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removes from them the stains of the guilt of sin, but it has nothing to do with holiness (Gebhardt, p. 123). If this purification is at the same time designated as a loosening from sin (read XúoavTi), then the blood shed by Christ in His voluntary death from love to men (i. 5; comp. iii. 9), as in the teaching of Jesus (§ 22, c; comp. the arroλúrρwors in Paul and in the Epistle to the Hebrews, § 80, c; 122, c), is presented as the ransom, for which men are delivered from the guilt into which sin brought them. But therewith, too, are they similarly at the same time ransomed, as by Peter (§ 49, d), from the bondage of Satan (comp. § 133, c, footnote 8), under which all the inhabitants of the earth stand (v. 9, xiv. 3), so that the ransomed now belong to God and the Lamb, as a first sheaf consecrated to God (xiv. 4), and form a kingdom in which they serve God as priests (i. 6).3

(b) In consequence of the victory, which He who rose again from the dead (i. 18, ii. 8) has obtained, Christ has sitten down with the Father on His throne (iii. 21; comp. vii. 17, xii. 5), which is now the throne of God and of the Lamb (xxii. 1, 3); and He is thereby exalted to a position of divine lordship (§ 19, c), which cannot be awanting here as the chief point in the representation of Messiah. He is now God's Anointed, sharing with God the lordship over His kingdom (xi. 15, xii. 10); the Son of God (ii. 18), who calls Him His Father in an exclusive sense (i. 6, ii. 27, iii. 5, 21, xiv. 1); the Holy One, who is so in deed and in truth (iii. 7: ὁ ἅγιος ὁ ἀληθινός; comp. xix. 11: ὁ ἀληθινός), who has the

3 Christ's victory over the devil, a victory which forms the basis for the rule of God on the earth (xii. 9, 10; comp. § 23, c), is no doubt perfected by His exaltation, but specially won by His death, on which account the conqueror, announced v. 5, appears, ver. 6, as a slain lamb. On account of His blood, which has redeemed them from the dominion of Satan, believers are now able to conquer Satan (xii. 11 : ἐνίκησαν αὐτὸν διὰ τὸ αἷμα τοῦ ἀρνίου), who ever struggles afresh to win back his dominion over them (§ 133, d).

In a strange way, Schenkel, p. 305, concludes from the fact that the resurrection is not expressly mentioned (although it appears to be already commemorated, according to i. 10, in the xvpaxǹ μipa), that it is not regarded, as by Paul, as a mighty work of God. But that He is even called, i. 5, xfwrótoxos Tv vxp (comp. Col. i. 18), shows clearly that He has been raised by God to an unchangeable life, not otherwise than all the dead. Only because He first broke through the unconquerable gates of Hades (comp. Matt. xvi. 18), has He henceforth the keys of death and Hades, ¿.e. is He able to deliver others from the power of death (i. 18).

key of David, and therefore complete power over the Messianic kingdom (iii. 7, after Isa. xxii. 22). As such He is the Lord of believers (xi. 8, xiv. 13, xxii. 20, 21), and they are His servants (i. 1, ii. 20), and bear His name (xiv. 1, iii. 12); He walks in the midst of the golden candlesticks, which represent the churches (i. 13, ii. 1), and has their stars in His hand (i. 16, 20, ii. 1). But, because He shares God's throne, He is at the same time the Lord simply, exalted above all kings and lords (i. 5, xvii. 14, xix. 16), and appears even in the royal attire of the diadem (xix. 12). With lordship He has received judgment over the Gentiles, according to Ps. ii. 8 (ii. 27, xii. 5, xix. 5); and hence He has a two-edged sword in His mouth (i. 16, ii. 12, 16, xix. 15), and feet of glowing brass (i. 15, ii. 18). Finally, as the Son of man of Daniel (§ 16, d), He will come again (i. 13, xiv. 14), in that He rises as the bright morning star, who ushers in the day of final consummation (xxii. 16; comp. 2 Pet. i. 19, and with it § 127, b).

27 (comp. v. 12), has God, as we found it

(c) Although Jesus, according to ii. received His Messianic lordship from set forth besides in the early apostolic system of teaching (§ 39, c; 50, a; 120, d), yet it is brought forward more prominently in the Apocalypse than elsewhere, that He has this position of divine dignity in virtue of His divine nature. The transference of the name of Jehovah is not indeed made to Him directly (§ 133, a), and that the new (iii. 12) unfathomable (xix. 12) name, which He receives, is the name of Jehovah (comp. Baur, p. 215), is unlikely. But the glory which He, according to the general New Testament teaching, receives, along with His exaltation, and which here appears under the image of the brightness of the sun (i. 16), is so much the really divine, that the prophet at its appearance falls down as dead (ver. 17), since no mortal can behold the glory of God. As God alone in the Old Testament tries the heart and the reins (Ps. vii. 10), so is this predicate ascribed to Christ (ii. 23; comp. 1 Cor. iv. 5), and this heart-searching glance is described in this way, that His eyes are like flames of fire (i. 14, ii. 18, xix. 12). He has the seven Spirits of God (iii. 1), by which the all-seeing, i.e. all-knowing, operates throughout the world; because by them, which, according to

Zech. iv. 10, are sent out through the whole earth, He appears as Himself everywhere present. The angels of God even are His angels (i. 1, xxii. 16, i. 16, 20; comp. § 19, d). The four living creatures and the twenty-four elders fall down before Him, as before God Himself (v. 8, 14); and this is here all the more significant, as Tроσкúvησis is declined by the angels as being a specific prerogative of God (xix. 10, xxii. 9). As they praise Him, not otherwise than God Himself (vii. 12, v. 12, 13), so the Apocalypse has doxologies to Christ (i. 6, vii. 10; comp. § 76, b; 127, c), and during the thousand years' kingdom priests minister to Him as to God Himself (xx. 6).

(d) of the steps by which Paul and the Epistle to the Hebrews, by reasoning backwards, are led from the divine glory of Christ to His original divine nature (§ 79, 118), there is in the Apocalypse no trace. Yet the fact that Messiah is originally a Divine Being stands fast à priori. Even that He, i. 14, as the Ancient of Days (Dan. vii. 9), appears with white hair, points to His origin long before He appeared on the earth; but if He is designated, i. 17, ii. 8, as the first and the last, it refers equally to His eternity, as do the designations of God as the A and 2, the beginning and the end, in the middle of which Christ is put (xxii. 13), as Gess, p. 572, rightly proves against Gebhardt, p. 85 [E. T. 81]. Finally, Christ is expressly, iii. 14, named as the ȧpxǹ τῆς κτίσεως τοῦ Θεοῦ. This expression does not, to be sure, designate Him as the principle of creation (Beyschlag, p. 131 f.), which here appears as the creation of God, but, according to Prov. viii. 22, as He who existed before the whole creation, so that He is not to be put on an equality with it, as Schenkel, p. 312, will have it (comp. Col. i. 15, and with it § 103, a, footnote 1). The interpretation of

5 For the explanation of the principle of creation (comp. Gess, p. 575), Gebhardt, p. 94 [E. T. 92], makes use of the meaning of the word as though i did not designate often enough the contents of creation (comp. Mark xvi. 15; Rom. i. 25, viii. 19, 22). Both of them (Gess, p. 587; Gebhardt, p. 101 [E. T. 99]) again apply quite wrongly the name, which Christ bears as He goes out to the last conflict (xix. 13: ó λóyos Toũ esoũ), to His pre-temporal Being, as Beyschlag, p. 132, refers it to the Alexandrian doctrine of the Logos. The latter, however, does not designate Him as the medium of divine revelation (Lechler, p. 200), but, in conformity with the function with which He bears the

these expressions as simply titles (Baur, p. 215), which are transferred only externally to Christ in so far as the great eschatological expectation is connected with Him (p. 218), is unimaginable to any consciousness of God that has sprung up out of the New Testament.

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§ 135. The Saints.

The saints are the God-fearing servants of God, who do the works proceeding from repentance, and fulfil the commands of God revealed by Christ (a). But the fundamental presupposition for this is faith in Christ as the Messiah, by keeping which, in obedience to His word, one can in patience and fidelity even to death alone secure the victory in the contest with Satan (b). Yet it is the grace of God and Christ alone which leads to salvation; but the definite impulse given by the calling is no irrevocable one (c). The chief means by which saints are prepared for the consummation of salvation is prophecy, with its consolation and its exhortation (d).

(a) The members of the New Testament Church of God are,

name, as the executor of the divine (judicial) will, inasmuch as, according to Old Testament views (Heb. iv. 12), the Word of God as living directly executes what it announces. Biedermann, p. 235, finds in this name, which he identifies with that in iii. 12, Christ; as the actual revelation of the divine glory designates and means, that He as such is called also the realized ground and purpose of creation (iii. 14, xxii. 13), although this combination is nowhere indicated. Equally objectless is it with Gebhardt, p. 82 f. [E. T. 79], from aos vi vepú to infer an originally Divine Being in human form; or with Gess, p. 576, from the name of Son to infer essential equality with God.

That Christ has received His exaltation to the glory of divine power only by God (Biedermann, p. 235; Schenkel, p. 311) proves so little, that by the expressions regarding His original divine nature "it is not seriously meant," that these rather explain the mystery of the former. A contradiction with the glory of divine power given Him on the ground of His original divine nature appears only to lie in this, that the exalted Christ, ii. 7, iii. 2, 12, calls God His God; and this is to be explained only by the fact that, if the image of Him as He wandered on the earth lived in the memory of an eye-witness, it is naturally transferred by him to the Exalted One. But the conception of the preexistence presupposed in our book as an ideal one, which yet the author of the Apocalypse himself is not to distinguish from a real one (Beyschlag, p. 137), cannot be based on this, that, if the theocracy gave birth to the Messiah (xii. 5), He must have been for a long time in it in embryo (p. 138). For that this former existence is no other than that given in prophecy, is just as evident as that it not only does not exclude the actual existence of the person of whom prophecy speaks, but rather very naturally presupposes that existence.

as all true Israelites (e.g. Moses, xv. 3, and the prophets, x. 7, xi. 18), servants of God (Soûλo eoû: vii. 3, xix. 2, 5, xxii. 3, 6), who fear His name (xi. 18; comp. xix. 5), praise Him (xv. 4), and give to Him honour (xi. 13, xiv. 7, xvi. 9, xix. 7), as in Peter (§ 45, c); but as members of His own people (§ 130, c), who bear His name (xiv. 1, iii. 12), they are uniformly called in our book saints (oi ayıoi: v. 8, viii. 3, 4, and very often). Their righteous deeds (Sikaipaтa, as xv. 4) form the marriage garments, in which they are one day introduced to perfect fellowship with Messiah (xix. 8); hence must they evermore practise righteousness and sanctify themselves (xxii. 11), in order that their works may be perfect in God's judgment (iii. 2: éváπiov Toû coû). But these works are by no means outward services. Only by the repentance (μeTávola) required by Christ (§ 21) can those, who are not Christians, turn from their sinful works (ix. 20, 21, xvi. 11) and give honour to God (xvi. 9). Just as Christians, if they allow themselves to relax from moral efforts (ii. 5, iii. 3, 19), or to be seduced to immorality (ii. 16, 21, 22), can attain by repentance to works well-pleasing to God. To do these works

1 Since, xix. 5, according to the correct reading, i poß. «úróv is in apposition to oi doñλɑ avroũ, it is quite inadmissible, on the single passage xi. 18, which is plainly conditioned by Ps. cxv. 13, to found the idea, that Gentile Christians specially are designated by this name, recalling proselytism to mind, as Gebhardt, p. 165 [E. T. 157 f.], wishes.

2 According to the symbolism of the Apocalypse, the moral walk of a man, as the outward exhibition of his piety, is his clothing, from which it evidently does not follow, that a high value is ascribed to works in themselves as separate from the subject (Baur, p. 226), but quite the contrary. The man is naked if he fails in a moral walk (iii. 18), and every one sees the nakedness of his piety (xvi. 15). He stains his garments by sin (iii. 4), which also, xxii. 11, appears as defilement in contrast to the holiness of Christians, and he purifies himself from the stains of guilt, which sin leaves on his garments, by the blood of Christ (vii. 14). It is a new turn of this symbolism, if the divine acknowledgment of human righteousness (§ 65, c) is set forth as a garment, which the righteous receive (xix. 8; comp. § 132, d, footnote 6).

3 Among those works by which repentance is shown, is reckoned missionary zeal (iii. 8), as the service of love (ii. 4, 5, 19) to Christian brethren (i. 9, vi. 11, xix. 10, xxii. 9), who are at the same time brethren of God's heavenly family (§ 133, b, xii. 10). By these works the watchfulness already required by Christ (§ 30, b) is proved (iii. 2, xvi. 15), and the true life well-pleasing to God (iii. 1; comp. 2 Pet. i. 3); its want is an indication of lukewarmness and false conceit amid spiritual poverty (iii. 15-17). As in the Gospels (§ 29, a), the doing of such works can even be designated as the following of Christ, which consists of virginal purity from fleshly sins (which can be taken neither with Köstlin, p. 493, of virginity

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