‘COME NOW’
PAUL MARTIN
Rev 22: 16, 17
2 Thess 2: 1, 2
This verse in Revelation has come to me as our brothers have been speaking, the One who is “the root and offspring of David”. Think of all that was formed by the knowledge of God in David that looked on to Jesus. How wonderful! - “the root”, bringing out who He is in His Person, His divinity. David derived everything that answered to God’s purpose from Him; and “the offspring”, the perfection of the manhood in Jesus, in which moral features that God loved in David were a pre-figuring of what was going to come out in its fulness in Jesus. As our brother has quoted, “a man after my heart, who shall do all my will”, Acts 13: 22.
This word of the Lord’s is very affecting, coming right at the close of this book: “I am the root and offspring of David”; and immediately it says, “And the Spirit and the bride say, Come”. I understand that that reference, “Come”, means ‘come now’. That is the desire of the bride; she does not want to wait any more: she longs to see Him. Her soul is so moved in relation to this glorious Person, so that all that she longs for is to see His face. She says, ‘Come now’; she is in unison with the Holy Spirit, entirely formed by the Spirit’s work that has preceded, in view of this one expression, ‘Come now’. What it will be when this vessel will come out in its glory, and when the glory of God will enlighten it! How wonderful! - formed by the operation of the Holy Spirit.
But in the present moment, while that formative work is proceeding, the assembly’s cry, and her whole outlook, is that He might come. We often speak of this in relation to ourselves, and say, ‘Well, we would want everything to be right for Him’, and that is a right desire, but the bride is right for Him - everything in the bride is right; she has been formed by the Holy Spirit’s service. She lacks nothing as she stands before the King. All that the Spirit has done in relation to this glorious vessel lacks nothing because it is a divine workmanship. How wonderful it is! And her whole longing is that He might come now.
I read in Thessalonians because, when Paul is writing to this young company, he uses the coming of the Lord Jesus as it were as a lever in their souls. He says, “we beg you, brethren, by the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ and our gathering together to him”. There could be no greater power to draw our hearts than the prospect of seeing Him: “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, and our gathering together to him”. We were talking to somebody today about the power of the sea; man cannot harness it or control it. But think of the powerful effect of this great prospect that is immediately before us: “the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ”. It has its own drawing power. Paul says that he does not want them to be drawn away by false teaching: he would say, ‘Just keep your eye on the One that is coming, the power of that coming’. It is not merely an event: it is a Person. And Paul, as it were, says to these young believers, ‘Keep your eye upon Him’. We are going to be gathered together to Him; how wonderful that every believer is going to be gathered together to Him. He will be the Object of all. He will be the Object of every believer: all those who have died in faith, right back to the beginning of Genesis; they will be gathered together to Him; there will be one Object for the universe. And that One who is the Object of the universe then is the One who is able to control our souls and our hearts and our spirits in the waiting time.
May it be so, for His Name’s sake.
Word in a meeting for ministry in St Ives, Cornwall
23rd November 2021