To the believer who advances as far in his spiritual progress as the sixth overcometh, Jesus promises, "I will make him a pillar in the temple of my God, and he shall go no more out, and I will write upon him the name of my God, and the name of the City of my God, which is New Jerusalem, which cometh down out of heaven from my God, and I will write upon him My new name." Just before making this promise, in His address to the same church, He says, "Behold, I come quickly. Hold fast that which thou hast, that no man take "thy crown." This announcement that He will come quickly is made to the church at Philadelphia, and as there was only one more church to be addressed, that of Laodicea. which represents the lukewarm condition of the present Protestant churches of the world, we understand that the coming of the Lord is very near. It would also seem, from the connection between the warning that no man take our crown and the promise of making us pillars in the temple of God, that there was an intimate relation. As we see, each of these promises to the overcoming Christian lies in an ascending climax, and the soul that has passed through the steps of experience and life indicated by the previous overcomeths is now prepared to enter into a deeper union with God, and be incorporated into the interior structure of His kingdom more firmly and abidingly than ever. To be a "pillar in the temple of God'? indicates that the soul has penetrated from the outer courts of religious life into the very center of that glorious spiritual structure which the Holy Ghost has been fashioning through the centuries. It indicates a state of spiritual life which is thoroughly rooted in God, and everlastingly fixed in a calm, sweet union with the divine attributes and the divine character. A pillar in a temple is one of its interior and essential portions upon which the •structure largely rests, which gives character, support and beauty to the building.

The Scriptures reveal to us in many places that God is forming a veritable and living temple composed of regenerated and sanctified souls throughout the centuries, which are denominated real "living stones," and that the Holy Ghost is building these purified natures up into a real living city or temple, and that every soul entering that structure has its appropriate place with as much accuracy and reality as the stones of a real palace which have been previously carved and fashioned in the quarry for their several places in the building. Paul expressly says that true believers are God's building, they are His temple. Peter says that we are to taste that the Lord is gracious, and that as living stones we are built up a spiritual house, a holy priesthood, which indicates that the house is a real living temple.

At the bottom of the sea myriads of little coral insects begin to build themselves up unitedly in the coral reef. For long centuries the structure goes on increasing, but all hidden beneath the dark, green waters of the sea. At last the coral reef rises above the surface of the sea, and becomes visible to the eye, and soon it is covered with gorgeous foliage and tropical products. In like manner, through all the centuries past, and hidden away from physical eyesight, and the reason of carnal men, God has been working upon a marvelous structure, building for Himself a gorgeous temple, in which every stone is an immortal spirit, regenerated and purified, and filled with His own Spirit. This structure has not yet become visible, except perchance to the penetrating vision of angels and glorified spirits. But when Jesus appears and establishes His reign on the earth, this magnificent structure of myriads of immortal blood-washed souls will emerge from the dark waters of time, and become a visible, clearly cognizable structure in the eyes of angels and men. This is the city that Abraham saw in a vision, and that glittered down the long vista of faith to prophets and apostles.

The building of the temple by King Solomon, in which every stone was carefully finished in the quarry, and, when brought together, could be deftly joined together without the sound of a hammer, is an inspired type of the spiritual temple that is now being constructed by the Holy Spirit as a habitation for God. Now to be admitted as a pillar in that temple is a mark of great favor and honor from God. It is evident that all believers who enter into that glorious structure will not rank as pillars, for it would be out of keeping with all proper interpretation to suppose that every piece in the temple would be a pillar. And we notice that this promise was not given in the earliest stages of the overcoming life, but reserved for the last stage previous to sitting with Christ in His throne. There are thousands of degrees of grace among God's children. Having the heart purged from indwelling sin is the lowest stage of Christian perfection, and, after it, there is to come a great work of illumination in the understanding, and the revelation of spiritual things, and the manifesting of the three persons in the Godhead to the eye of the mind. And then there come, in the upper ranges of a life in the Holy Spirit, deep and interior experiences of divine union, where the faculties of the human spirit are brought into marvelous and unspeakable unity with Cod, where the understanding becomes enlarged and united to God's revealed word, where the affections are inexpressibly expanded and united to the sympathies and feelings of the Lord Jesus, and where the will, in all its choices and desires, is brought into a supernatural fixedness with the will of God, and with the movements of divine providence. These forms of the spiritual life are what we may understand by being so taken up into God as to be made a pillar in His coming kingdom.

In our further observations of this remarkable promise we notice:

1. That there is a state of Christian life set forth in the Bible, which fixes the believer's destiny forever. When it pleases God to take one of His servants and make him a pillar in the temple, Christ then affirms, "He shall go no more out." We are to take these words to mean just what they say. We have seen, in previous steps, that there are points in grace, from which the soul may retrograde, and be lost forever; but the Scriptures just as clearly teach, that there is a point in divine life where the believer's glorious destiny is forever settled. The same law applies to sinners as to saints. We are expressly taught by our Savior, that there were sinners to whom He spoke, who had gone so far in a life of disobedience that they had fixed their eternal destiny for hell. They saw Him casting out devils, and, right against all the light of reason, common sense, and conscience, they charged Him with being possessed with Beelzebub. Jesus told them that that was the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost, that is, calling the work of the Holy Ghost the work of the devil, and doing it right against light. He then told them that that sin should never be forgiven either in this age or in the coming age, but that they should die in their sins, and where Christ was they could never come. This is an infallible declaration, that men may now put themselves where they never can or never will repent, and while walking upon the surface of this world, they are in reality a living portion of everlasting hell.

It is probable that the great majority of men now living on earth have passed this awful point of destiny, and that their eternal doom is just as really fixed as it will be at the judgment. Now what is true with regard to sinners is equally true reversely with regard to saints, that there is a point in Christian progress which absolutely fixes the believers destiny for glory, and honor, and immortality in heaven.

2. Jesus says that "I will write upon this pillar the name of my God." In the temples built for ancient kings in Egypt and Babylon there were large beautiful pillars upon which the reigning monarch would carve his name and the names of the various cities he built, and the battles which he fought, and his pedigree or dynasty. There have been preserved in the British Museum in London some of these magnificent pillars taken from the ruins of Eastern countries, I saw them when I was in London, and saw the carving upon them of the names and historical incidents of the ancient kingdoms. This is the very imagery referred to here in this text. "When Christ says, "I will write upon Him the name of my God," it means that He will reveal to this perfect and established believer the most gracious and profound manifestation of the Fatherhood of God.

It is the Father who awakens us and leads us to His son Jesus, and then Jesus saves us, and leads us to the sanctifying baptism and indwelling personality of the Holy Spirit, and then the Holy Spirit leads us back to the Father, and gives us such a revelation of the person of the Father as the eternal fountain of all Godhead, as eternal and unchanging love, He gives us a view of His divine paternity in a far brighter and sweeter light than we ever knew in the earlier stages of initial grace. The highest stages in the Christ-life repeat over again what we learned in the early beginning, but in a much deeper and more luminous manner. What we need is to have the Fatherhood of God so engraved upon the vital centre of our being that we will continually have an abiding sense of Him as the person of the Father.

3. "I will write upon him the name of the City of my God, which is New Jerusalem." This is a remarkable promise, and refers to that special revelation which the Holy Spirit makes to the perfect believer of his being made a member of the bridehood of Jesus, To have the name of the New Jerusalem engraved in the life of the soul is to receive an inward experimental certificate from the Holy Ghost of being the "spouse" of the Lord Jesus. Young, or unestablished, Christians never receive this experience, and when they hear perfected believers speaking of that spiritual wedlock of their souls with Jesus, or talking in the style of the language of the Song of Solomon, they do not understand the real purport of such language. I have met many thousands of Christians, in all stages of experience, and I never remember of hearing any one speak in a serious and experimental manner of the subject of divine espousal, except those who had consciously and fully entered the baptism of the Holy Spirit. This is why the Song of Solomon is so little understood and so blunderingly interpreted by many. That Song expresses the high watermark of the spiritual life. And it has language and metaphors so flooded with supernatural experiences of personal affection for Jesus, and yearnings after Him, which are all dry or gross hieroglyphics to believers who have not yet entered the sanctified bridehood of the Lamb.

Our Savior gives us to understand in the ninth chapter of Matthew that there are some disciples who have not yet come into the bridehood, and there are others who have. The disciples of John said to Him: "Why do we fast often, but Thy disciples fast not?*' Jesus said unto them: "How can the children of the bride-chamber mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?" Now the disciples of John were really the servants of God, but were serving Him in a legal way, but those disciples who had left John, and followed Jesus, had been lifted into the plane of a love service, and Jesus calls them ' 4 the children of the bride-chamber, " and says that His presence with them was that of the bridegroom. This truth has a continual and far-reaching application through all the Christian centuries. There have ever been those who serve God really and truly, without entering that state of perfect heart-union with Jesus which the Bible frankly expresses under the type of marriage.

So when Jesus promises to write the name of the City of God upon our hearts we are to understand that that City is the same one referred to in Revelation 21, where John expressly declares that the New Jerusalem made up of the typical number of the hundred and forty-four thousand is the bride, the Lamb's wife. So the City is identical with the bride, and hence the name of the City is identical with the name of the bride, and as we have seen a name in Scripture represents character, and to have the name of the bride, or City, written upon our hearts, is the same thing as having the real, spotless, tender, loving character of the bride of the Lamb engraved upon the inner tablet of our consciousness. It is our privilege to know, even in this life, these supernatural experiences of grace, and to have, before we see His blessed face, the perfect inward assurance that we are forever and forever the spouse of the Lamb.

4. "I will write upon him my new name." This new name is explained by the prophet Hosea, in which he describes the glory of God that shall fill the earth in the last days, and says: "It shall be at that time, saith the Lord, thou shalt no more call me baali," which signifies my master, "but thou shalt call me Ishi," which signifies my husband. This is the new name that Jesus will write into those who are filled with holy love. This writing consists of a pungent and sweet revelation to the soul of Christ's personal and individual love. In the lower degrees of grace we look upon the love of Jesus as of a general and universal character. But as we advance into closer union with Him, His love takes on clear forms of a special and personal character, and when we are perfectly crucified, and can say with St. Paul: "The life I live is not my own, but the life of Christ in me," then with Paul we can also say: ''The Son of God loved me and gave Himself for me," and this revelation of the personal affection Jesus bears for each of us makes Him more inexpressibly dear to us than all the outspread glories of Him in the general creation.

The word Lamb, as used in Revelation, is preeminently the name of Jesus as the heavenly bridegroom, and this word Lamb in every instance in Revelation is in the Greek "arnion," which means a little, tender lamb. And so the last and highest revelation we have of Jesus is that of inexpressible gentleness and love. This is the name and the" character which He will engrave in the consciousness of those who are perfectly established in union with Himself.