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htps://biblicalstudies.org.uk/ar�cles_bib-sacra_01.phpTHE PURPOSE OF THE APOCALYPSECHABLIIIS EW.A.BD SMITH, D.D •.
JrRm>ONU, NIlW YOBXTHAT the Apocalypse hu a purpose is unquestionable.
The place of honor it occupies at the end of the sacred
volume, its elaborate and surprising litel'\U"Y structure, thep~minence of its apostolic author, and the glory of its
divine Inspirer, - all compel us to expect a productionof great importance and usefulness. That the Word ofGod should close with a book without adaptation to any
conceivable end, and therefore of no practical value, issimply unthinkable by anyone who comprehends the general significance of Revelation.
Of course it would be overstating the lamentable bewilderment and uncertainty of Christian scholarship u
to such a purpose to say that it has no ideas about it, orthat the great company of God's dear children do not findin the Book of Revelation much that is unspeakably precious. On the contrary, it is in them a noble Palace, in
whose chambers of peace they rest their weary souls, andin whose halls of glory they wander with delight and exultation. Bits of it they understand; here and there they
perceive meaning and use; but what it is all for, the planof the mighty maze, neither learned nor unlearned reader
can be said to have yet comprehended.
This is as true to-day as it was nearly fifty years ago,
when Alford wrote his Commentary, in which he expresses
his doubts of ali previous attempts to solve the problem
and confesses his own ignorance and uncertainty. The
war has turned the minds of thinking people towards theApocalypse as likely to contain some prediction of 80
great a confiict, and several articles have appeared in religious quarterlies, on this remarkable book. One of them,in the Biblical Review, by Professor Grit1lth Thomas, ofWycliffe College, Toronto, gives a summary of many works

The P1.WpOBe oj the Apocalyp8e

165

containing the views of their respective authors as towhat the Apocalypse means. No two of these views agree;
and while each of them has more or less valuable suggestiveness, no one can claim to have made known thegreat specific purix>Be which the Book of Revelation wasintended to accomplish. It is easy to see that it is a bookof prophecy, that a great and final triumph of Jesus ispromised; but what is the special character of that triumph, and how the story of it is related to the needs oj(}od'8 people, and particularly of 80me 8peciaZ Clas8 ofGod's people, none of these authors has informed us.
And yet it is not impossible to think of a gr~t and mostimportant purp08e yet unprovided for when the Apocalypse
yet remained to be written. When we reach the point inJude in which we are exhorted to "contend earnestly forthe faith which was once for all delivered unto the saints,"
it is natural to ask ourselves what encouragement isneeded, and greatly needed, to go on with that contention
to a victorious conclmdon.
Is there any way to make men Christians except by convincing them of their sins and persuading them to accept
the offer of salvation? Js anyone really a 'Christian until
his mind has gone through that revolution by which naturalerrors have been displaced by divine truth? What is implied by the statement that the Jdngdoms of this world
have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of his Christ?
How is he going to acquire those kingdoms? Can he do it
by force like Mohammed? Will he fall down and worship
Satan to get his assistance? Is there any imaginable way
except by appealing to the reason and conscience andspiritual nature of individual sinners, ·and bringing tobear upon them the great motives of revealed religion?
Many seem to think so, but they do not and cannot show
any other intelligible method. Jesus himself never used
any other or suggested any other. His sole program forthe conversion of mankind to Christianity is, "Go ye into
all the world, and preach the Gospel to every creature" !
No one of hi's apostles ever tried or could try any other166

BibUotheca Sacra[April,method, and the Great Apostle relied upon it with absolute confidence, saying, " I am not ashamed of the Gospelof Christ," and called it the ({ power of God," and the({ wisdom of God."And yet under what tremendous discouragements Paulpreached this gospel! What a battle, rather a lifelong
war, he had to wage against Jewish unbelief and Pagan
superstition! What sad experiences he had of the backsliding of his converts to another and an unreal gospel!
Christ did not fail to warn his servants of the discouragements they would inevitably meet. And at the end of theapostolic age, though the successes of Christianity had
been great, an apostate Jewish race and an almost universally Pagan world presented a well-nigh solid front
against it.
We cannot here repeat the history of the many centuries
which have elapsed since that time, but all who know itknow how fluctuating have been the fortunes of Christ's
cause during this long period. And how stands the scoreof battle now? Where upon the great field of the worldis the truth of Revelation finally and unmistakably victorious over error? With the Jews generally persisting intheir rejection of Christ as their Messiah; with Paganism
yet shrouding the larger part of the habitable globe in
midnight darkness; with corrupt forms of Christianity arrogating to themselves the title of the true Church ofChrist; with the land and people of Luther renouncing
every moral law and every precept of the gospel; and last,
but not least of all, with the Germanized universities ofProtestant nations spreading far and wide the propaganda
on infidelity; what preacher of the gospel or what defender of the faith can there be who does not have hismisgivings as to the final result, and feel the great need ofbeing braced and heartened by some clear and positive assurance from the divine oracles that after all the heathen
will be given to the Son of God for his inheritance, and theslow method of the Gospel and the Holy Spirit vindicatedby its magnificent result? It is only necessary for this1921]

The PUrpQ8e of the ,ApocaZyp8e167

great need to be realized to perceive what the character ofthe last book of the Bible had to be.
It was the knowledge of the necessity of supplying thisgreat need by the great Head of the Church, its ascendedteacher, which led to this final revelation of "the thi~gs
that shall be hereafter," in wonderful and glorious contrast
to "the things which are,". by means of "the things whichthou hast seen" in this unparalleled series of visions whichconstitute the Apocalypse. It was the keen realizationof this need by the beloved John, when a :prisoner and a.sufferer U for the word of God and for the te8timooy ofJ e8U8 Christ" in the isle of Patmos, which prepared him toreceive' with joy and appreciation the encouragement which
he and all his fellow witnesses to the truth as it is in Jesus
so urgently need. And it will be indeed strange if we whoare looking with blanched .faces at the awful fact, that anominally Christian nation can be robbed in a single generation by a false education of its. Bible and its God,should yet remain blind to our own need of comfort andcheer, and fail to find it in the very place where God has
graciously supplied it.
About thirty yCarM ago (1890) the author of this paper
published a study of the Apocalypse, in which he proposed
as its leading and fundamental. idea, U The Progre88 ofTruth in. Enlightening and Saving Mankmd." That is thefuture of the world's history in which the preachers of thegospel and the teachers of Bible truth are most interested
and which it most concerns them to anticipate. It has to
do with the morale of each soldier of Jesus Christ, and if
it be hopeful it can inspire him with the presage ofvictory. It would be of comparatively little moment to
him to learn what future political changes there are to be,what battles are to be fought, what earthquakes or othercatastrophes are to take place. But progress in the realmof moralw and the spiritual life, the campaigns of religious
truth in its conquest of error, the civilizing and humanizing of wild beastly governments, the supplanting of the• false church by the true, and the reduction of the carnal

168

Bibliotheca Sacra[April,thinking of natural men to the obedience of Jesus Christas their authoritative Teacher and sufficient Saviour until
the knowledge of the Lord shall cover the whole earth,this is revelation of the future which God's people may
anxiously desire to obtain and which God might well be
expected to impart. And this, it may be added, is the very
character of the book which most appropriately and effectively closes the volume of inspiration.
To show this fully would require a volume, but convincing evidence may be given in the space at our disposal.
Great as are the difficulties of the interpretation of many
details of the prophecy, the significance of its principalsymbols is easily seen. To begin with the first vision,
which it is reasonable to regard as the clue to what follows,
let us look, as John did, at the seven golden candlesticks,
and at one like unto the Son of man, walking among themwith a countenance as the sun. shining in his strength, andholding in his right hand seven sta,.8. Candlesticks, sun.,and sta,.s, can there be any doubt as to what they mean?
Are-they not all symbols of Illumination'
Do they not at once suggest a dark world to be lighted
up, and the very means by which to accomplish it? Can
we be mistaken in thinking that the Lord Jesus is here resuming the thought which immediately follows the Beatitudes, when he said to his disciples, "Ye are the light ofthe world"? "Men light a candle, and put it . • . on acandlestick, and it giveth light unto all that are in thehouse.. Let your light so shine before men!" Surely there
is little unrevealed "mystery" about this vision when weare told that the seven candlesticks are the seven (i. e. all)churches; and the implication is plain enough, that thechurches with their angels, in conjunction with Jesus himself, who is the" Light of the world," are expected to lightup the moral and religious darkness of mankind, and that
it is the story in symbol of this wonderful illuminationthat composes the remainder of the book.
H anyone doubts that light is the natural and fitting
symbol of truth, let him look up the many instances in the1921]

The PttrpOBe of th.e \.tipoca'byps6

169

Bible where the two are so associated! It is " the entranceof thy words which giveth light," and "Thy word is a lamp
unto my feet,. and a light unto my path." And what is thenoord going out of the mouth" of the symbolic figure ofthe vision but the " sword of the Spirit, which is the Wordof God!" How simply and quite plainly we are thus toldthat it is "the words that go forth ollt of his month" andwhich he ll8.id are "spirit and life," repeated by his disciples to the end of time, by which he expected his kingdom to be established all over this ignorant and sinfulearth!
To assure himself of the ruling significance of this firstvision of spiritual luminaries, let the student observe how
many times it is virtually repeated, though with variations
suited to different situations. In the fourth chapter it is
the Father seated upon his throne, who looks "like a
Jasper, and a Sardine stone" (white light mingled withfire) ; "and a rainbow round about the throne," that signof promise which appears only where· a snn is shining. In
the tenth chapter it is. "a mighty Angel come down fromheaven, . . . and a rainbow was upon his head, and hisface was as it were the Sun, and his feet as pillars of fire."In the twelfth chapter it is "a woman clothed with theSun, and the Moon under her feet, and upon her head a
Crown of twelve Stars." In the eighteenth chapter it isan "Angel come down from heaven, having great power;
and the earth was lightened with his glory." And finally,in the twenty-first chapter, it is the new Jerusalem, " having
the glory of God; and her light was like unto a stone mostprecious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal. . • .
And the city had no need of the Sun, neither of the Moon
to shine in it; for the glory of God. did lighten it, and theLamb is the light thereof." How the many acute andscholarly minds that have wrestled with the problem of
apocalyptical interpretation could have 80 generally failed
to perceive the great significance of the essential oneness of
this series of visions, that they denote the progress of truth
ift, the enZightenNn.g and 800ing of matlkind, and that thei(

170

Bibliotheca Sacra[April,final glorious vision announces the perfect triumph of thegospel of Jesus over all falsehood and error, is to the writerof this paper one of the strangest instances of criticalblindness which the history of literature affords. With theexception of Bishop Quayle, in a recent eloquent article inThe Methodist Review, who declares that the motto of theApocalypse is "Let there be light," nobody but myself seems
to have noticed that the last great book of the Bible echoes
the first great book's sublime fiat, putting into it a spiritual
meaning and a prophetic assurance inexpressibly comforting to every child of God.
The necessary limits of this paper forbid the reference
to many additional corroborations, but there is one too
striking in its agreement to be omitted. It is the scene
described in the fourth and fifth chapters, in which Heaven
is revealed as the great source of that illumination whichthose who are "sitting in darkness and in the shadow ofdeath" on earth so much need. "Out of the Throne proceeded lightnings, and thunderings, and voices; and there
were 80000 lamps of fire burning before the Throne, which.are the seven Spirits of God." Here too are the representatives of the glorified church; but with all their wisdom,"no man in heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth,
was able to open the book, neither to look thereon," a book" in the right hand of him that sat on the Throne," " written
within and on the backside, sealed with seven seals." What·
can this book mean but information, education, the knowledge of the way to dissipate the moral and spiritual darkness of earth, knowledge which only omniscience possesses?
How natural the tears of the apostle at the inability of all
finite minds to open the book and to loose its seals!
And
how exulting the new song of the glorified church when it
learned that the "Lamb as it had been, slain, having sevenhorns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God,sent forth into all the earth!' "hath prevailed to open the·bOOk, and to loose the seven seals thereof." What canthis mean but that the evangelization of this world is not
too hard a problem for God to solve, and that the gospel

1921]The Purpose of the 'Apocalypse

171of a crucified Saviour is destined to light up the darkplaces of earth with a brightness in which no base superstition and no false religion can survive?
IIn conclusion, it may be said that the purpose thus attributed to tJie Apocalypse is one most worthy of God to entertain, most fitting to close the Holy Scriptures, and mostdesirable for the Ohurch to recognize. It is a working hypothesis capable of being applied to the explanation of thesymbolism of every cbapter. I t is in harmony with theevident intent of similar symbolic pass~ in Daniel andother prophecies. It is in line with the general trend of theBible from beginning to the end of the Epistles. It is thevery purpose set forth in the sixth verse of the fourteenth
chapter, where John" saw another Angel fly in the midstof heaven, having the everlasting Gospel, to preach unto
them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, andkindred, and 1:<?ngue, and people." And, finally, it is a
purpose which will ful:flll, to those who can understand andrealize it, the prediction of the introduction to the book:"Blessed is ~e that readeth, and they that hear the wordsof this prophecy, and keep those things which are written
therein."