.
But there's more than these. There's a sight of Him that overshadows
these. It is the characteristic sight that lets us see Him as He is
peculiarly _now_ in His relation to _affairs on the earth_.

Christ as He Is Now.

This new sight of Christ is the heart and soul of this crowning book,
this end-book of the Book.

It was out of this sight that this end-book grew. It is written wholly
under the spell of this new sight of Christ. It is a revelation both
_of_ Jesus Christ and _by_ Jesus Christ; first of, then by.

John begins his story by telling that he had gotten such a revelation,
and of the special blessing attached to reading and fitting one's life
to it.[56] Then follows his salutation to those for whom the revelation
was given, and the book written.[57] It is peculiarly a _Church_ book.
Its message is not peculiarly for individual followers, but for groups
of believers gathered together as Churches.

The salutation is absorbed with the One whom he has seen in the vision,
what He has done for us in shedding His blood, and that He is actually
coming again. "Behold He cometh with the clouds; and every eye shall see
Him, and they that pierced Him." The Jew is specifically designated: the
coming has special significance for the Jewish nation. And all the
people of the earth shall penitently mourn as they see Him. And then
like an endorsing signature from the One of whom he is writing comes the
sentence: "I am the Alpha and the Omega, saith the Lord God, who is and
who was, and who cometh, the Almighty One."

Then comes the new sight of the crowned Christ.[58] It was on a Lord's
day. John was on the lonely sea-girt isle of Patmos. He was alone,
brooding probably over some bit of the Word of God, and about the Jesus
of whom he had been so earnestly testifying. It was these that had
brought him to his lonely island prison. These ever burned within him,
the wondrous written Word, the immensely more wondrous Word made flesh,
of whom he had written, the Word that was God and became a Man and
walked the will of God.

And as he brooded he became conscious of the Spirit of God overshadowing
him, gentle as the soft breeze, noiseless as the fragrant dew, mighty as
an enveloping presence that filled his being and had possession of him.

Then a voice spake and the tone of authority in it was unmistakable.
"What thou seest, write." He was to see something. He was to tell what
he saw. There's a delightful touch of the si