Sixthly, The millennium, or thousand years' reign of the saints, has given rise to much discus sion. While a few regard it as past, most consider it still future. Among the N. T. writers the mil lennium is peculiar to the Apocalypse, though it was not new ; for many rabbins held it as Gfriirer has shown (Das yahrlutndert des Heils, ii. p. 19S, et seq., 210). The common view of the early Christians was, that the righteous and wicked would rise, with a short time intervening, and be judged by the coming Messiah. But John has two resurrections separated by the space of a thousand years. Two resurrections was already a Jewish opinion, and is probably contained in the book of Daniel (xii. 2, etc.) ; but their separation by a thousand years is new. The chaining and loosing of Satan during the millennium and at the end of it respectively, together with the attack of the heathen powers on the followers of the Lamb, are also singular. Such ideas do not agree well with the Saviour's discourse in the 24th chapter of Matthew ; nor are they in perfect harmony with the Pauline passages in r Cor. xv. 23-2S ; I Thes. iv. 15-17 ; 2 Thes. i. 5-so ; ii. 3-12. John's de scription is ideal. The seer gives expression to hopes and aspirations. He paints a subjective state of things for which no objective correspond ence in the future should be sought ; else a poetical picture will be converted into literal prediction. That it is merely ideal is seen from certain incon gruities, such as the risen saints having their camp beside the earthly Jerusalem, and being attacked by heathen nations ; as well as from the existence of heathen enemies, after it had been said (xix. 21) that all the inhabitants of the earth were slain.
Seventhly, We need not say much about the period described in the 21st and 22d chapters as that of the new heavens and the new earth. Most take it to be what we are accustomed to call heaven, or the heavenly state ; while some, as Hammond, Hug, and Bush, think that it alludes to an earthly flourishing state of the church. The ideas and imagery are taken from Is. liv. 1 r, 12 ; lx. 3-11 ; lxv. 17-20 ; lxvi. 22. The future renovation of the earth was a prevailing notion of the Jews after the captivity in Babylon. Here the prophet drew from the Deutero-Isaiah in part, and partly from his own imagination. His ideal hopes are, that heaven and earth should become one in the future kingdom of Messiah. Earth becomes heaven, and heaven descends to earth. The holy church of Christ's faithful ones, in her triumphant state, is the fulfilment of all that was associated with ancient Jerusalem in the Hebrew heart. She is depicted as God's dwelling-place, the holy city, new Jeru salem, the chaste spouse of Christ, the Lamb's wife. This is the highest aim of all Apocalyptic prophecy ; the everlasting completion of the mys tery of God. The description embodies the writer's prophetic ideas respecting the consummation of the Christian church ; or, in other words, the ever lasting happiness of the righteous ; and is largely ideal. To attempt to find particulars correspond ing to the figures employed, would be to convert poetry into prose—the subjective into the objective. The conceptions of the seer should be left in their indefiniteness, else their beauty vanishes. No
mystical meaning lies in the details. Elements expressive of magnificence and splendour com bine to aid the rhetorical beauty of the composi tion. A new Jerusalem symbolises a new state of things ; and all the ideas of earthly greatness and excellence entertained by the Jews were centred in their beloved city.
VII. The question of authorship has been usu. ally thought to affect that of canonicity and value. Yet the book may not have proceeded from an apostle, and be equal in value to his acknowledged production. Luke was only an evangelist ; yet his writings are justly in the N. T. canon. It is not of essential moment that the Revelation should be written by John the son of Zebedee. The value does not depend so much on the canonicity as on the contents. Degrees of excellence attach to the canonical writings. We are far from deny ing that authorship is of consequence ; but it is not of the highest. The evangelist who wrote the fourth gospel and John the apostle would neces sarily write differently, because their mental de velopment was unequal. Inspired by the divine Spirit, their ideas, and the modes of expressing them, might still differ. Apostles themselves were not equally gifted. The Apocalypse is not of the same authority as if it had been written by Paul. The Judaic texture it bears, the story respecting Nero coming back from the east with a Parthian army after he had taken away his own life, and the part which that emperor occupies in the Apo calyptic prophecy generally, do not consist with Pauline sentiments. The inquirer feels that the more he examines, the stronger is his belief that the book neither breathes the same spirit as that of the fourth gospel, nor strictly accords with the church's destination. The proper evangelical element, which we see in Matt. xxiv. 14, Rom. xi. 25, is in the background ; and the general tone of the work clashes with Mark xiii. 32, Matt. xiii. 31-33. Thus the inspiration of the writer was not so high as that of St. Paul. The book occupies a less philosophical standpoint than the fourth gospel or Paul's epistles. Yet it has exerted, and will con tinue to exert, a great spiritual influence upon man kind. The effects of a certain moral expression in its symbolical descriptions are decided. Much value belongs to its prophetic utterances in moving and strengthening the soul ; in bearing it upward to the throne of God amid suffering, sorrow, and per secution ; in attracting its sympathies towards the faithful followers of the Lamb ; and in exciting aspirations which can only be realised in the new Jerusalem gorgeously painted at the close. The general tenor of the work is elevating. Alluring promises console the righteous : awful warnings deter them from unfaithfulness to their vocation : the vengeance of the Almighty appals the wicked. The grandeur of the book impresses the spirit most forcibly, urging it onward in the difficult path of duty with the hope of a glorious crown, a golden harp, celestial fruits, refreshing waters of the river of life—the hope of living and reigning with the Lamb in perpetual blessedness. Not till we begin to examine the various contents do we perceive the lower place it occupies in the develop ment of Christianity.