And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;
17. an angel ] Lit. one angel.
in the sun ] Perhaps he is the Angel of the Sun (like the other elemental angels in Rev 16:5 and perhaps Rev 14:18): but the “one” makes this less likely. Probably he is stationed there only as a position commanding the “mid-heaven” (on this word See on Rev 8:13).
to all the fowls ] Eze 39:17 sqq., of the slaughter of Gog and Magog: from which however this slaughter seems to be distinguished, see Rev 20:8-9.
the supper of the great God ] Read, the great supper of God. In Ezek. l.c. it is called a sacrifice, sacrifices being the only ordinary occasion for a feast of flesh: cf. Isa 34:6, which was probably in Ezekiel’s mind.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
And I saw an angel standing in the sun – A different angel evidently from the one which had before appeared to him. The number of angels that appeared to John, as referred to in this book, was very great, and each one came on a new errand, or with a new message. Everyone must be struck with the image here. The description is as simple as it can be; and yet as sublime. The fewest words possible are used; and yet the image is distinct and clear. A heavenly being stands in the blaze of the brightest of the orbs that God permits us here to see – yet not consumed, and himself so bright that he can be distinctly seen amidst the dazzling splendors of that luminary. It is difficult to conceive of an image more sublime than this. Why he has his place in the sun is not stated, for there does not appear to be anything more intended by this than to give grandeur and impressiveness to the scene.
And he cried with a loud voice – So that all the fowls of heaven could hear.
Saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven – That is, to all the birds of prey – all that feed on flesh – such as hover over a battlefield. Compare the notes on Isa 18:6; Isa 56:9. See also Jer 7:33; Jer 12:9; Ezek. 39:4-20.
Come and gather yourselves together – All this imagery is taken from the idea that there would be a great slaughter, and that the bodies of the dead would be left unburied to the birds of prey.
Unto the supper of the great God – As if the great God were about to give you a feast – to wit, the carcasses of those slain. It is called his supper because he gives it; and the image is merely that there would be a great slaughter of his foes, as is specified in the following verse.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Verse 17. An angel standing in the sun] Exceedingly luminous; every part of him emitting rays of light. From this representation, Milton has taken his description of Uriel, the angel of the sun. Paradise Lost, b. iii. l. 648:-
“The Archangel Uriel, one of the seven
Who, in God’s presence, nearest to his throne
Stands ready at command and are his eyes
That run through all the heavens, or down to the earth
Bears his swift errands over moist and dry,
Over sea and land.”
All the fowls that fly] The carcasses of God’s enemies shall be food for all the fowls of heaven. This is according to a Jewish tradition, Synopsis Sohar, p. 114, n. 25: “In the time when God shall execute vengeance for the people of Israel, he shall feed all the beasts of the earth for twelve months with their flesh and all the fowls for seven years.” It is well known that both beasts and birds of prey are accustomed to frequent fields of battle, and live upon the slain.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The best conjecture I can find at the sense of these words, is, that they signify the preachers of the gospel bold and clear foretelling the ruin of antichrist. There are divers kinds of fowls; amongst others, some that feed on flesh. These are those fowls here mentioned, such as feed upon dead carcasses. They are invited to the supper of the great God; called so, because it is made and prepared by the power of him who is the great God, or because it is a sacrifice to the justice of God: see 1Sa 17:46; Isa 18:6; Jer 12:9; Eze 39:17. Gods justice upon his enemies is called a sacrifice, Isa 34:6; Jer 46:10; Eze 39:17. Idolaters were wont upon their sacrificing to have a feast; God hath also a feast upon this his sacrifice, but it is for the fowls and beasts, that feed on dead carcasses.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
17. anGreek, “one.”
in the sunso as to beconspicuous in sight of the whole world.
to all the fowls (Eze39:17-20).
and gather yourselvesA,B, Vulgate, Syriac, Coptic, and ANDREASread, “be gathered,” omitting “and.”
of the great GodA, B,Vulgate, Syriac, Coptic, and ANDREASread, “the great supper (that is, banquet) of God.”
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And I saw an angel standing in the sun,…. By whom is meant, not the angel of the fourth vial, who poured it on the sun, taken in another sense than here, and therefore could not stand in it; nor the archangel with the last trumpet, for as yet the dead rise not, nor does the judgment come on; nor one of the ministering spirits; nor Christ himself, for he is the great God, to whose supper this angel invites, but a minister of the Gospel; or rather a set of Gospel ministers, such as in Re 14:1 who may be said to stand in the sun, in like manner as the woman, the church, was seen clothed with it, Re 12:1 and may denote the conspicuousness of Gospel preachers; for, as the church now will be established upon the top of the mountains, so her teachers shall not be removed into corners any more, but her eyes shall behold her teachers; and also the clear sight they shall have of the doctrines and mysteries of the Gospel, who shall now see eye to eye; and particularly the further breakings forth of the glory of the latter day, and the ensuing victory of Christ over all his enemies; and also shows the great strength of their sight, who, far from being like moles and bats, will be able both to look upon the sun, and to stand in it: and it may likewise signify the glory and majesty of Christ’s kingdom; the comfortable influence of him, the sun of righteousness, who will now arise upon his people with healing in his wings; and the steadfastness of Christ’s ministers to him, and his pure Gospel, and the glorious truths of it.
And he cried with a loud voice; that he might be heard far and near, having something of moment and importance to publish:
saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven; meaning not the barbarous nations, the Goths, and Vandals, and Saracens, which overrun and destroyed the western and eastern empires; these times are too late for them, they rose up under the six first trumpets; nor devils and unclean spirits, which will prey upon and torment antichrist, and his followers, in hell; nor military and avaricious men among Protestants, but Christian princes, and their people, are designed; they are such as are in heaven, the church, and of note there, who will share the spoils of the antichristian people, and possess their kingdoms, substance, and estates: these are invited by the angel, saying,
come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God. The Alexandrian copy, the Vulgate Latin, and Syriac versions, read, “to the great supper of God”; and so the Complutensian edition; not the Lord’s supper, where not the flesh of men, but the flesh of Christ is eat, by faith; nor the marriage supper of the Lamb, which will be of another kind than this; nor is any spiritual repast intended, such as living by faith on Christ, and supping with him, being entertained with his promises, presence, and the discoveries of his love; but the slaughter of Christ’s enemies, and his victory over them, which is his sacrifice; and these are the guests he bids, see Zep 1:7 and whom he calls to share in the conquest and spoils, and to express their joy on this occasion: “the great God” is no other than Christ, the general of the armies in heaven, called before the Word of God, and King of kings, and Lord of lords; who will gain this victory, and will be known to be the great God by the judgment he will execute. This is a proof of our Lord’s divinity; see Tit 2:13.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
An angel ( ). Like in 18:21, just “an,” not “one.”
Standing in the sun ( ). Second perfect active participle of (intransitive). “Where all the birds of prey would behold him” (Beckwith). For (birds) see 18:2 and for (in mid heaven) see Rev 18:13; Rev 14:6.
Come and be gathered together ( ). is the adverb (hither), used when two or more are addressed, possibly from (come here). Asyndeton also without (and). First aorist passive imperative of . The metaphor is drawn from Eze 39:17.
Unto the great supper of God ( ). The habits of vultures are described by Christ in Mt 24:28. This is a bold and powerful picture of the battlefield after the victory of the Messiah, “a sacrificial feast spread on God’s table for all the vultures of the sky” (Swete). Is this battle the same as that of Har Magedon (16:16) and that of Gog and Magog (20:8ff.) mentioned after the thousand years? The language in 20:8ff. seems like this derived from Eze 39:17ff., and “in the Apocalypse priority in the order of sequence does not always imply priority in time” (Swete). There seems no way to decide this point save that the end seems to be at hand.
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
An angel [ ] . Lit., “one angel.” Fowls [] . See on ch. Rev 18:2. Rev., birds.
Midst of heaven. See on ch. Rev 8:13.
Gather yourselves together [] . The best texts read sunacqhte be gathered together, as Rev. Compare Eze 39:17 sqq. The supper of the great God [ ] . Read to mega tou for tou megalou, and render the great supper of God.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
BATTLE OF ARMAGEDDON v. 17-19
1) “And I saw an angel standing in the sun,” (kai eidon hena angelon hestota en to helio) “Arid I saw one angel standing in the sun; Which was described as blotted out under the bowls or vials of wrath, Rev 8:12; Rev 9:2; Rev 16:8. But now it shines in resplendent glory; and from its central location in the high heavens the angel gave the “clean up” command.
2) “And he cried with a loud voice,” (kai ekraksen en phone megale) “And he cried out in a megaphone like voice; It is a voice to be heard throughout the mid-heaven by all strong and voracious scavengers, birds of prey, especially the vultures and eagles that soar high in the atmosphere.
3) “Saying to all the fowls,” (legon pasin tois orneois) “Saying continually to all the birds,” that fly in the heavens, carnivorous, flesh-eating birds, declared to be unclean because of what they ate, Lev 11:14.
4) “That fly in the midst of heaven,” (tois petomenoisen messouranemati) “To those flying in the mid-heaven,” where carnivorous birds (fowls) soar; They were flesh scavengers of every feathered creature under heaven as well, Eze 39:17-22.
5) “Come and gather yourselves together,” (deute sunachthete) “Come ye (one and all), assemble yourselves together in colleague or in symphony, for one great purpose;” where “the vulture’s eye hath not seen,” Job 28:7.
6) “Unto the supper of the great God,” (eisto deipnon to mega tou theou) “Unto (with regards to) the great supper of God; Here it was prophesied the vultures should be, Isa 34:1-3; Isa 34:15; Eze 39:17-22; Mat 24:28; Luk 17:37. A most excellent description of the eagle as a fowl of prey is given in Job 39:27-30 where she is said to soar at God’s command.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
Strauss Comments
SECTION 64
Text Rev. 19:17-21
17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in mid heaven, Come and be gathered together unto the great supper of God; 18 that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and of them that sit thereon, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, and small and great.
19 And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat upon the horse, and against his army. 20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought the signs in his sight, wherewith he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and them that worshipped his image: they two were cast alive into the lake of fire that burneth with brimstone 21 and the rest were killed with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, even the sword which came forth out of his mouth: and all the birds were filled with their flesh.
Initial Questions Rev. 19:17-21
1.
Discuss the imagery of the angel standing in the sun Rev. 19:17. Note the glory of the angel which would be necessary in order to identify the angel standing in the midst of the suns radiant brilliance.
2.
Why does the angel call all of the scavenger birds to the great supper Rev. 19:17.
3.
Discuss the various categories and statutes of the men mentioned in Rev. 19:18.
4.
Discuss the relevance of the imagery of war in Rev. 19:19 in view of contemporary mans fear of the war to end man. (Optimistic men have spoken of past war as wars to end war, now pessimistic man is speaking of the war to end man).
5.
What did God do to the beast and the false prophet Rev. 19:20?
6.
Why did John use such sickening imagery to describe the horrors of Gods judgment upon the unrighteous Rev. 19:21?
Overthrow and End of the Beast and the False Prophet
Chapter Rev. 19:17-21
Rev. 19:17
One angel standing in the sun—-cried to all the birds flying in mid-heaven, come, assemble to the great supper of God,—-Birds were omens of evil and destruction in the biblical world. These flying scavengers were looking for food. They were to find it in heaps of slain men.
Rev. 19:18
All classes of men have fallen in the destruction of the great city. None escaped! The strongest men were not strong enough; the wealthiest were not rich enough to purchase their own safety. Kings and councilmen were powerless before the great god Thanatos. The scavenger birds knew nothing of their wealth or power, or prestige; all human flesh tasted the same to them. How humiliating to arrogant man! (See Eze. 39:17-20.)
Rev. 19:19
Johns vision included the beast, kings, and their armies. They had marshalled these armies to wage a final war with the rider of the white horse. This will not be a local battle, but cosmic conflict. We encounter Johns message of confident triumph.
Rev. 19:20
All of the enemies of Christ receive Gods just, righteous, and eternal punishment. The beast and the false prophet were cast alive (zontes literally living into burning lake of fire with sulphur.
Rev. 19:21
The sharp sword which proceeds from the mouth of the rider of the white horse slays the rest. The hideous imagery reveals the extent of Gods judgment. Note that God employs only the spiritual weapon of His word in this conflict. He has declared that all men will be judged according to His Word. The judgment which we receive will be according to our works.
Discussion Questions
Chapter Rev. 19:1-21
1.
What Psalms make up The Great Hallel Rev. 19:1?
2.
What are the reasons for praising God mentioned in Rev. 19:2?
3.
Is anyone exempted from the command to praise God in Rev. 19:5?
4.
Where in the O.T. is God spoken of as the Bridegroom? Where in the Gospel records is Christ called the Bridegroom? Where in the N.T. is the imagery of the Bridegroom applied to Christ Rev. 19:7?
5.
Where are three metaphors of a woman used in The Revelation Rev. 19:7? Discuss them.
6.
With what has the bride of Christ been clothed in according to Rev. 19:8?
7.
Where in the Gospel records does Jesus speak a parable based on the imagery of the marriage supper Rev. 19:9?
8.
Why was John rebuked in Rev. 19:10?
9.
What is the O.T. source of the imagery used in Rev. 19:11?
10.
What is the name of the rider in Rev. 19:13?
11.
What did the imagery of the birds signify in Rev. 19:17?
12.
Are all of Christs enemies finally overcome according to Rev. 19:20-21?
Special Study
Handels Messiah
(This is just a part of an article that appeared in the June 22, 1963 Christian Standard by J. D. Strauss)
The language of human praise, so much enriched by the musical works of George Frederick Handel especially in such passages as The Hallelujah Chorus from The Messiah may find an occasional word of thanks for the evidently providential circumstances that gave the great writers music to the world.
Redemption in Prophecy and Praise
George F. Handels was the first artistic effort to portray the gospel in great music.
Often people think that The Messiah is composed of scenes from the Gospel records, but this is only partly true. Its central theme is the fulfillment of redemption through the Redeemer-Messiah. Contemporary authors have much to say about the use of drama in religious education in The Messiah we have the great precursor to these efforts.
The Messiah has many intricate parts, but it can be nearly divided into three broad sections: (1) The prophecy and realization of Gods will and purpose through the coming of the Messiah; (2) The accomplishment of redemption by the sacrifice of Jesus Christ, and hence the rejection and utter defeat of mankind when it opposes the living God; (3) Hymn of thanksgiving for the final overthrow of death.
The Messiah was performed first in London, England, but it had to overcome many adversaries before the public finally heard the dramatic truths of the Christian gospel set to music. The Messiah was forbidden production under that name. The critics claimed that it would be sacrilegious!
The entire first part of Handels work is a majestic echo of the great prophetic pronouncements concerning the Messiah of God. The vivid, picturesque portrayal of mankind anxiously waiting in hope of Gods redemption is a musical and linguistic marvel. As though led by the Spirit, Handel chose the highest phrases uttered by the prophets to declare that the prophetic hope was realized in the coming of the Messiah.
Isaiah, Joel, Malachi, Daniel, et al., had given grave warning and powerful promises, that if all mankind were to assemble against Jehovah their efforts would be futile. Men shall be utterly defeated when they strive against God or seek to salve their conscience by pious neutrality.
Now, in an age when human genius is seen in feats such as hurling massive steel structures through space on a split-second schedule, men need again the reminders that redemption still depends on Gods Messiah.
The third section of The Messiah is the hymn of thanksgiving for the final overthrow of death. This Christian belief stands in radical contrast with the contemporary ideology which strives to face death without the God of the Christian hope.
Throughout the whole of Handels work two themes predominate suffering and the work of redemption. The latter theme is merged into the triumphal hymn of the last two choruses.
The brilliant Hallelujah Chorus (the Hebrew word hallelujah means praise Jehovah) is grounded in the finished work of Christthe death, burial, resurrection, and ascension. The experience of listening to a competent rendering of The Messiah is abundant proof that the gospel can be expressed in more than the usual, verbal form. The tradition by which audiences rise to their feet at hearing this chorus is singularly appropriate.
The Messiah was written in about three weeks. If it were the only work Handel ever produced he would merit the endearing words of his fellow musicians. Beethoven declared, Handel is the greatest composer who ever lived. Franz Liszt said that the genius of Handel is as great as the world itself.
In light of the fact that more advancement has been made in the physical sciences during the past forth years of civilization than in the preceding four hundred years, it is to be noted that little or no great Christian music has been produced in our day. We pray God that the great Christian themes of redemption may kindle once more the creative fires, one that our Lord may be magnified by one of many great channels of expressing the work of God in Christ music!
George F. Handel died April 14, 1759, appreciated by England as no composer had been before or after. Our concern is that men shall know The Messiah, not as a work of art composed, but rather as the Redeemer of the souls of men. Then shall the whole body of Christianity sing the new songHallelujahpraise Jehovah!for He has touched fallen man with eternal healing in Christ.
Special Study
Some Contemporary Attitudes Toward the Biblical Doctrine of the Word of God
I recently heard a lecture by J. V. Langmead Casserley in which he raised the four fundamental problems in the contemporary analytic attack on the possibility of a rational religious discourse (since Kant, Hume, the Vienna Circle, Wittgenstein, Austin, Ayer, and all the creative spirits in contemporary Logic of Science). The four questions were(1) What is Revelation?; (2) Is God knowable?; (3) What is the relation of the knowledge of God to knowledge in the sciences and other academic disciplines?; (4) Does religious language express truth? This line of thought has had many progenitors and many set backs but it is now the predominate Anglo-Saxon Philosophical position. In order to better appreciate the issues involved, let us provide a brief historical perspective.
Nathan Sderblom took the initial steps in his Gifford Lectures, The Living God which blazed the trail for those who thought that propositional-revelation had become an untenable thesis. He laid the ground work for the contemporary attitude that extra-biblical revelation exists and continues to this hour. Sderblom did this by developing Justin Martyrs logos spermatikos idea. William Temple, in his Nature, Man, and God, developes the lethal distinction between Revelation and the proposition which speaks of revelation. Martin Bubers emphatic epistemology is utilized by practically every protestant theologian who has written on the subject of revelation. John Baillie, Emil Brunner, et al., recognize their debt to the Jewish Existentialist Buber. Dr. Austin Farrer declares in his The Glass of Vision We now recognize that the propositions on the Scriptural page expresses the response of human witnesses to divine events, not a miraculous divine dictation. (p. 36f).
The profound and prodigious efforts of Barth, Tillich, Berdyaev, et al., are efforts to work out a theory of revelation, once propositional revelation is repudiated in the name of scientific logic and the supposed demonstrations by way of a scientific study, that the Bible is a fallible record of human response to the original revelation which came in the person of Christ, and is therefore personal encounter of subject to subject, and not propositional information about God. But the revelation is God himself, not information about Him mediated through the words and sentences of a bookthe Bible (which provides true affirmation about the will and purpose of God in Christ). God is therefore not available to discursive reason! This contemporary attitude would not be too difficult to handle, if it were not for the persistent assertions by contemporary theologians, that this is the biblical view of revelation.[1]
[1] Martin Bubers Emphatic Epistemology has revolutionized contemporary Protestant Theology, which is not built upon propositional revelation but rather upon an uncognitive ineffable person to person encounter. The thesis maintains that we know persons differently than we know things. Bubers classic statement if found in his I-Thou and Two Types of Faith (Jewish and Greek).
We hear and read much of the thesis that God reveals Himself in acts and events and not by words and propositions.
We must pass by any discussion of the Hebrew and Greek vocabulary for truth, knowledge, faith (e.g., or as in the case of the Hebrew muna which means truth, faith, and trust). Martin Bubers Two Types of Faith tries to show that the Old Testament understanding of Faith was trust and that the New Testament presents a Christianized Greek-view. The most serious flaw in Bubers thesis is that it is not correct, either for the Hebrew or New Testament views. The biblical view does entail trust, but trust based on evidence which is the ground of the faith and not merely an irrational trust. Under this circumstance, there would be no justification for trusting in God any more than in man or some non-Christian religious object, etc.
Any adequate analysis of the biblical doctrine of revelation would necessitate that we understand the nature of Language (Linguistics and Semantics) and its relationship to thought and reality, if there is to be any extensive impact made on our generation on behalf of Christ. The very best Evangelical Literature (Henry, Carnell, Ramm, et al.) is seriously deficient in light of the problems raised by rejection of the total Christian perspective, which alone makes sense of The Restoration Movement and The Plea to restore biblical Christianity. Many misunderstand the relationship of words and propositions to the content of revelation. Even well meaning N.T. Christians and others of Evangelical persuasions believe that this line of reasoning makes the Bible and not Jesus, etc., the revelation of God. We cannot state too often that all we know of Christ and the will and purpose of God for time and eternity depends on the nature of the record which bears witness to Him. The New Testament does declare that Jesus is the final revelation, but we would not have access to this information unless spirit filled men also inscribed the Word of God. The biblical doctrine of the Word of God is not exhausted in the Incarnation of the Living Word! The biblical doctrine of the Word entails the Word Incarnate, the Word Inscribed, and the Word Proclaimed, and only if we possess a propositional revelation can we correlate this trichotomy.[2]
[2] Barth makes these distinctions, but cannot correlate them, because he will not permit the Bible to have the status of propositional revelation see his Dogmatics and for beginners, G. C. Berkouwers, The Triumph of Grace in the Theology of Karl Barth, Eerdmans, 1956. Now in paperback.
There are several Hebrew terms which are translated word in our English Bibles, but the primary term is Dabar means matter or affair in the sense of the thing about which one speaks. It is not true that Hebrew thought subordinates words to events. The reverse is more nearly true, particularly in the case of the Word of the Lord, for his Word determines all events, and no Word of God is void of power. Cf. Gen. 18:14; Jer. 32:17-27, in Hebrew and Septuagint with Luk. 1:37. The use of rhemata in Luke and Acts furnishes interesting examples of the colorlessness of translating things where sayings is required by the contextual reference to the spoken word. See Luk. 1:65; Luk. 2:17-19; Luk. 2:50-51; Act. 5:32; Act. 13:42.[3]
[3] Edmund P. Clowney, Preaching and Biblical Theology; Eerdmans Publishing Company: Grand Rapids, Michigan; 1961, p. 26
The Word
Jesus is the Logos of God in the New Testament Scriptures. The same effort to manipulate the records into saying that Jesus is the revelatory word and the New Testament scriptures are merely fallible-human reports about the original revelation. We must not lose sight of the fact that all we really know of Jesus Christ is contained in the biblical records. Many are still searching for the historical Christ. But he has never been lost by those of us who accept the Bible as the Word of God. If we possess only a fallible human response to original revelation which did not come in propositional form, then we have no authoritative message from God. If we have no authoritative message, then the Restoration Plea is absurd, and we are of all men most miserable.
The modern theologian speaks quite extensively of communicating the gospel, but he must first have something to convey. The church of the first century had the Word. The Word was made flesh (Joh. 1:1-18) is the one force which can stabilize the souls of men. A vast amount has been written about the term word in philosophical literature. A thorough examination would find us comparing its use of Heraclitus, the Stoics, and Philo Judaeus, with the application we find made only by John. We are not concerned with its repeated use, but with the implications of its meaning as it is used by these various authors.
The term has significantly different connotations in Hebrew and Greek and Latin. This should make it plain that there is no single term adequate for an English translation. The Greek word logos contains two elementsspeech and reason. The vocal utterance plus the thought content of the utterance is synthesized into the term logos. As the term is used in the New Testament, it does not imply one or the other, but both. The Word made flesh is unique in context.
The Latin Christians debated over the use of three words in translating this one Greek term. They were verbum, sermo, or ratio; but when the Latins selected verbum, they deprived logos of half of its implications.
Philo did use the term in both senses. And he maintained this conception as he linked it with The Word of the Lord of the Old Testament, but the stoic implication was also present. The distinctive features of Johns use imply eternal, personal, divine, and transcendent existence. Johns phraseology is not found in the other gospel records. (Heb. 4:13 where in his sight (autou his) identified the Word of Rev. 19:12 as personal.)
It is this Word that we must communicate by proclamation and dedicated lives. It must go forth in the power of the Spirit with no uncertain sound.
But thanks be to God we need not succumb to the contemporary mind nor its satanic attacks upon the Scriptures. There are no easy answers to the most serious threats to biblical Christianity in the history of the Church, but we pray that many will take up the challenge and labor in the highly technical and specialized areas of contemporary science, philosophy, and theology so that our message can be placed on the offensive instead of the defensive. The coming generation to whom many of us will preach Christ and Him Crucified must be challenged at the academic level where the contemporary mind and its animosity to Biblical Christianity is being forged. I pray God that we rally to the challenge now beginning with you!
Some of the above points were delineated in the authors 1962 Missouri Christian Lectureship on the Origin and Development of the Contemporary Mind and Its Significance for Biblical Christianity.
See the present authors very superficial treatment of the problem of Revelation in the Popular presentationWhat is Revelation, parts 1 and 2, The Christian Standard, April 22 and 29, 1961; and the keen insights which are evident in the article by H. Daniel Friberg, The Bible and Propositional Truth, Christianity Today, July 5, 1963. His remarks are even more appropriate in view of the various theories of the Proposition and how they differ from the types of sentences which are under scrutiny in contemporary Logic. The following works will also be of great benefit to the serious student of this problem.
G. H. Clark, Religion, Reason, and Revelation; Presbyterian Reformed Publishing Company, Nutley, New Jersey,
G. H. Clark, Karl Barths Theological Method; Presbyterian Reformed Publishing Company, Nutley, New Jersey, 1963.
H. D. MacDonald Ideas of Revelation: A Historical Study, A.D. 1700 to A.D. 1860, MacMillan Pub. Co., New York.
Note: Problem of Education and Evangelism!
We are not winning the world! The attitude outlines above is not merely an academic affair; it is an attitude which is rapidly permeating the mind of mass-man.
The kind of preparation we provide in our Bible Colleges should be determined by the mind of the age in which it lives. All Bible and nothing else precludes winning the world!
Is it possible that we are preparing a ministry for a past generation? How shall we defend our Faith in view of the comprehensive, satanic attack on biblical revelation? The areas which call for immediate attention by all concerned N.T. Christians are: 1. A Philosophy of Language which sustains the theistic view of language which is necessary for a defense of propositional revelation. The dominate thrust in the rapidly developing field of Linguistic is naturalistic. If this view of the nature and origin of Language is correct a special revelation from God to man is impossible (we need a thorough understanding of Semantics problem of meaning); 2. A Christian View of History (A Christian Theology of History) which understands and answers all species of naturalistic, humanistic views of history, the articulation of a Christian-theistic view of a historical fact, historical causation, problem of verifying or falsifying any given assertion about historical reality; 3. Philosophy of science (concepts of cause, explanation, fact, etc.) Courses in these three areas should replace the traditional apologetic materials still being taught in our Bible Colleges. The traditional courses are powerless before the contemporary mind, and do not prepare the student to defend the faith against the barrage of attacks, verbal and inscribed, coming from the pens of the contemporary critics of biblical Christianity, and its claim to a special revelation.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
17. And A sublime taunt now upon the dark and puny enemies of advancing truth and righteousness. There will be, not a battle, but a feast for the birds of the air. The onward wheels of progress towards the millennium will crush all opponents on the track.
Angel standing in the sun A most splendid image. The sun is a large, luminous orb, in which the angel -form stands like a picture in a radiant circular frame. The sun is a favourite and goodly emblem. Its angel is on the side of the Prince of Light.
Cried to all the fowls As lord of the firmament the birds of the air are his subjects, and obey his call; especially a call so welcome as this.
Midst of heaven The mid-heaven, space between heaven and earth, for all the fowls that fly.
The supper The principal meal of the day; banquet.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
‘And I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice saying to all the birds that fly in mid-heaven, “Come and be gathered together to the great feast of God, that you might eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and of the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, and small and great”.’
Clearly the sight of this angel temporarily ‘blinded’ John for he was standing in the brightness of the sun. And the angel’s cry goes out to the birds of the air to witness the final judgment of God. A similar cry to this goes out in Eze 39:17-20, compare Eze 39:4. Ezekiel’s vivid picture of the last battle ends with the full restoration of Israel to God and is followed in the succeeding chapters by the description of the descent of the heavenly temple on an unknown high mountain in Israel. It expressed a truth which was beyond his understanding, that that restoration would take place in Heaven, from where the heavenly temple had come, and where the heavenly temple would be central. A future life in resurrection was still something only primitively grasped at that time. That is why the prophets mainly expressed their hopes of God’s triumph in earthly terms.
This cry to the vultures and scavenger birds is a vivid way of describing the awfulness of the judgment and its universal application. It is not to be applied literally. What the angel is really doing is declaring the certainty of total defeat for the forces of evil. (There may be a last battle, but if so it will be between earthly forces as they face the final judgments of God. God does not need to fight with men).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
The destruction of the anti-Christian forces:
v. 17. And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God,
v. 18. that ye may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of captains and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.
v. 19. And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together to make war against Him that sat on the horse, and against His army.
v. 20. And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought miracles before him, with which he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast, and them that worshiped his image. These both were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone.
v. 21. And the remnant were slain with the sword of Him that sat upon the horse, which sword proceeded out of His mouth; and all the fowls were filled with their flesh. This scene is introduced with a terrible and terrifying announcement: And I saw a single angel standing in the sun, and he called with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in mid-heaven, Come, gather yourselves to the great feast of God, that ye may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of generals and the flesh of mighty ones and the flesh of horses, and of those that sit upon them, and the flesh of all free as well as of slaves, both small and great. This is a ghastly announcement, all the more so because of its finality. In a most commanding and conspicuous position the angel with this command is placed, in order that all hearers should realize and appreciate its importance. This surely is a contrast to the joyful marriage-feast of the Lamb; for not only will the corpses of the enemies of the Lord lie unburied, in itself one of the worst misfortunes which men knew of, but their bodies should become the prey, the food, of the birds, mainly the vultures that fly in the sky above the heads of men. The destruction of Anti-Christ and of his host is thus assured from the beginning; they will be given to the evil spirits, to the devil and his angels, to be destroyed and tormented forever.
This announcement served as a sign to the forces of evil to assemble for a last great and desperate, but futile effort to storm heaven: And I saw the beast and the kings of the earth and their hordes gathered to wage war against Him that sits upon the horse and against His army. And the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet that performed the miracles before him, by which he deceived those that had accepted the mark of the beast and those that worshiped his image; while still alive, these two were thrown into the lake of fire that burns with sulfur. This is the final overthrow of the beast, the kingdom of Anti-Christ, of his false prophet, the Popes, and of all those hat had become the servants of the beast by receiving his mark on their forehead or in their hand, that had worshiped his image by bailing the hierarchical system of the Church of Rome as an organization from God. And the leaders of the anti-Christian kingdom, the seducers of the world, the avowed and implacable enemies of the Lord and of His Gospel, were punished with eternal damnation in the lake burning with fire and brimstone. Hell itself will devour them, and they will receive the punishment which their works merited. Their lot is shared by their followers: And the rest were killed by the sword of Him that sits upon the horse, that proceeds out of His mouth, and all the birds were glutted with their flesh. A gruesome picture, well calculated to call men to repentance. For the sword of the Lord is the word: “Depart from Me, ye cursed, into everlasting fire,” Mat 25:41. As the vultures make a meal of the carcasses to which their attention is directed, so will Satan and his angels forever feed on the souls and bodies of those that dared to oppose the almighty Lord and to take the parts of Anti-Christ. That is the end of the Church of Rome, of the kingdom of Anti-Christ.
Summary
The triumph of the exalted Christ and of the elect in heaven is shown in a series of pictures giving the hymn of victory, showing the army of the Lord arrayed against the hordes of Anti-Christ, and the complete overthrow and final punishment of the Lord’s enemies.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
Rev 19:17-18 . An angel standing in the sun summons all fowls to eat the bodies of kings, and of all the inhabitants of the earth, who are to be slain by the Lord. [4123] . Cf. Rev 8:13 , Rev 18:21 .
, “in the sun,” because from this standpoint, and at the same time with the glory suitable to an angel, he can best call to the fowls flying . [4124]
, . . . Cf. Eze 39:17 sqq. The punishment is, as it corresponds to the idea of the final judgment, one that is absolutely relentless; since on the slaying, the consumption of the corpses by all the fowls under the heaven follows.
, . . . The exhaustive specification [4125] expressly declares, what is self-evident also from the connection, that the slain (Rev 19:21 ) are the entire mass of inhabitants of the earth. [4126]
[4123] Cf. Rev 19:21 .
[4124] Ew. i., De Wette, Hengstenb., Ebrard, Volkm. Incorrectly, Ew. ii., p. 334: “ by the sun.”
[4125] Cf. Rev 6:15 .
[4126] Cf. Rev 13:4 ; Rev 13:8 ; Rev 13:14 ; Rev 13:16 .
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
B.Earth-Picture of the Victory over the Beast. The Parousia of Christ for Judgment
Rev 19:17 to Rev 20:5
a. The Judgment upon the Beast
17And I saw an [one][30] angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud [great] voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven [mid-heaven], Come and gather yourselves [om. and gather yourselvesins., be gathered][31] together unto the [ins. great]32 supper of the great [om. the great] God; 18That ye may eat the [om. the]33 flesh of kings, and the [om. the]4 flesh of captains [ins. of thousands], and the [om. the]4 flesh of mighty [strong] men, and the [om. the]4 flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the [om. the]4 flesh of all men [om. men], both19 [om. both] free and [as well as]34 bond, both [and] small and great. And I saw the beast [wild-beast], and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make [ins. the]35 war against [with] him that sat [the one sitting] on the horse, and against [with] his army. 20And the beast [wild-beast] was taken, and with him36 the false prophet that wrought miracles [the signs] before him [in his presence], with which he deceived [seduced or misled ()] them that had [om. had] received the mark of the beast [wild-beast], and them that worshipped his image. [:] These both [the two] were cast alive into a [the] lake of [ins. the] fire burning [that burneth] with brimstone. 21And the remnant were slain with the sword of him that sat [the one sitting] upon the horse, which sword proceeded [goeth forth] out of his mouth: and all the fowls [birds] were filled [satiated] with their flesh.
b. The Millennial Kingdom [Rev 20:1-5)
1And I saw an angel come down from [descending out ofins. the] heaven, having the key of the bottomless [om. bottomless] pit [abyss] and a great chain in [upon] his hand. 2And he laid hold on the dragon, that [or the] old [ancient] serpent,37 which [that] is the Devil [or Slanderer], and Satan [or the Adversary]38, and bound him a thousand years, 3and cast him into the bottomless [om. bottomless] pit [abyss], and shut him up, and set a seal upon [om. him up, and set a seal uponins. and sealed over]39 him, that he should [might] deceive [seduce or mislead ()]40 the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled [finished]: and [om. and]41 after that [these] he must be loosed a little season [time]. 4And I saw thrones, and they sat [ins. down]42 upon them, and judgment was given unto them: and I saw the souls of them that were [had been] beheaded for [on account of] the witness of Jesus, and for [on account of] the word of God, and which [who] had not [om. had not] worshipped [ins. not] the beast [wild-beast], neither [nor yet]43 his image, neither had [om. neither hadins. and] received [ins. not] his [om. hisins. the] mark upon their [the]44 foreheads, or in [om., or inins. and upon] their hands [hand]; and they lived and reigned with Christ a455 thousand years. But [om. But]46 The rest of the dead lived not again [om. again][47] until [till] the thousand years were [should be] finished. This is the first resurrection.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
SYNOPTICAL VIEW
a. The Judgment
The judgment upon the Beast is accomplished, not in a manner purely of this world and in a form purely historical, like the judgment upon the Harlot, but in a more spiritual form, which is based upon the appearance of Christ from the other world, and which introduces the cosmical transition-form between time and eternity, the Millennial Kingdom.
The first point for consideration is that cosmical change itself, which proceeds from the sun and summons all the birds under the Heaven, all the forces of earthly metamorphosis, to consume all the dead flesh, the exanimate materials which shall be the issue of the great defeat of the Antichristian worldto consume them, in order to convert them into new life.
The second point is ethically mysterious. A decisive act of judgment takes the place of the battle contemplated by the Beast and the Kings. The two leaders and misleaders of the infatuated Antichristian host, the Beast and the False Prophet, are seized. That which seizes them seems to be a judgment of madness, for they are cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. For them, hell begins in this life; the fire of the fuel in which they have wrapped themselves, surrounds them on all sidesa flame of infinitely wild, fanatical agitation, doomed, in consequence of its absolute worthlessness, to form the pool of a mortal and dead stagnationthe unprogressive and eternally monotonous movement in a circle, or the fiery whirlpool of phrases and curses. In the case of the False Prophet, his guilt is once more noted, in explanation of his judgment; the most bitter reminiscences cling to the perfidy of his apostasy.
The third point is the judgment upon the followers of the Beast. They are not immediately cast into the fiery lake, but are for the time only killed. They are killed by the sword issuing from the mouth of Christ. They are morally judged and annihilated. What remains of them is a world of shadows, a sort of realm of the dead on the surface of this earth itself. All the birds become satiated with their flesh; i. e., all their sensuous and earthly possessions have lost their value and are decayed like the flesh strewed over a field of dead bodies. All the birds are satiated with their flesh; i. e., all the forces of metamorphosis are laboring for their transformation into a new shape. The fullness and manifoldness of the flesh to be devoured by the birds is vividly described in Rev 19:18. A complete end is to be made of all this.
Though it might with reason be said that because the sun is the symbol of the revelation of salvation, the Angel of judgment, standing in the sun as the angel of the whole salvatory development of revelation, indicates the hour when the work of the revelation of salvation is entirely completed, when the world clock of the history of salvation in this world has run downwe must not overlook the fact that this moment must coincide with the perfect ripeness of our cosmical system, and that, consequently, a catastrophe must start from the centre of our cosmical system, as well as from the focus of our religious moral system. The harvest of the earth and the harvest of the Kingdom of God coincide, in accordance with the parallelism between spirit and nature, as is declared in the Eschatological Discourse of our Lord (Mat 24:29), although the Day of the Harvest, the Last Day, stretches out into an on of a thousand years in a symbolical sense.
The birds of the heaven have, in typical preludes, often been invited to similar feasts upon the slaughter fields of history (Deu 28:26; Jer 7:33; Jer 16:4; Eze 39:17). In this fact there is not only an expression of irony concerning the vanity of earths glory, but also an expression of the triumph of life over death. The Kingdom of God is acquainted with a transformation of matter; it is, however, of another and higher sort than that of which modern materialists talk; it does not lie under the curse of an eternal rotation, but is, on the contrary, under the law of the highest life, which changes this lower world of becoming into the eternal world of the City of God.
b. The Millennial Kingdom
The prophecy of the thousand years of Christs reign on earth is, in and for itself, a true pearl of Christian truth and knowledge, because it throws light upon an entire series of difficult Christian conceptions.
In the first place, it mediates an understanding of the Last Day, in that it shows how the latter expands into a Divine Day of a thousand years, in a symbolical sense, i.e., a specific on; and thus it also casts light backwards upon the import of the days of creation.
Secondly, it mediates the understanding of a catastrophe which is to divide between this life and the life to come, time and eternity, the world of becoming and the world of consummation, in that it shows how the great and mighty contrast is harmonized by an onic transition-period, in perfect accordance with the laws of life and vital development, as was clearly explained by Irenus (see Dorner, Geschichte der Christologie, p. 243).
Especially does it mediate the fact of the resurrection, in that it represents a first resurrection as preceding the general resurrection, in harmony with the Apostle Paul (1Co 15:23). Thus the resurrection is characterized as an affair of growth or progress, conditioned upon spiritual circumstances. In accordance with this, we apprehend the fact that even in this life the believer advances towards the resurrection (Php 3:11); that a resurrection-germ gradually develops within him (Romans 8.); that the beginnings of the resurrection commence with his removal into the other world (2 Corinthians 6.); that believers, in their ripening towards the resurrection, are, as blossoms of the general resurrection, a whole on in advance of the rest of mankinda fact which is also indicative of a higher form of resurrection; and that Christ must needs have been the firstling and the principle of the whole resurrection (Eph 1:20).
Thus also the great antithesis is explained which must necessarily exist between the original transruption (Durchburch) of sin or the curse in humanity and the final transruption (Durchburch) of salvation and blessing. As, in the primitive age, pneumatic corruption was for a long time hindered in its outbreak by the resistance of healthy vital substance in the psychical, somatic and cosmical sphere, so in the New Testament time, pneumatic salvation in humanity has had to struggle long with the resistance of evil in the psychical, somatic and cosmical sphere. With the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom, however, begins the transruption of the blessing, in opposition to the old transruption of the curse.
Whilst, on the one hand, the communication of believing humanity with Heaven and its pure spirit-world is spiritually consummated by the Parousia of Christ, and destined to be also physically consummated, the communication between the spiritual sphere of earth and the Satanic sphere of the abyss, on the other hand, is discontinued:in the first place, because the organic mediators of Satanic operations, the Beast and the False Prophet, as also Great Babylon, are judged and destroyed. Though at the close of the great transition-on Satan again obtains a foot-hold on the earth, it is the last convulsive struggle of the serpent-nature manifesting itself in a brutal mutiny, which, for the very reason that it is veiled under no spiritual pretexts, like former Satanic efforts, but is the issue of consummate boldness and insolence, is blasted, not by Christological weapons, but by the fire of the Almighty from Heaven.
But of this great effulgent picture of the Millennial Kingdom, the lack of patience and hope in the Christian sphere (Rom 8:24-25) has made the most manifold caricatures.
We distinguish the caricatures of real so-called Chiliasm; the caricatures of the spiritualistic denial of Chiliasm, even to the misapprehension of its primal typeaccording to this class, the Apocalypse itself is chiliastic, and the same character is finally attributed to the concrete Christian hope; finally, the caricatures of the Millennial Kingdom which were produced by placing it in the past or the present (see the Introduction).
True Chiliasm existed, so far as its element was concerned, long before the doctrinal forth-setting of the , whence it takes its name. It is based upon the great family failing of all Judaizing Christianity; to such Christianity, the cross of Christ is still, more or less, an offence; to such Christianity, the redemption accomplished in the first Parousia of Christ is unsatisfying, and the centre of gravity of the redemption is consequently regarded as situate in the second Parousia, when Christ shall appear in His glory, and shall also promote His people to the state of glory. This Judaizing Christianity has no understanding of the principial completion of redemption in its depth and inwardness; hence, only in the final, peripheral redemption does it behold the true redemption. According as its ideals of glory are nobler or more base, its eschatological hopes assume a purer or an impurer form, so that a perfect scale of Chiliasms is formed, stretching from an anticipation of the sensuous glorification of Israel to the most carnal orgies in pre-celebration of the return of Christ. This is material Chiliasm proper. It has been rejuvenated in three Anglo-American sects of our own time. The element of truth which is perverted into falsehood and extravagance in it, is the Christian and Biblical expectation of the real, and in a religious sense ever near, coming of Christ.[48]
But material Chiliasm early sought and found a formal supplement, in that it boldly converted the words of the Apostle Peter (2Pe 3:8)words which, spoken with reference to Psa 110:4, were designed as a counteraction against chiliastic impatienceinto a chronological article of doctrine, in which it believed that it had discovered the key to the computation of the time of Christs coming. A Judaizing presupposition was here involvedviz., that Gods historical work of salvation would arrive at completion in a Divine week, reflected in the human week. To this was added later the further assumption, that at the first coming of Christ the world had been in existence for about four thousand years. Upon these bases men reckoned, and determined the time of the second Advent. Here another arbitrary assumption arose, converting the Millennial Kingdom into the real Sabbath of God, though the latter is to last forever, whilst the Apocalyptic on appears as a mere transition-period. In many respects, this formal Chiliasm, whence the system has its name, was subservient to material Chiliasm; in many other respects, however, especially in more modern Theology, formal Chiliasm, as a theological subtilty, detached itself entirely from material tendencies, although it continued to be afflicted with the material infirmity of a somewhat superficial and extravagant conception of the history of salvation.
In face of all these Judaizing conceptions, the spiritualistico-ethnical conception has always considered itself bound, not only to combat true, sensuous Chiliasm, but also to controvert, or at least cast a shade upon, its assumptionsthe expectation of the real coming of Christ, for instance; and it has especially felt itself obliged to cast the reproach of Chiliasm upon the putative originator of the same, the Apocalypse. And this, particularly, on account of the thousand years, the . The Tales of a Thousand and One Nights might, with about equal justice, be denominated a chiliastic composition.
A turbid mixture of both one-sided views is formed by the placing of the Millennial Kingdom in the course of Church History. In reference to this mixed form, we can distinguish two species. Medival Catholicism beheld in the Romish Church the actualized Kingdom of God itself, especially in respect of the papal system. The Old Lutheran orthodox dating back of the Millennial Kingdom into the Middle Agesa view recently revived by Hengstenbergwas a fruit of the stunting of Eschatology in the era of the Reformation, especially in adherence to utterances of Luthers. We here refer partly to the history of the interpretation of the Apocalypse, as already presented by us, partly to the following exegesis in detail.
The singular opinion of Stier and others, that there is to be a double Parousia, one at the beginning and the other at the end of the Millennial Kingdom, seems desirous of conjoining so-called Chiliasm with the older orthodoxy.[49]
With the judgment upon the spiritual motive powers of the Beast, with the destruction of his powerful lies, Satan has lost his foot-hold within the infatuated human racehis right of naturalization, we might say, in this earthly sphere. He is therefore cast into the abyss. An Angel descends from Heaven to execute Gods sentence upon him. The office of this Angel reminds us of the offices of Michael; his name, however, is not mentioned. He has the key to the abyssnot simply to the pit of the abyss; this key he has in order that he may shut the abyss, i. e. entirely shut off Satanic influences from men for the time of the thousand years. This power, however, is connected with the moral fact that all the spiritual pretences contained in the Satanic illusive promise, eritis sicut deus, are destroyed by the beauteous reality of the great appearance of the Kingdom. All that Satan falsely promised concerning the path of impatience and guilt, is here attained in the path of pious patience: fullness of blessing, happiness, glory of life of every sort. Thus Satan has come to the end of his Latin, and needs, agreeably to the serpents tenacity of life, a thousand years to contrive the last desperate stroke of senseless heaven-storminga procedure which is reported to have been the first act of the revolted Titans of Grecian story.[50] And for this last rebellion a further existence is granted him, for the judgment upon him must be complete. His existence during the thousand years, however, consists in a sojourn in the abyss, betwixt death and damnation (the Realm of the Dead [Hades] and Gehenna), fastened to the chain which the Angel brings with him from Heaven. He has now made an open show of his entire nature, and is therefore called by his various forms and titles, except that the appellation of Accuser is no longer given to himalthough even this name is contained in the . The condemnatory sentence is executed in four acts which follow each other in rapid succession. He is seized, cast chained (not chained to any object external to himself, but hand to hand, 2Pe 2:4) into the abyss, shut in, and sealed. The seal is the symbolic expression for the appointed Divine doom upon him, and is more powerful in its effect than the seal with which the grave of Jesus was sealed. The purpose of all this is that he may not prematurely seduce the heathen, the remnants of heathenism which still constitute the old border of the new world that is in process of becoming.
This, then, is the negative side of the Millennial Kingdom. The positive side appears in three features: [1] The first resurrection, [2] the first judgment of restitution, [3] the first period of imperishable triumphal rest and rejoicing and unfading glory in the fellowship of Christ. The first resurrection is represented as a special reward of the faithfulness of Christs martyrsabove all, the martyrs of the last time, who have not worshipped the Beast; hence these latter constitute a particular class by the side of those slain at an earlier period. They stand in the fore-ground, as representatives of the Victorious Church (see 1Co 15:23); but we must recollect that this Church is itself of greater extent than here appears. For Christ has come with the hosts of Heaven, according to Rev 19:14; according to the Epistle of Jude (Rev 19:14), He is to come with His myriads of saints. With the sphere of this resurrection, the full liberation of the life-power on the sanctified earth is expressed (see Isa 65:13 sqq.). The second sphere is the sphere of the preliminary judgment. For the Seer, this occupies the foreground, since Christian longing cries for the removal of all the shame and wrong which, in this world, weigh upon the name of Christ and Christians; hence the Seer first sees the thrones of judgment set. If we consider that the judgment upon the Antichristian host has already been held, and that the last judgment upon the last revolt, which is as yet but germinating deep in the darkness, cannot be anticipated, there results, as a middle domain of judgment, an instruction (Pdagogik) and discipline exercised by Heaven upon the human race, as extant at the Parousia, and thus sharing in the cosmical metamorphosis. It is that process of elimination and sanctification which must take place before the perfect appearing of the City of God on this earth; it is a judgment of peace, in accordance with Psalms 72 and Mat 19:28. The third sphere is the living and reigning with Christ in the glory of a spiritual life which dominates and clarifies all creaturely essencethe organization of earth for its union with Heaven. There is no trace here of an external restoration of Israel in the sense of a privileged people of God, or of a restoration of the Old Testament cultus in an inconceivable New Testament sublimation; unless we should apply the subsequent words, they shall be priests of God and of Christ, and the words the beloved City, to the support of such a theoryin which case the symbolism of the expression must necessarily be di-carded. We cannot suppose that there is to be a two-fold heavenly Jerusalem; and the one true Jerusalem is still in Heaven, whence, according to Rev 21:2, it does not descend to earth until the end of the thousand years.
[THEORIES CONCERNING THE MILLENNIUM51]
By the American Editor
[The word Millennium means, etymologically, a thousand years, and may with propriety be used in reference to any period of that length. By common consent, however, the specific term The Millennium is employed to denote the period mentioned in Rev 20:4-7. The theories on this subject that have been held in the Church are divisible into two classesthe Preterist and the Futuristthe former of which set forth that the origin of the Millennial period was in the past; the latter, that it is in the future. Each of these classes consists of two or three generic theories, the respective upholders of which differ amongst themselves on many specific points. It is proper to remark that in the following statement the writer has been greatly indebted to the work of Elliott.
a. Preterist Theories
I. The Augustinian. This theory is so styled as it was first propounded by the great Augustine in his Civitate Dei, Rev 20:7-9. It has been upheld in all ages of the Church since its first promulgation, and in modern times by Wordsworth. Its main elements are1. The period began at the first Advent, when Satan was bound and cast out of the hearts of true Christians and their reign over him (regnum militi) began: 2. The Beast symbolizes the wicked world, and its image a hypocritical profession: 3. The first resurrection is that of dead souls to spiritual life,[52] a resurrection continued in every true conversion throughout the period: 4. The thousand years is a symbolical expression of completeness appropriately indicating the entire period of the Messiahs reign:[53] 5. This period to be followed by a new persecution of the Saints under Antichrist; the destruction of whose hosts by fire from heaven would be followed by the universal resurrection of the good and bad, and the general judgment; after which will begin, in heaven, the glorious period of the New Jerusalem.
II. The Grotian. This theory was first propounded by Genebrard in the 16th Century; it found its chief advocates, however, in Grotius and Hammond.[54] It differs principally from the preceding in that it makes the reign of Saints to be, not that of the individual Christian in the domain of his own heart, but that of the Church in the world. The elements of this theory are1. By the Beast is denoted Pagan Rome, whose destruction under Constantine was predicted in Rev 21:2. The power of Satan was then broken, as was manifested in the establishment of the Christian religion as the religion of the State: 3. The Millennial period began in that establishment, it was continued through a thousand years to the 14th Century, and closed with the attack on Christendom by the Ottoman Turks: 4. Gog and Magog denote the Mohammedan power, at the close of whose gradual destruction is to take placethe universal resurrection, the general judgment, and the eternal blessedness of the Saints in heaven.[55]
III. The Gippsian. This view, suggested by Mr. Gipps in 1831, makes the beginning of the period synchronous with the rise of Papal Antichrist. It represents (according to Elliott) those who lived and reigned with Christ to be men endowed with the spirit of the early Antipagan martyrs, now revived, as it were, to testify for Christ: after which, at the end of the Beasts and witnesses concurrent (!) Millennial reign, the second and glorious resurrection of the rest of the dead is to be fulfilled in the Jews conversion and restoration.
b. Futurist Theories
IV. The Pre-Millennial. This theory, as to its general features, is the most ancient. It was held by the primitive Fathers, and has been taught with various specific modifications in all ages of the Church. Amongst its most prominent English speaking advocates, in modern times, are Mede, Caryll, Gill, Noell, Elliott, the Bickersteths, the Bonars, Alford, Lord, etc. The elements are that1. The Millennium is to begin in a glorious personal advent of Christ, immediately after the destruction of Antichrist: 2. The binding of Satan is to be an absolute restriction of the powers of hell from tempting, deceiving, or injuring mankind: 3. The duration is to be one thousand years (literal or symbolical): 4. The resurrection is to be a literal resurrection of Saints of the preceding on (either the martyrs, or the specially faithful, or the entire body): 5. The entire government of the earth is to be exercised by Christ and His risen and transformed Saints, the latter being (Mar 12:25): 6. Under this government, all false religion having been put down, the Jews and all nations having been converted to Christ, Jerusalem being made the universal capital, righteousness, peace and external prosperity shall prevail throughout the earth: 7. At the close of this period, Satan having been loosed, there shall be a great apostasy, followed by (1) the destruction of the apostates, (2) the universal resurrection of the remaining dead of all dispensations, (3) the general judgment, (4) the consummation.
The principal variation amongst those who hold this theory are as to1. The continuance of Christ on earth;some holding that it is to be only for the establishment of the Kingdom; others that it is to continue more or less uninterruptedly throughout the whole period: 2. The duration, some holding that the thousand years are literal; others that they are symbolic: 3. The subjects of the resurrection;some holding that they are all the saints; others that they are only the martyrs; others still, that they are the specially faithful, including the martyrs: 4. The relation of the Jews to the other nations;some contending that they are to occupy a position of superiority; others denying or modifying this opinion.
V. The Post-Millennial. This theory, which is the one most generally adopted by English speaking Protestant Theologians, was first fully developed by Whitby.[56] Faber, Brown and Barnes have been amongst the most prominent of its advocates. The scheme as set forth by Whitby is as follows:
I. I believe that, after the fall of Antichrist, there shall be such a glorious state of the Church, by the conversion of the Jews to the Christian faith, as shall be to it life from the dead; that it shall then flourish in peace and plenty, in righteousness and holiness, and in a pious offspring; that then shall begin a glorious and undisturbed reign of Christ over both Jew and Gentile, to continue a thousand years during the time of Satans binding; and that, as John the Baptist was Elias, because he came in the spirit and power of Elias,so shall this be the church of martyrs, and of those who had not received the mark of the Beast, because of their entire freedom from all doctrines and practices of the Antichristian Church, and because the spirit and purity of the times of the primitive martyrs shall return. And therefore
1. I agree with the patrons of the Millennium in this, that I believe Satan bath not yet been bound a thousand years, nor will he be so bound till the time of the calling of the Jews, and the time of St. Johns Millennium.
2. I agree with them in this, that the true Millennium will not begin till the fall of Antichrist; nor will the Jews be converted till that time, the idolatry of the Roman Church being one great obstacle of their conversion.
3. I agree both with the modern and ancient Millenaries, that then shall be great peace and plenty, and great measures of knowledge and of righteousness in the whole Church of God.
I therefore only differ from the ancient Millenaries in three things:
1. In denying Christs personal reign upon earth during this thousand years; and in this both Dr. Burnet and Mr. Mede expressly have renounced their doctrine. [57]
2. Though I dare not absolutely deny what they all positively affirm, that the City of Jerusalem shall be then rebuilt, and the converted Jews shall return to it, because this probably may be collected from those words of Christ, Jerusalem shall be trodden down till the time of the Gentiles is come in, Luk 21:24, and all the prophets seem to declare the Jews shall then return to their own land, Jer 31:38-40; yet do I confidently deny what Barnabas and others of them do contend for, viz.: that the temple of Jerusalem shall be then built again; for this is contrary not only to the plain declaration of St. John, who saith, I saw no temple in this new Jerusalem, Rev 21:22, whence I infer there is to be no temple in any part of it; but to the whole design of the Epistle to the Hebrews, which is to show the dissolution of the temple-service, for the weakness and unprofitableness of it; that the Jewish tabernacle was only a figure of the true and the more perfect tabernacle which the Lord pitched, and not man; the Jewish sanctuary only a worldly sanctuary, a pattern, and a figure of the heavenly one into which Christ our High Priest is entered, Heb 8:2; Heb 9:2; Heb 9:11; Heb 9:23-24. Now, such a temple, such a sanctuary, and such service, cannot be suitable to the most glorious and splendid times of the Christian Church; and therefore the Apostle saith, The Lord God omnipotent, and the Lamb, shall be their Temple.
3. I differ both from the ancient and the modern Millenaries, as far as they assert that this shall be a reign of such Christians as have suffered under the heathen persecutors, or by the rage of Antichrist; making it only a reign of the converted Jews, and of the Gentiles then flowing in to them, and uniting into one Church with them.
With the above presentation, post-millenarians, in the main, agree. The chief point of difference is as to the return of the Jews to their own landsome holding, with Whitby, that it is to take place; others, denying it. There are also differences as to1. The nature of the Second Resurrection implied in Rev 20:5,some, with Vitringa, identifying it with the general resurrection of Rev 19:12-13; others, as Whitby, Faber and Brown, explaining it as the uprising of Antichristian principles in the confederacy of Gog and Magog: 2. The New Jerusalem,some, with Whitby, regarding it as relating to the Millennial condition of the Church; others, as Brown and Faber, understanding by it the post-millennial condition of blessedness and glory.E. R. C.]
EXPLANATIONS IN DETAIL
Rev 19:17. One angel standing in the sun.In the sun, because from this stand-point, fitted, as it also was, to the glory of the Angel, he can best call to the birds, flying (Ewald I., De Wette, Hengstenberg, Ebrard, Volkmar). Duesterdieck. If this were the motive for the position of the Angel, he might much better have taken his stand in the moon. His position in the sun has an import relative at once to the Kingdom of God and to the Cosmos. The sun, as revelation, is the principle of the spirit-realm of this present life; the sun, as a celestial body, is the domain of this present Cosmos (see Syn. View; comp. Rev 1:16; Mat 24:29). Come, be gathered together.See the citations above; comp. also Mat 24:28. According to Dsterdieck, the slain of Rev 19:21 are the whole mass of the inhabitants of the earth. But whence, then, would come the mutineers at the end of the thousand years? The Eastern kings should also be distinguished from the ten kings. Gog and Magog have not yet joined the conflict. The are, manifestly, the Antichristian host, from which the mass of earths inhabitants are still to be distinguished. Unto the great supper of God.Antithesis to the Marriage-Supper of the Lamb. At the former, all the flesh of the fleshly-minded becomes a prey to the birds; at the latter, believers, as heirs of God, become heirs of all things.
Rev 19:18. That ye may eat.The prospective complete destruction of the hostile host is set forth in detail.
Rev 19:19. And I saw the wild-beast.The war-making, on the part of the Beast, is entirely of this world; it is a march, a drawing up in order of battle, the combatants being provided, perhaps, with the most terrible material weapons. But, opposed to them, stands an army of God, partially and predominantly as a host of spirits. And yet more, the of Christ stands contrasted, in its perfect unity, with the internally confused and divided of the Beast. The attempt at an external conflict is immediately frustrated. The prophetic chiaroscuro resting upon this double array and battle cannot be brushed aside. It may only be gathered from the nature of the armies, that upon the side of Christ all the dynamic forces of spiritual humanity are concentrated, whilst upon the side of Antichrist demonic excitement may summon to its aid all the contrivances of craft and violence.
Rev 19:20. And the wild-beast was taken.In what way, is reserved for the future to make known. Since there is no mention made of any preceding battle, a spiritual process of dissolution is pre-supposed as taking place in the hostile armyespecially a separation between the ringleaders and the Antichristian host, mediated by Divine terrors. And with him the false prophet.In the crisis of the disunion between Babylon and the Beast, the False Prophet has espoused the side of the Beast; a view which is prepared by the general description in Revelation 8. It is a result of a failure to distinguish between the general judgment-picture of chap. 8. and the three subsequent pictures of judgment, when Ebrard seeks to distinguish between the pseudoprophet in the sixth world-kingdom and an analogous lying power in the eighth world-power (p. 507).
Cast alive into the lake of the fire.See Rev 20:10; Rev 20:14 and chap Rev 21:8. It is equally incorrect to apprehend Gehenna or the lake of fire as a mere internal condition of the damned, as to apprehend it purely as a cosmical region of punishment. A remark which is true concerning the Apocalyptic Heavenviz., that it has the import of a spiritual region as well as a corresponding cosmical regionapplies also, in antithesis to Heaven, in the first place to Hades, in the second place to the Abyss, and in the third place to Gehenna. Hengstenberg advances a marvellous view. The term alive, without bodily death (comp. Rev 19:21), confirms the idea that the Beast and the False Prophet are not human individuals, but purely ideal forms. A human individual cannot enter hell alive. Against which Ebrard: If the Beast and the lying Prophet be emblems of mere powers, we do not rightly know what the emblematic trait of being cast alive into the lake of fire can mean, etc. In Rev 20:12 (comp. Joh 5:29) the wicked are raised from their graves and re-united to their bodies expressly to the intent that they may be able to endure the flames of eternal torment (Rev 20:15) in their bodily natures as well as in their spirits. But, little congruity as there is between purely ideal forms and the lake of fire and brimstone, there is as little necessity to make the possession of a body a preliminary condition of Gehenna suffering. When the lake of fire is called the second death (Rev 20:14), this fearful conception stretches, on the one hand, beyond ideal forms, and on the other, beyond a corporeal suffering by fire. De Wette judiciously remarks, in respect of the distinctions between the punishment of the two Antichristian forms and the punishment of Satan: They are judged earlier than Satanwho, Rev 20:3, is bound but for a thousand yearsbecause their existence and activity have attained their end, whilst, on the other hand, Satan, by virtue of the course of development of things, still has a root in the world and must again make his appearance. De Wette has, moreover, not apprehended the term alive as corporeally as Hengstenberg most strangely takes it in express connection with ideal forms. That the Beast and the False Prophet may be apprehended as collective personalities, is not to be denied; but neither is it to be denied that they converge into symbolically significant units. In the statement that they were cast alive into the lake of fire, it is doubtless intimated that they could fall under the judgment of Gehenna whilst still on earth. Fire and brimstone, remarks Hengstenberg, as designations of hell torments, have already appeared in Rev 14:10-11. The lake of fire and brimstone is first mentioned here, and then again spoken of in Rev 20:10; Rev 20:14-15; Rev 21:8. As the fire and brimstone are suggestive of the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrha (comp. the remarks on Rev 14:10), the inference is obvious that the Dead Sea is referred to as the earthly reflection of hell. The term , he further observes, is found neither in the Apocalypse nor the Gospel of John, whilst the first three Gospels have it. Ebrard remarks, in opposition to this, that though the Dead Sea owed its origin to a rain of fire and brimstone, it does not burn with brimstone, but consists of brackish water. As it is as little possible to doubt the identity of the two terms, lake (or, to use a word which seems to us more applicable, pool) of fire and Gehenna, as it is to doubt the distinction between Gehenna and Sheol, our next task must be to inquire into the origin of the idea of Gehenna. See Comm. on Matthew, p. 114 [Am. Ed.]; Mark, p. 90 [Am. Ed.]. If the Dead Sea were the foundation of this figurative principle of doctrine, distinct traces of the fact would necessarily be found in the Old Testament. Besides the fire of Gehinnom, we have, Isa 30:33, a stream of brimstone, equally without reference to the Dead Sea. Comp. the article Tophet in the Lexicons; also in Winer; see also Psa 11:6. The marshes and sloughs by the side of the river of salvation (Eze 47:11) have also, doubtless, contributed to the completeness of the image. That the figure as a whole is an original idea of Johns, as a pool of fire, is evidenced by the opposite figure of the crystal sea. Moreover, the Dead Sea could not well have been employed as an image of hell, without giving rise to the idea that the people of Sodom fell under the judgment of damnation on the very occasion of their destructionan idea which the Spirit of Scripture has avoided presenting. Comp. Mat 11:23; 1Pe 3:19; see our Introduction, p. 34. [See the Excursus on Hades, p. 364 sqq.E. R. C.]
Rev 19:21. And the remnant.The Antichristian host itselfnot the whole remaining human race. They were slaini. e., according to Hengstenberg and Ebrard, they were not cast body and soul into the lake of fire, but they suffered only bodily death, whilst their souls went into Hades. They are sent into hell, observes Hengstenberg, only at the universal judgment (comp. Rev 20:12-15), that is, if they do not in the meantime, whilst they are in the intermediate state, attain unto salvation (1Pe 3:19-20) as those who have committed only the sin against the Son of Man, and not that against the Holy Ghost. It is questionable, however, whether the slaying of the whole Antichristian host should be apprehended literally or not. They are slain with the sword of the One sitting upon the horse.As this sword goeth forth out of His mouth, we should, apprehending the words literally, have to assume that they were all stricken down by the word of Christ, like Ananias and Sapphira (Acts 5). But if this were the case, it would be necessary that they should all have passed through the spiritual experiences of those two. This, however, is by no means supposable; on the contrary, great masses of them are seduced, infatuated, pitiable peopleportions of them having even been impressed into the service of the Beast and the False Prophet. We therefore assume that they are slain in that they are, in a social respect, rendered absolutely null by that new order of things in the Millennial Kingdom which is instituted by the word of Christ, and, furthermore, that all those properties of theirs that have become utterly valueless (their flesh) become subjects of a metamorphosis in order to their incorporation into the new order of things. According to Dsterdieck, the slaying by the sword of Christ is but significant of a perfectly toil-less conflict [on the part of Christ]. According to Ebrard, the sword slays them as the word of omnipotence.
De Wette remarks on the entire section: This grand picture of the downfall of Antichristianity has been much weakened by the historical exegetes. Grotius finds here depicted the abolishment of idolatry by the Christian emperors of Rome, and refers Rev 19:18 to the fall of Julian in the Persian war. The interpretation of Wetstein is the most petty and insignificant: Vespasianus cum familia in Domitiano extincta, uti prius familia Csarum. Ulrich refers this judgment to the unnatural death of persecutors of the Christians. Herder: The leaders of the insurrection, Simon, the son of Gorion, and John, met with the fate here depicted. For additional particulars see Dsterdieck, p. 545. From amongst other items we quote the following: Corn. -Lapide cites authors who relate concerning Luther that he killed himself, and that his funeral was attended not only by a multitude of ravens, but also by devils that came from Holland.
Rev 20:1-5
The Millennial Kingdom
This section is by Dsterdieck assigned to the third judgment. Manifestly, however, the Millennial Kingdom is the result of the second judgment. Apart from this, Dsterdieck has a remark which is well worthy of noticeviz.: that the order of succession of the individual acts of judgment is the reverse of that in which the Antichristian forms appear. Sequence of the manifestations of Antichristianity: Satan, the Beast with the False Prophet, the Woman. Sequence of the judgments: The Woman, the Beast with the False Prophet, Satan himself. This antithetic parallelism must not, however, be reckoned amongst the organic relations of the Apocalypse, unless we behold the revelation of evil in the corruption of the Woman sketched in the features of the False Prophet; a view which does, indeed, pass muster, insomuch as the False Prophet in the form of a lamb seems to represent the Woman herself.
Rev 20:1. I saw an angel descending out of, etc.Opposed to the spirit-form of Satan there must be a spirit-form from Heaven, just as Christ, the God-man, stood opposed to Antichrist, the Beast. This spirit-form of the Angel has been most diversely interpreted (as Christ; the Holy Ghost; the Apostolate; Constantine the Great; Calixtus II.; Innocent III.; see De Wette, p. 183). As the fallen angel or star of remorse ([Verzweiflungsbusse] chap. 9) opens the pit of the abyss, so it is the Angel of consummate evangelic peace, the Angel of the developed bliss of justification, of blessedness in the Parousia of Christ, who, descending from Heaven, can cast Satan into the abyss, because he has destroyed all his points of appliance in humanity, with the exception of the one consisting of the suppressed rancor of mob-nature, which finally breaks out in Gog and Magog. We have here, therefore, an angelic form representative of the polemical victorious operation of the peace of Christa Michaelic form. This is evident from the further fact that he has the key of the abyss.In accordance with Rev 1:18, Christ has the key of death and the realm of the dead [Hades]. We have already seen that the abyss forms the deepest border-region of the realm of the dead; it is contiguous to Gehenna, which latter is not ready for the reception of its guests until the time of the universal judgment. Consequently, Christ possesses the key to the abyss likewise, and hence it is evident that the Angel is significant of a fundamental form of the operation of Christ. And a great chain.The concrete means of fettering Satanand that, completely, and for a very long time. This is the power of the Spirit of grace and truth, making the genius of malice and falsehood powerless to injure for a whole on. The key to the pit of the abyss (Rev 9:1) must not be confounded with the key to the abyss simply. Nothing is more erroneous than, with Ewald, to identify the fallen star (Rev 9:1 sqq.) with this Angel. We translate in his hand, instead of on his hand (), for it is not good German to say, a chain on his hand.[1] As a matter of course, the chain is not all contained within the closed hand.
Rev 20:2. And he laid hold on the dragon.Great and irresistible turn of sentiments in the spirit-world, concretely expressedthe more so since the consummate spiritual operations likewise become real dynamic operations. That [or the] ancient serpent.See Syn. View. Comp. Rev 12:9. And bound him a thousand years.The thousand years are a symbolic number, denoting the on of transition. The millennial binding of Satan is the preliminary condition of the Millennial Kingdom. Those who deny the demonic origin of sin, deriving sin exclusively from the sensual or material nature of man, here meet with a mighty contradiction to their theory. But, on the other hand, those who refer all evil to Satan cannot explain the loosing of the latter.
Rev 20:3. And cast him into the abyss.Rev 9:1; Rev 11:7; Rev 17:8. A more general idea, is presented in 2Pe 2:4, where it is declared that the fallen angels have been cast down to Tartarus, in chains of darkness, held fast or preserved unto judgment. For, first, Tartarus is a more general term for the whole sub-terrestrial region; secondly, the term is indicative of a hurling away with a constant tendency toward Tartarus; thirdly, the bonds of darkness are those self-perplexings, self-enchainings of evil which impel toward Tartarus; fourthly, the judgment is in prospective here only as a certain future. The various statements concerning the abode of the Devil and bad spirits may readily, if pressed as to the letter of the Scripture, be involved in contradictions, as has been evidenced by Strauss, for instance (see the authors Positive Dogmatik, p. 572). But as we must needs distinguish between the dwelling-places and spheres of operation of spirits, so likewise is it necessary to distinguish between the different stages of their history. The abyss may indeed be regarded as the proper dwelling-place of Satan and the fallen angels, inasmuch as it, as the specific region of God-estranged rancor and grief, or despair, denotes the transition from the realm of the dead to hell, or from the sadness of death to damnation. The realm of the dead is only more tormented through the operations of demons than the human world (brooks [E. V.: floods] of Belial [Psa 18:4]); but hell is prepared for the Devil and his angels as the region of final punitive suffering (Mat 25:41). But as Satan is not at home with himself, neither does he stay at home (Judges 6); by nature he is excursive and rambling (Job 2:2), given to appearing and disappearing, fond of roving about (hence Azazel)i. e., modes of existence and spheres of operation are to be distinguished especially here. In this relation, Scripture distinguishes Heaven as the pure domain of spirits (Job 1, 2; Revelation 7; Luk 10:18); earth, especially the atmospheric sphere, as the sphere of sympathetic and antipathetic worldmoods,and in reference to this sphere of operation, it distinguishes the forms of the serpent, or hypocritical craft (Matthew 4; 2Co 11:14), and the roaring lion of terroristic might (1Pe 5:8; Revelation 8). The import of the judgment upon Antichrist is that Satan is cast entirely out of the sphere of earth for a thousand years, and shut up in his true home, the abyss.
Shut and sealed over him.Expressive of the inviolable Divine determination, manifest in the equally unshakable Divine operation. Likewise an antitype of the impotent sealing of Christs grave on the part of hell and the world.After these he must be loosed.This also is a Divine decreea decree, however, conditioned by the ethical design of causing the remnants of evil, of heathenism, in the sphere of Christs Kingdom, to appear, and thereby destroying them.A little time.Little from the stand-point of triumphant faith. See Rev 17:10.
Rev 20:4-5. Fundamental Traits of the Millennial Kingdom.
And I saw thrones.According to Dsterdieck, the do not come under consideration as kings thrones (Eichhorn, Zllig), but only as judges seats (Heinrich, Ewald, De Wette, Hengstenberg, etc.), as is shown (he declares) by the prefigurement of Dan 7:9,[2] 22, and the , expressly mentioned in our passage also. But what then is the force of the words: They shall be priests of God and of Christ, and shall reign with Him [Rev 20:6]? Christ Himself also is amongst the sitters on the thrones as their centre. Moreover, the can be understood only in the Old Testament sense, as significant of a princely judicial rule, since the special judgment upon the Antichristian world has been previously executed. It is highly characteristic that the thrones constitute the foreground of the picture. They are significant of the beginning of the Church Triumphant in this worldthe visible appearance of the Kingdom of God. Distinct as is the presentment of the thrones themselves, of their occupants it is indefinitely said: and they sat down [seated themselves] upon them. Who are meant by they? According to Beza, Eichhorn, Ebrard, et al., the martyrs mentioned further on; this view is opposed by De Wette and Dsterdieck. The context also is against it. First, John saw the thrones and those who seated themselves upon them, and then the beheaded ones who revived and reigned with Christ. We must not forget, however, that Christ has not come alone from Heaven, but that He was accompanied by a chosen army (Rev 19:14). Without doubt, the occupants of the thrones are those who form the peculiar escort of the Lamb (Rev 14:4); who even in this world, as sealed ones, constituted the kernel of the Church of God (Revelation 7), the proper centre of which is formed by Gods men of revelation [i. e. Gods revealers], particularly the Apostles (ch Rev 21:14). In considering their position toward Christ, however, something more than mere martyr faithfulness or even mere historic dignity as Prophets or Apostles comes in viewnamely, the endowment and destination of the Father, the special electness lying at the base of the special glory. These mysterious co-regents of Christ (comp. also Mat 5:9) have been very variously interpreted (God and Christ; the Angels; the Apostles; the Martyrs; the saints, Dan 7:22; the twenty-four Elders [De Wette and Dsterdieck]; Hengstenberg, the twelve Apostles and the twelve Patriarchs). Here, however, we have no longer to do with forms that are partially typical [the Elders]; we will simply say: those who in a special sense have been inwardly endowed as joint-heirs with Christ, seated themselves upon the thrones.
And judgment was given unto them.This cannot possibly refer to Rev 20:1-3 and Rev 19:20-21, as Ebrard maintains, since in those passages the sentence of judgment was decided by war, and the execution of judgment was a very brief process. We should hardly expect that Antichrist or Satan himself would have to be sentenced through a trial by jury.
The judgment may be regarded primarily as a two-fold decisiona decision concerning those who are still living (who were not in the Antichristian army), as to whether their lives shall be preserved throughout the thousand years; and a decision concerning those who were beheaded, as to how far they are worthy of being called to the first resurrection. Nevertheless, the antithesis of life and death is now, in a high degree, dynamically, psychically and ethically modified (see Isa 65:20), i. e. dying and reviving are effects which proceed from within. In general, however, the entire on is to be conceived of as an on of separations and eliminations in an ethical and a cosmical sense, separations and eliminations such as are necessary to make manifest and to complete the ideal regulations of life. Of judgments of damnation between the judgment upon Antichrist and the judgment upon Satan, there can be no question; the reference can be only to a critical government and management, preparatory to the final consummation. The whole on is a crisis which occasions the visible appearance of the Heaven on earth; the whole on is the great Last Day. We may even conceive of the mutiny which finally breaks out as a result of these separations, for a sort of protest on the part of the wicked was hinted at by Christ in His Eschatological Discourse (Mat 25:44), and the most essential element of the curse in hell is the continuance of revolt, the gnashing of teeth. To the degree in which this can decrease, torment can approach indifference. Opinions concerning this judgment are marvellously at variance.
According to Augustine, the reference is to a judgment upon the old earth: Sedes Prpositorum et ipsi Prpositi intelligendi sunt, per quos ecclesia gubernatur. According to Ho, on the other hand, the judgment relates to Heaven itself, as a theological disclosure as to the fate of the souls of the martyrs and others in Heaven, during the thousand years. According to Piscat., De Wette, et al., the probable idea is that the judgment now held has to decide as to who are worthy to have part in the first resurrection and the Millennial Kingdom.
And (I saw) the souls of them, etc.Two main points modify the entire picture: a. The thrones; b. The souls of the martyrs. As these were cut off from the most lively life by a violent death, they abode nearer to life than other dead persons; their more intimate communion with Christ produced the resurrection principle within them; and as men upon whom the ban of the world pre-eminently fell, they must be pre-eminently honored in the Kingdom of God [als die vorzugsweise Gechteten mssen sie die vorzugsweise Geachteten des Reiches Gottes sein]. As beheaded, they also accompany Christ from the other world, and though it cannot be said that their category precisely coincides with that of the occupants of the thrones, neither can it be affirmed that they may not be amongst those enthroned ones. The Seer distinguishes three categories of the participants in the first resurrection, or those that are Christs in His Parousia (1Co 15:23). First, the sitters on the thrones; secondly, the martyrs generally, who were beheaded for Christs sake; thirdly, all the faithful of the last time, who have worshipped neither the Beast nor his image, nor have assumed his mark. These are the macrobii of the last time, who sleep not, but are changed (1Co 15:51-52; 2Co 5:4-5; 1Th 4:17). Over and above these, as a fourth category, are the remnants of the old humanity that have not belonged to the Antichristian army; the inhabitants of the domain of Gog and Magog, who find themselves only in the periphery of the renewing crisis. It was perhaps on account of the third class that the Seer employed the term . But even if this is, with reason, made emphatic: they revivedlived again (=, De Wette), it does not prove that we should regard the last [third] class (consisting of those who are alive at the time of Christs appearing), with Dsterd., et al., as having likewise died in the mean time. The expression, [Rev 20:5] but the rest of the dead, finds its antithesis in the martyrs; and the transformation, as well as the awakening, shall lead to the first resurrection.
Rev 20:5. The rest of the dead, etc.That is, those not pre-eminently animated by the principle of the life of Christ, not led toward the first resurrection (Rom 8:17 sqq.; Eph 1:19; Php 3:11), and therefore a whole on deeper under the power of death.
This is the first resurrection.With these words the Seer constitutes that entire resurrection-process which begins with the Parousia of Christ, a distinct dogmatical conception. We have already discussed the gloriousness and naturalness of this conception. The manifold evasions of this idea, this Christian hope, seem like a general horrornot, however, a horror vacui, but a horror vit et spiritus.
In regard to the thousand years, the number, as has already been observed, is symbolical, like all other apocalyptic numbers; it denotes an on, and is specifically the transition-on between this present world and the world to come. The Jews indicate the duration of the Messianic Kingdom by different numbers; according to R. Elieser, however, the days of the Messiah amount to a thousand years; this opinion is based upon the statement, Isa 63:4, the day of vengeance was in my mind [E. V. is in mine heart], and the further declaration, Psa 90:4, a thousand years in Thy sight are as yesterday, etc. The weightier reason of the Ep. Barnab. c. xv. might be added to this, that as God created the world in six days and rested on the seventh day, so in six thousand years all things would be consummated and in the last chiliad a great world-Sabbath would be celebrated. (De Wette.)
The slavish dread of Chiliasm felt by the Old Catholic Church and the medival Theology, amounting to an avoidance of the misunderstood Apocalypse itself and a dread of the historical sense of its text, whilst the Old Catholic Church and medival Theology were themselves sunk deep in material Chiliasm, has found expression in the most diverse interpretations, from Augustine down to Hengstenberg; there is a maximum of excuse for the beginning of the series, but scarcely a minimum for the end of it. On the course of the exegeses see pp. 63 sqq. Likewise Dsterdieck, pp. 554 sqq. In this exegetical party, the elder Lutheran Theology continues most involved in the toils of medival tradition. The slavish Theology of the letter has found a support in the view of John Gerhard in particular (Dsterd., p. 556). The Apocalypse, Gerhard declares, is a deutero-canonical bookthe Kingdom of Christ will never on earth, not even at the end of the days, be one of external sovereignty (a sentiment dictated, doubtless, by a misunderstanding of Article XVII. of the Augsburg Confession)all the dead are to arise in one daythere is to be but one general resurrection of the dead at the Parousia of the Lord. Accordingly, it is further stated, the beginning of the Millennial Kingdom probably falls in the time of ConstantineGog and Magog are to be regarded as significant of the Turks. A partiality for this prejudiced tradition can in general be regarded only as the sad fruit of partyism. In regard to the view of Hengstenberg in particular, we refer primarily to the notices of Apocalyptic Literature, pp. 69 sq., 71.3 The starting point of Hengstenbergs view is by Rinck (Die Zeichen der letzten Zeit, p. 333) declared to be the assumption that the Beast can be understood only as the Pagan, not as the Christian, State. This assumption is a proof that Hengstenberg had no just conception of the idea of Antichristianitywhich cannot possibly be a product of pure heathenism4and no idea of the fall of an external State or Church. And yet according to the same commentator, Satan himself is at last to break forthor rather has broken forthimmediately, (in a worse mode, therefore, than in the form of the Beast) in the midst of Christendom.
Many arguments employed by Hengstenberg in his article entitled, The so-called Millennial Kingdom, to be found in the second volume of his commentary, have a very ad hominem sound; for instance, the argument from the inscription on the dome of the royal castle. We are justified in assuming that Hengstenberg was more concerned for the credit of Christian Rome than for the credit of the Christian State (which appears not merely in German, but also in French, Romance, and Slavonic forms), in declaring that the Woman also should be apprehended exclusively as Pagan Rome. Furthermore, the text of the Apocalypse constantly suffers violence at the hands of Hengstenberg. The chaining of Satan (Rev 20:1-3) ill admits of an assignment to the Middle Ageshence he explains: Satan is able to ensnare individual souls during this time, but not the nations as a whole. As if the individual souls of many princes and popes had not had a highly decisive influence in the working of their political and hierarchical systemsMachiavellism, the Inquisition, Dragonnades and the like. Again, the first resurrection, according to the same expositor, can not be apprehended as a bodily resurrection; it merely denotes the translation of the souls spoken of into that glorious intermediate condition in the other world, where they lived and reigned with Christ. , he affirms, is not equivalent to . But, manifestly, this coming to life is distinct from the blessed living-on in the other world (chs. 7 and 14), and prominence is given to it as antithetic to the condition of the dead who did not become alive again during the thousand years. Hengstenberg arrived at a much wished-for result by dating the thousand years from Charlemagne; the loosing of Satan might thus be assigned to the time of the French Revolution and the movements connected therewith (see Hengst. 2., pp.367 and 375 sqq. [Ger.]). A series of kindred and opposite constructions of the Millennial Kingdom see noted in De Wette, p. 189; Dsterd., p. 555.
According to Dsterdieck (pp. 554 sqq.), the unbiased determination of the exegetical result of the text, and the theological estimate of it, based Upon the analogy of Scripture, are two different things. The Millennial Kingdom falls, according to him also, in the time immediately preceding the universal judgmentbut he seems to be unable to reconcile the developed Apocalyptic Eschatology with the less developed Eschatology of the other Scriptures of the New Testament. If, however, the one day of the resurrection be regarded as a literal day, rather than as the symbolical term for a period; if one general resurrection of all the dead, in one day, as an immediate wonder of omnipotence, be regarded as more credible than the profound, organically modified idea of the gradational and hence double resurrection; and if a sudden annihilation of all evil at once, be considered more probable than the abolition of it by a succession of judgments;the same method of interpretation should, if consistency be at all regarded, be employed in the case of the other portions of Holy Writ, though this would involve a reduction of the living Scripture either to the orthodoxy of the Seventeenth, or the rationalism of the Eighteenth Centuryor a taking up with a compound of positive elements and ideal descriptions.
[NOTE ON THE FIRST RESURRECTION]
By the American Editor
[The writer believes that he cannot better begin this note than by the presentation of the views of two distinguished writers on the subject,the one advocating the doctrine of a literal resurrection, the other defending the so-called spiritual view.
Alford, on Rev 20:4-5, thus comments:
It will have been long ago anticipated by the readers of this Commentary, that I cannot consent to distort words from their plain sense and chronological place in the prophecy, on account of any considerations of difficulty, or any risk of abuses which the doctrine of the Millennium may bring with it. Those who lived next to the Apostles, and the whole Church for 300 years, understood them in the plain literal sense; and it is a strange sight in these days to see expositors who are amongst the first in reverence of antiquity, complacently casting aside the most cogent instance of consensus which primitive antiquity presents. As regards the text itself, no legitimate treatment of it will extort what is known as the spiritual interpretation now in fashion. If in a passage where two resurrections are mentioned, where certain at the first, and the rest of the only at the end of a specified period after that first,if in such a passage the first resurrection may be understood to mean spiritual rising with Christ, while the second means literal rising from the grave; then there is an end of all significance in language, and Scripture is wiped out as a definite testimony to anything. If the first resurrection is spiritual then so is the second, which I suppose none will be hardy enough to maintain;5 but if the second is literal, then so is the first, which in common with the whole primitive Church and many of the best modern expositors, I do maintain, and receive as an article of faith and hope.
Brown, whose work on the Second Advent is, confessedly, one of the ablest that has ever been published on his side of the question, devotes an entire chapter to the discussion of the Millennial Resurrection. It is of course impossible to reproduce the entire argument. The following, however, is presented as a perfectly fair synopsis thereof:
If the question then be, Was this celebrated passage (Rev 20:4-6) designed to announce A literal and general resurrection of the Saints? The following appear to me to be strong
PRESUMPTIONS AGAINST IT
1. It is very strange that the resurrection of the righteous a thousand years before the wicked, if it be a revealed truth, should be directly and explicitly announced in one passage only.
2. If this was to be the chosen place for announcing such a prior resurrection, it is surely reasonable to expect that a clear and unambiguous revelation of it would be made. (Such a revelation he denies was made in the passage.)
3. If a resurrection of the righteous in generalas distinguished from the wickedbe the true sense of this prophecy, the description is very unlike the thing to be described. It is not in the least like any other description of that event in the New Testament. Every other description of the resurrection and glory of the saints as such is catholic in its character, while this is limited.
NINE INTERNAL EVIDENCES THAT THE MILLENNIAL RESURRECTION IS NOT LITERAL BUT FIGURATIVE6
1. If the first resurrection mean rising from the grave in immortal and glorified bodies, we do not need the assurance that on such the second death hath no power (v. 6), or in other words, that they shall not perish everlastingly. Can it be believed that the Holy Spirit means nothing more than such a truism? But suppose that the first resurrection signifies a glorious condition of mortal men, and the promise becomes intelligible.
2. There are but two alternatives in the prophecyeither to have part in the first resurrection, or to be under the power of the second death. Into which of these classes are we to put the myriads of men who are to people the earth, in flesh and blood during the millennium?
3. The express mention of how long this life and reign with Christ will last, viz.: a thousand years, if meant to inform us what a long period of earthly prosperity the Church is yet destined to enjoy, is intelligible and cheering. But to say that the risen and glorified Church is to live and reign with Christ for a period of a thousand years, is totally unlike the language of Scripture in every other place.
4. By making the party that live and reign with Christ a thousand years to he the entire Church of God risen from their graves, we are forced to do violence to the whole subsequent context. Thus(1) The rest of the dead must be expected to live again in the same bodily sense when the thousand years are finished. But we read of no bodily resurrection at all on the expiring of this period. Satan shall then be loosed out of prison, and when we consider the work he has to do, the little season of his deceiving the nations can hardly be overstretched by extending it to a century or so. This first millennial period is to be filled up with something else than bodily resurrections. It will indeed be employed in the raising of a wicked party. We read of no bodily resurrection until after its expiration: (2) None but the wicked would remain to be judged in the last judgment, which is inconsistent with the implication of the opening of the Book of Life (Rev 5:12).
5. (This argument is given in the language of Gipps, substantially as follows): The opening of the Book of Life (Rev 5:2) signifies the manifestation of those who are written in it. It is inconceivable that this manifestation can take place one moment before what is called the opening of the Book of Life. But the manifestation of the Sons of God will take place at their (bodily) resurrection, Rom 8:19; Rom 8:23. Their bodily resurrection, therefore, will not take place until the general resurrection of (Rev 5:2).
6. (Also in the language of Gipps): The omission of any declaration as to the sea, death and the grave, giving up the dead at the first resurrection, and the making such a declaration respecting the dead in Rev 20:13, convinces me that the first resurrection is not that of the Saints, and also that the dead in Rev 20:12-13, include all mankind, both the saints and the ungodly. In every other part of the Word of God the information given concerning the resurrection of the saints is not only much more frequent, but also much more explicit, than concerning the resurrection of the ungodly. I feel convinced, therefore, that in this portion of the Scripture, if it were intended to foretell a resurrection of the saints distinct from that of the ungodly, much more explicit information would be given concerning the former than concerning the latter.
7. The clause This is the first resurrection (Rev 20:5), which is thought to prove it literal, seems to me, if it prove anything, to prove the reverse. It is reasonablesay the premillennialiststo suppose that if the second or last resurrection be literal, the first will be so alsodiffering from the second only in time. Unfortunately fur this way of reasoning, what is said in the verse immediately following contradicts it: Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection; on such the second death hath no power (Rev 20:6). Here the first resurrection and the second death are intentionally brought together and contrasted. Is the first death, then, of the same nature with the second? Does one merely precede the other? No: the first death is that of the body, the second that of both body and soul; the first death is common to the righteous and the wicked, the second is the everlasting portion of the wicked and of them alone. To suffer the first death for Christ in made the ground (not, of course, the meritorious ground) of exemption from the power of the second death (see Rev 2:10-11). Now as exemption from the power of the second death is here made to rest upon a certain character, namely, fidelity to Christ even to death, and in our millennial chapter exemption from the power of the same second death is made to rest upon participation in the first resurrection, is it not reasonable to conclude that this first resurrection is meant to signify a certain character in the present life, and not the possession of bodily resurrection and glory? To my mind this view of the first resurrection is put beyond doubt by the following words: Blessed and holy is he that hath part in the first resurrection. I cannot see what important information is conveyed by these words if the first resurrection mean a restoration to bodily life. To tell us that saints risen from the dead, and reigning in glorified bodies with Christ, are holy, seems to me to be very unlike the language of Scripture every where else, and very superfluous.
8. It is a fatal objection to the literal sense of this prophecy, as announcing the bodily resurrection of all dead, and the change of all living saints, that it is exclusively a martyr-scenethe prophet beholding simply a resurrection of the slain, whereas this very circumstance eminently favors the figurative sense. The literal sense is utterly inadequate to express the resurrection of the whole Church of God bodily from the grave; the figurative sense is in consonance with the figurative language of Scripture (comp. Rev 11:11; Eze 37:12-14; Hos 6:2; Isa 26:19; Isa 26:14), with that of the best writers in every language and age, and expresses a conception worthy of the Spirit of God to dictate.
9. The literal sense offers no consistent explanation of the judgment that was given unto the slain martyrs. This judgment was clearly that referred to in Rev 6:9 to Rev 11:7 If this be correct, of course the slain and those who slew them, must be taken in the same sense. If the judgment is to be given to the martyrs personally at the millennium, their blood must also be personally avenged on them that dwell on the earth. If the martyrs are to rise bodily from their graves in order that judgment may be personally given to them, then their persecutors must be raised that vengeance may be rendered to them.
The writer adopts the view of this celebrated passage that is advocated by Alfordthe view that has been held in the Church from the earliest ages. It seems to be undeniable that this is the view that results from the normal interpretation of the passage,a view that should not be set aside but for most cogent reasons. Whilst it is admitted that there is much apparent force in many of the considerations urged by Brown, it is submitted that they are not of sufficient force to overthrow the normal interpretation.
In continuance it should be remarked that the normal interpretation is in line with, and gives special and beautiful significance to, many otherwise inexplicable declarations in the word of God. An anonymous writer in a work entitled Creation and Redemption (Edinburgh: Thomas Laurie. 1866. Second Ed.) thus comments:
It is incumbent on us here to say a few words on the subject of the First Resurrection, for there is a general impression that the belief in it rests solely upon this passage, (Rev 20:6). But this is a great mistake. The truth of a resurrection of some at a different time from that of the general resurrection, is evident from Scripture, independent of this passage in the Apocalypse. Omitting the passages from the Old Testament Scriptures, sustained by the promises of which the Old Testament worthies, as St. Paul says, suffered and served God in the hope of obtaining a better resurrection (Heb 11:35), we will state as briefly as may be the conclusion to which we are led by the words of the Lord and His Apostles.
Our Lord makes a distinction between the resurrection which some shall be counted worthy to attain to, and some not, Luk 20:3; Luk 20:5. St. Paul says there is a resurrection out from among the dead () to attain which he strove with all his might as the prize to be gained, Php 3:11. He also expressly tells us, that while as in Adam all die, so in Christ shall all be made alive; yet it shall not be all at once, but every man in his own order; Christ the first fruits; afterwards they that are Christs at His coming. It is particularly to be remarked, that wherever the resurrection of Christ, or of His people, is spoken of in Scripture, it is a resurrection from the dead; and wherever the general resurrection is spoken of, it is the resurrection of the dead. This distinction, though preserved in many instances in the English translation, is too frequently omitted; but in the Greek the one is always coupled with the preposition , out of, and the other is without it; and in the Vulgate it is rendered by mortuis or ex mortuis, as distinct from resurrectio mortuorum. In Rom 8:11, The Spirit of Him that raised up Jesus from the dead, it is , mortuis. So in Rom 10:7; Eph 1:20; Heb 13:20; 1Pe 1:3; 1Pe 1:21. So Lazarus was raised , Joh 12:1; Joh 12:9. Our Lord, in His reply to the Sadducees, made the distinction between the general resurrection of the dead, and the resurrection which some should be accounted worthy to attain to. The children of this age () marry, but they who shall be accounted worthy to attain that , and the resurrection from the dead ( ), shall not marry (Luk 20:34-35). St. Paul, when he spoke of a resurrection to which he strove to attain (Php 3:8; Php 3:11), and to which he was with all his might pressing forwards, as the high prize to gain which he was agonizing, and for which he counted all else loss, as if one preposition was not enough to indicate his meaning, uses it doubled, . Si quomodo occurram ad resurrectionem, qu est ex mortuis. If St. Paul had been looking only to the general resurrection, he need not have given himself any trouble, or made any sacrifice to attain to that; for to it, all, even Judas and Nero, must come; but to attain to the First Resurrection he had need to press forward for the prize of that calling. And thus in his argument for the resurrection in 1 Corinthians 15 (1Co 15:12; 1Co 15:21), when he speaks of the resurrection generally, he speaks of the resurrection of the dead, (); but when he speaks of our Lords resurrection, it is , from the dead. And he marks the time when Christs people shall be raised from the dead, namely, at Christs coming, every man. in his own order; 1st, Christ; 2d, Christs people; 3d. all the remainder, at some other period, which he terms the end, when the last enemy, death, is to be destroyed, put an end to (1Co 15:23-26). And it follows as a matter of course, that if those who are Christs are to be raised from the dead at His coming, and if He comes previous to the destruction of Antichrist, and to the millennium, this first resurrection must be at least a thousand years before the general resurrection.E. R. C.]
Footnotes:
[1][In the text of the translation, the form of the Greek ( =upon his hand) is preserved. The idea seems to be that the chain was, not held the hand, but looped over it.E. R. C.]
[2][The E. V. has here (Dan 7:9) till the thrones were cast down; the Germ. has bis dass Sthle gesetzt wurden,=until seats (or thrones) were set.Tr.]
[3]On Kraussold (Das tausendjhrige Reich) see Dsterdieck, p. 658. Lutharde, in his work entitled, Die Offenb. Joh., recognizes the futurity of the Millennial Kingdom. Grau, on the other hand, in his lecture on the Contents and Import of the Revelation of John (in Zur Einfhrung in das Schriftthum N. T.), deals in generalities previous to Revelation 20.
[4]Hengstenberg it is manifest, has entirely lost the idea of Antichristianity by his Eschatology. If Antichristianity is summed up in the Beast, it is also abolished in company with the Beast. Consequently, there can no longer be any Antichristianity. And therefore, according to Hengstenberg, the final outbreak of Satan results in a new heathenism in the original sense of the term. But the world can not fall back into pure heathenism at the end of the days; Antichristianity can be formed only from elements of decomposed ChristianityChristianity that is converted into mighty lies (2 Thessalonians 2).
[5] [Whitby, Faber and Brown, all distinguish between the second resurrection implied, Rev 20:5, in the words the rest of the dead, etc., and the general resurrection brought to view in Rev 20:12-13. Whilst they admit that this general resurrection is literal, they contend that both the first and second millennial resurrections are spiritual,the former signifying a resuscitation of the martyr spirit at the beginning of the thousand years: the latter, the re-vivification of the spirit of evil in the hosts of Gog and Magog.
Barnes agrees with these commentators save in the last particular. He understands, however, by the rest of the dead the ordinarily pious. He writes: But the rest of the dead. In contradistinction from the beheaded martyrs, and from those who had kept themselves pure in the times of great temptation. The phrase rest of the dead here would most naturally refer to the same general class which was before mentionedthe pious dead. The meaning is, that the martyrs would be honored as if they were raised up and the others not; that is, that special respect would be shown to their principles, their memory, and their character. In other words, special honor would be shown to a spirit of eminent piety during that period, above the common and ordinary piety which has been manifested in the church. The rest of the deadthe pious deadwould indeed be raised up and rewarded, but they would occupy comparatively humble places, as if they did not partake in the exalted triumphs when the world should be subdued to the Saviour. Their places in honor, in rank, and in reward, would be beneath that of those who in fiery times had maintained unshaken fidelity to the cause of truth, Lived not. On the word lived, see Notes on ver 4. That is, they lived not during that period in the peculiar sense in which it is said (Rev 20:4,) that the eminent saints and martyrs lived. They did not come into remembrance; their principles were not what then characterized the church; they did not see, as the martyrs did, their principles and mode of life in the ascendency, and consequently they had not the augmented happiness and honor which the more eminent saints and martyrs had.E. R. C.]
[6][Brown thus disposes of a common objection (first urged by Whitby) to the literal view: It is frequently urged that because souls () were seen in this vision, and no mention is made of bodies, it cannot be a bodily resurrection that is meant. But this is to mistake what the Apostle saw in the vision. He did not see a resurrection of souls. He saw the souls of them that were slain: that is, he had a vision of the martyrs themselves in the state of the deadafter they were slain, and just before their resurrection. Then he saw them rise: They livednot their souls, but themselves.E. R. C.]
[7][Is it not rather probable that was used in the sense in which it was employed, Mat 7:1; Joh 9:39; Rom 2:2-3; and that the sentence means, that to he saints, as kings, was given the authority to judge?E. R. C.]
[30]Rev 19:17. [Crit. Eds. give with A. P. 1, et al; it is om. by B.*E. R. C.]
[31]Rev 19:17. [Crit. Eds. read with . A. B*. P., et al., instead of E, R. C.]
[32]Rev 19:17. [Crit. Eds. give with . A. B*. P. instead of with 1, 36, 49, 79.E. R. C.]
[33]Rev 19:18. [These articles do not occur in any Cod., nor are they required by the English idiom.E. R. C.]
[34]Rev 19:18. [Crit. Eds. generally give . with . A. B*. P. et al.E. R. C.]
[35]Rev 19:19. Codd. . A. B*. give the article before . [The reference, doubtless, is to the war predicted chs.Rev 16:14; Rev 17:14.E. R. C.]
[36]Rev 19:20. [Lach., Treg., Tisch. (8th Ed.) read with . P.; Alf. brackets before with A.; Tisch. (1859) reads with B*.E. R. C.]
[37]Rev 20:2. Cod. A. gives the nominative . Codd. B, et al. give the accusative, which is more in accordance with the text. [Lach., Alf., Treg., Tisch. give the nom. with A.; the acc. is supported by . B., et alE. R. C.]
[38] Rev 20:3. Lach. [Alf., Treg.] and Tisch. [1859] give in acc. with A. B. et al. Cod. gives the article both times with perfect propriety. [Tisch. (8th Ed ) gives ; the pronoun before , and also the article before , with E. R. C.]
[39] Rev 20:3. Codd. A. B., et al. omit after .
[40] Rev 20:3. The Rec. is adopted instead of the reading . [So read Lach., Alf., Treg. Tisch. (8th Ed.), with . A.; Gb., Sz., Tisch. (1859) give with B*.E. R. C.]
[41]Rev 19:3. [Crit. Eds. omit with . A. B*.E. R. C.]
[42] Rev 20:4. [The force of can be presented only by the phrase sat down. Lange translates seated themselves.E. R. C.]
[43] Rev 20:4. [Crit. Eds. read with . A. B*. et al.E. R. C.]
[44] Rev 20:4. [Crit. Eds. generally omit after in acc. with . A. B*., Vulg., et al.E. R. C.]
[45] Rev 20:4. The article before should be omitted. [The article occurs in B*.; it is omitted, however, by Crit. Eds. with . A. et al.E. R. C.]
[46] Rev 20:5. [Lach., Alf., Tisch., omit the copula with A., Clem., Am., Fuld., Tol, Lips.; Treg. reads with B.* 1, 38, 91, 95, Memph.E. R. C.]
[47] Rev 20:5. [Crit. Eds. read with A. B., Vulg., et al.; is without authority.E. R. C.]
[48][See foot-notes on pages 3, 58, and 62.E. R. C.]
[49][See Note on the Future Advent of Christ, pp. 339 sqq.E. R. C.]
[50][The slowness of invention which Lange here attributes to the Devil is more in harmony with the character attributed to that personage in numerous popular German tales,in which he appears as a sort of Deutscher Michel, being frequently outwitted and imposed upon by sharp practicers of earththan with the exalted intellect with which we usually conceive of him as endowed.Tr.]
[51] [The Am. Ed. deems it inexpedient to continue in this portion of the work his Abstract of Views.E. R. C.]
[52][Wordsworth explains the of Rev 19:4 as the glorified life with Christ after martyrdom, and the of Rev 19:5 as spiritual life begun in baptism and completed at the death of the body.E. R. C.]
[53][Augustine himself, probably, held the view that the thousand years were literal, to terminate with the sixth chiliad of the worlds existence.E. R. C.]
[54][A similar theory, indeed the same with specific variations was propounded by Prof. Bush in a work on the Millennium published in New York in 1832.E. R. C.]
[55][The elder Turretin, P. Mastricht, J Marckius, Light foot, Brightman, and Usher, all teach that the Millennium is past. The continental Theologians suggest as possible eras of its beginning, without deciding which is correct, the Incarnation, the Crucifixion, the Resurrection, the destruction of Jerusalem, the era of Constantine. Marckius thinks that it may have begun in increased measure at each one of these in succession. These Theologians seem to regard the binding as a general weakening of the power of Satan. Lightfoot adopts the view that the origin is to be placed in the first proclamation of the gospel to the Gentiles by Paul and Barnabas, and that the binding refers, not to the power of Satan over the Church, but to his influence over the nations. He writes: There is not a word here of the devils binding that he should not disturb the Church, but of the devils binding that he should not deceive the nations. These all agree that the duration of the period was (or was about) one thousand literal years.E. R. C.]
[56][Elliott writes: Vitringa, however, who alludes to Whitbys as a work just published, makes brief citations from two earlier writers, Conrad of Mantua and Carolus Gallus, as expressive of the same general view.E. R. C.]
[57][Bush judiciously remarks on this declaration of Whitby: This may be questioned. These writers have modified the creed of the ancients on this subject, without renouncing it. The views of Mede, as expressed by himself, are as follows: What the quality of this reign should be, which is so singularly differenced from the reign of Christ hitherto, is neither safe nor easy to determine, further than that it should be the reign of our Saviours victory over His enemies, wherein Satan being bound up from deceiving the nations any more, till the time of His reign be fulfilled, the Church should consequently enjoy a most blissful peace and happy security from the heretical apostasies and calamitous sufferings of former times; but here (if any where) the known shipwrecks of those who have been too venturous should make us most wary and careful, that we admit nothing into our imaginations which may cross or impeach any catholic tenet of the Christian faith, as also to beware of gross and carnal conceits of Epicurean happiness misbeseeming the spiritual purity of Saints. If we conceit any delights, let them be spiritual. The presence of Christ in this Kingdom will no doubt be glorious and evident, yet I dare not so much as imagine (which some ancients seem to have thought) that it will be a visible converse on earth. Yet, we grant, He will appear and be visibly revealed from heaven; especially for the calling and gathering of His ancient people, for whom in the days of old He did so many wonders. Mede believed that Christ would appear literally and gloriously for the establishment of the Millennium, and that in a special sense He would reign throughout the period. In so believing, he held the essential elements of the pre-millennial hypothesis.E. R. C.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
(17) And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God; (18) That ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great.
It is not easy to conjecture, who is meant by this Angel which John saw, standing in the sun. But he could be no other than a servant. For the sun is the emblem of Christ. And it could not be said, that Christ was standing in himself. I should conceive, that as he was calling to the fowls of heaven to come to the great supper of God, it might be even a very humble servant in the ministry; similar to what is said of the servants in the Gospel, sent out to call in the poor, and maimed, and halt, and blind, to the feast of the word of God, Luk 14:21 . But be who it may, one thing is worth regarding. He is said to be standing in the sun. By which we may, without violence to the expression, interpret it, as standing in Christ and his righteousness, Mal 4:2 . Here every Preacher of Christ stands. He is open like the sun; and he preacheth Christ, and Christ only. And his call of invitation to the supper, is not a call to ordinances, but to triumphs. Let the Reader remember, that this which is represented here, is the total overthrow of Pope and Prelate, Mahomet and Devil. Hence, the people of God are called upon to rejoice over them. It is called the supper of the great God, even Jesus; for these are his triumphs. He it was, who was just before seen by John, upon his white horse, with his many crowns, and in his vesture dipped in blood, and his armies following him to victory. Hence, therefore, as a mighty Conqueror, the battle being over, he makes a feast, like all Eastern Princes, for his nobles and princes of the provinces; that is, al, Christ’s redeemed family, whom he hath made kings and priests to God and the Father, and invites them to the supper; and where he displays the riches of his glorious kingdom, and the honor of his excellent majesty, not many days, no, not an hundred and fourscore days, for these would soon expire, but through a whole eternity, where Jesus shall be glorified in his saints, and they made completely blessed in him forever and ever, Est 1:3-5 .
Let the Reader not forget, that it forms an interesting part in the whole plan of redemption, when Christ brings home his chosen, that be hath also a complete triumph over his enemies. It is a grand conclusion to the whole. And the Church is so highly interested in it, that one of the Covenant promises, in the charter of grace, runs in these words: when the wicked are cut off thou shalt see it, Psa 37:34 . Oh! it is a blessed part in redemption, that Satan shall not only be brought down, but bruised by the God of peace under our feet, Rom 16:20 .
The battle at Armageddon will bring forth before the Church, the everlasting triumph of the Church over the whore and the false prophet; and, if any pagan powers, aided by the devil, are brought into this war, to fight against Christ; their destruction is sure. And in seeing their utter destruction; this in prophetical language is, to eat the flesh of kings and captains, of mighty men and horses, both bond and free, both small and great.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;
Ver. 17. Standing in the sun ] Where he might best be heard, as a herald. And he well types out such, as by clear light of truth shall make known the certain destruction of the enemies, before the battle be fought.
Unto the supper of the great God ] They that would not come to the supper of the Lamb shall be made a supper to the fowls of heaven.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
17 21 .] Defeat and destruction of the beast and the false prophet and the kings of the earth : preceded by ( Rev 19:17-18 ) an angelic proclamation , indicating the vastness of the slaughter.
And I saw an (one) angel standing in the sun (not only as the place of brightness and glory becoming the herald of so great a victory, but also as the central station in mid-heaven for those to whom the call was to be made): and he cried with a great voice, saying to all the birds which fly in mid-heaven, Come, be gathered together (see, on the whole of this proclamation, Eze 39:17 ff., of which it is a close reproduction; also Mat 24:28 ) to the great banquet of God, that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains of thousands, and the flesh of strong men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all, free as well as bond, both small and great (this proclamation is evidently not to be pressed into a place in the prophecy, nor are its details to be sought in the interpretation, as has been done by Andreas and Primasius, who hold the birds to be angels, and Brightm., who holds them to be nations and churches. The insertion is made, as above, to shew the greatness and universality of the coming slaughter). And I saw the beast (ch. Rev 13:1 ) and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together (as above under the sixth vial, ch. Rev 16:12 ff., on the field of Harmagedon) to make their war (viz. that predicted above, ch. Rev 16:14 , Rev 17:14 ) with Him that sitteth upon the horse and with his army ( , sing. probably as being one , and having one Head, whereas they are many, and under various leaders). And the beast was taken (reff.), and those with him (to wit, the , and , Rev 19:21 ; or, and with him the false prophet ), the false prophet who wrought the miracles in his presence (cf. ch. Rev 13:11-17 , by which it clearly appears that this false prophet is identical with that second beast), with which he deceived those who received (not necessarily nor probably, who had received, as E. V.: the aor. part. is contemporary, as usual, with the aor. verb: and is probably here used because the receiving the mark is one act, the worship ( ) a continued habit) the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image (cf. ch. Rev 13:14 ; Rev 13:16 ): the two were cast alive into the lake of fire which burneth (the extraordinary concord, , appears to have been in the original text, and must be simply accepted as it stands) with brimstone (viz. into Gehenna, or hell properly so called, Mat 5:22 ; where also, after the millennium, Satan himself is cast, ch. Rev 20:10 , and when their work is finally accomplished, Death and Hades, Rev 20:14 a. This lake of fire constitutes the second death, Rev 20:14 b, Rev 21:8 . These only, and not the Lord’s human enemies yet, are cast into eternal punishment. The latter await the final Judgment, ch. Rev 20:11 ff.). And the rest (the and their ) were slain with the sword of Him that sitteth on the horse, which (sword) goeth forth out of His mouth (see Isa 11:4 ; 2Th 2:8 . De Wette remarks, that it is a hint of the spiritual nature of this victory, that no battle seems actually to take place, but the Lord Himself, as in 2 Thess., destroys the adversaries with the sword out of his own mouth. But clearly, all must not be thus spiritualized. For if so, what is this gathering? what is indicated by the coming forth of the Lord in glory and majesty? Why is His personal presence wanted for the victory?): and all the birds were satiated with (out of, as the material of the satiety) their flesh .
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Rev 19:17-21 : the rout and destruction of the Beast and his adherents, modelled upon Isa 56:9 f. and Ezekiel’s description of the discomfiture of prince Gog (Eze 39:17-21 ), where beasts as well as birds are bidden glut themselves with carrion (4). This crude aspect of the messianic triumph had commended itself to Jewish speculation on the future (see En. xc. 2 4); it reflects the intense particularism of post-exilic Judaism in certain circles, and also the semi-political categories which tended to dominate the eschatology. In Asc. Isa. iv. 14, the Lord also comes with his angels and troops to drag into Gehenna Beliar and his hosts.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Rev 19:17 . , a commanding and conspicuous position.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Rev 19:17-18
17Then I saw an angel standing in the sun, and he cried out with a loud voice, saying to all the birds which fly in midheaven, “Come, assemble for the great supper of God, 18so that you may eat the flesh of kings and the flesh of commanders and the flesh of mighty men and the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them and the flesh of all men, both free men and slaves, and small and great.”
Rev 19:17 “to all the birds” This gruesome paragraph is an allusion to two OT passages which deal with battle scenes. This context is the same battle discussed in Rev 16:12-16, called Armageddon. The predatory birds are described as drawn to battlefields as in 1Sa 17:46 (cf. Mat 24:28; Luk 17:37) and Eze 39:17-20, which is the end-time battle of Gog and Magog. John often uses the OT imagery in new ways. In chapter 20 the battle of Gog and Magog deals with Satan after the millennium, whereas the battle in chapter 19 occurs before the millennium and deals with the wild beast and his false prophet.
“Come, assemble for the great supper of God” The word translated “come” is an adverb used as an aorist active imperative plural which matches the second word, “assemble,” which is an aorist passive imperative plural. This is an antithesis to the Lamb’s banquet mentioned in Rev 19:7; Rev 19:9. The Lamb invites lost people to come and be saved and join His wedding feast. But the angel invites the birds of prey to come to the feast of dead bodies (and dead souls) at the great end-time battle (cf. Jer 12:9; Eze 39:17). God’s wrath is real and symbolized as a feast, on the flesh of His enemies (cf. Isa 34:6; Jer 12:12; Jer 46:10; Zep 1:7).
Rev 19:18 This goes back to Rev 6:15, which is also an eschatological setting where these same general categories of mankind were also mentioned. The horror of being unburied was especially shocking to the people of the Ancient Near East.
The victorious return of Jesus occurs at the end of each judgment cycle: seals, Rev 6:12-17; trumpets, Rev 11:15-18; and bowls, Rev 19:1-21.
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
saw. App-133.
an = one.
the midst of heaven = mid-heaven, as Rev 14:6.
gather . . . together. The texts read “be gathered together”.
the supper . . . God. The texts read “the great supper of God”.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
17-21.] Defeat and destruction of the beast and the false prophet and the kings of the earth: preceded by (Rev 19:17-18) an angelic proclamation, indicating the vastness of the slaughter.
And I saw an (one) angel standing in the sun (not only as the place of brightness and glory becoming the herald of so great a victory, but also as the central station in mid-heaven for those to whom the call was to be made): and he cried with a great voice, saying to all the birds which fly in mid-heaven, Come, be gathered together (see, on the whole of this proclamation, Eze 39:17 ff., of which it is a close reproduction; also Mat 24:28) to the great banquet of God, that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains of thousands, and the flesh of strong men, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all, free as well as bond, both small and great (this proclamation is evidently not to be pressed into a place in the prophecy, nor are its details to be sought in the interpretation, as has been done by Andreas and Primasius, who hold the birds to be angels, and Brightm., who holds them to be nations and churches. The insertion is made, as above, to shew the greatness and universality of the coming slaughter). And I saw the beast (ch. Rev 13:1) and the kings of the earth and their armies gathered together (as above under the sixth vial, ch. Rev 16:12 ff., on the field of Harmagedon) to make their war (viz. that predicted above, ch. Rev 16:14, Rev 17:14) with Him that sitteth upon the horse and with his army (, sing. probably as being one, and having one Head, whereas they are many, and under various leaders). And the beast was taken (reff.), and those with him (to wit, the , and , Rev 19:21; or, and with him the false prophet),-the false prophet who wrought the miracles in his presence (cf. ch. Rev 13:11-17, by which it clearly appears that this false prophet is identical with that second beast), with which he deceived those who received (not necessarily nor probably, who had received, as E. V.: the aor. part. is contemporary, as usual, with the aor. verb: and is probably here used because the receiving the mark is one act, the worship () a continued habit) the mark of the beast and those who worshipped his image (cf. ch. Rev 13:14; Rev 13:16): the two were cast alive into the lake of fire which burneth (the extraordinary concord, , appears to have been in the original text, and must be simply accepted as it stands) with brimstone (viz. into Gehenna, or hell properly so called, Mat 5:22; where also, after the millennium, Satan himself is cast, ch. Rev 20:10, and when their work is finally accomplished, Death and Hades, Rev 20:14 a. This lake of fire constitutes the second death, Rev 20:14 b, Rev 21:8. These only, and not the Lords human enemies yet, are cast into eternal punishment. The latter await the final Judgment, ch. Rev 20:11 ff.). And the rest (the and their ) were slain with the sword of Him that sitteth on the horse, which (sword) goeth forth out of His mouth (see Isa 11:4; 2Th 2:8. De Wette remarks, that it is a hint of the spiritual nature of this victory, that no battle seems actually to take place, but the Lord Himself, as in 2 Thess., destroys the adversaries with the sword out of his own mouth. But clearly, all must not be thus spiritualized. For if so, what is this gathering? what is indicated by the coming forth of the Lord in glory and majesty? Why is His personal presence wanted for the victory?): and all the birds were satiated with (out of, as the material of the satiety) their flesh.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
Rev 19:17-21
7. RESULTS OF THE CONFLICT DESCRIBED
Rev 19:17-21
17 And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in mid heaven,–The sun is the brightest shining orb in the world, and an angel so brilliant as to be distinguished when standing in the sun is beyond human description. This angel announced the result of the final conflict in a most impressive symbol. The fowls here mean birds of prey–those that eat flesh, and the image is that of such birds hovering over a battlefield ready to consume the bodies of the slain.
Come and be gathered together unto the great supper of God; –In verse 9 the saved are invited to the “marriage supper of the Lamb,” which evidently means the rewards to be given finally to the faithful; here the “supper of God” means that the punishment of the wicked will be like giving to birds of prey bodies slain in battle. The picture of bodies thus consumed is the horrible emblem of the final destiny of the lost.
18 that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and of them that sit thereon, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, and small and great.–John sees in the symbol the birds assembled to the battlefield to consume leaders, common men, and even animals. This means that the wicked of all classes will suffer the final banishment from God’s presence. There will be no chance for rulers to escape any more than the common man; young and old will meet the same fate.
19 And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat upon the horse, and against his army.–In Rev 16:13-16 John sees three unclean spirits coming from the dragon, the beast, and the false prophet to gather the kings of the whole world together for the last struggle–“the war of the great day of God.” Here lie sees that battle and its results. The hosts on both sides are assembled. This emblematic language means that evil on earth will be ended by the Lord at his coming, not that a real flesh and blood battle will be fought. This will include all kinds of evil represented by the beast and kings of the earth.
20 And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought the signs in his sight, wherewith he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and them that worshipped his image:–On the identity of the beast and false prophet, see notes on Rev 16:13. The fact that this language shows the false prophet wrought pretended miracles in the sight of the beast and deceived them who had received the “mark of the beast” indicates that the false prophet is the same as papal Rome. If so, then the “beast” would be political Rome in its so-called Christianized form while dominated by the papacy. This shows that in the last conflict corrupt political powers and false religions will both be used by Satan in his final effort to destroy Christianity. In the symbol John sees them both taken–defeated. The false prophet is a general expression broad enough to include all false teachers, and by implication all false systems of religion.
they two were cast alive into the lake of fire that burneth with brimstone:–This means the end of these two kinds of wicked powers and the final punishment of those who supported them. The lake of fire refers to the last and complete torment of those banished from God forever. (Mar 9:47-48 ; Rev 14:10-11; Rev 20:14-15.) The last reference says the lake of fire is the second death which will take place when death and Hades are cast into that lake. This is final in showing that this paragraph refers to the separation of the good and bad at the judgment.
21 and the rest were killed with the sword of him that sat upon the horse, even the sword which came forth out of his mouth: and all the birds were filled with their flesh.–This is what John saw in the vision. Seeing the armies that followed the beast and false prophet killed with a sword and the birds feeding upon their flesh means that those who practice sin in corrupt politics or religion will be condemned to everlasting punishment. Thus again in this symbol we have seen the final conflict between sin and righteousness end in the vindication of Christ and his teaching. A decision from which there is no new hearing.
Commentary on Rev 19:17-21 by Foy E. Wallace
(4) The great sacrificial Supper-Rev 19:17-18.
These verses represented a feast on the flesh of kings consumed by the birds of prey and was one of the most highly metaphorical sections of the entire series of visions.
In Mat 24:28, Jesus said: For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together. This forecast was the Lords illustration of the siege of Jerusalem, which was the carcass; and the Romans were the eagles, whose armies swooped on Jerusalem to destroy and devour it. But in this vision the metaphor was reversed. The rulers of the persecuting powers, with all the forces opposing Christ and his church, were the victims of this supper of the Great God. The sacrifice of animals was the common method of celebrating victories; such as king Saul, without warrant, had presumptuously planned in celebration of victory over Amalek, as recorded in 1Sa 15:15; 1Sa 15:21. Here in this vision the eating of the flesh of kings, as the victims of the sacrificial supper, was symbolic of the victory of the saints over all the persecuting powers of the heathen governments, including all Roman tributaries which were the minions of the composite Roman beast. This symbolic representation was a repetition of the previous figurative descriptions of the fearful visitations of divine wrath on the wicked persecutors, which no kings or rulers of nations could withstand.
The same metaphorical representation of the celebration of the return of Israel from exile, subsequent to the fall of Babylon, was employed by Ezekiel in Eze 39:17-20 :
And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord God; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan. And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord God.
It is apparent that this sacrificial supper in Revelation was the vision of celebration for the triumph of the church over all the forces of heathenism. The inclusion in the metaphor of the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great meant that no class or condition of men in the heathen society which formed a part of the forces of persecution and of opposition to the church, were exempt from retribution; but were all alike victims of this symbolic celebration of the victory over heathenism in the sacrificial supper of the great God.
The vision of the angel standing in the sun, of Rev 19:17, indicated not only the glory of this messenger of Christ, but the central station from which to summon the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven. The word heaven in the previous visions has designated the ruling authorities of the earth, or place of the nations. The reference to the fowls in the mid-heaven indicated that the birds of prey, symbolizing this awesome picture of visitation of divine wrath, were flying in the very midst of these evil authorities ready to descend on the carrion of the pagan persecuting powers, the defeatedforces of heathenism.
The foregoing descriptions were designed to symbolize that no class or condition, high or low, in the heathen world could stand against the spiritual forces of Christ, the Conqueror and Rider of the white horse–and from this imagery of spiritual victory over all the forces of heathenism, the vision turns to the scene of judgment and final banishment of the Roman beast and his subordinate beast, the false prophet, who had beguiled the people into the emperor-image worship, and who was the original source of the spiritual war delineated in the apocalypse.
(5) The complete destruction of the persecuting power of the Roman beast and his subordinate false prophet-Rev 19:19-21.
The fact that these visions anticipated events before, during and after the destruction of Jerusalem, should be observed and retained in the mind, as the considerations advance from one stage and scene to another.
The scene of Rev 19:19-21 reverted to the spiritual battle between the heavenly armies of the Rider, and the armies of the Roman beast–the heathen persecutor. It was after the destruction of Jerusalem; and after the evil forces of heathenism were diverted from the scene of Jerusalem and Judaism to converge on the church.
But the vision saw the triumph of Christianity. It was declared in Rev 19:21 that the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet . . . with which he deceived them that received the mark of the beast, and them that worshipped his image. This beast was the original first sea-beast of Revelation chapter 13–personified in the emperor, the source of authority for all the persecutions. The false prophet was identical with the second land-beast, of Judea and Palestine, described in Revelation chapter 13, as the subordinate of the imperia1 beast who seduced the inhabitants of Judea to worship the emperor. As previously postulated, the mark of the beast was submission to the decree for emperor worship and acceptance of the image of the emperor as deity and the worship of the Roman image in acts of idolatry for the emperor.
After accomplishing the destruction of Jerusalem and the obliteration of the Jewish state, the vision represents the beast as having lost the battle against the church. The invincible spiritual forces of Christianity prevailed against all powers of heathenism, and both the beast and his satellite false prophet were taken; that is, captured and consigned to the bottomless pit of banishment, symbolized by the lake of fire burning with brimstone. The object of this vision was to symbolize the war of righteousness led by Christ Himself, the Head of the church, against the wickedness of heathenism. It described the progress of the persecution of the church, after the fall of Jerusalem, through the period of tribulation of Rev 2:10; and of the hour of trial in Rev 3:10; in the deadly conflict with the heathenism of the Roman world.
The entire second psalm is a magnificent prophecy of the defeat of all the cohorts of heathenism by the King whom God had set upon the holy hill of Zion, and is worthy of insertion here in its entirety:
Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? The kings of the earth set themselves, and the rulers take counsel together, against the Lord, and against his Anointed, saying, Let us break their bands asunder, and cast away their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision. Then shall he speak unto them in his wrath, and vex them in his sore displeasure. Yet have I set my King upon my holy hill of Zion. I will declare the decree: the Lord hath said unto me, Thou art my Son; this day have I begotten thee. Ask of me, and I shall give thee the heathen for thine inheritance, and the uttermost parts of the earth for thy possession. Thou shalt break them with a rod of iron; thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potters vessel. Be wise now therefore, 0 ye kings: be instructed, ye judges of the earth. Serve the Lord with fear, and rejoice with trembling. Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little. Blessed are all they that put their trust in him.
This psalm was quoted more than once in the New Testament as having fulfillment in the universal expansion of the kingdom of Christ. The messianic psalm finds its climax in these visions of Revelation where the heathen raged and the kings of the earth set themselves . . . against his Anointed. The rulers did take counsel together, and determined to break their bands asunder, and thus to scatter the forces of the Anointed; but the Lord shall have them in derision and shall break them with a rod of iron which was done in the descriptions and fulfillment of these visions. In this imagery the Psalmist foresaw the establishment of the kingdom of Christ, and the defeat of all heathen opposition by the gospels rod of iron–the invincible Word of Truth.
The apocalypse of these last verses of chapter nineteen follows the same pattern in visions of the defeat of the hosts opposing Christ. The second Psalm decreed that thou shalt dash them in pieces like a potters vessel, and the apocalypse declared that they were cast alive into a lake of fire burning with brimstone. One of these passages cannot be considered more or less literal than the other–both were figurative expressions which signified the utter end of the persecuting authorities of heathenism against Christianity. The phrase cast alive into a lake of fire was equivalent to burned alive, and it symbolized complete destruction.
The signal triumph of the cause of truth represented by the burning alive of the beast and the false prophet did not symbolize the destruction of the Roman Empire, but of the persecutions waged by the emperors, which the beasts represented. The lake of fire was not literal any more than the beast was literal. Neither was subject to literal application–both were figurative. The beast symbolized the persecuting power of the Roman emperor; and casting him into a lake of fire signified the complete defeat of the heathen powers he represented in the war against the church; and it was accomplished by the sword that proceeded out of the mouth of Jesus Christ, the Rider of the white horse. The sword was not a literal steel blade; it was the Word of God, the weapon by which the church won the victories over heathenism and idolatry; and which is even yet the only righteous weapon in the warfare of the truth against error.
The last passage of Rev 19:21, was the brief vision of the defeat of the remnant which had been slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse. This remnant symbolized the enemies of Christ other than the persecuting beasts. It represented all forms of error and evil and doctrines of antichrist that stood in the way of the church. They were slain with the sword of him that sat upon the horse; and the text identified the sword by the modifying phrase: which sword proceeded out of his mouth –the Word of God. By his word all forms of heathenism were exposed and the enemies of his cause, in the battle imagery, were slain, or defeated. They were figuratively slain, by a figurative sword: which sword proceeded out of his mouth–that is, by the teaching of the truth and the spread of the gospel.
To complete the visional and metaphorical picture, ends with Rev 19:21 in the final statement: And all the fowls were filled with their flesh. As the birds devour the carrion, the truth consumes every form of error inimical to the cause of Jesus Christ.
The Lord foretold that this result would follow the destruction of Jerusalem in Mat 24:31 : And he shall send his angels with a great sound of a trumpet, and they shall gather together his elect from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. The equivalent declaration of the apocalypse is in Rev 11:15 : And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. Another parallel to this Revelation passage is the reference of Paul in Eph 5:5 to the inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. The kingdom is everlasting; the inheritance is eternal; and therefore the reign is forever and ever.
These parallels between the Lords account of these events in advance of their occurrences, and the visions of John in anticipation of the same series of events, have formulated accumulative evidence throughout the book, that the apocalypses of Revelation were but the extension of the twenty-fourth chapter of Matthew–the Lords own forecast of the events preceding and subsequent to the destruction of Jerusalem.
Commentary on Rev 19:17-21 by Walter Scott
THE GREAT SUPPER OF GOD.
Rev 19:17-18. – We have had the joyous marriage supper of the Lamb; here we have the great supper of God. The epithet great is attached to the supper (R.V.), not to God (A.V.).
Rev 19:17 – I saw an angel standing in the sun. He stands in the very center, so to speak, of governmental authority. He stands where he can be seen by all, and from whence he can survey the whole scene of conflict. The supper to which he invites the ravenous birds of prey comes after the battle. But the birds are summoned in vision before the fight. The great supper is of the dead. Kings, captains, mighty men, horses and their riders, free and bond, small and great, lie in the silence of death, their bodies a prey to the fowls of Heaven. They have been slain by the one sharp sword in the heavenly army. Christ speaks, and at once judgment overtakes the gathered opposing hosts. We would again repeat this is a true and most awful literal scene. The issue of the war is anticipated, and its result disclosed. These slain rise again to meet once more their Lord, not on the horse of victorious conquering power, but on the throne where condemnation immediately follows judgment (Rev 20:11-15). Their resurrection takes place one thousand years after their punishment on earth.
Rev 19:18. – Five times do we read of flesh as the food of the fowls of Heaven. Ah, what a humiliating end to the pride, pomp, strength, and chivalry of Europe! The vulture, eagle, and other birds of prey feeding upon the great and mighty whose very names may be enshrined in the pages of the history of this time (compare with Eze 39:4; Eze 39:17-20). All the birds were filled with their flesh (v. 21), gorged to repletion. How awful the slaughter! How immense the number of the slain!
TOTAL OVERTHROW OF THE BEAST
AND CONFEDERATE KINGS AND ARMIES.
Rev 19:19-21. – And I saw the Beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies gathered together to make war against Him that sat upon the horse, and against His army. And the Beast was taken, and the False Prophet that (was) with him, who wrought the signs before him by which he deceived them that received the mark of the Beast, and those that worshipped his image. Alive were both cast into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone. And the rest were slain with the sword of Him that sat upon the horse, which goes out of His mouth: and all the birds were filled with their flesh. We are now about to witness the most gigantic confederation of kings and peoples ever beheld. The Beast is first named as being the center and soul of the movement. All the material strength and resources of the mighty revived empire are embraced in the term the Beast. Then we have mentioned the kings of the earth, the very kings who wailed over the destruction of Babylon. The political and social authorities of Christendom combine with the Beast in this insensate war. (The ten kings had already given themselves over to the Beast (Rev 17:17). They are of course active in this war, for we read, These shall make war with the Lamb (Rev 17:14), but they are not specifically mentioned in this, the fuller account of the war, their identity being lost, so to speak, in that of the Beast.)
Next, their armies, that is, the armies of the Beast and of the kings.
All are gathered together. It may be supposed that this almost universal assemblage of powers is effected by human agency. But no Caesar or Napoleon could bring about such a vast combination, and for such a purpose as we have here. Satan is behind the movement. In Rev 16:13-14; Rev 16:16 we have the veil lifted and the true character of it exposed. Three unclean spirits, satanic in source and character, endowed with miraculous power, go forth unto the kings of the earth, and of the whole world to gather them to the battle (war) of that great day of God Almighty. The gathering place is also named, Armageddon (Rev 16:16). (See remarks on Rev 16:16.)
After a statement of the forces in opposition by whom they were gathered, and where they were gathered to, we are next directed to the plainly-stated but startling fact that the hosts of earth are assembled to make war against Him that sat upon the horse, and against His army. Can history furnish a parallel to this? The nations of Europe, and even of a wider area, enlightened and christianized, so deluded by Satan that they dare to enter the lists with The King of kings and Lord of lords! What madness! What folly! The sovereignty of the earth is really the question of that day, and is decided once and for ever by the impending battle. Their hatred is expressed against the Rider upon the white horse, the Lamb and King, the former title sacrificial, the latter regal; for whether as the Lamb slain or the King to reign, Christendom hates Him. Then comes the opposition to those who are His. They make war also against His army. We have here the contrast between their armies and His army, consisting of called, chosen, and faithful followers. One army as having but one mind and purpose with their renowned Leader. No details are furnished, for actual conflict there could not be. The result alone is disclosed; the awful slaughter had been already anticipated (Rev 19:17-18).
Rev 19:20. – And the Beast was taken. The personal chief of the empire gave to it his character. The empire and its ruling head were really to all intents and purposes one. They can, of course, be distinguished as in Dan 7:1-28, but here, and elsewhere in the Apocalypse, the Beast and its last great imperial chief are so vitally connected that the former perishes in the everlasting ruin of its head. The Beast is cast alive into the lake of fire – a man, of course, yet spoken of as the Beast – the usual designation of the empire.
Rev 19:20 – And the False Prophet that was with him. This is the Antichrist, the embodiment of religious apostasy. His fellow, the Beast, is the distinguished Gentile chief on whom Satan conferred almost boundless political authority. Three times is the title the False Prophet used of the Antichrist as descriptive of his seductive teachings in Judea and in Christendom generally. (See remarks on Rev 16:13, on Rev 19:20, and on Rev 20:10.) Was with him, i.e., the Beast, intimates that they were acting together. The Beast supplied the strength, the False Prophet the counsel. The latter is by far the more energetic of the two.
Rev 19:20 – Who wrought the signs before him (i.e., the Beast) by which he deceived them that received the mark of the Beast, and those that worship his image. He deceived them by the miraculous signs he wrought, his grand effort being to get world-wide worship for the Beast, his superior in temporal power, although his inferior in craft and malignant satanic influence. The diabolic work of the False Prophet, that which had been his special work as the coadjutor of the Beast, is the main subject of Rev 13:11-17, there entitled another Beast, here the False Prophet, but one and the same person.
AN ETERNAL DOOM.
Rev 19:20 – Alive were both cast into the lake of fire which burns with brimstone. Who can paint in words the horror of such a doom? Literally, actually this is the predetermined punishment of two individuals, one a Jew and the other a Gentile, and perhaps both on the earth at this moment! These two men are not killed, as their deluded followers are. Physical death in their own persons they will never know, but grasped by the hand of Omnipotence, seized red-handed in their crimes, they are at once cast into the lake of fire – a collection of agonies unutterable. They do not proceed, nor are driven onward to their fearful doom, but are cast alive into it, as you would throw aside that which is worthless. A thousand years afterwards Satan joins them in the same awful place, as the next chapter unfolds. The lake of fire is never at rest. Fire and brimstone denote unspeakable torment (Isa 30:33). The lake, not of water, but of fire, is the eternal place of punishment for the devil and for lost men and fallen angels. It is a place, and not a condition. And is it not significant that the phrase, which has rightly become crystallized in our minds from earliest years as the expression of all that is dark and agonising, should be mentioned here for the first time? Perhaps the first inhabitants of the lake may be those two men.
Rev 19:21. – The rest were slain with the sword of Him that sat upon the horse, which goes out of His mouth. The pride and armies of Europe lie in the silence of death, killed, but not by a literal sword. The angry voice of the King of kings shall strike through the serried ranks, suddenly depriving them of their two great chiefs; then death on the spot, the awful portion of the apostate and rebellious host. It is a terrible story briefly told. Enoch and Elijah were taken up to Heaven without seeing death; the Beast and False Prophet (their names withheld) are cast into the lake of fire without dying. So awful is the slaughter that the fowls of Heaven are filled with the flesh of the dead. The ultimate destiny of the worshippers and adherents of the Beast is unfolded in Rev 14:9-11; Rev 20:11-15.
Commentary on Rev 19:17-21 by E.M. Zerr
Rev 19:17. When a man makes a great “killing” he often invites his friends to come and share the feast with him. The effects of the Reformation are symbolized in this and the following verse. It is especially appropriate to base the imagery on the fowls of the heaven, for they are generally thought to prefer feeding on the flesh of animals that have been slain and left on the field. (See Mat 24:28.) The present case is one where the beasts were notkilled and dressed as would be done ordinarily. They were to be killed to get them out of the way, and the birds might as well get the benefit of it since that is the kind of food they prefer. Standing in the sun was the appropriate place for the angel to stand where he could make his invitation to the creatures that live above the earth.
Rev 19:18. Of course this is symbolical of the defeat and destruction that is about to be imposed upon Babylon (church and state). Yet it is appropriate to use the symbols named because the conflict is actually to be with kings and their captains and mighty men, and these made use of horses in their warfare.
Rev 19:19. Beast is Babylon and the kings are the inferior rulers under her. All mustered their forces to resist the attack of Christ through the Reformation.
Rev 19:20. The lake of fire for the present is the destruction of Babylon, but in the day of judgment it will be the lake of fire that is unquenchable. The false prophet and miracles are explained at various passages preceding this.
Rev 19:21. The remnant means the straggling individuals who were left as “die-hards” after the beast of Babylon as a unit had been given a death blow by the Reformation.
Commentary on Rev 19:17-21 by Burton Coffman
Rev 19:17
And I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in mid heaven, Come and be gathered together unto the great supper of God;
An angel standing in the sun … The function of angels as aids in the final judgment is an oft-recurring New Testament phenomenon. See under Rev 19:14.
Come and be gathered together for the great supper of God … This is the counterpart of the Lord’s Supper, or the marriage supper of the Lamb, as it applies to the wicked. Very well, if people who are bidden to the marriage supper will not come, there is another supper prepared for them; and they shall surely be present for it!
But why no battle? What happened to Armageddon? The answer provided by Eller for this is:
Jesus in his death and resurrection did all that needed to be done, won the only victory that needs to be won, in order to take care of Evil once and for all.[51]
Of course, “There is no cavalry kept in heaven, no literal supper of human flesh eaten by the birds.”[52] These things must be understood symbolically. Eller pointed out one thing that may be intended. In the extensive attack upon God and the supernatural by the massive hordes of evil men on earth, “It is not the supernatural powers that get eaten, but people.”[53]
[51] Vernard Eller, The Most Revealing Book of the Bible (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1974), p. 178.
[52] G. R. Beasley-Murray, op. cit., p. 278.
[53] Vernard Eller, op. cit., p. 178.
Rev 19:18
that ye may eat the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of mighty men, and the flesh of horses and of them that sit thereon, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, and small and great.
Inherent in this is the fact that if people choose to live like animals, denying any image of God in themselves, or even that God exists, the final result will bring them to exactly the same end as that of a dead horse. It is the injection of that phrase “and the flesh of horses” which strongly emphasizes this point here. If man was born of evolution, being only material, then he has no more cosmic value than a worm or a dog.
We shall not dwell on the revulsion that such an awful scene as this brings to mind. The utter horror of such a holocaust staggers the imagination. One thing should be pointed out: this is exactly the same scene, from a different viewpoint, that was described in Rev 6:16-17; the same characters are here: kings, captains, mighty men, the bond and the free, the great and the small. It is another presentation (in vision) of the final judgment, described by the apostle John over and over, each picture closing a different prophecy, and each vision covering the same ground between the two Advents. “History attains its end in a complete division of the human race into two groups..”[54] These are the Church which is loyal to her true head, and the world which casts its lot in with evil. “Here we are dealing with the last judgment, nothing else.”[55]
[54] G. R. Beasley-Murray, op. cit., p. 282.
[55] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 557.
Rev 19:19
And I saw the beast, and the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against him that sat upon the horse, and against his army.
I saw the beast … kings … armies … These are the same. This is the scarlet sea-beast of the seven heads and ten horns (Rev 13:1). Note the mention of “the kings”; these are the “ten kings” (Rev 17:11-17) who hate and burn the harlot (the seventh head of the beast), becoming themselves the eighth head; but this phase of the scarlet beast is relatively short, “one hour” symbolizing an indefinite but short time. There is no way to know whether such a symbol means years, decades, or centuries. All time with reference to eternity is only a day. The total and final end of the scarlet sea-beast is depicted here.
How strange, how tragic is this situation in which the kings of earth unite in one terrible effort to destroy the anointed of God. How contrary this revelation is to the dreams of men and the foolish statements of their false prophets, that human society is ever progressing.[56]
It appears certain that the prophecy here is of the near endtime, in which period it is prophesied here that wickedness will become very aggressive against righteousness. We find it impossible to disagree with the comment that:
Never before has there been such a widespread revolt against all standards of decency and honesty. Never before have religious leaders advocated not only a “new theology” but a “new morality” which flouts God’s laws. The stage is being rapidly set for the end of the age.[57]
It is this final, terminal opposition of evil to God’s will which is here styled a “battle.” It will not be a “battle” in any ordinary understanding of the word; but the final conflict will be so severe that it fully deserves the title. This is not the struggle that takes place after Christ comes, but the one that is going on now. “The warfare takes place while Christians are upon earth.”[58]
[56] Wilbur M. Smith. Wycliffe Bible Commentary, New Testament (Chicago: Moody Press, 1971). p. 1092.
[57] Ralph Earle. Beacon Bible Commentary, Vol. 10 (Kansas City: Beacon Hill Press, 1967), p. 608.
[58] A. Plummer, op. cit., p. 450.
Rev 19:20
And the beast was taken, and with him the false prophet that wrought the signs in his sight, wherewith he deceived them that had received the mark of the beast and them that worshipped his image: they two were cast alive into the lake of fire that burneth with brimstone:
And the beast was taken … and the false prophet … The false prophet (the harlot, the land-beast; all three terms refer to the same thing) was destroyed in the judgment scene of chapter 18, and the mention of the same thing being done here, under a different figure, is merely to show that this judgment is exactly the same as that.
They two were cast alive into the lake of fire … There is no way to understand a statement like this as being anything else except a reference to the final judgment of the wicked as foretold by Christ (Mat 25:41). Note that the destruction of the harlot, here called the false prophet, shall be simultaneous with the destruction of the scarlet sea-beast of Rev 13:1. This means that apostate Christianity will not perish before the final judgment. Both the harlot and the sea-beast (in the form of his eighth head) will be alive and doing a flourishing business when the end comes. Earle likewise stressed the truth that the two beasts of chapter 13 are the same as the beast and the false prophet here.[59] We have also identified the harlot with the second beast (land-beast). Note that John says nothing here of any “battle.” “He may mean that there was no battle.”[60] Of course, he could hardly mean anything else. And the wrath of the Gentile unsmote by the sword Hath melted like snow in the glance of the Lord!
[59] Ralph Earle, op. cit., p. 608.
[60] Leon Morris, op. cit., p. 232.
Rev 19:21
and the rest were killed by the sword of him that sat upon the horse, even the sword which came forth out of his mouth: and all the birds were filled with their flesh.
And the rest were killed with the sword of him … Of course, that was no literal sword, but a symbol of the word of the Lord. The word alone is all-sufficient for achieving the total purpose of the Lord Jesus Christ. But should not these armies that followed the beast, the kings and the false prophet have also been cast into the lake of fire? “You are right; they were; Rev 20:15 says so.”[61]
This particular recapitulation of the warfare between Satan and Christ (Rev 19:11-21) “has given special attention to the overthrow of the powers of evil.”[62] “This covers the same ground as the vision of the seals,”[63] and other parallel visions of this prophecy. The whole pattern will again be repeated in Revelation 20 with another recapitulation of the warfare going on in this dispensation, with the focus upon the overthrow of Satan himself, and ending in exactly the same place all of the recapitulations have ended; namely, at the final judgment of the last day. The chronology of all these parallel visions lies principally between the two Advents of Jesus Christ.
[61] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 563.
[62] A. Plummer, op. cit., p. 450.
[63] Ibid.
Commentary on Rev 19:17-21 by Manly Luscombe
17 Then I saw an angel standing in the sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in the midst of heaven, Come and gather together for the supper of the great God,The end is near. For the church, the waiting for the bridegroom is about over. It is almost time for the great supper. The invitations have been sent out. You are invited to get ready. Are your garments white, wrinkle-free, spotless? Are you ready for the wedding? If you have to get ready then you need to get started, NOW!
18 that you may eat the flesh of kings, the flesh of captains, the flesh of mighty men, the flesh of horses and of those who sit on them, and the flesh of all people, free and slave, both small and great. The time is coming that the army of faithful soldiers of Christ will mete out judgment on the wicked. All kinds of men will be lost – 1) kings, 2) captains, 3) mighty men, 4) free people, 5) slave people, 6) small people, and 7) great people. All those who harmed Christians will be ruined.
19 And I saw the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies, gathered together to make war against Him who sat on the horse and against His army. We are about to see the beast of persecuting governments and the beast of false religions. The civil governments, ruled by the kings of the earth, and their armies try to oppose the King of kings. They will not succeed.
20 Then the beast was captured, and with him the false prophet who worked signs in his presence, by which he deceived those who received the mark of the beast and those who worshiped his image. These two were cast alive into the lake of fire burning with brimstone. Here is what God says will happen to the beast and the false prophet. They are cast into the lake of fire and brimstone. The beast (persecuting civil governments) and false prophets (false religious teachers) are cast in the eternal pit called Hell. Along with them are all who followed them, received the mark of the beast and worshipped his image.
21 And the rest were killed with the sword which proceeded from the mouth of Him who sat on the horse. And all the birds were filled with their flesh. Finally all the rest of Satans army are destroyed. This is the end. The three generals have now been defeated. Next is Satan, himself.
Sermon on Rev 19:1-21
The Victorious Christ
Brent Kercheville
Chapter 18 describes the wailing of the world when the Roman Empire fell. The economic impact of its fall was amazing. The warning was given to Gods people to come out from the wickedness and worldliness and be separate. Gods people must maintain holy lives even when the world is full of immorality. Revelation 19 continues to describe the impact of Romes fall.
Rejoicing In Heaven (Rev 19:1-5)
John hears what sounds like a great multitude in heaven crying out, Hallelujah! The English word is a transliteration of the Greek word, which in turn is a transliteration of the Hebrew word. It is a compound word. Hallel means praise and Jah is Yahweh. Hallelujah means Praise the Lord. Or as our songbook has it, Hallelujah, praise Jehovah. Praise the Lord because salvation, glory, and power belong to our God. They are praising God because Gods judgments have been executed. He has judged the great prostitute who has corrupted the earth with her immoralities. He has judged the great prostitute, avenging the blood of his servants.
Wickedness will receive its due judgment. We grasp the difficulty of looking at the world who rejects God yet seems to prosper despite its evil acts. Sometimes we cannot understand why the righteous suffer while the wicked succeed. In the context of Revelation we are reading that the servants of God are going to suffer and be slain. Meanwhile those who worship the beast and its image have no consequences whatsoever. They will not die while the Christians will die. For many chapters we have read that those who are in Christ will be victorious and those who worship the beast will be judged. Justice has finally come. Judgment has finally come. Vindication has finally come. God will be just and God will judged. Praise the Lord because the smoke rises forever and ever. The nation has collapsed and the people are judged. Isaiah used the same language of Babylon.
Night and day it shall not be quenched; its smoke shall go up forever. From generation to generation it shall lie waste; none shall pass through it forever and ever. (Isa 34:10 ESV)
The 24 elders and the four living creatures that we read about in Revelation 4 are praising the Lord along with the voice of the great multitude. From the throne we hear the words, Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, small and great. These words come from the Hallel section of the Psalms (Psa 113:1; Psa 115:13). No words can be better than Praise the Lord.
Marriage of the Lamb (Rev 19:6-10)
Then the voice of a great multitude has another reason to praise the Lord. The sound is described like the roar of many waters and like the sounds of mighty peals of thunder. Friends, this is quite a loud sound, a nearly terrifying sound. The call is to praise the Lord. Rejoice, exalt, and give God glory because the marriage of the Lamb has come. A wedding is taking place. The Lamb is pictured as the groom. The bride is pictured as the people of God. The bride has made herself ready through their righteous deeds. The people of God have remained pure through this tribulation period, remaining faithful to the Lamb and refusing to worship the beast.
This is a picture used in other places in the New Testament to show the relationshipof Gods people with the Lamb. Husbands, love your wives, as Christ loved the church and gave himself up for her, that he might sanctify her, having cleansed her by the washing of water with the word, so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish (Eph 5:25-27 ESV). Jesus also describes the kingdom of God in terms of a wedding feast (Mat 22:1-14). This matches the words of the angel in Rev 19:9, Blessed are those who are invited to the marriage supper of the Lamb. These are the true words of God. Being joined to the Lamb is the most important thing and it is the great promise of God to be in relationship with him.
Then we reach an interesting part of the narrative. John falls down at the feet of the angel to worship him. However, the angel instructs John not to do that. The angel is also a servant. Worship God. Obviously John knows that we only worship God. I believe he is overcome with the glory and greatness of the message that he falls down in worship. The message the angel has brought is simply amazing! This is likely recorded in Revelation because the second half of this book has been about encouraging Christians to worship the Lamb alone. Do not worship the beast. Do not worship the image of the beast. Do not even worship angels sent from God. Worship God. The testimony given by Jesus is the substance of what the Spirit inspires Christian prophets to speak. The angel is not the source of this awesome prophetic revelation. Jesus is the source. Therefore, worship him.
The Victorious Christ (Rev 19:11-21)
Heaven opens and John sees a white horse. Riding on the white horse is one who is called Faithful and True. He judges and makes war in righteousness. As we noted in Rev 6:2 that the white does not represent purity but victory. In regards to the great multitude in Rev 7:9, they wear white robes symbolizing victory because of their faithfulness. His eyes are like a flame of fire and on his head are many diadems. He has a name that no one knows but himself. Further, he is clothed in a robe dipped in blood and the name he is called by is The Word of God. The language makes it evident that this is Jesus the Christ. Jesus calls himself the faithful and true witness to the church of Laodicea in Rev 3:14. The description of eyes being flames of fire is applied to Christ in Rev 1:14 and Rev 2:18. Earlier in the book of Revelation we saw Jesus wearing seven crowns. Now he is pictured as wearing diadems. I believe the change of imagery suggests that he is wearing the diadems of the beast because he has conquered the beast. The beast has been vanquished and he is wearing those diadems on his head showing he has conquered it. This fits the rest of the imagery. Rev 19:11 shows he is the one who makes war in righteousness. Further, his robe is dipped in blood or sprinkled in blood. This imagery comes from Isa 63:1-6 showing God trampling the enemies.
Who is this who comes from Edom, in crimsoned garments from Bozrah, he who is splendid in his apparel, marching in the greatness of his strength? It is I, speaking in righteousness, mighty to save. Why is your apparel red, and your garments like his who treads in the winepress? I have trodden the winepress alone, and from the peoples no one was with me; I trod them in my anger and trampled them in my wrath; their lifeblood spattered on my garments, and stained all my apparel. For the day of vengeance was in my heart, and my year of redemption had come. I looked, but there was no one to help; I was appalled, but there was no one to uphold; so my own arm brought me salvation, and my wrath upheld me. I trampled down the peoples in my anger; I made them drunk in my wrath, and I poured out their lifeblood on the earth. (Isa 63:1-6 ESV)
Following him are the armies of heaven, clothed in fine linen that were white and pure. Here comes the armies of the Lord and Christ is the leader on the white horse with his clothing sprayed in blood. Rev 19:15 reveals messianic imagery. The sharp sword coming out of his mouth was seen in Rev 1:16. He is going to strike down the nations and rule with a rod of iron. This is a reference to the messianic prophecy in Psa 2:9 and Isa 11:4. He will tread the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God. We saw this predicted in Rev 14:17-20. This image of Christ acting in the anger of the Lord against the disobedient nations and peoples. The name written on his robe and thigh is King of kings and Lord of lords. It is interesting that these names are located on his thigh. The thigh was the location of the sword and it was also the place where oaths were made (cf. Gen 24:2; Gen 24:9; Gen 47:29).
Rev 19:17-18 are a graphic, grotesque description of the destruction of the beast. Christ will be victorious. His armies are with him and he will conquer. This graphic is used by the prophet Ezekiel in a prophecy against the nations of the earth called Gog and Magog (which we will read about in Revelation 20).
4 You shall fall on the mountains of Israel, you and all your hordes and the peoples who are with you. I will give you to birds of prey of every sort and to the beasts of the field to be devoured.
17 As for you, son of man, thus says the Lord GOD: Speak to the birds of every sort and to all beasts of the field, Assemble and come, gather from all around to the sacrificial feastthat I am preparing for you, a great sacrificial feast on the mountains of Israel, and you shall eat flesh and drink blood. 18 You shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth-of rams, of lambs, and of he-goats, of bulls, all of them fat beasts of Bashan. 19 And you shall eat fat till you are filled, and drink blood till you are drunk, at the sacrificial feast that I am preparing for you. 20 And you shall be filled at my table with horses and charioteers, with mighty men and all kinds of warriors, declares the Lord GOD. (Eze 39:4; Eze 39:17-20 ESV)
Before the battle has begun and before anyone joins in the fight the result is certain. At the same time as the evil forces are gathering for battle, the carrion birds are gathering in the air for the inevitable slaughter. The circling of vultures overhead indicates the coming doom. Thus, John looks and sees the beast and the kings of the earth with their armies gathered to make war against Christ and his army. This is a reminder from Rev 16:14 where the kings of the earth were gathering at Armageddon. We noted that gathering at Armageddon symbolized a decisive, catastrophic loss. The loss is decisive and catastrophic. The beast was captured along with the false prophet and are thrown in the lake of fire. The rest are slain by the sword that comes out of the mouth of Christ and all the birds ate their flesh. Notice that there is no battle. Christs victory is immediate. When the sword comes out from Christs mouth, the battle belongs to the Lord and the enemies are crushed. Being thrown alive into the lake of fire seems to indicate the experiencing of the eternal punishment and torment. Rev 20:10 tells us that the lake of fire is the place of eternal torment. The book of Revelation wants us to clearly understand that Christ is one who has destroyed the beast. Christ is the one who is victorious. Christ is the one who is the Lord of heavens armies.
This chapter has a twofold message of encouragement to the Christians, and for us by extension. The marriage to the Lamb has come and we make ourselves ready for this marriage to the Lamb with our righteous acts. Not that we are make ourselves deserving of this great relationship. Rather, we are making the necessary preparations in purity and holiness to be transformed into what God wants us to be. The second message of encouragement is seeing the victorious Christ. Christ has won. Christ rules with all power and might over the nations and peoples of the earth. Do not leave Christ and worship something else. Worship God. Be on the winning team. Those who rebel against Christ are eternally punished in torment.
LESSON 23.
GOD IS PRAISED AND THE KING OF KINGS APPEARS
Read Revelation 19
1. After the fall of Babylon unto whom did the voice of a heavenly multitude ascribe salvation, glory and power? Ans. Rev 19:1.
2. With what kind of judgment did God judge the great harlot? Ans. Rev 19:2.
3. Whose blood did he avenge? Ans. Rev 19:2.
4. What did the heavenly multitude say a second time? Ans. Rev 19:3.
5. Tell what the twenty-four elders and the four living creatures said and did. Ans. Rev 19:4.
6. What was said by the voice from the throne? Ans. Rev 19:5.
7. Describe the voice that uttered the third Hallelujah. Ans. Rev 19:6.
8. Give two reasons why the heavenly host should rejoice and glorify God at this time. Ans. Rev 19:7.
9. In what was the wife arrayed? Ans. Rev 19:8.
10. What is the “fine linen” with which she is clothed? Ans. Rev 19:8.
11. What was John told to write? Ans. Rev 19:9.
12. Whose words were these? Ans. Rev 19:9.
13. Then what did John endeavor to do, and how was he prevented? Ans. Rev 19:10.
14. Who alone should be worshiped? Ans. Jno. 4: 24; Mat 4:10.
15. What appeared when the heaven was opened? Ans. Rev 19:11.
16. Describe the person on the white horse. Ans. Rev 19:12-13.
17. Who followed him? Ans. Rev 19:14.
18. What was the weapon of his warfare, and what was the instrument of his rule? Ans. Rev 19:15.
19. What was his name and where was it written? Ans. Rev 19:16.
20. What were all the birds commanded to do by the angel standing in the sun? Ans. Rev 19:17-18.
21. For what purpose did the beast, the kings of the earth, and their armies gather together? Ans. Rev 19:19.
22. How were the beast and the false prophet disposed of? Ans. Rev 19:20.
23. How were the rest destroyed? Ans. Rev 19:21.
FOR CLASS DISCUSSION
I. Discuss the church as the bride of Christ, paying special notice to the duties and responsibilities implied by the marriage illustration.
E.M. Zerr
Questions on Revelation
Revelation Chapter Nineteen
1. In what place did John hear a great voice?
2. What did they ascribe to God?
3. State their estimate of His judgments.
4. To what judgment did this now refer?
5. What had she corrupted?
6. Tell what vengeance God had effected.
7. What did they again acclaim?
8. What rose up continuany?
9. Who then fell down to worship God?
10. Tell what they proclaimed.
11. From where did a voice come?
12. Ten what it said.
13. What did John next hear?
14. Whose reign did they acknowledge?
15. What did they bid all do?
16. Ten what event was about to happen.
17. What preparation had been made?
18. Tell what grant was made to her.
19. What does the linen represent?
20. Who were to be blessed?
21. Repeat their comment on the sayings of God.
22. At this where did John fall?
23. For what purpose did he do so?
24. Tell what the angel said to him.
25. What is the spirit of prophecy?
26. What did John see in the open heaven?
27. Name its rider.
28. What was his work?
29. On what principle was he acting?
30. Describe his eyes.
31. What were on his head?
32. What secret possession did he have?
33. How was he clothed?
34. State his complete name.
35. Who followed him?
36. How were they clothed?
37. What proceeded from his mouth?
38. Tell what use was to be made of it.
39. Describe his rule over the nations.
40. Tell what he shall tread.
41. Repeat the name written on his vesture.
42. Where was the angel standing?
43. To what creatures did he cry?
44. State the invitation he made.
45. On what will the guest eat?
46. Whom did John see in a gathering?
47. Tell what they were to do.
48. What was done with the beast?
49. Who was taken with him?
50. What had this person done?
51. Tell what was done with both these.
52. What was done with the remnant?
53. State what was done with their flesh.
Revelation Chapter Nineteen
Ralph Starling
Much people in heaven continued rejoicing,
Singing and shouting Alleluia with their voices,
For God’s judgments are true and righteous.
The treatment of the whore was true and right.
The 4 and 20 Elders and the 4 beasts said “Amen.”
Praise God ye servants and ye that fear Him.
And there was heard voices as of many waters
Thundering Alleluias from many quarters.
Now is time for a special event
The marriage of the Lamb with God’s consent.
The Bride was dressed in linen and white,
For all who were called to witness the sight.
The Lamb was the Christ, God’s son.
The Bride, His church, the two to be one.
The Lamb was received with many a nod,
For his name was written, “THE WORD OF GOD.”
He would go forth with the Word as his swords,
For he was to be “King of Kings and Lord of Lords.”
The Beast and the kings made war against him,
But with their prophets & miracles they couldn’t win.
The Beast and all that were with him were disowned,
And were cast into that Lake of fire & brimstone,
And those that remained were slain by the Lamb’s sword,
For the Word is HIS sharp sword not to be ignored.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Come
Armageddon (the ancient hill and valley of Megiddo, west of Jordan in the plain of Jezreel) is the appointed place for the beginning of the great battle in which the Lord, at His coming in glory, will deliver the Jewish remnant besieged by the Gentile world- powers under the Beast and False Prophet Rev 16:13-16; Zec 12:1-9. Apparently the besieging hosts, whose approach to Jerusalem is described in Isa 10:28-32 alarmed by the signs which precede the Lord’s coming Mat 24:29; Mat 24:30 have fallen back to Megiddo, after the events of Zec 14:2 where their destruction begins; a destruction consummated in Moab and the plains of Idumea Isa 63:1-6. This battle is the first event in “the day of Jehovah” Isa 2:12 and is the fulfilment of the smiting-stone prophecy of Dan 2:35.
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
an angel: Rev 8:13, Rev 14:6, Isa 34:1-8
saying: Rev 19:21, Isa 56:9, Jer 12:9, Eze 39:17-20
Reciprocal: Jos 8:29 – the king 1Sa 17:46 – carcases 1Ki 14:11 – that dieth 2Ch 32:21 – the leaders Psa 45:4 – right Psa 63:10 – a portion Psa 68:12 – Kings Psa 68:23 – the tongue Psa 76:12 – terrible Isa 13:9 – cruel Isa 18:6 – General Isa 29:2 – and it shall Isa 34:6 – the Lord hath Isa 43:17 – they shall Isa 66:24 – and look Jer 7:33 – General Jer 15:3 – I will Jer 16:4 – meat Jer 25:33 – the slain Jer 34:20 – and their Jer 46:10 – the sword Jer 50:27 – bullocks Eze 29:5 – I have Eze 31:13 – General Eze 32:4 – General Eze 39:4 – I will Eze 39:18 – eat Dan 2:45 – the great Mic 4:3 – and rebuke Zep 1:7 – for the Lord Zep 3:8 – to gather Zep 3:19 – I will undo Zec 10:5 – and the riders on horses shall be confounded Zec 14:12 – the plague wherewith Luk 17:37 – wheresoever Jam 5:5 – as in Rev 11:9 – and shall not Rev 16:16 – he
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
Rev 19:17. When a man makes a great “killing” he often invites his friends to come and share the feast with him. The effects of the Reformation are symbolized in this and the following verse. It is especially appropriate to base the imagery on the fowls of the heaven, for they are generally thought to prefer feeding on the flesh of animals that have been slain and left on the field. (See Mat 24:28.) The present case is one where the beasts were not killed and dressed as would be done ordinarily. They were to be killed to get them out of the way, and the birds might as well get the benefit of it since that is the kind of food they prefer. Standing in the sun was the appropriate place for the angel to stand where he could make his invitation to the creatures that live above the earth.
Rev 19:18. Of course this is symbolical of the defeat and destruction that is about to be imposed upon Babylon (church and state). Yet it is appro-private to use the symbols named because the conflict is actually to be with kings and their captains and mighty men, and these made use of horses in their warfare.
Commentsby Foy E. Wallace
Verses 17-18.
(4) The great sacrificial Supper–Rev 19:17-18.
These verses represented a feast on the flesh of kings consumed by the birds of prey and was one of the most highly metaphorical sections of the entire series of visions.
In Mat 24:28, Jesus said: “For wheresoever the carcass is, there will the eagles be gathered together.” This forecast was the Lord’s illustration of the siege of Jerusalem, which was the carcass; and the Romans were the eagles, whose armies swooped on Jerusalem to destroy and devour it. But in this vision the metaphor was reversed. The rulers of the persecuting powers, with all the forces opposing Christ and his church, were the victims of this supper of the Great God. The sacrifice of animals was the common method of celebrating victories; such as king Saul, without warrant, had presumptuously planned in celebration of victory over Amalek, as recorded in 1Sa 15:15; 1Sa 15:21. Here in this vision the eating of the flesh of kings, as the victims of the sacrificial supper, was symbolic of the victory of the saints over all the persecuting powers of the heathen governments, including all Roman tributaries which were the minions of the composite Roman beast. This symbolic representation was a repetition of the previous figurative descriptions of the fearful visitations of divine wrath on the wicked persecutors, which no kings or rulers of nations could withstand.
The same metaphorical representation of the celebration of the return of Israel from exile, subsequent to the fall of Babylon, was employed by Ezekiel in Eze 39:17-20 : “And, thou son of man, thus saith the Lord God; Speak unto every feathered fowl, and to every beast of the field, Assemble yourselves, and come; gather yourselves on every side to my sacrifice that I do sacrifice for you, even a great sacrifice upon the mountains of Israel, that ye may eat flesh, and drink blood. Ye shall eat the flesh of the mighty, and drink the blood of the princes of the earth, of rams, of lambs, and of goats, of bullocks, all of them fatlings of Bashan. And ye shall eat fat till ye be full, and drink blood till ye be drunken, of my sacrifice which I have sacrificed for you. Thus ye shall be filled at my table with horses and chariots, with mighty men, and with all men of war, saith the Lord God.”
It is apparent that this sacrificial supper in Revelation was the vision of celebration for the triumph of the church over all the forces of heathenism. The inclusion in the metaphor of the flesh of kings, and the flesh of captains, and the flesh of horses, and of them that sit on them, and the flesh of all men, both free and bond, both small and great meant that no class or condition of men in the heathen society which formed a part of the forces of persecution and of opposition to the church, were exempt from retribution; but were all alike victims of this symbolic celebration of the victory over heathenism in the sacrificial supper of the great God.
The vision of the angel standing in the sun, of verse seventeen, indicated not only the glory of this messenger of Christ, but the central station from which to summon the fowls that fly in the midst of heaven. The word heaven in the previous visions has designated the ruling authorities of the earth, or place of the nations. The reference to the fowls in the mid-heaven indicated that the birds of prey, symbolizing this awesome picture of visitation of divine wrath, were flying in the very midst of these evil authorities ready to descend on the carrion of the pagan persecuting powers, the defeated forces of heathenism.
The foregoing descriptions were designed to symbolize that no class or condition, high or low, in the heathen world could stand against the spiritual forces of Christ, the Conqueror and Rider of the white horse–and from this imagery of spiritual victory over all the forces of heathenism, the vision turns to the scene of judgment and final banishment of the Roman beast and his subordinate beast, the false prophet, who had beguiled the people into the emperor-image worship, and who was the original source of the spiritual war delineated in the apocalypse.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Rev 19:17. And I saw one angel standing in the sun, and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the birds that fly in mid-heaven, Come, be gathered together unto the great supper of God. For the angels standing in the sun comp. what was said on the thrones of the twenty-four elders at chap. Rev 4:4. The Lamb is come. But another supper has to be eaten: it is ready, and the invitation to it is issued. All the birds that fly in mid-heaven are invited; and it is apparently for this reason that the angel stands in the sun (which is to be conceived of as in the zenith of its daily path), so that he can the more easily summon the birds that fly in the uppermost regions of the air. At the same time it seems not unlikely that the sun of chap. Rev 1:16 is also in the writers eye. The Son of man is come to judgment: the angel who summons to it is the expression of the sun as he shineth in his power. Much difficulty has been felt in the effort to determine what is represented by these birds. Yet attention to the natural strain of the passage as well as to Rev 19:21 ought to leave us in little doubt upon the point. They cannot possibly be the enemies of the Lord, the armies of antichrist, for Rev 19:18 shows us that these constitute the materials of the banquet, the food that is eaten. They must, therefore, be simply the birds of prey, the vultures, whose province it is to fly in the loftiest regions of the sky, and which are here introduced in order to convey to us a clear image of the destruction awaiting the ungodly. The picture is obviously taken from Eze 39:17-22, and it forms a striking contrast to the supper of the Lamb spoken of in Rev 19:7-9. To this latter the people of the Lord come in peace and joy, and are feasted with the food which has been prepared for them by the Bridegroom of the Church. To the former the enemies of the Lord are summoned, not to feast but to afford a feast to all fierce and hateful birds.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
After the description of the general and his army, follows next the event and success of the battle, which is a prodigious slaughter of the church’s enemies: and as eagles and vultures, and other birds of prey, do attend an army, and flock where the slain lie, in like manner Almighty God here invites the fowls of the air to sup upon the carcasses of his slain enemies. Antichrist would not suffer the dead bodies of the witnesses to be buried, but to be cast out, and lie in the streets; and here God metes to him the same measure; their carcasses also shall be a supper for the birds and fowls of the air. Come to the supper of the great God, to the slaughter of antichrist and his adherents.
Where note, That by calling it a supper, two things may be probably intended.
1. The facility and easiness of the victory: that Christ’s and his church’s enemies will not put him hard to it to overcome them; as we proverbially say, they will be but a supper to him, or a breakfast for him. The word supper seems to import, that this shall be the last effort, the last great opposition, that antichrist and the church’s enemies shall ever make against Christ to the end of the world, as the supper is the last meal of the day.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
An angel standing in the sun would be seen by all. Even before the battle is joined, he calls the flesh eating birds, such as vultures, to come to a great feast, which would seem to be in contrast to the wedding feast. ( Rev 19:9 ) The calling of such birds is reminiscent of Ezekiel’s vision of the judgment of Gog. ( Eze 39:17-20 ) Those who had denied the existence of God had lived like animals, so they die a death like animals and are eaten by the birds. The same people are listed here as in Rev 6:15-17 .
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Rev 19:17-19. And I saw an angel standing in the sun And therefore conspicuous to all; and he cried with a loud voice to all the fowls of heaven To intimate the slaughter and desolation which were soon to come upon the enemies of the church; saying, Come, gather yourselves together to the supper of the great God To the great feast which his vengeance will soon provide; a strongly figurative expression, taken from Eze 39:17, denoting the vastness of the ensuing slaughter. And I saw the beast Appearing again, as at the head of the antichristian interest, see Rev 13:1, &c.; and the kings of the earth The ten kings mentioned Rev 17:12, who aided and supported that persecuting power, and had now drawn other kings of the earth to them; and their armies gathered together All the forces they could collect, all the enemies of truth and righteousness; to make war against him that sat on the horse To oppose the progress of his gospel, and the enlargement of his kingdom. All beings, good and bad, visible and invisible, will be concerned in this grand contest.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
19:17 {17} And I saw an angel standing in the {18} sun; and he cried with a loud voice, saying to all the fowls that fly in the {19} midst of heaven, Come and gather yourselves together unto the supper of the great God;
(17) The second part, as I said in see Geneva “Rev 19:11”. A reproachful calling forth of his enemies into battle: in which not themselves (for why should they be called forth by the king of the world, or provoked being his subjects? for that is not comely) but in their hearing, the birds of the air are called to eat their carcasses.
(18) That is, openly, and in sight of all, as in Num 25:4, 2Sa 12:11 .
(19) That is, through this inferior heaven, and which is nearer to us: a Hebrew phrase.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
3. The destruction of the wicked on earth 19:17-21
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
John saw next an angel standing in the sun, a conspicuous position in which all the birds could see him. He cried loudly for all the birds flying in mid-heaven to assemble (cf. Eze 39:4; Eze 39:17). Jesus referred to the same battle and mentioned vultures (or eagles, Gr. aetoi) being present (Mat 24:28; Luk 17:37). After the coming battle, the site will provide a feast for vultures (cf. Eze 39:4; Eze 39:17-20). It is a great supper that God gives them. This is the battle of Armageddon (Rev 16:16). This picture of it stresses the greatness of God’s victory over His enemies. [Note: Swete, pp. 255-56; Hughes, p. 207.] The "great supper of God" is not the same event as the marriage supper of the Lamb (Rev 19:9). The former event will be a scene of great sorrow but the latter one of great joy.
"John took Ezekiel’s prophecies [in Eze 39:4; Eze 39:17-20] broadly enough to foreshadow both Harmagedon and the final attack on Jerusalem (Rev 20:8-9). . . . Harmagedon precedes the thousand years and the other battle follows . . ." [Note: Thomas, Revelation 8-22, p. 394.]