WITH CHRIST IN HIS THRONE

WITH CHRIST IN HIS THRONE

Harry Foster

"To him that overcometh will I grant to sit with me in my throne,
even as I also overcame, and am set down with my Father in his throne. " Revelation 3:21

WHEN a man of Laodicea opened his heart's door to let the Saviour in, he had every reason to expect a thrilling session of glad fellowship with his Lord. What, perhaps, he did not expect was that Christ should immediately introduce the subject of conflict, making an earnest appeal to him not only to enjoy sweet interchange around the supper table but to put on his spiritual armour and throw himself into the battle for the throne.

Perhaps we are right in using Revelation 3:21 as a gospel appeal. Certainly we are correct in affirming that when Christ is truly welcomed into a heart or a situation, the result is a rich feast of personal, satisfying fellowship. Our mistake, however, has been to make the feast the sole end and object of the operation, when it is clear that the Lord Jesus has higher and more important issues in mind. He desires to see the satisfied saint become a warrior. He wants not only to come into a believer's life to transform it, but He also wants that believer to come into His life, to share in the joys and responsibilities of His destiny, to sit down with Him in His throne.

"... as I ... overcame ..."

Now no preacher has the right to demand of others what he himself has not experienced -- through many do! Paul would not have done so, and nor would John. In this case, though, it was not Paul who was speaking, and although John was acting as intermediary, it was not he who was making the appeal. No, this rallying call to battle and this promise of the throne came from none other than the Son of God himself. He was able to back it up by the reminder that in His own case He had reached the Father's throne by the hard way; He had had to fight and win through. He, of all people then, has the right to preach to us, because He is the very embodiment of His message.

Now it is true that at the start He was protected and spared responsibility. There were satanic attacks on Him from His birth -- as there are upon us from our new birth -- but in His early days here on earth He was cared for in Bethlehem, in Egypt and in Nazareth, by Joseph, who had been provided by God as His human protector. It is equally true that in the early stages of our faith we have human helpers to protect us and special providential acts of God to deliver us. God knows how much we need such fatherly care, and He never fails to provide it.

The time came, however, when once the Son had received the special enduement of the Spirit at His baptism, that He had to face the full fury of Satan, and from that time onwards until in death He finally committed His spirit to the Father, there was daily, hourly conflict. Life for Him was a battlefield, and in a thousand matters great and small, the destiny of the throne had to be decided by victory or defeat. In His case there were no defeats; it was victory all the way. There never could be any question as to His right to sit down with the Father in His throne, for He was able to claim that by overcoming, He had won the right to the place which He now occupies. [68/69]


"... sup ... with me ..."

This was apparently what they discussed over the supper table of the Laodicean believer, and it is a relevant subject for each of us who has gladly received the Lord into his heart and is enjoying the perpetual feast of His presence and love. When Christ made the comparison that we should overcome as He has overcome, He did not intend that we should just try to copy His behaviour -- we should never succeed if we tried -- but rather that we should rely on His victory as the basis for our own. He did not make use of resources which are not available to us as human beings. Though truly God, He never availed Himself of the prerogatives of His deity to get the better of the enemy. This we can well understand, for God never has to wrestle with anyone, not even with Lucifer himself. For Him there can be no need for conflict, since one word from His mouth would utterly and finally crush the whole kingdom of darkness.

He has never uttered this word -- not yet -- and when it is uttered it will come through a Man. This is the higher purpose of God's heart which makes the conflict necessary and underlines its supreme importance, this desire and plan to have sons who can share His rule with Him, men who can sit down with Christ in His throne. For this very reason God came to earth in the person of Jesus Christ, so that the battle for the throne could be fought out and decisively won in human experience. The Lord Jesus, the representative Man, exposed Himself to the battle, fought and overcame, and then, as Man, returned to take His place in the partnership of the throne.