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Eureka

AN EXPOSITION OF THE APOCALYPSE
Sixth Edition, 1915
By Dr. John Thomas (first edition written 1861)

 

 

Chapter 4

Section 1 Subsection 5

"Upon the Throne One Sitting"


 
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"And upon the throne One sitting. And the One sitting was in appearance like a jasper and a sardine stone" (iv. 2).

He whom John saw "in spirit" sitting upon the throne; that is, He who will occupy it when it shall have been established in the heaven, is he whom the Spirit in Zech. vi. 12, styles "THE MAN, whose name is THE BRANCH," styled also in ch. iii. 8, "My Servant the Branch." This is the Son of the Deity to whom the throne belongs, and termed "His servant," because of his manifestation to do service for Yahweh in "planting the heavens, and laying the foundations of the earth, and saying unto Zion, "Thou art my people" (Isa. li. 16); or, as expressed in ch. xlix. 6, "His servant to raise up the tribes of Jacob, and to restore the desolations of Israel; and also to be for a light to the nations, and for his salvation to the ends of the earth." This is the "One sitting upon the throne" seen of Isaiah as well as by John. Isaiah saw him "in spirit" upwards of seven hundred years before he was "made of a woman under the law" (Gal. iv. 4); John beheld him in flesh, looked upon him with his eyes, and handled him with his hands, when he dwelt among the Jews; and seventy years afterwards while an exile in Patmos, saw a similitude representative of him sitting in Millennial glory upon the throne of David and of Deity, as indicated in the chapter before us.

Isaiah being "in spirit" saw him enthroned. "I saw," saith he, "the ADONAI (plural) sitting upon a throne high and lifted up, and his train filled the temple. -- I saw THE KING, Yahweh Tz’vaoth" (vi. 1,5). He saw the king of whom the Spirit afterwards said, "Take away the filthy garments from him" -- the filthy garments of flesh, styled his "iniquity; and let them set a fair mitre upon his head" (Zech. iii. 4,5). This has been accomplished in the perfecting of Jesus by spirit, as I have expounded it on Vol. I, chap. I, sec. ii, 3. He is now prepared to rule the Father’s house, and to keep His courts. He is the man, the Second Adam, to be enthroned upon that eminence, high and lifted up above all other high places of the political aerial, covenanted by the Eternal Power to his father David. Ezekiel, when "in spirit," saw him enthroned, and calls him "a Man"; that is Adam, not ish; but adam, as indicative of his original identity with the nature of the first man. John gives us to understand that he whom he saw sitting upon the throne was not only a man, ish, in the sense in which the three angel-elohim who appeared to Abraham are so styled; but that he was adam, a mortal descended from him who came out of adama, the ground. This is indicated by what he says in Apoc. v. 6: "I saw, and behold in the midst of the throne, and of the four living ones, and in the midst of the elders, A LAMB standing as if it had been slain, having seven Horns and seven Eyes, which are the Seven Spirits of the Deity sent forth into all the earth." In these words he exhibits a combination of flesh and spirit "in the midst of the throne," and therefore sitting upon it. The flesh is represented by a living lamb that had been slain, but had recovered from the death-wound. It is well known to one intelligent in the word, that "lamb" is the metaphor, and in the Apocalypse, the symbol, of the sacrificial man, Jesus, who was delivered to death for his people’s offences, and whose mission is to take away the sin of the world; in other words, to "destroy that having the power of death," and to destroy the works of sin -- the Diabolos and all that has originated from the flesh.

The sacrificial man, Jesus, then, is the apocalyptic lamb, one suspended upon a cross and forsaken of "the Seven Spirits of the Deity"; and consequently, not having at that time "seven Horns and seven Eyes"; but now, healed of the wound in his heel by resurrection and ascent to the Father, and by which he has become consubstantial spirit-flesh with Him, and therefore possessed of "the seven Spirits of the Deity," or holy spirit in perfection, by which he is omnipotent and omniscient, seeing and knowing all things; and therefore "a lamb with seven horns and seven eyes," and prepared to take up his position "in the midst of the throne," when a door shall be breached in the heaven, and the throne shall be established there.

The Lord Jesus Anointed, then, is the Adam hereafter to sit upon the throne. Installed in the heaven, the four living ones will give glory, and honor, and thanks to him; and the twenty and four elders will fall before him, and do homage, and cast their coronets before him, saying, "Worthy art thou, O Lord, to receive the glory, and the honor, and the power; because thou createdst all things, and on account of thy will they exist, and were created" (iv. 9,11).

In speaking of the appearance of the Man enthroned, John says, "It was like to a jasper and sardine stone." He is in this likened to a Stone most precious; not to a common stone, but to a very brilliant and inestimable living stone. He is symbolized here by a stone, because he is so designated in the prophets. In setting forth the military prowess of Joseph’s posterity beacharith hayamim, "in the last one of the days," he predicts that the arms of his hands shall be made strong by the Mighty One, the Ail and the Shaddai of Jacob, out of whom is the Shepherd, whom he styles "THE STONE OF ISRAEL" (Gen. xlix. 24,25).

This Shepherd-Stone is typified in the two onyx stones of the Aaronic ephod, upon which the names of the twelve tribes were engraved in the order of the birth of their fathers, and which were to be borne before Yahweh upon the two shoulders of the one man officiating as High Priest, for a memorial (Exod. xxviii. 9,12).

The prophet Isaiah also speaks of him to Judah thus: "Sanctify," saith he, "Yahweh Tz’vaoth himself, and let him be your fear, and let him be your dread. And he shall be for a sanctuary. But also for a Stone of stumbling, and for a Rock of offence to both the houses of Israel, for a gin and for a snare to the inhabitants of Jerusalem" (viii. 14). This has in part been accomplished, and we wait now for this stone to be laid in the identical place where it was stumbled over; according to the words of the Spirit by the same prophet, saying, "Behold, I lay in Zion for a foundation a Stone, a tried stone, a precious corner stone, a sure foundation; he that believeth shall not be confounded" (xxviii. 16). This is "the stone which the builders refused" which will then have "become the chief of the corner" (Psa. cxviii. 22), the head stone with Seven Eyes brought forth with shoutings of "Grace, grace, unto it!" (Zech. iii. 9; iv. 7,10).

Two precious stones are selected by the Spirit to represent the appearance of the Man enthroned. These are a Jasper and Sardius. The reason why two are indicated rather than one, is because THE KING is Spirit and Flesh in combination. Had he been mere flesh, or spirit uncombined with flesh, one stone would have answered every purpose; but being deity manifested in flesh, two precious stones were necessary: one to symbolize the Spirit, and the other to represent the Flesh. The jasper is the spirit symbol. It is a hard stone of various hues, as purple, cerulean, green. The glory and light of the New Jerusalem community are likened to "a stone most precious, even like a jasper stone, clear as crystal" (xxi. 11); and in verse 23, this glory and light are styled the glory of the Deity and the Lamb. The wall of the city is also a jasper, which wall is the symbol of the Lord God Almighty and the Lamb; in other words, of the Spirit, who by Zechariah has said, "I will be unto Jerusalem a wall of fire round about, and the glory in the midst of her. Sing and rejoice, O daughter of Zion, for, lo, I come, and I will dwell in the midst of thee, saith Yahweh" (ii. 5,10). A beautiful cerulean gem clear as crystal, is the symbol of the Deity’s spirit condensed into substance; and as it is the primary principle of the city whose builder and maker the Deity is, "the first foundation is a jasper."

The other gem is named in Hebrew !Hebrew! odem. These are the same letters that compose the word applied to the creature Yahweh Elohim formed from the ground to be the father of our race. By the invention of the Masorites, instead of being pronounced adam, it is pronounced odem, and on being translated into the Greek, the Seventy rendered it by sardion, because found about Sardis. It is a carnelian, and so called from its color having a resemblance to that of flesh -- a gem, therefore, fitly symbolical of the Adam-element of the one sitting upon the throne.

 

 


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