Sermon Bible Commentary
Revelation 22:17
The Will.
I. We must believe in the absolute sovereignty of God. We see it in nature. With whom took He counsel in creation? It was at His sovereign will the Himalayas raised their heads; it was at His sovereign will the depths of the ocean were dug deep. We see it in providence. He gives or withholds the rain; causes one child to be born in a palace and another in a hovel. Nor has He abdicated His sovereignty in the sphere of grace. His purposes stand fast; His will must be done. But I believe also that man is a moral agent, endowed with the instinct of will, not a mere puppet in the hand of fate. We are not Mahometans, and we do not believe in a Kismet from which there is no escape. We acknowledge the harmony that must exist between the sovereignty of God and the will of man in nature, as, for example, in the case of the farmer. We know he may plough in vain and sow in vain unless God grants the rain and the sunshine, that the harvest is absolutely in God's hands; but we also know that if the farmer therefore folds his hands and neither ploughs nor sows, his barns will be empty in the harvest-time. These two things are quite compatible: the Divine sovereignty and the free agency of man; and herein consists the glory of God. He performs His purposes not by mere machines, but by living moral agents, who have this power of will. We all acknowledge that the power of the statesman, who moulds the will of the people, is of a higher order than the power of the blacksmith, who moulds a dead, resistless piece of iron to his purpose. So God carries out His own will, though liable to be crossed at every turn by the will of man.
II. (1) The will of man is conditioned by his creation. God's will as Creator is absolute. Man's individuality, the basis of his character and of his faculties, is given to him by his Creator; and no human being can attain a higher degree of perfection than has been planned for him in the possibilities of existence. (2) His will is conditioned, not only by creation, but by heredity. It was by this law of heredity that Adam's sin was transmitted to the generations yet unborn, and rendered it harder for every son of man to refuse the evil and choose the good. (3) The will of man is conditioned also by his surroundings.
III. Two things were put before man between which he was to choose: a life in God and a life in the world independent of God. And there were implanted within him two impulses: one towards the world, which sought only for happiness, to appropriate as much as possible to one's self; the other towards God, which sought rather for blessedness, and which found its centre not in self or in the world, but in God. Man chose the worldly impulse, which led to a life centred either in the world or in self, and now the things which should have been for our wealth have become to us an occasion of falling. It is the Spirit of God who strengthens the impulses towards holiness, towards God. Yield to them, and they will become stronger and stronger; resist them, and you will become stronger towards evil, until you become Gospel-hardened, and the grieved, rejected Spirit of God leaves you to the doom which your own will has chosen.
E. A. Stuart, Children of God,p. 159.
Man Unwilling to be Saved.
The free, unlimited offer of the Gospel necessarily involves a provision for all human wants, a removal of all external obstacles, a provision of unlimited value and unrestricted sufficiency, a provision within the reach of every one to whom it is presented, and who is charged with its acceptance upon the peril of eternal death. For ourselves, we cannot see how we can separate such an offer from man's responsibility as to the result. The two doctrines must stand or fall together. If it is true that whosoever will may take of the water of life freely, it must be true that if man partakes not, it is because he will not.
I. The difficulties of religion are not found in its obscurities; the insuperable obstacles to obedience are not found in any outward circumstances. A child has understood the Gospel so as to embrace it, and men have walked with God in the midst of abounding sensuality and crime. But those difficulties are found in the spirituality of the Gospel, in the holiness of its principles, and the self-denying nature of its duties; the child of sense will not govern himself by faith, the being of earthliness will not submit to spiritual influences, and the slave of appetite will not put a curb upon his passions. Did men but love the truth as they love error, love holiness as they love sin, regard the glory of God as they do their selfish gratifications, the obstacles to religion would vanish, and the path of life would be as plain and easy to travel as is now the path into which their desires lead them.
II. This doctrine of man's responsibility for his own salvation is not only uncontradicted by, but is in perfect keeping with, the entire strain of the inspired record. Men take refuge in God's election only that they may garnish and persevere in their own election, and every man ought to know better, and does know better, than to say, "If I am not elected, I cannot be saved."
E. Mason, A Pastor's Legacy,p. 294.
Two voices are distinguished by St. John in his trance as going forth into the world with invitation and appeal, not one, but two, an outward and an inward: those of the Spirit and the bride. There are two things, the within and the without; even when an idea is communicated from one to another, there are the idea of the communicator and the idea of the recipient.
I. So it is always that the Spirit becomes audible and impressive and receives power, namely, through a form. A bride has to be found for it to make it vocal and to enable it to speak movingly. One cannot help thinking at times of the amount of latent power that sleeps around us in sensations and emotions as well as in visions and ideas which are never expressed, of the possible effects if that which some silent or stuttering souls are seeing and feeling could be adequately articulated, of the untold life stories, of the untold heart experiences, as well as brain dreams, the true and perfect telling of which would thrill us deeply. We are constantly missing much that would rouse, or pierce, or melt, because, forsooth, the Spirit lacks the bride.
II. But consider again. Here are certain beautiful ideas, such as ideas of truth, fidelity, generosity, heroism, love, self-sacrifice and devotion. We can revolve and brood on these, but what is it that makes them flash and burn, and causes us to be penetrated with them? Is it not their embodiment in some witnessed or reported deed, in some human life and character? The cross, at all events, has been of great importance in lifting the transcendent Jesus into view, in aiding His transcendent spirit to attract and captivate. His tragic and pathetic end has been the bride through which the voice of His incomparable work and sweetness has been heard and has prevailed. What the Spirit wants always, in order that it may be present among us, is just a Man; the power of Christianity is the Man Jesus Christ.
S. A. Tipple, Christian World Pulpit,vol. xxii., p. 328.
What is required of those who come to the Lord's Supper?
When a man considers with himself whether he ought to present himself at the Lord's Table, frequently he is beset with a host of difficulties and questions as to what is required of him and as to his own fitness. Where shall he go for safe guidance? I reply that he need go no further than the catechism which he learnt as a child.
I. It is required of those who come to the Lord's Supper "to examine themselves whether they repent them truly of their former sins, steadfastly purposing to lead a new life." Beyond all doubt this must be required, and it is a most reasonable requirement, for, to take no higher view of the Sacrament than this, we may regard it as a mutual pledge given by Christians to each other that they will keep the commands of Christ. The requisites for coming to the Lord's Table are identically the same with the requisites for being a Christian in life and reality, and not only in name.
II. It is required that those who come to the Lord's Supper should "have a lively faith in God's mercy through Christ, with a thankful remembrance of His death." This is clearly only that duty which is required of every one who desires to call himself without profanity and without hypocrisy by the holy name of Christ.
III. Those who come to the Lord's Supper must "be in charity with all men." Quite a reasonable requirement this, if we remember that the Lord's Supper was regarded from the earliest times as a feast of love or charity. In confessing that he is unfit for the Lord's Supper, a man is really confessing that he is unworthy to be called a Christian at all.
Harvey Goodwin, Parish Sermons,vol. ii., p. 132.
The Drawings of the Spirit.
I. At the time when St. John wrote, the Church had just passed into the dispensation of the Spirit. The Old Testament was evidently the dispensation of the Father, looking on to the Son. Then came the revelation I do not call it the dispensation the revelation of the Son, short, eloquent, beautiful, preparing the way for the dispensation of the Spirit. That dispensation commenced at the ascension of Christ, when, according to His promise, He poured out the Holy Ghost at Pentecost. From that date it has been emphatically the era of the Spirit, the era of the dispensation under which we are now placed. How much longer it will last we do not know. But then will come in all its fulness the dispensation of Jesus Christ, that glorious and wonderful period to which all prophecy points its finger, and to which the dispensation of the Spirit now is preparatory. "The Spirit and the bride say, Come." And you must remember that the dispensation of the Spirit is higher, more powerful, more responsible, than the dispensation of the Gospel during the life of Christ upon earth. Therefore Christ said to His disciples, "The works that I do shall ye do also, and greater works than these shall ye do, because I go unto My Father." Even so it came to pass; for whereas Christ did not certainly in His own person convert more than five hundred, the Spirit scarcely arrived but in one single day He converted three thousand. And for the same reason Christ also added those otherwise strange and almost incomprehensible words, "It is expedient for you that I go away, for if I go not away, the Comforter will not come unto you; but if I depart, I will send Him unto you," showing again that the dispensation of the Spirit was greater than Christ's own personal ministry in His humiliation. So once more, and still stronger, He said, "Whosoever speaketh a word against the Son of man, it shall be forgiven him; but whosoever speaketh against the Holy Ghost, it shall not be forgiven him, neither in this world, neither in the world to come." Therefore we may reverently say that up to this moment what the Spirit says and what the Spirit does, whatever it be, is the best of anything that has ever yet been upon the face of this earth. Hence it is matter of the deepest joy, and worthy to stand where it does, at the very close and summit of the revelation, that what the Holy Ghost says is "Come."
II. The Father sends many a gracious providence, some sad, some happy; but it is the Spirit who gives the providence its voice. The Son exhibits the marvellous spectacle of the cross, and Himself hanging thereon; but it is the Spirit which makes that cross to speak to the poor sinner's heart: "Come." For the Spirit is that which first makes an unseen thing a substance to the mind, and then changes the substance from a thing without to a reality which lives in a man's soul and mingles with his being. It is quite certain that very generally it is the bride which is the organ of the Spirit's voice. I suppose that there have been instances in which a man has been converted to God by the Bible and the Spirit within him without the operation of any human agency whatever. Doubtless God may do so, and I think I have read or heard of some such proofs of God's sovereignty and sufficiency; but they are to the last degree rare. It is the bride who is essentially the Spirit's organ, that gives effect to the Spirit's will: "The Spirit and the bride say, Come."
III. And who is "the bride"? A beautiful body, knit together in one holy fellowship, pure and spotless, spotless in God's eyes for His sake who loves her, "arrayed in the fine linen which is the righteousness of the saints," and decked with the ornaments of grace. She has accepted Christ for her Beloved, and is bound to Him in a perpetual covenant, never to be forgotten. In Him she has merged her name, her nature, her property, her being; while He pays all her debts, pledges Himself for all her wants, sustains her with His arm, satisfies her with His love. It is the Church, elected by grace, united by faith, sealed by baptism, kept by mercy, prepared for glory. And it is the Church, holding the Spirit, representing the Spirit, used by the Spirit, whose high part and privilege it is to be for ever crying, "Come, come." It is very difficult to determine whether when Christ said, as He stood on the margin of His glory, leaving it as His last injunction to His disciples, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature," the command was limited to the ordained. The sequel, "baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost," would lead us to say that it was confined to the ordained; but, on the other hand, the whole tone and spirit, as well as many express injunctions of the Gospel, make it certain that every one who is called is to be a caller, that we are all propagators of the truth, and that as "every man would receive the gift, so must he minister the same, as a good steward of the manifold grace of God." Therefore in some sense it is certain that the direction holds to the whole Church, "Go ye into all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature." Sad were it for that person, whoever he might be, who was excluded from that highest and holiest title that is ever worn upon this earth, a missionary. But there appears to me to be a great truth in this fact: that it is the whole Church which is represented as saying that word "Come," the Church in its collective capacity, not as broken up into individuals. It is not this or that person, but the whole bride, that says, "Come." See two consequences. (1) The Church is meant to act, and ought to act, in missionary work, as a Church in its integrity, as one complete body. Would that there were such union, the whole Church going forth as a Church to the work of missions, and doing it as a distinct part of her system! There is not; there is none. If ever there is a pure Church, and if missions are needed then, doubtless we shall then work together as one in our completeness. As the bride is one, so will the Spirit be one, and the machinery one, and the voice one. And it will be a sweet and heavenly concord of sound, like music upon water: "The Spirit and the bride say, Come." (2) But there is another and pleasant thought in the words. Is not the act or the word, the prayer or the appeal, every effort to do good, of one member of the Church, the exponent and the representative, and therefore the embodiment, of the whole Church? Is it not the Church's way of putting itself forth to you? And therefore is not that action of one individual as if it were the action of the whole Church? Has not it in it the strength of the whole Church? It may be a comfort to some one who is labouring for God, in much-felt weakness and in barren solitude, to recollect, "I am part of the whole Church catholic; it is the Church that speaks and moves even in me, poor, miserable sinner that I am. There is all the power of the Church, the Head and the members, with me. It is not I, but it. The limb may well take strength from its union with the body, and the wave that breaks upon the shore has behind it the strength of the mighty ocean. And so it shall be the Church's voice by me: 'The Spirit and the bride say, Come.'"
J. Vaughan, Fifty Sermons,9th series, p. 212.
References: Revelation 22:17. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. v., No. 279; vol. viii., No. 442; vol. xxiii., No. 1331; vol. xxvii., No. 1608; Ibid., Morning by Morning,p. 165; Talmage, Old Wells Dug Out,p. 332; Ibid., Christian World Pulpit,vol. ii., p. 270; Homiletic Magazine,vol. viii., p. 329. Revelation 22:20. Preacher's Monthly,vol. x., p. 79. Revelation 22:21. Spurgeon, Sermons,vol. xxvii., No. 1618.