“I am the root . . . of David.” (Revelation 22:16.)
Excerpt from a sermon by E. Johnson:
THE [“ROOT AND OFFSPRING OF DAVID”] TITLE ALLUDES TO THE VIGOROUS GROWTH AND SURPASSING GREATNESS OF THE KINGDOM OF CHRIST. The word “root” evidently refers to the prophecy in Isaiah 1:1-10 (see also Isaiah 4:2; Jeremiah 23:5; Zechariah 3:8; Zechariah 6:12). Not the actual root of the tree is meant, but the scion or sucker, which sprouts from the decaying root. At the advent of the Saviour the kingdom of David was indeed like the fallen trunk of a noble tree. A foreign people treads on Judea’s soil, and bows a once powerful nation beneath its yoke. Yet behold the vigorous sprout which comes forth out of this decayed root!
The thought above corresponds to Mrs. Eddy’s statement, “Spiritual development germinates not from seed sown in the soil of material hopes, but when these decay, Love propagates anew the higher joys of Spirit, which have no taint of earth.” (SH 66:11–14.)
In the context of the Book of Revelation, Christ used the image of a scion to admonish and encourage the 7 churches in Asia to abandon the materiality into which they had fallen and rise anew in the strength of the Spirit — to free themselves from the chains of enslaving error that was actively seeking to halt (or restrain as much as possible) the manifestation of Christ-on-earth that Jesus had so obediently exemplified only a few short decades before.
For watching in the present hour, the vibrant image of a scion provides me with a practical example of the possibility of a worldwide revival of Christianity and Christian Science — to usher in the millennium, that all the world may be conformed to a fitness to receive the eternal Christ and practice the Presence of God just as Jesus did.