The Prize of the Throne

The Prize of the Throne

“He who overcomes, I will give to him to sit down with Me on My throne, as I also overcame, and sat down with My Father on His throne.” (Rev. 3:21). These words were spoken directly by the Ascended Saviour, and they describe the climax reward for all who will fulfil the conditions for obtaining it. Many may ask why we should go forward in ceaseless conflict and warfare with Satan and all the forces of darkness, and against all the impurity that surrounds us. This message from the Lord clarifies all. It is for the glorious reward that awaits every faithful soul. In His messages to the other churches, the Lord clearly holds out to all the incentive of the reward that awaits the faithful.

Paul’s writings are full of references to ‘reward’, to all who endure to the end.

Christ is not yet seated on His throne. At His ascension, God said to Him, “Sit at My right hand until . . .” (Heb. 1:13). He is “seated at the right hand of the Majesty on high,” (see Heb. 1:3 and 10:12 and 12:2) waiting for the time when He will sit on His throne, with the saints who are to share it with Him.

The throne is for overcomers! They are to share the throne of Christ. We can see now why. As we pass through the closing days of the age there must be such a terrible conflict, and why the prince of darkness will challenge every child of God who wants to ‘overcome’, and how those who want to overcome him must diligently be on guard and fight to maintain the upper hand over him. Why especially now? Well, because it is the final testing and training of all who are to share the throne, to rule and reign with Christ. It is now it will be revealed whether they are capable of ruling and reigning with Him.

Now, what is the throne which awaits our Ascended Lord? It is the millennial throne of reigning and ruling the kingdoms of the world, in which He will reign with righteousness and faithfulness. After it is given to Him, the voice from heaven says: “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our Lord and of His Christ.” (Rev. 11:15). This throne God promised to Him when, far back in the ages of eternity, He was “appointed to be heir of all things.” (Heb. 1:2). This is foreshadowed in Daniel 7:13-14.

Then the millennial throne of Christ is to be shared with others on certain conditions, by the gift of Christ Himself. “I will give to him to sit with Me.” Paul refers to this heirship in his unfolding of the work of the Holy Spirit in Romans 8. “Joint heirs with Christ . . . if so be that we suffer with Him.” Rom. 8:16. This is foreshadowed in Daniel 7:22-27, where it says, “the time came that the saints possessed the kingdom.” The fact that Christ’s coming throne is to be shared by overcomers over sin and Satan now, who are appointed by the Father to be ‘joint heirs’ with Him who was “appointed heir of all things,” is therefore quite clear. In Rev. 20:4-6 again we read, “and I saw thrones, and they sat upon them, and judgment was given unto them . . . and they lived and reigned with Christ a thousand years.” This is recorded immediately after the statement that Satan was bound and cast into the abyss. The “judgment” of the fallen angels must have taken place, and the casting of Satan into the pit the outcome of it. “This,” John says about those who “lived and reigned with Christ,” the first resurrection.” (Rev. 20:5). The sharing in the first resurrection, and the obtaining of the prize of this ‘high calling’ of sharing the throne with Christ, was the incentive which urged Paul on to count all things loss to obtain it, and to be willing to be made conformable to the death of Christ as the primary means for reaching such an end (see Phil. 3:10-14); for each believer who reaches the prize of the throne, goes by the narrow and yet so glorious way of the Cross.. “That I may know Him, and the power of His resurrection . . . being made conformable to His death, if by any means I may attain to the resurrection from among the dead,” wrote Paul. A little later in this same chapter, Paul says “I press on toward the goal unto the prize of the high calling of God in Christ Jesus.” Notice the word ‘if’ which Paul uses, “If by any means I may attain . . .” ‘If.’ Paul was perfectly sure of his eternal salvation as a ‘free gift’ from God, through the finished work of Christ. Rom. 5:1, Many other passages make this clear, but he, again and again, refers to a ‘Prize’ which even he could not be sure of, unless he pressed on to fulfil the conditions for obtaining it. There was an “if” in his mind about the first resurrection as later described by John in Rev. 20:5. In Romans 8:17, the same ‘if’ comes up in again in connection with the same subject; “joint heirs with Christ ‘if’ so be that we suffer with Him, that we may be also glorified with Him.” We shall be ‘joint heirs with Christ,’ and be “glorified” with Him, when He is given the millennial throne of visibly ruling over the kingdoms of the world, if we are willing to go the path He trod. He obtained eternal life as a ‘free gift’ for all who will believe on Him; but for His new government over the world, when it has been re-taken from the hand of the enemy, He must have those who will have gone through the same ‘made perfect through sufferings’ that gave Him the throne. The question for each is, how to hold fast all spiritual victory hitherto obtained that we do not lose the crown; for we must expect that Satan will challenge everyone he sees moving on to the throne, where, with Christ, he will ‘judge angels’. In brief, he contests the future judges of the evil hosts of darkness when he contests and hinders those who, like Paul, press on toward the goal. The “overcoming” which is the qualification for sharing Christ’s throne is not merely victory over sin, although that is included in it; for victory over sin is set forth in the Scriptures as the normal life of any child of God, and not as the full goal of the overcomer. Christ’s overcoming had to do with Satan and the world. He overcame Satan in the wilderness, and on the eve of His Cross He said to His disciples, “In the world you shall have tribulation, but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.” Let me make this clear. We must come back again to the fundamental basis of Romans 6 as the very foundation of Christian life, where Paul said, “We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?” (Romans 6:2). The believer is never told to “overcome sin,” but to reckon, on the ground of death with Christ, that he is dead to it.

It is to be dealt with by the attitude of death, not by “overcoming”! See Colossians 3:5, Galatians 5:24, Ephesians 4:22. The language about sin, and the works of the flesh, is consistently “Put off,” “put away,” “put to death,” “reckon yourselves dead indeed,” “let not sin reign.” The attitude to sin is the attitude of separation by death. “We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein?”

Therefore, when Jesus says, “He that overcomes shall sit with Me in My Throne,” means more than personal victory over known sin. The epistle written by the Apostle who transmitted Christ’s messages to the churches recorded in the Apocalypse strikingly makes this clear. There are two passages about the meaning of the call to overcome, which read as from the pen of the same writer, throwing much light on Revelation 3:21. One speaks of overcoming the world, and the other of overcoming Satan. The question of victory over sin seems to be settled according to 1 John 3:9, where the Apostle says that those who are “begotten of God”—i.e., having His own life in them—do not practice sin as a habit. No man with God’s life in him can settle down to a life of perpetual sinning. It is morally impossible, but John says he may sin, and God makes provision for it as seen in 1 John 2:1-2, where the “if” is clear. The believer therefore is not to be spending his whole life in getting victory over sin but, understanding his position as having died to sin, he is to overcome the world and overcome Satan. “Whatsoever is begotten of God overcomes the world: and this is the victory that has overcome the world, even our faith.” (1 John 5:5). “Who is he that overcomes the world, but he that believes that Jesus is the Son of God?” This speaks entirely about overcoming the “world.” It does not say “whatsoever is born of God overcomes sin, and this is the victory that overcomes sin, even our faith.” In all the epistles, both of John and Peter and Paul, the true position of a Christian is described as in the attitude of death with Christ, reckoning himself dead to sin; and then in the strength of the imparted life of God—begotten of God—he is to overcome the world and overcome Satan.

Satan may deceive you if this is not clear. He knows that you cannot be “overcomers” of the world and his evil hosts if he can keep you revolving around yourself in getting victory over your “temper,” and other personal aspects of known sin. One must be “done” with such things in order to be able to move on. What is it, then, to overcome the world? It means conquering your circumstances and never going “under” them; conquering your environment and not being affected by it; conquering everything that would drag you down. It means that this “victory” that “overcomes the world” is the result of a faith that lays hold of the Living Christ who is the Son of God, and in the power of His might and the strength of His Spirit, overcomes the environment and everything that is “in the world”—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the vain-glory of life, (1 John 2:16)—overcomes the fascinations of the world, the world spirit, and all that the world means as opposed to the Father. It means overcoming the opposition to God in your home; the worldly atmosphere in your church; the talk of the world; the trials of the world; yes, everything that belongs to this present evil world.

Are you an overcomer in all the things around you? Are you conquering everything with an indomitable faith in the living Christ? I do not say, ‘Are you changing everything?’ You cannot alter things around you until they cease to affect your victory spirit. Overcoming the world means that you do not need any props whatsoever; that all your faith is so rooted in the living Christ, that you do not require anyone, or anything, to help you to stand! The second passage about overcoming, in John’s epistle, clearly brings out overcoming Satan. This is in 1 John 4, and you need to read the whole passage, verses 1-6, to see its force: here Satan is to be overcome. The believer is to overcome the visible world, and things of the world, and the things in the invisible world also. The apostle writes: “Beloved, believe not every spirit, but test the spirits.” This has to do with the spiritual world. “Test the spirits.” But how can I do this, you say? You can, at least, do the first thing: Believe not every “spirit.” You can keep an attitude of neutrality to all things from the spirit world until you are sure they are from God, instead of keeping yourself open to everything. You are bidden to doubt “when you come across something strange” until you have tested it. “Because many false prophets have gone out into the world.” These “spirits” then are spirits that speak and teach through people, according to 1 Timothy 4:1-4. How shall I “test” such “spirits,” for I can only see people, you ask? The apostle makes it clear. “This is how you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is of God, and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not of God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist, which you have heard is coming, and now is already in the world.” Then we reach the verse about overcoming: “You are of God, little children, and have overcome them; because greater is He that is in you than he that is in the world.” Notice the personal pronouns: “He” that is in you, against “he” that is in the world. In the overcoming of the world, and the things of the world, the faith of the overcomer is the principal factor faith laying hold of a Living Christ. But in the fight against Satan, the factor is essentially spirit, for the conflict is spiritual. The Spirit of God in the spirit of the believer will force him back and completely conquer him. The spirit of anti-Christ which the believers of John’s time were told would be coming in the last days, is now more active than ever, according to the messages to the churches written by him. It was “in the world already” then, but it would reach its climax at the end, when the overcomers would be in the last great hour of testing for the prize of the Throne. The overcomers must test the “spirits” today for in the most subtle way, evil spirits can instigate “teaching” about “Jesus” which practically annuls Him and His work.

They preach “another Jesus,” says Paul. Beautiful teaching, and so called “feelings” and “sentiments” among Christians, may wholly explain away the cross of Christ.

I wish to impress upon you that you must fight! The great fight of the overcomers, at the close of the age, is against the works of the devil in the world, and against Satan himself as the spirit that now works behind, in, and through the world. If you were in accord with the spirit of anti-Christ, and the spirit of the world, there would be no fight; but the very fact that you have your eyes opened to the victory of Calvary means that Satan challenges you, and will stir up all the resources he has in the world against you.

We are told that the condition at the end will “become worse and worse,” men “deceiving and being deceived.” 2 Tim. 3:13, and many true children of God, for lack of knowledge, will become unconscious instruments for Satan to use in the day of his power. See Matt. 24:10. Notice again that in qualifying for the “prize” each believer must stand alone. It is “He that overcomes.” Each future ruler with Christ must have individual preparation and training; his environment and Satan’s attacks upon him will be specially permitted and weighed by Christ to to mould one who is “qualified” for “the throne.” He must not look for someone to overcome for him, for “one receives the prize.” 1 Cor. 9:24. He, alone, must qualify for the throne by a faith developed through trial and a triumph over Satan by the power of the Holy Spirit.

In Rev. 12:1-12, we see that the dragon stands ready to devour the (male child) “the victorious,” at the very moment they are caught up to meet their Lord and King.

Notice, too, that the conflict in heaven between the Archangel Michael and his hosts of light, and the dragon and his fallen angels, apparently is over the “overcomers.” But it results in the casting down of the “accuser.” “Satan and his angels were cast down to the earth,” and then the seer heard “a great voice in heaven saying, ‘Now has come . . . the kingdom of our God, and the authority of His Christ; for the accuser . . . is cast down . . .’” In verse 11 the saints are in direct personal conflict with Satan now, not only with his works, for they “overcome him by the blood of the Lamb, and because of the word of their testimony; and they loved not their life even unto death.”

Let us look at Revelation 17:14, where Christ and His heirs have dominion, He has overcome them who fought against Him, for He is the Lord of lords and King of kings; and they also shall overcome who are with Him, called, and chosen, and faithful. These saints shall sit on thrones with Him and shall judge the world and fallen angels, 2 Pet. 2:4, after first being judged themselves. 2 Cor. 5:10.

You may say: ‘Ever since I began to testify to Satan’s defeat at Calvary, and to pray against him, he has been attacking me.’ That is because he sees “the prize” before you. He is attacking those who will judge the fallen angels if they obtain the prize of the throne. Will you not then hold fast your crown? How are you to do it? Just with a steady, unswerving aim to be true to Christ, and to the light He has given you at all costs. Say to yourself, “The Lord is training me for the throne.” Say again and again: “greater is He that is in me than he that is in the world.” “Hold fast to what you have so that no one may take your crown.” For every bit of the conflict, there will be gain. So Paul said, “The sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which will be revealed to us.” Romans 8:18.