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SUBJECT: 25. Chapter 25: Christ Is Pleaded for and Travestied
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C H A P T E R T W E N T Y - F I V E
Christ Is Pleaded for and Travestied
When he was set down on the judgment seat, his wife sent unto him, saying, Have thou nothing to do with that just man: for I have suffered many things this day in a dream because of him.
—Mat_27:19.
THE LIFE of the Son of man, ever alert to God as it was, is on all sides bounded by dreams. We find the dream at the beginning of His life, and we find it again at its close. Joseph, the husband of the woman who introduces Him into life, has a dream; the wife of the man who leads Him out of life also has a dream. Even before Jesus had been laid in the manger an angel tells Joseph in a dream: adopt Him for He shall be righteous. And as He is about to be led to the cross, the spirits say to the wife of Pilate, and God says to her again in a dream: Release Him, for He is a just man. Thus is the life of Christ bounded by dreams. Conscious and unconscious life, day and night, waking and dreaming — each and all of these must testify to Christ, must point to Him as the Just One with whom the world is certainly bound up even though it will not admit it.
The dream of Pilate’s wife certainly constitutes a peculiar intermezzo. We hardly know what to make of the frail voice of a woman coming to us through all the clamor of the streets and the excitement of the trial. But Pilate’s wife hardly makes her appearance at all; in fact, she does not let herself be seen; she merely sends a messenger.
Nevertheless there is something distinctive about this woman. The message which she has sent to Pilate arrives in the middle of the clamor which broke loose when the ballot, bearing the names of Barabbas and Jesus of Nazareth, had been presented. This, then, is the time which must be given to deliberating upon the choice which ought to be made. The people are being influenced from all sides; each new voice adds to the effect. A very inconvenient hour this is for a woman who wants the attention of her husband for a moment. But it is precisely in this moment that the message of the woman has a tremendous effect upon Pilate’s emotion. She throws an obstacle in front of the wheel of the coach in which Pilate is riding to his doom. She tells him that he must have nothing to do with that just man. Why not? Well, last evening she has had a most depressing dream. She has dreamed about “that just man.” And that dream is a sufficient motivation for her to say to her husband: “Keep your hands off; do not touch Him. I fear the consequences.”
Pilate’s wife has gradually become famous in history. She attracted people’s attention very early. In fact the records of the transition definitely give her a name. She was called Claudia Procula, sometimes abbreviated to read Procla. This woman whom hereafter we shall call Claudia — without thereby committing ourselves to the historical faithfulness of those transitional records in the matter of this name, a matter which must necessarily remain more or less legendary — this woman, we say, has left an indelible impression upon history. As a matter of fact, the Greek church canonized her; the 27th of October is a day on which the Greek calendar of saints is dedicated to her. Others — the apocryphal gospel of Nicodemus, for instance — tell us that she became a proselyte to Christianity, and that she later took a prominent and honorable position among those who confessed the Christ. So effectively has she charmed the attention of people that she has been made the subject of a whole book.[1] In The Netherlands Frederik van Eeden has written a book on Pilate and his wife. But he himself says that he has done it in the same manner as Anna Catherine Emmerich had. Van Eeden, too, has Claudia become converted to Jesus, and even has Jesus appear in the family to effect a reconciliation between Pilate and his wife.[2]
[1] G. P. Kits van Heyningen, Claudia Procula.
[2] Frederik van Eeden, Uit Jezus’ Openbaar Leven, Chapter 98, p. 194. H. Padberg, S. J: Frederik van Eeden, 1925, p. 220 (you will find an inaccurate reference of literary fact there).
Perhaps it will always be difficult to differentiate between fancy and truth. Hence we shall not make an effort at achieving that. We cannot go much further than that which has been officially confirmed. And the little that has been is limited for the most part to the information that Claudia was not unfavorably disposed to the Jews, that she interested herself, for instance, in the building of schools. For the rest, we shall let her figure remain hidden in the twilight in which the Spirit left her. The question for us is not who Claudia is, nor just what she saw in her dreaming,[1] but what place Claudia’s dream had in the story of Christ’s suffering. We do not need to know all of the details of the life of Claudia, but are seeking the relationship of her dream to the passion of the Man of sorrows.
[1] For a discussion of Gustave Dore’s presentation of the content of the dream, see Dr. J. C. de Moor, Genade voor Genade, Kampen, J. H. Kok. This discussion is a sermon on Claudia.
Now one of the first questions which raises itself in this connection is whether Claudia’s dream can be “explained” in natural ways, or whether that dream must be regarded as a supernatural one sent by God.
Just as is frequently the case, interpretations differ in this matter.
Some maintain that Claudia’s dream can be wholly explained in a perfectly natural way. Who can contradict this contention? Jesus was generally known; during these last days many had been talking about Him. He Himself had appealed to the imagination, especially to the imagination of the women. The romantically colored account of His entry into Jerusalem undoubtedly reached Claudia’s ears. Besides, Pilate knew (according to the immediately preceding verse) that for some time a conflict had obtained between the Jews and Jesus, a conflict which could be explained as far as the Jews were concerned by reference’ to their envy. Add to these facts that the trial of Jesus had called Pilate from his bed early in the morning, and that the restlessness which had arisen on the street in the matter of the Nazarene had therefore penetrated through to the bedroom of Pilate. Think, in addition, of the stir, the clamor, the going to and fro of the mob between Pilate’s and Herod’s house and you will indeed have matter enough for claiming that the dream of Pilate’s wife can easily be explained in a natural way.
Therefore, when others maintain that they must ascribe the responsibility for this dream to the devil, and to him only, we think they are making a too audacious assertion. In the first place, the devil is not a deus ex machina; to cite his name is not to explain the first cause of an event. Besides, this method of explanation can very easily degenerate into a seeking for allegory or unreal parallelisms. One commentator will say: Just as the devil in Paradise first addressed the woman in order to use her for introducing death into the world, so the devil now first addresses himself to a woman in order to put an obstacle in the way of the death of Christ; that is, to stand in the way of redemption, and to put an obstacle in the way of life. According to these interpretations Claudia’s act is looked upon solely from the dark side: it makes Claudia an obstacle, a hindrance in the way of the redemption contained in the death of Christ. How wildly arbitrary such explanations are becomes apparent from the fact that there are others again who read in this apology of the woman, Claudia Procula, a kind of compensation for what the woman in Paradise had spoiled. For, these argue, in Paradise a woman bore evil testimony over against the first Adam, and now, in the hour of the second Adam, a woman makes recompense by means of a good testimony. She registers her protest against all the evil statements made by all the wicked men. In giving this testimony she, too, is the first.
Naturally, we feel that there is a hitch somewhere. Our recompense is that we must not immediately blame the devil for everything which we cannot readily understand, as if that were a satisfactory conclusion. We know that the devil, too, is bound by the forces which make themselves felt in natural life.
However, there is still a third interpretation. It ascribes Claudia’s dream to a direct influence of God. According to these interpreters, Claudia’s dream is a kind of dream-revelation,[1] a “warning which God directs to Pilate.” Those who hold to this view believe that God intentionally influenced Claudia’s soul in order that it might admonish Pilate, or in some other way by means of that dream have a specific effect upon the suffering of Christ.
[1] Grosheide, Kommentaar op Mattheus, p. 344.
What must we say of these various views? Must we choose one of the several interpretations?
As in so many other instances, so in this one it is quite unnecessary to align ourselves with one or the other of these commentaries. To do so would be to suggest that any one of them completely excludes the possibility of any other. But is not the whole of world history and especially the entire trial of Christ a confluence of three factors; i.e., a divine, a devilish, and a purely natural one (to the extent that we have erroneously allowed ourselves to name it that). But why should the one interpretation necessarily exclude the others? God often made use of natural factors. Whenever He did, however, it has been true of them that they did not explain His work, but, on the contrary, that they were themselves explained in terms of His plan. As for Satan? We know that he is everywhere and immediately present in order to turn towards evil what God is directing towards good, if by any means he is able to do so. The dream of Pilate’s wife cannot be explained solely in reference to heaven, and even less in reference solely to purely psychological complexes. Hell also had a responsibility in the matter. Whoever could wish to keep the several interpretations of this event quite separate from each other would have to construct the whole problem of the providence of God, and of the manner of His government, in fact the whole of dogmatics in a way quite different from that which the Church up to this time has done.
Accordingly we endorse the opinions of those who do not abstract this remarkable intermezzo—for so it seems to be—from the pleasure of the evil one. But we also refuse to accept the proposition that this noteworthy dream simply and suddenly impinged upon the situation as a remarkable wonder which in no sense could be explained by natural phenomena. Above all, however, we may certainly not for one moment place this “incident” outside of the structure of God’s determinate counsel and providence.
If we cling to these views we can let Claudia retain her position on the plane which she, together with all other people, occupies. Her dream is not typical of her life. She does not become a proselyte by reason of it, and no distinctive nobility of soul can be ascribed to her on the basis of it. Those who would like to explain this unique dream phenomenon in any specific way could much more easily find ground for blaming Claudia for her superstition than for praising her for her faith. We will point out presently that Claudia’s dream, in the matter of which God certainly has a sacred purpose in mind, is soon explained by her in such a way that the rankest conceivable egoism is compatible with her interpretation and with the “application” which she infers from it. So much for the natural causes; so much for the “human factor” in her dream.
And this for Satan’s share in the matter: certainly we cannot exclude him. We, too, believe that in the sinister play of his hellish wickedness this dream has a part. It is true that Satan avidly longs for the blood and death of the second Adam. But it is also true that hell would derive a kind of satisfaction from the fact that Christ would be released in the world as a result of mere superstition (fear of a dream), and by reason of pragmatic considerations (fear of the evil consequences which might attend the condemnation of the guiltless Jesus). If Christ were set free by Pilate as a result of the bizarre logic or vague intuition of Claudia to the effect that this “just man”[1] if put to death might be avenged by God or by the gods—but not by Himself,—then He will in the future no longer be proclaimed as the Messiah. Had Pilate in this particular set of circumstances, now that Christ had been proclaimed an outlaw anyhow, followed Claudia’s advice and eventually given Jesus His freedom, Christ would not have escaped from the odium attaching to Him in the eyes of His people. In this connection we involuntarily think of that slave woman in Philippi who—later—gave the messengers of Christ a diploma of honor by announcing them as people having a good message, as preachers of a noble name. Satan exerted an influence upon that incident also. That slave also called out: Make no mistake about this Jesus Christ, for in my dreams I suffer much on account of that just man. Nevertheless, Paul detects a diabolical influence in her hysterical cries. The thrust of that influence is this: if Jesus gets the right of free passage in Philippi on the authority of this man, He will be entering Philippi not as the one and only Messiah who thrusts all the other gods of Greek phantasy out of the way, and who takes all the people and all who minister in the temples of Philippi captive, but as one among many who, reckoning by human standards, all know how to speak “good and acceptable words.” Just so, if Jesus by reason of Claudia’s apology had gained His freedom at the hands of Pilate and of those ugly Jews, He would have secured the privilege of free passage into Jerusalem indeed, but then He would have been damaged and dethroned for all time. Claudia can do but one thing: she can give the Gospel only evil services. Just suppose for a moment that Satan has no hand in this affair. Do we know everything about his sinister activity? Is it not compatible with the passion of his sin-steeped being that every “interpretation” of the significance and place of the Nazarene in the world which does injustice to Christ is pleasing to Satan? We hold that the influence is present in this instance also in order immediately to effect this particular movement in the spiritual world. For Satan wants to exert effective influence upon every wave which God dispatches into the world of invisible things. If he cannot succeed in this, he at least tries to set up his loud-speakers in the neighborhood of God’s waves in order that he may falsely reproduce the pure sounds intrinsic to them. So much for the devil’s influence. We may call this the diabolical factor in the dream.
[1] The qualification which names Jesus as a just man must not be stressed too strongly. Its meaning goes no further than to allege that Jesus is not as bad as His accusers say He is. Strack-Billerbeek, Kommentaar op Mattheus, p. 1032, presents an analogy.
To go on, however. Above all, we are convinced of the fact that God Himself, from the vantage point of His spiritual world, intervened in the trial of Jesus by means of Claudia’s dream. Moreover, we believe that He did this with a specific intention. Now anyone who is surprised by the thought that God uses a heathen woman for purposes of revealing His intentions in a dream will certainly have to admit that his Bible contains many another such instrument of revelation. We need only to name Abimelech, Pharaoh, and Nebuchadnezzar among others to indicate that God more than once addressed Himself to heathen in the form of a dream, in order to give expression to a specific working of revelation. Claudia’s name must be added to these. Nothing in the trial of Jesus is independent of the influence of God and everything in that trial has its specific significance.
God’s intent is, however, so intricately complicated[1] that no one has the right to force it into any one direction. Now the fact that God wanted to admonish Pilate and to do so in Pilate’s own language is certainly an element which helps us to understand God’s purpose in the dream of Claudia. It would not wholly account for God’s intent, but it cannot be properly ignored. There was very little that Pilate could still do; he had already sold himself to the Jews. But perhaps it will be possible for him to be diverted by a dream. True, Pilate has asked, What is truth? but the man who has lost his faith soon tried to sustain himself by superstition and when that is the case, how many a man has not listened to the charming voice of emotional woman? We are all familiar with the somewhat sinister saying: Cherchez la femme. Now the fact that this saying does not suffice on this occasion to explain everything to Pilate certainly cannot be ascribed to the governor himself. Had the Jews not annoyed him so much—and in this respect we notice Satan’s presence in this matter—Jesus would have been set free. But all Jews and all historians, and indifferent you and I, might have smiled mockingly and said: Yes, He is free, but after all,—cherchez la femme. In short, the dream of Pilate’s wife is an admonition. God is speaking to Pilate in Pilate’s own language. That God does so need not surprise us, for He is the same God who once admonished Saul in Saul’s own language—the time, you remember, when in the night at Endor God had Samuel speak to him. This is the same God who, during the very moment in which Pilate’s wife is dreaming her dream, is prepared to send souls down from heaven to the earth, souls who, later, when Christ has yielded up the spirit, will enter into the body in order that after His resurrection they may appear to many in the holy city. No, those who have become used to the atmosphere of miracles—to the extent it is possible to become used to that—will not be surprised to find that God makes use of Pilate’s own language to arouse his sense of responsibility. On the contrary, such a person will remember that God by means of this woman, and by means of her dream, greatly enhanced Pilate’s sense of responsibility. A dream never gives respite from the task of being responsible. As quickly as the dream has passed the question arises: What did it mean; what is the explanation of it? That throws everyone back upon his own resources again. Everyone must explain his own dreams himself; and each man seeks the solution in terms of his own life and temperament. Instead, then, of providing relief from responsibility, a dream intensifies the sense of it. A dream gives the human mind a new task. The task is one which the consciousness of waking hours has tried to escape from, or has neglected. Hence we can truly say that God intensified Pilate’s sense of responsibility to the highest degree by means of this dream. For this dream we thank Him; it will be the reason for which Pilate will be found without excuse in the last day when Jesus will be the judge instead of the accused, and consequently will be the judge of Pilate also. Because of the dream, Pilate will be unable to say: I did not know; or: You did not talk to me in my own language.
[1] So it seems to our defective thinking. On the other hand, however, from God’s side, His unity also fully informs the decree. From His point of view, the designation “complicated” is sheer foolishness.
Nevertheless, it would be a complete denial of the entire, conscious predilection which is governing the content of this book, if we should drop the discussion at this point. That conscious predilection is that every detail of the gospel of the passion has a definite significance for Christ Himself. Everything has an influence upon the soul of Christ, and each new thing thrusts Him farther into the abyss. For this is now His hour, and the power of darkness. As it is, God simply gives His Son no respite from suffering on this day.
Now as we look for the significance which Claudia’s dream, as well as her report of it and the application which she gave of it has for the soul of Christ, we discover several things.
We can put its significance in this way: In the whole of Christ’s trial, Claudia’s effort to reach out her hand to the Nazarene in an attempt to “rescue” Him is a very noble gesture. Nevertheless, that noblest of gestures also serves to deny, to mock, to misconstrue Christ, and serves only to harm Him.
In the first place, we pause to consider that application of Claudia’s dream which reads: Have thou nothing to do with that just man. Dost Thou hear that, Jesus? In the very hour in which all the angels and all the devils, in which God Himself and Thy own Spirit adjure the whole world saying: Have everything to do with Christ Jesus, release Him, for His is the only voice which still has a good word to sound in this world, comes the dictum: Have nothing to do with Him; give Him His freedom, rid yourself of Him. Does that not cause Thee incomparable pain, Thou Prophet of God? Alas, if only this statement came from the strident throats of excited Jews or if only it were the conclusion of the refined diplomacy of the Roman governor, it would not be as bad as it is. But the statement comes from a person who, not without the influence of God, has just returned from the invisible world. Jesus’ own text had just echoed in His own soul: I must be raised on the cross,[1] for I affect the whole world; everybody has everything to do with me. Now comes this message from the unseen world: Have nothing to do with this man. Is this not humiliation! And negation again! First from Pilate, and now from his wife!
[1] See Chapter 15, pp. 292 and 297.
Yes, the “noble gesture” on Claudia’s part can only serve to harm Jesus. She in her manner says precisely what Gamaliel will say later in the council of the Jews: Simply ignore that Nazarene incident; if you consider it, you may burn your fingers. But it is necessary to burn one’s fingers on the Christ. Did He not come to bring fire upon the earth? Nevertheless, Claudia says: Stay out of the neighborhood. In this, you see, the Saviour is again being isolated. And this is accomplished through the person who made the noblest gesture in the whole of this ungodly trial. Yes, Claudia, you have insulted Him. It is true that you protested against your husband, but at bottom you are one with him. You, too, declare that this Just Man is an outlaw. Surely if this Nazarene has any rights according to law, Pilate must have a great deal to do with Him.
Who, pray, can still dare to speak of a noble gesture?
Can you not detect a note of selfishness here? Just who is it that Claudia would save? The Nazarene? No, indeed, but she would save Pilate. What she fears is that vengeance will one day accrue to him . . . Does not this pain Thee, Jesus? Thy life is being protected, but in a way that takes no cognizance of Thee as God’s active avenger; it takes cognizance of Thee only as the outlaw whom men dare not touch because they fear the Nemesis of which Pilate’s wife has heard at times. One can never know how much of truth there is in those old sayings! ... I think of Enoch. He once declared to Noah’s contemporaries: The Lord will come, and when He does His coming will be an offensive approach; He will bring myriads of saints with Him and many thousands of angels of vengeance. Now, in this hour of Christ’s death, the Lord has indeed made His offensive appearance. Today He comes; the Holy One comes, bringing myriads behind Him. Beware. On this very day someone says: The gods of Greece and Rome, the fates and the furies, may possibly make their approach with a sting of death and with an angel of destruction. Negation this! Again negation! Christ has come to drive all gods out of Greece and Rome. He comes to sweep them all from Olympus by means of the winds of Pentecost. Yet it was only by a hair’s-breadth that Jesus escaped from becoming the protégé of the gods of Greece, the very gods He came to destroy, and for whose defeat He had already thanked the Father (Joh_12:21; Joh_12:23).
This also represented suffering. And temptation. His way of coming into life was not a matter of indifference to the Son, and He is equally concerned how He passed through it and out of it. Why should a doxology sung by angels mean more to Him than the proposal of Pilate’s wife? He does not “figure” the way we do. He is “true” man. Yes, His soul yearns for light and life, but it is compelled to protest against this “noble” gesture, the only thing which would still comfort Him as He stands before the bench. Among all those people there is not one who raises his voice for Him, save this one woman . . . But His whole soul must implore, and cry aloud: Do not listen to her.
Why not, you ask? Had He been set free by reason of this advocate, the Chief Priest of Israel would have lived by virtue of the grace of the anachronous gods of Greece. Then the Highest Wisdom would have passed through the gates of freedom by the grace of superstition: that is, by the grace of the most utter folly. Then every rising of the sun after this would have raised a hymn in praise of folly because of this bizarre phenomenon; a Highest Wisdom living by the grace of sheerest folly, and a Passover recollection (the amnesty) manipulated in the name of the remnants of the Greek Olympus to which Claudia attributed the dream. Even Maccabeans would have protested against such a Passover memory; how much more, then, Jesus Christ!
Indeed, this is humiliating. The highest revelation which God has given the world now runs the danger of letting its own notion of its ways and means be circumscribed by the erroneous notion of the lowest form of revelation of which God makes use in the world: namely the dream[1] True it is that God spoke genuinely to Claudia, but pagan superstition gave the message a wrong interpretation. “God, who aforetime spake through the prophets, has now fulfilled that saying in the Son.” But the life and the right of prophecy of that Son—woe to Him, if He should desire it thus— is sustained by a silken thread which was spun by the diseased imagination of a born egoist who has scented something of the sulfur and brimstone which has been ignited on the top of Mt. Olympus.
In this connection we think of the Baptist. Just before his death we witnessed the enmity of a woman, Herodias, and the weakness of a man, Herod. Together they struck off John’s head. Here, again, we have the whim of a woman and the weakness of a man, but on this day these two are inclined to spare Jesus’ head. But to spare Him thus for the day is to humiliate Him forever. Then the Baptist would have served his purpose and attained his end, but Jesus would have been basically defeated. Understand, we are talking from a human point of view. For the author of the sermon on the mount it is a terrible lot to hear it said: Have nothing to do with Him. For the hairs of His head, as well as those of Pilate’s head, are all numbered. Jesus senses that this is true.
In concluding we can hardly interest ourselves in what became of Claudia, in the conflicts of her soul, or in the manner in which God in the future allowed Pilate to suffer for the sake of the Nazarene. It is said that Pilate died in darkness; it is certain that his life after this time came to be a restless one. Doubtless, he often recalled what his wife had once told him.
But what point can there possibly be in considering such things? The only thing that can be important for us is the terrible humiliation which struck Christ as the bearer of God’s highest revelation, which caused Him to feel as keenly as death that His life was made to depend upon the superstition of a pagan woman. The bearer of God’s highest revelation must hold His peace now. And the recipient of God’s lowest mode of revelation flutters by: the dream, which is hardly set forth distinctly in a vague nebulosity, is permitted to speak. Meanwhile Jesus Christ must simply bide His time in order to learn what the content and the effect of this dream of revelation are. When Claudia told of the fact that she had met God, Jesus also felt Himself forsaken of God. Over against Him all the heavens were silent.
How great Christ is in His perfect obedience! In spite of His intense yearning for life, He refuses to accept it on these terms. He wavered neither to the right nor to the left. It may hurt Him to think that the dreams of Abimelech and of Pharaoh and of Nebuchadnezzar gained more for Abraham, Isaac, and Daniel respectively, than Claudia’s dream gains for Him—for Pilate at its behest did not change his mind—but again in this matter Pie gives Himself up willingly to the counsel of God, holds His peace, and sees that justice is done. And He does this without clinging to the lifeline which superstition threw to the Man of sorrows when He became the victim of the overwhelming stream of God’s justice and curse. True, He sighed: All thy waves and all Thy billows go over me. At that moment Satan threw Him the lifeline saying: Grasp it. But from this temptation, too, Christ escaped. Even after Claudia’s intervention,[1] and in spite of the fact that as a human being her speech -seemed to invite a response, Christ permitted his dark sayings to go unexplained over against Pilate and did not defile or profane His own great mystery by an avid appropriation of Claudia’s mysteries. He did not mingle the waters disturbed by Claudia with the pure springs of our delights. He preserved the fountains of God pure and undefiled. Thou art great, Lord, and greatly to be praised. Thou maintainest all the holinesses of God’s revelation and dost do it also in spite of the slight breath of hope and life which, as it seemed, for Thy benefit, briefly blew over Thy head from the atmosphere of paganism.
[1] The phrase is repeated again: Jesus answered not a word—not even after this intervening episode.
We praise Thee, O God, for Thy name is very dear. Thy wonders are proclaimed even though a decadent daughter of Zeus attempts to cover them with a garment of the Greek gods. O Saviour, Thou didst not quail, neither when the naked Satan confronted Thee in the wilderness, nor when he tempted Thee here by means of a dream. For the truth is that Satan tempted Thee, and that Thou wast proved by God. However, now that Thou hast confessed the name of Thy God over against the nebulous dream-reflexes of an uncertain pagan woman, Thou hast wrought for Thyself the privilege of having Thy disciples see visions and to dream Thy own old dreams. Thy spirit of Pentecost has mounted his highest peaks, O Christ, Thou hast kept the dreams, uncontaminated by the filthy, dirt-laden streams of heathendom. The revelation of Thy God which proceeds from Thy spirit pure and undefiled almost became smothered in the sand and mire of pagan superstition and of late-Roman defeatism.
If Christ had imbedded Himself in these simply to preserve His life then God’s dream of revelation would first have been diverted and thereupon been smothered in paganism and superstition with Christ’s approval. That which was at stake here was the Word, the Word, the revelation of the New Testament, and the whole of Scripture. For a Christ who could permit the revelation of God to become contaminated by clinging, not to God’s purely spoken word, but to Claudia’s impure superstition, could not possibly have remained our Chief Prophet. The Word is at stake here. Christ must see to it that the ways of revelation are kept straight, and may not permit them to digress into the direction of the paganism of Claudia. The very fact that God was present in her dream spelled incomparable temptation for Christ. The slightest of God’s actions, and those realized in people separated from Him farthest, demand a complete, a genuine, and a well-rounded response from the Bearer of God’s highest revelation. Scrutinize Him closely now. The act of God’s revelation inhering in this dream, which proceeded from Him genuine and pure at first but which was contaminated when received by the pagan woman, is now again received into His own soul in its pure and genuine condition. He introduced no breach into the words which the Spirit had sent out into the spiritual world. He did not interpose a falsetto note into those pure sounds, and inasmuch as He had to serve as God’s loudspeaker, He reproduced flawlessly the voice of His God.
Come, Thou spirit of Pentecost, permit the Lord’s people to dream His own dream, and let the people wait upon Him night and day. Come, Thou spirit of Pentecost, enter in, and force. the stream of revelation into its own river bed. To that it has a right, inasmuch as even this dream did His soul no damage nor caused it to quail in this hour of extreme temptation.
And Thou, my Saviour, have patience and bide Thy time, for Thou hast almost arrived at Patmos, the province of Rome’s Caesar, Pilate’s lord. There Thou wilt permit John to dream his dreams.
There Thou wilt permit him to dream ever and again of Thy might. Even the last dream of revelation which Thou wilt evoke in the spirit of John as recorded in his Revelation, Thou wilt be dreaming Thy “ancient” dreams, Thou wilt be fulfilling the Scriptures, Thou wilt be giving the Bible its concluding testimony, and wilt by Thy voice as expressed in his dreams be saying to the whole world: Have much, have everything, to do with me, that Just Man, who suffered Himself, not in a dream, but in complete reality.
Such is the triumph of Christ over Nemesis; of the Word over the false concept, of Christ over Claudia. For God has in these last times spoken through His Son. The dreams which He evokes in the prepared spirit of His people are bitter dreams, a thousand times more bitter, in fact, than was Claudia’s dream, but they are also very sweet for they point out the tendencies of the Gospel. God approached from Teman, the Word mounted to its heights, and Christ was humiliated and exalted also in the land of dreams. Hence my soul shall wait upon Him night and day; even in the night time He instructs my reins. This He does, not because of Claudia’s troubled dream, but because of His pure response to that dream. For when, pray, is He not the Saviour? He rejoices because of the fact that the spirits of dreams are subject to Him. Now He is assured that many names are written in the heavens because of the watch which He kept.