Scripture: "And when I saw Him, I fell at His feet as one dead. And He laid His right hand upon me, saying, Fear not; I am the First and the Last, and the Living One; and I -was dead, and behold, J aw alive for evermore."—REV. i. 17. 18.
Here we have, sixty or more years after the resurrection, Christ's manifesting Himself to the beloved disciple. John fell as dead at His feet. God had said to Moses, in answer to his prayer "Show me Thy glory:" "Thou canst not see My face: for man cannot see Me and live." Man's sinful nature can¬not receive the vision of the Divine glory, and live; it needs the death of the natural life for the life of God in glory to enter in. When John fell as dead at Christ's feet, it proved how little he could endure the wonderful heavenly vision.
When Christ laid His right hand upon him and said, "Fear not; I am He that liveth, and was dead, and behold, I am alive for evermore," He reminded him that He Himself too had passed through death ere He could rise to the life and the glory of God. For the Master Himself and for every disciple, for Moses and for John, there is only one way to the glory of God— death to all that nature which has been in contact with sin and cannot enter heaven.
The lesson is a deep and most needful one to all who long that Jesus shall manifest Himself unto them. The knowledge of Jesus, fellowship with Him, and the experience of His power is not possible without the sacrifice of all that there is in us of the world and its spirit. The disciples had experience of this. Christ had from His first ordination charge (Matt. x. 37-39)— where He had spoken about forsaking father and mother, about taking up the cross, about losing our life for His sake, down to the days before His death, when He said: "Except a corn of wheat die, it abideth alone, but if it die, it bringeth forth much fruit"; "He that loveth his life shall lose it"—made this the one great charge: Deny self; bear the cross, and follow Me.
We are seeking to find out the secret of getting into such touch with the Lord Jesus that His abiding presence shall be our portion every day. Let us accept the lesson—through death to life. In the power of Christ Jesus, with Whom we have been crucified, and Whose death now works in us, if we will yield ourselves to it, death to sin, death to the world with all its self-pleasing and self-exaltation, is to be the deepest law of our spiritual life. Peter said to Christ: "Spare Thyself" (Matt. xvi. 22 marg.); Jesus said to him: "Deny thyself." The disciples had followed Christ even to the Cross. That was what fitted them to receive the Master's word: "Lo, I am with you alway."
