Word of Salvation – Vol.41 No.07 – February 1996

 

The Living Christ

 

Sermon by Rev. Prof. S. Voorwinde on Revelation 1:17-18

Scripture Readings: Matthew 28:1-10, Revelation 1:9-20

 

Beloved Congregation of our Lord Jesus Christ.

The most important question that Jesus ever asked His disciples, and indeed the most significant question that He could ask of any group of people, is simply this: “What do you think of Christ?”  A Christian believer once said: “Tell me what a generation thinks about Christ, and I will tell you what I think of that generation.”

Back in 1871, after the Franco-Prussian war that was fought between the French and the Germans, the people of Paris decided to build a monument.  It signified that the war was over and that peace had been restored.  That monument was the church of the Sacra Coeur, a beautiful, domed marble building on a hill overlooking the city of Paris.  Several years ago I had the opportunity to visit Paris, and the Sacra Coeur was high on my list of priorities.  So I took the underground railway to the nearest station and then walked up the steep hill leading to the church.  The closer I got, the grander and more beautiful the Sacra Coeur appeared.  Seated on top of that hill it looked lofty and magnificent.  Yet as soon as I entered inside that building I was deeply disappointed.  There in front of me, taking up the entire front wall of the church, was a huge painting of Christ – and it was the most pathetic, weak looking picture of Christ I had ever seen in my life.

What a discouragement!  What a let-down!  What a lack of challenge to the people of a city like Paris!  How poor to have such an inadequate concept of Christ!  What had happened to His strength, to His character, to His power?

But then what concept do we have of Christ in our generation?  In our generation of Christians even?  Perhaps we don’t make Him look weak and pathetic, but isn’t it all too easy to over-emphasise the gentler side of His character?  In some Christian circles, although probably not so much in our own, hasn’t there been too much of the “gentle Jesus, meek and mild”?  Haven’t we often neglected the sterner side of His personality?

As a teenager, I once visited a Christian guest-house in the Blue Mountains in NSW.  In the main sitting room there was a plaque on the wall with the question: “What think ye of Christ?”  Underneath there was the answer, “He is altogether lovely.”  This is indeed a biblical truth, and this same truth is expressed now in one of the songs of The Book of Worship:

“Everybody ought to know who Jesus is.
He’s the lily of the valley.
He’s the bright and morning star.
He’s the fairest of ten thousand.
Everybody ought to know.”

And indeed – everybody ought to know these things.  But everybody ought also to know that there is more to Jesus than that He is “altogether lovely” and the “lily of the valley.”  Especially when the going gets rough we need to know more.  Then sentimental paintings won’t do.  Pretty pictures won’t do.  We will need to catch a glimpse of the prostrating vision of Christ that John experienced in the Apocalypse:

“When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.  Then he placed his right hand on me and said.  ‘Do not be afraid.  I am the first and the last.  I am the living one: I was dead and behold I am alive forever and ever!  And I hold the keys of death and Hades’.” (Rev 1:17-18)

This is the kind of message that we need to hear, and this is the kind of Christ that we need to see.  Hear that Jesus was dead but is alive forever and ever.  See the living and risen Christ.

With this in mind, I want to ask you a question.  I wonder whether you have ever been tempted to ask: “I want to see God.”  Maybe you asked this as a Christian going through trials and temptations.  You needed reassurance; you needed desperately to hold on to your faith.  And so, with Moses, you said, “Lord, I beseech Thee, show me Thy glory.” (Ex.33:18)

Or maybe you demanded it out of unbelief.  “If there is a God I can’t see Him, I can’t touch Him, I can’t feel Him, and nobody can prove to me that He exists.  So God, if you’re there, show yourself.”

If that’s the case, if you want to see God, do you really know what you are asking for?  Do you know how devastating it would be if He granted your request?  God said to Moses: “You cannot see my face, for no one may see me and live” (Ex.33:20).  Even when John saw the exalted Christ in a vision, it was a terrible experience: “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.”  It was the last time that God appeared in a vision to anyone in the pages of Scripture, and every time the effect was the same.

There was Job.  He was a man of integrity.  He was innocent.  He was pure.  Even God could say: “There is no one on earth like him; he is blameless and upright, a man who fears God and shuns evil.” (Job 1:8).  Yet when Job saw God, this is what he said: “My ears had heard of you but now my eyes have seen you.  Therefore I despise myself and repent in dust and ashes.” (Job 42:5-6).

Then there was the prophet Isaiah.  In the first five chapters of his book he is eloquent in denouncing the nation of Israel.  But then in chapter six he sees the vision of God: “I saw the Lord, sitting on a throne, high and lifted up and His train filled the temple…!”  Then on whom does he pronounce the next woe after this radiant vision?  “Then I said, woe is me!  For I am undone, because I am a man of unclean lips… for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts.”

Then in the NT, there’s the case of Paul when he was still persecuting the early Christians: “As he neared Damascus on his journey, suddenly a light from heaven flashed around him.  He fell to the ground and heard a voice say to him.  ‘Saul, Saul, why do you persecute me?’  ‘Who are you, Lord?’ Saul asked.  ‘I am Jesus whom you are persecuting’.” (Acts 9:3-5)

Then finally there was the beloved apostle John, who said: “When I saw him, I fell at his feet as though dead.”

If we were to see the risen, living Jesus as He is today, the effect would be absolutely devastating.  Job repented and retracted.  Isaiah saw his own uncleanness.  Paul fell to the ground, and John fell at Christ’s feet as though dead.

J Oswald Sanders, in his book “Spiritual Maturity”, makes this comment: “In not one case did the vision immediately result in elation and ecstasy.  With absolute consistency it produced in those to whom it came profound self-abasement.  In every instance, the experience was full of awe, not ecstatic.  The more intense the vision, the more complete the prostration before God.” (p.15)

In the dazzling whiteness of the snow, the cleanest linen appears soiled.  Before the spotless purity and holiness of God, everything earthly is seen to be stained and unclean.  As we see this vision that John had, if we look at it carefully, if the Spirit makes it live in our mind’s eye, then it’s going to have a certain effect.  It will bring to light the spots, the stains, the impurities in our own lives.  It will give us an X-ray of our souls.  We may not fall to the ground or look as though we’ve died, but there should be a genuine measure of repentance and an echo of Isaiah’s, “Woe is me!  For I am a man of unclean lips…!”

So, let’s re-read vss.12-16 of Revelation 1.  As John turned around, he saw seven golden lampstands.  These lampstands were similar to the one found in the tabernacle and the temple.  They had seven branches and provided light for the sanctuary.  Now that the Jewish temple had been destroyed, the lampstand has been taken away from the Jews, and the churches of Christ are the lampstands.  Just as God lived in the sanctuary of the temple where the lampstands were placed, so now Christ is in the midst of the lampstands which are His churches.  That was so in Asia Minor then and it is still so in Australia and New Zealand today.  His churches are lampstands and He is among them.  Notice that these churches are golden.  They are precious.  “In all the world there is nothing so valuable as the churches which hold aloft the shining word of the Gospel.” (Lenski).

In the midst of those golden lampstands there is the Son of Man, Christ Himself.  Then in bold and majestic strokes, John describes the glorious Christ who stands before him – His head, His hair, His eyes, His voice, His mouth, His clothing, His feet, His face.

(i)  This one “like a son of man” is clearly a royal figure – a king, a judge and a priest.  His clothing is a robe that has a golden belt buckled at the chest and flows down majestically to His feet.

(ii)  His head is white.  His hair is white.  They glisten as white as snow.  When the sun shines on it, it hurts your eyes.  The whiteness of the hair conveys the wisdom of the dignity of age.  The whiteness of the face tells us of His absolute purity and holiness.

(iii)  His eyes – they flash like a flame of fire.  They are piercing and all-seeing.  They read every heart, they see every motive and they penetrate every small corner of your life.  Before them there are no secrets; they see right through you and absolutely nothing is hidden.

(iv)  His feet look like copper or bronze – not when it is cold but when it is molten and glowing in the intense heat of a furnace.  With such feet He tramples down the wicked and turns them to ashes.

(v)  His voice was like the sound of many waters.  It’s really indescribable.  First it is compared to a loud trumpet.  Now it’s like the booming of the breakers or the crashing of mighty waterfalls.  Here it’s a little different to what it says in a popular Easter hymn, “He speaks and His voice is so sweet that the birds hush their singing.”  Rather, He speaks and every other voice is drowned out.

(vi)  In his right hand He holds seven stars which are the angels of the seven churches.

(vii) Out of his mouth comes a sharp two-edged sword.  The kind of sword mentioned is the great, long, heavy sword that is wielded with both hands.  It is the kind of sword that David used to cut off Goliath’s head.  It was designed to strike terror into the heart of the enemy.

(viii)  Then finally His face – or perhaps it means His overall appearance – was like the sun shining in its strength.  He shone as the sun at high noon – too intense for human eyes to look upon.

So, that was John’s vision of the risen Lord:
Jesus Christ – His head and His hair dazzling white, like glistening snow;
Jesus Christ – His eyes a flame of fire, and His feet glowing like molten bronze;
Jesus Christ – a great sword coming out of His mouth, and His voice thundering like trumpets, like breakers, like waterfalls.

Not surprisingly, when John saw Him, he fell at His feet as a dead man.  What is your response to the living Christ?  What is your reaction?  What does this vision do to you?  Is there any repentance?  Is there anything of Isaiah’s “Woe is me!”?

But there is another side to the picture.  God takes no pleasure in seeing His children lie in the dust.  So our text goes on: “Then he placed his right hand on me and said ‘Do not be afraid.”

And why?  Because, “I am the first and the last.  I am the living one.  I was dead and behold, I am alive for ever and ever!  And I have the keys of death and Hades.”

Surely that is the glorious, comforting message of Easter morning.  “Do not be afraid.”  That was the word for the women hurrying away from the empty tomb, afraid and yet at the same time filled with joy.  That was the word for John who had been devastated by his vision of the risen Christ.  That was the word for the scattered little churches of Asia Minor who were persecuted by the mighty emperor of Rome and his powerful legions.  They were so small.  Their foes were so great.  Yet Christ says, “Do not be afraid.”

This is also the message for us when our future seems uncertain because of unemployment or an illness or a disability that just won’t go away, “Do not be afraid.”  And why not?  Because the reassuring right hand of Jesus is on your shoulder, and because He rose from the dead, all power and authority have been given to Him in heaven and on earth.  He is the first and the last and the living One.  He was dead, and behold, He is alive forever and ever!  And He holds the keys of death and of Hades.

Nowadays there are men with great power – more power perhaps than ever before in the history of mankind.  And yet the greatest power is not with Messrs Clinton, Yeltsin or Major, but… but with Jesus Christ.  They may hold sway over great nations, but their destiny is in His hand.  They will die, but He lives on.

He is the first and the last.  There was nothing before Him and there will be nothing after Him.  He is the Alpha and the Omega.  He is the living One.  He is life and the source of life for all who believe in Him.  He holds the keys of death and of Hades.  What He opens, no one can shut, and what He shuts, no one can open.  He has the power to keep from hell and to consign to hell.

Jesus Christ has power that even in this nuclear age world leaders could never dream of.  He is the one who determines their destinies.

The Roman emperors, Napoleon, Adolf Hitler, Joseph Stalin, Mao-Tse Tung – they all had great power, but when their time had come they died.  They did not have the keys of death and of Hades.  Christ did.  He is the living One, and behold, He is alive forever more.

Therefore,
“Thine be the glory, risen, conquering Son.
Endless is the victory, Thou o’er death hast won.”

Hallelujah!

Amen.