wide-spread promulgation of the Gospel, but in purity as an undefiled few, following the Lamb, the holy sufferer.
Though the world might have slighted them, as an unknown people, yet the full perfect remnant of them was here found assembled. And as Zion, as we have said, was the place where the ark was, before the temple was built, and the temple was the type of the established glory, so here we find them assembled on Mount Zion; yet we are still in the heavenly places; for the new song is sung before the throne and before the elders. The harvest and dealings of the Son of Man are subsequent to this and the fall of Babylon. These are redeemed from the earth, while the earth[1] went on, i.e. the earth, as described in the two preceding chapters, to be first fruits to God and the Lamb.[2]
- ↑ The second beast had caused the earth to worship the first beast.
- ↑ This, taken in the crisis, would seem to imply that, besides the Church, properly so called, whose place was in heaven, and, in that sense, the earth done with, there would be a remnant redeemed from the earth still connected with the Lamb; i.e. the sufferer owned by the name of His Father, and singing before the throne, and before the elders—a peculiar class, and having a song thus specially theirs. They were a firstfruits redeemed from the
