nounced himself
as "the Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending, saith the Lord,
which is, and which was, and which is to come--the Almighty," 1:8. "The
Word of God," was the "Word" that was "in the beginning," that "was with
God," and that "was God," the same that was "in the beginning with God,"
and which "was made flesh and dwelt among us, and we beheld his glory, the
glory as of the only begotten of the Father, full of grace and truth,"
John 1:1-14. Jesus is "the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the
world," (_Ib._, 29); and "the Lamb" "is Lord of lords and King of kings,"
17:14. It is "Jesus Christ, who is the faithful witness, and the first
begotten of the dead, and the Prince of the kings of the earth," (1:5);
and he alone is possessed of that incomprehensible "Name" which no man
knoweth, and which he hath promised to write on "him that overcometh,"
3:12.

That the visible and personal coming of Christ, and not any providential
interposition, is here symbolized, is self-evident. For, while no created
object can adequately symbolize Him, it would derogate from the dignity of
his character and position to be a symbol of some inferior object. In all
mere providential interpositions, foreshown by symbolic imagery, the
predicted events are represented by corresponding acts of symbolic agents.
War between nations is symbolized by beasts, representatives of the
nations, contending with each other. (See Dan. 8th chap.) Pestilence and
famine are symbolized by analogous results, and not by Christ's appearing.
When, therefore, he is seen coming in person, it must symbolize his
personal advent.

His eyes "as a flame of fire," show his identity with the one "like unto
the Son of man" in the "midst of the seven candlesticks" (1:13), the
author of the message to "the church in Thyatira;" which "things saith the
Son of God, who hath his eyes like unto a flame of fire, and his feet like
unto fine brass," 2:18.

His "many crowns" are symbols of his sovereignty. Rome undivided and
mistress of the world, when symbolized by the seven-headed and ten-horned
dragon, is represented with the crowns on the heads, which were the seven
successive kinds of government by which its sovereignty was enforced,
12:3, and 17:9, 10. But when its imperial had given place to its
decem-regal form, and it is to be shown under the government of ten
contemporaneous kingdoms, "the crowns," the symbols of sovereignty, are
represented as encir