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Sunday, June 30, 2024

The Two Witnesses Rev. Chapter 11 Vs. 1 thru 19

 

The Two Witnesses


SECOND CONSOLATORY VISION AND THE SEVENTH TRUMPET


From the first consolatory vision we proceed to the second: -


"And there was given unto me a reed like unto a rod: and one said, Rise, and measure the temple of God, and the altar, and them that worship therein. And the court which is without the temple cast without, and measure it not; for it hath been given unto the nations: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months (Rev. 11:1-2)."


Various points connected with these verses demand examination before any attempt can be made to gather the meaning of the vision as a whole.

1. What is meant by the measuring of the Temple? As in so many other instances, the figure is taken from the Old Testament. In the prophet Zechariah we read, "I lifted up mine eyes again, and looked, and behold a man with a measuring line in his hand. Then said I, whither goest thou? And he said unto me, to measure Jerusalem, to see what the breadth is thereof, and what is the length thereof." To the same effect, but still more particularly, the prophet Ezekiel speaks: "In the visions of God brought He me into the land of Israel, and set me upon a very high mountain, by which was as the frame of a city on the south. And He brought me thither, and behold, there was a man, whose appearance was like the appearance of brass, with a line of flax in his hand, and a measuring reed; and he stood in the gate. . . . And behold a wall on the outside of the house round about, and in the man s hand a measuring reed of six cubits long by the cubit and an handbreadth, so he measured," whereupon follows a minute and lengthened description of the measuring of all the parts of that Temple which was to be the glory of God’s people in the latter days. From these passages we not only learn whence the idea of the measuring was taken, but what the meaning of it was. The account given by Ezekiel distinctly shows that thus to measure expresses the thought of preservation, not of destruction. That the same thought is intended by Zechariah is clear from the words immediately following the instruction given him to measure: "For I, saith the Lord, will be unto her a wall of fire round about, and will be the glory in the midst of her;" while, if further proof upon this point were needed, it is found in the fact that the measuring of this passage does not stand alone in the Apocalypse. The new Jerusalem is also measured: "And he that spake with me had for a measure a golden reed to measure the city, and the gates thereof, and the wall thereof. And he measured the wall thereof, an hundred and forty and four cubits, according to the measure of a man, that is, of an angel." When God therefore measures, He measures, not in indignation, but that the object measured may be in a deeper than ordinary sense the habitation of His glory. (Zec. 2:1-2; Eze. 40:2-5; Zec. 2:5; Rev. 21:15; 21:17).

2. What is meant by the temple, the altar, and the casting without of the court which is without the temple? In other words, are we to interpret these objects and the action taken with the latter literally or figuratively? Are we to think of the things themselves, or of certain spiritual ideas which they are used to represent? The first view is not only that of many eminent commentators; it even forms one of the chief grounds upon which they urge that the Herodian temple upon Mount Moriah was still in existence when the Apocalyptist wrote. He could not, it is alleged, have been instructed to measure the Temple if that building had been already thrown down, and not one stone left upon another. Yet, when we attend to the words, it would seem as if this view must be set aside in favor of a figurative interpretation. For -(1) The word temple misleads. The term employed in the original does not mean the Temple-buildings as a whole, but only their innermost shrine or sanctuary, that part known as the Holy of holies, which was separated from every other part of the sacred structure by the second veil. No doubt, so far as the simple act of measuring was concerned, a part might have been as easily measured as the whole. But closer attention to what was in the Seers mind will show that when he thus speaks of the naos or shrine, he is not thinking of the Temple at Jerusalem at all, but of the Tabernacle in the wilderness upon which the Temple was moulded. The nineteenth verse of the chapter makes this clear. In that verse we find him saying, "And there was opened the temple" the naos "of God that is in heaven, and there was seen in His temple" His naos "the ark of His covenant." We know, however, that the ark of the covenant never had a place in the Temple which existed in the days of Christ. It had disappeared at the destruction of the first Temple, long before that date. The Temple spoken of in the nineteenth verse is indeed said to be in heaven; and it may be thought that the ark, though not on earth, might have been seen there. But no reader of the Revelation of Jesus Christ by St. John can doubt that to him the sanctuary of God on earth was an exact representation of the heavenly sanctuary, that what God had given in material form to men was a faithful copy of the ideas of His spiritual and eternal kingdom. He could not therefore have placed in the original what, if he had before his mind the Temple at Jerusalem, he knew had no existence within its precincts; and the conclusion is irresistible that when he speaks of a naos that was to be measured, he had turned his thoughts, not to the stone building upon Mount Moriah, but to its ancient prototype. On this ground alone then, even could no other be adduced, we seem entitled to maintain that a literal interpretation of the word temple is here impossible.

(2) Even should it be allowed that the sanctuary and the altar might be measured, the injunction is altogether inapplicable to the next following clause: them that worship therein. And it is peculiarly so if we adopt the natural construction, by which the word therein is connected with the word altar. We cannot literally speak of persons worshipping in an altar. Nay, even though we connect therein with the temple, the idea of measuring persons with a rod is at variance with the realities of life and the ordinary use of human language. A figurative element is thus introduced into the very heart of the clause the meaning of which is in dispute.

(3) A similar observation may be made with regard to the words cast without in Rev. 11:2. The injunction has reference to the outer court of the Temple, and the thought of casting out such an extensive space is clearly inadmissible. So much have translators felt this that both in the Authorized and Revised Versions they have replaced the words cast without by the words leave without. The outer court of the Temple could not be cast out; therefore it must be left out. The interpretation thus given, however, fails to do justice to the original, for, though the word employed does not always include actual violence, it certainly implies action of a more positive kind than mere letting alone or passing by. More than this. We are under a special obligation in the present instance not to strip the word used by the Apostle of its proper force, for we shall immediately see that, rightly interpreted, it is one of the most interesting expressions of his book, and of the greatest value in helping us to determine the precise nature of his thought. In the meanwhile, it is enough to say that the employment of the term in the connection in which it here occurs is at variance with a simply literal interpretation.

(4) It cannot be denied that almost every other expression in the subsequent verses of the vision is figurative or metaphorical. If we are to interpret this part literally, it will be impossible to apply the same rule to other parts; and we shall have such a mixture of the literal and metaphorical as will completely baffle our efforts to comprehend the meaning of the Seer.

(5) We have the statement from the writer’s own lips that, at least his speaking of Jerusalem, he is not to be literally understood. In Rev. 11:8 he refers to the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt. The hint thus given as to one point of his description may be accepted as applicable to it all.

We conclude, therefore, that the measuring, the temple or naos, the altar, the court, which is without, and the casting without of the latter are to be regarded as figurative.

3. Our third point of inquiry is, What is the meaning of the figure? There need be no hesitation as to the things first spoken of the temple, the altar, and them that worship therein. These, the most sacred parts of the Temple-buildings, can only denote the most sacred portion of the true Israel of God. They are those disciples of Christ who constitute His shrine, His golden altar of incense whence their prayers rise up continually before Him, His worshippers in spirit and in truth. These, as we have already often had occasion to see, shall be preserved safe amidst the troubles of the Church and of the world. In one passage we have been told that they are numbered; now we are further informed that they are measured. (John 7:4).

It is more difficult to explain who are meant by the court which is without the temple. But three things are clear. First, they are a part of the Temple-buildings, although not of its inner shrine. Secondly, they belong to Jerusalem; and Jerusalem, notwithstanding its degenerate condition, was still the city of God, standing to Him in a relation different from that of the nations, even when it had sunk beneath them and had done more to merit His displeasure. Thirdly, they cannot be the Gentiles, for from them they are manifestly distinguished when it is said that the outer court hath been given unto the nations: and the holy city shall they tread under foot forty and two months." One conclusion alone remains. The court that is without must symbolize the faithless portion of the Christian Church, such as tread the courts of the house of God, but to whom He speaks as He spoke to Jerusalem of old: "Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto Me; the new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; it is iniquity, even the solemn meeting. Your new moons and your appointed feasts My soul hateth: they are a trouble unto Me; I am weary to bear them." (Rev. 11:2; Isa. 1:13-14).

The correctness of the sense thus assigned to this part of the vision is powerfully confirmed by what appears to be the true foundation of the singular expression already so far spoken of, cast without. Something must lie at the bottom of the figure; and nothing seems so probable as this: that it is the casting out which took place in the case of the man blind from his birth, and the opening of whose eyes by Jesus is related in the fourth Gospel. Of that man we are told that when the Jews could no longer answer him, they cast him out. The word is the same as that now employed, and the thought is most probably the same also. Excommunication from the synagogue is in the Seers mind, not a temporal punishment, not a mere worldly doom, but a spiritual sentence depriving of spiritual privileges misunderstood and abused. Such a casting out, however, can apply only to those who had been once within the courts of the Lord’s house or to the faithless members of the Christian Church. They, like the Jews of old, would cast out the humble disciples whom Jesus found; and He cast them out. (John 9:34; 9:35).

If the explanation now given of the opening verses of this chapter be correct, we have reached a very remarkable stage in these apocalyptic visions. For the first time, except in the letters to the churches, we have a clear line of distinction drawn between the professing and the true portions of the Church of Christ, or, as it may be otherwise expressed, between the called and the chosen. How far the same distinction will meet us in later visions of this book we have yet to see. For the present it may be enough to say that the drawing of such a distinction corresponds exactly with what we might have been prepared to expect. Nothing can be more certain than that in the things actually around him St. John beheld the mould and type of the things that were to come. Now Jerusalem, the Church of God in Israel, contained two classes within its walls: those who were accomplishing their high destiny and those by whom that destiny was misunderstood, despised, and cast away. Has it not always been the same in the Christian Church? If the world entered into the one, has it not entered as disastrously into the other? That field which is the kingdom of heaven upon earth has never wanted tares as well as wheat. They grow together, and no man may separate them. When the appropriate moment comes, God Himself will give the word; angels will carry off the tares, and the great Husbandman will gather the wheat into His garner. Amen (Rev. 2:24; 3:1; 3:4; Comp. Mat. 22:14).

4. One question still remains: What is the meaning of the forty and two months during which the holy city is to be trodden under foot of the nations? The same expression meets us in Rev. 13:5, where it is said that there was given to the beast authority to continue forty and two months. But forty and two months is also three and a half years, the Jewish year having consisted of twelve months, except when an intercalary month was inserted among the twelve in order to preserve harmony between the seasons and the rotation of time. The same period is therefore again alluded to in Rev. 12:14, when it is said of the woman who fled into the wilderness that she is there nourished for a time, and times, and half a time. Once more, we read in Rev. 11:3 and in Rev. 12:6 of a period denoted by a thousand two hundred and threescore days; and a comparison of this last passage with Rev. 11:14 of the same chapter distinctly shows that it is equivalent to the three and a half times or years. Three and a half multiplied by three hundred and sixty, the number of days in the Jewish year, gives us exactly the twelve hundred and sixty days. These three periods, therefore, are the same. Why the different designations should be adopted is another question, to which, so far as we are aware, no satisfactory reply has yet been given, although it may be that, for some occult reason, the Seer beholds in months a suitable expression for the dominion of evil, in days one appropriate to the sufferings of the good.

The ground of this method of looking at the Church’s history is found in the book of Daniel, where we read of the fourth beast, or the fourth kingdom, And he shall speak great words against the Most High, and shall wear out the saints of the Most High, and think to change times and laws: and they shall be given Into his hand until a time and times and the dividing of time. The same book helps us also to answer the question as to the particular period of the Church’s history denoted by the days, or months, or years referred to, for in another passage the prophet says, "And He shall confirm the covenant with many for one week: and in the midst of the week, He shall cause the sacrifice and the oblation to cease. The three and a half years therefore, or the half of seven years, denote the whole period extending from the cessation of the sacrifice and oblation. In other words, they denote the Christian era from its beginning to its close, and that more especially on the side of its disturbed and broken character, of the power exercised in it by what is evil, of the troubles and sufferings of the good. During it the disciples of the Saviour do not reach the completeness of their rest; their victory is not won. Ideally it is so; it always has been so since Jesus overcame but it is not yet won in the actual realities of the case; and, though in one sense every heavenly privilege is theirs, their difficulties are so great, and their opponents so numerous and powerful, that the true expression for their state is a broken seven years, or three years and a half. During this time, accordingly, the holy city is represented as trodden under foot by the nations. They who are at ease in Zion may not feel it; but to the true disciples of Jesus their Master’s prophecy is fulfilled, "In the world ye shall have tribulation." (Dan. 7:25; 9:27; John 16:33).

The vision now proceeds:

"And I will give power unto My two witnesses, and they shall prophesy a thousand two hundred and threescore days, clothed in sackcloth. These are the two olive trees, and the two candlesticks standing before the Lord of the earth. And if any man desireth to hurt them, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies: and if any man shall desire to hurt them, in this manner must he be killed. These have the power to shut the heaven, that it rain not during the days of their prophecy: and they have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth with every plague, as often as they shall desire. And when they shall have finished their testimony, the beast that cometh up out of the abyss shall make war with them, and overcome them, and kill them. And their dead body lies in the street of the great city, which spiritually is called Sodom and Egypt, where also their Lord was crucified. And from among the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations do men look upon their dead body three days and an half, and suffer not their dead bodies to be laid in a tomb. And they that dwell on the earth rejoice over them, and make merry: and they shall send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwell on the earth. And after the three days and an half the breath of life from God entered into them, and they stood upon their feet; and great fear fell upon them which beheld them. And they heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. And they went up into heaven in the cloud; and their enemies beheld them. And in that hour there was a great earthquake, and the tenth part of the city fell; and there were killed in the earthquake seven thousand persons: and the remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven (Rev. 11:3-13)."

The figures of this part of the vision, like those of the first part, are drawn from the Old Testament. That the language is not to be literally understood hardly admits of dispute, for, whatever might have been thought of the two witnesses had we read only of them, the description given of their persons, or of their person for in Rev. 11:8, where mention is made of their dead body - not bodies - they are treated as one, of their work, of their death, and of their resurrection and ascension, is so obviously figurative as to render it necessary to view the whole passage in that light. The main elements of the figure are supplied by the prophet Zechariah. "And the angel that talked with me," says the prophet, "came again, and waked me, as a man that is wakened out of sleep, and said unto me; What seest thou? And I said, I have looked, and behold a candlestick all of gold, with a bowl upon the top of it, and his seven lamps thereon, and seven pipes to the seven lamps, which are upon the top thereof: and two olive trees by it, one upon the right side of the bowl, and the other upon the left side thereof. So, I answered and spake to the angel that talked with me, saying, What are these, my lord? . . . Then he answered and spake unto me, saying, this is the word of the Lord unto Zerubbabel, saying, not by might, nor by power, but by My Spirit, saith the Lord of hosts Who art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain: and he shall bring forth the headstone thereof with shoutings, crying, Grace, grace unto it. ... Then answered I, and said unto him, What are these two olive trees upon the right side of the candlestick and upon the left side thereof? And I answered again, and said unto him, What be these two olive branches which through the two golden pipes empty the golden oil put of themselves? And he answered and said unto me, Knowest thou not what these be? And I said, No, my lord. Then said he, these are the two anointed ones, that stand by the Lord of the whole earth." In these words, indeed we read only of one golden candlestick, while now we read of two. But we have already found that the Seer of the Apocalypse, in using the figures to which he had been accustomed, does not bind himself to all their details; and the only inference to be drawn from this difference, as well as from the circumstance already noted in Rev. 11:8, is that the number two is to be regarded less in itself than as a strengthening of the idea of the number one. This circumstance further shows that the two witnesses cannot be divided between the two olive trees and the two candlesticks, as if the one witness were the former and the other the latter. Both taken together express the idea of witnessing, and to the full elucidation of that idea belong also the olive tree and the candlestick. The witnessing is fed by perpetual streams of that heavenly oil, of that unction of the Spirit, which is represented by the olive tree; and it sheds light around like the candlestick. The two witnesses, therefore, are not two individuals to be raised up during the course of the Church’s history, that they may bear testimony to the facts and principles of the Christian faith. The Seer indeed may have remembered that it had been God’s plan in the past to commission His servants, not singly, but in pairs. He may have called to mind Moses and Aaron, Joshua and Caleb, Elijah and Elisha, Zerubbabel and Joshua, or he may have thought of the fact that our Lord sent forth His disciples two by two. The probability, however, is that, as he speaks of witnessing, he thought mainly of that precept of the law which required the testimony of two witnesses to confirm a statement. Yet he does not confine himself to the thought of two individual witnesses, however eminent, who shall in faithful work fill up their own short span of human life and die. The witness he has in view is that to be borne by all Christ’s people, everywhere, and throughout the whole Christian age. From the first to the last moment of the Church’s history in this world there shall be those raised up who shall never fail to prophesy, or, in other words, to testify to the truth of God as it is in Jesus. The task will be hard, but they will not shrink from it. They shall be clothed in sackcloth, but they shall count their robes of shame to be robes of honor. They shall occupy the position of Him who, in the days of His humiliation, was the faithful and true Witness. Nourished by the Spirit that was in Him, they shall, like Him, be the light of the world, so that God shall never be left without some at least to witness for Him. (Zec. 4; John 8:12. Comp. Mat. 5:14).

Having spoken of the persons of the two witnesses, St. John next proceeds to describe the power with which, amidst their seeming weakness, their testimony is borne; and once more he finds in the most striking histories of the Old Testament the materials with which his glowing imagination builds.

In the first place, fire proceedeth out of their mouth, and devoureth their enemies, so that these enemies are killed by the manifest judgment of God, and even, in His righteous retribution, by the very instrument of destruction they would have themselves employed. Elijah and the three companions of Daniel are before us, when at the word of Elijah fire descended out of heaven, and consumed the two captains and their fifties, and when the companions of Daniel were not only left unharmed amidst the flames, but when the fire leaped out upon and slew the men by whom they had been cast into the furnace. This fire proceeding out of the mouth of the two witnesses is like the sharp two-edged sword proceeding out of the mouth of the Son of man in the first vision of the book. In the second place, the witnesses have the power to shut the heaven, that it rain not during the days of their prophecy. Elijah is again before us when he exclaimed in the presence of Ahab, "As the Lord God of Israel liveth, before whom I stand, there shall not be dew nor rain these years, but according to my word," and when "it rained not on the earth for three years and six months." Finally, when we are told that the witnesses have power over the waters to turn them into blood, and to smite the earth with every plague, as often as they shall desire, we are reminded of Moses and of the plagues inflicted through him upon the oppressors of Israel in Egypt. (2Kgs. 1:10; 1:12; Dan. 3:22; Rev. 1:16; 1Kgs. 17:1; Jas. 5:17).

The three figures teach the same lesson. No deliverance has been affected by the Almighty for His people in the past which He is not ready to repeat. The God of Moses, and Elijah, and Daniel is the unchangeable Jehovah. He has made with His Church an everlasting covenant; and the most striking manifestations of His power in bygone times happened by way of example, and were written for our admonition, upon whom the ends of the ages have come." (1Cor. 10:11).

Hence, accordingly, the remnant finishes her testimony. So was it with our Lord in His high-priestly prayer and on the Cross: "I glorified Thee on the earth, having accomplished the work which Thou hast given Me to do;" "It is finished." But this finishing of their testimony on the part of the two witnesses' points to more than the end of the three and a half years viewed simply as a period of time. Not the thought of time alone, but of the completion of testimony, is present to the Seer’s mind. At every moment in the history of Christ’s true disciples that completion is reached by some or others of their number. Through all the three and a half years their testimony is borne with power, and is finished with triumph, so that the world is always without excuse. (Rev. 11:7; John 17:4; 19:30).

Having spoken of the power of the witnesses, St. John next turns to the thought of their evil fate. The beast that cometh up out of the abyss shall make war with them, and overcome them, and kill them. This beast has not yet been described; but it is a characteristic of the Apostle, both in the fourth Gospel and in the Apocalypse, to anticipate at times what is to come, and to introduce persons to our notice whom we shall only learn to know fully at a later point in his narrative. That is the case here. This beast will again meet us in chap. 13 and chap. 17, where we shall see that it is the concentrated power of a world material and visible in its opposition to a world spiritual and invisible. It may be well to remark, too, that the representation given of the beast presents us with one of the most striking contrasts of St. John, and one that must be carefully remembered if we would understand his visions. Why speak of its coming up out of the abyss? Because the beast is the contrast of the risen Saviour. Only after His resurrection did our Lord enter upon His dominion as King, Head, and Guardian of His people. In like manner only after a resurrection mockingly attributed to it does this beast attain its full range of influence. Then, in the height of its rage and at the summit of its power, it sets itself in opposition to Christ’s witnesses. It cannot indeed prevent them from accomplishing their work; they shall finish their testimony in spite of it: but, when that is done, it shall gain an apparent triumph. As the Son of God was nailed to the Cross, and in that hour of His weakness seemed to be conquered by the world, so shall it be with them. They shall be overcome and killed.

Nor is that all, for their dead body not dead bodies is treated with the utmost contumely. It lies in the broad open street of the great city, which the words were also their Lord was crucified show plainly to be Jerusalem. But Jerusalem! In what aspect is she here beheld? Not as the holy city, the beloved city, the Zion which God had desired for His habitation, and of which He had said, "This is My rest for ever: here will I dwell; for I have desired it," but degenerate Jerusalem, Jerusalem become as Sodom for its wickedness, and as Egypt for its oppression of the Israel of God. The language is strong, so strong that many interpreters have deemed it impossible to apply it to Jerusalem in any sense and have imagined that they had no alternative but to think of Rome. Yet it is not stronger than the language used many a time by the prophets of old: "Hear the word of the Lord, ye rulers of Sodom; give ear unto the law of our God, ye people of Gomorrah. How is the faithful city become an harlot! . . . righteousness lodged in it; but now murderers." (See Margin of R.V; Psm. 132:13-14; Isa. 1:10; 1:21).

If, however, this city be Jerusalem, what does it represent? Surely, for reasons already stated, neither the true disciples of Jesus, nor the heathen nations of the world. We have the degenerate Church before us, the Church that has conformed to the world. That Church beholds the faithful witnesses for Christ the Crucified lie in the open way. Their wounds make no impression upon her heart and draw no tear from her eyes. She even invites the world to the spectacle; and the world, always eager to hear the voice of a degenerate Church, responds to the invitation. It looks, and obviously without commiseration, upon the prostrate, mangled form that has fallen in the strife. This it does for three days and a half, the half of seven, a broken period of trouble; and it will not suffer the dead body to be laid in a tomb. Nay, the world is not content even with its victory. After victory it must have its triumph; and that triumph is presented to us in one of the most wonderful pictures of the Apocalypse, when they that dwell on the earth - that is, the men of the world - from among the peoples and tribes and tongues and nations, having listened to the degenerate Church’s call, make high holiday at the thought of what they have done. They rejoice over the dead bodies, and make merry: and they send gifts one to another; because these two prophets tormented them that dwell on the earth. We are reminded of Herod and Pilate, who, when the Jewish governor sent Jesus to his heathen brother, "became friends that very day." But we are reminded of more. In the book of Nehemiah, we find mention of that great feast of Tabernacles which was observed by the people when they heard again, after long silence, the book of the law, and when there was very great gladness. In immediate connection with this feast, Nehemiah said to the people, "Go your way, eat the fat, and drink the sweet, and send portions unto them for whom nothing is prepared: for this day is holy unto the Lord: neither be ye sorry; for the joy of the Lord is your strength"; while it constituted a part also of the joyful ceremonial of the feast of the dedication of the Temple that the Jews made the days of the feast "days of feasting and joy, and of sending portions one to another, and gifts to the poor." Taking these passages into account, and remembering the general style and manner of St. John, we can have no hesitation in recognizing in the festival of these verses the world’s Feast of Tabernacles, the contrast and the counterpart of the Church’s feast already spoken of in the second consolatory vision of chap. 7. (Luke 23:12; Neh. 8:10; Est. 9:22).

If so, what a picture does it present! - the degenerate Church inviting the world to celebrate a feast over the dead bodies of the witnesses for Christ, and the world accepting the invitation; the former accommodating herself to the ways of the latter, and the latter welcoming the accommodation; the one proclaiming no unpleasant doctrines and demanding no painful sacrifices, the other hailing with satisfaction the prospect of an easy yoke and of a cheap purchase of eternity as well as time. The picture may seem too terrible to be true. But let us first remember that, like all the pictures of the Apocalypse, it is ideal, showing us the operation of principles in their last, not their first, effect; and then let us ask whether we have never read of, or ourselves seen, such a state of things actually realized. Has the Church never become the world, on the plea that she would gain the world? Has she never uttered smooth things or prophesied deceits in order that she might attract those who will not endure the thought of hardness in religious service, and would rather embrace what in their inward hearts they know to be a lie than bitter truth? Such a spectacle has been often witnessed, and is yet witnessed every day, when those who ought to be witnesses for a living and present Lord gloss over the peculiar doctrines of the Christian faith, draw as close as possible the bonds of their fellowship with unchristian men, and treat with scorn the thought of a heavenly life to be led even amidst the things of time. One can understand the world’s own ways, and, even when lamenting that its motives are not higher, can love its citizens and respect their virtues. But a far lower step in declension is reached when the Church’s silver becomes dross, when her wine is mixed with water, and when her voice no longer convicts, no longer torments them that dwell on the earth.

In the midst of all their tribulation, however, the faithful portion of the Church have a glorious reward. They have suffered with Christ, but they shall also reign with Him. After all their trials in life, after their death, and after the limited time during which even when dead they have been dishonored, they live again. The breath of life from God entered into them. Following Him who is the first fruits of them that sleep, they stood upon their feet. They heard a great voice from heaven saying unto them, Come up hither. They went up into heaven in the cloud; and there they sit down with the conquering Redeemer in His throne, even as He overcame and sat down with His Father in His throne. All this, too, takes place in the very presence of their enemies, upon whom great fear fell. Even nature sympathizes with them. Having waited for the revealing of the sons of God, and in hope that she also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the liberty of the glory of the children of God, she hails their final triumph. There was a great earthquake, the tenth part of the city that is, of Jerusalem fell; and there were killed in the earthquake seven thousand persons. It is unnecessary to say that the words are figurative and symbolical, denoting in all probability simply judgment, but judgment restrained. (Comp. Rev. 5:6; 3:21; Rom. 8:19; 8:21).

The last words of the vision alone demand more particular attention: The remnant were affrighted, and gave glory to the God of heaven. The thought is the same as that which met us when we were told at the close of the sixth Trumpet that the rest of mankind which were not killed with these plagues repented not. There is no repentance, no conversion of the world. There is terror; there is alarm; there is a tribute of awe to the God of heaven who has so signally vindicated His own cause; but there is nothing more. Nor are we told what may or may not follow in some future scene. For the Seer the final triumph of good and the final overthrow of evil are enough. He can be patient, and, so far as persons are concerned, can leave the issue in the hands of God. (Rev. 9:20).

The two consolatory visions interposed between the sixth and seventh Trumpets are now over, and we cannot fail to see how great an advance they are upon die two visions of a similar kind interposed between the sixth and seventh Seals. The whole action has made progress. At the earlier stage the Church may be said to have been hidden in the hollow of the Almighty's hand. In the thought of the great tribulation awaiting her she has been sealed, while the peace and joy of her new condition have been set before us, as she neither hungers nor thirsts, but is guided by her Divine Shepherd to green pastures and to fountains of the waters of life. At this later stage she is in the midst of her conflict and her sufferings. She is in the heat of her warfare, in the extremity of her persecuted state. From the height on which we stand we do not look over a quiet and peaceful plain, with flocks of sheep resting in its meadows; we look over a field where armed men have met in the shock of battle. There is the stir, the excitement, the tumult of deadly strife for higher than earthly freedom, for dearer than earthly homes. There may be temporary repulse and momentary yielding even on the side of the good, but they still press on. The captain of their salvation is at their head; and foot by foot fresh ground is won, until at last the victory is sounded, and we are ready for the seventh Trumpet.


Before it sounds there is a warning similar to that which preceded the sounding of the fifth and sixth: (Rev. 8:13; 9:12) -


"The second Woe is past; behold, the third Woe cometh quickly (Rev, 11:14)."


These words are to be connected with the close of chap, 9, all that is contained in chaps. 10 and 11:1-13 being, as we have seen, episodically.


The seventh Trumpet is now sounded: -

"And the seventh angel sounded; and there followed great voices in heaven, and they said, The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ; and He shall reign forever and ever, And the four-and-twenty elders, which sit before God on their thrones, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, saying, We give Thee thanks, O Lord, God, the Almighty, which art and which wast; because Thou hast taken Thy great power, and didst reign. And the nations were roused to wrath, and Thy wrath came, and the time of the dead to be judged, and the time to give their reward to Thy servants the prophets, both the saints and them that fear Thy name, the small and the great, and to destroy them that destroy the earth. And there was opened the temple of God that is in heaven, and there was seen in His temple the ark of His covenant: and there followed lightnings, and voices, and thunders, and an earthquake, and great hail (Rev. 11:15-19)."


1. By the kingdom of the world here spoken of is meant, that dominion over the world as a whole has become the possession of our Lord and of His Christ; and it is to be His forever and ever. There is no contradiction between this statement of St. John and that of St. Paul when, speaking of the Son, the latter Apostle says, "And when all things have been subjected unto Him, then shall the Son also Himself be subjected to Him that did subject all things unto Him, that God may be all in all." The kingdom thus spoken of by St. Paul is that exercised by our Lord in subduing His enemies, and it must necessarily come to an end when there are no more enemies to subdue. The kingdom here referred to is Christ’s dominion as Head and King of His Church, and of that dominion there is no end. Of more consequence perhaps is it to observe that when it is said in the words before us, The kingdom of the world is become the kingdom of our Lord, and of His Christ, there is nothing to lead to the supposition that this kingdom becomes Christ's by the conversion of the world. The meaning simply is that evil has been finally and for ever put down, that good is finally and forever triumphant. No inference can be drawn as to the fate of wicked persons further than this: that they shall not be found in the new heavens and the new earth wherein dwelleth righteousness." Were additional proof needed upon this point, it would be supplied by the fact that in almost the next following words we read of the nation's being roused to wrath. These are the wicked upon whom judgment falls; and, instead of being converted, they are roused to the last and highest outburst of the wickedness which springs from despair. (1Cor. 15:28; 2Pet. 3:13).

2. The song of the four-and-twenty elders. We have already had occasion to notice that song of the representatives of redeemed creation in which the four living creatures celebrated the Lord, God, the Almighty, which was, and which is, and which is to come. The song now before us, sung by the representatives of the glorified Church in heaven, is cast in precisely the same mould of three ascriptions of praise to the Lord. But in the third member there is an important difference, the words and which is to come being omitted. The explanation is that the Lord is come. The present dispensation is at its close. (Rev. 4:8).

3. The events of the close are next described. It is the time of the dead to be judged, and the time to give reward to God’s faithful servants, to whatever part of mankind they have belonged, and whatever the position they have filled in life. The whole family of man is divided into two great classes, and for the one there is judgment, for the other reward.

4. Before passing on it may be well to call attention to one or two particulars in these verses which, though not specially connected with that general meaning of the passage which it is the main object of this commentary to elicit, may help to throw light upon the style of the Apostle and the structure of his work.

(l) Thus it is important to observe his use of the word prophets. The persons spoken of are obviously in contrast with the nations and the dead to be judged, and they must include all who are faithful unto death. Already we have seen that every true follower of Christ is in St. John’s eyes a martyr, and that when he thinks of the martyrs of the Church, he has a far wider circle in view than that of those who meet death by the sword or at the stake. To his ideal conceptions of things, the martyr spirit makes the martyr, and the martyr spirit must rule in every disciple of the Crucified. In like manner the prophetic spirit makes the prophet, and of that spirit no true follower of Him in whom prophecy culminated can be devoid. In this very chapter we have read of prophesying as the work of the two witnesses who are a symbol of the whole Christian Church, and who prophesy through the thousand two hundred and threescore days of her pilgrimage. We are not therefore to suppose that those here called prophets are either prophets in the stricter sense of the word, or commissioned ministers of Christ. All Christ’s people are His servants the prophets, and the idealism of St. John distinctly appears in the designation given them.

(2) The next following clause, which we have translated in a manner slightly different from that of both the Authorized and the Revised Versions, is not less important: both the saints and them that fear Thy name, instead of and to the saints, and to them that fear Thy name. It is the manner of St. John to dwell in the first instance upon one characteristic of the object of which he speaks, and then to add other characteristics belonging to it, equally important, it may be, in themselves, but not occupying so prominent a place in the line of thought which he happens to be pursuing at the moment. An illustration of this is afforded in John 14:6, where the words of Jesus are given in the form, "I am the Way, and the Truth, and the Life." The context shows that the emphasis rests wholly on Jesus as the Way, and that the addition of the words the Truth, and the Life, is only made to enhance and complete the thought. Here in like manner the contents of what is involved in the term the prophets are completed by a further statement of what the prophets are. They are the saints and they that fear God’s name. The twofold structure of this statement, however, again illustrates the manner of St. John. The saints are, properly speaking, a Jewish epithet, while every reader of the Acts of the Apostles is familiar with the fact that they that fear God was a term applied to Gentile proselytes to Judaism. We have thus an instance of St. John’s method of regarding the topic with which he deals from a double point of view, the first Jewish, the second Gentile. He is not thinking of two divisions of the Church, The Church is one; all her members constitute one Body in Christ. But looked at from the Jewish standpoint, they are the saints; from the Gentile, they are those that fear Thy name.

(3) The verses under consideration afford a marked illustration of St. John’s love of presenting judgment under the form of the lex talionis. The nations were roused to wrath, and upon them God’s wrath came. They had destroyed the earth, and God would destroy them. In studying the Apocalypse, all peculiarities of style or structure ought to be present to the mind. They are not unfrequented valuable guides to interpretation.

The seventh Trumpet has sounded, and the end has come. A glorious moment has been reached in the development of the Almighty’s plan; and the mind of the Seer is exalted and ravished by the prospect. Yet he beholds no passing away of the present earth and heavens, no translation of the reign of good to an unseen spiritual and hitherto unvisited region of the universe. It would be out of keeping with the usual phraseology of his book to understand by heaven, in which he sees the ark of God s covenant, a locality, a place beyond the clouds and beyond the tomb. His employment of the contrasted words earth and heaven throughout his whole series of visions rather leads to the supposition that by the latter we are to understand that region, wherever it may be, in which spiritual principles alone bear sway. It may be here; it may be elsewhere; it seems hardly possible to say: but the more the reader enters into the spirit of this book, the more difficult will he find it to resist the impression that St. John thinks of this present world as not only the scene of the great struggle between good and evil, but also, when it has been cleansed and purified, as the seat of everlasting righteousness. These in the present instance are striking words: to destroy them that destroy the earth. Why not destroy the earth itself if it is only to be burned up? Why speak of it in such terms as lead almost directly to the supposition that it shall be preserved though its destroyers perish? While, on the other hand, if God at first pronounced it to be very good; if it may be a home of truth, and purity, and holiness; and if it shall be the scene of Christ’s future and glorious reign, then may we justly say, Woe to them that destroy the habitation, the palace, now preparing for the prince of peace.

However this may be, it was a fitting close to the judgments of the seven Trumpets that the temple of God that - is, the innermost shrine or sanctuary of His temple - should be opened. There was no need now that God should be a God that hideth Himself." When earth had in it none but the pure in heart, why should they not see Him? He would dwell in them and walk in them. The Tabernacle of the Lord would be again with men. (Isa. 45:15; Mat. 5:8; 2Cor. 6:16; Rev. 21:3).

When too the shrine was opened, what more appropriate spectacle could be seen than the ark of His covenant, the symbol of His faithfulness, the pledge of that love of His which remains unchanged when the mountains depart, and the hills are removed? The covenant-keeping God! No promise of the past had failed, and the past was the earnest of the future.

Nor need we wonder at the lightnings, and voices, and thunders, and the earthquake, and the great hail that followed. For God had promised, saying, yet once more will I make to tremble not the earth only, but also the heaven. And this word, yet once more, signifieth the removing of those things that are shaken, as of things that are made, that those things which are not shaken may remain." (Heb. 12:26-27).

The Angel and the Little Scroll Rev. Chapter 10 Vs. 1 thru 11

 

The Angel and the Little Scroll


FIRST CONSOLATORY VISION


At the point now reached by us the regular progress of the Trumpet judgments is interrupted, in precisely the same manner as between the sixth and seventh Seals, by two consolatory visions. The first is contained in Rev. 10, the second in Rev. 11:1-13. At Rev. 11:14 the series of the Trumpets is resumed, reaching from that point to the end of the chapter.


"And I saw another strong angel coming down out of heaven, arrayed with a cloud: and the rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire: and he had in his hand a little book-roll open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left upon the earth: and he cried with a great voice, as a lion roareth: and when he cried, the seven thunders uttered their voices. And when the seven thunders uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying, Seal up the things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not. And the angel which I saw standing upon the sea and upon the earth lifted up his right hand to heaven, and sware by Him that liveth forever and ever, who created the heaven, and the things that are therein, and the earth, and the things that are therein, and the sea, and the things that are therein, that there shall be time no longer: but in the days of the voice of the seventh angel, when he is about to sound, then is finished the mystery of God, according to the good tidings which He declared to His servants the prophets. And the voice which I heard from heaven, I heard it again speaking with me, and saying, Go, take the book-roll which is open in the hand of the angel that standeth upon the sea and upon the earth. And I went unto the angel, saying unto him that he should give me the little book-roll. And he saith unto me, Take it, and eat it up; and it shall make thy belly bitter, but in thy mouth it shall be sweet as honey. And I took the little book-roll out of the angel’s hand, and ate it up; and it was in my mouth sweet as honey: and when I had eaten it, my belly was made bitter. And they say unto me, Thou must prophesy again over many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings (Rev. 10:1-11)."


Many questions of deep interest, and upon which the most divergent opinions have been entertained, meet us in connection with this passage. To attempt to discuss these various opinions would only confuse the reader. It will be enough to allude to them when it seems necessary to do so. In the meantime, before endeavoring to discover the meaning of the vision, three observations may be made: one of a general kind, the other two bearing upon the interpretation of particular clauses.

1. Like almost all else in the Revelation of Jesus Christ by St. John, the vision is founded upon a passage of the Old Testament. "And when I looked," says the prophet Ezekiel, "behold, an hand was sent unto me; and, lo, a roll of a book was therein. . . . Moreover, He said unto me, Son of man, eat what thou findest; eat this roll, and go speak unto the house of Israel. So, I opened my mouth, and He caused me to eat that roll. And He said unto me, Son of man, cause thy belly to eat, and fill thy bowels with this roll that I give thee. Then did I eat it; and it was in my mouth as honey for sweetness. And He said unto me, Son of man, go, get thee unto the house of Israel, and speak with My words unto them." (Eze. 2:9; 3:4).

2. In one expression of Rev. 10:6 it is doubtful whether the translation of the Authorized and Revised Versions, or the marginal translation of the latter, ought to be adopted, whether we ought to read, There shall be time or There shall be delay no longer. But the former is not only the natural meaning of the original; it would almost seem, from the use of the same word in other passages of the Apocalypse, that it is employed by St. John to designate the whole Christian age. That age is now at its very close. The last hour is about to strike. The drama of the world's history is about to be wound up. "For the Lord will execute His word upon the earth, finishing it and cutting it short." (Comp. Rev. 6:11; 20:3; Rom. 9:28).

3. The last verse of the chapter deserves our attention for a moment: And they say unto me, thou must prophesy again over many peoples, and nations, and tongues, and kings. Although prophecy itself is spoken of in several passages of this book, we read only once again of prophesying: when it is said in Rev. 11:3 of the two witnesses that they shall prophesy. A comparison of these passages will show that both words are to be understood in the sense of proclaiming the righteous acts and judgments of the Almighty. The prophet of the Apocalypse is not the messenger of mercy only, but of the just government of God. (Comp. Rev. 1:3; 22:7; 22:10; 22:18-19).

From these subordinate points we hasten to questions more immediately concerning us in our effort to understand the chapter. Several such questions have to be asked.

1. Who is the angel introduced to us in the first verse of the vision? He is described as another strong angel; and, as the epithet strong has been so used only once before - in Rev. 5:2, in connection with the opening of the book-roll sealed with seven seals - we are entitled to conclude that this angel is said to be another in comparison with the angel there spoken of rather than with the many angels that surround the throne of God. But the strong angel in chap. 5 is distinguished both from God Himself, and from the Lamb. In some sense, therefore, a similar distinction must be drawn here. On the other hand, the particulars mentioned of this angel lead directly to the conclusion not only that he has Divine attributes, but that he represents no other than that Son of man beheld by St John in the first vision of his book. He is arrayed with a cloud; and in every passage of the Apocalypse where mention is made of such investiture, or in which a cloud or clouds are associated with a person, it is with the Saviour of the world as He comes to judgment. Similar language marks also the other books of the New Testament. The rainbow was upon his head; and the definite article employed takes us back, not to the rainbow spoken of in the book of Genesis, or to the rainbow which from time to time appears, a well-known object, in the sky, but to that of Rev. 4:3, where we have been told, in the description of the Divine throne, that "there was a rainbow round about the throne, like an emerald to look upon." The words his face was as the sun do not of themselves prove that the reference is to Rev. 1:16, where it is said of the One like unto a son of man that "His countenance was as the sun shineth in his strength;" but the propriety of this reference is made almost indubitable by the mention of his feet as pillars of fire, for this last circumstance can only be an allusion to the trait spoken of in Rev. 1:15, "And His feet like unto fine brass, as if it had been refined in a furnace." The combination of these particulars shows how close is the connection between the strong angel of this vision and the Divine Redeemer; and the explanation of both the difference and the correspondence between the two is to be found in the remark previously made that in the Apocalypse the angel of any person or thing expresses that person or thing in action. Here, therefore, we have the action of Him who is the Head, and King, and Lord of His Church. (Rev. 1:7; 14:14-16. In Rev. 11:12 the cloud is the well-known cloud in which Christ ascended, and in which He comes to judgment, Mat. 24:30; Mark 13:26; Luke 21:27; 1Thes. 4:17).

2. In what character does the Lord appear? As to the answer to this question there can be no dubiety. He appears in judgment The rainbow upon His head is indeed the symbol of mercy, but it is sufficiently accounted for by the fact that He is Saviour as well as Judge. So far is the Apocalypse from representing the ideas of judgment and mercy as incompatible with each other that throughout the whole book the most terrible characteristic of the former is its proceeding from One distinguished by the latter. If even in itself the Divine wrath is to be dreaded by the sinner, the dread which it ought to inspire reaches its highest point when we think of it as the wrath of the Lamb. The other features of the description speak directly of judgment: the cloud, the sun, the pillars of fire.

3. What notion are we to form of the contents of the little book-roll? They are certainly not the same as those of the book-roll of chap. 5, although the word here used for the roll, a diminutive from the other, may suggest the idea that there is an intimate connection between the two books, and that the second, like the first, is full of judgment other circumstances mentioned lead to the same conclusion. Thus the great voice, as a lion roareth, cannot fail to remind us of the voice of the Lion that is of the tribe of Judah in chap. 5. The thought of the seven thunders which uttered their voices deepens the impression, for in that number we have the general conception of thunder in all the varied terrors that belong to it; and, whatever the particulars uttered by the thunders were - a point into which it is vain to inquire, as the writing of them was forbidden - their general tone must have been that of judgment But these thunders are a response to the strong angel as he was about to take action with the little book, - when he cried, the seven thunders uttered their voices, - and the response must have been related to the action. It is clear, therefore, that the contents of the little book cannot have been tidings of mercy to a sinful world; and that that book cannot have been intended to tell the Seer that, notwithstanding the opposition of the powers of darkness, the Church of Christ was to make her way among the nations, growing up from the small seed into the stately tree, and at last covering the earth with the shadow of her branches. Even on the supposition that a conception of this kind could be traced in other parts of the Apocalypse, it would be out of keeping with the particulars accompanying it here. We may without hesitation conclude that the little book-roll has thus the general character of judgment, although, like the larger roll of chap. 5, it may also include in it the preservation of the saints.

We are thus in a position to inquire what the special contents of the little book-roll were. Before doing so one consideration may be kept in view.

Calling to mind the symmetrical structure of the Apocalypse, it seems natural to expect that the relation to one another of the two consolatory visions falling between the Trumpets and the Bowls will correspond to that of the two between the Seals and the Trumpets. The two companies, however, spoken of in these two latter visions, are the same, the hundred and forty and four thousand out of every tribe of the children of Israel being identical with the great multitude out of every nation; while the contents of the second vision are substantially the same as those of the first, though repeated on a fuller and more perfect scale. Now we shall shortly see that the second of our present consolatory visions - that in chap. 11 - brings out the victory and triumph of a faithful remnant of believers within a degenerate, though professing, Church. How probable does it become that the first consolatory vision - that in chap. 10 - will relate to the same remnant, though on a lower plane alike of battle and of conquest!

Thus looked at, we have good ground for the supposition that the little book-roll contained indications of judgment about to descend on a Church which had fallen from her high position and practically disowned her Divine Master; while at the same time it assured die faithful remnant within her that they would be preserved, and in due season glorified. The little book thus spoke of the hardest of all the struggles through which believers have to pass that with foes of their own household; but so speaking, it told also of judgment upon these foes, and of a glorious issue for the true members of Christ’s Body out of toil and suffering.

With this view of the contents of the little book-roll everything that is said of it appears to be in harmony.

1. We thus at once understand why it is named by a diminutive form of the word used for the book-roll in chap. 5. The latter contained the whole counsel of God for the execution of His plans both in the world and in the Church. The former has reference to the Church alone. A smaller roll therefore would naturally be sufficient for its tidings.

2. The action which the Seer is commanded to take with the roll receives adequate explanation. He was to take it out of the hand of the strong angel and to eat it up. The meaning is obvious and is admitted by all interpreters. The Seer is in his own actual experience to assimilate the contents of the roll in order that he may know their value. The injunction is in beautiful accord with what we otherwise know of the character and feelings of St. John. The power of Christian experience to throw light upon Christian truth and upon the fortunes of Christ’s people is one of the most remarkable characteristics of the fourth Gospel. It penetrates and pervades the whole. We listen to the expression of the Evangelist’s own feelings as he is about to present to the world the image of his beloved Master, and he cries, "We beheld His glory, glory as of the only begotten from the Father;" "Of His fullness we all received, and grace for grace." We notice his comment upon words of Jesus dark to his fellow-Apostles and himself at the time when they were spoken, and he says, "When therefore He was raised from the dead, His disciples remembered that He spake this; and they believed the word which Jesus had said." (John 1:14, 1:16; 2:22).

Finally, we hear him as he remembers the promise of the Spirit of truth, who was to instruct the disciples, not by new revelations of the Divine will, but by unfolding more largely the fullness that was to be found in Christ: "Howbeit when He, the Spirit of truth, is come, He shall guide you into all the truth: for He shall not speak from Himself; but what things soever He shall hear, these shall He speak: and He shall declare unto you the things that are to come. He shall glorify Me: for He shall take of Mine and shall declare it unto you." Everywhere and always Christian experience is the key that unlocks what would otherwise be closed, and sheds light upon what would otherwise be dark. To such experience, accordingly, the contents of the little roll, if they were such as we have understood them to be, must have appealed with peculiar power. In beholding judgment executed on the world, the believer might need only to stand by and wonder, as Moses and Israel stood upon the shore of the Red Sea when the sea, returning to its bed, overwhelmed their enemies. They were safe. They had neither part nor lot with those who were sinking as lead in the mighty waters. It would be otherwise when judgment came upon the Church. Of that Church believers were a part How could they explain the change that had come over her, the purification that she needed, the separation that must take place within what had hitherto been to all appearance the one Zion which God loved? In the former case all was outward; in the latter all is inward, personal, experimental, leading to inquiry and earnest searching of heart and prayer. A book containing these things was thus an appeal to Christian experience, and St. John might well be told to eat it up. (John 16:13-14).

3. The effect produced upon the Seer by eating the little roll is also in accord with what has been said. It shall make thy belly bitter, it was said to him, but in thy mouth, it shall be sweet as honey; and the effect followed. It was in my mouth, he says, sweet as honey: and when I had eaten it, my belly was made bitter. Such an effect could hardly follow the mere proclamation of judgment on the world. When we look at that judgment in the light in which it ought to be regarded, and in which we have hitherto regarded it - as the vindication of righteousness and of a Divine and righteous order - the thought of it can impart nothing but joy. But to think that the Church of the living God, the bride of Christ, shall be visited with judgment, and to be compelled to acknowledge that the judgment is deserved; to think that those to whom so much has been given should have given so little in return; to think of the selfishness which has prevailed where love ought to have reigned, of worldliness where there ought to have been heavenliness of mind, and of discord where there ought to have been unity these are the things that make the Christians reflections bitter; they, and they most of all, are his perplexity, his burden, his sorrow, and his cross. The world may disappoint him, but from it he expected little. When the Church disappoints him, the foundations are overturned, and the honey of life is changed into gall and wormwood.

Combining the particulars which have now been noticed, we seem entitled to conclude that the little book-roll of this chapter is a roll of judgment, but of judgment relating less to the world than to the Church. It tells us that that sad experience of hers which is to meet us in the following chapters ought neither to perplex nor overwhelm us. The experience may be strange, very different from what we might have expected and hoped for; but the thread by which the Church is guided has not passed out of the hands of Him who leads His people by ways that they know not into the hands of an un-sympathizing and hostile power. As His counsels in reference to the world, and to the Church in her general relation to it, contained in the great book-roll of chap. 5, shall stand, so the internal relations of the two parts of His Church to each other, together with the issues depending upon them, are equally under His control. If judgment falls upon the Church, it is not because God has forgotten to be gracious, or has in anger shut up His tender mercies, but because the Church has sinned, because she is in need of chastisement, and because she must be taught that only in direct dependence upon the voice of the Good Shepherd, and not in the closest fold that can be built for her, is she safe. Let her know Him, and she shall be known of Him even as He is known of the Father. (Comp. John 10:1-15).

Saturday, June 29, 2024

The Seventh Seal & Rev. Chapters 8: 1thru 9: 21

 

The Seventh Seal


THE FIRST SIX TRUMPETS.


THE two consolatory visions of chap. 7 have closed, and the Seer returns to that opening of the seven Seals which had been interrupted in order that these two visions might be interposed.

Six Seals had been opened in chap. 6; the opening of the seventh follows: -

"And when He opened the seventh seal, there followed silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. And I saw the seven angels which stand before God; and there were given unto them seven trumpets. And another angel came and stood over the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should give it unto the prayers of all the saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, went up before God out of the angel’s hand. And the angel taketh the censer; and he filled it with the fire of the altar, and cast it upon the earth: and there followed thunders, and voices, and lightnings, and an earthquake. And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound (Rev. 8:1-6)."

Before looking at the particulars of this Seal, we have to determine the relation in which it stands to the Seals of chap. 6 as well as to the visions following it. Is it as isolated, as independent, as those that have come before it; and are its contents exhausted by the first six verses of the chapter? or does it occupy such a position of its own that we are to regard the following visions as developed out of it? And if the latter be the case, how far does the development extend?

In answering these questions, it can hardly be denied that if we are to look upon the seventh Seal as standing independent and alone, its contents have not the significance which we seem entitled to expect. It is the last Seal of its own series; and when we turn to the last member of the Trumpet series at Rev. 11:15, or of the Bowl series at Rev. 16:17, we find them marked, not by less, but by much greater, force than had belonged in either case to the six preceding members. The seventh Trumpet and the seventh Bowl sum up and concentrate the contents of their predecessors. In the one the judgments of God represented by the Trumpets, in the other those represented by the Bowls, culminate in their sharpest expression and their most tremendous potency. There is nothing of that kind in the seventh Seal if it terminates with the preparation of the Trumpet angels to sound; and the analogy of the Apocalypse therefore, an analogy supplying in a book so symmetrically constructed an argument of greater than ordinary weight, is against that supposition.

Again, the larger portion of the first six verses of this chapter does not suggest the contents of the Seal Rather would it seem as if these contents were confined to the silence spoken of in Rev. 8:1, and as if what follows from Rev. 8:2-6 were to be regarded as no part of the Seal itself, but simply as introductory to the Trumpet visions. Everything said bears upon it the marks of preparation for what is to come, and we are not permitted to rest in what is passing as if it were a final and conclusive scene in the great spectacle presented to the Seer.

For these reasons the view often entertained that the visions to which we proceed are developed out of the seventh Seal may be regarded as correct.

If so, how far does the development extend? The answer invariably given to this question is, To the end of the Trumpets. But the answer is not satisfactory. The general symmetry of the Apocalypse militates against it There is then no correspondence between the last Trumpet and the last Seal, nothing to suggest the thought of a development of the Bowls out of the seventh Trumpet in a manner corresponding to the development of the Trumpets out of the seventh Seal In these circumstances the only probable conclusion is that both the Bowls and the Trumpets are developed out of the seventh Seal, and that that development does not close until we reach the end of chap. 16.

Since what has now been said be correct, it will throw important light upon the relation of the Seals to the two series of the Trumpets and the Bowls taken together; while, at the same time, it will lend us valuable aid in the interpretation of all the three series.

Returning to the words before us, it is said that, at the opening of the seventh Seal, there followed silence in heaven about the space of half an hour. This silence may perhaps include a cessation even of the songs which rise before the throne of God from that redeemed creation the voice of whose praise rests not either day or night. Yet it is not necessary to think so. The probability rather is that it arises from a cessation only of the lightnings and voices and thunders which at Rev. 4:5 proceed out of the throne, and which are resumed at Rev. 8:5 of the present chapter, when the fire of the altar is cast from the angel’s censer upon the earth. A brief suspension of judgment is thereby indicated, a pause by and during which the Almighty would call attention to the manifestations of His wrath about to follow. The exact duration of this silence, about the space of half an hour, has never been satisfactorily explained; and the general analogy of St John’s language condemns the idea of a literal interpretation. We shall perhaps be more in accordance with the spirit in which the Revelation is written if we consider -(1) that in that book the half of anything suggests, not so much an actual half, as a broken and interrupted whole, five a broken ten, six a broken twelve, three and a half a broken seven; (2) that in the Gospel of St. John we find on more than one occasion mention made of an hour by which at one time the actions, at another the sufferings, of Jesus are determined: Woman, what have I to do with thee? Mine hour is not yet come; Father, save Me from this hour: but for this cause came I unto this hour. The hour of Jesus is thus to St. John the moment at which action, having been first resolved on by the Father, is taken by the Son; and a half-hour may simply denote that the course of events has been interrupted, and that the instant for renewed judgment has been delayed. Such an interpretation will also be in close correspondence with the verses following, as well as with what we have seen to be the probable meaning of the silence of Rev. 8:1. Preparation for action, rather than action, marks as yet the opening of the seventh Seal. (Rev. 4:8; John 2:4; 12:27).

That preparation is next described.

St. John saw seven trumpets given to the seven angels which stand before God. In whatever other respects these seven angels are to be distinguished from the hosts of angels which surround the throne, the commission now given shows that they are angels of a more exalted order and a more irresistible power. They are in fact the expression of the Divine Judge of men, or rather of the mode in which He chooses by judgment to express Himself. We are not even required to think of them as numerically seven, for seven in its sacred meaning is the number of unities, though of unity in the variety as well as the combination of its agencies. The seven Spirits of God are His one Spirit; the seven churches, His one Church; the seven horns and seven eyes of the Lamb, His one powerful might and His one penetrating glance. In like manner the seven Seals, the seven Trumpets, and the seven Bowls embody the thought of many judgments which are yet in reality one. Thus also the angels here are seven, not because literally so, but because that number brings out the varied forms as well as the essential oneness of the action of Him to whom the Father has given authority to execute judgment, because He is a Son of man. (John 5:27).

As yet the seven trumpets have only been given to the seven angels. More has to pass before they put them to their lips and sound. Another angel is seen who came and stood over the altar, having a golden censer in his hand. At the opening of the fifth Seal, we read of an altar which it was impossible not to identify with the great brazen altar, the altar of burnt offering, in the outer court of the sanctuary. Such identification is not so obvious here; and perhaps a majority of commentators agree in thinking that the altar now spoken of is rather the golden or incense altar which had its place within the Tabernacle, immediately in front of the second veil. To this altar the priest on ordinary occasions, and more particularly the high priest on the great Day of Atonement, brought a censer with burning frankincense, that the smoke of the incense, as it rose into the air, might be a symbol to the congregation of Israel that its prayers, offered according to the Divine will, ascended as a sweet savour to God. It is possible that this may be the altar meant; yet the probabilities of the case rather lead to the supposition that allusion is made to the altar of sacrifice in the Tabernacle court; for (1) when the Seer speaks here and again in Rev. 8:5 of the altar, and in Rev. 8:3 of the golden altar, he seems to distinguish between the two. (2) The words fire of the altar is in favor of the same conclusion. According to the ritual of the Law, it was from the brazen altar that fire was taken in order to kindle the incense, while at the same time fire continually burned upon that altar, but not upon the altar within the Tabernacle. (3) The thought represented by the symbolism seems to be that the sufferings of the saints gave efficacy to their prayers, and drew down the answer of Him who says, Call upon Me in the day of trouble, and I will answer thee, and thou shalt glorify Me. (4) The words of Rev. 8:3, the prayers of all the saints, and the similar expression in Rev. 8:4, remind us of the prayers of the fifth Seal, now swelled by the prayers of those New Testament saints who have been added to the blessed fellowship of the Old Testament martyrs. These prayers, it will be remembered, rose from beneath the altar of burnt offering; and it is natural to think that the same altar is again alluded to in order to bring out the idea of a similar martyrdom. What we see, therefore, is an angel taking the prayers and adding to them much incense, so that we may behold them as they ascend up before God and receive His answer. (Smith’s Dictionary of the Bible, INCENSE; Psm. 50:15).

Further, it ought to be observed that the prayers referred to are for judgment upon sin. There is nothing to justify the supposition that they are partly for judgment upon, partly for mercy to, a sinful world. They are simply another form of the cry, how long, O Master, the holy and true, dost Thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? They are a cry that God will vindicate the cause of righteousness. (Rev. 6:10).

The cry is heard, for the angel takes of the fire of the altar on which the saints had been sacrificed as an offering to God, and casts it into the earth, that it may consume the sin by which it had been kindled. The lex talionis again starts to view; not merely punishment, but retribution, the heaviest of all retribution, because it is accompanied by a convicted conscience, retribution in kind.

Everything is now ready for judgment, and the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepare themselves to sound: -


"And the first sounded, and there followed hail and fire mingled with blood, and they were cast into the earth: and the third part of the earth was burnt up, and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up (Rev. 8:7)."

To think, in interpreting these words, of a literal burning up of a third part of the earth of the trees, and of the green grass, would lead us astray. Comparing the first Trumpet with those that follow, we have simply a general description of judgment as it affects the land in contradistinction to the sea, the rivers and fountains of water, and the heavenly bodies by which the earth is lighted. The punishment is drawn down by a guilty world upon itself when it rises in opposition to Him who at first prepared the land for the abode of men, planted it with trees pleasant to the eye, cast over it its mantle of green, and pronounced it to be very good. Of every tree of the garden, except the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, might our first parents eat; while grass covered the earth for their cattle, and herb for their service. All nature was to minister to the wants of man, and in cultivating the garden and the field he was to find light and happy labor. But sin came in. Thorns and thistles sprang up on every side. Labor became a burden, and the fruitful field was changed into a wilderness which could only be subdued by constant, patient, and often-disappointed toil. This is the thought - a thought often dwelt upon by the prophets of the Old Testament - that is present to the Seer’s mind.

One of the plagues of Egypt, however, may also be in his eye. When the Almighty would deliver His people from that land of their captivity, He sent thunder and hail, and the fire ran along upon the ground; and the Lord rained hail upon the land of Egypt. So, there was hail, and fire mingled with the hail, very grievous. . . . And the hail smote throughout all the land of Egypt all that was in the field, both man and beast; and the hail smote every herb of the field and broke every tree of the field. That plague the Seer has in his mind; but he is not content to use its traits alone, terrible as they were. The sin of a guilty world in refusing to listen to Him who speaks from heaven is greater than was the sin of those who refused Him that spake on earth, and their punishment must be in proportion to their sin. Hence the plague of Egypt is magnified. We read, not of hail and fire only, but of hail and fire mingled with or rather in blood, so that the blood is the outward and visible covering of the hail and of the fire. In addition to this, we have the herbs and trees of the field, not merely smitten and broken, but utterly consumed by fire. What is meant by the third part of the earth and its products being attacked it is difficult to say. The probability is that, as a whole consists of three parts, partial destruction only is intended, yet not destruction of a third part of the earth, leaving two-thirds untouched; but a third part of the earth and of its produce is everywhere consumed. (Exo. 9:23-25).

The second Trumpet is now blown: -


"And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain burning with fire was cast into the sea: and the third part of the sea became blood; and there died the third part of the creatures which were in the sea, even they that had life; and the third part of the ships was destroyed (Rev. 8:8-9)."

As the first Trumpet affected the land, so the second affects the sea; and the remarks already made upon the one destruction are for the most part applicable to the other. The figure of removing a mountain from its place and casting it into the sea was used by our Lord to express what beyond all else it was impossible to accomplish by mere human power: "Verily I say unto you, If ye have faith, and doubt not, ye shall not only do what is done to the fig tree, but even if ye shall say unto this mountain, Be thou taken up and cast into the sea, it shall be done." In so speaking, our Lord had followed the language of the prophets, who were accustomed to illustrating by the thought of the removal of mountains the greatest acts of Divine power: "What art thou, O great mountain? before Zerubbabel thou shalt become a plain;" "Therefore will we not fear, though the mountains be carried into the midst of the seas." (Mat. 21:21; Zec. 4:7; Psm. 46:2).

Even the figure of a burnt mountain is not strange to the Old Testament, for the prophet Jeremiah thus denounces woe on Babylon: "Behold, I am against thee, O destroying mountain, saith the Lord, which destroyest all the earth: and I will stretch out Mine hand upon thee, and roll thee down from the rocks, and make thee a burnt mountain." (Jer. 51:25).

The plagues of Egypt, too, are again taken advantage of by the Seer, for in the first of these Moses lifted up the rod and smote the waters that were in the river; . . . and all the waters that were in the river were turned to blood. And the fish that was in the river died; and the river stank, and the Egyptians could not drink of the water of the river; and there was blood throughout all the land of Egypt. Here, however, the plague is extended, embracing as it does not only the river of Egypt, but the sea, with all the ships that sail upon it, and all its fish. Again also, as before, the third part is not to be thought of as confined to one region of the ocean, while the remaining two-thirds are left untouched. It is to be sought everywhere over the whole compass of the deep. (Exo. 8:20-21)

The third Trumpet is now blown: -


"And the third angel sounded, and there fell from heaven a great star, burning as a torch, and it fell upon the third part of the rivers, and upon the fountains of the waters; and the name of the star is called Wormwood: and the third part of the waters became worm wood; and many men died of the waters, because they were made bitter (Rev. 8:10-11)."

The third Trumpet is to be understood upon the same principles and in the same general sense as the two preceding Trumpets. The figures are again such as meet us in the Old Testament, though they are used by the Seer in his own free and independent way. Thus the prophet Isaiah, addressing Babylon in his magnificent description of her fall, exclaims, How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning! and thus also the prophet Jeremiah denounces judgment upon rebellious Israel: Therefore thus saith the Lord of hosts, the God of Israel; Behold, I will feed them, even this people, with wormwood, and give them water of gall to drink. The bitter waters of Marah also lived in the recollections of Israel as the first, and not the least terrible, punishment of the murmuring of their fathers against Him who had brought them out into what seemed but a barren wilderness, instead of leaving them to quench their thirst by the sweet waters of the Nile. Thus the waters which the world offers to its votaries are made bitter, so bitter that they become wormwood itself, the very essence of bitterness. Again the third part of them is thus visited, but this time with a feature not previously mentioned: the destruction of human life, - many men died of the waters. Under the first Trumpet only inanimate nature was affected; under the second we rose to creatures that had life; under the third we rise to many men. The climax ought to be noticed, as illustrating the style of the Apostle’s thought and aiding us in the interpretation of his words. A similar climax may perhaps also be intended by the agents successively employed under these Trumpets: hail and fire, a great mountain burning, and a falling star. (Isa. 14:12; Jer. 9:15; Exo. 15:23).

The fourth Trumpet is now blown: -


"And the fourth angel sounded, and the third part of the sun was smitten, and the third part of the moon, and the third part of the stars; that the third part of them should be darkened, and the day should not shine for the third part of it, and the night in like manner (Rev. 8:12)."

This Trumpet offers no contradiction to what was previously said that the first four members of the three series of Seals, of Trumpets, and of Bowls deal with the material rather than the spiritual side of man, with man as a denizen of this world rather than of the next. The heavenly bodies are here viewed solely in their relation to earth and its inhabitants. As to the judgment, it rests, like those of the first and second Trumpets, upon the thought of the Egyptian plague of darkness: And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand toward heaven, that there may be darkness over the land of Egypt, even darkness that may be felt And Moses stretched forth his hand toward heaven; and there was a thick darkness in all the land of Egypt three days: they saw not one another, neither rose any from his place for three days: but all the children of Israel had lights in their dwellings. The trait of the Egyptian plague alluded to in this last sentence is not mentioned here; and we have probably, therefore, no right to say that it was in the Seer’s thoughts. Yet it is in a high degree probable that it was and at all events his obvious reference to that plague may help to illustrate an important particular to be afterwards noticed, that all the Trumpet judgments fall directly upon the world, and not the Gods people. As under the first three Trumpets, the third part of the light of sun, and moon, and stars is alone darkened. (Exo. 10:21-23).

The first four Trumpets have now been blown, and we reach the line of demarcation by which each series of judgments is divided into its groups of four and three.

That line is drawn in the present instance with peculiar solemnity and force: -


"And I saw, and I heard an eagle flying in mid-heaven, saying with a, great voice, Woe, woe, woe, for them that dwell on the earth by reason of the other voices of the three angels who are yet to sound (Rev. 8:13)."

Attention ought to be paid to the fact that the cry uttered in mid-heaven, and thus penetrating to the most distant corners of the earth, proceeds from an eagle, and not, as in the Authorized Version, from an angel; and the eagle is certainly referred to for the purpose of adding fresh terror to the scene. If we would enter into the Seer’s mind, we must think of it as the symbol of rapine and plunder. To him the prominent characteristic of that bird is not its majesty, but its swiftness, its strength, and its hasting to the prey. (Comp. Job 9:26).

Thus ominously announced, the fifth Trumpet is now blown: -


"And the fifth angel sounded, and I saw a star out of heaven fallen unto the earth: and there was given to him the key of the well of the abyss. And he opened the well of the abyss; and there went up a smoke out of the well, as the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and the air were darkened by reason of the smoke of the well. And out of the smoke came forth locusts upon the earth: and power was given them, as the scorpions of the earth have power. And it was said unto them that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only such men as have not the seal of God on their foreheads. And it was given them that they should not kill them, but that they should be tormented five months: and their torment was as the torment of a scorpion, when it striketh a man. And in those days men shall seek death, and shall in no wise find it; and they shall desire to die, and death fleeth from them. And the shapes of the locusts were like unto horses prepared for war, and upon their heads as it were crowns like unto gold, and their faces were as faces of men. And they had hair as the hair of women, and their teeth were as the teeth of lions. And they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; and the sound of their wings was as the sound of chariots of many horses rushing to war. And they have tails like unto scorpions, and stings: and in their tails is their power to hurt men five months. They have over them as king the angel of the abyss: his name in Hebrew is Abaddon, and in the Greek tongue he hath the name Apollyon (Rev. 9:1-11)."

Such is the strange but dire picture of the judgment of the fifth Trumpet; and we have, as usual, in the first place, to look at the particulars contained in it. As in several previous instances, these are founded upon the plagues of Egypt and the language of the prophets. In both these sources how terrible does a locust plague appear! In Egypt - "And the Lord said unto Moses, Stretch out thine hand over the land of Egypt for the locusts, that they may come up upon the land of Egypt, and eat every herb of the land, even all that the hail hath left. And Moses stretched forth his rod over the land of Egypt, and the Lord brought an east wind upon the land all that day, and all that night; and when it was morning, the east wind brought the locusts. And the locusts went up over all the land of Egypt and rested in all the coasts of Egypt: very grievous were they; before them there were no such locusts as they, neither after them shall be such. For they covered the face of the whole earth, so that the land was darkened; and they did eat every herb of the land, and all the fruit of the trees which the hail had left and there remained not any green thing in the trees, or in the herbs of the field, through all the land of Egypt." Darker even than this is the language of the prophet Joel. When he sees locusts sweeping across a land, he exclaims, The land was as the garden of Eden before them, and behind them a desolate wilderness; and from their irresistible and destructive ravages he draws not a few traits of the dread events by which the coming of the day of the Lord shall be accompanied: The appearance of them is as the appearance of horses; and as horsemen, so shall they run. Like the noise of chariots on the tops of mountains shall they leap, like the noise of a flame of fire that devoureth the stubble, as a strong people set in battle array. . . . They shall run like mighty men; they shall climb the wall like men of war; and they shall march everyone on his ways, and they shall not break their ranks. . . . They shall run to and fro in the city; they shall run upon the wall, they shall climb up upon the houses; they shall enter in at the windows like a thief. The earth shall quake before them; the heavens shall tremble: the sun and the moon shall be dark, and the stars shall withdraw their shining. (Exo. 10:12-15; Joel 2:3; 2:4-10).

It is no doubt true that in the description before us the qualities of its locusts are preternaturally magnified, but that is only what we might expect, and it is in keeping with the mode in which other figures taken from the Old Testament are treated in this book. There is a probability, too, that each trait of the description had a distinct meaning to St. John, and that it represents some particular phase of the calamities he intended to depict. But it is hardly possible now to discover such meanings; and that the Seer had in view general evil as much at least as evil in certain special forms is shown by the artificiality of structure marking the passage as a whole. For the description of the locusts is divided into three parts, the first general, the second special, the third the locust-king. The special characteristics of the insects, again, are seven in number: (1) upon their heads as it were crowns like unto gold; (2) and their faces were as faces of men; (3) and they had hair as the hair of women; (4) and their teeth were as the teeth of lions; (5) and they had breastplates, as it were breastplates of iron; (6) and the sound of their wings was as the sound of many chariots; (7) and they have tails like unto scorpions, and stings.

Whether the period of five months, during which these locusts are said to commit their ravages, is fixed on because the destruction caused by the natural insect lasts for that length of time, or for some other reason unknown to us, it is difficult to determine. There is a want of proof that a locust-plague generally continues for the number of months thus specified, and it is otherwise more in accordance with the style of the Apocalypse to regard that particular period of time as simply denoting that the judgment has definite limits.

One additional particular connected with the fifth Trumpet ought to be adverted to. It will be noticed that the well of the abyss whence the plague proceeds are opened by a star fallen not falling out of heaven, to which the key to the well was given. We have here one of those contrasts of St. John a due attention to which is of such importance to the interpreter. This fallen star is the contrast and counterpart of Him who is the bright, the morning star, and who has the keys of death and of Hades. (Rev. 22:16; Rev. 1:18).

At this point the sixth angel ought to sound; but we are now in the midst of the three last woes, and each is of so terrible an import that it deserves to be specially marked. 

Hence the words of the next verse: -


"The first Woe is past; behold, there come yet two Woes hereafter (Rev. 9:12)."

This warning given, the sixth Trumpet is now blown: -


"And the sixth angel sounded, and I heard a voice from the horns of the golden altar which is before God, one saying to the sixth angel which had the trumpet, Loose the four angels which are bound at the great river Euphrates. And the four angels were loosed, which had been prepared for the hour, and day, and month, and year, that they should kill the third part of men. And the number of the armies of the horsemen was twice ten thousand times ten thousand; I heard the number of them. And thus I saw the horses in the vision, and them that sat on them, having breastplates as of fire, and of hyacinth, and of brimstone. By these three plagues was the third part of men killed, by the fire, and the smoke, and the brimstone, which proceeded out of their mouths. For the power of the horses is in their mouth, and in their tails: for their tails are like unto serpents, and with them they do hurt. And the rest of mankind which were not killed with these plagues repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship demons, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood: which can neither see, nor hear nor walk: and they repented not of their murders, nor of their sorceries, nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts. (Rev. 9:13-21)."

There is much in this Trumpet that is remarkable even while we confine ourselves to the more outward particulars contained in it. Thus we are brought back by it to the thought of those prayers of the saints to which all the Trumpets are a reply, but which have not been mentioned since the blowing of the Trumpets began. Once more we read of the golden altar which was before God y in His immediate presence. On that altar the prayers of all the saints had been laid, that they might rise to heaven with the much incense added by the angel and might be answered in Gods own time and way. The voice heard from the four horns of this altar that is, from the four projecting points at its four corners, representing the altar in its greatest potency shows us, what we might have been in danger of forgetting, that the judgment before us continues to be an answer of the Almighty to His people's prayers. Again it may be noticed that in the judgment here spoken of we deal once more with a third part of the class upon which it falls. Nothing of the kind had been said under the fifth Trumpet. The inference to be drawn from these particulars is important We learn that, however distinct the successive members of any of the three series of the Seals, the Trumpets, or the Bowls may seem to be, they are yet closely connected with one another. Though seven in number, there is a sense in which they are also one; and any characteristic thought which appears in a single members of the series ought to be carried through all its members. (Rev. 9:3-5).

The judgment itself is founded, as in the others already considered, upon thoughts and incidents connected with Old Testament history.

The first of these is the river Euphrates. That great river was the boundary of Israel upon the north east “In the same day the Lord made a covenant with Abram, saying, Unto thy seed have I given this land, from the river of Egypt unto the great river, the river Euphrates;" and in the days of Solomon this part of the covenant appears to have been fulfilled, for we are told that Solomon reigned over all kingdoms from the river that is, the Euphrates unto the land of the Philistines, and unto the border of Egypt." The Euphrates, however, was not only the boundary between Israel and the Assyrians. It was also Israel’s line of defense against its powerful and ambitious neighbour, who had to cross its broad stream before he could seize any part of the Promised Land. By a natural transition of thought, the Euphrates next became a symbol of the Assyrians themselves, for its waters, when they rose in flood, overflowed Israel’s territory and swept all before them. Then the prophets saw in the rush of the swollen river a figure of the scourge of God upon those who would not acknowledge Him: "The Lord spake also unto me again, saying, forasmuch as this people refuseth the waters of Shiloah that go softly, and rejoice in Rezin and Remaliah’s son; now therefore behold, the Lord bringeth up upon them the waters of the river, strong and many, even the king of Assyria, and all his glory: and he shall come up over all his channels, and go over all his banks: and he shall pass through Judah; he shall overflow and go over, he shall reach even to the neck; and the stretching out of his wings shall fill the breadth of Thy land, O Immanuel." When accordingly the Euphrates is here spoken of, it is clear that with the river as such we have nothing to do. It is simply a symbol of judgment; and the four angels which had been bound at it, but were now loosed, are a token - four being the number of the world - that the judgment referred to, though it affects but a third part of men, reaches men over the whole surface of the globe. When the hour, and the day, and the month, and the year - that is, when the moment fixed in the counsels of the Almighty - come, the chains by which destruction has been kept back shall be broken, and the world shall be over whelmed by the raging stream. (Gen. 15:18; 1Kgs. 4:21; Isa. 8:5-8).

The second Old Testament thought to be noted in this vision is that of horses. To the Israelite the horse presented an object of terror rather than admiration, and an army of horsemen awakened in him the deepest feelings of alarm. Thus it is that the prophet Habakkuk, describing the coming judgments of God, is commissioned to exclaim, "Behold ye among the heathen, and regard, and wonder marvelously: for I will work a work in your days, which ye will not believe, though it be told you. For, lo, I raise up the Chaldean's, that bitter and hasty nation, which shall march through the breadth of the land, to possess the dwelling-places that are not theirs. They are terrible and dreadful: their judgment and their dignity shall proceed of themselves. Their horses also are swifter than the leopards, and are more fierce than the evening wolves: and their horsemen shall spread themselves, and their horsemen shall come from far; they shall fly as the eagle that hasteth to eat. They shall come all for violence: their faces shall sup up as the east wind, and they shall gather the captivity as the sand. And they shall scoff at the kings, and the princes shall be a scorn unto them: they shall deride every stronghold; for they shall heap dust, and take it." Like the locusts of the previous vision, the horses now spoken of are indeed clothed with preternatural attributes; but the explanation is the same. Ordinary horses could not convey images of sufficient terror. (Hab. 1:5-10).

The last two verses of chap. 9, which follow the sixth Trumpet, deserve our particular attention. They describe the effect produced upon the men who did not perish by the previous plagues, and they help to throw light upon a question most intimately connected with a just interpretation of the Apocalypse. The question is, Does the Seer, in any of his visions, anticipate the conversion of the ungodly? or does he deal, from the beginning to the end of his descriptions, with righteousness and sin in themselves rather than with righteous persons who may decline from the truth or sinful persons who may own and welcome it? The question will meet us again in the following chapters of this book, and will demand a fuller discussion than it can receive at present. In the meantime it is enough to say that, in the two verses now under consideration, no hint as to the conversion of any ungodly persons by the Trumpet plagues is given. On the contrary, the men - that is, the two-thirds of the inhabitants of the earth or of the ungodly world who were not killed by these plagues repented neither of their irreligious principles nor of their immoral lives. They went on as they had done in the grossness of their idolatries and in the licentiousness of their conduct. They were neither awakened nor softened by the fate of others. They had deliberately chosen their own course; and, although they knew that they were rushing against the thick bosses of the Almighty’s buckler, they had resolved to persevere in it to the end.

Two brief remarks on these six Trumpet visions, looked at as a whole, appear still to be required.

I. No attempt has been made to interpret either the individual objects of the judgments or the instruments by which judgment is inflicted. To the one class belong the earth, the trees, the green grass, the sea, the ships, the rivers and fountains of the waters, the sun, the moon, and the stars; to the other belong the details given in the description first of the locusts of the fifth Trumpet and then of the horses of the sixth. Each of these particulars may have a definite meaning, and interpreters may yet be successful in discovering it. The object kept in view throughout this commentary makes any effort to ascertain that meaning, when it is doubtful if it even exists, comparatively unimportant. We are endeavoring to catch the broader interpretation and spirit of the book; and it may be a question whether our impressions would in that respect be deepened though we saw; reason to believe that all the objects above mentioned had individual force. One line of demarcation certainly seems to exist, traced by the Seer himself, between the first four and the two following judgments, the former referring to physical disasters flowing from moral evil, the latter to the more dreadful intensification of intellectual darkness and moral corruption visited upon men when they deliberately choose evil rather than good. Further than this it is for our present purpose unnecessary to go.

2. The judgments of these Trumpets are judgments on the world rather than the Gods people. Occasion has been already taken to observe that the structure of this part of the Apocalypse leads to the belief that both the Trumpets and the Bowls are developed out of the Seals. Yet there is a difference between the two, and various indications in the Trumpet visions appear to confine them to judgments on the world.

There is the manner in which they are introduced, as an answer to the prayers of all the saints. It is true, as we shall yet see, that the degenerate Church is the chief persecutor of the people of God But against her the saints cannot pray. To them she is still the Church. They remember the principle laid down by their Lord when He spoke of His kingdom in the parable of the tares: Let both grow together until the harvest. God alone can separate the false from the true within her pale. There is a sense in which the Church can never be overthrown, and there is not less a sense in which the world shall be subdued. Only for the subjugation of the world, therefore, can all the saints pray; and the Trumpets are an answer to their prayers. (Rev. 8:3; Mat. 13:30).

Again, the three Woe-Trumpets are directed against them that dwell on the earth. But, as has been already said, it is a principle of interpretation applicable to all the three series of the Seals, the Trumpets, and the Bowls, that traits filling up the picture in one member belong also to the other members of the groups and that the judgments, while under one aspect seven, are under another one. The three Woes therefore fall upon the same field of judgment as that visited by the plagues preceding them. In other words, all the six plagues of this series of visions are inflicted upon them that dwell on the earth; and that is simply another form of expression for the ungodly world. (Rev. 8:13).

Again, under the fifth Trumpet the children of God are separated from the ungodly, so that the particulars of that judgment do not touch them. The locusts are instructed that they should not hurt the grass of the earth, neither any green thing, neither any tree; but only such men as have not the seal of God in their foreheads. (Rev. 9:4).

Again, the seventh Trumpet, in which the series culminates, and which embodies its character as a whole, will be found to deal with judgment on the world alone: The nations were roused to wrath, and Thy wrath came, and the time of the dead to be judged, . . . and the time to destroy them that destroy the earth. (Rev. 11:18).

Finally, the description given at the end of the sixth Trumpet of those who were hardened rather than softened by the preceding judgments leads directly to the same conclusion: And the rest of mankind which were not killed by these plagues repented not of the works of their hands, that they should not worship devils, and the idols of gold, and of silver, and of brass, and of stone, and of wood. (Rev. 9:20).

These considerations leave no doubt that the judgments of the Trumpets are judgments on the world. That Gods people, it is true, may also suffer from them, but not in judgment. They may be part of her trial as she mixes with the world during her earthly pilgrimage. Trial, however, is not judgment. To the children of God it is the discipline of a Father’s hand. In the midst of it they are safe, and it helps to ripen her for the fullness of the glory of her heavenly inheritance.