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Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.—Rev_2:10.
2. For the Church at Smyrna, the exhortation had a special fitness, inasmuch as it contained a covert allusion to the political history and also to the physical aspect of the city which could not possibly have applied to any other of the places mentioned by St. John in his Apocalypse.
(1) The reference to Smyrna’s history is in the words “Be thou faithful,” which every Christian in the city would understand. The motto was stamped, as it were, on her very stones. Her inhabitants had for centuries been the steady and devoted allies of the Roman people. When not a few of the peoples throughout Asia Minor had sought to weaken the power of the Cæsars, the Smyrneans had shown not the least desire to do so, but had kept rigidly aloof from all combines or conspiracies. When serious difficulties arose for their trusted friends, the Romans, whose army was suffering from the intense cold and other hardships of a winter campaign against Mithridates, the citizens of Smyrna readily stripped themselves of the garments that they could do without, and dispatched them to the seat of war for the benefit of the Roman soldiers. This signal instance of the fidelity of the Smyrneans was generally known; their reputation for faithfulness was well established. Accordingly, to those of them composing the Church at Smyrna, the exhortation of the Apostle would have the tacit force of a compliment, and would thus at once win their attention to the duty it enjoined—that just as in civic affairs they had been staunch and true to Cæsar, so in religious matters they should manifest unfaltering fidelity to Christ.
(2) Again, the words, “I will give thee the crown of life,” also had a peculiar fitness to Smyrna—a reference which the Christians who resided there could not fail to appreciate. Smyrna has been called “the city of life”; and its life and brightness are the characteristics that at once impress a visitor. It has been likened in shape to a glorious statue sitting with its feet in the sea. Until within a few years the hill into which the city runs back, and which was likened to the head of the statue, was crowned with the ruins of what had been a magnificent and apparently impregnable castle. This is what was known as the Garland or Crown of Smyrna. One of the great teachers of the place besought the citizens not to be satisfied with a crown of buildings, but to strive to have as its crown pure, patriotic, just and good men. These, he said, are the true garland of a city, its prize, its mark of supremacy—not stone walls, but true and pure citizens. In the words, therefore, which St. John addressed to the Christians of Smyrna there was this further compliment. It was as if he said to them, “I know that ye are citizens of no mean city, that verily yours is a queen among the cities of the earth, but though you are justly proud of it, let me tell you of a crown fairer than any that the world can show or any that the world can dream of—a crown not of material but of spiritual beauty—the crown of life that is for ever, and that is reserved in heaven for all such as, believing in the Lord and serving Him, continue faithful unto death.”
The Call to Fidelity
“Be thou faithful unto death.”
Buried a wave beneath;
The second wave succeeds before
We have had time to breathe.
How often does it happen in the Christian’s experience that one burden is laid upon another, and that one wave succeeds another, till he seems left desolate and alone upon the earth. Yet even then he has no assurance that his sufferings are at a close. The consolation afforded to him is, not that there shall be a short campaign, but only that, whether long or short, he shall be more than conqueror through Him that loved him.
(1) To us, the words of the text are partly metaphorical; but they had no metaphorical meaning when they were written. The persecution of Nero had told the Christians what they might expect. Death was the least pain which the world against them had in its quiver. They were hunted like the wild beasts of the woods. They were tortured, exposed to the hatred of the crowd who cheered the lion and the wild bull that tore and dragged them to death. Through these physical woes, as well as through the spiritual struggles that we have, the early followers of Christ had to persevere, were they to be faithful. Those who kept the faith were obliged to look agony of body and death in the face. Men who began the Christian race had then to count the cost, and resolve to pay it. They had to give up all, or at least be ready at a moment to give up all—home, friends, wealth, worldly honour—and to take Christ instead, and death.
(2) The Christians of Smyrna were about to suffer more heavily than ever; their enemies were apparently to prevail. They were to be cast into prison; and let us remember that the Roman Empire did not imprison for punishment as we do. They would not burden the State with the support of a number of prisoners. Every man who was in prison was there awaiting either his trial or his death. His trial would end in acquittal, or scourging, or fine, or exile, or death. Some of these poor, struggling, much-maligned Christians would be called upon to seal their testimony with their blood. “Be thou faithful unto (not until) death” is the message, not merely through tribulation and poverty and slander, but up to the point of dying; there is no other way to the crown of life; “you must suffer,” is Christ’s message, “or else be unfaithful.” There is no other way to escape suffering save by being untrue, and the message is, “Be thou true and let the devil do his worst.”
We, too, in our place and way and measure, may be called upon to suffer in reputation, substance, or even in health and life, for the sake of our absolute fidelity to our Master and His cause. Erasmus confessed that he was not constituted of the stuff of which martyrs are made, and many of us feel a similar misgiving concerning ourselves. But if we resolve to be on the Lord’s side He will wonderfully strengthen and deliver. The golden-crested wren is one of the tiniest of birds; it is said to weigh only the fifth part of an ounce, and yet, on frailest pinions, it braves hurricanes and crosses northern seas. It often seems in nature as if Omnipotence worked best through frailest organisms; certainly the omnipotence of grace is seen to the greatest advantage in the trembling but resolute saint. Give me the spirit of those who are faithful unto death!1 [Note: W. L. Watkinson, The Gates of Dawn, 311.]
2. To what were the Christians of Smyrna called to be faithful—to a selfish aim, to a political cry, to a cause which offered them material rewards? No, faithful unto death, to goodness, to truth, to purity of life, to an ideal life, invisible, beyond the world; to Christ and to such passionate personal love of Him that it was easier to die in agony than to betray His name; faithful to that spirit of His which loved men even unto death, which forgave enemies, whose work was at all risks to overthrow evil and to die that wrong might die; faithful unto death in the cause of man, which Christ made the cause of God. And for this, what support? All they had is contained in that conception of a mighty spiritual kingdom, of which the head was God in Christ, of which all who loved Him were the body, whether dead or living, for time and earth did not disturb their unbroken communion one with another. They were citizens of an eternal Kingdom. They on earth, beaten, driven, tortured, were not left alone; they were the care of angels, they were watched by all the noble dead with unfaltering interest. They ran their race in the arena of the universe, not uncared for, since every Christian heart was praying for them; not without the sense of higher sympathy, not even without the sense of glory, for out of sight, but in most real existence, a cloud of witnesses encompassed them. Solemn, beautiful faces, solemn with the calm of eternal rest, beautiful with the light of holy triumph, watched them with inspiring eyes, and among them One, the Leader and Perfecter of faith, a form like unto a Son of Man, who Himself had done and suffered for the truth—whose power and life was theirs by prayer, and who spoke ever in their ears, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.”
(1) The word “faithful” here is from the root which means to be convinced. Fidelity is born of conviction, and conviction must have a groundwork and foundation. What then is this faithfulness that is enjoined? The faithfulness of the saints is the assurance of the faithfulness of Jesus. A deep conviction of His fidelity produces their fidelity. Wherever a man, woman, or child under any circumstances of pain or testing is deeply convinced of the fidelity of Christ, they are immediately and necessarily faithful themselves. It is as though He had said to them, “You are going to be cast into prison; ‘the devil is about to cast some of you into prison, that ye may be tried.’ Be faithful; believe still. Live within the limit of a great assurance. Do not question Me; do not doubt Me; depend on Me.” The Lord did not mean, “Gather yourselves up and go through.” He simply meant, “Trust Me.” He did not intend to advise them to gird up their loins and be determined that they would see the business through. That is ever a poor and sorry way of attempting to pass through times of testing. He meant rather, “Trust Me; let Me be your courage. I am alive, and I was dead. I have gone to the limit of this matter. There is no depth I have not fathomed, no darkness I have not penetrated. Be faithful, follow Me, not in the effort of a strenuous determination, but with the ease of a simple trust.”
Bishop Collins died whilst on his way in the Messageries Maritimes liner Saghalien from Constantinople to Smyrna, whither he was going to hold a confirmation. Clothed in his purple cassock his body was laid to rest under the marble floor of the nave of the Church of St. John the Evangelist.
There, then, his body lies,—in the bosom of that Church of Smyrna, to whose Angel St. John was bidden to write, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee a crown of life.” To the first known Bishop of that Church—perhaps already Bishop when the Apocalypse was written—the martyr Ignatius wrote, praising his “resolution in God, settled as upon an immovable rock.” “Be watchful,” he added, “possessing a spirit that never slumbers.… Where work is hardest, great is the gain.… The time demands thee.… Stand firm like an anvil under the stroke. It is the part of a great athlete to receive blows and to conquer. Study the times, looking for Him who is above time, eternal, invisible, who was made visible for us—intangible, impassible, who for us was made passible and for us in every way endured.”1 [Note: A. J. Mason, Life of William Edward Collins, 185.]
(2) The great Sender of the message makes the claim. We are bound to Him personally. He asks for our loyalty, our personal loyalty to Him, and in that loyalty we shall conquer; because the Christian life is sustained by faith in a personal life, a personal power, and a personal love. We are not supported by abstractions, by adherence to abstract principles of righteousness and truth. Man requires a living fount of power, something warm with life and love; and such is the support of the Christian life. We are held in our course; we are sustained in all the darkness and the trial and persecution and apparent defeat by cleaving to a great heart that was large enough to sacrifice itself for us, and a great loving, throbbing hand that is strong enough to save us.
As in Westminster Abbey at the coronation of King George v. I saw the Prince of Wales kneeling before his father and uttering the old feudal covenant, I thought of how, in ancient times, the old Saxon retainers used to come to him whom they called their lord, whose lands they held, and used to kneel there before him, and put their hands in his, and to say to him, “Dear my Lord, I become liege-man of thine, for life and limb and earthly regard, and I will keep faith and loyalty to thee for life and death, so help me God.” And I would to God that we might all in spirit be found kneeling before the Lord of all of us, putting hands of trust in His, and saying to Him with earnestness and sincerity of soul, “Dear my Lord, I become liege-man of Thine for life and limb and earthly regard, and I will keep faith and loyalty to Thee for life and death, so help me God.”2 [Note: C. Silvester Horne.]
3. Faithfulness is victory. When the world kills off the faithful man because it cannot bend his will and take him away from his loyalty, it is not the man that is defeated; it is the world. The world does its last cowardly act, and therein makes its last confession of impotency. The man has conquered it. It can do nothing with him, and when it puts him to death it admits that it has been defeated by him. The Christian conquered the world when he sang at the stake? The Christian conquered when he could fearlessly stand before the tribunal that condemned him, when he talked of righteousness, temperance, and judgment to come until the judge quaked before him? No, do not be misled by appearances: it is the loyal man that conquers, the man that is true to principle, that in a way compels the world to persecute and destroy him, because he is stronger than the world in which he lives. “I know that persecution and death are upon thee, but be thou loyal; be thou faithful; thou shalt be victorious, and thou art already victor, in being loyal.” The truly strong life is the life that can defy circumstances, that can make every failure a stepping-stone to a nobler resolve, that can maintain its integrity when all the world is against it.
Faithfulness unto death is God’s standard for human life. On this He bases His judgments. As we apply this standard, our views on many things undergo a radical change. We come to see that the thing of value is not speed but endurance. The real hero is not he who makes the fastest schedule but he who lasts the longest. There are those who go up like a rocket and come down like a stick. It is the power to hold on that wins. Great Britain’s most famous general once said that the difference between the soldiers of his country and those of another was not that the English soldier was braver than other soldiers, but that he was brave five minutes longer. It is endurance that wins the crown.
The thing of value is not achievement but fidelity. It is not what we accomplish but the way we accomplish it. It is our ideals, our principles. It is not success that God looks at, but the struggle. Success is a cheap thing, it is merely relative; but struggle is an affair of eternity, it is a spiritual asset.1 [Note: J. I. Vance, Tendency, 229.]
4. The text does not mean merely, “Be faithful until death calls you away.” The passage is very frequently quoted with a mistaken meaning, as if it simply meant, “Be faithful as long as you live; do not give up while life lasts.” But it means far more than that; it means, “Be faithful, even though it costs you your life. Be faithful unto prison, be faithful unto persecution, yea, though you be in the presence of the executioner—for faithfulness may entail death—be faithful up to that highest sacrifice of life itself if necessary on the altar of loyalty to Jesus Christ.” “Unto death” is thus an intensive, not an extensive, term. Christ does not mean, merely, “to thy life’s end,” contemplating life under aspects of time, but “to the sharpest and worst which the enemy can inflict upon thee, even to death itself.” “Dare and endure,” the words would say, “the worst that evil men can threaten and inflict, even death itself.” It is true that Christian fidelity must continue to the close of life. Our Lord’s promise is to “those who endure to the end,” that “they shall be saved.” He also said that no one, putting his hand to the plough and looking back, is fit for the Kingdom of God. It is true, no soldier of the cross can win the fight, and wear the honour of victor, who turns from the foe in the day of battle. But, as has been said, the text points out not so much the duration as the intensity of our fidelity. It is, “Be faithful to the enduring of all trials, privations, sufferings, imprisonments, tortures, even to death itself. Endure everything for Christ, and the crown of life shall be yours.”
In ancient heroic story there is one figure of which I often think. It is the figure of the old pilot who was sailing his boat in the crisis of a storm on the great tempestuous Ægæan Sea, and in his extremity he was seen to stand erect and cry, in his old pagan way, “Father Neptune, you may sink me if you will, or you may save me if you will, but whatever happens I will keep my rudder true.” Everyone can say that. It is not for us to decide our own destinies. It is not for us to say we shall not be over-whelmed by certain storms; it is not for us to say we shall never go under. We do not know how hard the trial is yet to be. But this we can say: “Sink me if you will, or save me if you will, but whatever happens I will never drift, I will steer straight, I will keep my rudder true.” By God’s grace everyone can do that.1 [Note: C. Silvester Horne.]
While abhorring war, M. Coillard always had the strongest sympathy with the military profession. His mind seemed to move in its imagery. Christianity, as he conceived it, was the march of an ever-victorious army; to him it meant a loyalty, not a philosophy, still less a ceremonial system. He had no other ambition than to be “a good soldier of Jesus Christ.” “A French general,” he once wrote, “told his aide-de-camp that the politeness of a soldier was obedience; and I myself hold that in all circumstances our duty to our Master is fidelity.”1 [Note: C. W. Mackintosh, Coillard of the Zambesi, 106.]
She was now in Armenia. The roads were beset by Kurds, who twice attacked her caravan. In one of the wretched hamlets through which she passed, a young Armenian, with whom she spoke about the faith, said to her, “We don’t know much, but we love the Lord Jesus well enough to die for Him.” Here, amongst the Armenians, she realized again what the horrors of this infamous persecution meant for a timid, defenceless people, less manly than the Nestorian Rayahs, in many ways less lovable, but like them, “faithful unto death.”2 [Note: A. M. Stoddart, The Life of Isabella Bird, 239.]
Be faithful unto death. Christ proffers thee
Crown of a life that draws immortal breath:
To thee He saith, yea, and He saith to me,
“Be faithful unto death.”
To every living soul that same He saith,
“Be faithful:”—whatsoever else we be,
Let us be faithful challenging His faith.
Tho’ trouble storm around us like the sea,
Tho’ hell surge up to scare us and to scathe,
Tho’ heaven and earth betake themselves to flee,
“Be faithful unto death.”3 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, Poetical Works, 277.]
The Reward of Fidelity
“I will give thee the crown of life.”
Some superfine individuals have called the religion of Christ vulgar because it cannot trust to its own intrinsic excellence, but must encourage its supporters by the promise of rewards. But in answer to this objection on the part of exquisitely and delicately made natures, let me say, in the language of one of my old teachers, there is no fear of becoming vulgar in the company of Christ, who not only promised rewards to His followers, but Himself worked and suffered under the spur of reward; for do we not read, “who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising the shame, and is now set down in the majesty of the heavens”?1 [Note: H. F. Henderson, The Eye Witnesses of Christ, 144.]
1. The promise is very full and very rich. This crown that He promises is the crown of royalty. It is more. It is the crown of royalty victorious. It is still more. It is the chaplet that adorns the brow of the victor who comes laden with spoils, the crown of royalty, the crown of victory, the crown of added wealth. It is the crown of life, life which reigns because it has won, and reigns moreover in possession of spoils obtained through conflict. The life is the crown. What wondrous light this flings back upon the process! This pressure of tribulation is not accidental and capricious. Out of the tribulation we shall have our triumph. Out of the darkness we shall come to light. That is the whole philosophy of suffering. When presently all the tribulation is passed, and the painful processes of the little while are over, and the last grim pressure ceases, then we shall be crowned with life, then we shall know the meaning of life.
O that thou wouldest understand the great good of Tribulation! This it is which blots out sins, cleanses the soul, and produces Patience: this in Prayer inflames it, enlarges it, and causes it to exercise the most sublime act of Charity; this rejoices the Soul, brings it near to God, causes it to be called, and to enter, into Heaven. This it is which tries the true Servants of God, and renders them wise, valiant, and constant. This it is which makes God hear them with speed.… It is this which Annihilates, Refines, and Perfects them: and finally, it is this which of earthly, makes Heavenly Souls, and of human, Divine; transforming them, and uniting them in a wonderful way with the Lord’s Humanity and Divinity.1 [Note: Michael de Molinos, The Spiritual Guide.]
2. Notice the compensation! “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life.” What thou sacrificest thou shalt receive again. And that is not all. The life received is not the equivalent of the life that has been given up. The life that is placed on the victor’s brow is not a duplicate of the life that was laid down on this earth. This poor life laid down is not of so much value after all; at best it soon passes away, and is very superficial and frail. All the glory of it is as grass, and “all the goodliness of it as the flower of the field.” But the life that is won through the sacrifice of this life is a life eternal, profound, joyous, infinitely great and glorious—a life in some wonderful way like the life of God Himself.
“A crown of life.”—Of what fashion shall such a crown be? St. Paul speaks of an amaranthine crown, contrasting it with earth’s fading crowns of victory. And later in this Book of Revelation we read of crowns of gold.
We may hope to discern in celestial crowns every adornment of all possible crowns. Gracefulness of leaves, loveliness of flowers, endearment (if I may call it so) of tendrils, permanence of gold, lustre and tints of jewels. Such crowns I hope to see on heads I have venerated and loved here.
Meanwhile, because our dear Lord, flower of humankind and comparable with fine gold (though fine gold sufficeth not to compare with Him), was contented on earth to be crowned with a crown of thorns; let us be patient, contented, thankful, to wait on in hopes of a crown of life and glory.2 [Note: Christina G. Rossetti, The Face of the Deep, 65.]
3. Do not forget the Giver. “I will give thee.” Jesus Christ is to be the rewarder of men. It is from Him the gift must come, because, after all, it is a gift. We cannot merit it or obtain it in any way except as a free gift. It will no doubt bear some proportion to the life we have lived, and the victories we have won, but, after all, we cannot earn it. It is infinitely more than we could have earned or merited. It was earned on the cross. But whatever our future glory shall be, it must come from Jesus Christ; and “all power is given unto him in heaven and in earth.”
William Hunter, the martyr apprentice of Brentwood in Essex, was executed at his native village on 26th March 1555. He was allowed to converse with his friends beforehand in the parlour of the Swan Inn. His father prayed that he might continue to the end in the way that he had begun. His mother said she was happy to bear a child who could find in his heart to lose his life for Christ’s sake. “Mother,” he answered, “for my little pain which I shall suffer, which is but a short braid, Christ hath promised me a crown of joy. May you not be glad of that, mother?”1 [Note: J. A. Froude, History of England, v. 507.]
4. Are we counted so capable of faithfulness of heart that God believes we shall despise the rewards of the world in comparison with the spirit of Christ offered to us and the life in it as reward? Is it possible that God believes in us so much as to expect of us faithfulness unto death? Have we truly a Father whose care is our perfection, a Saviour who is watching us daily that we may be freed from sin; and can we, so weak, so much the creatures of impulse, so vain, so wavering, be faithful unto death? It is an inspiring thought that God can believe in us so much. We are not called on to face the lions for our faith. But there are things in life which are death—even worse than death itself; there are pains as deep as those the martyrs bore which we have to bear in silence, with no encouragement but the voice of God within, and that voice we do not always hear. There are wild contests we have sometimes to wage alone, night after night, day after day, when it seems that the inner conflict must become known to all around us, so vivid is our consciousness of it; and yet we know that there is no help in man for us, that we must conquer (if we conquer) in a solitude of heart which makes life as ghastly as a cruel dream. Then it is something to recall this text, and let the noble words sound in our ears their cry to courage and their promise, “Be thou faithful unto death, and I will give thee the crown of life!”
The sharpest trials of life may not be ours, though few there are who do not touch one or another; but, even without them, there are difficulties enough in ordinary life to try our fidelity to God. When we have to go on day by day, contending with a passionate or a sluggish nature—limiting the one, enkindling the other—meeting small temptations every hour, so that watchfulness must never be relaxed; when no sooner is one wrong-doing laid in the grave than another rises up, so that the sword of life is never in the scabbard; when we know that this will go on for years till death comes—then, not to give way to angry weariness, not to brood over the battle, but to take it frankly as it comes, as part of the day’s work; to make of high endeavour an inward light “which makes the path before us always bright”; to conquer the chill of custom and the weight of commonplace, and be inspired always by an inward thought; to pour into life such love of God and man that all things will grow beautiful and worthy to be done; and to look forward, persevering to the last—
From well to better, daily self-surpast,
this is to be faithful unto death, and for these things there is “the crown of life.”
Wherever a man’s post is, whether he has chosen it of his own will, or whether he has been placed at it by his commander, there it is his duty to remain and face the danger, without thinking of death, or of any other thing, except dishonour.1 [Note: Plato, The Apology of Socrates, cap. 16 (Church’s trans., p. 56).]
I rejoiced in God, and made my complaint to Him, because He permitted me to undergo such afflictions; yet the recompense was great; for almost always, afterwards, His mercies descended upon me in great abundance. The soul seemed to come forth as gold out of the crucible, most refined, and made glorious to behold, our Lord dwelling within it. These trials afterwards are light, though they once seemed to be unendurable; and the soul longs to undergo them again, if that be more pleasing to our Lord. And though trials and persecutions increase, yet, if we bear them without offending our Lord, rejoicing in suffering for His sake, it will be all the greater gain.2 [Note: The Life of St. Teresa of Jesus (ed. 1911), 278.]
A missionary is seated in the courtyard of an Indian house. In a circle opposite is a native family—husband, wife, sister, and some children. They are the first-fruits of a year’s toil in Armur, and have come now for the seal and test of their faith—baptism.
“Why do you wish baptism?” we asked of them.
“Because we belong to Jesus. Did not He die for us? We are His.”
“But if you are baptized, great trouble will assuredly come. You will be out-casted. When neglected and persecuted by old friends what will you do?”
“We believe in Him. Will He not help us?”
“How long will you serve Him?”
Glad and spontaneous was the answer from all three: “Chachudaka—Till death.”1 [Note: G. M. Kerr, in The Foreign Field, Dec. 1910.]
Triumphant Love, oh, keep us pure
By Thine own passion to endure,
Till every heart in Thine shall beat—
Our Sun, our Shadow from the heat—
And no false sun or shade allure!
Let never a dream of hate immure
Our life within its prison secure,
Nor Self its treadmill-round repeat,
Triumphant Love!
If Thou to hardship now enure
The soul, in this life’s overture
To greater music, we entreat
That we, through darkness, death, defeat,
May triumph in Thy triumph sure,
Triumphant Love!2 [Note: Annie Matheson, Maytime Songs, 15.]
Literature
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Dewey (O.), Works, 227.
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Mackenzie (W. B.), in The Home Preacher, 130.
Milligan (W.), The Book of Revelation (Expositor’s Bible), 46.
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British Congregationalist, June 29, 1911 (C. S. Horne).
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Church of England Pulpit, lxii. 157 (J. D. Forde).
Churchman’s Pulpit: Lenten Season, v. 99; Easter Day and Season, vii. 394 (J. Wiseman); Sermons to the Young, xvi. 13 (W. Bruce), 598 (R. G. Soans).
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Preacher’s Magazine, v. 223 (T. Puddicombe).