IV. The Little Book:

Revelation X 8-11

"The Voice." The same as is mentioned in verse 4, that had cautioned him as to the Seven Thunders-the secret voice of the Spirit. "Speaking with me." Not to, but with, me; this is quieter, more conversational, not so much a command as a suggestion. "Go, take the the book." The book that Christ holds open in His hand, for us to look upon and read learn; the book that conveys the message of His Gospel.

In the Vision the book is a symbol of the doctrine it contains and makes known. In actual fact, it is the volume of God's Word; either the whole, or that small portion of it which contains its very essence-the New Testament.

St John was told to go to the Angel and to receive from Him the book. It was given to St. John opened, not to open; it could not then be a prophecy of future events, to be gradually unfolded in subsequent chapters. Only the Lamb has the prerogative of unfolding the future. In this, as in all else in the Visions, St. John is a representative man, prefiguring in what he did or in what was done to him Christ's true and faithful ministers and people at the time in question. Those whom St. John represented were, after recognition of Antichrist's voice and doom, to be impelled by the same heavenly guidance as before to go to the Lord Jesus, and to receive of Him the book of His Gospel.

St. John was not only to take the book, but was also to eat it up, and then to go and speak again. Compare Ezekiel i. 27, 28; ii. 1 -iii. 4. Ezekiel saw a roll of a book, and was bid to eat it and then to go and speak, the roll containing the substance of what he was to proclaim. Here the substance of Christ's Little Book is what is enjoined upon those whom St. John represents, for them to make known far and wide.

In obedience to the Angel's command, St. John took the book, and ate it up, and found it as the Angel had said sweet as honey in his mouth, but afterwards bitter. The Angel mentioned the bitterness first, as the most important, though it came second in order of time. As with Ezekiel, one chief cause of it was to be the rebelliousness of those to whom he had to speak.

St. John was in his own experience first to feed upon and assimilate the contents of the book, in order that he himself might know its sweetness and value; and then he was solemnly commissioned to resume the work of Christ's ambassador and Gospel preacher.

Prophesy Again

"Thou must prophesy again." This does not mean that he was to begin a fresh series of predictions, but that he was to resume the work of Christ's ambassador and evangelist. He had so "prophesied" before, but there had been some notable interruption of this preaching. St. John is not spoken of as prophesying in the sense of, foretelling; Christ alone does this. The Two Witnesses. are said to "prophesy" 1,260 days (Revelation XI 3-6) but even this does not mean "predict. "They are silenced in death for a time, and then they rise again.

To "prophesy," in the New Testament sense, means to "speak as God's ambassador"; not in prediction only, though that is not excluded, but in declaration of God's mind and will, publicly reading and explaining His Word, pleading His cause, reproving, rebuking, exhorting, instructing.

Gospel Preaching Extinct

This health giving practice had long been all but extinct. It was now to be resumed, but on a much wider scale than before, over many different kings and peoples, and in a titude of tongues. Those whom St. John represented, having been prepared by the experimental digestion of the doctrines of Christ's Gospel, were to be commissioned afresh by the Lord Himself, and sent forth as His witnesses and preachers. People everywhere, every rank, were to be taught the contents, the doctrines, of the Lords own book.

The reading and preaching of God's Word, originally part of the Church Service, had gradually become neglected through the monastic multiplication of services, and reading of legends of saints instead of Scripture, all in Latin, which was becoming unknown tongue; and through the exaggerated importance attached to the Sacrament In the Dark Ages, the doctrine of Transubstantiation confirmed the clergy more more in neglecting the work of an evangelist. The Mendicant Friars arose, but there no revival of true Gospel preaching. Wickliffe and the Lollard preachers in England, the Hussites in Bohemia, were indeed glorious exceptions; but they were excommunicated, and nearly suppressed by the sword.

Thus this most important function of the Christian ministry was almost universally lected. Living addresses to the heart and conscience, fresh from the living fountain of Divine Truth, setting forth God's love in Christ, were all but unknown in the established worship of the Christian Church, and were all but suppressed in the sects outside, till the beginning of the Reformation.

Luther's Commission

Luther, at his Deacon's ordination, had had put into his hand, the Book of the Gospels and authority had been given him to read them in the Church, and to preach the Word of God. At his Priest's ordination, there had been delivered to him the paten and chalice, with the blasphemous commission,"power to sacrifice for the living and the dead." This was the consequence of the reception of the doctrine of Transubstantiation, marked how such, offices as preaching the Word had been superseded, and regarded as inferior, had, become obsolete.

Taught by the Spirit, Luther even from the first had realised the responsibility of charge, and had striven to act upon it. The order of his Vicar-General confirmed it yet indeed he was but partially enlightened, still he recognized and fulfilled the fun of an evangelist. By his preaching, lectures, writings, and visitations, he was already unconsciously preparing many monks and clergy to be evangelical preachers in the church soon to be established.

After his recognition and rejection of the Papal Thunders, in 1520, there followed the grand scene at Worms, in April, 1521, before the Emperor Charles V. when the endevour was made to cause Luther to retract, or to move away from the Word of God. came a crisis.

"The battle that had been fought at Worms resounded far and wide The appearance of Luther before the Diet on this occasion is one ofthefinest, perhaps it is the very finest, scene in human tory From the moment that Luther left the Emperor's presence a free man, the spell of Absolutlism was broken, and the Vivtory of the Reformation secured." (Froude)

"The whole empire had turned towards this man, with the most ardent prayers and the most terrible threats, and he had not faltered. His refusal to bend beneath the iron yoke of the Pope emancipated the church and began the new times. The interposition of Providence was manifest." (D'Aubigné)

Luther Hidden in Wartburg

The supreme secular and ecclesiastical powers issued decrees condemning him and his fellow labourers; Luther was proscribed. To save his life, the friendly Elector of Saxony had him carried off and hidden in his castle at Wartburg, where he remained from April 26, 1521, to March 3, 1522.

"After the violent combat that Luther had just sustained, God had been pleased to conduct him to a place of repose and peace." " It was requisite that this great individuality should fade away, in order that the revolution then accomplishing might not bear the stamp of an individual." (D'Aubigné.)

He Translates the New Testament

What did he do there? He heard the voice saying to him, "Go, take the Little Book." The chief occupation - to which he was directed during this exile, was to take in hand the New Testament and to translate it into German, believing that it would be the most powerful help in diffusing Gospel light among ministers and people, and in overthrowing superstition. The people were to read it. Luther himself first tasted its sweetness, as he devoured it. Some of the consequences of publishing it were bitter, from perverseness, opposition, and persecution; but when he ate it, it was" sweet as honey." In God's providence it was to be one of the mightiest helps to the Reformation.

"In the disguise of Junker George, Luther was enabled to pursue his theological labours, and completed what has ever since been felt to be among his very best productions-the translation of the New Testament into the standard dialect of Saxony." (Hardwick.)

"Luther was called to present his nation with the Scriptures of God. That same God who had conducted St. John to Patmos. there to write his Revelation, had confined Luther, in the Wartburg, there to translate His Word. This great task, which it would have been difficult for him to have undertaken in the midst of the cares and occupations of Wittenberg, was to establish the new building on the primitive rock, and, after the, lapse of so many ages, lead Christians back, from the subtleties of the Schoolmen to the pure fountain-head of redemption and salvation. From that time the Reformation was no longer in the hands of the Reformer. The Bible came forward; Luther withdrew God appeared. and man disappeared. The Reformer placed the Book in the hands of his contemporaries. Each one might now hear the voice of God for himself."(D'Aubigné.)

Luther recognized that Gospel preaching was still the "power of God unto salvation," and that the duty of proclaiming that message lay on the ordained ministry of Christ. He made his translation of the New Testament into German, therefore, specially with a view to Christian ministers digesting and preaching it, and the people at large having access to it. Moreover, after the Decree of Worms, when himself in his "Patmos," he upon the reforming ministers, at this momentous crisis of their isolation from Romish Church and the Empire, the fulfillment of precisely what the Angel's injunction prefigured.

Soon he himself returned to Wittenberg (March 7, 1522). A crisis had arrived, thr bitter persecution, official hindrance, and the rise of fanatics. "The Divine Will," he," leaves me no choice."It is not from men that I have received the Gospel, but f heaven, from the Lord Jesus Christ." The Covenant Angel blessed his preaching, fulfilling the promise implied in His words of re-commission. Excellent effects followed; order was restored, fanatics quelled, false prophets refuted, other evangelists encouraged.

The New Testament Published

After much conference between Luther and Melancthon, there appeared on September 21, 1522, the complete edition of 3,000 copies, in two volumes folio, with the simple title: "The New Testament-German-Wittenberg." It bore no name of man. Every German might henceforward procure this portion of the Word of God at the moderate price of a florin and a half, about £1.00.

This Version served more than all Luther's writings to spread Christian piety. The of the sixteenth century was thus placed on a foundation where nothing could shake it. The success of the Version was prodigious. Every copy was speedily sold, and a second edition appeared in December of that same year. By 1533 there had been printed 17 editions at Wittenberg, 13 at Augsburg, 12 at Basle, 1 at Erfurth, 1 at Grimma, and Strasburg. The translation of the Old Testament followed.

The Change it Wrought

Multitudes had been thirsting for instruction, looking in vain for it to their ecclesiastical teachers. The publication of the New Testament in the vulgar tongue is an important epoch in the Reformation . . .. It worked an entire change in society; not only in the presbytery of the priest, in the monk's cell, and in the sanctuary of our Lord; but also in the mansions of the great, in the homes of the citizens, and the cottages of the peasants. When the Bible began to be read in the families of Christendom, Christendom itself changed. "Then arose other habits, other manners, other conversations, and another life. With the publication of the New Testament the Reformation left the School and Church to take possession of the hearths of the people. The effect produced immense." (D'Aubigné.)

Within the next two or three years the Gospel was successfully preached before princes and people, in Germany, Sweden, Denmark, France, Belgium, Spain, Italy and Eng and translations were made into the vernacular of those countries. Between 152 1595 Melancthon's Commonplaces of Theology passed through sixty-seven editions besides translations. Next to the Bible, this is possibly the book that contributed most to the establishment of evangelical doctrine.

"Thou must prophesy again." This refers first of all to those who, having already been ordained in the Romish Church, had been interdicted and degraded. They now resumed their functions.

But what of future ordinations, and. of the future supply of ministers? The Reformers and their disciples were cut off from the Bishops, none of whom favoured the Reformed doctrines. In 1523 Luther, seeing no other course open, decided to act independently of the Romish hierarchy. A year or two after, ordination was formally taken by the Reformed Churches into their own hands. In the German Church it was vested in Superintendent Presbyters, chosen as substitutes for Bishops; so also at first in the Swiss Church, though afterwards simply in the Presbytery.

In Denmark, Sweden, and England, by God's. favouring Providence, the direct episcopal succession passed into the Reformed Churches. But they remained in Christian harmony and fellowship with their continental sister Churches of the Reformation. Our Article XXIII was notoriously so worded as to recognize the orders in the Lutheran and Reformed Churches. (The author is writing from an Anglican standpoint.)

A Case of Necessity

Thus was provision made for the permanent, fulfilment of the commission, "Thou must prophesy again." It was a case of necessity. The Continental Reformers would gladly. have continued the episcopal form of Church government if they could, but no Bishops were with them. No other course than that they followed seemed open; and the Vision appears to give God's sentence of approval. At this stage St. John is made their representative, intimating that all of them alike are regarded as in the line of Apostolical succession, and as commissioned for their work by the Lord Himself.

Ordination Ritual Changed

A change in the Ordination Ritual was now introduced by the Reformers. The imaginary function of "sacrificing", was renounced as blasphemous, and that of preaching the Gospel, with due administration of the Two Sacraments, was enjoined as the grand function of the Christian ministry. A corresponding change was universally made in the Ordination formula; instead of the blasphemous words,"Receive thou authority to sacrifice for the living and the dead," authority was given, and a solemn charge laid, to
"preach the Gospel."

In some of the Reformed Churches, notably in our own, there was made also a change of symbol. The delivery of the chalice and paten was abolished, and instead thereof the Lord's Book was put into the hand of the candidate. In our own Ordinal we have a perpetuation of this very figure of commissioning the ministers of the Reformation; a Deacon has put into his hand the New Testament, a Priest the Bible. From England it passed into her colonies, which, from the very time of His planting His right foot on the sea and His left on the land, the Lord began to give her, as if to prepare for His revindication to Himself of the dominions claimed by the Usurper.

Here is strength and comfort for Christ's ministers, when they have to taste the bitterness of their ministerial work. The Covenant Angel Himself has commissioned them. He intends that they should make His Gospel the grand subject of their personal study and of their public teaching; and that they should witness for Him, and thus witness against all sin, error, and superstition; more especially, wherever and whenever needful, against the same errors and superstitions that were testified against by Luther and Reformers.

Here also is deep instruction for ministers and teachers. Go to the Angel of the Cove the Lord Jesus Christ. Pray to Him to give you that Book, so that you may understand and that its blessed truths may enter into your heart and soul. Take it; taste its sweetness; devour, digest it. Then go, and speak; and the Lord shall be with you, and give His blessing.