the fifth chapter the Book is introduced to us. The throne first established,—whatever happened now, was what hung on the throne. In the right hand of His power who sat on the throne was a book.
There may be some allusion in this, and the little open book, to Jeremiah xxxii; but it is (to say the least) very faint. A title to open a book is a distinct thing from a book containing a title, the evidences of a title: besides, it was a book to be read, to be opened and read, as containing communications of the mind of God.
But the death of Christ doubtless gave Him the title to the inheritance morally, and to open the book; and purchased and redeemed the joint heirs.
It is not, moreover, here the kingdom merely of the Son of Man, as given to him, nor the title of the Offspring of David (that is not brought in until the end), but the root of David, the Lion of the tribe of Judah, David’s Lord, not his son—He hath prevailed. The redemption, or purchase, here, is of the Church—a new song, not a Jewish one. It was a book in the hand of God, Him that sat on the throne, not antecedently revealed, nor the subject of ordered prophecy before, and founded, not on promise which man could have had on uprightness, as the Jewish promises, but solely on the
