picture a sultry Sunday in that year in the quaint, rudely furnished, crowded parish church, then beside the manse, and the welcome given to the sublime imagery of the Apocalypse in the words which formed the text: These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat.1 [Note: A. Campbell Fraser, Biographia Philosophica, 17.]

And now, all tears wiped off from every eye,

They wander where the freshest pastures lie,

Through all the nightless day of that unfading sky!2 [Note: Horatius Bonar.]

The Lamb as a Shepherd

Literature

Body (G.), The Good Shepherd, 96.

Bradley (C.), Sermons, i. 22.

Carpenter (W. B.), The Revelation (Ellicotts New Testament Commentary), 104.

Cooper (T. J.), Loves Unveiling, 137.

Foote (J.), Communion Week Sermons, 245.

Fry (J. H.), Tears, 65.

Gibson (E. C. S.), The Revelation of St. John the Divine, 108.

Greenhough (J. G.), The Cross in Modern Life, 209.

Hall (N.), Gethsemane, 323.

Keble (J.), Sermons for the Christian Year: Miscellaneous, 340.

Lewis (F. W.), The Work of Christ, 23.

Mackennal (A.), The Life of Christian Consecration, 266.

Maclaren (A.), Expositions: Psalms I.XLIX., 365.

Maclaren (A.), Last Sheaves, 115.

Matheson (G.), Searchings in the Silence, 16.

Morrison (G. H.), The Unlighted Lustre, 259.

Nicoll (W. R.), The Lamb of God, 37.

Scott (C. A.), The Book of the Revelation, 190.

Selby (T. G.), in The Divine Artist, 73.

Spurgeon (C. H.), Metropolitan Tabernacle Pulpit, xi. (1865), No. 643; xxx. (1884), No. 1800.

Christian World Pulpit, xii. 191 (T. de W. Talmage); xiii. 148 (J. C. Gallaway); xvi. 191 (W. Graham); xxiv. 75 (H. W. Beecher); lvi. 356 (J. M. Jones).

Church of England Pulpit, lxi. 642 (W. H. M. H. Aitken).

Plain Sermons, by Contributors to Tracts for the Times, viii. 228.

Fuente: The Great Texts of the Bible

in the: Rev 5:6

feed: Psa 22:26, Psa 23:1, Psa 23:2, Psa 23:5, Psa 28:9, Psa 36:8, Son 1:7, Son 1:8, Isa 25:6, Isa 40:11, Isa 49:9, Eze 34:23, Mic 5:4, Mic 7:14, Mat 2:6, *marg. Joh 10:11, Joh 10:14, Joh 21:15-17, Act 20:28, 1Pe 5:2

shall lead: Rev 21:6, Psa 36:9, Isa 12:3, Isa 30:25, Isa 35:6, Isa 35:7, Jer 2:13, Jer 31:9, Joh 4:11, Joh 4:14, Joh 7:37, Joh 7:38

God: Rev 4:11, Rev 21:4, Isa 25:8, Isa 30:19, Isa 35:10, Isa 60:20

Reciprocal: Gen 29:2 – there Exo 15:27 – Elim Num 19:17 – running water shall be put thereto Jos 5:12 – the manna 2Ki 20:5 – I have seen Psa 17:15 – I shall Psa 25:5 – Lead Psa 56:8 – put Psa 63:1 – soul Psa 65:4 – we shall be Psa 107:9 – General Psa 116:8 – mine Pro 8:20 – lead Ecc 1:8 – the eye Son 6:2 – feed Isa 38:5 – I have seen Isa 41:18 – General Isa 49:10 – shall not Isa 51:11 – and sorrow Isa 57:18 – will lead Isa 65:19 – the voice of weeping Jer 17:13 – forsaken Jer 31:12 – and they Jer 31:14 – my people Mic 2:13 – their Zec 14:8 – in summer Mat 25:21 – enter Mat 26:29 – with Mar 8:8 – and were Luk 1:53 – filled Luk 12:37 – that Luk 16:24 – in water Joh 1:29 – Behold Joh 2:10 – but Joh 4:10 – living Joh 5:26 – so hath Joh 10:3 – and leadeth Act 20:37 – wept 1Co 7:30 – that weep 2Th 2:16 – everlasting 2Ti 1:4 – being Rev 3:21 – and am Rev 4:6 – the midst Rev 22:1 – water

Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge

THE FLOCK ON THE CELESTIAL MOUNTAIN

The Lamb Which is in the midst of the Throne shall be their Shepherd.

Rev 7:17 (R.V.)

The relation of Jesus and His people as that of the Shepherd with His sheep is thus revealed as being an eternal relation. The heavenly life is a life lived under the pastorate of Jesus. The Lamb Which is in the midst of the Throne shall be their Shepherd.

I. Jesus is the Good Shepherd Who, like Moses of old, leads His flock to the mountain of God and ministers to them there.When the evening of the present age shall be here, He will come as a Shepherd to gather His flock together. What a gathering of the flock will that be! The waiting sheep in Paradise will come forth from their pastures at the call of the Shepherds voice and rally round Him in the air. The faithful in the earth will undergo their change from corruption to glorification, and, thus set free to respond to the attraction of our Lord, will be caught up together with them to meet the Lord. Thus the two flocks will become one visibly, as before they were one in inner reality.

II. It is not on earth or in Paradise, but in heaven, that this ideal is fully expressed.Only in heaven does Jesus fully satisfy the hunger and thirst of His people. In Thy presence is fulness of joy, and at Thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore. But what is this life of heaven? I ask, What is the heavenly life, not where is heaven? A threefold bliss marks this heavenly life.

(a) There is the bliss of realised personal perfection. Imperfection marks Christian life here.

(b) There is the joy of perfected union and communion with our fellow-citizens in the heavenly city.

(c) There is the joy of perfected union with God in Christ through the Holy Ghost. This is an essential condition of the life of perfect satisfaction.

III. Thus Christian life, from the font to the throne, is a life lived under the pastorate of the Risen Jesus.It is a life lived in His one Holy Catholic Church under its various conditions as militant on earth, expectant in Paradise, glorified in heaven.

Rev. Canon Body.

Fuente: Church Pulpit Commentary

Rev 7:17. Lamb shall feed them with delicacies that are unknown to men living in the flesh. Living fountains of ‘waters are among the blissful objects to be enjoyed by those who overcome by faith in the Lamb. Wipe away all tears by preventing anything that could cause tears.

Comments by Foy E. Wallace

Verse 17.

The living fountains of water–Rev 7:17.

These figures of speech signified that their tribulations were over. They were avenged by the overthrow of their persecutors. Henceforth the Lamb would feed them; the opposite to the symbols of want in tribulation. He would lead them unto living fountains of waters–no longer amid the dangers of the persecuting powers, but where provender, peace, refreshment and satisfaction were unrestrained. It is the apocalyptic version of the twenty-third psalm.

Finally, the ultimate in the symbols of victory: God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes–the persecutions had ended, the tribulations were over. Here the visions and scenes all merge into one company, the victorious church of Christ.

Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary