Revelation 15:3

Revelation 15:3. Not only do they harp: they mingle song with their harping.

They sing the song of Moses the servant of God and the song of the Lamb, saying. The epithet ‘servant of God' applied to Moses awakens the remembrance of all that God did for Israel through Moses the great representative of the Old Testament Dispensation. The Lamb is not less clearly the sun and centre of the New Testament Dispensation. Or the matter may be otherwise looked at. Moses delivered men from the first head of the beast, i.e under him began that deliverance out of a persecuting world which is finished in Christ. The song, therefore, includes everything that God had done for His people alike in Old and New Testament times. How clearly does it appear that the beast cannot be Nero! Only one generation, not the whole Church, could sing of deliverance from him. There is nothing to indicate that the song is similar to that of Israel at the Red Sea, Exodus 15, or to that of Deuteronomy 22, yet in all probability the former was in the Seer's view.

In the words of the song it seems only necessary to notice that for the reading ‘king of saints' of the Authorised Version king of the nations is to be substituted. The change is important, as throwing light upon that aspect of the Almighty which is here thought of. Not His love towards His ‘saints,' but His terror towards His enemies is celebrated. He beautifies His people with salvation, but He visits the ‘nations' with His wrath. Revelation 15:4. In this verse the song begun in Revelation 15:3 is continued in the following words, Who shall not fear, O Lord, and glorify thy name, for thou only art holy? for all the nations shall come and worship before thee, for thy righteous acts have been made manifest. The ‘righteous acts' of God referred to are not such as have been exhibited alike in the publication of His Gospel and in the destruction of His enemies. The whole context imperatively requires that we shall understand them of the latter alone. If so, we are guided to the true meaning of the word ‘worship' in this verse, and we have at the same time a striking illustration of the manner in which, throughout the Apocalypse (and the Fourth Gospel), we meet with a double marvelling and a double worship, that of faith upon the one hand, and of fear upon the other. It may be at once allowed that there is no passage in the Apocalypse which seems to speak so strongly of the conversion of the world as that now before us. Yet there is a ‘worship' of awe, of terror, and of trembling, as well as a ‘worship ‘of faith and love; and the whole analogy of this book (as well as of the Fourth Gospel, which in this respect most strikingly resembles it) leads directly to the conclusion, that the former alone is spoken of when the worship of the ungodly is referred to. So in Philippians 2:10 ‘things under the earth' bow the knee and confess that Jesus is Lord. However, therefore, we may be at times disposed to think that mention is made in this book of the conversion of the wicked, it will we believe always appear upon more attentive consideration that nothing of the kind is really spoken of. Yet we are not on this account to conclude that the Apocalypse dooms to everlasting ruin all but the selected number who constitute in its pages the true Church of Christ. Its language appears only to be founded on that style of thought which meets us in the Old Testament when the Prophets speak of the enemies of Israel. Israel shall conquer and overthrow, but not necessarily destroy, them. Through their very subjugation they may receive a blessing. Thus may it be in the case before us. All that we urge is, that in the words of this verse judgment alone is in view. If judgment lead to penitence it is well; but the eye of the Seer does not travel so far into the future.