econdly, from the impossibility of deciding
with precision how much of his language is to be regarded as
figurative and how much as literal, where the poetic presentation
of symbol ends and where the direct statement of fact begins. A
large part of the book is certainly written in prophetic figures
and images, spiritual visions, never meant to be accepted in a
prosaic sense with severe detail. And yet, at the same time, all
these imaginative emblems were, unquestionably, intended to
foreshadow, in various kinds and degrees, doctrinal conceptions,
hopes, fears, threats, promises, historical realities, past,
present, or future. But to separate sharply the dress and the
substance, the superimposed symbols and the underlying realities,
is always an arduous, often an impossible, achievement. The writer
of the Apocalypse plainly believed that the souls of all, except
the martyrs, at death descended to the under world, and would
remain there till after the second coming of Christ. But whether
he thought that the martyrs were excepted, and would at death
immediately rise into heaven and there await the fulfilment of
time, is a disputed point. For our own part, we think it extremely
doubtful, and should rather decide in the negative. In the first
place, his expressions on this subject seem essentially
figurative. He describes the prayers of the saints as being poured
out from golden vials and burned as incense on a golden altar in
heaven before the throne of God. "Under that altar," he says, "I
saw the souls of them that were slain for the word of God." If the
souls of the martyrs, in his belief, were really admitted into
heaven, would he have conceived of them as huddled under the altar
and not walking at liberty? Does not the whole idea appear rather
like a rhetorical image than like a sober theological doctrine?
True, the scene is pictured in heaven; but then it is a picture,
and not a conclusion. With De Wette, we regard it, not as a
dogmatic, but as a poetical and prophetic, representation. And
in regard to the seer's vision of the innumerable company of the
redeemed in heaven, surrounding the throne and celebrating the
praises of God and the Lamb, surely it is obvious enough that
this, like the other affiliated visions, is a vision, by
inspired insight, in the present tense, of what is yet to
occur in the successive unfolding of the rapid scenes in the
great drama of Christ's redemptive work, a prophetic vision of
the fu