The other interpretation refers these “seven eyes” to the perfection of our Lord’s mediatorial character. The priest under the law was to sprinkle the blood seven times upon the mercy-seat, and seven times upon the leper; the first to typify a perfect atonement for sin; the second, a perfect application of its benefits to the believer. When the Lamb of God revived from the ashes on the altar of Calvary, he appeared “in the midst of the throne,” having seven horns and seven eyes, to denote the completeness of his prophetic wisdom, and the fulness of his regal authority. He sustains to his people the threefold relation of high-priest, prophet, and king. He is our high-priest, not after the order of Aaron, whom death robbed of his sacerdotal vesture; but “a high-priest for ever, after the order of Melchizedec.” He is our prophet, speaking with the tongue of the learned, and as one having authority—speaking to the conscience and the heart, and the dead hear his voice and live. He is our king, according to the decree, “on the holy hill of Zion;” exalted by the right-hand of the Father, and “declared to be the Son of God with power by the resurrection from the dead.” Methinks I hear the Father speaking to Caiaphas:—“Have you a law, and do you say that by your law he ought to die? I will read to you the law on the morning of the third day, and you shall see that he is the resurrection and the life—that I have made him both Lord and Christ!” And methinks I hear the voice of the risen Messiah:—“I have travelled through the forest of the world’s temptations, through the dens of lions, the mountains of leopards, the dark haunts of devils, and the dominions of death and the grave; and have opened, through all the desert, a new and living way to my Father’s house. The powers of darkness thought to strip me of my official regalia, and bind me for ever in the grave; but I have broken Cæsar’s seal, and rent the rocks of Joseph’s sepulchre, and am alive for evermore—the high-priest, prophet, and king of Israel. Though I gave myself up to death upon the cross, death could not deprive me of my threefold office. I died with my vesture on, my miter and breastplate, as high-priest over the house of God. I died with the book of the mysteries of the kingdom of heaven in my hand, as a prophet to instruct my people, and lead them into all truth. I died with the crown upon my head, and all my enemies beneath my feet, as a king, whose dominion is everlasting, and whose glory shall never end. Death and hell could not take from me my triple diadem; and I came forth from the place of the dead in the power of an endless life; and will continue to wear my robes unspotted, till I have finished my mediatorial work, and gathered all the saints unto myself!” IV. This stone is fitted and prepared by God himself. “I will engrave the graving thereof, saith the Lord of hosts.”