Quiet Talks on the Crowned Christ of Revelation | Page 3

partner, Peter, makes this note blend with and dominate the
minor chord of suffering for Christ's sake.[7]
The Christian Hebrew who wrote so eloquently to his
fellow-countrymen of the immense superiority of Jesus and so
modestly withheld his own name, strikes this note five times with
strong, clear touch.[8] He quotes that Eighth Psalm, which so

wonderfully gives God's own ideal for man's mastery over all creation.
And then he tells us that in Jesus the ideal will yet be fully realized.
And that while the whole plan has not yet fully worked out as it will,
yet even now we see the Jesus who tasted death for every one, crowned
with glory and honour as part of the plan which He carried out in
suffering the extreme suffering of death.
And our Lord Jesus Himself, talking out of the glory to the man who
was His bosom companion on earth, reserves as His last tender plea to
us to live the overcoming life this--"he that overcometh I will give him
to sit down with me in my throne as I also overcame and sat down with
my Father on His throne."[9]
And so we find out just what this word crowned means. Jesus was
received in the upper world, exalted, glorified, made to sit down at the
Father's right hand, put far above all rule and authority, with a name
greater in the sweep of its power than any other, and with all things put
in absolute subjection under His feet. This is the simple, direct meaning
of the sentence--Christ is crowned.
What a contrast the two faces of that glory cloud saw! The face looking
down, and the face looking up! The one--the downward face--looked
upon a cross, a Man hanging there with a mocking crown of thorns
without and a breaking heart within, scowling priests, jeering crowds,
deserting disciples, sneering soldiers, weeping women, heart-broken
friends, a horror of darkness, a cave-tomb under imperial seal, and
blackest night settling down over all.
The other--the upward face--looked upon a great burst of the upper
glory, the countless angels singing swelling songs of worship, the
wondrous winged cherubim, the redeemed hosts from Eden days on
reverently bowing and exultantly singing, the exquisitely
soft-green-rainbow-circled throne, the Father's face, once hidden, but to
be hidden now never again, the shared seat on the Father's
throne,--what a contrast!
Here crucified--there crowned. Crucified on earth, one of the smaller
globes of the universe. On the throne of the whole universe of

globes--crowned! From the lowest depth to the one extreme height.
From hate's worst to Love's best. From love poured out for men to love
enthroned for those same men; love triumphant each time, on cross and
on throne. What a contrast! What a coronation! What a welcome home
to a throne!
The Music of a Name.
It is most intensely interesting to recall that, of course, this is just what
the very word Christ means,--the Crowned One. We sometimes get so
used to a word that it is easy to forget its real meaning. The word Christ
has been used so generally for so many centuries as a name that we
forget that originally it was a title, and not a name.
And it still is a title, though used chiefly as a name. Some day the
title-meaning will overlap the name-meaning. We may never cease
thinking of it as a name, but there is a time coming when events will
make the title-meaning so big as to clear over-shadow our thought and
use of it as a name.
It helps to recall the distinctive meaning of the words we use for Him
who walked amongst, and was one of us. Jesus is His name. It belongs
to the man. It belongs peculiarly to the thirty-three years and a bit more
that He was here, even though not exclusively used in that way in the
Book.
There's a rare threefold sweetness of meaning in that five-lettered name.
There is the meaning of the old word lying within the name, before it
became a name, victory, victor, saviour-victor, Jehovah-victor. There is
the swing and rhythm and murmur of music, glad joyous music, in its
very beginnings as a common word.
Then it has come to stand wholly for a personality, the rarely gentle,
winsome, strong personality of the Man of Bethlehem and Nazareth,
and of those crowded service-days. And every memory of His
personality sweetens and enriches the music in the old word.
And then the deepest significance, the richest rhythm, the sweetest

melody, come from the meaning His experiences, His life, pressed into
it. The sympathy, the suffering, the wilderness, the Cross, the
Resurrection, all the experiences He went through, these give to this
victory-word, Jesus, a meaning unknown before. They put the name
Jesus actually