Such was the secondary agency in this revolutionary event, but
what was the primary? John says, that the first cause of all the events represented in the seals was “the Lamb;” “he openeth and no man shutteth; and shutteth, and no man openeth;” He opens all the seal- periods; and, by that omnipotence given to him in heaven and in earth, he gives such a shape and color to the world’s affairs, civil, ecclesiastical, and social, as accords with the prefigurations of the Spirit in this prophecy. He is that popularly styled “Providence,” who, for the past eighteen centuries, has been engaged in preparing a situation of affairs favorable to the establishment of his throne and kingdom upon earth. Providence is the Lamb; and the Lamb, with his seven horns and seven eyes, recovered from the wound with which he was wounded in the house of his friends (Zech. 13:6); and embodying the seven lamps of fire burning before the throne — is the symbol of the All-powerful Spirit of the Deity. This is manifest from ch. 4:5; 5:6. It gives symbolic shape to the great mystery of Deity manifested, justified and glorified in crucified flesh. The embodiment of this mystery was “made both Lord and Christ” by his ascent from the lower nature of His fathers Abraham and David, to the higher nature of his Father the Eternal Spirit — John 10:17; Heb. 2:7,9,16,17; Acts 2:36. Thus he became spirit after leaving his sepulchre, and about forty days before his assumption to the right hand of power. Ever since he hath been “the Lord the Spirit” — 2 Cor. 3:17; “the Quickening Spirit” — 1 Cor. 15:45: so that when “He that was dead” — Apoc. 1:18, dictates to John the matter of the epistles to the seven Asian ecclesias, he concludes his address to each of them by an exhortation to “hear what the Spirit saith to the ecclesias.” As the Dead One, anointed with spices and bound with grave clothes, he was Sin’s Flesh crucified, slain, and buried; in which by the slaying sin had been condemned, and by the burial, put out of sight: but as the Living One again alive for the Aion of the Aions — “the Son of Deity with power by spirit of holiness out of a resurrection of dead ones,” He is the Spirit — “the Seven Spirits before the throne;” “the Alpha and Omega, beginning and ending; the first and the last; he who is and who was and who is coming, the
Opp. DOMITIAN — Domitian was the son of Vespasian, and brother of the popular Titus who took the city of Jerusalem in A. D. 70. He came to office a despised younger brother, embittered by his elders’ contempt. He vented his spite on such notable men as Juvenal, Tacitus, Seutonius and Pliny. He encouraged the pernicious system of the common informer and the law of treason. He persecuted the Christians, continuing the policy and legislation of Nero in that regard. Domitian considered himself a god, and accused the Christians of treason for refusing to acknowledge him as such. According to Irenaeus (5:30:3), and accepted by J. Thomas, the Apocalypse was written during his reign. Domitian’s suppression of Christianity extended to his family, so high had the movement penetrated. And this increased his opposition to it. It is conjectured that Domitian banished John the Apostle to Patmos, there to work in the mines (Rev. 1:9). In A.D. 96, Domitian was murdered after a plot supported by his wife, who felt the insecurity of her own position. In such circumstances, the Apocalypse was given to John, and circulated among the ecclesias.
Omnipotent” — Apoc. 1:4,8,11; 16:5.
Such is the signification of the symbolic Lamb who opens the scroll, having prevailed so to do, and to “see it” in the loosing of all its seals, that the prophecy may be read, and understood, and observed by them who are faithful and true.