And cried with a loud voice
To show the strength of their affection, and the greatness of
their joy, and how sensible they were of the favour they enjoyed,
and how hearty they were in the following ascription of glory to
God, and the Lamb.
Saying, salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne,
and unto
the Lamb;
by "salvation" is meant, not only temporal salvation, and those
many deliverances, which God had wrought for them, and
particularly in bringing them out of great tribulation, (
Revelation 7:14 ) ; but
spiritual and eternal salvation, which is the salvation of the
soul, and is owing to the free grace of God, and the blood of
Christ; and the sense is, that God and the Lamb are the sole
authors of it, and the glory of it ought to be given to them, and
to no other: God the Father, who sits upon the throne, resolved
upon it in his eternal purposes and decrees, and contrived and
formed the scheme of it in the council of peace, and he made
sufficient provision for it in the covenant of grace; and as he
from eternity appointed his Son to be his salvation to the ends
of the earth, so in the fulness of time he sent him to be the
Saviour of the world, and delivered him up for all his people,
unto death itself, and spared him not, but awoke the sword of
justice against him, and sheathed it in him; and since he had
such a concern in salvation, the glory of it in right belongs to
him: and the Lamb, the Son of God, he engaged to do the will and
work of God, and from everlasting became the surety of the better
testament; and in time he came to seek and to save lost sinners,
and he is become the author of eternal salvation to them; his own
arm has brought it, and it is in him, and no other, even a
salvation from sin, Satan, the law, the world, hell, and death,
and wrath to come; and it will be the employment of the saints,
both in the new Jerusalem church state, during the thousand
years' reign, and in heaven to all eternity, to ascribe the glory
of all this, not to themselves, to their merits and works of
righteousness, or to any creature whatever, but to God and the
Lamb only.