Alexander MacLaren :: The Palm-Bearing Multitude (Revelation 7:9)

The Palm-Bearing Multitude

'... Lo, a great multitude.., stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands.' — Revelation 7:9.

The Seer is about to disclose the floods of misery which are to fall upon the earth at the sound of the seven trumpets, like avalanches set loose by a noise. But before the crash of their descent comes there is a lull.

He sees angels holding back the winds, like dogs in a leash, lest they should blow, and all destructive agencies are suspended. In the pause before the storm he sees two visions: one, that of the sealing of the servants of God, the pledge that, amidst the world-wide calamities, they shall be secure; and one,this vision of my text, the assurance that beyond the storms there waits a calm region of life and glory. The vision is meant to brace all generations for their trials, great or small, to draw faith and love upwards and forwards, to calm sorrow, to diminish the magnitude of death and the pain of parting, and to breed in us humble desires that, when our time comes, we too may go to join that great multitude.

It can never be inappropriate to look with the eyes of the Seer on that jubilant crowd. So I turn to these words and deal with them in the plainest possible fashion,just taking each clause as it lies, though, for reasons which will appear, modifying the order in which we look at them, I think that, taken together, they tell us all that we can or need know about that future.

1. Note the palm-bearing multitude.

   Now the palm, among the Greeks and Romans, was a token of victory. That is usually taken to be the meaning of the emblem here, as it was taken in the well-known hymn —

   'More than conquerors at last.'

   But it has been well pointed out that there is no trace of such a use of the palm in Jewish practice, and that all the emblems of this Book of the Revelation move within the circle of Jewish ideas. Therefore, appropriate as the idea of victory may be, it is not, as I take it, the one that is primarily suggested here. Where, then, shall we look for the meaning of the symbol?

   Now there was in Jewish practice a very significant use of the palm- branches, for it was the prescription, of the ritual law that they should be employed in the Feast of Tabernacles, when the people were hidden to take palm-branches and 'rejoice before the Lord seven days.' It is that distinctly Jewish use of the palm-branch that is brought before our minds here, and not the heathen one of mere conquest.

   So then, if we desire to get the whole significance and force of this emblem of the multitude with the palms in their hands, we have to ask what was the significance of that Jewish festival. Like all other Jewish feasts, it was originally a Nature-festival applying to a season of the year, and it afterwards came to have associated with it the remembrance of something in the history of the nation which it commemorated. That double aspect, the natural and the historical, are both to be kept in view. Let us take the eldest one first. The palm-bearing multitude before the Throne suggests to us the thought of rejoicing reapers at the close of the harvest. The year's work is done, the sowing days are over, the reaping days have come. 'They that gather it shall eat it in the courts of the Lord.' And so the metaphor of my text opens out into that great thought that the present and the future are closely continuous, and that the latter is the time for realising, in one's own experience, the results of the life that we have lived here. To-day is the time of sowing; the multitude with the palms in their hands are the reapers. Brother! what are you sowing? Will it be for you a glad day of festival when you have to reap what you have sown? Are you scattering poisoned seed? Are you sowing weeds, or are you sowing good fruit that shall be found after many days unto praise and honour and glory? Look at your life here as being but setting in motion a whole series of causes of which you are going to have the effects punctually dealt out to you yonder in the time to come. That great multitude reaped what they had sown, and rejoiced in the reaping. Shall I? We are like operators in a telegraph office, touching keys here which make impressions upon ribbons in a land beyond the sea, and when we get there we shall have to read what we have written here. How will you like it, when the ribbon is taken out of the machine and spread before you, anti you have to go over it syllable by syllable and translate all the dots and dashes into what they mean? It will be a feast or a day of sadness. But, festival or no, there stands plain and irrefragable the fact that 'whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap,' and he will not only have to reap it, but he will have to eat it, and be filled with the fruit of his own doings. That is the first thought,

   Turn to the other one. That palm-bearing multitude keeping their Feast of Tabernacles reminds us of the other aspect of the festival in its original intention, which was the commemoration of all that God had done for the people as they passed through the wilderness, and the rejoicing, in their settled abode, over 'the way by which the Lord their God had led them,' and over the rest to which He had led them. So the other idea comes out that they who have passed into that great Presence look back on the darkness and the dreariness, on the struggles and the change, on the drought and the desert, on the foes and the fears, and out of them all find occasions for rejoicing and reasons for thankfulness. There can be no personal identity without memory, and the memory of sorrows changes into joy when we come to see the whole meaning and trend of the sorrow. The desert was dreary, solitary, dry,and parched as they passed through it. But like some grim mountain-range seen in the transfiguring light of sunrise, and from the far distance, all grimness is changed into beauty, and the long dreary stretch looks, when beheld from afar, one unbroken manifestation of the Divine love and presence. What was grim rock and cold ice when we were near it is clothed with the violets and the purples that remoteness brings, and there shines down upon it the illuminating and interpreting light of the accomplished purpose of God. So the festival is the feast of inheriting consequences, and the feast of remembering the past.

   There is one other aspect of this metaphor which I may just mention in a sentence. Later days in Judaism added other features to the original appointments of the Feast of Tabernacles, and amongst them there was one which our Lord Himself used as the occasion of setting forth one aspect of His work. 'On the last day, that great day of the feast,' the priests went down from the Temple, and filled their golden vases at the fountain, brought back the water, and poured it forth in the courts of the Temple, chanting the ancient song from the prophet, 'With joy shall ye draw water out of the wells of salvation.' And our Lord in His earthly life used this last day of the feast and its ceremonial as the point of attachment for His revelation of Himself, as He who gave to men the true living water. In like manner, the expansion of my text, which occurs in the subsequent verses, refers, as it would seem, to the festival, and to our Lord's own use of it, when we read that the 'Lamb which is in the midst of the Throne shall be their Shepherd, and shall lead them to the fountains of living waters.'

   So the emblem of the feast brings to our mind, not only the thought of retribution and of repose, but also the thought of the abundant communication of all supplies for all the desires and thirsts of the dependent and seeking soul. Whatsoever human nature can need there, it receives in its fulness from Jesus Christ. The Rabbis used to say that he who had not seen the joy of the Feast of Tabernacles did not know what joy meant; and I would say that until we, too, stand there, with the palms in our hands, we shall not know of how deep, fervent, calm, perpetual a gladness the human heart is capable.

2. Note their place and attitude.

   They stand before the Throne, and before the Lamb. Now it would take me too far away from my present purpose to do more than point, in a sentence, to that remarkable and tremendous juxtaposition of the 'Throne' and the 'Lamb,' which Lamb is the crucified Christ. What did the man that ventured upon that form of speech, bracketing together the 'Throne' of the Divine Majesty and the slain' Lamb' who is Christ, think about Christ that he should sever Him from all the multitude of men, and unite Him with the solitary God? I only ask. I leave you to answer.

   But I turn to the two points — 'before the Throne and the Lamb,' and 'standing'; and these two suggest, it seems to me, the two thoughts which, though we cannot do much to fill them out, are yet all-sufficient for illumination, for courage, and for hope. These two are the thought of nearness and the thought of service. 'Before the Throne and the Lamb' is but a picturesque way of saying 'to depart and to be with Christ, which is far better.' I do not enter upon any attempt to expound the manner of such nearness. All that I say is that it is a poor affair if we are to let flesh and sense interpret for us what is meant by 'near' and 'far.' For even here, and whilst we are entangled with this corporeal existence and our dependence upon the conditions of time and space, we know that there is nearness mediated by sympathy and love which is independent of,which survives and disregards, external separation in space. Every loving heart knows that where the treasure is, there the heart is, and where the heart is, there the man is. And the very same thing that knits us together, though oceans wide between us roll, in its highest form will knit the souls that love Jesus Christ to Him, wherever in space they and He may be. Here we have five senses, five windows, five gates. If our ears were different we should hear sounds, shrill and deep, which now are silence to us. If our eyes were different we should see rays at both ends of the spectrum which now are invisible. The body hides as much as it reveals, and we may humbly believe that when the perfect spirit is clothed with its perfect organ, the spiritual body — that is to say, the body that answers to all the needs of the spirit, and is its fit instrument, then many of those melodies which now pass by us unheard will fill oursenses with sweetness, and many of these flashing lustres which now we cannot gather into visual impressions will then blaze before us in the perfect light. We shall be near Him, and to be with Christ, however it is mediated (and we cannot tell how), is all that you need, for peace, for nobleness, for blessedness, for immortality. Brethren! to have Christ with me here is my strength; to be with Christ yonder is my blessedness. They are 'before the Throne of God and the Lamb.' I do not believe that we know much beyond that, and I am sure that we need nothing beyond it, if we rightly understand all that it means.

   But I said there was another idea here, and that is implied by the words, they 'stood before the Throne,' and is further drawn out in the expansion of my text which follows it as interpretation: 'Therefore are they before the Throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His Temple.' What the nature of the service may be it boots not to inquire, only let us remember that the caricature of the Christian heaven which has often been flung at Christian people as a taunt, viz., that it is an eternity of idleness and psalm- singing, has no foundation in Scripture, because the New Testament conception unites the two thoughts of being with Christ and of service for Christ. Remember, for instance, the parable of the pounds and the talents, in which the great law is laid down. 'Thou hast been faithful over a few things; I will make thee ruler over many things,' and mark how here 'these... that came out of great tribulation' are not only in His presence, but active in His service. We have the same blending still more definitely set forth in the last chapter of this book, where we read of 'those who serve Him, and see His face'; where the two ideas of the life of contemplation and rapt vision, and of the life of active service and joyful employment are welded together as being not only not incompatible, but absolutely necessary for each other's completeness.

   But remember that if there is to be service yonder, here is the exercising ground, where we are to cultivate the capacities and acquire the habitudes which there will find ampler scope and larger field. I do not know what we are here in this world for at all, unless it is to apprentice us for heaven. I do not know that there is anything that a man has to do in this life which is worth doing unless it be as a training for doing something yonder that shall more entirely correspond with his capacities. So what kind of work are you doing, friend? Is it the sort of work that you will be able to carry on when you pass beyond all the trivialities of this life? I beseech you, remember this, that life on earth is a bewilderment and an enigma for which there is no solution, a long piece of irony, unless beyond the grave there He fields for nobler work for which we are being trained here. And I pray you see to it that your life here on earth is such as to prepare you for the service, day and night, of the heavens. How can I drive that home to your hearts and consciences? I cannot; you must do it for yourselves.

3. Lastly, note their dress.

   'Clothed with white robes' — the robe is, of course, in all languages, the character in which, as the result of his deeds, a man drapes himself, that of him which is visible to the world, the 'habit' of his spirit, as we say (and the word 'habit' means both custom and costume). 'White' is, of course, the heavenly colour; 'white thrones,' 'white horses' are in this book, and the white is not dead but lustrous, like our Lord's garments on the Mount of Transfiguration, such white as sunshine smiting a snowfield makes. So, then, the dress, the habit of the spirits is of lustrous purity, or glory, to put it all into one word. But more important than that is this question: How came they by such robes? The expansion of our text, to which I have already referred more than once, and which immediately follows, answers the question. 'They washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.' 'washed'; then there is something for them to do. 'The Blood of the Lamb' was the means of cleansing; then cleansing was not the result of their own effort. The cleansing is not the mere forgiveness, but includes also the making of the character, pure, white, lustrous. And the blood of the Lamb does that. For Christ by His death has brought to us forgiveness, and Christ by His imparted life brings to each of us, if we will, the cleansing which shall purify us altogether. Only we have something to do. We cannot indeed cleanse ourselves. There is no detergent in any soap factory in the world that will take the stains out of your character, or that will take away the guilt of the past. But Jesus Christ by His death brings forgiveness, and by His life imparted to us, will change the set of a character, and make us gradually pure. He has 'washed us from our sins in His own Blood.' We have to wash our garments, and make them ' white in the blood of the Lamb.' He has brought the means; we have to employ them. If we do, if we not only trust Him for pardon, but accept Him for purifying, and day by day honestly endeavour to secure greater and greater whiteness of garments, our labour will not Be in vain. If, and only if, we do that, and see stain after stain gradually fade away from the garment, under our hands, we may humbly hope that when we die there will be one more added to the palm-bearing, white-robed multitude who stand Before the Throne and before the Lamb. 'Blessed are they that wash their robes that they may have right to the Tree of Life,' and may enter in through the gate into the City.