The Flying Roll.
James Dodson
[from The Covenanter, Devoted to the Principles of the Reformed Presbyterian Church. 7.11 (June 1852) ed. James M. Willson. Philadelphia: William S. Young, 1852. pp. 330-331.]
Zech. v. l:—“Then I turned, and lifted up mine eyes, and looked, and behold a flying roll.”
The flying roll is a metaphor. It is not unusual to call metaphors used in prophecy symbols, but they must be interpreted by the same rules as metaphors in narrative.
The roll means the Bible. Its dimensions are the same as those of the porch in Solomon’s temple. 1 Kings vi. 3. It is thirty-five feet long, and seventeen and a half feet wide. It is flying, to show that the word of Christ travels with great speed, as the angel flies through the midst of heaven carrying the gospel message. Rev. xiv. 6. For this we are commanded to pray, “that the word of the Lord may have free course,” (τρέχῃ, run.) It is “a curse,” as it denounces wrath on ungodly nations, individuals, and corrupt churches. “Christ came not to send peace” only “on the earth, but a sword.” “It goeth forth over the face of the whole earth,” indicating that the vision refers to the new dispensation of the gospel, and especially to its diffusion in our own times.
The penal sanctions of the roll “enter into the house of the thief,” verse 4, and it “cuts off according to itself, everyone that stealeth.” “He that stealeth or selleth a man, or if he be found in his hand, he shall be put to death.” Ex. xxi. 16. If men do not inflict this penalty, God, the author of the law, will do it himself. This is a fearful denunciation, proclaimed in the roll against slaveholders, against the Austrian despotism, and against the ten horns on that head of the beast out of the bottomless pit.” Rev. xi. 7, xiii. 1.
The curse of the roll is carried “into the house of him that sweareth falsely,”—all who break good oaths and covenants, and who swear bad ones. This curse impends over the British empire, surcharged with wrath when the seven thunders of Revelation (x. 4) shall be uttering their voices. All professors of religion, all corrupt churches that swear allegiance to the beast of the pit, have his mark affixed on their foreheads, and shall be “cut off on that side,” on the account of church sins, for sins committed under the name or pretence of religion. Socinianism, and other corrupt Protestantism, Hellenism, Judaism, Mohammedanism, and, above all, Popery, must read their doom in this line of the roll.
“If shall remain in the midst of his house, and shall consume it with the timber thereof and the stones thereof.” The ruin of every house of theft, or of heresy, shall be demolished. The administration, by a metaphor here called timber, or wood work, and every bad constitution, the foundation, or stone, must be consumed. The church of Christ prospers in “troublous times.” “Thou didst afflict the nations, but them thou didst increase.” Who can accomplish this great work? “I will bring it forth, saith the Lord of hosts.” The Lord Jesus Christ, who commands the armies of the living God, has pledged his truth, and “he is true;” and he is also omnipotent. All this he will do, and is now doing. In forty-four years after the organization of the British and Foreign Bible Society, the flying roll demolished the house of Bourbon in France, and gave a death-blow to the head of the beast in Vienna, and hurled the Pope from his throne. War now rages in many eastern nations, where commerce has carried the Bible—Cape of Good Hope, Madagascar, China, and Burmah. These wars began, or continued after that of Hungary ended. The waves begin to roll back to the west. I hear the thunder of artillery from the Cimmerian Bosphorus. “Let the word of the Lord run and be glorified.”