And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
The Vision of the Four Angels of the Four Winds. Chap. 7 Rev 7:1-3
1. four angels ] Presumably the Angels of the four winds, as we have other elemental Angels in Rev 14:18, Rev 16:5. Cf. Psa 104:4, of which the probable sense is, “Who maketh His Angels winds,” i.e. sends them into the air to cause the wind to blow, so that the wind is the manifestation of their presence.
on the four corners of the earth ] Probably the four cardinal points, the extreme north, south, east, and west of it. It is hardly likely that the “four winds of the earth” should be conceived as NE., SW., SE., and NW.: in the climate of the Levant, there would not be as much physical truth in such a classification as in our own, and the usage of nomenclature, in Greek and still more in Hebrew, proves that the four winds are N., E., S., W. We therefore cannot argue from the “four corners” that St John conceives the earth is a rectangle for it would be most unnatural to conceive it as set corner-wise: in Jer 49:36, the four winds blow from the four ends of the earth. But it appears that the machinery, so to speak, throughout the vision does imply that the earth is conceived as a plane. St John is in Heaven, and is able to look down (or even to go down) to the earth, which he sees spread beneath him like a map, from Euphrates to Rome and very likely further. We have somewhat similar language in Enoch xviii. 3, “I also beheld the four winds which bear up the earth and the firmament of heaven.” But St John does not, like Pseudo-Enoch, put forward his imagery as absolute physical truth.
that the wind should not blow ] Every one will remember Keble’s beautiful illustration of this image, by the natural phenomenon of the “All Saints’ Summer.” But the next v. shews, that it is by the Angels’ action that the winds blow, as well as that they are restrained from blowing: we are not to conceive the winds (as in Od. X., Aen. I.) as wild expansive forces, that will blow if not mechanically confined.
Fuente: The Cambridge Bible for Schools and Colleges
And after these things – After the vision of the things referred to in the opening of the sixth seal. The natural interpretation would be, that what is here said of the angels and the winds occurred after those things which are described in the previous chapter. The exact chronology may not be always observed in these symbolical representations, but doubtless there is a general order which is observed.
I saw four angels – He does not describe their forms, but merely mentions their agency. This is, of course, a symbolical representation. We are not to suppose that it would be literally fulfilled, or that, at the time referred to by the vision, four celestial beings would be stationed in the four quarters of the world for the purpose of checking and restraining the winds that blow from the four points of the compass. The meaning is, that events would occur which would be properly represented by four angels standing in the four quarters of the world, and having power over the winds.
Standing on the four corners of the earth – This language is, of course, accommodated to the prevailing mode of speaking of the earth among the Hebrews. It was a common method among them to describe it as a vast plain, having four corners, those corners being the prominent points – north, south, east, and west. So we speak now of the four winds, the four quarters of the world, etc. The Hebrews spoke of the earth, as we do of the rising and setting of the sun and of the motions of the heavenly bodies, according to appearances, and without aiming at philosophical exactness. Compare the notes on Job 26:7. With this view they spoke of the earth as an extended plain, and as having boundaries or corners, as a plain or field naturally has. Perhaps, also, they used this language with some allusion to an edifice, as having four corners; for they speak also of the earth as having foundations. The language which the Hebrews used was in accordance with the prevailing ideas and language of the ancients on the subject.
Holding the four winds of the earth – The winds blow in fact from every quarter, but it is convenient to speak of them as coming from the four principal points of the compass, and this method is adopted probably in every language. So among the Greeks and Latins, the winds were arranged under four classes – Zephyrus, Boreas, Notus, and Eurus – considered as under the control of a king, Aeolus. See Eschenburg, Man. Class. Literally, section 78, compare section 108. The angels here are represented as holding the winds – kratountas. That is, they held them back when about to sweep over the earth, and to produce far-spread desolation. This is an allusion to a popular belief among the Hebrews, that the agency of the angels was employed everywhere. It is not suggested that the angels had raised the tempest here, but only that they now restrained and controlled it. The essential idea is, that they had plower over those winds, and that they were now exercising that power by keeping them back when they were about to spread desolation over the earth.
That the wind should not blow on the earth – That there should be a calm, as if the winds were held back.
Nor on the sea – Nowhere – neither on sea nor land. The sea and the land constitute the surface of the globe, and the language here, therefore, denotes that there would be a universal calm.
Nor on any tree – To injure it. The language used here is such as would denote a state of profound quiet; as when we say that it is so still that not a leaf of the trees moves.
In regard to the literal meaning of the symbol here employed there can be no great difficulty; as to its application there may be more. The winds are the proper symbols of wars and commotions. Compare Dan 7:2. In Jer 49:36-37 the symbol is both used and explained: And upon Elam will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of heaven, and will scatter them toward all those winds; and there shall be no nation whither the outcasts of Elam shall not come. For I will cause Elam to be dismayed before their enemies, and before them that seek their life. So in Jer 51:1-2, a destroying wind is an emblem of destructive war: I will raise up against Babylon a destroying wind, and will send unto Babylon fanners, that shall fan her, and shall empty her land. Compare Horace, Odes, b. i. 14. The essential ideas, therefore, in this portion of the symbol, cannot be mistaken. They are two:
(1)That at the period of time here referred to – after the opening of the sixth seal and before the opening of the seventh – there would be a state of things which would be well represented by rising tempests and storms, which if unrestrained would spread desolation afar; and,
(2)That this impending ruin was held back as if by angels having control of those winds; that is, those tempests were not suffered to go forth to spread desolation over the world. A suspended tempest calamity held in check; armies hovering on the borders of a kingdom, but not allowed to proceed for a time; hordes of invaders detained, or stayed in their march, as if by some restraining power not their own, and from causes not within themselves – any of these things would be an obvious fulfilling of the meaning of the symbol.
Fuente: Albert Barnes’ Notes on the Bible
Rev 7:1-8
Four angels holding the four winds.
The four winds
I. The events figuratively represented by the four winds. Different opinions have been expressed respecting these winds. Bishop Newton and other writers understand by them those Pagan persecutions which assailed the Christian Church prior to the time of Constantine, and which were removed when he took the Christian religion under his protection. The text evidently includes all winds that injure the Christian Church and impede true religion in the world; but Constantine only suspended one wind to let loose another, equally, if not more, injurious than the wind of persecution; I mean the winds of error, formality, earthly-mindedness, and general corruption. Mr. Jones, author of the history of the Waldenses, makes these winds to mean the influences of the Holy Spirit, which, he says, were withheld from the Church when she became the favourite of the state under Constantine. It is quite true that the influences of the Holy Spirit are frequently represented in Scripture by the figurative term winds. Still this cannot be the true meaning of the term winds in this passage, for this reason, the four angels are commanded to restrain these winds till the servants of God are sealed; whereas this sealing cannot be effected without the influences of the Spirit. What, then, are we to understand by the winds mentioned? I answer, two things:
1. Divine judgments. Wars, famine, pestilence, the overthrow of kingdoms, and the universal wreck of all earthly things. The particular judgments to which these winds refer are, I think, those mentioned in the sixth seal, at the close of the sixth chapter, and whose fearful operations are represented by the seven trumpets in the eighth chapter.
2. All events and influences unfavourable to the cause of Christ. The wind of persecution; the wind of false doctrine; the wind of delusion and wild fanaticism; the wind of temptation; the wind of infidelity; the wind of open profanity and blasphemy; the winds of affliction, adversity, and distress; by all of which the Church is frequently assailed. These things are called winds, because they produce agitation and commotion–breaking the branches, blasting the fruits, and uprooting the trees of Gods spiritual vineyard. They are called four winds, to show their universality, their wide-spreading desolation. They are called winds of the earth, because earth is the scene of their operation–they are for ever excluded from heaven; their coming from the four cardinal points at once shows their violence, rage, and fury.
II. The agents to whom they are committed. This notion of angels ruling the winds is very ancient. Herodotus says it was held by the Persians; Eusebius says it was held by the Phoenicians; Pausanias says it was held by the Greeks; Tertullian says it was held by the Romans; Seneca and Virgil say it was held by the Gauls; and most of these people worshipped these ruling spirits. Some understand by the four angels four monarchies, the Babylonian, the Grecian, the Persian, and the Roman; but this cannot be, for at the time to which this passage refers, the monarchies will have long been forgotten, while existing monarchies will be the objects of this vengeance, and not the executioners of it. Others understand by these four angels four emperors, Maximinus, Galerius, Maxenfius, and Licinius, or their praetorian prefects; but the same objections stand against them as against the monarchies. Others think that four persecuting powers are meant. Others think four evil angels, or demons, are meant, who hold back the winds of the Spirit from blowing upon this valley of death, that the dry bones might live; or who are charged with destructive powers, as the messengers of an angry God; but as their work is first to restrain all antagonistic influences to the gospel, while it effects the high purposes of God, and then to execute the Divine vengeance at the day of Christ; and as these employments are nowhere ascribed to wicked angels, this cannot be the real meaning. These are four good angels. This appears first, from the fact that they are here represented as taking a part with the fifth angel in sealing the servants of God; also from their being entrusted with such an important post–restraining wicked spirits, persecuting men, antagonist influences, and Divine judgments, till grace has worked out its wonders. Then their attitude–standing–signifies that they have no settled dominion; that they are the movable ministers of God; that they are ready to do His pleasure.
III. The great Being who commands their postponement or suspension.
1. Bishop Newton, and several other writers both before and since his day, tell us that this angel was Constantine the Great, who, they say, brought light, protection, and deliverance to the Christian Church that had been greatly afflicted under the persecuting tyranny of the Pagan Roman emperors. As far as I can judge, there is not even the shadow of a reason for thinking that this angel was Constantine.
(1) The language applied to this angel is too sublime to refer to a fallen creature like Constantine.
(2) The events which this angel is said to control, and the magnificent work he is said to accomplish, are not the narrow and limited circumstances of one mans life, but they stretch through ages; spread over kingdoms, continents, sea, and land.
(3) The character of Constantine differs widely from what we must believe was the real character of the angel referred to in this passage.
(4) The influences on true religion, which followed Constantines interference, were, in many respects, just the opposite to those which the angel in the text is said to produce. This angel not only suspends persecution and postpones judgments, but vital godliness greatly prospers, as is evident from the number that are said to be sealed. Besides, this prosperity of genuine religion is not for a brief period, but it appears to extend through centuries. Now, is there anything analogous to this, which may be regarded as the result of Constantines interference? That some good resulted to the then existing and persecuted Church, from this interference, we do not deny. Persecution was suspended. Still we maintain that the evil accruing from this change preponderates; it brought her in contact with a secular power that tarnished her purity, beclouded her glory, enervated her native power.
2. Well, who is this Angel? Why, the Lord Jesus Christ, the uncreated Angel of the Covenant, to whom the figurative language of the text applies to the very letter. This Angel is described–
(1) By the point of His ascension. And I saw another Angel ascending from the east. This was literally true of Christ; He came from the east, and hence He is called the East, or, as it is commonly rendered, the Day-spring from on high. But His ascending from the east shows the favourable nature of His mission and character. The east is the great fountain of light, life, fruitfulness, purity, and joy; so this Angel, Christ, is called the Sun of Righteousness, that visits our world with healing beneath His wings. He is that bright, shining Sun, that never sets, but whose heavenly radiance always beams upon His Church, giving salvation, light, beauty, and joy.
(2) By credentials He bears. Having the seal of the living God; which refers, first, to His office as Mediator between God and man. This refers to a custom among the kings of the earth, who have their own confidential servants to whom they deliver certain seals of office. These seals of office are the influences of the Spirit without measure; authority to bestow them, procured by virtue of His atonement; energy, to carry all His plans into successful operation; and all power, both in heaven and in earth, to render all things, creatures, and events, subservient to His designs. But His having the seal of the living God goes further still. It refers to the dignity of His person, as the Son of God, as well as to the glory and credentials of His office, as the Saviour of the world. Having the seal of the living God–that is, having in His own nature the visible impress of deity, the authentic testimony, proof, and demonstration that He Himself was the living God, the brightness of His Fathers glory, and the express image of His person.
(3) By the supreme authority He assumes. He cried with a loud voice, the emblem of supreme authority and power; He commands or forbids as He pleases, and whatsoever He wills is done.
(4) By the command He gives. Hurt not the earth, neither the sea nor the trees. No devastating wars, no raging persecutions, no fearful and wide-spreading judgments, must be permitted to hinder the cause of Christ. The contrary winds must sleep at the feet of their presiding angels, till the ark of salvation is filled with the whole family of God and safely moored in the peaceful bay of heaven.
IV. The reason assigned for their suspension. Till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.
1. The nature of it. To seal a person or thing is to set a mark upon it for a specific purpose. The term is frequently employed in the Scriptures to express the operations of grace, by which believers are separated from the world and made meet for heaven.
2. The agents of it. We. The work of salvation is of Christ from first to last.
3. The subjects of it. Servants of God, that is, true believers, those who serve God by obeying His commands and seeking His glory. They are sealed to serve Him here and to enjoy Him hereafter.
4. Visibility of it. In their foreheads.
5. The chief design of it. That believers should not be hurt by the fearful calamities that are predicted in the sixth seal, as speedily to fall upon the wicked. God marks them as His special property; and being thus sealed, they live under the special protection of His providence while here, and will meet with an effectual shelter in the great day of His wrath.
6. The extent of it. The question was once put to Christ, Lord, are there few that shall be saved? Here the question receives an answer which shows that there will be many, so that in this, as well as in all other things, Christ will have the pre-eminence.
(1) We have a specific number. Twelve thousand out of each tribe were sealed, making one hundred and forty-four thousand in the whole, which in prophetic language signifies completion and perfection.
(2) We have a general number. The whole assembly of the redeemed, including Jews and Gentiles, rises in splendid array to the apostles view.
7. The ultimate glory of it. They stand before the throne, and before the Lamb. (Wm. Gregory.)
Gods government of the world
I. God employs the highest order of celestial intelligences in the conduct of His government. Nowhere throughout immensity does He appear to act directly on matter and mind at all (Hos 2:21-22). The mere scientist accounts for the various objects and phenomena of the material world by what he calls blind forces or natural laws; I prefer ascribing all under God to the angels standing on the four corners, etc. A wonderful view of the universe, truly, we have here. True, a telescope opens to my vision world upon world and system upon system, until imagination reels at the prospect, and my spirit seems crushed with a sense of its own insignificance; but in these words I have a telescope by which I see the wide fields of air, the rolling planets, the minute and the vast, the proximate and the remote peopled and working, reaching in regular gradation from my little being up to the ineffable throne, and all under God.
II. God, in employing these agencies, enjoins on them a special regard for the interests of redeemed men in the world (verses 2, 3).
1. There is some method by which angels can aid man.
2. Mans salvation is of paramount importance.
3. Service to the lowest is consonant with the highest greatness.
4. Mans obligation is to seek the spiritual good of his fellows. (D. Thomas, D. D.)
A sketch of an impending judgment
I. The world exposed to judgment. Winds are the symbols of judgment (Jer 49:36-37; Dan 7:2). The four winds indicate the universality of the judgment. Conscience, Providence, and the Bible all point to this universal judgment.
II. The judgment entrusted to angels. Angels are the ministers of God. He employs them to execute His judgments.
1. They appeared amidst the terrors of Mount Sinai (Deu 33:2).
2. They appeared with our Saviour in the destruction of Jerusalem (Mat 24:30-31).
3. Angels have been frequently engaged in executing Divine judgment on this earth (Exo 12:22; 2Sa 24:16-17; 2Ki 19:35).
4. Angels are represented as active in the final day of retribution (Mat 13:39; Mat 13:41; Mat 25:31; 1Th 4:16). The Eternal Judge then, as now, will work through others.
III. The angels restrained by a mediator. Who is this angel? Who is represented in this particular case I know not. But I know that the Great Angel of the Covenant answers well this description. He came from the orient depths of glory with Divine credentials and with great earnestness, in order to stay the angels of retribution from executing their terrible commission. Our great Redeemer holds back the hand of the destroying angel, and the burden of His intercession is, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, etc. To Christ we owe the postponement of the judgment.
IV. The Mediator restraining because His work is unfinished.
1. There are men who are yet to receive the seal of God.
2. That the judgment is delayed until the number of the sealed ones is completed. (Homilist.)
The seal of the living God.
The angels seal, set upon Gods faithful servants, when hurtful winds are blowing in the Church militant
I. Notice some of those pernicious winds where with the Church of Christ is infested while here in a militant state.
1. There is the wind of open violence, persecution, and bloodshed.
2. Sometimes, and very frequently, the hurtful wind of error in doctrine is suffered to blow in the barn or field of the visible Church.
3. Another hurtful wind is the wind of strong delusions as to everlasting soul concerns; and this is consequential unto the former.
4. There is the wind of temptation that blows in the visible Church. This was a wind that blew hard on the glorious Head and Captain of our salvation (Mat 4:1-25.).
5. Another hurtful wind is the wind of profanity and open ungodliness.
6. All these winds are commonly followed with the winds of desolating judgments, such as sword, famine, and pestilence, whereby the wicked are turned off the stage of time into a miserable eternity.
II. Inquire who are those servants of God for whose sake the hurtful winds are restrained, that provision may be made foe their safety when they do actually blow.
1. The servants of God are such as keep the commandments of God, i.e.–
(1) They are holy persons; the sanctified and preserved in Christ Jesus. Or–
(2) As Durham observes, they keep the commandments of God, it is to be understood of a keeping the laws, ordinances, and institutions of Christ, in opposition to a set of men in the Antichristian Church, who, through their traditions, were making void the commandments of God.
2. The faithful servants of God are said to be such as have the testimony of Jesus. By the testimony of Jesus we are to understand the gospel of Christ, or the doctrine of faith in its purity, which only is the power of God unto salvation (Rom 1:16).
III. Speak a little of the seal that is set upon the servants of God.
1. Who is He that seals them? It is Christ, the Great Angel that hath the seal of the living God.
2. What is implied in the sealing them?
(1) That He is their great owner and proprietor; for a man seals his own goods, that it may be known they are his.
(2) A seal is for distinction, to distinguish one mans goods from another.
(3) A seal is for confirmation. The kings seal appended unto a charter establishes and confirms it.
(4) A seal is sometimes for secrecy. We read of a book (Rev 5:1) which was sealed with seven seals because of the great secrets and hid mysteries contained in it. And so it may import that Gods people are His hidden ones, and that His secrets are imparted to them, and not to others.
(5) A seal is a badge of honour, love, and esteem. And so it implies that His servants are honourable persons, precious in His sight (Isa 43:4).
(6) A seal is for custody and preservation. So the saints and servants of God, they are the preserved in Christ Jesus, kept by the power of God through faith unto salvation.
3. When and how are they sealed?
(1) From all eternity they were sealed with His electing and everlasting love.
(2) In their conversion and effectual calling they are sealed in their own persons with the image of the second Adam.
(3) They have a seal of blood set upon them in their redemption and justification; for, as you see (verse 14 of this chapter), they have their garments washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb.
(4) They have the seal of the Spirit of promise set upon them (Eph 1:13).
4. But why are they said to be sealed in their foreheads? This may import two things.
(1) Their visible profession of Christ and their open owning of the Lord, and His way and cause in the time of the greatest opposition, when error and delusion and persecution was most rampant in the visible Church.
(2) Their being marked or sealed in the forehead implies that, in the time of common calamity, God will make such a visible difference between His own faithful servants and others, that he that runs may read, according to that (Mal 3:18).
IV. Inquire into the reasons why Christ, the Angel of the Covenant, will have His servants marked in their foreheads when the winds are to be let blow?
1. In so many words He will have them sealed, because they are His Fathers gift, Thine they were, and Thou gavest them Me, and for the Fathers sake that gave them, He will have them sealed.
2. Because He hath bought them at a dear rate, even with the price of His precious blood, not with silver, or gold, or such corruptible things, etc.
3. He seals them because they believe in Him (Eph 1:18). After that ye believed, ye were sealed, etc.
4. He seals them because they love Him, so as to mourn for injury done Him (Eze 9:4).
5. He seals them because they are His faithful witnesses, that confess Him when others deny Him.
6. He seals them that they may not suffer hurt by the destroying winds that blow in the visible Church. They keep the commandments of God and the testimony of Jesus; and therefore He will keep them in the hour of temptation, according to the promise (Psa 91:8; Psa 91:7). (E. Erskine, D. D.)
Pent-up judgment
I. Pent-up judgment. Righteousness produces judgment, and grace restrains it. Grace does not nullify or cancel judgment; it simply suspends it. The history of our earth is one of suspended judgment. Of this judgment, we may say that it is–
1. Slow. When it comes, it comes swiftly; but meanwhile it is not rash, nor precipitate. This slowness often deludes the sinner.
2. Silent. It makes no sign. The fermenting elements are noiseless. There are often no thunder-clouds, but a calm, blue sky.
3. Sure. It will not miss its mark, nor mistake its victim, nor forget its time. Its slowness and silence contribute to its certainty.
4. Terrible. The blow, when it comes, is overwhelming. The pent-up torrent, when it breaks its barrier, carries all before it. So Gods vengeance is infinitely terrible. Who can stand before it?
II. The sealing. In the chapter before us it is a Jewish multitude that is specially named as sealed; but as in verse 3 it is the servants of God that are said to be sealed, we may infer that by that expression both Gentile and Jew are meant. The sealing seems (as in Eze 9:1-11.) to intimate exemption from the earthly judgments of a particular time. I do not dwell on this further than to point out Gods care for His own in days of trouble–as in Noahs days, in Lots days, in Ezekiels days, in the time of Jerusalems great siege. I would remind you of the ninety-first Psalm also, which is specially written for evil days.
III. The ingathering. It is not simply for temporal protection that God stays His judgments, but for salvation. A time of pent-up judgment is a time of ingathering. A time of judgment may also be so, but a time of suspended judgment still more so. For at such a time God is in earnest–in earnest in His grace, in earnest in His righteousness. His long-suffering is salvation; His patience is life eternal. He pities to the last. Judgment is His strange work. At such a time the gospel comes with peculiar power. (H. Bonar, D. D.)
The sealing of the elect
There is here revealed to us a Divine idea, and a Divine law of action, which is now advancing with perpetual energy, past, present, and to come.
I. God has a forekown number whom He will gather out unto Himself. The whole of the new creation sprung from, and surrounding, the second Adam in the kingdom of life eternal; the mystical Person of Christ, both the Head and the Body, all perfected by that which every joint supplieth; the true and eternal Vine, complete in all its symmetry from root to spray; the heavenly court, compassed about with ranks of angelic hosts; the order of patriarchs, and the multitude of saints, ascending to the Incarnate Son: all this Divine and glorious mystery of miraculous love and power stands in the foreknowledge of the Eternal, full, perfect, and accomplished.
II. The course of this world will run on until this foreknow number shall be gathered in. All things are for the elects sake. What is the history of the world but a history of mans warfare against God? of our provocation, and of His patience?
III. Even now, while judgment is stayed, the Church in the midst of us is sealing Gods elect. The angel ascending from the east is a type of the ministry of angels and men knit together in one order of grace, to gather out the heirs of salvation. The visible polity of the Church, its stately ritual and public solemnities, its fasts and feasts, its chants and litanies, its missions and preachings, all the public order and movement which meets the eye and ear–all this is as the net let down into the sea, which taketh of every kind, both good and bad. But this is not the sealing of the elect. It is an inner work of grace, a choosing from among the chosen, a preparation for that day, when, upon the eternal shore, the angels shall gather the good into vessels, and cast the bad away.
1. The ultimate and true election of God is not collective but several, not of bodies but of persons. Born alone, alone we must live; alone repent, pray, fast, watch, persevere, and die; each one for himself work out his own salvation, and make his calling and election sure.
2. This mystery of election, as it is personal, so it is strictly consistent with our personal probation. God made man free, and elects him to and in the exercise of freedom, will, and power. And what is this seal of the living God, but the image of God renewed in the soul by the power of the Holy Ghost; the likeness and the mind of Christ stamped upon us by a perfect regeneration; the inward reality of a saintly spirit wrought in us, either by a life of steadfast obedience or by a true repentance, by a persevering grace or by a perfect conversion?
IV. Let us try ourselves by some plain questions of self-examination.
1. What is our character? By this we mean the clear, conscious, and definite shape and direction which has been given to our whole spiritual nature. Surely it is no hard thing to find out whether we are living in any known sin or not; whether we are striving against temptation or not; whether we have mastery over our faults or our faults over us; whether we desire the love of God or not; whether sin is to us a sorrow, and the very thought of holiness a delight; whether we are living for this world or for the next.
2. If we have not this higher character, what are our tendencies? Is sin losing hold, and the spirit of sanctity gaining power over us? Are our temptations weaker, and we stronger; our faults fewer, and our repentance deeper?
3. What is our habitual intention? The true self of sincere minds is that which speaks and aspires in their better moments. The lower level on which they move at other times is the way of their infirmity. As the resistance of the atmosphere stays the keenest arrows flight, and bends it to earth again, so the purest and directest intention is slackened by the gross thick airs of our daily life. Not to sink into a slower, earthlier motion is the portion of those who are lifted into a higher and heavenlier sphere, where the actings of the soul have nothing to resist them. In heaven they rest not day nor night; hut on earth the most unresting intention is overcome by weakness and weariness at last. It cannot always be conscious and actual; but that does not take away from its true and habitual reality. Let this, then, be your continual endeavour, to uphold and to prolong these higher intentions. Quicken and strengthen them by a life of prayer, by meditation, by habitual communion, by self-examination, by confession; by exercises of the heart, and by acts of faith, hope, and love. (Archdeacon Manning.)
All-saints day
First, then, man being compassed with a cloud of witnesses of his own infirmities, and the manifold afflictions of this life, had need of some light to show him the right way, and some strength to enable him to walk safely in it. And this light and strength is here proposed in the assistance of an angel. Which being first understood of angels in general, affords a great measure of comfort to us, because the angels are faithful and diligent attendants upon all our steps. But our security of deliverance is in a safer and a stronger hand than this; not in these ministerial and missive angels only, but in His that sends them, yea, in His that made them. This angel, which does so much for Gods saints, is by many expositors taken to be our Saviour Christ Himself. And will any man doubt of performance of conditions in Him? Will any man look for better security than Him who puts two, and two such, into the band, Christ and Jesus: an anointed King, able, an actual Saviour, willing to discharge not His, but our debt? This security, then, for our deliverance and protection, we have in this angel in our text, I saw an angel, as this Angel is Christ; but yet we have also another security, more immediate and more appliable to us. Besides this all-sufficiency of the Angel of the Covenant, Christ Jesus, we have for our security, in this text, I saw an angel, the servants of Christ too. This angel is indeed the whole frame and hierarchy of the Christian Church. So, then, to let go none of our assistants, our safety is in the Angel of the Covenant, Christ Jesus, radically, fundamentally, meritoriously. It is in the ministry of the angels of heaven invisibly; but it is in the Church of God, and in the power of His ministers there, manifestly, sensibly, discernibly. This addition is intended for a particular addition to our comfort; it is a particular endowment, or enlargement, of strength and power in this angel, that he comes from the east. Those angels which have had their sunset–their fall–they came from the east. How art thou fallen from heaven, O Lucifer, son of the morning? He had his begetting, his creation, in the east, in the light, and there might have stayed for any necessity of falling that God laid upon him. Take the angel of the text to be the Angel of the Covenant, Christ Jesus, and His name is The East. Every way the gospel is an angel of the east. But this is that which we take to be principally intended in it, that, as the east is the fountain of light, so all our illumination is to be taken from the gospel. If thou suffer thy soul to set in a dark cloud of ignorance of Gods providence, or in a darker of diffidence of His performance towards thee, this is a turning to the west, and all these are perverse and awry. But turn to the east and to the angel that comes from thence, the ministry of the gospel of Christ Jesus in His Church. It is true thou mayest find some dark places in the Scriptures, yet fix thyself upon this angel of the east, the preaching of the Word, the ordinance of God, and thine understanding shall be enlightened, and thy belief established, and thy conscience unburthened. Our angel comes from the east, a denotation of splendour, an illustration of understanding and conscience, and there is more–he comes ascending. I saw an angel ascend from the east, that is, still growing more clear and more powerful upon us (1Sa 28:13). Take the angel to be Christ, and then His ascension is intended. But as this angel is the ministry of the gospel, God gave it a glorious ascent in the primitive Church, when as this sun ascended quickly beyond the reach of heretics and persecutors. Now to give way to this ascent of this angel in thyself, make the way smooth, find thou a growth of the gospel in thy faith, and let us find it in thy life. If thou find it not ascending it descends. If thou live not by it nothing can redeem thee, thou diest by it. Of the living God. The gods of the nations are all dead gods: either such gods as never had life–stones, and gold and silver–or such gods at best as were never gods until they were dead, for men that had benefited the world in any general invention, or otherwise, were made gods after their deaths, which was a miserable deification. If we seek this seal in the great Angel, the Angel of the Covenant, Christ Jesus: it is true He hath it, for the Father hath committed all judgment to the Son. Christ, as the Son of Man, executes a judgment, and hath a power, which He hath not but by gift, by commission, by virtue of this seal, from His Father. The servants of God being sealed in their foreheads in the sacrament of baptism, when they are received into the care of the Church, all those means which God hath provided for His servants, in His Church, to resist afflictions and temptations, are intended to be conferred upon them in that seal. This sealing of them is a communicating to them all those assistances of the Christian Church. Then they have a way of prevention of sin, by hearing; a way to absolution, by confession; a way to reconciliation, by a worthy receiving the body and blood of Christ Jesus. And these helps of the Christian Church thus conferred in baptism, keep open still, if these be rightly used, that other seal, the seal of the Spirit (Eph 1:13; 2Co 1:22). (John Donne, D. D.)
The servants of our God.—
The best service
I. We ought to be the active servants of our God. It is necessary for us to pray, and if we pray aright, it will make us active in going about doing good. Do not let us enter into the business of life solely an our own account; let us be servants in all we do on Gods account. How earnestly most business men seek opportunities of doing anything and everything to increase their trade and make it prosperous. Why do not we as Christians be equally earnest in attracting people to our churches and chapels? We may be co-workers with God. Your holy, charitable life and manners may melt the opposition of men who hate goodness and truth.
II. Then let us further be consistent servants of our God. The world watches us, waiting to see whether we are true or not. Dont be pious in singing hymns, and impious in something else. Be consistent. If you have faults, dont rest until you get rid of them. Grow daily in grace, piety, and religion, like healthy plants, which grow in beauty day by day.
III. Be a free servant of our God. Dont let any bad habits make you their prisoner. It is said that habit is second nature; and man is a bundle of habits. You know that when you walk across a field for the first time you make scarcely any impression on the grass. But if you go several times a day for a year you will make a beaten path. So one sin may not do you much injury, but it is the beginning of many. One drop of water from yonder hill soon dries up, but if it be followed by fresh drops every moment, by and by it scoops out a way through the hardest rocks, and becomes a rapid, gurgling stream, which dashes from stone to stone until it reaches the broad river. So these bad habits grow upon us and enslave us. Blessed is he that overcometh. The Lord God has promised that if any one ask Him, He will send His Holy Spirit into that mans heart, and deliver him from all his bad habits.
IV. Be Gods servants, showing forth the beauty of holiness. Young man, you may not possess a titled name, but you may make yourself the embodiment of honour. You may not possess great wealth, but you may be known as one of the upright of the earth. When a beautiful woman dies, nobody mourns her; but when a woman who is beautiful in soul passes away, angels welcome her to glory and good men weep for her. Be beautiful in life. (W. Birch.)
Fuente: Biblical Illustrator Edited by Joseph S. Exell
CHAPTER VII.
The four angels holding the four winds of heaven, 1.
The angel with the seal of the living God, and sealing the
servants of God out of the twelve tribes, whose number
amounted to one hundred and forty-four thousand, 2-8.
Besides these, there was an innumerable multitude from all
nations, who gave glory to God and the Lamb, 9-12.
One of the elders shows who these are, and describes their
most happy state, 13-17.
NOTES ON CHAP. VII.
Verse 1. And after these things] Immediately after the preceding vision.
I saw four angels] Instruments which God employs in the dispensation of his providence; we know not what.
On the four corners of the earth] On the extreme parts of the land of Judea, called , the land, or earth, by way of eminence.
Holding the four winds] Preventing evil from every quarter. Earth-sea, nor on any tree; keeping the whole of the land free from evil, till the Church of Christ should wax strong, and each of his followers have time to prepare for his flight from Jerusalem, previously to its total destruction by the Romans.
Fuente: Adam Clarke’s Commentary and Critical Notes on the Bible
The first sufferings of the church under the Roman emperors that were pagans, was foretold under the first six seals, as hath been showed; but they had yet more, if not greater, things to suffer, which are discovered to John, as we shall see when we come to the opening of the seventh and last seal in the next chapter; only it pleaseth God by a vision, in this chapter, to comfort his church: so as though this vision relateth to the sixth seal, and was before the opening of the seventh, yet it hath a relation to that, to show the care that God would take of his church under those great evils that should happen upon the opening of the seventh seal, or when the things foretold upon the opening of it should come to be accomplished.
I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth; four good angels; God is called their God, Rev 7:3.
Holding the four winds of the earth; that is, to whom God had given it in charge that they should inflict his judgments upon all the parts of the earth; for God often useth, by his prophets, the metaphor of winds, to express stormy, troublesome dispensations, as Jer 18:17; 49:36; 51:1.
That the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree: this phrase is interpreted variously, God making use of the winds:
1. In a way of judgment, to throw down buildings and trees.
2. In a way of mercy, to purify the air, and by their gentle breathings to cherish things. Some interpret this command to the angels, into a command to these angels to forbear awhile those storms of judgment which were coming, till the servants of God should be sealed.
Others interpret them into a command to bring judgments, either corporal or spiritual, which they think is signified by the winds not blowing. The last seemeth to be favoured by the next verse, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea; which seemeth to me to interpret the blowing mentioned in this verse of a hurtful blowing.
The earth, the sea, and the trees, seem to signify all the sublunary world, especially the church.
Fuente: English Annotations on the Holy Bible by Matthew Poole
1. Andso B and Syriac.But A, C, Vulgate, and Coptic omit “and.”
after these thingsA,B, C, and Coptic read, “after this.” The two visionsin this chapter come in as an episode after the sixth seal,and before the seventh seal. It is clear that, though “Israel”may elsewhere designate the spiritual Israel, “the elect(Church) on earth” [ALFORD],here, where the names of the tribes one by one are specified, thesenames cannot have any but the literal meaning. The second advent willbe the time of the restoration of the kingdom to Israel, whenthe times of the Gentiles shall have been fulfilled, and theJews shall at last say, “Blessed is He that cometh in the nameof the Lord.” The period of the Lord’s absence has been a blankin the history of the Jews as a nation. As then Revelation is theBook of the Second Advent [DEBURGH], naturally mentionof God’s restored favor to Israel occurs among the events that usherin Christ’s advent.
earth . . . sea . . .treeThe judgments to descend on these are in answer to themartyrs’ prayer under the fifth seal. Compare the samejudgments under the fifth trumpet, the sealed being exempt (Re9:4).
on any treeGreek,“against any tree” (Greek, “epi tidendron“: but “on the earth,” Greek,“epi tees gees“).
Fuente: Jamieson, Fausset and Brown’s Commentary Critical and Explanatory on the Whole Bible
And after these things,…. After the opening of six of the seals of the sealed book, and after the demolition of Heathen deities, and of Heathen worship, and of Heathen magistrates, in the Roman empire, and the representation of these to John, he had the following vision; and which therefore does not refer to the preservation of the Christians, before and at the destruction of Jerusalem, which was under the first seal; nor to the security of the saints from the wrath of the Lamb, when it fell upon the Pagan worshippers, of all ranks and degrees, which was under the sixth seal, and was now over; but rather it respects an intermediate space of time between the sixth and seventh seal, as reaching from Constantine to Theodosius; for upon Constantine’s being sole emperor, the church enjoyed great peace and tranquillity after the blustering storms of Pagan persecution ceased; and great numbers of God’s elect were converted and sealed, and the winds of Heathen persecution were held, and blew no more, unless for a short time under the Emperor Julian; though the church was not free from the wind of error and heresy; and the storms of contention which arose about them, nor from the tempest of Arian persecutions, which were very grievous; wherefore this refers to what should be between the sixth and seventh seal, which brings on the seven trumpets: and now, before John sees that seal opened, a pause is made, and this vision is shown him, to fortify his mind, and all other saints, that are observers of these things, who by the opening of the following seal would see what judgments and plagues would come upon the empire, now become Christian, and what changes and revolutions would be made in it, and might fear that the church of God would be wholly swallowed up and lost; wherefore this vision is exhibited to show, that notwithstanding the devastations by the Goths and Vandals, and the rise, progress, and power of Mahomet, and the dreadful apostasy of the church of Rome, and all the miseries of it, and the plagues that should come upon the church for it; yet God would have throughout all this, and in, every age of time, a sealed number, a true church, hidden and secured, even until the seventh angel has sounded his trumpet, and time shall be no more, and the mystery of God will be finished.
I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any trees. Four angels are mentioned, in allusion to the four spirits of the heavens, in Zec 6:5; and though the earth is not a plain square with angles, but round and globular, yet it is said to have four corners, with respect to the four points of the heavens; and though there is but one wind, which blows sometimes one way, and sometimes another, yet four are named with regard to the above points, east, west, north, and south, from whence it blows. These are commonly called “the four winds of heaven”, Da 8:8; but here, of the earth, as in the Targum on
Isa 11:12, and he shall bring near the captivity of Judah,
, “from the four winds of the earth”. And such things as are chiefly affected with winds are particularly observed, as the earth, upon which buildings are thrown down by them; and the sea, in which ships are wrecked; and trees, which by the violence of them, are blown down, and torn up by the roots. Some by these angels understand evil angels, who are sometimes called angels, without any additional epithet to distinguish them, and that because a desire of hurting seems to have been in them, as well as a power, Re 7:2; and who are, in every part of the world, seeking to do all the mischief they can; and may be said to hold the winds, not in a literal sense, for God only gathers the wind in his fist, and holds it there, and lets it loose at his pleasure; but in a mystical sense, as these may refer to the word, and the ministers of the word, whose progress and success are often hindered by Satan and is emissaries; and some particularly understand by them the four monarchies of the Babylonian, Persian, Grecian, and Roman; others the four emperors, after that Dioclesian and Maximianus had resigned, as Maximinus, Galerius, Maxentius, and Licinius; others Mahomet, or the Turk, in the east, who hindered the Gospel by his wars and devastations, as well as by false worship; the kings of France and Spain on the west, by fire, and faggot, and sword; and the pope in the south, by bulls and excommunications; and the empire and emperors of Germany on the north, by public edicts; or, in general, all the Popish tribe, popes, cardinals, bishops, priests, monks, and friars, by their decrees, anathemas, sermons, writings, and lying miracles, did all they could that the Gospel might not be preached neither in the earth, on the continent, nor in the sea, or in the islands of it; or that any of the saints, the trees of righteousness, who lived in woods and mountainous places, or were forced to fly into woods, might have any advantage by it. But, after all, rather this is to be understood of good angels, and either of their restraining evil angels from doing mischief, see Da 10:13; or keeping back the winds of false doctrines and heresies from the churches of Christ, in the several parts of the world; or rather, and which is the true sense, of their holding in the storms of calamities and war to the destruction of kingdoms, provinces, islands, and the several inhabitants of them, and intends a general peace throughout the world; see Jer 49:36. This mystical way of speaking seems to agree with the notions of the Jews, who speak of angels standing at the gates of the four winds,
“and the keys of the wind in their hands”, whose names they give us x; and make mention of , “the angels of the wind” y; and the Magi among the Persians call the angel of the wind “Bad”, or “Badran” z.
x Raziel, fol. 36. 1. 2. y Targum in 1 Reg. xix. 11. z Hyde, Hist. Relig. Pers. c. 12.
Fuente: John Gill’s Exposition of the Entire Bible
| The Vision of Heaven. | A. D. 95. |
1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. 2 And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, 3 Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. 4 And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed a hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel. 5 Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand. 6 Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nepthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve thousand. 7 Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand. 8 Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand. 9 After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; 10 And cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. 11 And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, 12 Saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen.
Here we have, I. An account of the restraint laid upon the winds. By these winds we suppose are meant those errors and corruptions in religion which would occasion a great deal of trouble and mischief to the church of God. Sometimes the Holy Spirit is compared to the wind: here the spirits of error are compared to the four winds, contrary one to another, but doing much hurt to the church, the garden and vineyard of God, breaking the branches and blasting the fruits of his plantation. The devil is called the prince of the power of the air; he, by a great wind, overthrew the house of Job’s eldest son. Errors are as wind, by which those who are unstable are shaken, and carried to and fro, Eph. iv. 14. Observe, 1. These are called the winds of the earth, because they blow only in these lower regions near the earth; heaven is always clear and free from them. 2. They are restrained by the ministry of angels, standing on the four corners of the earth, intimating that the spirit of error cannot go forth till God permits it, and that the angels minister to the good of the church by restraining its enemies. 3. Their restraint was only for a season, and that was till the servants of God were sealed in their foreheads. God has a particular care and concern for his own servants in times of temptation and corruption, and he has a way to secure them from the common infection; he first establishes them, and then he tries them; he has the timing of their trials in his own hand.
II. An account of the sealing of the servants of God, where observe, 1. To whom this work was committed–to an angel, another angel. While some of the angels were employed to restrain Satan and his agents, another angel was employed to mark out and distinguish the faithful servants of God. 2. How they were distinguished–the seal of God was set upon their foreheads, a seal known to him, and as plain as if it appeared in their foreheads; by this mark they were set apart for mercy and safety in the worst of times. 3. The number of those that were sealed, where observe, (1.) A particular account of those that were sealed of the twelve tribes of Israel–twelve thousand out of every tribe, the whole sum amounting to a hundred and forty-four thousand. In this list the tribe of Dan is omitted, perhaps because they were greatly addicted to idolatry; and the order of the tribes is altered, perhaps according as they had been more or less faithful to God. Some take these to be a select number of the Jews who were reserved for mercy at the destruction of Jerusalem; others think that time was past, and therefore it is to be more generally applied to God’s chosen remnant in the world; but, if the destruction of Jerusalem was not yet over (and I think it is hard to prove that it was), it seems more proper to understand this of the remnant of that people which God had reserved according to the election of grace, only here we have a definite number for an indefinite. (2.) A general account of those who were saved out of other nations (v. 9): A great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues. Though these are not said to be sealed, yet they were selected by God out of all nations, and brought into his church, and there stood before the throne. Observe, [1.] God will have a greater harvest of souls among the Gentiles than he had among the Jews. More are the children of the desolate than of the married woman. [2.] The Lord knows who are his, and he will keep them safe in times of dangerous temptation. [3.] Though the church of God is but a little flock, in comparison of the wicked world, yet it is no contemptible society, but really large and to be still more enlarged.
III. We have the songs of saints and angels on this occasion, v. 9-12, where observe,
1. The praises offered up by the saints (and, as it seems to me, by the Gentile believers) for the care of God in reserving so large a remnant of the Jews, and saving them from infidelity and destruction. The Jewish church prayed for the Gentiles before their conversion, and the Gentile churches have reason to bless God for his distinguishing mercy to so many of the Jews, when the rest were cut off. Here observe, (1.) The posture of these praising saints: they stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, before the Creator and the Mediator. In acts of religious worship we come nigh to God, and are to conceive ourselves as in his special presence; and we must come to God by Christ. The throne of God would be inaccessible to sinners were it not for a Mediator. (2.) Their habit: they were clothed with white robes, and had palms in their hands; they were invested with the robes of justification, holiness, and victory, and had palms in their hands, as conquerors used to appear in their triumphs: such a glorious appearance will the faithful servants of God make at last, when they have fought the good fight of faith and finished their course. (3.) Their employment: they cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God who sitteth upon the throne, and to the Lamb. This may be understood either as a hosannah, wishing well to the interest of God and Christ in the church and in the world, or as a hallelujah, giving to God and the Lamb the praise of the great salvation; both the Father and the Son are joined together in these praises; the Father contrived this salvation, the Son purchased it, and those who enjoy it must and will bless the Lord and the Lamb, and they will do it publicly, and with becoming fervour.
2. Here is the song of the angels (Rev 7:11; Rev 7:12), where observe, (1.) Their station–before the throne of God, attending on him, and about the saints, ready to serve them. (2.) Their posture, which is very humble, and expressive of the greatest reverence: They fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God. Behold the most excellent of all the creatures, who never sinned, who are before him continually, not only covering their faces, but falling down on their faces before the Lord! What humility then, and what profound reverence, become us vile frail creatures, when we come into the presence of God! We should fall down before him; there should be both a reverential frame of spirit and a humble behaviour in all our addresses to God (3.) Their praises. They consented to the praises of the saints, said their Amen thereto; there is in heaven a perfect harmony between the angels and saints; and then they added more of their own, saying, Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. Here, [1.] They acknowledge the glorious attributes of God–his wisdom, his power, and his might. [2.] They declare that for these his divine perfections he ought to be blessed, and praised, and glorified, to all eternity; and they confirm it by their Amen. We see what is the work of heaven, and we ought to begin it now, to get our hearts tuned for it, to be much in it, and to long for that world where our praises, as well as happiness, will be perfected.
Fuente: Matthew Henry’s Whole Bible Commentary
After this ( ). Instead of the seventh seal (8:1) being opened, two other episodes or preliminary visions occupy chapter 7 (the sealing of the servants of God 7:1-8 and the vision of the redeemed before the throne 7:9-17).
Standing (). Second perfect predicate participle of , intransitive and followed by and the accusative case as already in 3:20 ( ) and often again (8:3 some MSS., others genitive; Rev 11:11; Rev 12:18; Rev 14:1; Rev 15:2), but note with genitive in the next clause, like in Rev 12:1; Rev 7:3.
Corners (). Old word for angle (Mt 6:5), also in 20:8.
Holding (). Present active participle of , to hold fast (Mark 7:3; John 20:23). The four winds (cf. Mt 24:31) are held prisoner by angels at each of the four corners. Some Jews held the winds from due north, south, east, west to be favourable, while those from the angles (see Ac 27:14) were unfavourable (Charles). There is an angel of the fire (14:18) and an angel of the waters (16:5).
That no wind should blow ( ). Negative purpose clause with and the present active subjunctive, “lest a wind keep on blowing.”
Upon any tree ( ). Accusative case here with rather than the preceding genitives (, ), “upon the land or upon the sea,” but “against any tree” (picture of attack on the tree like a tornado’s path).
Fuente: Robertson’s Word Pictures in the New Testament
These things [] . Read touto this.
Holding [] . Holding fast or firmly. See on Mr 7:3; Act 3:11.
Fuente: Vincent’s Word Studies in the New Testament
(Chapter Seven is Parenthetical, v. 1-17) MESSAGE OF FOUR AND ONE ANGELS, v. 1-3 (Hurt Not Yet!)
Note: see also Introduction Revelation
1 ) “After these things I saw four angels,” (meta touto eidon tessaras angelous) “After this I saw (observed) four angels; The number four (4) is always used with relationship to nature, creation, and the earth,, as servants for those to be heirs of salvation, Heb 1:14.
2) “Standing on the four corners of the earth,” (hestotas epi tas tessaras gonias tes ges) “Standing upon the four corners (parts) of the earth,” from which the wind blows. The (Gk. tessaras) means four parts or four areas of the earth, does not imply that the earth is square.
3) “Holding the four winds of the earth,” (kratountas tous tessaras anemous tes ges) “Holding, grasping, or controlling the four winds of the earth; or holding back the winds from all directions (north, east, south, and west), Dan 7:2; Eph 2:2.
4) “That the wind should not blow on the earth,” (hina me pnee anemos epi tes ges) “in order that the winds might not blow upon the earth,” in form of devastating ruin. These angels appear to be restraining the prince of the power of the air from reeking immediate destruction on all the earth, Joh 12:31.
5) “Nor on the sea, nor on any tree,” (mete epi tes thalasses mete epi pan dendron) “Nor upon the sea nor even upon any tree;- The four angels, ministering servants of God and men, seem to be temporarily restraining or delaying judgment upon the earth for the protection of certain of God’s elect, Rev 7:4.
Fuente: Garner-Howes Baptist Commentary
THE THRONE: THE SEALS: AND THE SEALED
Rev 4:1 to Rev 7:17
THE Epistles to the Seven Churches of Asia, to which we have just given attention, cover and include, as we saw, the seven great periods of church history, which span the years intervening between Christs first appearance, to put away sins; and His Second Coming, which is to be without sin, unto salvation. After having earnestly considered the many and varying views taken by writers upon the Apocalypse, I am fully persuaded that the chapters four to seven relate solely to the same period of history, presenting the so-called secular side of that section of time whose sacred or church history is pictured in these seven Epistles.
Phillips Brooks referring to this very part of Revelation said, When we hear such a scene described in the few words of Johns poetic vision, I think we are met with a strange sort of difficulty. The great impression of the picture is so glorious that we are afraid to touch it with too curious fingers, to analyze its meaning and get at its truth. At the same time we feel sure that there is in it a precise and definitely shaped truth which is blurred to us by the very splendor of the poetry in which it is enveloped. We see on the one hand how often the whole significance of some of the noblest things in Scripture is lost and ruined by people who take hold of them with hard, prosaic hands. * * On the other hand, we see how many of the most sacred truths of revelation float always before many peoples eyes in a mere vague halo of mystical splendor, because they never come boldly up to them as Moses went up to the burning bush, to see what they are, and what are the laws by which they act. * * There is danger of mysticism and vagueness, if you leave the wonderful Bible images unexplained. There is danger of prosaic dullness and the loss of all their life and fire, if you elucidate them overmuch.
May we remark again, therefore, as we said in the series on the Seven Churches, that we cannot agree with those students who treat the whole Book of Revelation as a cryptograman uninterpretable cipher, a series of chapters past understanding; nor indeed can we run the whole race of those spiritualizing students who compel every sentence of the Apocalypse to mean things neither found on the surface nor brought up from its deepest recesses. Being confident, therefore, that each of these schools are wrong, we set up no claim of infallibility for our own interpretation, but rather put before you (for your consideration, to be eventually received or rejected, as you may please) what these chapters seem to us to teach.
We present these chapters under three suggestions:The Heavenly Scene, The Book of the Seals, and, The Sealed Servants.
THE HEAVENLY SCENE
After this I looked, and, behold, a door was opened in Heaven; and the first voice which I heard was as it were of a trumpet talking with me; which said, Come up hither, and I will shew thee things which must be hereafter.
And immediately I was in the Spirit: and, behold, a throne Was set in Heaven, and One sat on the throne.
And He that sat was to look upon like, a jasper and a sardine stone: and there was a rainbow round about the throne, in sight like unto an emerald.
And round about the throne were four and twenty seats: and upon the seats I saw four and twenty elders sitting, clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold.
And out of the throne proceeded lightings and thunderings and voices: and there were seven lamps of fire burning before the throne, which are the seven Spirits of God.
And before the throne there was a sea of glass like unto crystal: and in the midst of the throne (Rev 4:1-6).
This is wonderful imagery, and yet upon a little study, it falls into order, and is full of important suggestions.
To aid the understanding, think first of the throne and its appointments.
It is located in Heaven; it is circumscribed by the rainbow?; while twenty-four elders clothed in white raiment and wearing crowns of gold make up its immediate or center circle; and out of it proceed lightnings and thunderings and voices; while before it burn seven lamps whose brilliance illuminates the sea of glass tike unto crystal; and brings into bold outline the faces of four beasts The first like a lion; the second like a calf; the third like a man; the fourth like a flying eagle.
Inasmuch as John was content to pass this throne by without other comment than to show its setting, we may wisely do the same, and give our attention, for a few moments, to the Person on the throne.
And one sat on the throne.
And He that sat was to look upon like a jasper and a sardine stone.
If you will take the pains to study the colors of these precious minerals you will find that the gold of the first, combined with the crimson of the second, will produce the effect profoundly like to that of a blaze of fire; and therein you have your symbol of God the Father. No form is assigned to the One who sat upon this throne, for no man can see God and live. But this appearance, as of fire, is the old figure by which Jehovah was pleased, from the first, to manifest Himself. To Moses He appeared in the flame of fire out of the midst of a bush (Exo 3:2); when David was singing the praises of that God who had delivered him out of the hand of all his enemies, he spoke of Him as one whose brightness before Him were coals of fire kindled (2Sa 22:13); and again Job says, Out of His mouth go burning lamps, and sparks of fire leap out; while Habakkuk declares, burning coals went forth at His feet; Zechariah says of Jerusalem, The Lord will be unto her a wall of fire round about (Zec 2:5); and Paul writes in his Epistle to the Hebrews, For our God is a consuming fire (Heb 12:29).
The encircling rainbow again suggests the presence of God the Father.
It was Jehovah who had appointed this symbol of His covenant with Noah and his sons, saying,
This is the token of the covenant which I make between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for perpetual generations:
I do set My bow in the cloud, and it shall be for a token of a covenant between Me and the earth.
And it shall come to pass, when I bring a cloud over the earth, that the bow shall be seen in the cloud:
And I will remember My covenant, which is between Me and you and every living creature of all flesh; and the waters shall no more become a flood to destroy all flesh.
And the bow shall be in the cloud; and I will look upon it, that I may remember the everlasting covenant between God and every living creature of all flesh that is upon the earth,
And God said unto Noah, This is the token of the covenant, which I have established between Me and all flesh that is upon the earth (Gen 9:12-17).
The lightnings and thunderings and voices are also eloquent in declaring the Person upon the throne. At Sinai He spake in the same way (Exo 19:16); and again, the Philistines were thundered upon with great thunder (1Sa 7:10); and again when Israel demanded a king, He made answer in the same expressions of displeasure (1Sa 12:17-18), The seven lampssymbols of His perfect wisdom and the undimmed light in which He liveswere long ago seen in the appointments of the Holy of Holies, where the seven lamps burned.
The suggestion of particular value to you and to me, in this wonderful scene, is in the combination of the rainbow with the lightnings and thunderings, the latter expressing judgment, while the former declares His mercy.
It may gratify our curiosity to know that God has His throne in the Heaven; it may excite in our breasts a reverence to understand that we cannot look upon His face, but must accept its symbol of fire instead; it may stimulate our studies to find that the seven lamps of the Old Testament are shining on in the last volume of the New; but it calms the troubled heart, and furnishes the basis of hope to the despairing spirit, to see that the God whose judgments are voiced in lightnings and thunderings, is also a God who maketh a covenant with His own, and flings out a rainbow to remind us forever of His unspeakable mercy toward those who have accepted the provisions of His salvation, as Noah received the appointments of the ark.
It is related that a German statesman, knowing himself to be upon his death-bed, sent for a Christian pastor and said, I am very ill, my friend, and expect to die. I should like you to converse with me on the subject of religion, but I enjoin you not to mention the Name of Jesus Christ. Be it so, replied the minister, I shall begin by speaking of the character of God. God is love, and then with much eloquence, he talked of that wonderful truth until he rose to go, and the Count pressed his hand and asked him to come again as shortly as possible. On his second visit he spoke to the sick man of Divine wisdom and power, and the man was even more pleased, pronouncing the pictures beautiful and sublime. But on his third visit he dwelt on the Holiness of God, saying that God was so holy He could not endure to look upon sin with any complacency; that while He loved the sinner, He hated the sin. When he rose to leave, the Count said, How can you leave me in this condition? If God be as just and holy as you say, I am a lost man! Stay. But the pastor quickly departed, praying that this conviction of lost might lead to the light. After a few days the pastor went back again, only to be met with the question, Are those things true? and to answer, I am sorry sir; but I can retract nothing of what I said to you of the judgments of God, and the impossibility of union between a Holy God and the sin-stained, rebellious man; not that there is nothing consoling to speak, but that you laid upon my lips a restriction, in that you deny me the privilege of speaking of Christ-Jesus.
Oh, said the dying man, then I made a mistake; speak to me; tell me if there is any way of salvation open to such an one as I am. Yes, answered the pastor, and forth from his New Testament he brought the precious truths of mercy in the Name of Jesus of Nazareth; and when the dying German saw how God could be reconciled to him in Christ Jesus, he accepted the sweet truth, and with child-like confidence, committed his soul into the hands of his Heavenly Father, as Stephen did when they stoned him.
To see the justice of God, and that alone, is merely to see the flashing of the lightning, and to hear the rolling of the thunders; but to see the mercy of our God, as expressed in Christ Jesus, is to see the rainbow of His covenant swinging clear around the throne, making a complete circle, symbol of the complete salvation proffered; it is to understand how a God of justice can yet save through His wonderful grace.
The beings about the throne, were the four and twenty elders clothed in white raiment; and they had on their heads crowns of gold, and the four living creatures, full of eyes, before and behind. This picture is not without its significance; the lion symbol of courage; the calf-the very expression of patient service; the face as a manindicative always of intelligent action; the flying eagle signifying alacrity in obedience.
The Revised Version does not call these beasts, but creatures instead. Supernatural, heavenly creatures they were;full of eyes, behind and before, that they might therefore be watchful of Gods least motion, and obey the same with the heart of the lion, the patient endurance, of the ox, the intelligence of the man, and the swiftness of the eagle.
What else does it mean when it declares that these four living creatures had each of them, six wings, than that they were ready to fly in the service of God? What else does it mean when it says that they were full of eyes, but to watch to know His least and greatest will? What else does it mean when it says, Holy, holy, holy, Lord God Almighty, which was, and is, and is to come, than that they never tire in executing His purposes, or singing His praises. Will you note the fact that they seem to be the leaders of the four and twenty elders, for when the living creatures give glory and honour and thanks to Him that sitteth on the throne, to Him that liveth for ever and ever; then the four and twenty elders shall fall down before Him that sitteth on the throne, and shall worship Him for ever and ever, and shall cast their crowns before the throne, saying, Worthy art Thou, our Lord and our God, to receive the glory and the honour, and the power; for Thou didst create all things, and because of Thy will they were, and were created (R. V.).
In the ancient houses of Israel, God appointed the order of twenty-four priests. Every Divine appointment, made in the earth, is Gods effort to reproduce some feature of Heaven; and it was because there were twenty-four elders, or arch-angels, about the throne of Jehovah in Heaven, that He appointed twenty four priests to service in the Temple, whither He descended to manifest His glory. And has it never occurred to you and to me that when we pray the Lords prayer, we are actually asking that the conditions of earth shall be so changed as to become a perfect duplicate of all the appointments of Heaven itself, and such indeed is the saints desire.
THE BOOK OF THE SEALS
The fifth and sixth chapters are given entirely to the Book of the seals.
It was an unopened Book. The challenge of the strong angel was, Who is worthy to open the Book, and to loose the seals thereof? And no man in Heaven, nor in earth, neither under the earth, was able to open the Book, neither to look thereon,
That, then, was not the Book of Creation. The Sun in his glory has unlocked that book and let us behold its beauties; neither indeed was it the Book of Revelation, for it is not the office of the Son of Man to break the seals of that volume, but of the Holy Spirit, instead. Christ said of Him, When He, * * is come, He will guide you into all truth, He shall receive of Mine, and shall shew it unto you. Unquestionably it was the Book of redemption, the one volume to the unfolding of which Jesus Christ has laid His hand. This is additionally evidenced in the new song of the living creatures and the twenty-four elders, And they sing a new song, saying, Worthy art Thou to take the Book, and to open the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase unto God with Thy Blood men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation, * * and priests (Rev 5:9-10, R. V, ).
Going back into Jewish history you will learn that whenever an heir, for any reason, lost his inheritance, instruments of writing were made and copied, and one copy was sealed, and kept, in evidence of the fact that the inheritance had passed out of his hands and belonged to another. The sealed book, therefore, became the expression of an alienated inheritance, which could only be recovered by getting some one to buy it back, and the buyer was called the goel or redeemer, as you will recall in the Book of Ruth. That is the figure that is here employed. The inheritance of Gods people has been lost; the sealed scroll stands in evidence thereof, and the dishonored, disclaimed sons of earth are waiting the day when some brother shall arise who is able to buy it back and break those seals, bringing them into their inheritance again.
But in Heaven, as on earth, and under the earth, was found no one able to pay the price and redeem the inheritance. What a picture this of the utter bankruptcy of the human soul, and the utter impotency of all angelic and human hands to help us in the hour of our need. No wonder John wept much, and we would join with him in weeping, to-night, were it not for the fact that one of the elders said,
Weep not: behold, the lion that is of the tribe of Judah, the Root of David, hath overcome, to open the Book and the seven seals thereof.
And I saw in the midst of the throne and of the four living creatures, and in the midst of the elders, a Lamb standing, as though it had been slain, having seven horns, (symbol of power), and seven eyes (types of wisdom), which are the seven Spirits (numeral of perfection) of God, sent forth into all the earth.
And He came, and He taketh it out of the right hand of Him that sat on the throne.
And when He had taken the Book, the four living creatures and the four and twenty elders fell down before the Lamb, having each one a harp, and golden bowls full of incense, which are the prayers of the saints.
And they sing a new song, saying, Worthy art Thou to take the Book, and to open the seals thereof: for Thou wast slain, and didst purchase unto God with Thy Blood men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation (Rev 5:5-9, R. V.).
The Lamb alone could open it. In Him there was the power of the lion, which made possible a task too difficult for man; in Him there was the innocence of the lamb, whose spilt blood might sprinkle the mercy seat for the peoples sake. The Lion of the tribe of Judah is the Lamb slain from the foundation of the world, whose precious Blood paid the full price of our lost inheritance, and brought it back again within reach of every man of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation.
Dr. Simpson says, It is related that once in the Roman Colosseum, the crowd was waiting, with the martyr in the midst of the arena, for a roaring Numidian lion to burst from its cage, and devour the defenceless saint, when suddenly, as a little piece of by-play for the amusement of the Roman crowd, the keeper led forth from its stable under the galleries, a little lamb, which stepped up and licked the hand of the martyr, while the crowd thundered out its surprise and applause.
Beloved, when the whole world looked upon the condemned sinner, expecting to see the Lion of the tribe of Judah, with burning eyes and immeasurable strength, fall upon him to tear him asunder, they saw instead, that same mighty One, assume the nature of the lamb and suffer Himself to be led as a sacrifice to the place of slaughter, that the very sinner who had offended Him and rebelled against His Father might escape the penalty of his own conduct, and come again to that inheritance which is incorruptible, undefiled, and fadeth not away.
Fuente: The Bible of the Expositor and the Evangelist by Riley
SEALING OF THE SERVANTS OF GOD
CRITICAL AND EXEGETICAL NOTES
THIS chapter is in the nature of an episode. Before the enemies of the gospel are finally destroyed, St. John sees the admission of believers to their blessedness in heaven. The vision has certainly the appearance of being supplementary to the preceding, and seems to refer to the visitation described under various seals, especially the third and sixth, and to represent their universality (four corners of the earth, four winds of the earth); their character, as providential, ordered and directed by God through His angels; their limitation, or suspension, or restriction, as the interests of Gods Church required (W. and W.). Godet treats the two visions of this chapter as anticipative. The foresight of her own triumph is to inspire the Church with courage to face the formidable crises which still stand between her and the object of her hope. He thinks the first vision concerns Jews (Israel); the second the Gentile Church. It is, however, better to take the earlystandpoint, and see the Christian Church as composed of two distinct, though closely related elements, the Judaic and the Gentile. The revelation is not addressed to Jews, nor does it concern them, save as they stand in some relation, hostile or helpful, to the Christian Church.
Rev. 7:1. After these things.Not to be unduly pressed. The law of succession in time controls all forms of human thinking, even visions. Holding, etc.By this figure the Divine care of the elect ones is intimated. Their safety is secured before the calamities indicated in the previous chapter are let loose. Winds, being a great cause of calamities, are taken as symbols of calamity.
Rev. 7:2. Ascending.In the book of Enoch, which seems to have suggested some of the figures of this book, the east is the paradise of God, the place where the Lord of Glory dwells. There is the possible idea also that, as the angel came with the dawn, a long days work is intimated. Seal of the Living God.Eastern kings signed documents, etc., by impressing the seal of the signet ring which they jealously kept on their finger. To entrust this seal to a person was to empower him to act on the kings authority.
Rev. 7:3. Sealed the servants of God.This act is illustrated in the salvation of Israel from the destroying angel, through the mark of the blood upon the door. The sealing does not preserve the Church from being affected by outward calamities, only from being overwhelmed by them.
Rev. 7:4. Hundred, forty and four thousand.Clearly a symbolical number. A goodly number, from all the tribes, had become members of the Christian Church. Scripture gives no support to the notion of Lost Tribes.
Rev. 7:9. Could number.The relativity of Gentile to Jewish members of the Christian Church is strikingly suggested by this fixed number for the Jewish, and limitless numbers for the Gentile, portions. White robes.The sign of triumph in the conflict with evil. Palms.The recognised symbol of victory.
Rev. 7:10. Salvation.To be conceived as both a negative thingdeliverance from evil; and also a positive thingattainment of holiness. To our God.It is fitting that we go past all agencies to the final cause.
Rev. 7:13. What are these?A question not asked in order to gain information, but in order to open the way for giving information.
Rev. 7:14. Tribulation.A special time of trouble is referred to; probably that which was endured by the Church under the Pagan emperors. Washed in the blood.This very strange figure is perhaps not yet properly apprehended. The blood of Christ is used as a figure for His strenuous efforts, even unto death, in effecting His purpose of redemption. The champion from Edom with blood-dyed garments (Isa. 63:1); the sweat-like blood-drops in Gethsemane; and the appeal in Hebrews, Ye have not yet resisted unto blood, striving against sin, should guide us to the right thought. The idea may be this: Christ is highly exalted because, in the resistance of sin, He poured out His soul unto death; and these have the white robes because they, too, resisted sin, and bore their earth-burdens, and won the triumph of obedient submission, as He did, and in His strength. The figure of actually washing clothes or persons in blood is a very strained one, unless its symbolical character is clearly recognised.
Rev. 7:15. Dwell among them.R.V. Shall spread His tabernacle over them. Dr. Tregelles compares this passage with Exo. 40:35, and suggests, as a true rendering, He shall be a covert over them. In Alfords revision we read, shall spread His habitation over them. The allusion, then, is to the manner in which the Israelites were, all through their wilderness journey, overshadowed by the cloud which represented Gods presence, so that He was not only with them, but they did, as it were, live in the Divine tabernacle, as they moved hither and thither. Compare Joh. 1:14; Rev. 21:3.
Rev. 7:17. Feed them.As a shepherd. It should be clearly apprehended that the vision blends what waking apprehension cannot. St. John saw a person as if He were a lamb. We should have to speak of Christ in the glory not as a lamb, but as the lamb-like One.
MAIN HOMILETICS OF THE PARAGRAPH.Rev. 7:1-17
The Vision of the Redeemed.
We See
I. The great number of the redeemed (Rev. 7:9). All who have believed on the Lord Jesus Christ, and who have died in the faith; all who shall believe on Him in the future ages; infants, dying in infancy; the great multitude who have come out of great tribulation. Many are the saved.
II. The eternal glory of the redeemed.
1. The glory of their appearance.
(1) Clothed with white robes. They shine in the beauty of holiness.
(2) With palms in their hands. They are conquerors through Him that loved them.
2. The glory of their service.
(1) Their service of song; their song of salvation (Rev. 7:10); their song of eternal praise to God (Rev. 7:12).
(2) Their holy ministry (Rev. 7:15).
3. The glory of their eternal home.
(1) Their communion with God (Rev. 7:15). He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them.
(2) The heavenly provision (a) for their immortal nature: the Lamb shall feed them; He is their eternal Shepherd; (b) for their constant refreshment: the Lamb shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; (c) For their everlasting comfort, God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
III. Our lessons from the redeemed.
1. Once they were sufferers such as we, or more than any of us. They came out of great tribulation.
2. Once they were sinners such as we. They had need of cleansing. They washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. The same fountain is open for us. Through the merits of the same Saviour we may enter into the same heaven, and enjoy the same blessedness and glory.
SUGGESTIVE NOTES AND SERMON SKETCHES
Rev. 7:4. Who are the hundred and forty-four thousand?Very probably the believing Jews of this periodthose of the house of Israel who, in an age of national apostasy and national punishment, acknowledged Jesus as their Messiah and Lord; who accepted the new covenant and passed under its seal, both outward and inward. They are the class who are emphatically termed by St. Paul the election, the remnant according to the election of grace (Rom. 11:5; Rom. 11:7); the predicted remnant which should be saved (Rom. 9:27; Isa. 10:20-22; Isa. 65:8-9). This interpretation is sustained by the particularity with which the tribes are named, as if to fix attention upon the fact of a special reference to the actual descendants of the patriarchs. Otherwise there must be some spiritual significance in each particular tribe, which is hardly conceivable. The exact number denotes election (Jer. 3:14).W. and W.
Gods Elect.This vision of a certain number of Israelites, and the next of an innumerable multitude of all nations, are certainly correlative to each other; and the most obvious way of understanding them is, that among Gods elect there will be many faithful Israelites, and yet few comparatively to the number of faithful Gentiles.W. H. Simcox, M.A.
Rev. 7:9. Universal Praise for Redemption.Then the countless host of the redeemed, with palm branches of victory in their hands, the emblems of the Churchs triumph, unite in praising God, with all the angels, and elders, and living creatures. One universal symphony fills the heavenly world. Among this countless host stand conspicuous, in robes of white, the martyrs who have sealed their testimony by their own blood. The glory to which they are destined is brought distinctly into view in order that persecuted and suffering Christians, then enduring the cross, might, on account of the joy set before them, despise the shame, and attain at last to the same blessedness.Moses Stuart.
Rev. 7:9-10. All Saints Day.One, day is given to the commemoration of the great general idea of sainthood. It seems to gather in all the multitude of the holy in every age, and bids us think of their characters, and follow in their steps. What is there in the world for each one of us that would not be here if others had not lived before usif we were the first generation that ever peopled this populous earth of ours? What are the legacies that the past sends down to us?
1. There are certain circumstances, things which men have gradually, in the course of ages, invented and worked out, and they are permanent, and have come down to us in their accumulation. Besides these, there are certain truths; all the knowledge that man has ever won, of physics, of metaphysics, of morals, of religion, of beautyall this we have not to win over again for ourselves. Besides these, there is another giftof certain inspirations which we find waiting for us in the world. Men have left behind them their examples, their enthusiasms, and their standards. The impulse and contagion of their work is waiting everywhere to breathe itself into ours. The power of this inspiration comes in various ways. In some degree it is the mere force of hereditation. Then there is the distinct power of example. Moreover, they have set up certain ideals of character, not reducible to precise rules of action, with which we enter into sympathy, and to whose likeness our lives almost unconsciously attempt to shape themselves. This power of influence may belong to all the past in general. From all the multitude of failures and successes rises up the picture of a true successful manhoodthe perfect man. That is our leader. Or we see that power incorporate itself in some great man. Who can explain the subtle fascination that reaches everywhere and lays hold of all kinds of men, and turns their lives out of their course to follow his course; to be with him in some sympathy of purpose, and, if possible, to be like him in some similarity of nature? We may analyse the power of leadership that great men have. It may rest in either of three things:
(1) It may be in mere strength of personality;
(2) it may be in some truths that he teaches;
(3) or it may be in a certain thing which we call holiness, which we cannot define otherwise than that it is a larger and more manifest presence of God in the life of one man than other men havemore sympathetic nearness to Divinitywhich makes men feel that he, more than they, embodies the Divine Spirit and utters the Divine will; that He shows God to them. This is the leadership of the saint. These are the leaders, the inspirers, of menthe hero, the teacher, the saint. We have reached, then, this distinctive definition of the saint. He is the man whose power comes of his holiness, his godlikeness. It is a special kind of power, and it is the strongest kind of power where it can be brought to bear at all. In the hero man feels that there is something of Gods power, but by no means, of necessity, any of God Himself. In the teacher, there is Gods truth, because all truth is Gods, but the teacher is only the glass through which it shines. But in the saint there is something of God Himself, a real, abiding presence of Divinity. The saint wins a sympathetic, loving awe. In our experience we have felt the power of such saintly souls. We may connect our whole notion of sainthood with this idea of power. True sainthood is the strong chain of Gods presence in humanity running down through all history, and making of it a unity, giving it a large and massive strength, able to bear great things and to do great things too. This unity which the line of sainthood gives to history is the great point that shows its strength. You go to your saint and find God, working and manifest, in him. But he got near to God through some saint who lived before him. And that saint lighted his fire at some flame before him; and so the power of the sainthoods animates and fills the world. So holiness and purity, and truth and patience, daring and tenderness, hope and faith, are kept constant and pervading things in our humanity. In this truth we get the corrective that we need of the continual tendency to solitariness and individuality in our religion. This church of all the saints is a great power in the world. Ever from out the past, from the old saints who lived in other times, from Enoch, David, Paul, and John, Augustine, Jerome, Luther, Leighton, there comes down the power of God to us. Take away holy example, and the inspiration of holy men, and you would depopulate heaven. Only one bold, supreme soul here and there would still be able to scale the height alone, and stand triumphant in the glorious presence of God. We ascend by one another. These saints were incorporations, not of the power, nor of the truth, but of the spirit or the character of God. But in God Himself all threepower, and truth, and charactermust go together; and so they will, to some extent, in the saint, who is Gods copybut not entirely. We must, however, clearly see the absence of power of miracle, or of authority in truth, in the saints of the Christian Church, because we must have some doctrine of sainthood which shall not for a moment dim or distort the leadership and perfect headship of the Christian and the Church, which rests in Christ alone. But Christ, as He leads us on to higher things, may still strengthen us with the company of those who have the same road to travel, and are walking it in the same strength. Are there no saints to-day? If sainthood means what we have saidthe indwelling, the manifest indwelling, of God in manthen there must be many a very saintly saint in these late days of ours. There may be fewer supreme, pre-eminent saints, fewer out-reaching pinnacles of grace, in the long ranges of spiritual life. As all civilisation and human culture advances, great men become less common and less marked. Still, there are saints enough, if we only know how to find them. The old idea of sainthood demanded miracles of those whom it admitted to its calendar. It is the truer discrimination that recognises the presence of God in men, the saints that are in the world, not by the miracles they work, but by the miracles they are; by the way in which they bring the grace of God to bear on the simple duties of the household and the street. The saint is he in whom God dwells.Phillips Brooks.
Rev. 7:13-14. The Redeemed in Glory.The Bible opens and closes with conflictbetween evil and good. Opens with man defeated, closes with man victorious. So it tells the whole story of humanity. The reason for the difference is given us in the song which the victors singSalvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. He that was defeated has become victor, because God Himself has helped him, and won a first and inclusive triumph for him in the person of His Son. The association of the text is a great multitude in the attitude of victors through Christ. It is important to Christian living that our thought should be often lifted to that world towards which we are hastening. We need to keep heaven near. And yet it is but little more than a shadow to us. The terms under which heaven is represented are figurative; of its realities we can know nothing. Figurative language is an accommodation to the uncultured, imperfect mind. It is developed in the early history of nations. But how warm and bright and hopeful are the figures suggesting heaven! Mansions, or Homes. Wiping away tears. Rest. What holy joy and triumph are suggested by its crowns, and harps, and palms, and songs! What a glory is round about its throne!
I. Heaven is not merely another place and other circumstances.We often cherish the notion that, if we could get away from present scenes, we should lose our troubles. In this hope we have made earthly changes; but did we thus lose the trouble? Many say, Oh, to get my footsteps off this sinburdemd earth! It is, therefore, needful to impress that heaven is, primarily, a change in ourselves. Heaven is character first, then place suited to character. White robes are but the expression of moral whiteness.
II. The glorified in heaven keep their individuality.Who are these? Notice the minute account of the tribes, and the maintenance of tribal distinctions. This retention of our individuality is absolutely essential to a full and happy thought of heaven. Unity in varietynot in samenessis the beauty of the earth. Single leaves; single faces. On the basis of individuality our friendships here are formed. If the redeemed have become merely spirits, our personal interest in them is almost gone. Illustrate by giving the dying hopes of Socrates.
III. In heaven the connection with earth is not lost sight of.Whence come they? If christ remembers Bethlehem and Calvary, well may we. This connection is to be a material element in our bliss. Earth is our battle-ground, the sphere in which we win our victories; it is not merely our place of probation. On earth we learn to estimate the rest, and prepare to enjoy the triumph of heaven. Illustrate by visits to a nations battle-fields.
IV. In heaven all merely earthly distinctions are lost.The angel says nothing about the host being rich or poor, noble or servile. The one characteristic is this: they are clothed in white robes, because blood-washed. The one qualification for heaven is personal interest in the work of Christ. There are two efficiencies in His work: He washes, and He sanctifies. Learn to look far deeper than earthly distinctions, and to value character. The title to the eternal feast is the wedding garment of sanctified character.
V. Heaven helps us to understand and bear present tribulation.The white-robed came out of great tribulation. There is a direct connection between tribulation and heaven. Describe the old threshing sledge. Life in general, and life for each individual, has its forms of tribulation. We want to be sure of its relation to the white robes. The Christian has two things to learn experimentally here on earth.
1. How to get his garments washed.
2. How to keep his garments clean. When he has learned both, he is fit for heaven. But he could learn neither without passing through great tribulation. Compare the things talked of in the earthly and heavenly worlds. We talk of the battle for money and position; they talk of the battle for character. We talk of the fashion of the garments that clothe our mortality: they talk of the blood-washed robes of the soul. We talk of success, and worship success; they talk of sanctified tribulation. By cherishing more of their spirit now, we shall be preparing ourselves by-and-bye to share their society.
Rev. 7:13-17. The Redeemed in Heaven.This passage exhibits to us, first, the condition of the redeemed in heaven. That condition is marked, on the one hand, by a cessation from all suffering. They have come out of great tribulation
1. They are beyond the reach of want. They shall hunger no more.
2. They are beyond the reach of harm. The sun shall not light on them, nor any heat. That condition is marked, on the other hand, by the perfection of all enjoyment. Their enjoyment is traceable to three sources.
(1) They stand in the immediate presence of God. They are before the throne.
(2) They are uninterruptedly engaged in His service. They serve Him day and night.
(3) They have access to sources of solid gratification. The Lamb in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them, etc. The Lamb is here said to lead the flock; the anomaly is unavoidable. The figure is imperfect, and is sacrificed to the sentiment. The passage also distinctly exhibits the ground on which that condition is enjoyed; which is, not their having come out of great tribulation, but their having washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Here are two things implied: the forgiveness of sin, indicated by their being washed in the blood; and the renewal of the character, indicated by their having their robes washedrobes being emblematical of character. It is their being pardoned, or justified, that is the strict and only ground of their admission to the blessedness of heaven; whilst their being sanctified qualifies them to enjoy it.
Rev. 7:16. No Thirst in Heaven.A poor mangled German one night crawled out of his hospital bed in the delirium of fever following amputation. Somebody found him in the village street, moaning and raving alternately, while he tried to drag his bleeding body over the frozen earth. A kind Frenchwoman took him in and put warm wine to his lips, which were burning, while the rest of his frame was so cold. No, no! the poor soldier murmured; I am only thirsty for my home and children; and so, with that thirst unassuaged, and that heart-touching explanation of his dark journey, he died.Daily Telegraph.
Fuente: The Preacher’s Complete Homiletical Commentary Edited by Joseph S. Exell
Strauss Comments
SECTION 21
Text Rev. 7:1-8
After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that no wind should blow on the earth, or on the sea, or upon any tree. 2 And I saw another angel ascend from the sunrising, having the sea of the living God: and he cried with a great voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, 3 saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we shall have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads. 4 And I heard the number of them that were sealed, a hundred and forty and four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the children of Israel:
5
Of the tribe of Judah were sealed twelve thousand;
Of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand;
Of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand;
6
Of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand;
Of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand;
Of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand;
7 Of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand;
Of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand;
Of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand;
8
Of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand;
Of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand;
Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand.
Initial Questions Rev. 7:1-8
1.
From where was the angel ascending who had the seal of God Rev. 7:2?
2.
For how long were the angels of destruction to be detained Rev. 7:3?
3.
How many were sealed Rev. 7:4?
4.
Were there any Gentiles sealed Rev. 7:4?
5.
Was there a tribe of Joseph Rev. 7:8?
Sealing of the 144,000 from the Tribes of Israel
Chp. Rev. 7:1-8
Rev. 7:1
Note the change in the picture between chapters 6 and 7. What might follow chapter 6 more naturally would be a vision of the ultimate triumph of the Church. John gives us this vision after the seven trumpets have sounded. Before we hear the note of victory, John goes through the whole process again in the series of the seven trumpets.
Who will be able to stand? Here we get the answer. John saw four angels holding (kratountas holding back or keeping under complete control) the four winds of the earth, in order that (hina clause or purpose clause) wind (no definite art.) should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. Here we see the symbol of Gods sovereign power over the universe.
Rev. 7:2
Another angel coming up from the rising of the sun, having a seal of the living God, and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was given (to them) to harm the earth and the sea. God sent another authorized messenger from the east (from the rising of the sun) to command that the other angels hurt not the earth.
Rev. 7:3
They were commanded not to harm the earth until we may seal (sphragismen 1st aor. act. subj. by a single act) the seals of our God on their foreheads.
These angels are from the imagery of Zec. 6:1-8. John had used this passage before, and gave it a different application. The destruction of the earth would not be allowed to happen until the number of the saved is determined.
Rev. 7:4
John declared that he heard the number of the ones having been sealed (esphragismenn passive, perfect, participle the act of sealing is complete and was done by God). 144,000 having been sealed out of (ek) every tribe of the sons of Israel.
The Jehovahs Witnesses are not among the 144,000 as they so arrogantly claim, because these had already been sealed in the New Testament period. The sealing was not a future act as the form of the verb signifies (pass. perf. part.). The symbolism asserts that there were twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes of Israel. If taken literally, this means physical Jews. We must keep in mind the New Testament redefinition of the term Israel and its significance. (See especially Romans chps. 911, Galatians, and G. A. Danell, Studies in the Name Israel in the Old Testament, Uppsala, Sweden, 1946; study also the theme of the Remnant in both Testaments.)
Rev. 7:5-8
Whether the figure of 144,000 is literal or figurative, we can still understand the basic import. If we take the number literally, it is specifically applied to Jews or the twelve tribes of Israel. The list of the tribes given here is not found in the Old Testament form. Levi (Rev. 7:7) is included here, but was not actually a technical tribe. Dan is omitted, Manasseh is put in his place, but as a son of Joseph he is included in the Joseph tribe mentioned in Rev. 7:8.
Review Questions for Seventh Chapter
See Rev. 7:13-17.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
Tomlinsons Comments
CHAPTER VII
SEALING OF GODS SERVANTS
Text (Rev. 7:1-17)
1 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that no wind should blow on the earth, or on the sea, or upon any tree. 2 And I saw another angel ascend from the sun rising, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a great voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, 3 saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we shall have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads. 4 And I heard the number of them that were sealed, a hundred and forty and four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the children of Israel: 5 Of the tribe of Judah were sealed twelve thousand; of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand; of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand; 6 Of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand; of the tribe of Naphtali twelve thousand; of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand; 7 Of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand; of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand; of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand; 8 Of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand; of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand; of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand.
9 After these things I saw, and behold, a great multitude, which no man could number, out of every nation and of all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands; 10 and they cry with a great voice, saying, Salvation unto our God who sitteth on the throne, and unto the Lamb. 11 And all the angels were standing round about the throne, and about the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, 12 saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen. 13 And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, These that are arrayed in the white robes, who are they, and whence came they? 14 And I say unto him, My lord, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they that come out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. 15 Therefore are they before the throne of God; and they serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall spread his tabernacle over them. 16 They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun strike upon them, nor any heat: 17 for the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd, and shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life: and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.
Rev. 7:1 After the cry of the panic-stricken kings and potentates resulting from the political and religious upheaval symbolized in the sixth seal, we would naturally expect the seventh seal to be opened at once, and the unfolding events described therein to follow immediately.
But this is not the case. Rather the first of two parenthesis of the first division of Revelation is thrown in to reveal the sealing of Gods servants.
Here in this parenthesis a scene of a very different character is presented.
And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of earth, holding the four winds of earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God; and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. (Rev. 7:1-3)
Why, we might ask, is this particular vision, occupying the entire seventh chapter, introduced at this time? The answer is obvious. The preceding visions of the seals uncover how things were to go, during that time in history, with men in general. The need now was that a vision should be given to show what provision God had made for His own during this time of political and religious revolution.
The company of sealed servants of God is in direct contrast to that of the panic stricken opponents of the Lamb of God.
We must remember that we are still under the sixth seal and will be until the seventh seal is opened in (Rev. 8:1).
And after these things (Rev. 7:1) refers to the events described under the seals of the sixth chapter. Now the sealing of the saints follows after these things.
John saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds. These four angels undoubtedly represent four hurtful agencies which are to perform their works of destruction.
The wind in the Scriptures is used as a symbol of divine visitation using human instrumentality to accomplish Gods purpose. We read in (Jer. 51:1 )
Thus saith the Lord, Behold, I will raise up against Babylon and against them that dwell in the midst of them that rise up against me, a destroying wind.
Again in Jer. 49:36, the divine judgments coming in from every quarter are spoken of as the four winds.
And upon Elam will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of heaven.
In Dan. 7:2 we read, Daniel spoke and said, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea.
These scriptures not only define the symbol of wind as a divine visitation using some human instrument of force, but they give us a strong hint that armies of powerful and cruel nations play a significant part in this last stage of the sixth seal.
These four powerful angels seen by John were observed holding back for a time these four destroying powers.
Rev. 7:2 and John says, I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of God, and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels . . . saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.
What this sealing in the foreheads was is not revealed, but it certainly has to do with their eternal safety. In a similar impending temporal judgment on the population of Jerusalem, Ezekiel saw a vision of Gods glory, and heard a command given to one clothed in linen to go through the city and set a mark on the foreheads of those who sighed and cried because of the abominations thereof. (Eze. 9:3-4) This man had an inkhorn by his side, and while it is not said that he used this inkhorn, yet the implication is that he did use it in marking the foreheads.
Rev. 7:3 In Rev. 22:4 we read, And they shall see His face and His name shall be on their foreheads. The servants of Christ dwelling in the place of Christ has gone to prepare will have His name on their foreheads. Here in Rev. 7:5 it would seem the mark in the forehead refers to an open profession of obedient belief in the Lamb, as the mark in the hand would indicate service. The seal is the mark of God, as the seal of a state is the mark of that state.
Rev. 7:4 John heard the number of them that were sealed. It was one hundred and forty-four thousand of the tribes of the children of Israel. John, in this vision of the sixth seal, saw two companies of sealed saints. He saw first a vast company of Abrahams descendants in the blood line, and then he saw another company so vast in host that no man could number them. Since the gospel, as Paul said, is the power of God unto salvation to every one that believeth, to the Jew first, and also to the Greek (Rom. 1:16), so the Jewish Christians are likewise mentioned first here.
The number of the tribes of Israel mentioned here is one hundred forty-four thousand and twelve thousand from each of the twelve tribes of Israel.
Significance of the Number Given
These numbers are hardly to be taken literally, since we must ever keep in mind that we are still in the realm of symbolism, and studying in a book sign-i-fied or written in symbols. They signify a great number. But there seems to be a profounder meaning than this. The number signifies totality, that is to say, the complete and perfect number of Gods servants out of the old Israel of God.
The meaning is intensified by the fact that of each tribe the number sealed is given as precisely twelve thousand. In the total, the number twelve is multiplied by itself and then by one thousand. This makes a square of twelve multiplied by the number of enlargement and totalitya thousand.
In Exo. 30:12-15 we have Gods original directions for numbering His Israel of God in that day.
When thou takest the sum of the children of Israel, them that are to be numbered then shall they give every man a ransom for his soul unto the Lord, when thou numberest them. This they shall give, every one that passeth among them that are numbered, half a shekel after the shekel of the sanctuary . . . the rich shall not give more than a half shekel, when they give an offering to the Lord to make an atonement for your souls.
This presents these glowing facts that every man who is numbered has been ransomed, for whom atonement has been made, and that all men stand on the same level with God, who is no respecter of persons. All require precisely the same ransom, for there is no difference between Jew and Gentile, for both have been proved under sin. (Rom. 3:9; Rom. 3:22-23)
When the people were numbered by Moses, the number came out unequal, signifying incompleteness, for the law made nothing perfect. But in this final enumeration of those for whom Christ gave Himself as a ransom (1Ti. 2:6) the result is perfection.
The number twelve not only symbolizes completeness, but it also symbolizes the perfection of the final abode of the ransomed. We shall deal with this when we come to the description of that eternal city which has twelve gates, twelve angels at the gates, and twelve foundations, and the names of the twelve tribes of Israel, etc.
There is some difficulty in reference to the naming of the twelve tribes of Israel in the vision John saw. Of the tribes, Ephraim appears under the name of Joseph and the tribe of Dan is omitted altogether. The number twelve is preserved by naming Manassas, Josephs first born son in the place of Dan. Dans name may have been dropped because he fell away into idolatry, but this is only a surmise.
Rev. 7:9. After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people and tongues.
Here we find an innumerable multitude which no man could number. They were from every nation.
This second multitude represented the saved of all the nationsthe Gentiles, in other words.
In the first part of this vision, which had to do with Abrahams descendants being sealed, John said he heard the number of them. Here he is given to see the vast throng of sealed from every nation.
Christ spoke of this Gentile multitude, and I say unto you that many shall come from the east and west and sit down with Abraham, Isaac and Jacob in the kingdom of heaven. (Mat. 8:10-11) John here sees the fulfillment of Christs prediction, when this host of Gentiles is incorporated into the Israel of God today.
These stood before the throne, and before the Lamb clothed with white robes. This is ever the garb of the redeemed. They have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
And palms in their hands. This declares them to be sharers of Christs victory.
Rev. 7:10-12 And cried with a loud voice, saying salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.
This multitude, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, are by their singing of salvation identified with the company John heard singing the new song in Rev. 5:9, for that was a preview of this. The theme of the song here entitled Salvation is given in fuller detail in the vision of the seals, where we have the words, For thou wast slain, and has redeemed us to God by thy blood, out of every kindred, and tongue and people and nation.
This is the great salvation whereof Peter speaks in (1Pe. 1:9-12), which things the angels desire to look into, for the next words of the scripture here are,
The Seven-Fold Doxology
And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders, and the four living creatures, and fell down before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, saying, Amen: Blessing and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power and might, be unto our God for ever and ever, Amen.
It is interesting to compare this seven-fold doxology with that of Chapter Rev. 5:12. They are identical in six of the seven items (for strength in Rev. 5:12 is the same in the original as might in Rev. 7:12). The only difference in terms being that in this later song the expression thanksgiving takes the place of riches in the former song. This is understandable in that here is the fulfillment historically of that in prospect in Rev. 5:12. They were singing thanksgiving for the riches of His grace.
Rev. 7:13-14 As if to call especial attention to this singing multitude, one of the elders, or angelic princes, answered (we wonder if this is in response to an unrecorded question of Johns) saying unto John, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?
Rev. 7:14 John confesses his inability to answer either question by saying, Sir, thou knowest. whereupon the elder replies: These are they which come out (literally are coming out) of the great tribulation. While the authorized version reads great tribulation there is an article in the Greek,literally those who are coming out of the great tribulation.
What Tribulation is Meant Here?
Some expositors teach this great tribulation to be the same spoken of by Christ in (Mat. 24:21) And then shall be great tribulation, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time, no nor even shall be. They make it a period of tribulation yet future, a period immediately following the return of the Lord to raise the dead and transform the living saints. These of the Futurist school teach there is to be a great tribulation after the rapture of the saints.
But this cannot be because the elder expressly said of those John saw, that they were then, at that very time, coming out of the great tribulation. This forever forbids postponing the tribulation mentioned here to some future dispensation after Christs return.
Another identifying feature of the time of this tribulation is a fact that we must not overlook. This opening of the sixth seal corresponds historically with the beginning of the Pergamos period, in which the doctrine of compromise in writing of human creeds (Council of Nicea called by Constantine) and the doctrine of the Nicolaitanes (Elevation of bishops to lord it over Gods heritage) lead to the depths of satan in the Thyatira Period. And it was in the Thyatira Period that we read of the apostate church, called Jezebel, but known historically as the Catholic church, in (Rev. 2:22)
Behold, I will cast her into a bed, and them that commit adultery with her into great tribulation, except they repent.
This tribulation in the vision of the seven churches, coincides with that of the parenthesis between the sixth and seventh seals. In the Thyatira church there is mentioned the cause of the tribulation and in Rev. 7:14, we see those who have repented and are coming out of the great tribulation.
Rev. 7:15-17 Because they have stood the trial and remained true, Keeping his words unto the end (Rev. 2:26), they are permitted to be before the throne to serve God constantly and experience the unspeakable joy of having Gods presence among them. They shall neither hunger or thirst any more and all tears shall be wiped from their eyes. The Man of Sorrows shall banish all sorrow.
Summary
Thus we bring to a close the discussion of the parenthesis between the sixth and seventh seals by presenting a summary of the chapter.
The theme has been the sealing of the servants of God, both of the Jews and the Gentiles. But while we have been absorbed in this task we must not lose sight of the fact that four destructive agencies were being withheld until this sealing was completed.
These powers were restrained until some great work of the church could be accomplished. The eighth chapter continues with the opening of the seventh and last seal, in the first division of which, this quartet of destruction is let loose under the symbolism of the blowing of four trumpets in succession. We shall find that these first four trumpets heralded the four tides of invasion which swept over the western half of the Roman Empire.
But before these great catastrophes fell upon the western part of the empire, did the church experience a great triumph? Let us remember this is a book of great symbolism and this is a symbolic picture of great historical events connected with the welfare of the saints.
We have already learned under the sixth seal that Constantine had embraced Christianity and by decree in A.D. 331 ordered the destruction of pagan temples and the abolishing of pagan worship in the empire.
Thus we see that the church of Christ had grappled with the ancient pagan religions and, after centuries of trial and untold suffering, had won a glorious victory. The temples of Jupiter, Mercury and Mars were closed and their idol worship forbidden. If a person today could have visited Rome in the end of the second century he would have beheld a pagan world. Had they visited the eternal city in the latter portion of the fourth century he could have hardly believed his eyes, for he would have looked upon an empire blessed with churches filled with followers of the Christ.
Until this sealing of the saints, was completed, the four winds of destruction were held back. It was a definite act of God to see that they were restrained from their missions of destruction until Christianity had captured the empire.
Had these four destructive agencies done their work before this great victory of the church in the sowing of the seed of the kingdom everywhere, Christianity could never have survived the wreck of the empire and the passing of a civilization hoary with age.
Christ indwelling in the hearts of converted Romans helped them to rise above the ruins of the past. The invading hordes from the north laid aside their paganism and embraced the Christian belief from those whom they had vanquished.
We are now ready to consider the events accompanying the opening of the seventh seal.
Fuente: College Press Bible Study Textbook Series
VII.
(1) And after these things . . Better, And after this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding fast the four winds of the earth, that there might not blow a wind upon the earth, nor upon the sea, nor upon any tree. In the sixth seal the winds had blown, and had shaken violently the fig-tree, causing its untimely figs to drop off: the untimely or winter figs represented those whose religious life was unequal to the strain of trial, and who failed in the crisis to which they were exposed. But is all the fruit shaken off? No; Christ had said that if a man abide not in Me, he is cast forth as a branch; but that those who abode in Him, purged by their trials, would bring forth more fruit, and the fruit which these bore was not a fruit easily shaken off, but fruit that should remain (Joh. 15:6; Joh. 15:5; Joh. 15:16). They would not be as winter figs, easily torn from the boughs, for their strength was in God: before the stormy winds of manifold trials had blown they had been sealed with the seal of the living God. This is the scene which is brought before us in this chapter. In it the care of God, who restrains from violence the winds, that they should net shake too soon the immature fruit, the tokens by which the sealed are known and the meaning of their sealing are set forth. The chapter, in fact, answers the solemn question of the last chapter: Who is able to stand? The winds are clearly emblems of days of trouble or judgment; as the winds sweep away the chaff and clear the atmosphere, so do judgments try the ungodly, who are like the chaff which the wind driveth away: the storm of Gods judgments shakes the mountains and the wilderness, and strips the oaks of the forest. (Comp. Psalms 29) These winds of judgment are ready to blow from all quarters (four corners of the earth), but they are restrained till the servants of God are sealed. For passages where winds are used as emblems of judgment, see especially Jer. 49:36-37, Upon Elam I will bring the four winds from the four quarters of heaven. And I will bring evil upon them, even My fierce anger, saith the Lord. Comp, also Dan. 7:2, I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea. But those tempests would not arise or shake a single leaf till the securing of Gods servants was accomplished.
Fuente: Ellicott’s Commentary for English Readers (Old and New Testaments)
Chapter 7
RESCUE AND REWARD ( Rev 7:1-3 ) 7:1-3 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, restraining the four winds of the earth so that the wind might not blow upon the earth, or upon the sea, or against any tree. And I saw another angel going up from where the sun rises, with a seal which belonged to the living God, and he shouted with a great voice to the four angels to whom was given power to harm the earth and the sea: “Do not harm the earth and the sea or the trees until we seal the servants of our God upon their foreheads.”
Before we deal with this chapter in detail, it is better to set out the general picture behind it.
John is seeing the vision of the last terrible days aid in particular the great tribulation which is to come, such as was not since the beginning of the world to this time ( Mat 24:21; Mar 13:19). In this coming tribulation there was to be a final assault by every evil power and a final devastation of the earth. It is to play their part in this devastation that the winds are waiting and from which for a little while they are being held in check.
Before this time of terror and devastation comes, the faithful are to be sealed with the seal of God in order that they may survive it. It is not that they are to be exempt from it but that they are to be brought safely through it.
This is a terrible picture; even if the faithful are to be brought through this terrible time, they none the less must pass through it, and this is a prospect to make even the bravest shudder.
In Rev 7:9 the range of the seer’s vision extends still further and he sees the faithful after the tribulation has passed. They are in perfect peace and satisfaction in the very presence of God. The last time will bring them unspeakable horrors, but when they have passed through it they will enter into equally unspeakable joy.
There are really three elements in this picture. (i) There is a warning. The last unparalleled and inconceivable time of tribulation is coming soon. (ii) There is an assurance. In that time of destruction the faithful will suffer terribly, but they will come out on the other side because they are sealed with the seal of God. (iii) There is a promise. When they have passed through that time, they will come to the blessedness in which all pain and sorrow are gone and there is nothing but peace and joy.
THE WINDS OF GOD ( Rev 7:1-3 continued) This vision is expressed in conceptions of the world which were the conceptions of the days in which John wrote.
The earth is a square, flat earth; and at its four corners are four angels waiting to unleash the winds of destruction. Isaiah speaks of gathering the outcasts of Judah from the four corners of the earth ( Isa 11:12). The end is come upon the four corners of the earth in Ezekiel ( Eze 7:2).
It was the belief of the ancient peoples that the winds which came from due north, south, east and west were all favourable winds; but that those which blew diagonally across the earth were harmful. That is why the angels are at the corners of the earth. They are about to unleash the winds which blow diagonally. It was the common belief that all the forces of nature were under the charge of angels. So we read of the angel of the fire ( Rev 14:18) and the angel of the waters ( Rev 16:5). These angels were called “The Angels of Service.” They belonged to the very lowest order of angels, because they had to be continually on duty and, therefore, could not keep the Sabbath as a day of rest. Pious Israelites who faithfully observed the Law of the Sabbath were said to rank higher than these angels of service.
The angels are bidden to restrain the winds until the work of sealing the faithful should be completed. This idea has more than one echo in Jewish literature. In Enoch the angels of the waters are bidden by God to hold the waters in check until Noah had built the ark (Enoch 66:1, 2). In 2Baruch the angels with the flaming torches are bidden to restrain their fire, when Jerusalem was sacked by the Babylonians, until the sacred vessels of the Temple could be hidden away and saved from the looting of the invaders ( Bar_6:4 ). More than once we see the angels restraining the forces of destruction until the safety of the faithful has been made secure.
One of the interesting and picturesque ideas of the Old Testament is that of the winds as the servants and the agents of God. This was specially so of the Sirocco, the dread wind from the south-east, with the blast like hot air from a furnace which withered and destroyed all vegetation. Zechariah has the picture of the chariots of the winds, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth ( Zec 6:1-5). Nahum speaks of the Lord who has his way in the whirlwind (the Sirocco) and the storm ( Nah 1:3). The Lord goes with the whirlwinds of the south ( Zec 9:14). The winds are God’s chariots ( Jer 4:13). God comes with his chariots like a whirlwind ( Isa 66:15). The wind is the breath of God ( Job 37:9-10). The wind rends the mountains ( 1Ki 19:11) and withers the grass ( Isa 40:7; Isa 40:24) and dries up the stream, the river and the sea ( Nah 1:4; Psa 18:15).
So terrible was the effect of the Sirocco that it gained a place in the pictures of the last days. One of the terrors which was to precede the end was a terrible storm. God would destroy his enemies as stubble before the wind ( Psa 83:13). God’s day would be the day of the whirlwind ( Amo 1:14). The whirlwind of the Lord goes forth in its fury and falls on the head of the wicked ( Jer 23:19; Jer 30:23). The wind of the Lord, the Sirocco, will come from the wilderness and destroy the fertility of the land ( Hos 13:15). God will send his four winds upon Elam and scatter the people ( Jer 49:36).
This is difficult for many of us to understand; the dweller in the temperate countries does not know the terror of the wind. But there is something here more far-reaching than that and more characteristic of Jewish thought, the Jews knew nothing of secondary causes. We say that atmospheric conditions, variations in temperature, land and mountain configurations, cause certain things to happen. The Jew ascribed it all to the direct action of God. He simply said, God sent the rain; God made the wind to blow; God thundered; God sent his lightning.
Surely both points of view are correct, for we may still believe that God acts through the laws by which his universe is governed.
THE LIVING GOD ( Rev 7:1-3 continued) Before the great tribulation smites the earth the faithful ones are to be marked with the seal of God. There are two points to note.
(i) The angel with the seal comes from the rising of the sun, from the East. All John’s pictures mean something and there may be two meanings behind this: (a) It is in the East that the sun, the supreme earthly giver of light and life, rises; and the angel may stand for the life and the light that God gives his people even when death and destruction are abroad. (b) It is just possible that John is remembering something from the story of the birth of Jesus. The wise men come to Palestine searching for the king who is to be born, for “We have seen his star in the East” ( Mat 2:2). It is natural that the delivering angel should rise in the same part of the sky as the star which told of the birth of the Saviour.
(ii) The angel has the seal which belongs to the living God. The living God is a phrase in which the writers of Scripture delight and when they use it, there are certain things in their minds.
(a) They are thinking of the living God in contra-distinction to the dead gods of the heathen. Isaiah has a tremendous passage of sublime mockery of the heathen and their dead gods whom their own hands have made ( Isa 44:9-17). The smith takes a mass of metal and works at it with the hammer and the tongs and the coals, sweating and parched at his task of manufacturing a god. The carpenter goes out and cuts down a tree. He works at it with line and compass and plane. Part of it he uses to make a fire to warm himself; part of it he uses to make a fire to bake his bread and roast his meat; and part of it he uses to make a god. The heathen gods are dead and created by men; our God is alive and the creator of all things.
(b) The idea of the living God is used as an encouragement. In the midst of their struggles Joshua reminds the people that with them there is the living God and that he will show his strength in their conflicts with their enemies ( Jos 3:10). When a man is up against it, the living God is with him.
(c) Only in the living God is there satisfaction. It is the living God for whom the soul of the psalmist longs and thirsts ( Psa 42:2). Man can never find satisfaction in things but only in fellowship with a living person; and he finds his highest satisfaction in the fellowship of the living God.
(d) The biblical writers stress the privilege of knowing and belonging to the living God. Hosea reminds the people of Israel that once they were not a people, but in mercy they have become children of the living God ( Hos 1:10). Our privilege is that there is open to us the friendship, the fellowship, the help, the power and the presence of the living God.
(e) In the idea of the living God there is at one and the same time a promise and a threat. Second Kings vividly tells the story of how the great king Sennacherib sent his envoy Rabshakeh to tell Hezekiah that he proposed to wipe out the nation of Israel. Humanly speaking, the little kingdom of Judah had no hope of survival, if the might of Assyria was launched against it. But with Israel there was the living God and he was a threat to the godlessness of Assyria and a promise to the faithful of Israel ( 2Ki 18:17-37).
THE SEAL OF GOD ( Rev 7:4-8 ) 7:4-8 And I heard the number of those who were sealed, one hundred and forty-four thousand were sealed from every tribe of the sons of Israel. Of the tribe of Judah twelve thousand were sealed; of the tribe of Reuben, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Gad, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Asher, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Naphtali, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Manasseh, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Simeon, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Levi, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Issachar, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Zebulun, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Joseph, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Benjamin, twelve thousand.
Those who are to be brought safely through the great tribulation are sealed upon their foreheads. The origin of this picture is very likely in Eze 9:1-11. In Ezekiel’s picture, before the final slaughter begins, the man with the inkhorn marks the forehead of those who are faithful and the avengers are told that none so marked must be touched ( Eze 9:1-7).
The idea of the king’s seal would be very meaningful in the East. Eastern kings wore a signet ring whose seal was used to authenticate documents as really coming from the king’s hand and to mark that which was the king’s personal property. When Pharaoh appointed Joseph his prime minister and representative, he gave him his signet ring in token of the authority which had been delegated to him ( Gen 41:42). So Ahasuerus gave his signet ring, first to Haman and then, when Haman’s wicked schemes were unmasked, to Mordecai ( Est 3:10; Est 8:2). The stone which shut Daniel into the lion’s den was sealed ( Dan 6:17), as was the stone with which the Jews sought to make the tomb of Jesus secure ( Mat 27:66).
Very commonly a seal indicated source or possession. A merchant would seal a Package of goods to certify that it belonged to him; and the owner of a vineyard would seal jars of wine to show that they came from his vineyard and with his guarantee.
So here the seal was a sign that these people belonged to God and were under his power and authority.
In the early church this picture of sealing was specially connected with two things. (a) It was connected with baptism which was regularly described as sealing. It is as if, when a person was baptized, a mark was put upon him to show that he had become the property and the possession of God. (b) Paul regularly talks about the Christian being sealed with the gift of the Holy Spirit. The possession of the Holy Spirit is the sign that a man belongs to God. The real Christian is marked out by the seal of the Spirit which enables him to have the wisdom and the strength to cope with life in a way beyond the attainment of others.
THE NUMBER OF THE FAITHFUL ( Rev 7:4-8 continued) There are certain quite general things to be noted here which will greatly help towards the interpretation of this passage.
(i) Two things are to be said about the number 144,000. (a) It is quite certain that it does not stand for the number of the faithful in every day and generation. The 144,000 stands for those who in the time of John are sealed and preserved from the great tribulation which at that moment was coming upon them. In due time, as we see in Rev 7:9, they are to be merged with the great crowd beyond all counting and drawn from every nation. (b) The number 144,000 stands, not for limitation but for completeness and perfection. It is made up of 12 multiplied by 12–the perfect square–and then rendered even more inclusive and complete by being multiplied by 1,000 This does not tell us that the number of the saved will be very small; it tells us that the number of the saved will be very great.
(ii) The enumeration in terms of the twelve tribes of Israel does not mean that this is to be read in purely Jewish terms. One of the basic thoughts of the New Testament is that the Church is the real Israel, and that the national Israel has lost all its privileges and promises to the Church. Paul writes: “He is not a real Jew who is one outwardly, nor is true circumcision something external and physical. He is a Jew who is one inwardly, and real circumcision is a matter of the heart, spiritual and not literal. His praise is not from men but from God” ( Rom 2:28-29). “Not all who are descended from Israel belong to Israel,” says Paul ( Rom 9:6-7). If a man is Christ’s, then is he Abraham’s seed and an heir according to the promise ( Gal 3:29). It is the Church which is the Israel of God ( Gal 6:16). It is Christians who are the real circumcision, those who worship God in the spirit, who rejoice in Christ Jesus and who have no confidence in the flesh ( Php_3:3 ). Even if this passage is stated in terms of the twelve tribes of Israel, the reference is still to the Church of God, the new Israel, the Israel of God.
(iii) It would be a mistake to place any stress on the order in which the twelve tribes are given, because the lists of the tribes are always varying in their order. But two things stand out. (a) Judah comes first, thus supplanting Reuben, who was the eldest son of Jacob. That is simply explained by the fact it was from the tribe of Judah that the Messiah came. (b) Much more interesting is the omission of Dan. But there is also an explanation of that. In the Old Testament Dan does not hold a high place and is often connected with idolatry. In Jacob’s dying speech to his sons, it is said: “Dan shall be a serpent in the way, a viper by the path, that bites the horse’s heels, so that his rider falls backward” ( Gen 49:17). In Judges the children of Dan are said to have set up a graven image ( Jdg 18:30). The golden calves, which became a sin, were set up in Bethel and in Dan ( 1Ki 12:29). There is more. There is a curious saying in Jer 8:16: “The snorting of their horses is heard from Dan; at the sound of the neighing of their stallions the whole land quakes. They come and devour the land and all that fills it.” That saying came to be taken as referring to Antichrist, the coming incarnation of evil; and it came to be believed among the Jewish Rabbis that Antichrist was to spring from Dan. Hippolytus (Concerning Antichrist 14) says: “As the Christ was born from the tribe of Judah, so will the Antichrist be born from the tribe of Dan.” That is why Dan is missed out from this list and the list completed by the including of Manasseh, who is normally included in Joseph.
THE GLORY OF THE MARTYRS ( Rev 7:9-10 ) 7:9-10 After this I saw, and, behold, a great crowd, so great that none could count its number, drawn from every race and from all tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed in white robes and palms in their hands. And they shouted with a great voice: “Salvation belongs to our God, who is seated upon the throne and to the Lamb.”
Here we have the beginning of the vision of the future blessedness of the martyrs.
(i) There is encouragement. There is coming upon the faithful a time of terror such as the world has never seen; and John is telling them that, if they endure to the end, the glory will be worth all the suffering. He is setting out how infinitely worthwhile it is in the long run to accept everything involved in the martyrdom which fidelity must undergo.
(ii) The number of the martyrs is beyond all counting. This may well be a memory of the promise that God made to Abraham that his descendants would one day be as the number of the stars in the heavens ( Gen 15:5), and as the sand of the seashore ( Gen 32:12); at the last the number of the true Israel will be beyond all reckoning.
(iii) John uses a phrase of which he is very fond. He says that God’s faithful ones will come from every race and tribe and people and tongue (compare Rev 5:9; Rev 11:9; Rev 13:7; Rev 14:6; Rev 17:15). H. B. Swete speaks of “the polyglot cosmopolitan crowd who jostled one another in the agora or on the quays of the Asian sea-port towns.” In any Asian harbour or market-place there would be gathered people from many lands, speaking many different tongues. Any evangelist would feel his heart afire to bring the message of Christ to this assorted crowd of people. Here is the promise that the day will come when all this motley crowd of many nations and many tongues will become the one flock of the Lord Christ.
(iv) It is in victory that the faithful finally arrive in the presence of God and of the Lamb. They appear, not weary, battered and worn, but victorious. The white robe is the sign of victory; a Roman general celebrated his triumph clothed in white. The palm is also the sign of victory. When, under the might of the Maccabees, Jerusalem was freed from the pollutions of Antiochus Epiphanes, the people entered in with branches and fair boughs and palms and psalms ( 2Ma_10:7 ).
(v) The shout of the triumphant faithful ascribes salvation to God. It is God who has brought them through their trials and tribulations and distresses; and it is his glory which now they share. God is the great saviour, the great deliverer of his people. And the deliverance which he gives is not the deliverance of escape but the deliverance of conquest. It is not a deliverance which saves a man from trouble but one which brings him triumphantly through trouble. It does not make life easy, but it makes life great. It is not part of the Christian hope to look for a life in which a man is saved from all trouble and distress; the Christian hope is that a man in Christ can endure any kind of trouble and distress, and remain erect all through them, and come out to glory on the other side.
THE PRAISE OF THE ANGELS ( Rev 7:11-12 )
7:11-12 And all the angels stood in a circle round the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell upon their faces before the throne, and worshipped God, saying:
“So let it be. Blessing and glory and wisdom and thanksgiving and honour and power and strength belong to our God for ever and for ever. Amen.”
The picture is of a series of great concentric circles of the inhabitants of heaven. On the outer ring stand all the angels. Nearer the throne are the twenty-four elders; still nearer are the four living creatures; and before the throne are the white-robed martyrs. The martyrs have just sung their shout of praise to God and the angels take that song of praise and make it their own. “So let it be,” say the angels; they say “Amen” to the martyrs’ praises. Then they sing their own song of praise and every word in it is meaningful.
They ascribe blessing to God; and God’s creation must always be blessing him for his goodness in creation and in redemption and in providence to all that he has created. As a great saint put it: “Thou hast made us and we are thine; thou hast redeemed us and we are doubly thine.”
They ascribe glory to God. God is the King of kings and the Lord of lords; therefore, to him must be given glory. God is love but that love must never be cheaply sentimentalized; men must never forget the majesty of God.
They ascribe wisdom to God. God is the source of all truth, the giver of all knowledge. If men seek wisdom, they can find it by only two paths, by the seeking of their minds and by waiting upon God–and the one is as important as the other.
They offer thanksgiving to God. God is the giver of salvation and the constant provider of grace; he is the Creator of the world and the constant sustainer of all that is in it. It was the cry of the psalmist: “Bless the Lord, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits” ( Psa 103:2). Shakespeare said that it was sharper than a serpent’s tooth to have a thankless child. We must see to it that we are never guilty of the ugliest and the most graceless of sins, that of ingratitude.
They ascribed honour to God. God is to be worshipped. It may be that sometimes we come to think of him as some one to be used; but we ought not to forget the claims of worship, so that we not only ask things from him but offer ourselves and all we have to him.
They ascribe power to God. God’s power never grows less and the wonder is that it is used in love for men. God works his purposes out throughout the ages and in the end his kingdom will come.
They ascribe strength to God. The problem of life is to find strength for its tasks, its responsibilities, its demands. The Christian can say: “I will go in the strength of the Lord.”
There is no greater exercise in the life of devotion than to meditate on the praise of the angels and, to appropriate to ourselves everything in it.
WASHING FROM SIN ( Rev 7:13-14 ) 7:13,14 And one of the elders said to me: “Do you know who these are who are clothed in white robes and where they came from?” I said to him: “Sir, you know.” He said to me: “These are they who are coming out of the great tribulation, and who have washed their robes, and have made them white through the power of the blood of the Lamb.”
One thing is to be noted before we go on to deal with this passage in detail. The King James Version generalizes the meaning by translating: “These are they who came out of great tribulation.” But the Revised Standard Version correctly translates: “These are they who came out of the great tribulation.” The seer is convinced that he and his people are standing at the end time of history and that that end time is to be terrible beyond all imagining. The whole point of his vision is that beyond that terrible time glory will follow. It is not tribulation in general of which he is speaking but of that tribulation which Jesus foretold when he said, “In those days there will be such tribulation as has not been from the beginning of the creation which God created until now, and never will be” ( Mar 13:19; Mat 24:21). Nowadays we read this passage as speaking about tribulation in general and in that sense find it very precious; and we are right to read it so because the promises of God are for ever. At the same time it is right to remember that originally it referred to the immediate circumstances of the people to whom John was writing.
This passage has two pictures which are very common in the Bible. We first look at these pictures separately and then we put them together in order to find the total meaning of the passage.
The great crowd of the blessed ones are in white robes. The Bible has much to say both about white robes and about soiled robes. In the ancient world this was a very natural picture, for it was forbidden to approach a god with robes which were unclean. The picture was still further intensified by the fact that often when a Christian was baptized he was dressed in new white robes. These robes were taken to symbolize his new life and to soil them was the symbolic way of expressing failure to be true to the baptismal vows.
Isaiah says: “We have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous deeds are like a polluted garment” ( Isa 64:6). Zechariah sees the high priest Joshua clothed in filthy garments and hears God say: “Remove the filthy garments from him… Behold, I have taken your iniquity away from you, and I will clothe you with rich apparel” ( Zec 3:1-5). In preparation for the receiving of the commandments from God, Moses orders the people wash their garments ( Exo 19:10; Exo 19:14). The Psalmist prays to God to wash him thoroughly from his iniquity, to purge him with hyssop, to wash him until he is whiter than snow ( Psa 51:1-7). The prophet hears the promise that the sins which are as scarlet will be as white as snow and those that were red like crimson will be as wool ( Isa 1:18). Paul reminds his people in Corinth that they have been washed and sanctified ( 1Co 6:11).
Here is a picture which is present all through scripture, of the man who has stained his garments with sin and who has been cleansed by the grace of God. It is of the greatest importance to remember that this love of God does not only forgive a man his stained garments, it makes them clean.
THE BLOOD OF JESUS CHRIST ( Rev 7:13-14 continued) This passage speaks of the blood of the Lamb. The New Testament has much to say about the blood of Jesus Christ. We must be careful to give this phrase its full meaning. To us blood indicates death, and certainly the blood of Jesus Christ speaks of his death. But to the Hebrews the blood stood for the life. That was why the orthodox Jew never would–and still will not–eat anything which had blood in it ( Gen 9:4). The blood is the life and the life belongs to God; and the blood must always be sacrificed to him. The identification of blood and life is not unnatural. When a man’s blood ebbs away, so does his life. When the New Testament speaks about the blood of Jesus Christ, it means not only his death but his life and death. The blood of Christ stands for all Christ did for us and means for us in his life and in his death. With that in our minds let us see what the New Testament says about that blood.
It is the blood of Jesus Christ which is cleansing us from all sin ( 1Jn 1:7). It is the blood of Jesus Christ which makes expiation for us ( Rom 3:25), and it is through his blood that we are justified ( Rom 5:9). It is through his blood that we have redemption ( Eph 1:7), and we are redeemed with the precious blood of Christ as of a lamb without blemish and without spot ( 1Pe 1:19). It is through his blood that we have peace with God ( Col 1:20). His blood purges our conscience from dead works to serve the living God ( Heb 9:14).
There are four ideas here, the first being the main idea from which the others spring.
(i) The main idea is based on sacrifice. Sacrifice is essentially something designed to restore a lost relationship with God. God gives man his law; man breaks that law; that breach of the law interrupts the relationship between God and man; and sacrifice is designed to atone for the breach and to restore the lost relationship. The great work of Jesus Christ in his life and in his death is to restore the lost relationship between God and man.
(ii) This work of Christ has something to do with the past. It wins for man forgiveness for past sins and liberates him from his slavery to sin.
(iii) This work of Christ has something to do with the present. It gives a man here and now, upon earth, in spite of failure and of sin, a new and intimate relationship with God, in which fear is gone and in which love is the bond.
(iv) This work of Christ has something to do with the future. It frees a man from the power of evil and enables him to live a new life in the time to come.
SAINTS WHO’VE WASHED THEIR ROBES IN BLOOD OF THE LAMB ( Rev 7:13-14 continued) Let us now unite the two ideas of which we have been thinking. The blessed ones have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Let us try to express as simply as possible what that means.
The white robes always stand for two things. They stand for purity, for the life cleansed from the taint of past sin, the infection of present sin and the attack of future sin. They stand for victory, for the life which has found the secret of victorious living. Put at its very simplest, this means that the blessed ones have found the secret of purity and the secret of victory in all that Jesus Christ did for them in his life and in his death.
Now let us try to see the meaning of in the blood of the Lamb. There are two possibilities.
(i) It may mean in the power of the blood of the Lamb or at the cost of the blood of the Lamb. This would then be a vivid way of saying that this purity and victory were won in the power and at the cost of all that Jesus did for men in his life and in his death.
(ii) But it may be even more probable that the picture is to be taken literally; and that John conceives of the blessed ones as having washed their robes in the blood which flows from the wounds of Jesus Christ. To us that is a strange and perhaps even repulsive picture; and it is paradoxical to think of robes becoming white when washed in the scarlet of blood. But it would not seem strange to the people of John’s day; to many of them it would be literally familiar. The greatest religious force of the time was the Mystery Religions. These were dramatic religions which by deeply moving ceremonies offered to men a rebirth and a promise of eternal life. Perhaps the most famous was Mithraism, at whose centre was the god Mithra. Mithraism had its devotees all over the world; it was the favourite religion of the Roman army and even in Britain there are relics of the chapels of Mithra where the Roman soldiers met for worship. The most sacred ceremony of Mithraism was the taurobolium, the bath of bull’s blood. It is described by the Christian poet Prudentius. “A trench was dug, over which was erected a platform of planks, which were perforated with holes. Upon this platform a sacrificial bull was slaughtered. Below the platform knelt the worshipper who was to be initiated. The blood of the slaughtered bull dripped through on to the worshipper below. He exposed his head and all his garments to be saturated with blood; and then he turned round and held up his neck that the blood might trickle upon his lips, ears, eyes and nostrils; he moistened his tongue with the blood which he then drank as a sacramental act. He came out from this certain that he was renatus in aeternum, reborn for all eternity.”
This may sound grim and terrible to us; but in the last analysis it is not the picture which matters but the truth behind the picture. And the great and unchanging truth is that through the life and death of Jesus Christ, there has come to the Christian that purity and victory which he could never achieve for himself.
CHRIST’S SACRIFICE AND MAN’S APPROPRIATION ( Rev 7:13-14 continued) One thing in this passage remains to be noted, and it is of the first importance. It is said of the blessed ones that “they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
Here is symbolically laid down man’s part in his own salvation; the blessed ones washed their own robes. That is to say, the act of man’s redemption is Christ’s, but the effect is not passive and man has to appropriate it. There might be available to a man all the apparatus to cleanse his garments, but it remains ineffective until he uses it for himself.
How does a man avail himself of the sacrifice of Christ?
He does so through penitence. He must begin with sorrow for his sin and the desire for amendment. He does so through faith. He must believe with all his heart that Christ lived and died for us men and for our salvation, and that his sacrifice is mighty to save. He does so through using the means of grace. The Scriptures will awaken his penitence and his faith and kindle his heart; prayer will keep him ever close to Christ and daily increase his intimacy with him; the Sacraments will be channels through which by faith renewing grace will flow to him. He does so through daily loyalty and vigilance and living with Christ.
THE SERVICE IN THE GLORY ( Rev 7:15 ) 7:15 That is why they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple; and he who sits upon the throne will spread the covering of his glory over them.
Those who have been faithful will have the entry into the very presence of God. Jesus said: “Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God” ( Mat 5:8).
There is a very significant fact hidden here. Serving God day and night was part of the task of the Levites and the priests ( 1Ch 9:33). Now those who are before the throne of God in this vision are, as we have already seen in Rev 7:9, drawn from every race and tribe and people and tongue. Here is a revolution. In the earthly Temple in Jerusalem no Gentile could go beyond the Court of the Gentiles on pain of death. An Israelite could pass through the Court of the Women and enter into the Court of the Israelites, but no further. Beyond that was the Court of the Priests, which was for priests alone. But in the heavenly temple the way to the presence of God is open to people of every race. Here is a picture of heaven with the barriers down. Distinctions of race and of status exist no more; the way into the presence of God is open to every faithful soul.
There is one other half-hidden fact here. In Rev 7:15 the King James Version has it that he who sits upon the throne shall dwell among them. That is a perfectly correct translation, but there is more in it than meets the eye. The Greek for to dwell is skenoun ( G4637) , from skene ( G4633) which means a tent. It is the same word as is used when John says that the Word became flesh and dwelt among us ( Joh 1:14). The Jews always connected this with a certain Hebrew word which was somewhat similar in sound although quite unrelated in meaning. This was the word shechinah (compare H7931) , the visible presence of the glory of God. Usually that presence took the form of a luminous cloud. So when the Ten Commandments were given, “the glory of the Lord settled on Mount Sinai, and the cloud covered it six days…. And the appearance of the glory of the Lord was like a devouring fire on the top of the mountain” ( Exo 24:16-18). It was the same with the Tabernacle. The cloud covered the tent of the congregation and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle. Moses could not enter into the Tabernacle because of the glory of the Lord. This was the cloud which guided the Israelites by day and the fire that guided them by night ( Exo 40:34-38). At the dedication of Solomon’s temple the glory of the Lord filled it so that the priests could not enter ( 2Ch 7:1-3).
Skenoun ( G4637) always turned the thoughts of a Jew to shechinah (compare the Hebrew verb, shakan, H7931, to dwell): and to say that God dwelt in any place was to say that his glory was there.
This was always so for a Jew, but as time went on it became more and more so. The Jews came to think of God as increasingly remote from the world. They did not even think it right to speak of him as being in the world; that was to speak in terms which were too human; and so they took to substituting the shechinah (compare H7931) , for the name of God. We read Jacob’s words at Bethel: “Surely the Lord is in this place” ( Gen 28:16); the Rabbis changed that to: “The shechinah (compare H7931) is in this place.” In Habbakuk we read: “The Lord is in his holy temple” ( Hab 2:20); but the later Jews said: “God was pleased to cause his shechinah (compare H7931) to dwell in the temple.” In Isaiah we read: “My eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts” ( Isa 6:5); the later Jews altered it to: “Mine eyes have seen the shechinah (compare H7931) , of the King of the world.”
No Jew would hear the word skenoun ( G4637) without thinking of shechinah; and the real meaning of the passage is that God’s blessed ones would serve and live in the very sheen of his glory.
It can be so on earth. He who faithfully works and witnesses for God has always the glory of God upon his work.
THE BLISS OF THE BLESSED ( Rev 7:16-17 ) 7:16,17 They will not hunger any more, nor will they thirst any more; the sun will not fall on them, nor any heat; because the Lamb who is in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and will lead them to springs of living water; and God will wipe away every tear from their eyes.
It would be impossible to number the people who have found comfort in this passage in the house of mourning and in the hour of death.
There is spiritual promise here, the promise of the ultimate satisfying of the hunger and the thirst of the human soul. This is a promise which occurs again and again in the New Testament, and especially in the words of Jesus. “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for they shall be satisfied” ( Mat 5:6). Jesus said: “I am the bread of life; he who comes to me shall not hunger; and he who believes in me shall never thirst” ( Joh 6:35). “Whoever drinks of the water that I shall give him will never thirst; the water that I shall give him will become in him a spring of water welling up to eternal life” ( Joh 4:14). Jesus said: “If any one thirst, let him come to me and drink” ( Joh 7:37). God has made us for himself, as Augustine said, and our hearts are restless till they rest in him. As the hymn has it:
O Christ, in thee my soul has found,
And found in thee alone,
The peace, the joy, I sought so long,
The bliss till now unknown.
Now none but Christ can satisfy,
None other name for me!
There’s love, and life, and lasting joy,
Lord Jesus, found in thee.
But it may well be that we should not entirely spiritualize this passage. In the early days many of the Church’s members were slaves. They knew what it was to be hungry all the time; they knew what thirst was; they knew what it was for the pitiless sun to blaze down upon their backs as they toiled, forbidden to rest. Truly for them heaven would be a place where hunger was satisfied and thirst was quenched and the heat of the sun no longer tortured them. The promise of this passage is that in Christ is the end of the world’s hunger, the world’s pain, and the world’s sorrow.
We do well to remember that John found the origin of this passage in the words of Isaiah: “They shall not hunger or thirst; neither scorching wind nor sun shall smite them; for he who has pity on them will lead them, and by springs of water will lead them” ( Isa 49:10). This is a supreme example of an Old Testament dream finding its perfect fulfilment in Jesus Christ.
THE DIVINE SHEPHERD ( Rev 7:16-17 continued) Here is the promise of the loving care of the Divine Shepherd for his flock.
The picture of the shepherd is something in which both the Old and New Testament delight.
“The Lord is my shepherd,” begins the best loved of all the psalms ( Psa 23:1). “O Shepherd of Israel,” begins another ( Psa 80:1). Isaiah pictures God feeding his flock like a shepherd, holding the lambs in his arms and carrying them in his bosom ( Isa 40:11). The greatest title that the prophet can give to the Messianic king is shepherd of his people ( Eze 34:23; Eze 37:24).
This was the title that Jesus took for himself. “I am the good shepherd,” ( Joh 10:11; Joh 10:14). Peter calls Jesus the Shepherd and Bishop of our souls ( 1Pe 2:25), and the writer to the Hebrews speaks of him as that great shepherd of the sheep ( Heb 13:20).
This is a precious picture in any age; but it was more meaningful in Palestine than it can ever be to those who live in cities. Judaea was like a narrow plateau with dangerous country on either side. It was only a very few miles across, with on one side the grim cliffs and ravines leading down to the Dead Sea and on the other the drop to the wild country of the Shephelah. There were no fences or walls and the shepherd had to be ever on the watch for straying sheep. George Adam Smith describes the eastern shepherd. “With us sheep are often left to themselves; I do not remember to have seen in the East a flock without a shepherd. In such a landscape as Judaea, where a day’s pasture is thinly scattered over an unfenced track, covered with delusive paths, still frequented by wild beasts, and rolling into the desert, the man and his character are indispensable. On some high moor, across which at night hyenas howl, when you met him sleepless, far-sighted, weather-beaten, armed, leaning on his staff, and looking out over his scattered sheep, every one on his heart, you understand why the shepherd of Judaea sprang to the front in his people’s history; why they gave his name to their king, and made him the symbol of Providence; why Christ took him as the type of self-sacrifice.”
Here we have the two great functions of the Divine Shepherd. He leads to fountains of living waters. As the psalmist had it: “He leads me beside still waters” ( Psa 23:2). “With thee is the fountain of life” ( Psa 36:9). Without water the flock would perish; and in Palestine the wells were few and far between. That the Divine Shepherd leads to wells of water is the symbol that he gives us the things without which life cannot survive.
He wipes the tear from every eye. As he nourishes our bodies so he also comforts our hearts; without the presence and the comfort of God the sorrows of life would be unbearable, and without the strength of God there are times in life when we could never go on.
The Divine Shepherd gives us nourishment for our bodies and comfort for our hearts. With Jesus Christ as Shepherd nothing can happen to us which we cannot bear.
-Barclay’s Daily Study Bible (NT)
Fuente: Barclay Daily Study Bible
Counter picture of celestial reward of Saints, Rev 7:1-17.
a. Winds are silenced, while OLD TESTAMENT SAINTS are sealed, 144,000, Rev 7:1-8 .
1. And The six seals of chap. vi give the shady side of human history and destiny; this chapter gives the sunny side. During that darksome history there was a Church, sometimes struggling and sometimes triumphant, in the world. And now, to relieve the scene and to exhilarate the Christian heart, a picture of that Church is contrastively spread before us in its glory. It follows, that the complete history of the world is not profane and inglorious, nor a defeat of Christ’s atonement and headship of the race.
“He shall see of the travail of his soul, and shall be satisfied.”
The angel of the seals bids the angels of the winds to hush every breeze while he stamps the servants of God, Rev 7:1-3. One hundred and forty-four thousand are sealed from among the twelve tribes of Israel, Rev 7:4-8. Then the great innumerable body redeemed from among all nations are seen standing before the theophanic throne, (amid a choir of angels circling around them,) and their paradisaic state is explained by one of the elders, Rev 7:9-17.
It is a great question among commentators, who are the 144,000? and who the great multitude of Rev 7:9? By our mode of interpretation, the reply seems clear and simple. They are, as may be fully shown in our notes, the Old Testament and the New Testament Church; and their redemption is here pictorially presented in contrast to the condemnation of the profane world, as presented in the six seals of the last chapter.
After these things This contrasted half does not belong to the seal series, but is a contrastive counterpart.
Four angels The creational number, indicating that they are a regular part of the system. In religious allegory they are nature-angels; in science they are the laws of nature; in truth they are the goings forth of the divine power in its established and regular methods.
Four corners Phraseology based upon the four points of the compass.
Not blow A divine quietude of the elements over earth, and sea, and tree, must await the sacred sealing process. All nature yields before the dispensations of heavenly grace.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
IV. THE SEVEN TRUMPETS, Rev 7:1 to Rev 20:10.
Of the trumpets, the first four are mundane, or earthly; each of the four blasts draws down a judgment upon some creational point, as earth, sea, fountains and rivers; firmamental luminaries. It is the sins of men that draw down these bolts of wrath, rendering every point of creation hostile to our peace. “Cursed is the ground for thy sake,” (Gen 3:17,) is the key-note. This sad status of humanity has existed through all past ages; but it is here represented to form a base from which the history of the renovation commences.
The first four the earthly trumpets are each brief as well as terrible; the spiritual, the fifth and sixth, expand into wider dimensions and rise to more spiritual interests; while the seventh trumpet rolls forth its series of events, through all the future scenes of retribution and redemption to the judgment.
Fuente: Whedon’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
THE THIRD VISION.
Chapter Rev 7:1-8
‘After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, in order that no wind should blow on the earth, or on the sea, or on any tree.’
‘After this’ signifies a new vision. The timing of this vision is before the seventh seal is opened. As the seventh seal runs parallel to the first six seals this means that its occurrence is seen as immediate. John is assuring God’s people in his day that God has sealed them prior to the events ahead.
‘The four winds of the earth’. In Jer 49:36 ‘the four winds from the four quarters of heaven’ cause desolation to Elam and in Dan 7:2 ‘the four winds of heaven broke forth on the great sea’ resulting in the emergence of the four beasts which represented world empires. In those cases they represented the activity of God. Those were from heaven. But these are the four winds ‘of earth’ which suggests that they are to be seen as representing the activities, not of God, but of the forces of earth ready to bring desolation to the earth. How satisfying that they are seen as controlled by God through His angels. Compare how in Rev 20:8, the nations gathered to war come from the four corners of the earth. But here at this stage they are restrained by the four angels.
‘In order that no wind should blow on the earth, or on the sea, or on any tree.’ What is also being restrained is what occurs on the sounding of the first four trumpets, for it is they which cause the attack on the earth, the trees and the sea. Thus they are restrained until God allows. The number four is the number of earth. The stillness on earth resulting from their restraint may parallel the silence in Heaven of Rev 8:1. John saw them as ready to become active in his day.
(For ‘corners’ see Neh 9:22; Jer 9:26; Jer 25:23 where it is quite clearly used for furthest sections with no suggestion of a ‘corner’. It is not intended to suggest that the world is square, but to mean all four sections to the furthest points (compare Jer 49:36)).
Fuente: Commentary Series on the Bible by Peter Pett
Israel is Sealed We have already established the fact that the book of Revelation emphasizes the events that the Church will experience in God’s final plan to redeem mankind. We contrasted the book of Ezekiel, which discusses parallel events of these last days that the nation of Israel will experience as a part of their restoration. But we now find in Rev 7:1-8 a passage of Scripture that clearly discusses the redemption of Israel. So, we must ask why this occurs in a book of the New Testament that places emphasis upon the Church. We find the answer in Romans 9-11 where Paul discusses Israel’s role in God’s plan of redemption, after discussing the work of the Gospel of Jesus Christ in bringing justification and redemption to the Gentiles. He explains that the Gentiles have simply been grafted into the vine of Israel, and that God still has a remnant of Jews who are called and faithful to Him. From those three chapters in Romans we understand that the events that occur in the last days are centered around Israel’s timetable, and not an arbitrary Gentile timetable; for the “times of the Gentiles”, as Jesus called it, have come to a close. Thus, God seals 144,000 Jews in Rev 7:1-8 before He seals the Gentiles in Rev 7:9-17; for the Gentiles are simply partaking of Israel’s blessings and promises and hope of salvation, and not the other way around.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
Interlude between the Opening of the Sixth and Seventh Seals Robert Mounce notes that Rev 7:1-17 serves as an interlude between the openings of the sixth and seventh seals. He notes how there are similar interludes between the blowing of the sixth and seventh trumpets (Rev 10:1 to Rev 11:14) and between the pouring forth of the sixth and seventh bowls (Rev 16:13-16). [74]
[74] Robert H. Mounce, The Book of Revelation, in The New International Commentary on the New Testament (Grand Rapids, MI: William B. Eerdmans Publishing Co., 1997), 298-299.
Here is a proposed outline:
1. Israel is Sealed Rev 7:1-8
2. The Martyrs of the Tribulation Gather around the Throne of God Rev 7:9-17
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Opening of the Seven Seals and the Sounding of the Seven Trumpets Rev 6:1 to Rev 11:19 records the opening of the seven seals and the sounding of the seventh trumpet that accompanied the seventh seal.
The Purpose of the Seven Seals and the Seven Trumpets – The opening of the seven seals by the Lamb of God and the sounding of the seven trumpets by the angels serve as the testimony of Jesus Christ to the world that He is the Son of God. Just as Jesus Christ has testified to John the apostle in chapter one, and to the seven churches in chapters 2-3, He now speaks to the rest of the world in the only language that corrupt and wicked world will listen, which is through calamities and tribulation. This is why it is called the Tribulation Period. We see God’s effort to bring people to salvation through these events because there are a number of verses in this section that say, “yet they repented not of their evil works” (Rev 9:20-21, Rev 16:9-11). However, the bright side of this Tribulation Period reveals that a multitude of people will be saved during this difficult seven-year on earth.
The Message of the Book The book that was in the right hand of God and taken by the Lamb contains a story. The opening of the book’s seven seals reveals this story as a series of events that are coming upon the earth to judge mankind for its depravity, which depravity was most clearly revealed by the crucifixion of the Son of God, who is thus described here as the Lamb that was slain. In other words, God will use these events to judge the earth, which events are consummated by the Second Coming of Christ described in the opening of the sixth seal. Therefore, the opening of the first seal ushers in these judgments
1. View of the Sevens Seals Representing the Entire Church Age – One popular view is to interpret the seven seals as the sequence of events that will take place during the Church age leading to its consummation, which would begin during the time of the early church. For example, Michael Wilcox compares the order of events described in this passage of Scripture to the Eschatological Discourse of Mat 24:1-31 by suggesting that Matthew 24 and Revelation 6 are the same discourse, with Matthew’s Gospel giving an earthly perspective, while the book of Revelation describes the same sequences of events from a heavenly perspective. [65] This view could be interpreted as such:
[65] Michael Wilcox, The Message of Revelation: I Saw Heaven Opened, in The Bible Speaks Today, eds. J. A. Motyer and John R. W. Stott (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter-Varsity Press, c1975, 1986), 74-77.
a) The First Seal ( Rev 6:1-2 ) – The first seal reveals the first church age in which the Roman Empire, and the Catholic Church that emerged out of this empire, were the primary persecutors of the saints of God (Rev 6:1-2). It is symbolized by the crown, showing its intent to conquer and rule over all peoples and places. Unlike the sword carried by the second horseman, the bow symbolizes its purpose to conquer, but not kill, those whom it dominates. The white symbolizes the color of the papacy.
b) The Second Seal ( Rev 6:3-4 ) – The second age of the Church saw the rise of Islam during the seventh century, with its symbol of the sword, showing its purpose was to kill men rather than to rule over them (Rev 6:3-4). This great persecutor of the Church initially targeted all Jews and Christians, as well as other peoples, but it has continuously killed its fellow Muslims throughout the ages. The red may symbolize the blood it sheds in behalf of its religion.
c) The Third Seal ( Rev 6:5-6 ) – The third age of the Church is capitalism, with its purpose of controlling the world’s economy by a few wealthy individuals (Rev 6:5-6). The scale represents its system of buying and selling to control men and nations. The black color is seen in the traditional black suit worn today by the leaders of businesses within this capitalistic system. This system arose with the rise of industrialization of western nations. All three of these systems, Roman Catholicism, Islam, and Capitalism, carry the spirit of anti-christ.
d) The Fourth Seal ( Rev 6:7-8 ) – The pale horse, with its riders Death and Hell (Rev 6:7-8) represent the fourth age, which immediately precedes the Great Tribulation Period. This is the period in which the earth enters into travail as birth pangs, which Jesus called the “beginning of sorrows” (Mat 24:8). This period takes place about one hundred years before the world enters into the Great Seven-year Tribulation Period. Perhaps this period began with World War I. It is a time when the three world systems of Catholicism, Islam and Capitalism are working in full force, and in conflict with one another, but all having the common mindset of hating the Jews and the Christians.
e) The Fifth Seal ( Rev 6:9-11 ) – The fifth seal reveals all of the saints slain during the Church age until its culmination, crying out for God’s vengeance (Rev 6:9-11). Their role in this series of events is to intercede in behalf of one another to move God to avenge them and bring judgment upon the earth.
f) The Sixth Seal ( Rev 6:12 to Rev 7:17 ) – The sixth seal clearly describes the seven-year Tribulation Period upon this earth, which culminates with Christ Jesus returning to earth to conquer and to rule and reign from Jerusalem for a thousand years (Rev 6:12 to Rev 7:17). It is during this period of Church history that many of the Jews will turn to Jesus Christ as their Messiah. God will seal them along with His saints to keep them during the Tribulation Period, described in Rev 6:17 as “the great day of his wrath” and in Rev 7:14 as “the great tribulation.”
g) The Seventh Seal ( Rev 8:1 to Rev 11:19 ) The seventh seal serves as a prelude to introduce the seven trumpets. At this time the prayers of the saints rises up before the throne of God and the angel casts fire from the golden altar down upon the earth in order to bring about judgment upon those who have resisted God and persecuted the saints.
2. View of the Seven Seals Representing the Events of the Last Days Another view of the seven seals is to interpret them to symbolic the particular events that will take place during the period of time immediately preceding and including the Tribulation Period, rather spanning over a period of two thousand years. For example, John Ogwyn takes the sequence of events as a description of last days in Matthew 24 and makes them parallel to the sequence of events in Revelation. [66] This view could be interpreted as such:
[66] John H. Ogwyn, Revelation: The Mystery Unveiled (Charlotte, NC: Living Church of God, 2003) [on-line]; accessed 19 September 2010; available from http://www.tomorrowsworld.org/media/booklets/ru.pdf; Internet, 19-25.
a) The First Seal ( Rev 6:1-2 ) The opening of the first seal reveals a white horse and its rider that go forth with a bow to conquer. This event would parallel Mat 24:5, which refers to the many false prophets that will go forth during the period before Christ’s Second Coming to deceive the Church.
b) The Second Seal ( Rev 6:3-4 ) The opening of the second seal reveals a red horse and its rider that go forth to kill. This event would parallel Mat 24:6-7 a, which refers to the many wars that will take place immediately before the Tribulation Period.
c) The Third Seal ( Rev 6:5-6 ) The opening of the third seal reveals a black horse and its rider that go forth with a pair of scales. This event would parallel Mat 24:7 b, which refers to famines, pestilences and earthquakes in divers places across the world.
d) The Fourth Seal ( Rev 6:7-8 )
e) The Fifth Seal ( Rev 6:9-11 f) The Sixth Seal ( Rev 6:12 g) The Seventh Seal ( Rev 8:1
The Opening of the First Six Seals Rev 6:1-17 tells us of the Lamb opening six of the seven seals in the book of Revelation. The seventh seal will not be opened until Rev 8:1. It is important to note that Jesus Christ is identified as a Lamb that has been slain. Within these seals are going to be released four spirits that will go across the earth and slay the saints of God. This is why the fifth seal reveals these martyrs under the altar of God.
The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse The first four seals that are opened in Rev 6:1-8 describe the release four horses with their riders. These four horsemen are commonly referred to as the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The number four signifies the work of man. Thus, these four horsemen represent four aspects of the antichrist to persecute the Church and bring destruction upon mankind.
We find a similar account of this same scene in Zec 6:1-8 in the Vision of the Four Chariots. In the account in Revelation there is a white, horse, a red horse, a black horse and a pale horse. In Zechariah there are red horses, black horses, white horses and grisled and bay horses. Zec 6:5 tells us that these horses represent “the four spirits of the heavens, which go forth from standing before the Lord of all the earth.” Thus, we can assume that the four horses in Revelation also represent these same four spirits that have been sent forth.
I discuss the views of several scholars below. Some scholars suggest that these four horsemen are to be sent forth upon the earth immediately after the Rapture of the Church. Others suggest that they have been sent out at different periods of Church history. My suggestion is to agree with this second view that these four horsemen represent four spirits that have been sent forth upon the earth during the last two thousand years of Church history. The white horse would represent the spirit of Catholicism, which began during the Christianization of the Roman Empire under Constantine. The red horse could represent the spirit of Islam, which began in the seventh century. The black horse would represent capitalism, which began after the Reformation when nations began to develop industry and strong economies; or the black horse could represent Communism, which had its roots in the teachings of Karl Marx and was instituted in Russia during the early twentieth century. The pale horse could represent the distress and travail that the earth will enter into prior to the Tribulation Period. All of these spirits have led to the persecution of the Church across the world. This is why the fifth seal reveals the martyrs who have been slain over this period of time. Note that the martyrs are crying out, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth?” This suggests that they have not been slain since the start of the Great Tribulation, but perhaps during the last two thousand years of Church history.
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Sixth Seal Rev 6:12 to Rev 7:17 describes the events surrounding the opening of the sixth seal. The opening of this seal brings enormous cosmic disturbances upon the earth (Rev 6:12-17). During this event, God seals the remnant of Israel (Rev 7:1-8). In the midst of these cosmic disturbances, multitudes of people will be saved (Rev 7:9-17).
Outline Here is a proposed outline:
1. The Sixth Seal Opened Rev 6:12-17
2. Israel is Sealed Rev 7:1-8
3. Those Saved in the Tribulation Rev 7:9-17
Fuente: Everett’s Study Notes on the Holy Scriptures
The Comfort of the Church in Spiritual Afflictions.
The sealing of God’s servants:
v. 1. And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
v. 2. And I saw another angel ascending from the east having the seal of the living God; and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,
v. 3. saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. The seventh chapter contains the description of a vision, by which the prophet was to be prepared for the events which were to follow the opening of the seventh seal. It shows in what way the Lord protects those whom He has chosen in the midst of the spiritual tribulations of the latter times. A sin many other pictures, we are able to follow only the general trend of the thought and cannot, in the absence of prophetical explanation, make specific application to certain historical events. The seer writes: And after this I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, lest the wind blow upon the earth or upon the sea or upon any tree. Four angels are named according to the four cardinal points of the compass, thus signifying that the destruction which should be wrought upon the earth would be universal. Their intention seems to have been to destroy earth and sea and all that they contained, not only the unbelievers and godless, but also the believers, the elect of God. They were evil angels, and by withholding the winds from the earth they wanted to work harm for all creatures. The prince of this world has the purpose of hindering the growth and the course of the Gospel, and therefore he inspires false teachers to hold back the breath and the power of the Holy Spirit in the Gospel.
But God promptly intervened: And I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun having the seal of the living God, and he called with a mighty voice to the four angels to whom permission had been given to injure the earth and the sea, saying, Do not injure the earth nor the sea nor the trees until we shall seal the servants of our God on their foreheads. Here is comfort and encouragement for the believers of all times. From the east, from the source of light and life, a fifth angel appears, a servant of the most high God, perhaps the Messenger of the Covenant Himself, Mal 3:1. He bore the seal of the living God, which gave Him authority to carry out God’s commands without hindrance. His word, therefore, as He called out to the four evil angels not to injure the earth and the sea and all they contained until they should be given further leave, was at once obeyed. With God’s permission the evil angels are often enabled to work harm in the world, thus incidentally carrying out God’s decrees of punishment; but they must stay their hands at the first word from Him. In this case God intended first of all to have His servants, His believers, His elect, to be sealed upon their foreheads, to bear in this conspicuous place the names of God and of the Lamb, Rev 14:1; Rev 22:4, to serve for their protection amid the spiritual afflictions of the last days, Mat 24:24. No man can pluck them out of His hand, Joh 10:28-29.
Fuente: The Popular Commentary on the Bible by Kretzmann
EXPOSITION
Rev 7:1
And after these things. , or, as some cursives read, , is generally regarded as denoting the close of the sixth seal and the commencement of a new subject, interjected by way of episode between the sixth and seventh seals. But, even if not looked upon as an integral part of the revelations made under the sixth seal, the connection is so close that the two must be regarded practically as one. The incidents of the seventh chapter are evidently the complement of those narrated in the closing verses of the sixth. They take up the question with which that chapter closes, “Who is able to stand?” and afford comfort and help to those suffering Christians who were so sorely in need of a renewed assurance of the certainty of their final reward. It seems better, therefore, on the whole, to consider the sixth seal to extend to the end of Rev 7:1-17. Vitringa takes this view, which appears to be supported also by Wordsworth. Alford, while separating Rev 7:1-17 from Rev 6:1-17, as “two episodes,” remarks, “The great day of the Lord’s judgment is not described; it is all but brought before us under the sixth seal, and is actually going on in the first of these episodes.” I saw four angels. Of the nature of these angels we are told nothing. They are evidently ministers of God’s will, and the mention of them following immediately upon the preceding description seems to connect the whole account more closely with Mat 24:29, Mat 24:30, where the angels gather the elect from the four winds. It does not seem probable that “evil angels” are meant as understood by some writers, since what they do is apparently done at the command of God. Standing on the four corners of the earth. That is, standing in the four opposite directions, and thus controlling all the earth (cf. Isa 11:12; Rev 20:8). The number four is the symbol of universality and of creation (see on Rev 5:9). Holding the four winds of the earth (cf. Jer 49:36; Dan 7:2; Mat 24:31). The angels may have been the “angels of the winds,” just as in Rev 14:18 an angel has power over fire, and in Rev 16:5 we read of the “angel of the waters.” The winds have been interpreted in two ways, neither of which seems strictly correct. The first is to give a literal meaning (as Dusterdieck) to the winds, and to understand literal windstorms as part of the judgment upon the earth. The second method interprets the winds as symbols of the judgments of the first six seals, which are held in suspension, while the elect are sealed. The truth probably is that the winds, like the earthquake, the rolling up of the heaven as a scroll, etc., are part of the figurative description of the destruction of the world at the judgment day; which destruction, like that of Sodom, is delayed for the preservation of God’s elect. That the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. , “every tree,” is read in , P, l, 36, Andreas, etc. The earth, the sea, the trees, are mentioned as things likely to be affected by the action of the winds; the two former, of course, embracing those things situated upon them, and the last being specially mentioned, perhaps, as a class of things which are peculiarly liable to destruction from wind. Wordsworth and others, interpreting symbolically, consider that the blasts of wind on the earth typify earthly powers, opposed to those of heaven, while the sea is emblematic of nations in a state of agitation against God, and the trees represent the great ones of this world. This interpretation, therefore, regards the objects mentioned as the enemies of God, which, by his command, are preserved from destruction and allowed to flourish in ease and apparent security, until the time of the sealing of God’s servants has been accomplished. But it seems better to regard the winds as forming part of the general description by which God’s judgment is foreshadowed. It is not unusual in the Bible for the wind to be mentioned in connection With destruction and judgment (cf. 1Ki 19:11; Job 1:19; Job 21:18; Job 30:15; Psa 1:4; Psa 147:18; Isa 11:15; Isa 27:8; Isa 32:2; Isa 41:16; Jer 22:22 : Dan 2:35; Dan 7:2).
Rev 7:2
And I saw another angel ascending from the east; from the rising of the sun. Again no individual angel is particularized, though an archangel may be intended, as he has authority over the first four. He proceeds from that quarter whence comes light; and, like the Sun of Righteousness, he rises with healing in his wings; for his mission is to render secure the servants of God. Wordsworth thinks Christ, or a messenger from Christ, is meanta view shared by Hengstenberg; Vitringa says the Holy Ghost; Victorinus, the Prophet Elijah. That this angel was of like nature with the first four appears probable from the words in Rev 7:3, “till we have sealed the servants of our God.” Having the seal of the living God. The sealing instrument with which they seal God’s servants. Of its nature we are told nothing beyond what is contained in Rev 7:3. He is specially referred to as “the living God,” since, by this sealing, life is imparted. We have here the shorter expression, “the living God,” not, as in all ether places of the Apocalypse, “him that liveth forever and ever” (see Rev 4:9; Rev 5:14; Rev 10:6; Rev 15:7). And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels (cf. Rev 1:10; Rev 5:2; Rev 6:10) to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea; that is, by letting loose the winds, as shown by Rev 7:1 and Rev 7:3. Bengel and Rinck, looking only at the immediate context, thought that the hurt was done by preventing the winds from blowing on the earth and cooling it in the scorching plagues which follow (Rev 8:7). The trees are not mentioned, being included in the earth; and this appears to indicate that the expression, “the earth, the sea, and the trees” (Rev 7:1 and Rev 7:3), signifies the world in general, without being intended to represent individual parts, as the great men, etc. (see on Rev 5:1).
Rev 7:3
Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees. Hurt not, by loosing the four winds, as stated on Rev 7:2. The destruction prepared for the guilty world is not allowed to fall until God’s elect have been gathered in, and preserved free from danger (cf. Mat 24:31, where immediately after the appearance of the Son of man, his elect are gathered from the four winds). (For the signification of the earth, the sea, and the trees, see on Rev 7:1 and Rev 7:2.) Till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. The angel associates himself with the first four, as being on an equality with them in this work, although he alone is stated to possess the seal (Rev 7:2). Of the nature of the sealing nothing more is indicated. The forehead is naturally mentioned as being the most conspicuous part of man, as well as that which we are accustomed to regard as the noblest and most vital part. The idea may be compared with that in Eze 9:4, Eze 9:6. It is remarkable, too, that the word in Ezekiel rendered “mark” is the name of the Hebrew letter tau, of which the ancient form was a cross (cf. the sign of the cross in baptism; also Rev 3:12, “I will write upon him the Name of my God… and my new Name;” and Rev 14:1, “Having his Father s Name written in their foreheads”). “The servants of our God,” says Bengel, is a title which especially belongs to holy men in Israel (cf. Gen 1:17; Deu 32:36; Isa 61:6). Those who hold the preterist view believe that the Christians who escaped the destruction of Jerusalem are indicated by this expression. The sealed are probably these referred to by our Lord in Mat 24:22, Mat 24:24, Mat 24:31, as “the elect.”
Rev 7:4
And I heard the number of them which were sealed. The description of the actual operation of sealing is omitted (cf. Eze 9:1-11., where it is also omitted). And there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand. Omit “and there were.” This numberthe square of 12 multiplied by 1000is typical of a large and perfect number. No one has ever said that the number should be taken literally; and there are evident reasons why it could not be so intended. We have, therefore, to inquire what is its symbolical signification. The number 12 is always typical, in the Apocalypse and elsewhere, of a complete and perfect number. It is formed of 4 multiplied by 3. Four is generally representative of the created universe, and 3 of the Godhead (see Rev 5:9). 4 plus 3, that is 7; and 4 multiplied by 3, that is 12, indicate a perfect numbera number which includes and embraces everything. And thus 12 multiplied by 12 denotes the most exhaustive and perfect completion. The number 1000 is generally used to denote a large and complete, but somewhat uncertain, number (cf. Rev 14:1; Rev 20:2; Rev 21:16, etc.). Thus the square of 12 multiplied by 1000 has the signification of a large number not definitely fixed, but nevertheless perfect; that is to say, not omitting a single one of those who should be included in the number. We are therefore taught that at the judgment day, before the destruction of the world is allowed to take place, a large number, consisting of those who have proved themselves to be God’s servants, will be preserved and set apart; and that, although the number may be large, yet it will be perfect, not one of those who are worthy to be selected being overlooked or forgotten. This number subsequently is increased, being included in the “great multitude which no man could number” of Rev 7:9, and which is formed by the whole company of the redeemed. Of all the tribes of the children of Israel. The Authorized Version here appears to give the correct sense of , “every.” The number is made up not necessarily by an equal number from each tribe, but by a number from the twelve tribes viewed as a whole. As explained above, the number one thousand, though signifying “completeness,” is not a definite number. Here, as elsewhere, it is the spiritual Israel which is signified. In support of this view, we may remark:
(1) The constant use in the Apocalypse of the terms” Israel,” “Jew,” “Jerusalem,” etc., in the spiritual sense; and it seems scarcely credible that the writer of the book, who throughout insists on the fulfilment in the Christian religion of all things Jewish, should in this place, for no apparent reason, deliberately make a distinction between Jew and Gentile. The terms are constantly used to denote the spiritual Israel, the spiritual Jerusalem, etc., except where allusion is made to some historical fact, as in Rev 2:14; Rev 5:5; Rev 22:16; Rev 15:3 (cf. Jews, Rev 2:9 and Rev 3:9; Israel, Rev 21:12; Jerusalem, Rev 3:12 and Rev 21:2, Rev 21:10; Babylon, Rev 14:8; Rev 16:19; Rev 17:5; Rev 18:2, Rev 18:10, Rev 18:21; Sodom and Egypt, Rev 11:8; Euphrates, Rev 9:14; Rev 16:12; Sion, Rev 14:1; Jezebel, Rev 2:20; David, Rev 3:7; Gentiles, Rev 11:2).
(2) The improbability of the omission of the tribe of Dan, if the literal Israel were meant.
(3) The general testimony of ancient commentators, which is the view of those who appointed this passage for use in the Liturgy on All Saints’ Day. Some, however, have considered that the hundred and forty-four thousand are distinct from, and not included in, the multitude of verse 9. They believe the former indicates the converted from among the Jews, and the latter those saved from the Gentiles. Thus Bengel, Dusterdieck, Ebrard, Grotius, etc. But it may be remembered that in Rev 14:3, Rev 14:4, the hundred and forty-four thousand redeemed from the earth and from among men is not confined to Jews. By other commentators the number has been thought to denote converts in the age of Constantine, etc.
Rev 7:5
Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. There are various lists of the tribes in the Old Testament, no two of which present the same names in the same order. It does not seem probable that any special design underlies the selection and arrangement here. First, with regard to the selection, we observe that Dan and Ephraim are omitted, the number being completed by inserting Levi, Joseph, and Manasseh. Although Ephraim and Manasseh are sometimes inserted instead of Joseph and Levi, and sometimes omitted, there seems only one example of a list in which any one of the others is omitted, viz. that in Deu 33:1-29., where no mention is made of Simeon. It has been thought that Simeon was purposely passed over by Moses on account of his ill conduct (see Gen 34:1-31.)conduct for which, unlike Levi, he afterwards made no sufficient atonement. This has led many commentators (Hengstenberg, Wordsworth, etc.) to conclude that Dan finds no place here because of the idolatrous worship of the tribe (Jdg 18:1-31.). Many ancient writers (Bede, Andreas, etc.) account, somewhat similarly, for the omission by supposing that, in accordance with a very commonly received opinion, antichrist would arise from this tribean opinion probably originated by a comparison of the “serpent” of Gen 49:17 with Rev 12:9; Rev 20:2. A third group, amongst whom are Ebrard, Dusterdieck, De Wette, Grotius, referring to an ancient Jewish tradition that the tribe of Dan had become extinct, and relying on the omission of this tribe in 1 Chronicles 4-7.though Hushim (1Ch 7:12) may be the sons of Dan (see Gen 46:23)believe that the children of Dan no longer existed, and were therefore omitted. In the insertion of the name Manasseh (i.e. “Forgetting”) Bengel sees an intended allusion to the omission of Dan, who is, he thinks, omitted for some mysterious reason. Ewald believes that St. John wrote , and that MAN., the abbreviated form of “Manasses,” was substituted by error; and he appeals to manuscripts 9, 13, which, however, have “Dan” in place of “Gad.” Moreover, Irenaeus, Origen, Arethas, have “Manasseh,” and state plainly that Dan was omitted. It is certainly curious in connection with this conjecture that, if it were true, that is to say, if “Dan” should be read in place of “Manasseh,” we should have a more intelligible order of arrangement. In that case, speaking generally, the elder sons would come first, the younger last; all the pairs of brothers are kept together (only that, in the case of the six brothers, there is a division into two lots); Judah naturally is placed first before Reuben, owing to the prominent place held by him in the Apocalypse in connection with our Lord. The order would then be
Sons of Leah.Juda, Reuben Simeon, Levi, Issachar, Zabulon
Sons of Zilpah.Gad, Aser
Sons of Bilhah.Nepthalim, [Dan,]
Sons of Rachel.Joseph, Benjamin
Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand. As remarked above, Judah probably precedes Reuben from the greater importance he would possess in the mind of the writer of the Apocalypse, who continually exalts Christ, “the Lion of the tribe of Judah” (Rev 5:5). Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand.
Rev 7:6
Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nepthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve thousand. (For the insertion of Manasses and the omission of Dan, as well as the order of the names of the tribes, see on Rev 7:5)
Rev 7:7
Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand. Though Levi was excluded in the partition of the earthly Canaan, he is included among the partakers of the heavenly Canaan.
Rev 7:8
Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand, Ephraim is omitted, while Manasses is inserted. Wordsworth considers that this is on account of the rebellions character of the tribe of Ephraim (see 1Ki 12:25; Isa 7:9, Isa 7:17; Hos 5:1-15., etc.). But Ephraim is sometimes identical with Joseph (cf. Psa 78:67; Eze 37:16), who here finds a place among the twelve.
Rev 7:9
After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number; after these things, I saw, and behold a great multitude, etc. Here, as in Rev 7:1, a fresh phase of the vision occurs. indicated by , “after these things;” but not, perhaps, commencing (as so many writers think) an entirely new and disconnected vision. It is the immediate prelude to the opening of the seventh seal (see on Rev 8:1). Rev 6:1-17. recounts the terrors of God’s judgments on the wicked, and especially those of the final judgment; but lest the godly should be dismayed and ask, “Who is able to stand” (Rev 6:17) on that great day? it is revealed that the faithful are first selected and preserved. This occupies the first eight verses of Rev 7:1-17. But all is not yet quite ready for the opening of the seventh and last seal. There is, besides those sealed on the last day, an innumerable company with whom the former are joined in one body; and a glimpse is afforded of their conjoint adoration and of that supreme bliss which is entered upon, but not described, under the seventh seal. The “great multitude which no man could number” includes, therefore, the hundred and forty-four thousand of Rev 7:4. They have escaped the terror of the final judgment of the world (see Rev 7:3), but have formerly experienced tribulation (see Rev 7:14). Of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues; out of every nation and [all] tribes and peoples and tongues. The classification, as in Rev 5:9, is fourfold, symbolical of completeness in matters of creation (see on Rev 5:9; Rev 4:6, etc.). Stood before the throne, and before the Lamb; standing before, etc. We are carried back to the description given in Rev 4:1-4 and Rev 5:6-11. Clothed with white robes; arrayed in (Revised Version). See on Rev 4:4 and Rev 6:2 for whitethe emblem of victory and righteousness. And palms in their hands. , “palm,” occurs in the New Testament only in this place and in Joh 12:13. Trench states that no symbol of heathen origin is used in the Apocalypse; and he connects the palm-bearing multitude with the celebration of the Jewish Feast of Tabernacles. Wordsworth and Hengstenberg take the same view; and there is much to be said in favour of it, though Alford and others connect the image rather with the Greek and Roman sign of victory. In the first place, the word is used by St. John in Joh 12:13, where doubtless it is connected with the celebration of the Feast of Tabernacles. Secondly, the use of such an image would more naturally occur to one so familiar with Jewish customs and ritual as the writer of the Apocalypse; and, moreover, the idea commemorated by this feastthat of the enjoyment of rest and plenty, the possession of the promised Canaan after toil and delayis peculiarly applicable to the condition of those here described. Thirdly, the idea seems carried on in the mind of the writer, and referred to in Joh 12:15 in the words, “shall spread his tabernacle over them” (see Revised Version).
Rev 7:10
And cried with a loud voice; and they cry, etc. The present tense expresses the unceasing nature of their occupation (Alford). Saying, Salvation to our God; that is, “The praise and honour due for our salvation belongs to God, since he is the Cause of our salvation.” Note the similarity to the “Hosanna” of the palm-bearing multitude of the Feast of Tabernacles (see Joh 12:13; 2 Macc. 10:6, 7; Psa 118:25). Which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. To the Triune God, and to the Lamb (see on Rev 4:2; cf. Rev 5:13; Rev 12:10).
Rev 7:11
And all the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four beasts; were standing the four living beings. (For a consideration of the positions here indicated, see on Rev 5:11.) The throne in the centre with the four living beings was surrounded by the elders, having the Lamb in the midst, between the throne and the elders. Forming a circle round the whole were the angels. (On the elders as representing the Church, and the four living creatures as symbolical of creation, see on Rev 4:4, Rev 4:6.) And fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God. As in Rev 5:14 and Rev 11:16, Rev 11:17, praise is accompanied by adoration and worship.
Rev 7:12
Saying, Amen. In Rev 5:14 the four living creatures respond “Amen” to the praises uttered by the angels; here, in response to the praise offered by the redeemed in Rev 5:10, the angels utter “Amen,” preparatory to joining in the universal adoration. Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God forever and ever. Amen. The blessing, etc.; that is, “all blessing,” etc. (see on Rev 4:11). The terms of the ascription are the same as those in Rev 5:12, except that we have here , “thanksgiving,” substituted for , “riches” (see on Rev 5:12). The sevenfold character of the ascription of praise denotes its universal and all-embracing character (see on Rev 1:4; Rev 5:1).
Rev 7:13
And one of the elders answered. The elder speaks because he is typical of the Church, concerning which the exposition which he delivers is to be made (see on Rev 4:4). Where an explanation is made of visions which refer to the Church, the active part is taken by the elders, while angels introduce visions of which the signification is unexplained (cf. Rev 5:2; Rev 7:1, Rev 7:2; Rev 8:1-13.; Rev 10:1, Rev 10:3, etc.; and Rev 5:5). Saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? The elder questions that he may teach (Bede).
Rev 7:14
And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest; and I say unto him, My lord (Revised Version). The expression denotes the utmost respect and reverence, which afterwards induce the seer to worship the angel (see Rev 19:10; Rev 22:8). The structure of this part of the vision recalls Eze 37:3, “And he said unto me, Son of man, can these bones live? And I answered, O Lord God, thou knowest” (cf. Zec 4:2, Zec 4:4, Zec 4:5; Joh 12:21). And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation; which come out of the great tribulation (Revised Version). The repeated article is especially emphatic. The question arises What is “the great tribulation” referred to? Probably all the tribulation which has been passed through by the redeemed, all that which pertained to the life though which they have passed. This tribulation is now completed and past, and is therefore referred to as “the great tribulation.” “These are they which have passed through the great tribulation of their life on earth.” This is the view taken by Alford. Dusterdieck refers the expression to the last great trial of the saints before the coming of the Lord. Some point to particular persecutions as the reference intended, and others consider that “the last great trial to be expected under the seventh seal” is meant. And have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb; and they washed, etc. That is, during their past life, while they were experiencing the great tribulation, they washed their robes (cf. Rev 3:4, Rev 3:5, where those who have “not defiled their garments” and those “that overcome” are to be clothed in white). Those that overcome and are undefiled, therefore, are those who have washed themselves in the blood of the Lamb, through which only their victory is possible or effective. Arethas, Bede, De Lyra, consider that the robes are washed of those who have endured martyrdom, and that they are washed in the blood of the Lamb, because it is the blood of his members.
Rev 7:15
Therefore are they before the throne of God. That is, because they have been washed, and have their robes made white, they are before the throne (cf. Eph 5:25-27, “Christ loved the Church, and gave himself for it; that he might sanctify and cleanse it, that he might present it to himself a glorious Church, not having spot, or wrinkle,” etc.). And serve him day and night in his temple. As described in Rev 4:8, Rev 4:11; Rev 5:8-14; Rev 7:12; Rev 11:15, etc. Temple () is here, as in Rev 3:12, the “dwelling place, the shrine, of God, i.e. heaven. Thus are the redeemed made “pillars” in his temple (Rev 3:12). And he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them; shall spread his tabernacle over them (Revised Version). The same verb that occurs in Joh 1:14; Rev 12:12; Rev 13:6; Rev 21:3. The allusion (not an uncommon one with St. John) is to the Shechinah which overshadowed the mercy seat. God’s presence among them, co-dwelling with them, is the happiness of his people (of. Joh 17:24, “Father, I will that they also be with me,” etc.; 1Jn 3:2, “We shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is “).
Rev 7:16
They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat; shall the sun strike upon them (Revised Version). The passage is evidently founded upon Isa 49:10 (cf. the punishment of the fourth vial, Rev 16:8).
Rev 7:17
For the Lamb which is in the midst-of the throne shall feed them; shall be their Shepherd. Compare the description of the position of the Lamb given in Rev 5:6. The position here indicated is the same as that there described. The Lamb is between the throne and those surrounding it, towards the middle of the throne. Christ is set forth in the character of Shepherd, as in Joh 10:11 and Joh 21:16. And shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life (Revised Version). “Of life” is an addition to the passage as found in Isaiah (cf. Joh 7:37-39, where the expression is used of the Holy Spirit). And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes. A reference to the tribulation of verse 14.
HOMILETICS
Rev 7:1-8
The Church on earth, sealed in the great tribulation.
The visions of this chapter are set between the sixth and seventh seals. The great tribulation, to which the opening of the sixth seal is the prelude, is not that of the final day of wrath, for we are but at the sixth seal, and not the seventh. Nor can this great tribulation be any merely local calamity, for according to Rev 7:9-14 those coming out of it are of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues. It is so widespread and terrible as almost to force upon us the question, “Who shall live when God doeth this? What will become of the Church?” To such an inquiry this chapter is our answer. It shows us the Church in two divisions. The first division is on earth, sealed in the great tribulation; the second division is in heaven, caught up out of the great tribulation. In this homily we deal with the first division. By the first three verses of the chapter we are clearly taught that the work of destructive convulsion is held in suspense, until the work of the sealing is done. Four angels are “holding the four winds of the earth;” another, coming from the sunrising, has the seal of the living God. Until every one of the servants of God are marked off from the rest, no judgment is to fall. This sealing is impressed on the hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel. Here we have the figures of the old covenant brought forward to illustrate the blessedness of those under the new, yet surely the restrictions of the old covenant are not to be retained. These sealed servants of God are not the natural, but the spiritual Israel, even “the Israel of God.” Hence our theme isThe servants of God preserved in great tribulation; or, good men kept in bad times.
I. THERE ARE, IN THE WORD OF GOD, INTIMATIONS OF DARK AND HEAVY STORMS BURSTING OVER THE EARTH. The tribulation, during which these sealed ones are guarded, is plainly the one referred to immediately before, indicated also in Rev 7:14 of this chapter, as “the tribulation, the great one.” That we must regard this as indicative of manifold upheavings in different lands and ages is evident, not only from the considerations specified in preceding homilies, but also from the fact that those who are seen by the apostle as “coming” out of it are from all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues. Again and again wars, famine, pestilences, persecutions, revolutions, will desolate the earth, recurring again and again, ere the end shall come, at divers places and at divers times. There is, moreover, some great mystery of lawlessness which is yet to break forth. And again and again may the Church have to recall her Saviour’s words, “Because iniquity shall abound, the love of many shall wax cold.” No judgment from the hand of God is or can be so perilous for the world as these outbreaks of human sin. We know how they will end. The Lord will “consume them by the Spirit of his mouth, and destroy them with the brightness of his coming.” But meanwhile, many will depart from the faith, but not all. For
II. AMID THE SEVEREST TRIBULATIONS THERE WILL BE SOME WHO ARE THE SERVANTS OF GOD. It seems to us unquestionable that we are to regard the “Israel” here, not as the Jewish, but the Christian commonwealth, although here, as so often throughout the book, Jewish imagery is employed. But according to the text, it is not the whole of each tribe that are marked as the servants of God, only a number out of them. “They are not all Israel that are of Israel.” “He is not a Jew which is one outwardly.” “Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter the kingdom of heaven.” They who are really with Christ are “called, and chosen, and faithful.” They “follow the Lamb whithersoever he goeth.” And when the sorest and severest trials come, there will certainly be many who are the true Israel of God.
III. ON EVERY SERVANT OF GOD THERE IS A GRACIOUS EYE. In the midst of a world’s sin and unbelief they are recognized individually as bearing a distinct and separate character. Each one is known. No one is confounded with another. “The eye of the Lord is on them that fear him.” Every one is known who sighs and cries over the abominations of Jerusalem. “They that feared the Lord spake often one to another, and the Lord hearkened and heard it.” Every infant voice that prays is heard amid the roar of the elements and the crash of worlds. Every household altar, every family circle bending before the throne, every group of friends holding converse on the things of God,all, all are known on high. Each one is the object of loving and of infinite regard. Not one is left outside the holy thought and care of our redeeming God. He watches over all. He singles out each.
IV. CONSEQUENTLY, ON EVERY SERVANT OF GOD THERE IS A SPECIAL SEAL. When the Israelites were to be marked off from the Egyptians, there was the sign on their door poststhe blood of the slain lamb. When, in Ezekiel’s vision, the angel of destruction goes forth, the cry is heard, “Go not near the men on whom is my mark.” Again and again in the New Testament is there mention of a Divine “seal” on believers. The symbol is reproduced here. The seal is
(1) a token of redemption;
(2) a mark of possession;
(3) an indication of resemblance;
(4) a badge of service;
(5) a pledge of security.
The mark is, indeed, visible to no human eye. It is graven by no human hand. The writing is by the finger of God, and it cannot be obliterated. Whatever the trouble may be that sweeps over the world, the sealed one will never be lost in the crowd.
V. ON ALL WHO BEAR THIS SEAL, DIVINE PROTECTION SHALL REST. So runs the text. “Hurt not until.” Divine judgments are represented as actually being kept back for their sakes. We get the same thought in the Book of Genesis: “I cannot do anything till thou be come thither.” We have its equivalent in the Lord’s own words, “But there shall not a hair of your head perish.” And if it were necessary for the safety of one servant of God, the lightning should be held in check, and the thunders forbear to roll, till that one had escaped out of danger. Nor must we lose sight of the Divine purpose in this. It is that there may be a living seed of virtue and piety left on earth whatever judgments may befall. How that may yet be secured we cannot say. We can but gather from what God has already done. We know:
1. That God has wondrously guarded the life of believers in times of peril: Daniel; Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego; Ezra; Rafaravavy; Luther.
2. That they have been kept alive in famine: Elijah. Again and again is it proved here, “They that seek the Lord shall not want any good thing.” Amid the darkest and the hardest times, when perils have abounded, when doctrine has been corrupted and even disowned, then has God kept for himself “a holy seed,” and has enabled his witnesses to put on an “armour of light,” from which foul error glanced off in the twinkling of an eye! This is the history of the past. This is the fact of the present. This is the forecast for the future. The same faithful care of which many can even now bear witness shall be continued till the last believer is safely gathered home.
VI. THE DOCTRINES TAUGHT IN THIS SECTION ARE FULL OF BLESSED TEACHING.
1. The fact that there is a Divine recognition of every true and pure one, even in the worst of times, should inspire every struggler for the right with a holy courage. Some may, in severe struggles, be so disheartened that they are ready to say, “It is of no use. I cannot breast the storm. I’ll give up. The conflict is too severe.” No, no. Let them pause ere coming to such a conclusion. “The eyes of the Lord run to and fro through the whole earth, to show himself strong in the behalf of those whose heart is perfect towards him.” If they are clinging to the Lord, his seal is on them. He sees them. He cares for them, and he will bring them through.
2. This fact should lead to the fresh exercise of holy trust. The representation of our text is a revelation to faith. It would be valuable, even though it were but the reasonable tenet of a philosopher; but it is priceless as the revelation of our God. In the former light it would be attainable by the few; in the latter it is addressed to all. It is a Divine assurance in which faith may find infinite repose. “God is my Salvation: I will trust, and not be afraid.”
3. This fact is also of great service as an illustration of the Divine method of securing the triumph of righteousness and truth, viz. by preserving in the world men who are right and true. There is no other way. But there is this. It is God’s way, and it is one the carrying out of which he alone can ensure. God will shake the heavens and the earth, but only with the view of ensuring that “things which cannot be shaken may remain.” God will let nothing be lost which is worth keeping. “Every plant which my heavenly Father hath not planted shall be rooted up.” But all that is good and pure and God-like will live through every storm.
4. This fact shows us what infinite joy and wisdom attach to the service of God. “In peaceful times, when matters go well,” says one, “and there is a fair wind, one is not so deeply sensible of this … But when times of tribulation and chastisement arise, then does the Divine election form a blessed feature in the condition of those who are under the protection of the Almighty.” Whatever the storm carries off, that which belongs to God must remain unharmed. Then it is no vain thing to serve the Lord. It is worth while to be faithful even in the most troublous times.
5. This fact shows up most strikingly the old truth that “the Lord doth put a difference” between those who are his and those who are not. Always the difference is infinite. But it is not always manifest. It will be some day. “Behold, the day cometh, that shall burn as an oven Then shall ye return, and discern between the righteous and the wicked, between him that serveth God and him that serveth him not.” When “every mountain and island are moved out of their places,” and every refuge of lies shames those who have hidden therein, all who are on the “Rock of ages” shall be eternally secure!
Rev 7:9-17
The Church above, caught up out of the great tribulation.
We have before called attention to the fact that in this chapter we have, first, a part of the Church on earth, sealed in the tribulation; second, a part of the Church in heaven caught up out of it. The first and most natural inquiry concerning the second part of this chapter is, “At what point of time are we to fix the occurring of the glorious realities set forth in this vision?” And from the structure of the chapter the reply which is necessitated thereby is as obvious as the question itself is natural. It is evidently while the tribulation, the great one, is raging below that the blessed ones are seen in perfect calm. For this part of the vision comes, like the former part, not at the close of all things, but between the sixth and the seventh seals. Nor is this the only clue we have. In Rev 7:14 we read, “These are they which are coming out of the tribulation, the great one;” not, “These are they which came,” as if all were past; nor yet,” These are they which will come,” as if all were future; but, “These are they which are coming.” There is a continuous pouring in of them from the world of care to the realm of peace; and this will go on till all be gathered home. At the same time, it will be well for us to observe that this passage is not necessarily a picture of the glorified state, for that will not be ushered in until the second coming of the Son of God. However true it may be that there is as real a continuity between it and the state here described as there is between the latter and their earthly life, still we need not confound the two stages of the development of being. Very much harm has been done to the revealed doctrine of the blessedness of the righteous after death by so speaking of it as to leave no apparent room for the distinction between it and the state of glory which will begin at the reappearing. As yet, however, the unfoldings of this book have not brought us so far on. We are still only at the sixth seal. The new heavens and the new earth are not yet in view. The great tribulation is not yet over. The Church of God is still a divided one, part on earth, and part in heaven. The first part shielded while in the midst of evil; the second part raised above it, caught up, while the tribulation is yet raging here, to the perfect calm that abides there. Hence the title of our present theme may be made even more specific, viz.A look at our friends who are already in heaven. The paragraph before us suggests seven questions.
I. WHERE ARE THEY SEEN? Rev 7:9, “Before the throne, and before the Lamb.” These words give us no clue to the locality of heaven. This we do not need. Any part of “the Father’s house” is home to his children. But they give us what is of far greater interest and moment. They represent rather a state than a place. “Before the throne.” More conscious than when clad in fleshly garments here of the immediate, all-surrounding, and all-pervading presence of God. “Before the Lamb.” More directly in view of that Saviour whom having not seen they loved. The veil of sense and the limitations of earth no longer obstruct their sight or cripple their service. They are forever with their God, where they have wished and longed to be.
II. WHAT IS THEIR APPEARANCE? They are seen “standing.” This word is not redundant. It is no pleonasm. They stand, in token of subjection and of service to him that sitteth upon the throne. They have “white robes.” “The fine linen is the righteousness of saints.” They are “without fault” before the throne of God. They have “palms in their hands”tokens these at once of honour and of victory. The struggle is over. The conflict ended. The victory won.
III. WHENCE CAME THEY? “Out of every nation;” they are “of all tribes and peoples and tongues.” The separation brought about by the sin and confusion of earth is done away in Christ. In heaven its effects disappear. There the barrier caused by diversity of tongues will cease. And the final union of all tongues and tribes in the heavenly state will present the true solution of the long-vexed question of the unity of the human race. Every land will yield its tribute of souls to Jesus, and will thus prove, in the common destiny of men, that God made of one blood all nations of men. In the immediate presence of God and the Lamb, “life’s poor distinctions” wilt disappear forever. It will be seen that Jew and Greek, bond and free, are all one in Christ Jesus.
IV. HOW CAME THEY THERE? The answer to this question is twofold.
1. They came through the pathway of a common experience. “Out of the great tribulation.” One and all have had tribulation in some form or other. But they have left it all behind. They are freed from it now. [Note: The fact indicated here, that “the great tribulation” was one which touched “all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues,” is of itself subversive of any theory which would limit it to a merely partial or local sorrow. The terms of the verse require us to regard the tribulation as widely extended both as to space and time.] However great the differences which mark the lot of men on earth, all who reach heaven will do so through “many tribulations.”
2. They reach heaven on the ground of a common redemption. The atoning sacrifice of the Lord Jesus availed for them all. The cleansing virtue of a Saviour’s grace purified them all. “They washed their robes;” i.e. in their earthly life they experienced this sanctifying grace. [Note: Here is suggested a mighty theme for the preacher in connection with the death of Christ, viz.:
(1) That the death of Christ has a worldwide meaning.
(2) That it will have a worldwide efficacy as long as the race shall last.
(3) That it not only saves out of condemnation, but ensures a purifying power
(4) That therefore it will be the theme of universal song.] In that glorious world no impurity is seen.
V. WHAT DO THEY MISS? (Rev 7:16.)
1. “They shall hunger no more,” etc. They have no more the incumbrance of a bodily frame like this, demanding incessant attention. How often, when in this state, is the activity of the spiritual life interrupted by the demands of the fleshly life! In this respect, as well as others, the flesh lusteth against the spirit. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak. But on high, such clogs burden the blessed ones no more.
2. They are free from unfavourable influences from without. Neither shall the sun smite them with its scorching blaze, nor any heatthe quotation is from Isa 49:10, where the Greek word means the sirocco, or scorching blast, and the Hebrew word, the mirage. We may include both. They are subject to no influences to lower spiritual vitality; no illusion of a hollow and deceitful world will again appear to lure them away.
3. No tear shall be shed. God shall wipe every tear away. “Perhaps this,” said a great preacher, “is the tenderest little sentence in the whole Bible (one of the greatest geniuses born in these islands said. he could never read it without a tear in his eye), ‘God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.'” No more shall the mingled scenes of life and death agitate the soul. All dying shall be over. All sorrow have passed away. Blessed state, even if known mainly by such negatives as these!
VI. WHAT DO THEY ENJOY?
1. The real presence of God. Isa 49:15,” He shall dwell among them.” It is not possible to give the sense of these glorious words except by a paraphrase. They include
(1) the thought of a tent over them, and
(2) that of an abiding presence with them (cf. Exo 40:34; Num 9:15; Le Num 26:11; Isa 4:5, Isa 4:6; Eze 37:27).
2. The Lamb shall be their Shepherd. He who is in relation to God the sacrificial Lamb, will be in relation to his people their tender Shepherd. “He that hath mercy on them shall lead them.”
3. They stroll be led by “fountains of the water of life.” Here they had droppings from the stream; there they have the fulness of the fountain. Here the water of life reached them through earthen channels; there they shall be at the fountainhead! Entire satisfaction. Perfect security and repose.
VII. How ARE THEY OCCUPIED? But one aspect of their occupation is given here. “They serve him day and night in his temple.” The details of this service we must die to understand. Here we have presented to us the service of praise. Their song is to God and the Lamb. Their theme, “the salvation.” And all the glory of it is ascribed equally to the Father and to the Son! We gather, indeed, one feature of this serviceit is unwearied: “day and night.” Probably each believer has his favourite thoughts about the heavenly state. “My favourite conception of heaven,” says one, “is rest.” “Mine,” says another, “is work.” “Mine,” says a third, “is love.” “Mine,” says a fourth, “is praise.” What a mercy that they will all be realized; yea, all be infinitely surpassed!
We may gather up, in conclusion, several inferences from these glorious disclosures of the heavenly state.
1. For the doctrine of continuity in its grandest form and in its highest application we must come to the Word. of God. The life in God, begun here, is destined to live on without a break, and to know nothing but eternal advance! The life above is the continuation of one which was redeemed and renovated below.
2. Here, too, the true law of human progress is seen. It is not that the race shall advance while individuals become extinct, but that there shall be advance of the race by reason of and in the fact of the salvation of the individual.
3. Let us be supremely thankful to our Lord Jesus Christ that we are permitted to believe, not only in the progress of humanity, but also in our own.
4. It surely should be a great comfort to us to think of the blessed ones who are gone before, being thus caught up to this glorious life.
5. Let us magnify the grace of God in putting such honour on this little globe of ours, as to make it his nursery ground on which he rears iris plants for heaven. Here, here, the great work is going on of training characters which are to thrive forever in more genial climes. The state of blessedness which is to ripen in another world is one which is began here; and, the thought of attaining to such blessedness may well have elevating power.
HOMILIES BY S. CONWAY
Rev 7:2, Rev 7:3
The sealed of God.
This chapter tells of a time of suspended judgment. All things were ready. The awful calamities told of when the sixth seal was broken are on the point of descending upon the earth. “But a whole chapter intervenes. Might it not be apprehended that amidst convulsions so terrific the Church itself might founder? Who shall secure Christ’s servants against being involved in that catastrophe? Such is the misgiving to which the particular revelation now before us would minister.” A season of suspense is commanded; destruction is to be delayed until the servants of God be sealed. The command comes from that quarter whence Christ himself, the Day spring from on high, the Morning Star, came on his mission of mercy and of hope. The four winds are the symbols of God’s judgments (cf. Jer 49:36, Jer 49:37). The angels who are about to let them loose are bidden pause. Like as, ere the last judgment came upon Egypt, there was time given to enable the people of God to sprinkle the lintel and door posts of their houses with the blood of the Paschal lamb, which was God’s seal of preservation for them. And like, too, to that remarkable parallel, from which, indeed, the imagery of our text is derived, which we find in Eze 9:2-6, Eze 9:11. As was the object of the sealing there, so it is here. Now, whether we take the primary reference of the impending judgments, which for a while were delayed in their execution, to be those, as we think, which were then about to fall upon Jerusalem and the apostate Church of Israel; or those which at the time of Constantine, through the threatened overwhelming of the empire, were imminent on her frontiers; or those which corruption, venality, and hypocrisy, engendered by Constantine’s having made Christianity the court religion, were about to bring upon the Church; orwhich is probably the most correct way to understand St. Johnwe include all these, and all other similar ones, not omitting the last great judgment of all, which at any time may have hung or shall hang over nations, Churches, and communitieshowever we interpret this revelation, it is as true as the judgments them selves that the merciful Lord does grant seasons of suspense, his judgments are delayed until his servants are marked, proclaimed as his own, and secured from real evil by his own sovereign and sacred seal. For historical illustrations of this sealing we may wisely turn to the pages of Josephus and of Gibbon, the historians of the Jewish war and of the fall of Rome. And so exact are oftentimes the correspondences between authentic history and these visions of St. John, that we can hardly be surprised that not a few have declared that what is called the historical interpretation of the hook is the only true, reasonable, and reliable one. It certainly is fascinating for its interest, but as for its reliableness, that may he admitted when its advocates can show anything like near agreement amongst themselves. It is better, therefore, to take the broader view, which admits all these correspondences, and the applicability thereto of these various visions, but which refuses to limit their meaning and application to anything less than all like correspondences which have occurred since St. John wrote, and which shall occur to the end of time. Now, to a thoughtful observer, it can hardly be a question but what our own days are days of suspended judgment, and days also in which the sealing of the servants of God is going on. For man’s sin, as ever, clamours for judgment from God, and righteousness wronged and slain upon the earth cries, like the blood of Abel, unto God that he should avenge it. And the judgment will one day come. The history of nations and Churches is scattered over with the records of such judgments, and will be so again, until men learn wisdom and turn unto the Lord. But our security, whenever they come, is in the seal of God, told of here. Let us think, then, of this seal, the sealed, and the sealing. And
I. THE SEAL.
1. What is it? With the Scriptures in our hand, we can have no doubt that the Holy Spirit of God is meant (cf. 2Co 1:21, 2Co 1:22; Eph 4:30). The work that he does in and upon his people is the sure sign and seal that they are his. “The Holy Spirit is God’s seal. Where he is there is safety. Where he is God sees his mark, his own possession, one who belongs to him, one over whom he watches, one whom he will keep in that ‘hour of temptation which shall come upon all the world, to try them that dwell upon the earth.'”
2. And this seal is the holy character which the Spirit of God creates in and impresses upon a man. The Spirit does other and blessed work upon us besides this. It is by him we are led to put our trust in Christ; by him we are assured that we are Christ’s, and that he is ours, that we are pardoned, accepted, saved; by him also we are comforted and sustained under trial, and made possessors of the peace of God which passeth all understanding; and by him, hope, the blessed hope of eternal life, the onlook to things eternal, which is so full of joy, is created and preserved and strengthened more and more. But all this is within the man; the seal is that which is impressed on him, is that which we call the man’s character. And it is a holy character, such as the Holy Spirit would of necessity produce.
3. And it is the seal of the living God. It belongs to him, his sign and mark. There is none other like it, nor has been, nor can be. Holy character can come but from the grace of God alone, from the operation of the Holy Spirit given by God in response to earnest desire. We cannot produce it in ourselves by any mere act of will, by any moral discipline, by any rules or regulations we may devise or adopt. Except a man be born of the Spirit he cannot become a member of the kingdom of God. Holy characterthat which shone pre-eminently in the Lord Jesus Christ, who, as none other, was “holy, harmless, and undefiled,” who “knew no sin”is the result of the grace of God, is the impress of the seal of the living God, which is the Holy Spirit of God.
4. And it is a visible thing. The seal being “on their foreheads” is meant to teach this fact. And holy character is a visible thing. If invisible it assuredly does not exist. Men may prate forever about their experiences and their feelings, but if there be no manifest holy character, then the seal of the living God is not there. Have we this seal? Is it plain and conspicuous as would be the impress of a seat upon our forehead? It is fatal to be without it; for “if any man have not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his.” Therefore to quicken our own self inquiry in this matter, let us consider
II. THE SEALED. And we observe concerning them:
1. They are not numerous. But twelve thousand out of each tribea very few compared with those left unsealed. A mere handful, but a “remnant saved.”
2. And they are out of, not coextensive with, the professing Church of God. Not all Israel are of Israel (Rom 9:6). They all professed loudly to be of the seed of Abraham, but their entire history shows how little they, as a people, possessed the Spirit. To be a professed member of the Church may be quite another thing from being one of the sealed of God.
3. And they are from no one part of the Church. Twelve tribes are told of, not any one or two. “Nulla salus extra Ecclesiam,” by which Rome means her Church and none other, for other she would affirm there is none. And the like sectarian exclusiveness is chargeable against not Rome alone. But wherever it is found, the fact told of here, that the sealed come from all sections of the Church, plainly condemns it. We ought to rejoice that in all Churches the sealed ones are to be found, and are limited to none. Indeed, those tribes which loomed largest in the eyes of men, such as Ephraim and Judah, furnished no more of these sealed ones than did those who were least, such as “little Benjamin,” and other like smaller tribes. Many who were first should be last, and the last first. And it often is so still.
4. Portions of the Church may become so corrupt as to furnish none of the sealed. The tribe of Dan is left out. It first fell into idolatry, and was for centuries one of the headquarters of that calf worship whereby “Jeroboam made Israel to sin.” This may account for its omission in this list of the tribes, and if so suggests the reason wherefore none of the chosen of God were found amongst its people. And there may be Churches and congregations now without one earnest godly person amongst them. Let us ask how is it with the Church or congregation to which we belong.
5. They do not suffer from not belonging to any specially privileged portion of the Church. If any tribe was specially privileged it was that of Levi. They were regarded as the Lord’s portion; the priesthood belonged to them. They were deemed too sacred to be classed with the other more secular tribes. But here they have no advantage; they are with the rest, and no more of God’s chosen come from them than from any other tribe. We might have thought it would have been otherwise; but it is not so, and it suggests the truth that the working of God’s Spirit in and upon men is independent of what we call privilege. It is good and blessed to have means of grace, aids to worship and faith; but, if the soul will yield itself up to God, he wilt not let it suffer loss for the lack of these things when, as is often the case, they may not be had.
6. The Lord knoweth them all. “The foundation of the Lord standeth sure, having this seal, The Lord knoweth them that are his.” In keeping with this we find the number of the sealed that which denotes fixedness and completeness. They are all there, all delivered, not from earthly trials, but from Divine judgments; not one of them is lost. Blessed are they on whom this seal of the living God is found. For note
III. THE SEALING. What was its purpose and intents? These were various according to those whom it was designed should he affected by it. The sealed ones themselves.
(1) The sealing should assure them that God would ever keep a people for his Name in the midst of the earth. As they saw the seal of God upon here one and there another, and as they remembered how it had ever been so, they would be saved from the despair which fell upon Elijah, who thought he alone was left to stand up for God. But God showed him the seven thousand sealed ones, and so comforted him. And as we behold them now we are assured that such shall never be wanting.
(2) It would mutually encourage them. It would show them that they were not alone; the joy and strength which come from the communion of saints would be theirs.
(3) It would be full of help to themselves; for as a seal attests validity and genuineness in that to which it is attached, so this seal would prove that their title to be called children of God and heirs of eternal life was valid and true. And as a seal is a mark of ownershiplike our government broad arrow on all its propertyso this seal was God’s declaration they were his; and blessed is that soul that is assured of this. And as a seal secures and guards, as the tomb of our Lord was sealed, so this seal is the guarantee of deliverance and safety amid all possible ill. It was this seal which made Paul break forth into that paean of exultant praise with which the eighth chapter of his Epistle to the Romans concludes. And similar gladness shall it give to all upon whom this seal is found. But:
2. To the unsealed this sealing has intent and purpose. To lead them to confess the beauty of holiness. This has ever been the mighty converting force. The holy character wrought by the Spirit of God has made such impression upon the minds of ungodly men that they have been constrained to gaze at it, to admire, to confess its excellence and goodness, and to feel the wretched contrast of their own lives, and to long after the like seal of God for themselves. And so it has won many to inquire, to repent, to believe, and to be saved. “Let your light so shine,” etc. (Mat 5:16).
3. To the ministers of his judgments. That they might spare the sealed ones. They do. The retreat of the Christians to Pella ere Jerusalem fell, the protection granted to the Church at RomeAugustine tells of itin the midst of the havoc that Alaric and his Huns wrought upon the rest of Rome, are illustrations. The passing over of the houses of Israel has been repeated again and again in like circumstances, and will be repeated whensoever such circumstances recur. As the badge of the white cross secures immunity in the midst of war to those who wear it, for it is known that they are ministers of mercy, go where they will, so the seal of the living God, the holy, beautiful, Christ-like lives of his people, have often made men love and honour them, prize and preserve them amid horrors of battle, or of famine, or of pestilence, or aught beside. And at the last great judgment day, when the angels of wrath see the seal of the living God, they will pass over those on whom it is found. What urgency, then, does all this lead to St. Paul’s well-known words, “Grieve not the Holy Spirit of God, whereby ye are sealed unto the day of redemption!”S.C.
Rev 7:3
The wrath-restraining power of righteousness.
“Hurt not the.., till we have sealed,” etc. These words send back our thoughts to like words addressed to Lot at Sodom, by the angel who was urging him to flee therefrom. “Haste thee,” said he, “escape thither [to Zoar]; for I cannot do anything till thou be come thither” (Gen 19:1-38.). Sodom’s ruin was suspended till Lot was safe. The wrath of God was ready to burst forth on the wicked cities of the plain, but it was restrained until the one righteous man in them was removed out of danger. “Until then,” so the destroying angel said, “I cannot do anything.” That incident is one out of many more, and our text tells of one of the chiefest of them, by which it is shown that goodness has greater power than wickedness. And this is a very instructive fact, and has parallels innumerable. God’s recognition of the wrath-restraining might of righteousness is clearly shown in the prayer which Abraham offered for those sinful cities (Gen 18:1-33.). Abraham believed in it to so great an extent that he pleaded that if there were fifty, or forty-five, or forty, or thirty, or twenty, or even ten righteous found in those cities, the Lord would spare them for their sake. And the Lord promised in each case, even were there only ten, that he would. And how often guilty Israel was spared the vengeance due to their sins for the sake of Moses who interceded for them! And the covenant made with their fathershow often that is given as the reason why God’s gracious dealing was continued to them! And once and again we read of forbearance and goodness shown to miserably guilty monarchs, such as Rehoboam, Manasseh, and others, because of the favour God bore towards David, their great and godly ancestor. In the prophecy of Ezekiel (9.) there is given the vision of the man with the ink horn by his side, who, ere Jerusalem could be given over to vengeance, was commanded to set a mark on those who sighed and cried for the abominations done in her. That mark was as the blood of the Paschal lamb on the lintel and door-posts of the houses of Israel, which secured that household on whose dwelling it was found; and so, until this marking had taken place, the guilty Jerusalem could not be touched. And so here St. John sees an angel, having “the seal of the living God,” who cries with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.” Terrible judgments were about to break forth on the earth, but not until the servants of God were sealed could these judgments begin. An historic fact wonderfully corresponds to inspired vision. Before the actual blockade of Jerusalem by Titus, the Christians at Jerusalem, warned, as one ancient Father says, “by a certain oracle given to their leaders by revelation,” or, as another says, “by an angel,” took refuge across the Jordan, in the Peraean town of Pella. Thus from the horrors of that final siege, and from the fearful slaughter that went on in Jerusalem when at last the city was taken, these servants of God were delivered. And so also, we are told in Mat 24:1-51., that ere the last judgment of the world takes place, the elect shall be gathered together from the four winds, from one end of heaven to the other. They shall be taken to be with their Lord, where the vengeance coming on his foes cannot harm them. But what in all these instances we would chiefly note is, not so much the blessed security of the righteous themselves when the evil day comes on sinful men, as the restraining power their presence has on the coming of that evil day; how it delays it, holds it back, sometimes altogether turns it aside, or when it comes shortens it; as our Saviour said, “For the elects’ sake those days shall be shortened.” Verily his disciples are “the salt of the earth”that preserving force which hinders the world from becoming one mass of corruption. Without such salt human life would become putrescent, and must at once be buried out of sight. Everywhere and always the tares are of the wheat amid which they have been planted by the enemy. Unskilful servants crave permission to go and pull them up forthwith, but are forbidden by the Lord, “lest,” he says, “in pulling up the tares ye pull up the wheat also.” Because of the “few names in Sardis” which had not defiled their garments, that Church which had nothing but the name of a living Church was nevertheless spared; had she been altogether dead, she would not have been. It is everywhere true that, like as it is with the body, whilst the principle of life lingers, the process of corruption cannot do anything against it; but when life departs, then soon it returns “dust to dust, ashes to ashes,” and our loveliest and dearest ones have to be buried out of our sight. So, too, is it in the moral relations of man to God. Where there is some good thing in man towards God, this spiritual life, faint though it be, acts as a mighty conservative force in the individual and in society at large. It is this which keeps earth from being as hell. Sometimes, in some places and in some respects, we almost feel that it is like hell, for life then and there seems so horrible; but more commonly there are scattered amongst society those persons, principles, and habits which still make life worth living, which are its preserving salt, which stay moral corruption, and hold back the Divine judgments against man’s evil, and give hope of there being one day a realm in which “the people shall be all righteous,’ a new heaven and a new earth, wherein dwelleth righteousness. And what is true in the broader aspects of human life is true also in individual and in more limited senses. Have we not read of that beloved queen who interceded for the doomed citizens of Calais, and won from her stern husband the pardon which, but for the love he bore her, would never have been granted? Have we not known, also, instancesdo we not perpetually see them?in which former good conduct, righteous deeds done in days gone by, have tempered the severity with which otherwise failures in present conduct would be visited? How we grieve when some soldier hero has deserved punishment! how we all feel that his past heroism should tell, as it does tell, in mitigation of his sentence! And have we not known many an instance in which, for the sake of some beloved and honoured one, whose name is ever dear to us, we show kindness to those they loved, though such may be utterly unworthy of kindness, and, but for the name they bear or the relationship in which they stand to those so dear to us, they would have been dealt with in far other way? These are but common instances in common life of that great law which underlies Scripture facts, such as that told of in our text. But the supreme example of all others of the wrath-restraining power of righteousness is seen in the effects of our Saviour’s work, which we every one are advantaged by. Death was threatened against our first parents if they ate of the forbidden fruit. But why did not that death, which had been so solemnly declared, and so fearfully apprehended and shrunk from by the guilty parents of our racewhy was not that death inflicted? In the day that the forbidden fruit was eaten, the eaters thereof did not die, but were spared. Why? The answer is the same as that which must be given if it be asked why we are spared, notwithstanding our sin and manifold ill desert. It is because Christ was and is the Propitiation for the sins of the whole world. Beneath the broad shelter of God’s love in him, man’s Mediator and Redeemer, we are sheltered, protected, saved. We are underneath the shadow of the Almighty; and so, likewise, were the first transgressors. Therefore their threatened doom was not executed. And still it is he who comes between us and the eternal consequences of our sins. The burden of their guilt, the terror of their condemnation, the sting of their remorse, the doom they merit,all these and yet other consequences of our sin are by Christ warded off from every believer. They can do nothing against us whilst Christ has place in our hearts. He is the great High Priest, with censer full of the fragrant incense of his all-availing intercessions, who stands between the living and the dead, and so the plague is stayed. He is our City of Refuge, within which the avenger of blood can do us no harm; the one Propitiation, by whom our trangressions are covered over and done away. Blessed forever be his Name! And if we askWhy is it that righteousness has this wrath-restraining power, which in so many instances, and in this supreme instance especially, we have seen it has? the answer will be that given in the well-known words, “The righteous Lord loveth righteousness.” Yes; he loveth it, and hence wherever it is found he showeth favour towards it, and for the sake of it will do and forbear to do much. As David for Jonathan’s sake was willing to show kindness to any of the rival house of Saul, notwithstanding their disloyalty, so, for the sake of righteousness, all that belong to it, even though the relation be remote, are blessed because of it. It is dear to the heart of God; he has embodied it in his own nature; he has made it the foundation of his throne; it is the household law of his eternal home; he has written it upon the conscience of man; he has made obedience to it fruitful of reward, and disobedience of sorrow; in Christ he has manifested it to the world, and for the sake of it Christ was content to die. In every way conceivable God has shown his love for it, and hence we can understand wherefore it is that he invests it with such power that its presence in a community or family lays its hand even on his own hand, and restrains the vengeance that sin deserves. Yes; it is dear to the heart of God; “the righteous Lord loveth” it; only those who possess it stand in his presence or can be permitted to crone there. And he has endowed it with an overcoming power, so that not only shall light have no counsel with darkness, but wherever it comes it immediately gives the signal for the darkness to flee away. So does righteousness, wherever it is, begin to make war with sin, and ultimately the victory shall be seen to be altogether its own. Though often beaten back and down, buffeted and trampled upon, yet it rises again and renews the conflict, and will carry it on until the righteous cause is triumphant and the evil overthrown. No wonder, therefore, that the righteous Lord loveth it, and for its sake does so many, so wonderful, and so gracious things. But now let us askWhat is this all-important truth to teach us? Surely it should arouse in our minds some such questions as theseAm I in the Righteous One? We have seen how he is the supreme example of righteousness restraining wrath. Ah! what shelter have we, or can we have, when the storm of the Divine displeasure shall fall and beat upon us? Who then will be our refuge and strength, if Christ be not? “Behold, O God our Shield, and look on the face of thine anointed!” When we pray this prayer, who can we think of but the Lord Jesus Christ? He is our Shield, our Champion, our Defender. Are we, then, in him? “How shall we escape if we neglect so great salvation?” And are we like that Righteous One? If we be truly in him, we shall be in some measure like him; and if so, shall belong to that blessed company of whom Christ said, “Ye are the salt of the earth.” What are we? Of those on whose account favour and grace are shown to a hind, and life is made peaceful and wholesome; or of those who help to swell that torrent of iniquity which not only degrades, but destroys? Oh, how we ought to value the presence of righteous men in our midst! They are the true safeguards of our national well being. It is upon the character of a people, more than on anything else, the general good depends. No favourable outward circumstances, no wise organization, no well-ordered political constitution, can long uphold any community if the character of its members be godless and depraved. Sore calamity must come upon them, as it ever has, ere long time elapse. Of what amazing folly and sin, then, are they guilty who persecute the godly; who do their bad best to detach them from the faith, and to make them deny their Lord? It is an undermining of the very foundations of the house in which we live; a destruction of that upon which our all depends. Oh, let us be afraid, even if we be not servants of Christ ourselves, to do anything which would injure them or lessen their influence and power. Remember God hath said, “He that toucheth you toucheth the apple of mine eye.” But, by surrender of yourself to Christ, come amongst them; be of their number; help forward their cause. Times of judgment are coming; the great judgment of all draws nigh. But “who shall stand in that day?” The reply is not, “No one shall be able to stand,” for some, many, shall. All shall who have on them the mark of God, the sealing of the servants of Godthat seal of the Holy Spirit “whereby we are sealed unto the day of redemption.” Oh that that mark may be more and more manifest on us now! So shall our Lord be glorified; so shall our fellow men be blessed through us, whether they confess it or no; and so at last, when the consequences of ill doing have to be borne, and the harvest of sin is reaped, then shall judgment be restrained until we are gathered where harm can never come.S.C.
Rev 7:12
What “Amen,” means.
“Saying, Amen.” There is probably no more dishonoured word in the Bible than this. It has come to mean, in the minds of many, a mere signal for leaving offthe beneficent word that announces that the time of weariness and restraint is over, and that they may go back to what is of far more interest to them than God’s Word or worship can ever be. They look upon it as meaning no more than the word “Finis” at the end of a book, which tells them that there is no more to come. But when we remember that the word was one which was perpetually on our Saviour’s lips, and that it is one of the august names which he claims for himself, we can at once see that to regard it as a mere mechanical symbol, as a mere note of termination, like a period or full stop, is terribly to degrade it, and such as it could never have been intended for. And we are all of us in danger of forgetting, in our frequent use of the word, what it really means. But its mere interest demands more respectful and reverent usage of it. It is almost a universal word. It is told of two strangers meeting on board ship in Eastern seas, and ignorant of each other’s language, that they at length discovered that they had two words in common. One was “Hallelujah,” and the other “Amen.” You will hear this sacred word in Mohammedan mosques from Calcutta to Morocco, in all the liturgies of Greek, Roman, and Anglican Christians, and there is no sect of Christians anywhere that does not use it. And it is a most ancient word. It has come down to us from the ancient Jewish people, and was heard amidst the rocks of Sinai in those far off days of old. It has been likened to one of those granite boulders which we sometimes find in the midst of a flat plain, and which has been borne along by old world glaciers and torrents, and carried far away from its native home. So this word has been borne down by the stream of time till it has reached our shores and this our day. But its importance lies in the great spiritual truths it teaches us. As
I. GOD‘S DESIRE FOR OUR RESPONSE. The word is associated perpetually with the utterance of prayer and the declaration of Divine truth. Now, God desires such response:
1. In worship. “Let all the people say, Amen.” It is the people’s word; was so not alone in the Jewish Church, but in the Christian as well. Hence St. Paul pleads for the use of plain language in worship, so that the unlearned may be able to say “Amen” at the giving of thanks. And in the early Church the acts of the presiding minister were not deemed complete without the assent of the people in their loudly expressed “Amen.” Especially was this so in thanksgiving at the Lord’s Supper. The whole congregation so said “Amen” that it was as a shout or cheer, and was heard far off, and like a peal of thunder reverberating through the spacious church. But it is the inward assent and response that is craved; the outward goes for very little if this be lacking. And how can it be present when we allow ourselvesas so many doin listlessness and inattention and indifference? But if it be present, how precious, how uplifting, how full of help, that worship becomes to those who unite in it! Let us hold down our minds, and as Abraham drove away the birds which sought to devour his sacrifice, so let us drive away those flitting, wandering thoughts which are ever on the wing, and which destroy our sacrifice of prayer or praise. But in order to this inward assent and response, there must be like faith. If I do not believe in God as the heavenly Father, as my Father, how can I say “Amen” to prayer addressed to him? If I regard the Lord Jesus as no more than a noble hearted and saintly Jew, how can I prostrate myself in worship at his feet? But the chief hindrances to this inward response are not those of the intellect, but of the heart. It is not because we come to the house of God with our minds cobwebbed and confused with doubt, but rather because we come with hearts absorbed with worldly things, that the “Amen” God desires is not forthcoming, though our lips may loudly say, “Amen.” What a falsehood the word becomes when our hearts are not in it!
2. In regard to the declaration of truth. It is given when the word comes with power. As when Chrysostom preached, the multitudes who thronged the vast church could not restrain themselves from shouts and cries and tears, so greatly were they moved. And the preaching of even false doctrine, as in the mosque at Meccaso it has been relatedyet when the people heartily believe, they are greatly moved by it, and break forth into loud cries of “Amen, amen!” under the spell of the preacher’s voice, and by the power over them of the doctrines he and they alike believe. But God desires this response in regard to his truth; and again and again it has been given. At Pentecost; at Philippi, where the Lord opened the heart of Lydia, and then of the jailor; at Corinth, where Paul tells how unbelieving men came into the assembly, and, under the prophetic word, were convinced, and fell down and confessed the presence of God in their midst. But oh for much more of such response! As worship is no good without it, so neither is preaching, and nothing can compensate for it or be put in its place.
II. SINCERITY IS ESSENTIAL IN ALL OUR APPROACHES TO GOD. The word “Amen” comes from one which signifies “that which is reliable, that which can be trusted,” as the massive foundation stone, the strong pillar, or other such sure support. Our Lord declares of himself, “I am the Truth;” and St. John tells of him as “the Amen,” which means the same. And St. Paul tells how all God’s promises are “Yea and Amen in Christ Jesus.” And before his most weighty words our Lord was wont to utter his “Amen, amen,” which in our versions is rendered “Verily, verily.” At the end of the books of the Bible it is generally found, and everywhere it is the attestation of the truth of what has been or is to be said. And at the end of our prayers, it is as if we protested, “Lord God, I mean this.” Formerly men headed their wills with the words, “In the name of God, Amen.” But the meaning is ever the samea declaration of truth and sincerity in regard to that which it precedes or follows. And hence our being commanded to say “Amen” shows God’s demand for sincerity. They who worship him must worship him in truth. It is like signing our namea thing we are very careful about in our secular affairs, knowing the responsibility it involves. Would that we were similarly thoughtful when we utter, as we often do, this solemn word “Amen”!
III. CHRIST IS THE ALONE GUARANTEE AND PLEDGE OF SUCCESS. For “Amen” is one of Christ’s own names. The word was ever on his lips, and he is “the Amen.” And his love and power lie underneath and behind it wherever it is sincerely uttered. It is a virtual calling upon him for his helpa call he will not disdain. If he be “the Amen” of our prayer and service, then he will make that real which we can only ask may be so. It is his endorsement of our petition. And when at length life’s pilgrimage is
. What must the holy mirth be now? and what shall it not be?
3. A miscellaneous multitude. “Out of every kindred and nation,” etc. How greatly, then, do they err who think and teach that only those nations who here on earth have heard the joyful sound of Christ’s holy gospel can furnish contingents to that redeemed throng upon whom St. John delightedly gazed! What did our Lord go to “the spirits in prison” for, as St. Peter tells us he did, if not to bring them there the joyful tidings which here on earth they had not heard? How little we yet comprehend of “the breadth, and length, and depth, and height” of the love of Christ! Surely this vision should help us to a larger understanding of that infinite love.
4. To them all life had been full of trouble. They had all of them “come out of great tribulation.” Whilst we may not omit the final tribulation of which our Lord tells in Mat 24:1-51., and to which the opening of the sixth seal refers, we cannot limit it to that. “Man is born to trouble;” he is “of few days, and full of misery.” “The whole creation groaneth and travaileth together in pain until now.” To how few would life be worth living were it not for he hope of a better one! But we are placed here as at a school, and the trials of life are the appointed methods of instruction whereby we unlearn evil and learn good. The poor often envy the rich; but if all were known, the lot in life, or rather ere eternal life be gained, of us all is much alike. “The rich and the poor meet together,” and share in their common inheritance of trouble. But from all this they have now “come out,” and are “before the throne of God and the Lamb.”
5. They had all been lost but for Christ. For they had all sinned. None of them had kept their garments undefiled. But he who came “to seek and to save them that were lost” found them; by his Spirit drew them to himself; by his blood washed their sin-stained robes, and made them white; and now, all of them, not one excepted, are in heaven full of adoring gratitude to him who redeemed and saved them by his own blood. None are there on any other ground, nor can any ever be. On what, then, are we relying for the hope we all cherish of one day being where they are?
II. WHAT THEY DO THERE,
1. They celebrate the heavenly harvest home. They carry “palms in their hands,” branches of the palm. No reference is here to heathen uses of the palm as symbol of victory and the like. But far sweeter and holier reminiscence is awakened. The scene before us is the antitype of the most joyous and inspiriting of all the observances of Israelthat of the Feast of Tabernacles. It was held at the close of the year’s outdoor labours; with it the season of rest began. “All was safely gathered in.” It commemorated God’s care of them in the old wilderness days, and afterwards his continual care of them by the gifts of his providence. The feast was a most joyous one. The Jews said that he did not know joy who knew not the Feast of Tabernacles. One chief feature of the feast was the universal carrying of palm branches (cf. Neh 8:14-17). Such is the scene from which the imagery of St. John here is drawn. It told of the troubles of the wilderness ended; the harvest home of the Church come. It speaks of everlasting joy.
2. They serve. Day and night in God’s temple is this service rendered. But in another place St. John says, “I saw no temple therein;” and hence we must understand by the temple all heaven and earth, for all, as was the ancient temple, are to be filled with his glory. And as to the service, who can describe, who can limit, who can sufficiently set forth, its beneficence, its joy, its glory?
3. They show forth the praises of God and the Lamb. (Verse 10.) Festal joy, service, worship, the worship which consists in heartfelt praise,such are the occupations of heaven.
III. THEIR EXCEEDING BLESSEDNESS.
1. They want not. They neither hunger nor thirst.
2. They weary not, as in the travel and toil of the wilderness they had done, when the fierce heat of the sun smote them; and as in the hard toil of life.
3. They weep not. The poet Burns used to say he could never read this without tears. And when we think of what life is nowa place of tearsand that there there shall be none, one’s heart may well rejoice. But there are also the unspeakable joys that come from:
4. The realized presence and love of the Lord Jesus Christ. He shall be as a Tent to cover them, as a Shepherd to feed them, as a Guide to lead them to fountains of living water.
CONCLUSION. Have we those we love in heaven? Rejoice concerning them. Are we on the way there ourselves?S.C.
HOMILIES BY R. GREEN
Rev 7:1-8
The Church’s security assured.
Although the vision of judgment has been granted to the seer, an arrest is put upon its execution, and an entirely new series of representations is given. It is illustrative of the entire character of the book. It is one long illustration of the going forth conquering and to conquer by him that sitteth on the white horse. But there is no chronology. The truth here illustrated is ever repeated. Not only in the final acts of judgment will the faithful people be secure, but when God sends his judgments upon the ungodly the Church has always his comforting assurance of protection. By this vision the heart of the Church is comforted. “Only with thine eyes shalt thou behold and see the reward of the wicked.” Whatever judgments befall the earth, the righteous people are secure in the guardian love of their Lord. This is declared to the tried ones by the vision of the sealing. A vision which is
I. A TOKEN OF THE DIVINE RECOGNITION OF EVERY INDIVIDUAL BELIEVER. Each is sealed on his forehead. “The Lord knoweth them that are his.”
II. IT IS A PLEDGE OF PERSONAL SECURITY. In the general judgments many even of the faithful suffer. This is inevitable. But the anomalous words of our Lord shall be fulfilled, “Ye shall be delivered up by parents put to death, hated of all men; and not a hair of your head shall perish.” In all judgments the lowly believer may rest in the assurance of personal safety. All shall be well in the end if the Lord’s seal is upon the forehead.
III. THE VISION IS A GRACIOUS REVELATION OF GOD. It is of his goodness that he has thus shown beforehand his careful defence of his own in times of judgment and fear. “I have prayed for thee, that thy faith fail not.”
IV. THE VISION AFFORDS GROUND FOR THE UTMOST ENCOURAGEMENT TO FAITH AND HOPE. It is a spring of pure consolation. The Divine warrant of safety each believer may ever carry with him. The cruelties of men may bring him suffering, but not the judgments of God. Ever may the disciples know that when the Lord proceeds to judgment he will first seal his own.R.G.
Rev 7:9-13
The Church triumphant.
The comfort of the former vision is heightened by a subsequent one. The host of God is sealed. Safety amidst judgment, is pledged. But greater things are reserved. The holy seer is permitted to witness the Church in its final triumph.
I. THE FINAL TRIUMPHANT HOST IS INNUMERABLE. The former vision was limited, definite. It prepared the way for a larger view. The “little flock” has grown into an innumerable company. This is the true answer to the question, hitherto unanswered, “Lord, are there few that be saved?” To a Church in its incipient condition a small and feeble folk in the midst of ungodly thousands, the vision of a final host beyond count is of the utmost comfort. It has ever been so.
II. THE FINALLY TRIUMPHANT CHURCH IS REPRESENTED IN ITS WIDE COMPREHENSION. It is “out of every nation.” This is the true vision to be held before the eyes of the Church in her missionary labours. All tribes and all peoples and all tongues shall be finally found amongst the faithful and elect children.
III. THE TRIUMPHANT CHURCH IS EXALTED TO THE UTMOST HONOUR. They stand “before the throne and before the Lamb.” Thus is indicated their individual recognition; thus is fulfilled the word of their Lord’s promise.
IV. THE CHURCH IS REPRESENTED IN ITS FINAL SANCTITY“arrayed in white robes”AND INVESTED WITH THE SYMBOLS OF TRIUMPHANT EXALTATION” palms in their hands.”
V. THE VISION REVEALS THE REDEEMED HOST ASCRIBING ITS REDEMPTION TO GOD AND THE LAMB. It is the becoming burden of the eternal song. All is “of him.”
VI. THE CHURCH OF EARTH IS FOUND IN ALLIANCE WITH THE ANGELIC HOST OF HEAVEN. “All the angels were standing round about the throne.”
VII. THE UNITED CHOIRS OF EARTH AND HEAVEN ASCRIBE TOGETHER ALL GLORY, HONOUR, MIGHT, MAJESTY, AND DOMINION UNTO GOD FOREVER AND EVER. Nothing more likely to comfort and uphold the Church struggling in the waves of bitter cruel persecution than this gracious vision. To the Church in all ages this has been the lofty reach of joyful anticipation.R.G.
Rev 7:13-17
The eternal blessedness.
The vision is yet heightened. A further brightness overspreads the scene, The comfort of hope is yet expanded. Arrested by one of the elders, the seer lowlily refrains from declaring who constitute the triumphant host, and receives the consoling assurance that they are from the fields of earthly suffering, toil, and danger. They are now exalted far above all worldly power. The final blessedness of the righteous is
I. BLESSEDNESS FOR WHICH THEY ARE PREPARED BY EARTHLY TRIBULATION. Even the rugged ways of earthly obedience lead to heaven’s gates. But all toil and tribulation are o’er.
II. The final blessedness is BASED ON AN ATTAINED SANCTITY. “They have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.”
III. This blessedness INCLUDES:
1. Recognition. They are “before the throne of God.”
2. Perpetual service. They serve God “day and night in his temple.”
3. They enjoy the perfect protection of the Divine presence.
“He that sitteth on the throne shall spread his tabernacle over them.”
IV. IT SECURES THEM EXEMPTION FROM THE SORROWS OF THE EARTHLY LIFE. “They hunger no more, neither thirst any more,” nor shall the sun or any heat strike upon them.
V. THE FINAL BLESSEDNESS OF THE RIGHTEOUS HAS ITS FRUITION IN A GRACIOUS ALLIANCE WITH THE ETERNAL The Lamb “shall be their Shepherd,” and shall guide them to the perpetual fountains of life and felicity; and God shall himself exempt them from all further sorrow or suffering. He “shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.” Thus every trace of the tribulation of earth shall be removed; and blessedness of the highest possible character shall be the final lot of them who now endure for truth’s sake. Thus in the midst of the earthly raging power is the persecuted Church of God assured, in all ages, of a final, a certain, and an ample recompense.R.G.
HOMILIES BY D. THOMAS
Rev 7:1-3
A sketch of an impending judgment.
“And after these things,” etc. The text points to a judgment that is overhanging the world, entrusted to angels for its execution, and who are restrained in their work by a special messenger from heaven on account of the godly tenants of the earth. This is a view of the passage which scarcely admits of any data for a different opinion. From the words we see
I. THE WORLD EXPOSED TO JUDGMENT. It is represented as exposed to “the four winds of the earth.” Winds are the symbols of judgment. Thus in Jer 49:36, Jer 49:37 we read, “And upon Elam will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of heaven, and will scatter them toward all those winds; and there shall be no nation whither the outcasts of Elam shall not come. For I will cause Elam to be dismayed before their enemies, and before them that seek their life: and I will bring evil upon them, even my fierce anger, saith the Lord; and I will send the sword after them, till I have consumed them.” And in the prophecy of Dan 7:2 we have these words, “I saw in my vision by night, and, behold, the four winds of the heaven strove upon the great sea.” The four winds indicate the universality of the judgment. They were to come from the four points of the compassnorth, south, east, west. Whether this universal judgment refers to the destruction of Jerusalem, or some other judicial event that is passed, or points to some future period of retribution in the history of the world, I stay not to inquire. One thing is certain, that there is a universal judgment impending over this earth. It hangs over “every corner of the earth.” Its winds will rush in fearful tornadoes from all the points of the compass. Conscience, providence, and the Bible all point to this universal judgment.
II. THE JUDGMENT ENTRUSTED TO ANGELS. The words speak of “four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea.” Angels are the ministers of God. He employs them to execute his judgments.
1. They appeared amidst the terrors of Mount Sinai. Deu 33:2, “The Lord came from Sinai, and rose up from Seir unto them; he shined forth from Mount Paran, and he came with ten thousands of saints: from his right hand went a fiery Law for them.” Again in Psa 68:17 we read, “The chariots of God are twenty thousand, even thousands of angels: the Lord is among them, as in Sinai, in the holy place.”
2. They appeared with our Saviour in the destruction of Jerusalem. (Mat 24:30, Mat 24:31.)
3. Angels have been frequently engaged in executing Divine judgment on this earth. They acted in connection with the destruction of Sodom, and an angel dealt out judgment to the Egyptians in the destruction of their firstborn (Exo 12:22). An angel wreaked vengeance on the people of Jerusalem on account of the sin of David (2Sa 24:16, 2Sa 24:17). An angel destroyed the mighty army of Sennacherib (2Ki 19:35).
4. Angels are represented as active in the final day of retribution. (Mat 13:39-41; Mat 25:31; 1Th 4:16; 2Th 1:7-9.)
III. THE ANGELS RESTRAINED BY A MEDIATOR. “And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.” Observe:
1. The glorious origin of this angel. He ascended “from the east;” from the fountain of glorythe east, whence the stars appear, and the glorious sun comes forth to flood the world with light.
2. The Divine credentials of this angel. “Having the seal of the living God.”
3. The great earnestness of this angel. “Cried with a loud voice.” Who is this angel? Who is represented in this particular case I know not. But I know that the great angel of the covenant answers well this description. He came from the orient depths of glory with Divine credentials and with great earnestness, in order to stay the angels of retribution from executing their terrible commission. Our great Redeemer holds back the hand of the destroying angel, and the burden of his intercession is, “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea.” To Christ we owe the postponement of the judgment.
IV. THE MEDIATOR RESTRAINING BECAUSE HIS WORK IS UNFINISHED. Why does this intercessory angel, rising from the glorious east, interpose to prevent the judicial angels from discharging their dread commission? Because there was a work to be done. The servants of God were to be “sealed in their foreheads.” The image of the sealing is derived from the Book of the Prophet Ezekiel (Eze 9:2-6, Eze 9:11). Its object was to mark out certain persons as belonging to God, and thus to save them from the miseries of the impending judgment. The effect of the seal visible in the forehead would be like that of the blood on the door posts of the Israelites in the last terrible plague of the Egyptians. “When he seeth it he will pass over the door, and will not suffer the destroyer to come in unto your houses to smite you.” Two thoughts are suggested.
1. That there are men who are yet to receive the seal of God. Thousands in ages gone by have had his likeness impressed upon them, and thousands are being impressed in this age, but there are millions more to be sealed in future times. There are men from unborn generations who are to be sealed.
2. That the judgment is delayed until the number of the sealed ones is complete. “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed,” etc. Thus our blessed Mediator is keeping up the world until all his disciples are gathered into his fold, and his purposes of mercy realized. In the majesty of infinite mercy he stands as it were in the midst of the universe. He sees the storm of judgment brooding in the heavens. He sees the angels of justice quartered in every part of the firmament, ready to execute their terrible commission. He waves his hand, and bids them halt. “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.” Let not even such a breath of judgment pass from your hand as shall wake a ripple on the “sea,” or stir a leaf on the “trees.” Let mercy reign supreme until my work is finished. Then, when all my redeemed ones are sealed with the seal of God “on their foreheads” and made secure, then let loose your awful winds. Let them rush with their tornadoes of fire, and roar with their thunders of retribution, and destroy this earth; for the mystery of God will be finished.
“Accuse not Heaven’s delay; if loth to strike,
Its judgments, like the thunder-gather’d storm,
Are but the greater.”
(Webster.)
D.T.
Rev 7:1-8
The Divine management of the world.
“And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth,” etc. The subject of these verses is the Divine management of the world, and they suggest two facts concerning it.
I. THAT GOD EMPLOYS THE HIGHEST ORDER OF CELESTIAL INTELLIGENCES IN THE CONDUCT OF HIS GOVERNMENT. “After these things [after this] I saw four angels standing on [at] the four corners of the earth.” The existence of intelligences in the universe, varying in capacity and degree, but all loyal to Heaven and transcending immeasurably man’s attributes of wisdom, power, and speed, is suggested by analogy and abundantly taught in the Scriptures, both the Old and the New. Now, these creatures are here represented as occupying all parts of nature, “standing on the four corners of the earth,” and thus controlling the winds of the worldthe east, the west, the south, and the north. They are endowed with power to turn the winds to any point of the compass, and to regulate them to any degree of power or temperature, raising them to a fury that will shake the earth, and reducing them to a calmness hushing the world to sleep. Is there anything absurd in this? Assuredly not. It is natural, rational, and consistent with every part of nature. Everywhere through the universe God acts by mediation. Nowhere throughout immensity does be appear to act directly, matter on matter, and mind on all. The principle is enunciated in the Old Testament. “It shall come to pass in that day, I will hear, saith the Lord, I will hear the heavens, and they shall hear the earth; and the earth shall hear the corn, and the wine, and the oil; and they shall hear Jezreel” (Hos 2:21, Hos 2:22). The mere scientist accounts for the various objects and phenomena of the material world by what he calls blind forces or natural laws; I prefer ascribing all under God to the “angels standing on the four corners of the earth, and holding the four winds.” A wonderful view of the universe, truly, we have here. True, a telescope opens to my vision world upon world and system upon system, until imagination reels at the prospect, and my spirit seems crushed with a sense of its own insignificance; but in these words I have a telescope by which I see the wide fields of the air, the rolling planets, the minute and the vast, the proximate and the remote, peopled and working, reaching in regular gradation from my little being up to the ineffable throne, and all under God.
II. THAT GOD, IN EMPLOYING THESE AGENCIES, ENJOINS ON THEM A SPECIAL REGARD FOR THE INTERESTS OF REDEEMED MEN IN THE WORLD. “And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God,” etc. Why not “hurt the earth”? Why not reduce all nature to a wreck? There is a grand, benevolent reason: “till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.” “Of the tribe of Judah were sealed,” etc. (Rev 7:5-8). The Jewish mind regarded Israel as especially the elect of God, and all the tribes in their esteem were specially Divine. This, of course, was a fiction of national vanity. But take them here as a symbolical representation of all the truly good men upon the earth, and we have the idea that God requires all his intelligent ministries to regard the interests of such. The seal must be regarded as implying security. Here is an angel rising as it were from “the door of the dawn,” from the east, with a seal in order to effect the security of the good. Angels, we are taught, are “ministering spirits, sent forth to minister to those who shall be the heirs of salvation.” Numerous are the instances recorded in the Bible in which we see them render assistance to man. They rescued Lot from Sodom, and guarded Daniel in the lion’s den; they directed Joseph and Mary into Egypt, and liberated the apostles from prison; they directed Cornelius to Peter, and wafted the spirit of Lazarus to the skies. They rejoice over the conversion of sinners; they have a charge over the righteous, they encamp round about them, they bear them up in their hands. Their ministry implies:
1. That there is some method by which they can aid man.
2. That man’s salvation is of paramount importance.
3. That service to the lowest is consonant with the highest greatness.
4. That man’s obligation is to seek the spiritual good of his fellows.D.T.
Rev 7:9-12
The human population in heaven (No. 1).
“After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations,” etc. There is one book, and only one, that presents to us humanity in heaven, and that is the Bible. This passage gives us a vision of unnumbered multitudes of men who once traversed this earthly scene of sin and sorrow, now in the bright world of the good. Of this human population in heaven four things are suggested.
I. ITS NUMBERS ARE TOO GREAT FOR CALCULATION. “After this I beheld, and, lo, [those things I saw, and behold] a great multitude, which no man could number.” The vastness of the population may be looked upon in four aspects. Here is:
1. A reproof to all sectarianism. Religious sects, which, alas! abound, even in Christendom, and which are a calumny on the gospel, nourish in the minds of their votaries the idea that heaven will be peopled mainly, if not entirely, by those within their own pale. Genuine religion knows nothing of sects. Men went to heaven by millions before churches or chapels existed.
2. An encouragement to all Christly work. The best men on earth are the men employed in a Christly spirit to make men Christly. They find the opposition so strong, the wicked so numerous, and their efforts apparently so unsuccessful, that they often lose heart. But let them realize that the human population of heaven, even in the days of John, was so vast that no arithmetic could calculate; that population has been increasing from that date to this, and will increase in future ages so that it may be that no human being will be found in the universe without a Christly heart. Hell is only a little cloud upon the azure of immensity, and that cloud may one day be blotted out; it is only one discordant note in the harmonies of God’s great empire, and that note will ultimately be hushed in eternal silence.
3. A response to all philanthropic desires. In every human soul, I presume, there is an instinctive desire for the well being of the race. True, this Divine instinct, like all others, is not only universally perverted, but dormant and submerged in depraved passions; but it is there, and awaits a resurrection. Here is the response to such an instinct.
4. An attestation of benevolent Creatorship. There is atheology popular, even in England in these days, which propounds the belief that the millions of mankind are doomed to bondage and blackness and darkness forever. Such a damnable doctrine reveals the Creator as malevolent, and spreads a gloom of ghastly horror over all created things. No; love is the fontal source of all things.
II. ITS VARIETY INCLUDES ALL THE RACES OF MANKIND. “Of all nations [out of every nation], and kindreds [of all tribes], and people, and tongues.” All the men of this earth have their own little theatres of life and action. They are divided by space, by time, by physical relationship, by culture, by national distinctions, and thus become barbarians one to another. Now, from all these scenes and departments of life the human population in heaven is made up. The human population in heaven is not known as Britons, or Frenchmen, or Germans, etc., nor as those of noble or ignoble blood, nor as those speaking this language or that, but as one grand confederation and brotherhood, in which all distinctions are lost. Learn here:
1. That our highest aim should be to become true men. We should struggle out of social castes, religious denominationalisms, and national distinctions, and become true men, for these men alone populate heaven.
2. That our highest love should be for men. Not love for lords or ladies, or nobles, or even for sages and poets, nor even for country, but for men; reverence man everywhere, in whatever land we find him, in whatever condition; respect him because he is a man. A true man is the grandeur creature under the heavens. Let us all become such, and respect such, and such only.
III. ITS GLORIOUSNESS TRANSCENDS ALL DESCRIPTION. “Stood [standing] before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with [arrayed in] white robes, and palms in their hands.” Mark:
1. Their position. “Stood [standing] before the throne.” This is an emblematic description of the highest dignity. Moral goodness, and that alone, is Divine dignity. The Divine throne is not material, it is spiritual; it is perfect moral excellence.
2. Their attire. “Clothed with [arrayed in] white robes.” Life everywhere has its robes, its forms; robes which it makes for itself, which grow out of itself as foliage out of the vital sap. Souls have their robes, and holy souls have robes white with purity. All their manifestations are pure.
3. Their blessed rest. “Palms in their hands.” The palms, Archbishop Trench considers, represents here not emblems of victory, but are emblems of rest.
IV. ITS ENGAGEMENTS ARE RAPTUROUS IN DEVOTION. “And cried [they cry] with a loud [great] voice, saying, Salvation to [unto] our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb,” etc. No doubt the engagements of this vast human population in heaven are very varied, according to their personal idiosyncrasies, capacities, and proclivities. But in every department there is worship, the Supreme is adoredadored not formally or perfunctorily, but earnestly; they cry with a loud voice, “Salvation!” Restoration from their former earthly condition is the master theme. Ah! what is included in this salvation? It is restoration from ignorance to true knowledge, from impurity to holiness, from bondage to soul liberty, from selfishness to benevolence, from materialism to genuine spirituality, from the reign of wrong to the reign of right. This is the supreme theme of the saved in all worlds and forever, and ascribed to God and none other in heaven or earth.D.T.
Rev 7:13-17
The human population in heaven (No. 2).
“And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they?” etc. Here is an illustration of three facts in connection with the human population in heaven.
I. THEIR EARTHLY LIFE WAS MARKED BY GREAT TRIAL. “And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these which are arrayed in white robes? [these which are arrayed in the white robes, who are they?] and whence came they? And I said [say] unto him, Sir [my lord], thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came [come] out of [the] great tribulation.” An elder in those realmsstruck, it may be, with certain peculiarities in their appearance and worshipputs to John the interrogatory what they were, and whence they came, and the reply he receives is that they had come out of “great tribulation.” Tribulation is the common lot of humanity, and ever the discipline of the good.
1. This should teach us contentment under our trials. “No temptation hath happened,” etc.
2. This should inspire us with magnanimity under our trials. The tribulations are useful. Like the gales of the mariner, they bear us away from scenes on which our heart is set. The darkest thunder cloud terrifies but for an hour; it soon passes away, and leaves the air clearer and the heavens brighter than before.
II. THEIR CELESTIAL CIRCUMSTANCES ARE PRE–EMINENTLY GLORIOUS. “Have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Look at:
1. Their appearance. In white robes, emblems of purity and conquest.
2. Their position. “They are before the throne.” A throne is the emblem of regal authority, and before this throne we are always appearing in this life, but we are not conscious of it. Their employment. “Serve him day and night;” indicating the entire consecration of their time and powers. They serve him in every department of action. Serve him lovingly, wholly, and constantly.
4. Their companionship. “He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among [spread his tabernacle over] them.” They enjoy intimate communion with the Sovereign of all.
5. Their blessedness. “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; .. and God shall wipe away all tears.” They are freed from evil, and brought into the full enjoyment of all blessedness.
III. THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN THE EARTHLY AND HEAVENLY CONDITION IS ATTRIBUTABLE TO CHRIST. “They have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne.” Three things are implied:
1. That they were originally polluted.
2. That the self-sacrificing love of Christ has a purifying influence.
3. That their cleansing by this influence had taken place when on earth.
CONCLUSION. Mark well the “therefore” of the text. Why are men so different in heaven to what they are on earthin character, circumstances, spirit, different? Not because of the priestly services Of any sect, nor because of their own intellectual attainments, but because they have had their “robes washed in the blood of the Lamb;” it is because of Christ they are in heaven.D.T.
Fuente: The Complete Pulpit Commentary
Rev 7:1. And after these things The former chapter concluded the first grand period, and the sufferings of the church under the persecution of the Heathen Roman empire. The second grand period of prophesy begins, and is contained in the events which attend the sounding of thetrumpets; an account whereof is givenin the 8th and 9th chapters. In this chapter, it is conceived, that we have an account of a little pause or interval, to describe the state of things, for a short time, between the two periods. After these things, that is, after the prophetic vision which represented the first period, St. John saw, in other visions, what is related in this chapter. This seems a representation of a state of peace and tranquillity throughout the earth, especially in the Roman empire, and of the great number of persons, in every nation, who came in to the profession of Christianity; of the encouraging protection which was given to the Christian church; of thankful acknowledgments for the goodness and power of God, by the whole church, in such eminent instances of favour and protection; and, finally, of the happy state of all the faithful confessors and martyrs, who, after a short time of tribulation for the faith of Christ, andconstancy in his religion, have attained to a state of everlasting rest, in happiness and glory. Thus wisely does this part of prophesy promote the principal design of the whole, to encourage the faith and patience, the hope and constancy of the people of God, under all opposition and suffering. It seems designed to shew, with the certainty of prophetical revelation, that as God directs all things in the world by his providence, so he will direct them to serve the designs of his goodness to his faithful saints; and that the great revolutions of the world shall often be in favour of true religion, and for its protection, and to assure the faithful, that all they suffer for the sake of truth and righteousness, shall soon be rewarded with a state of peace; honour, and happiness. See on ch. Rev 1:1 and the next note.
Fuente: Commentary on the Holy Bible by Thomas Coke
Rev 7:1 . . We must here think neither of wicked angels, [2246] nor of angels of the wind, after the analogy of the angel of the water, Rev 16:5 , [2247] but of angels in general, to whom the office here described has been given, Rev 7:2 , [2248] just as angels afterwards appear with trumpets and vials. Without any foundation are the allegorical interpretations, as in Beda, [2249] and N. de Lyra, who proposes Maximian, Severus, Maxentius, and Licinius, [2250] while the other angel, Rev 7:2 , is regarded as Constantine.
. The position of the angels corresponds with their occupation:
. The four corners of the earth ( . , . .) are the points from which the four winds of the earth go forth. [2251] John beholds the four angels as they still hold the winds, [2252] to prevent them from blowing ( ., . . . ); but according to what immediately follows, the situation is such that the angels are ready to let loose the winds as soon as the purpose of the other angel, who is already rising up (Rev 7:2 sqq.), is accomplished.
If also “the four winds of the earth” be interpreted allegorically, although the expression sounds as unallegorical as possible, of which examples have just been given, then also the earth, the sea, and the trees must be understood figuratively. For thus Grot, says on . : “viz., Judaea;” on : “The winds signify any sort of calamity.” The “sea” is “a great people, such as is that of Jerusalem especially;” the trees designate “what come from trees, as cities, but especially the temple:” in general, the times of peace under King Agrippa are meant. Bhmer regards the “earth” as Jews, the “sea” as heathen; therefore he says that the Christians still to be mentioned are designated by the “trees.” According to Beng., the earth is Asia, the sea Europe, the trees Africa. Hengstenb. also regards “the four winds of the earth” as symbols of the Divine judgments, viz., those described in ch. 6; the “sea” designates masses of people; the “trees” are magnates, Rev 6:15 .
But every kind of allegorizing is without the least foundation in the text. The winds which in their proper naturalness are, besides, expressly designated as “the four winds of the earth,” are not once personified here, as in Zec 6:1 sqq., where, however, what is said dare not be taken as an allegory in the strict sense, but as in Rev 6:4 an actual shedding of blood, and in Rev 6:12 an actual earthquake, so here actual winds are meant, storms which are to have the mastery of the whole earth, as they are also ready to break loose from all four ends of the earth. But in the fact, that, after the dreadful signs of the sixth seal have led immediately to the day of the final judgment, now as the description of this judgment is to be expected in the seventh, last seal a visitation of like character, as in the sixth seal, is again set forth, and its infliction restrained until after the sealing of the servants of God from Israel, the intimation is already given that the actual occurrence of the final catastrophe will not be until after the course of a still further manifestation of preliminary afflictions, as they proceed from the seventh seal in long and connected sequence. [2253]
[2246] Aret., Zeger, Laun., Calov., Beng., Rinck, etc.
[2247] Alcas., C. a Lap., Stern, Heinr., Zll., De Wette.
[2248] Vitr., Ewald, Hengstenb., Ebrard.
[2249] . . = “the four principal kingdoms of the Assyrians, Persians, Greeks, and Romans;” . . . = “They allow no one to breathe according to the pleasure of his own right;” = “diversity of provinces;” .: “diverse quality of men.”
[2250] “Hindering the doctors of the Church from preaching the word of God.” Cf. similar interpretations of . . . .; e.g., in Aret., who regards the wicked angels as the Pope, the Turks, etc.
[2251] Cf. Jer 49:36 ; Zec 6:1 sqq.; Dan 7:2 .
[2252] . Cf. Rev 2:1 , Rev 3:11 .
[2253] Cf. Introduction, p. 12 sqq.
Fuente: Heinrich August Wilhelm Meyer’s New Testament Commentary
SECTION THIRD
The Seven Penitential Trumpets, issuing from the Opening of the Seventh Seal
Rev 7:1 to Rev 9:21
A.IDEAL HEAVENLY WORLD-PICTURE OF THE SEVEN PENITENTIAL TRUMPETS. THE IDEAL, INVINCIBLE CHURCH. ITS ESTABLISHMENT AS THE CHURCH MILITANT BY THE SEALING OF THE ELECT IN THIS WORLD; ITS CONSUMMATION WITH THE FOUNDING OF THE CHURCH TRIUMPHANT IN THE OTHER WORLD. PREPARATION FOR THE LOOSING OF THE SEVENTH SEAL
Rev 7:1-17
1And1 after these [this2] things [om. things] I saw four angels standing on [upon] the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should [may] not blow on [upon] the earth, nor on [upon] the sea, nor on [upon] any tree.3 2And I saw another angel ascending from the east [sun-rising], having the [a] seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud [great] voice to the four angels, [ins. those] to whom it was given to hurt [injure] the earth and the sea, 3saying, Hurt [Injure] not the earth, neither [nor] the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed4 the servants of our God in [upon] their foreheads. 4And I heard the number of them which were [om. them which wereins. the] sealed: and there were sealed [om. and there were sealed] a hundred and forty and four thousand [ins. sealed] of all the tribes [out of every tribe] of the children [sons] of Israel. 5Of [Out of] the tribe of Juda were sealed [om. were sealed] twelve thousand [ins. sealed5]. Of [; out of] the tribe of Reuben were sealed [om. were sealed] twelve thousand. Of [; out of] the tribe of Gad were sealed [om. were sealed] twelve 6thousand. Of [; out of] the tribe of Aser were sealed [om. were sealed] twelve thousand. Of [; out of] the tribe of Nephthalim were sealed [om. were sealed] twelve thousand. Of [; out of] the tribe of Manasses were sealed [om, were sealed] 7twelve thousand. Of [; out of] the tribe of Simeon were sealed [om. were sealed] twelve thousand. Of [; out of] the tribe of Levi were sealed [om. were sealed] twelve thousand. Of [; out of] the tribe of Issachar were sealed [om. were sealed] 8twelve thousand. Of [; out of] the tribe of Zabulon were sealed [om. were sealed] twelve thousand. Of [; out of] the tribe of Joseph were sealed [om. were sealed] twelve thousand. Of [; out of] the tribe of Benjamin were sealed [om. were sealed] twelve thousand [ins. sealed].
9After this [these things] I beheld [saw], and, lo [behold]6, a great multitude, which no man [one] could number, of [out of] all nations, and kindreds [tribes], and people [peoples], and tongues, stood [standing]7 before the throne, and before 10the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and [ins. they] cried [cry] with a loud [great] voice, saying, [ins. The] salvation to [or, is with] our God which [who] sitteth upon the throne, and unto [or, is with] the Lamb. 11And all the angels stood [were standing8] round about om. about] the throne, [om.,] and about [om. about] the elders and the four beasts [Living-beings], and [ins. they] 12fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, saying, Amen: [ins. the] blessing, and [ins. the] glory, and [ins. the] wisdom, and [ins. the] thanksgiving, and [ins. the] honor, and [ins. the] power, and [ins. the] might [strength], be [or om. be] unto our God for ever and ever [into the ages of the ages]. Amen.
13And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are [om. What are] These which [who] are arrayed in white robes [ins., who are they]? and whence came they? 14And I said unto him, Sir [My9 lord], thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came [that come] out of [ins. the10] great tribulation, and [ins. they] have [om. have] washed their robes, and made them11 white in the blood 15of the Lamb. Therefore [On this account] are they before12 the throne of God, and [ins. they] serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them [ , shall spread his tabernacle over 16them]13. They shall [ins. not] hunger no [any] more, neither [ins. shall they] thirst any more; neither [ ]14 shall the sun light [, fall] on them, nor any heat [, burning heat]. 17For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne [] shall feed [shepherdize] them, and shall lead them unto living [om. living] fountains of waters [ins. of life15]: and God shall wipe away all tears [every tear] from their eyes.
EXEGETICAL AND CRITICAL
SYNOPTICAL VIEW16
The literal, allegoristical exegesis, with its chronological interpretation, has covered this section [Revelation 7] in particular, together with the corresponding eighth and ninth chapters, with confusion and obscurity. It should be premised, first of all, that Revelation 7-9 constitute a whole, representing the essential form of the history of the Church in this world in respect of its spiritual aspect, in its connection with the history of the Kingdom of God, or the New Testament history of religion. [See p. 192 sq.] If the seven churches were, portraits of the Church in its spiritual and world-historical aspects; if, further, the seven seals were characteristic of the world-historical side of New Testament times; so now in the seven trumpets the New Testament history of religion, as the spiritual side of New Testament times, is exhibited, or, in other words, the Church is portrayed in its transcendent nature as militant and triumphant. It will appear, as we proceed, that the reference is purely to spiritual matters; let us meantime direct the attention of our readers to the characteristic of the section as presented in the concluding words Rev 9:20-21. The dark side in the entire period is the worship of demons, devilish spirits, and this dark side is divided into religious idolatries and moral enormities. As the sections throughout the Apocalypse unfold into the antithesis of Heaven-pictures and earth pictures, so it is with the present one. If it be objected that the sealing of the 144,000 souls does not take place in Heaven, but on earth, we respond that to the Apocalyptist, Heaven and earth are not purely local terms, as is evident, moreover, from chaps. 12 and 21. Even the Son of Man Himself walks on earth, amid the candlesticks, according to Revelation 1 We must, therefore, once for all, distinguish Heaven on earth from the earthly form of the Kingdom of God. And this Heaven on earth is in this case the kernel of the Church Militant, the plenary number of the sealed elect, from whose ranks are issuing, ever and anon, those victor-trains of parting souls that form the Church Triumphant in the world beyond the grave. Thus is framed the conception of the Heaven-picture of the ideal Church as a whole; as branching into the two stages of the Church Militant and the Church Triumphant (Rev 7:1-8; Revelation 9-17). The contrasted earth picture of the Church is characterized by the trumpets themselves. We continue to designate these as penitential Trumpets, though prominence should also be given in the first place to the more general signification of the trumpetings, as figuring the sudden warlike or dramatic appearance of worldly spirits and spiritual errors, both of which, however, serve as an admonition to repentance, to the marrow of the Church. [See p. 212 sqq.]
With the chronological and literal conception referred to, correspond the most considerable misunderstandings which attach to this chapter. Above all, the chapter should not be regarded in the light of an episode. Neither should it be considered as a special promise to the Jewish people. If we hold fast to the idea of the organic completeness and unitedness of the Apocalyptic narration, such an episode, which would be destructive of all connection, is inconceivable. As, furthermore, the seventh chapter, as the basis of the seven Trumpets, must perfectly coincide with the following two chapters, it cannot be reduced to a section of the last time.
So far as the Jews are concerned, those commentators are entirely at odds with the text who teach that the Jews in a literal sense are intended here. As surely as the New Jerusalem of Revelation 21 cannot denote a new Jewish city; as surely as the term Jews, as used in the seven epistles, denotes the very opposite of Judaists, namely, the true spiritual Israel; just so surely are the people of Israel, here, representative of the whole body of the people of God. It can be affirmed only that converts from Israel are included.
Or are the 144,000 souls, standing, according to Revelation 14, on Mount Zion, other chosen ones, though those here mentioned likewise appear as sealed? Or are the former, also, only Jews after all? And being Jews, are they virgins in the literal sense, as Rothe maintains; celibates, such as are found so seldom amongst the Jews? And has the scene so far changed that, whilst in our passage the Church in this world consists purely of Jews, but in the other world is made up of all nations, Gentiles predominating, therefore,in Revelation 14, on the other hand, the Gentiles upon Mount Zion, i.e., in the same region in which they, in Revelation 7, occupy the foreground, are displaced by the Jews?In every case, we answer no.
Be it observed, moreover, that if the symbolical significance be lost sight of in the leading matter, the Twelve Tribes must also be taken literally; as also the 12,000 of every Tribe; the omission of the Tribe of Dan, and everything else. And this, apart from the essential absurdity that during this whole period of sealed Jewish Christians, there should be no account made of sealed Gentile Christians on earth.
And here arises the question, why the New Testament Church should be symbolized by the Jewish Tribes; its kernel by sealed individuals belonging to those Tribes. This question is at once satisfactorily settled if we do but glance back at the prophetic representation of the destiny of Israel. The people of Israel is the typical servant of God, His elect, whose office it is to disseminate His law amongst the Gentiles (Isaiah 42, 43, etc.), before the Servant of God in the truest and fullest sense of the term, the Messiah, is spoken of. The New Testament, again, takes up this typical import of Israel, but only decisively to transfer it to the spiritual Israel, the New Testament faithful people, or people of faith (Mat 8:11; Rom 2:28; Rom 4:11-12; Gal 4:26). In our passage there was abundant motive for going back to the symbolical name of Jews, and to the symbolical import of the Twelve Tribes in particular, since the position of the spiritual Israel in regard to spiritual heathendomwhose pressure into the Church the Apocalyptist foresawwas to be marked.17 We would observe, in this connection, that John, in accordance with ideal theocratic notions, regarded even Judaistic forms of corruption as a special formation of heathenism. Precautionary measures were virtually taken against misunderstanding, in the fact that the Seer made those who were sealed in this world re-appear, in their consummation in the other world, as an innumerable throng out of all nations. [See p. 193.] What we have here, therefore, is not a special scene from the last time, but an entirely new cycle of the whole New Testament time which, as a whole, is eschatological;a heavenly portrait of the ideal Church.
The vision begins with the apparition of the four Angels that stand upon the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that no wind may blow upon the earth, nor upon the sea, nor upon any tree.
We have recognized the earth as the theocratic order or institution; here it is the New Testament order of things, as presented, first, in the Church alone, branching out, subsequently, into ecclesiastical and political life. On the four corners of this earth, where it comes in contact with the old worldfrom the direction of heathenism, consequentlythe four winds arise. The four winds are the fundamental forms of those worldly time-currents which threaten the ruin of the Church (Dan 7:2; Eph 4:14). These time-currents must be loosed when their time comes, for a particular work is appointed them; on this very account, however, they are, as Divine dispensations, held by Angels, that they may not break loose before their time and destroy the earth, i. e., the young Church; the sea, or Christian national life, which is not yet strong; or individual Christians that, like all sorts of trees of God () have begun to grow up (Psalms 1). [See p. 187.]
When another Angel appears, forbidding the four Angels to injure the earth, or the sea, or individual trees, until he shall have sealed the servants of God, there is presented, in the antithesis of two chronological sections of time, in the antithesis of the bound and the loosed winds, a spiritual antithesis; that, namely, of the sealed, over whom the four winds have no power, as contrasted with the injured earth, the injured sea, and the injured trees. The temporal distinction, however, has likewise its own independent signification; the winds are never loosed until the kernel of the faithful is firmly established.
The nature of the other Angel, ascending from the rising of the sun, is determined by the idea of the sealing. Since the conception of justification has suffered such decay in the evangelical Church, it is not to be wondered at that our Theology has in still greater measure lost the idea of sealing, although the latter was prefigured in the Old Testament (Eze 9:4), whilst it appears distinctly in the New Testament as the idea of the eternal fixation of Christian character, to preserve it from the danger of apostasy (Rom 5:4, ; Jam 2:21; Eph 1:13). [See. p. 186.]
With justification, the new life of faith is principially decided; it is necessary, however, that it should be historically proved and fixed, just as it was necessary that Abrahams faith should be proved (see Jam 2:21; comp. Jam 2:23). Now this proving [or verification] is called, in its relation to the simple trials of life, proving; in its spiritual import, over against the temptations to apostasy, it is denominated sealing; Ezekiel symbolized it by a mark on the forehead. It is the mark of a spiritually quick and faithful confession, which the tempter, the spiritual murderer, passes timorously by.
It will hardly be supposed that the Apocalyptist had a lower conception of the sealing than the Apostle Paul; consequently, the Angel of sealing can be significant only of t he Holy Ghost. [See p. 187.] He ascends with the rising of the sun; i. e., the life of Jesus Christ, in His glorification, results in the sending of the Holy Ghost. His seal is the seal of the living God; no letter, no form, no fancy:nothing but the life of the living God, Whose personal manifestation is consummated in the glorification of Christ, begets in pure and honest souls such a homogeneous Divine life as, in its matured form, victoriously withstands all the winds and storms of worldly history (1Jn 5:4). For, after the sealing, all the four winds must have been suffered to sweep over them; otherwise it could not be said of them: they are come out of the great tribulation. Nay, sealing is itself a confirming against great temptation.
Again, this Angel has power, with a mighty voice to put his veto on an untimely loosing of the four winds. This is the power of mighty operations of the Spirit of God, checking for a while the currents of the spirit of this world; e. g., by this power heresies were restrained throughout the entire Apostolic age.
Then follows the sealing itself. This is too great and too extended for the Apocalyptist to describe the view of the acts themselves; he, therefore, hears the number of the sealed. And the mere number is a leading point; it is a predetermined plenary number, the whole harvest of God (Mat 3:12), the whole inheritance of God. [See p. 193.] The winds may take their part, the chaff (Psalms 1; Matthew 3); the whole wheat harvest is secured to the Lord. We scarcely need remark that the predestination indicated corresponds with religious and moral conditions. If it were not so, the sealed must have brought the mark on their foreheads into the world with them.
The plenary number of the sealed is 144,000. For all charismatic ground-forms of the life of faith are represented by the Twelve Tribes; whilst the 12,000 souls out of every Tribe represent the whole ramification of each ground-form into its twelve modifications, and the whole harvest of this fullness of the Divine Spirit and human spirits, through the entire Christian course of the world, as symbolized by 1000 years. In proportion to the historical extension of the Tribes, the number 12,000 is exceedingly small; this fact, however, agrees with all the declarations of the New Testament [in regard to the proportion of the saved].
The order of the Tribes gives rise to several queries. Why is the Tribe of Dan wanting here, whilst in the blessing of Moses the Tribe of Simeon was left out? Why is Simeon here even set over Levi? Why is Manasseh distinguished from Joseph, and why is Ephraim merged in Joseph? It would almost seem as if the Tribes had been mingled together promiscuously, in order to ward off every Judaistic conception from the figure. At all events, the perfect equalization of the Tribes is itself not without significance. A Jew would have expected preference to be shown to the Tribe of Judah; he would, however, have anticipated that the Tribe of Levi would have the priority over all. Levi, however, is placed amongst the later Tribes; the prerogatives of the Old Testament priesthood are at an end (Bengel). We shall revert later to the Christian and Jewish traditions in regard to the omission of the Tribe of Dan. As this Tribe early left its inheritance (Judges 18), and conquered the city of Laish, which, probably, was subsequently included in the domain of Naphthali, the Israelitish genealogy merged it in Naphthali (see 1 Chronicles 4 sqq.); and the Tribe the rather lost its symbolical significance, since it had damaged it, not merely by the surrender of its tribal seat, but also in other ways (by idolatry). And yet from none of these things need we conclude that the future Antichrist is to issue from it, or that it has died out. In all New Testament times, the Twelve Tribes have been represented only by Judah, Benjamin, Levi, and remnants of the other Tribes, and it is not known exactly where the great mass of the Ten Tribes are. The thing which the Apocalyptist had in view was a symbolical twelve, on a historical basis. Possibly the motive for this substitution of the venerable name of Joseph for Ephraim was, that a disturbing allusion to the falling away of Israel might be avoided. Amid all the seeming confusion of the Tribes, in which no distinction is made between the sons of Jacobs lawful wives and the sons of his concubines, it is still in harmony with the theocratic idea that Judah should head the list and Benjamin conclude it.
If we essay now to divide the entire table by the number three, as the number of spirit, into four times three, we have, first, two sons of Leah and one of her maid: Judah, Reuben, Gad; we have, secondly, Leahs adopted son, Aser, Rachels adopted son, Nepthalim, and Manasseh, the first-born of Joseph; the third triad is formed by Leahs sons, Simeon and Levi, and her adopted son, Issachar; in the fourth group, Zabulon is conjoined with Joseph and Benjamin, the late offspring of Leah with the late offspring of Rachel.
On a general survey, the thought forces itself upon our mind that the vision, in its symbolistic enumeration of the Twelve Tribes, has obliterated every semblance of a legal prerogative;apart from Judahs place of honor, which, again, was symbolically significant of the dignity of Christ.
In the 144,000 sealed ones, the assurance is given that the Church shall in all ages have a heart or kernel firm as a rock; an invisible congregation of sealed ones, against whom every power of temptation, or every storm of the four winds, must break. Our eyes are not permitted to behold this kernel, this choicest and innermost part; for this reason, among others,because many apparent forms of Christian heroism are delusive and fall (the young men fall and the youths faint, etc.), whilst insignificant and humble characters, or such as are disguised in worldly forms, step into the breach at decisive moments. Furthermore, we do not readily recognize and honor Gods heroes in a strange attire, as, for instance, when they appear in the Middle Ages in monkish garb, or, in the eighteenth century, in the garment of critical humanism. Enough, the Rock is ever there, and though the gates of the abyss lift themselves up against it, they shall be confounded; and that Rock is Christ in His elect. The fact that these chosen ones are numbered, like the Einheriar [heroes] of Odin in the Northern mythology, points to the conclusion that the reference is not to all pious souls, indiscriminately, or in a body, but to those only who constitute the support of the Church, as is evident also from the description of the 144,000 in Revelation 14, and from the second scene of our vision, the picture of the Church Triumphant.
It is tacitly assumed that the four winds have been loosed subsequently to the sealing. Their effect, however, is not described until we come to the seven Trumpets, and then the figures are changed. Yet it is declared of the triumphant throng: these are they that come ([or, the coming ones] ) out of the great tribulation (Rev 7:14). The throng is not secluded in Heaven, but is constantly receiving new additions. We have here, therefore, no picture of the Church Triumphant in its perfection; we see it in the period of its growth, during the entire course of New Testament times. Hence, too, this Church Triumphant presents the most diverse contrasts to the sealed on earth. It is a multitude so great that none can number it; because, in the first place, it increases every instant by the arrival of those who have died in the Lord; and, further, because not only the sealed heroes of God, but all the blessed make their appearance here. It is a multitude out of all the nations and tribes and peoples and tongues. That there are blessed Israelites in this throng, is a matter of course; and it is just as evident that the name Jews, in the picture of the Church Militant, is the symbolical title of honor of the heroes of the New Testament people of God. They who compose this multitude appear as the antitype of the sealed, i. e., the invincible on earth; they have overcome. They have left the storms of earth behind them; they stand before the Throne, to whose Occupant they owe their general redemption from the woes of earth; and before the Lamb, to Whom they owe their specific redemption. The white robes, with which they are clothed, are significant of their victory; the palms in their hands denote the eternal festival that has begun for them. Their maturity is evidenced in part from the fact of their ascribing their whole salvation to the grace of God, glorifying not simply the government of the Father, but also that of the Lamb; not simply the government of the Lamb, but also that of the Father, and praising the latter first. Their song is a unitous, mighty harmony, at which the Angels in the grand circle surrounding the Elders and the Living-forms, fall upon their faces and worship. The Amen which they utter, proclaims the unison of the whole spirit-world with that redemption of which earth is the scene (Col 1:20); and their present understanding of the great fact so long hid from their gaze (Eph 3:10; 1Pe 1:12) is expressed in their doxology. In accordance with their universal stand-point, they merge the praise of the Lamb in the general praise of God. It is evident from the praise which they render, that the world of spirits and the world of blessed humanity have become one congregation of God. The sevenfoldness of their ascription of praise has been referred, not without reason, to the antithesis of the seven Thunders; at all events, the whole New Testament Divine week, the entire accomplishment of the work of redemption is herein symbolized. In the first two dicta lies the general verdict, the praise of the spirits, corresponding with the glory of God. The two following dicta are declarative, on the one hand, of the wisdom of God; and, on the other, of the thanksgiving of the spirits. In the following two, mention is made of the honor, the honorableness, which God has given to His people, and with it is extolled the power or majesty to which they owe this honor. That, however, which has finally snatched the redeemed out of all tribulation, is the eschatological mighty ruling of God. And for this He is worshipped, in accordance with all these terms, into the ons of the ons; all the ground-tones of the worlds history, and of the history of salvation form themselves into this eternal hymn, resounding henceforth without end throughout the ons.
The conversation next ensuing between one of the Elders and the Seer himself, reviews the spiritual career through which the blessed ones of Heaven passed on earth. The Elder seems to answer the question contained in the astonishment of the Seer by first questioning him as to whether he knows who the white-robed ones are and whence they come. Though the Seer himself cannot be uncertain in regard to the general facts of the case, he desires a heavenly assurance as to the earthly extraction of the blessed. He, therefore replies: Thou knowest. The response of the Elder embraces both questions: Who are they? and whence come they? For they are sufficiently characterized by the statement that they came out of the great tribulation of all earthly trials and temptations; that they have escaped from it; and that, with a full sense of the inherent natural impurity of their garments,which are significant of their form of lifethey have washed themwashed them and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. We cannot conceive of blood as making garments white, but in the conception of salvation, the Atonement in Christ makes them white as snow. Here, then, righteousness of faith and righteousness of life are evidently united. In accordance with this is their exaltation ( ; comp. Php 2:9). They are before the Throne of God, happy in the contemplation of His governance. They serve Him day and night in His Temple. This is the eternal, real Divine service of the priestly race; they have become absolutely devoid of will, and strong in will in their God. The glory of God is extended permanently over them, just as, in a typical manner, it was outspread over the Ark of the Covenant in the Holy of Holies. All their longings, all their needs are satisfied; their hunger and their thirst are forever appeased; i. e., they are in the enjoyment of all heavenly blessings, whilst they are free from every annoyance from the earthly sun and every heat of the day. They are thus complete negatively and positively. They have reached the highest point of that experience which falls to the lot of Gods people even on the earth, according to Psalms 23. The Lamb in the midst before the Throne is their Shepherd, Who feeds them and leads them to the water-springs of life. And, again, together with their positive felicity, their negative blessedness is expressed in a few glorious and comforting words: God Himself (their Leader through the vale of tears) shall wipe away every tear from their eyes. The highest heavenly consolation for every sad experience is theirs, in the warmest human form, as if consoling love were for them transformed into pure maternal tenderness. Every tear! Every tear of every sort! God shall wipe it away as a mother does with her child. The blessed, then, may come into the heavenly world with a tear in their eyes, a child-like question as to the way that God has led them.
[ABSTRACT OF VIEWS, ETC]
By the American Editor
[Elliott says, concerning the two visions of this chapter, that they together constitute the second part of the sixth Seal (see p. 168). The period he places between the destruction of the political power of heathenism and the year 395. This period he sets forth as satisfying the symbols, in that it was one in which1. The threatening tempest of barbarians, which so soon subverted the Roman greatness, being just during the Constantinian era repelled or suspended on the frontiers (quoting Gibbon III. 97); 2. The great mass of the professedly Christianized population of the Roman world were Christians in profession only; 3. Through the instrumentality of faithful ministers, Jesus gathered an elect portion for Himself from the corrupt mass. The first vision (Rev 7:1-8) he regards as figurative not of events cognizable in real life by mortal eyes, but of certain invisible and spiritual actings by Jesus Christ, whereby to constitute and mark out for Himself an election of grace; the second (Rev 7:9-17) as indicating that the view of Christs true Church embraced the far future, as well as the present; the perpetuation of this true Church in its integrity ; and, in fine, the realization by the whole collective body of its many successive generations, and by each and all of its individual members, of the blessedness of accomplished salvation and the glory of the beatific vision.
Barnes agrees with Elliott, substantially, as to the period of the first vision, carrying it on, however, to the sack of Rome, A. D. 410. By the sealing he understands the affixing some mark, sign or token (1) by which they who were the people of God would be known; (2) that would be conspicuous or prominent, as if it were impressed on the forehead; (3) appointed by God Himself; (4) that would be a pledge of safety. What this sealing is, he does not directly state. His language is such as to induce the belief, that he regarded it as, possibly, two-fold: (1)Christian profession, in view of which multitudes were saved in the destruction of Rome by Alaric, and (2) the influence of the doctrines of grace selecting and designating those who were the true servants of God among the multitudes who professed to be His followers. The process of sealing he regards as continued throughout the long night of Papal darkness. The second vision (Rev 7:9-17) he regards as an episode having no immediate connexion with what precedes or with what follows. The scene is transferred to Heaven, and there is a vision of all the redeemednot only of the 144,000, but of all who would be rescued and saved from a lost world.
Stuart regards Revelation 7 as an episode indicating the care of God for His people, and their safety in the time of destruction.
Wordsworth treats of the whole chapter as an episode, without directly declaring that it is so. He regards the first vision as relating to the blessed company of all faithful people gathered together from all parts of the world and constituting the Church universal, redeemed by Christs blood, and sealed by His Spirit, etc.; the second vision he regards as relating to the same Church glorified and triumphant.
Alford directly declares that the whole chapter is an episode; the first vision representing the sealing of the elect on earth; the second, the great final assemblage of the saints in Heaven. Concerning the first vision, he declares that it stands in closest analogy with Mat 24:31. The judgment of the great day is in fact going on in the background. Concerning the nature of the sealing, he expresses no opinion; as to its intent, he argues that (1) it was to exempt those sealed from the judgments which were to come on the unbelieving, and (2) it appropriates to God those upon whom it has passed.
Lord connects the visions with the sixth Seal. Under his comments on this Seal, he writes: Betwixt that fall (of Bonaparte in 1815) and the final subversion of the governments of the earth, denoted by the passing away of the heavens, a period intervenes during which the sealing symbolized by the next vision is to take place. In this vision (Rev 7:1-8), he regards the winds as indicating multitudes and nations roused to passion, and uniting in a violent demolition of political and social institutions; the symbol of the sealing as denoting that the servants of God, ere the whirlwind of ruin begins, are to be led to assume a new attitude towards the apostate Church, and usurping civil rulers, by which, and in a manner never before seen, they are to be shown to be indubitably His true people. The sealed and the witnesses (Rev 11:13) are undoubtedly the same. The scene of the second vision he declares to be the Divine presence. The innumerable multitude stand before the throne of God and the Lamb, and are undoubtedly the redeemed raised from the dead, publicly accepted and exalted to the station of heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ in His Kingdom (the resurrection here referred to is the firstthat of the holy dead).E. R. C.]
EXPLANATIONS IN DETAIL
To regard Revelation 7 as an episode, with Eichhorn and others, and even Dsterdieck, is almost as incorrect as to assume, in accordance with Vitringa, that it constitutes the second and third parts of the sixth Seal; according to this view, the true contents of the sixth Seal, as described in Revelation 6, would form but the third of it.
The discussions relative to the purpose of the sealing show the obscurity that has crept over the idea of sealingan idea so familiar to the New Testament, and introduced even by the Old Testament. Dsterdieck justly combats the view of many exegetes (especially -Lapide, Ebrard), according to which the sealing here denotes an insurance against threatening penal judgments. The New Testament sealing secures against that temptation to apostasy which is enwrapped in the penal judgments, and thus conditionally, we admit, annuls the penal judgments so far as the sealed are concerned, although they pass through them. And hence the signs, , Exodus 12 and Ezekiel 9, have a typical relation to this passage; a fact which Dsterdieck denies, notwithstanding his correct apprehension of the idea of sealing (p. 280).
[Is not the sealing the impressing upon believers the name, i. e., the image of God the Father and the Son (comp. Rev 14:1), or, in other words, is it not their sanctification? This interpretation well agrees with all the instances in the New Testament, in which it is said that believers are sealed (see 2Co 1:22; Eph 1:13; Eph 4:30). Barnes writes: It would be something that would be conspicuous or prominent, as if it were impressed upon the forehead. It would not be. merely some internal sealing, or some designation by which they would be known to themselves and to God, but it would be something apparent, as if engraved on the forehead. Sanctification, although internal as to its origin, becomes apparent in the whole carriage of the man; it shines forth from him. No figure of it, as apparent, could be more striking than that of a seal placed upon the foreheadthe noblest and most prominent portion of the physical man.
[The intent of sealing is, first, to make manifest the fact of ownership, and, secondly, to secure. Both these ends are effected by the sealing, as interpreted above; and furthermore, it may be remarked, the safety of that portion of the sealed who may remain on earth during the period of the great tribulation is insured, whether we regard that tribulation as resulting from special judgments, inflicted by personal ministers of God, or from the influx of fearful temptations. In the former case, it is secured, as was that of the Israelites in the last great judgment inflicted upon the Egyptians, by the sprinkled blood of the paschal lamb; in the latter, by the spiritual strength inwrought by the Spirit of sanctification.E. R. C.]
With the manifold misapprehension of the sealing, a non-appreciation of the universal import of this section is connected. Hence have arisen false specializations, as e. g.: the flight of the Christians to Pella (Grot. and others). All the Jews down to the final judgment (Heinrich). All the servants of God at the end of the days (De Wette). Hengstenberg, however, interprets the passage more correctly than would appear from Dsterdiecks notice of his views (p. 277). He writes as follows: The sealing, as a symbolical act, is enclosed in a particular epoch of time; it takes place, once for all, before the commencement of the plagues with which the godless world is judged. The root idea, however, is this: that God protects His own in the midst of all the judgments that sweep over the godless world.The sealing has reference to the entire duration of the Christian Church, until its final consummation; to the entire duration of the world, to its final destruction (?). It has, therefore, not yet lost its significance.
The relation of the second part of the chapter (from Rev 7:9 to the close) to the first part has been defined in harmony with the individualization of the section. The innumerable multitude of Christians, Rev 7:9, has reference to the Christians in Syria, according to Grotius. It forms a portion of the 144,000; a portion that have perished despite the sealing, according to Heinrich. It is also declared to be identical with the 144,000. Dsterdieck makes an ingenious attempt to answer the question why only believing Jews (as he supposes) are represented as sealed. If, however, it were really true that sealed Jewish Christians were alone intended here, the charge of Volkmar and others, that the Book is Judaistic, would not be so easily set aside. Ebrard affirms, that Israel alone is spoken of here, not because the Gentile Christians then existing together with it are excluded from this congregation of Israel, but because they must be conceived of as adopted into it. This reminds us of a generally diffused school-idea, according to which Israel is, at the end, yet to obtain legal prerogatives; though it was to its pretension to such prerogatives that its apostasy was owing. The simple antithesis of the elect, as the kernel of the Church in this world, and the innumerable blessed, as the constituents of the continually increasing Church in the other world, is entirely overlooked. Even Dsterdieck limits the 144,000 to Jews. A special reason for this is the fact, that the Twelve Tribes are mentioned by name. As if the very Tribes had not a typical or symbolical meaning! Let the full consequence of Israels symbolical import be gathered from the Prophets, Evangelists, and Apostolic writings, and Dsterdiecks arguments in favor of Bengels viewviz., that in Rev 7:1-8 only Israelitish believers are intended, whilst Rev 7:9 has reference to blessed spirits from all nations, from the Gentiles and the Jewswill excite nothing but astonishment. On special distinctions see Dsterdieck, p. 280.
Rev 7:1. Four angels.These are neither four world-kingdoms (Bede), nor ostensible Angels of Nature (De Wette), nor bad Angels (Calov.), nor distinct personal Angels, but symbolical angelic forms, like the Cherubs at the entrance of Paradise; denoting here all Gods providential arrangements in regard to the forth-breaking of the spirit or winds of temptation.18 In the Angels who restrain and loose the winds, the idea that the salvation of the elect and the perdition of the wicked (?) come from God alone has, as it were, assumed flesh and blood. Comp. the similar symbolical representation in Rev 9:14-15 (Hengstenberg). The commentator just quoted also shows that the winds in Scripture are symbols of Divine judgments (p. 177); and it is thus that he apprehends them here. In the New Testament, however, they are also symbols of opinions, of false doctrines, Eph 4:14 (comp. Hos 8:7), and this meaning is by far the more probable one here.19 Ebrard truly remarks, that the conception of the four corners of the earth does not necessitate the idea that the earth is a four-cornered plane. The four corners characterize the whole earth-world in respect of its spiritually dark side, the heathen earth. The Seer is already accustomed, like the Christian Church at a later period, to conjoin the idea of heathenism (Paganism) with the idea of a coming from the uttermost corners of the earth. And in this Ezekiel preceded him with his prophecy concerning Gog and Magoga prophecy which John himself takes up (Revelation 20). According to Hengstenberg, the four winds denote, that the storms of Divine judgments are to burst upon the earth from all sides. Dsterdieck maintains that the winds are to be taken simply as actual storm-winds, just as in Rev 6:12 a real earthquake should be understood. Misunderstanding is driven to its utmost stretch when it is proposed to take the figures of an allegorical book literally, and when, on the other hand, the law-abiding explanation of these allegorical figures is denominated allegorical interpretation. With equal justice might it be said, that the sower of Matthew 13 is a real sower, and that the spiritual interpretation of him is allegorical exposition. However abortive most of the interpretations of such allegorical figures may be, they are so only because they have not sufficiently regarded the key which is offered by the poetical and prophetico-symbolical style of expression. Our remark applies, for instance, to Bengels explanation of the earth as Asia; the sea as Europe; the trees as Africa. Yet other interpretations see in Dsterdieck. Hengstenberg quite rightly understands the sea as denoting the sea of nations. Here, however, the sea should be apprehended in the better sense of the term, as symbolizing Christian national life, because it is possible for it to be injured; it cannot thus be understood, however, in cases where the harm proceeds from it, as Dan 7:2 and Revelation 13. Hengstenberg thinks that the trees denote kings or magnates; trees and grass, the lofty and the lowly. We prefer, in this passage, to apprehend the trees in accordance with Psalms 1, the grass in accordance with Psalms 23, since it is not neutral things that are spoken of as being injured, but positively good things.
[May there not be here a double symbolizationthe storm directly significant of a convulsion that is to shake the real earth and sea, and that symbolic of convulsion in the whole fabric of human society? Our Lord connects together storms in the physical and social worlds as preceding His Coming (Luk 21:25-28), and the whole imagery of the Apocalypse leads to the idea that such storms will be connected in realityE. R. C.]
Rev 7:2. And I saw another angel.Vitringa, with perfect justice, regarded this other Angel as significant of the Holy Ghost. Dsterdieck considers it too great a digression from the text to regard him even as an Archangel (Stern), or as Christ (Calov., Hengstenb.). The term certainly is , and not Holy Ghost; but outside of Apocalyptic symbolism, it is the Holy Ghost Who seals. [The Holy Ghost, doubtless, is the efficient sealer; but may not the Angel be a symbol of the instrumentalities by which He seals?E.R.C.] This Angel undoubtedly says in Rev 7:3, the servants of our God; but he must, necessarily, speak as an Angel and he also includes with himself, as Hengstenberg correctly reminds us, the four Angels first spoken of. [The inclusion is possible, but not necessary.E. R. C.]
Ascending from the sun-rising.Even this, we are told, contains nothing but the significant intimation, that the Angel who comes on an errand of blessing, with the guarantee of life eternal (Angels, then, are possessed of such power!), rises from the side whence light and life are brought by the earthly sun. Dsterdieck, with reference to Hengstenberg (?), Ebrard, Volkmar and others. The words, then, contain a modern poetical figure, and nothing more, though Scripture speaks of the rising of the Sun of righteousness (Mal 4:2; comp. Luk 1:78; Hengstenberg, p. 382 sqq.). Dsterdieck rejects a number of interpretations similar to his own (p. 284).
A seal of the Living God.This term does not denote merely that the seal belongs to the living God; it means, rather, that it secures a life corresponding to the living Godthe new life of believers. Hence God is termed the living God. According to De Wette, the expression means that God is the true God, and hence that His seal is the valid one. According to Hengstenberg, Dsterdieck and others, the meaning is, that God, as the Living One, is also the bestower of life. Our passage treats of the insurance of a life already given, as is always the case when sealing is spoken of. Together with the idea of insuring, the idea of property is included. These two conceptions really cannot be separated; he who seals anything, secures it to himself. Without this reference of insurance to ownershipof which Hengstenberg can find no certain example in Scripturesealing, as such, would have merely the import of a mechanical fastening. But even a lock is not purely and simply a mechanical impediment.
According to the hypothesis of several exegetes, the seal bore the name of Jehovah. Such commentators refer to Rev 14:1, where the elect are described as having the Name of God written on their foreheads, etc. It is to be observed, that Ezekiel (Rev 9:4) merely speaks of a mark, without further qualification. This fact alone should prevent us from going beyond what is expressly stated in the text (Hengstenberg). Others have conjectured that the seal bore the sign of the cross. Dsterdieck, on the other hand, concludes, from the omission of the definite article, that we are at liberty to suppose that God has different seals for different purposes. The Apostle Paul, however, seems to know of but one purpose in the sealing of the servants of God.20
And he cried with a great voice.This, according to Hengstenberg, denotes the decidedness of the command. Other interpretations see in Dsterdieck, p. 286. We understand by it the mighty counter-working of apostolic Christianity against the incipient breaking loose of spiritual heathenism upon the Church.
To whom it was given.We find no pluperfect in ; for it is not until the sealing that such power is given them. Previous to the sealing, the four Angels were just as much designed for the restraining of the winds as they afterwards were for the loosing of them, for they were the angelic purpose and the angelic measure of the winds themselves (Psa 104:4)
To injure the earth. is to be apprehended in the more general sense of doing harm to.21 A strange perversion of the sense is shown in the interpretations of Bengel, Herder and Rinck, according to whom the holding of the winds should be regarded as an injury, because they have a cooling or a dispersing effect. The in Rev 7:3, irrespective of anything else, decides in regard to the meaning. It even precludes the assumption that harm would result only in case the winds were loosed too soon. After the sealing, the injuring really ensues; though the loosing of the storms is not literally narrated, it is actually accomplished with the sounding of the seven Trumpets.
Till we have sealed.The general apprehension of the plural as indicating that the Angel has assistants who are not mentioned, may have another direction given to it in the assumption, that the four Angels themselves are the assistants of the Angel who issues the command. This view is justly upheld by Hengstenberg, though Dsterdieck opposes it. For the repression and limitation, as well as the cooperation of temptation, of trial, of tribulation from without, are alike necessary in order that man may inwardly attain to his sealing. As, however, a certain degree of temptation is the condition of sealing, so there are also degrees of temptation which would be irresistible, were it not for the previous sealing. And this is the idea presented here. Hence the four Angels must first take a negative part in the sealing by holding the four winds in check for a time. Calovius application of the plural to the Trinity, see noticed by Dsterdieck.
The servants of our God.In the Old Testament all the pious are, in a general sense, servants of God, in accordance with His Thorah [law]. In a special sense, however, the people of Israel, or pious Israelites, are His servants, being organs of God, designed for the diffusion of His light, His law and His salvation over the whole earth (Isa 42:1). In the most special sense, therefore, the Messiah is His Servant (Isaiah 53). On account of the contrast of son-ship and the slavish servitude of legalists (Romans 6.), the term servant occupies a less conspicuous place in the New Testament. The of God is a servant who is familiar with his Masters purpose, and serves voluntarily. The high and honorable name of , however, gradually and significantly re-appears, and the of Christ is also the of God (Tit 1:1; Rev 1:1). The true servants of God are those in whom Israels destiny is fulfilled; those who, in and with Christ, represent, as the kernel of the Church, Gods light and law on the earth.22 And these, some exegetes would fain persuade us, are Jewish Christians exclusively! De Wette, says Ebrard, wrongly refers to Rev 14:1 in proof of the incorrectness of the view which makes the sealed ones of Revelation 7 Jewish Christians. In his opinion the 144,000 sealed ones of Revelation 7 re-appear in Revelation 14, being generally designated in Rev 7:3 as redeemed from the earth.We shall see, in due time, that the 144,000 introduced in the latter chapter have nothing whatever to do with those of Revelation 7.23 And yet in each case the number and qualification [the mark on the forehead] are the same! The identity of individuals is, of course, not the material point: what we contend for is the identity of the idea: viz. of the 144,000 as the stand-holders of the people of God, the pillars of the Temple.
On their foreheads.Dsterdieck: The mark received by the servants of the Beast islike the mark of slaves in ordinary lifeimpressed upon the right hand or the forehead (Rev 13:16; Rev 14:9; Rev 20:4); the servants of God bear the seal and the name of their Lord on their foreheads alone. The fact that this is the most conspicuous place (Aret., Bengel, Stern and others) is a sufficient reason only in the case of the servants of the Beast; with the servants of God, the material point is, rather, that the noblest part of the body should bear the sacred mark. Again, there is no recourse to the Scriptural bases of the idea. Why does Aaron bear the name of Jehovah upon his frontlet (Exo 39:30; Exo 28:36), and upon his breast-plate the name of the children of Israel? The breast encloses the secret of faith; but the forehead manifests the confession, the stand-point, the symbol, the colors and standard (Rom 10:10). When it is said of the house of Israel: It hath hard foreheads and obdurate hearts ([they are stiff of forehead and hard of heart] Eze 3:7), not only is the like substance of unbelief expressed, but also an antithesis of form. The expression: Thy forehead against their forehead, is precisely a case in point. The symbolical sense of the words is unmistakable (see Eze 3:8-9).
Rev 7:4-8. As the loosing of the storms is not described further on, neither is the very act of sealing now depicted. John heard the number of the sealed. Why probably from the other Angel (De Wette, Ebrard)? The visional hearing is the finest sensorium for the most secret and profound revelation (see 2Co 12:4). And there are here but three general points: Israel; the number, 144,000; each Tribe furnishing a twelfth of this number. On the number itself, see the Introduction, p. 16. The equality of the number 12,000 for each Tribe is, according to Dsterdieck, expressive of the idea that all have an equal share in the Divine gift of gracenone, however, of right. But if the Twelve Tribes, like the Twelve Apostles, be significant, as an organic totality, of the manifold-ness of the different gifts of grace, the meaning of this equality will be, that the round sum and plenitude of every species of churchly gifts of grace is assured to the eternal Kingdom of God.
The enumeration of Levi amongst the Twelve Tribes has been pertinently explained by Bengel as follows: The Levitic ceremonies being done away with, Levi is again placed on an equal footing with his brethren. Now if, Levi being included, Manasseh and Ephraimthe latter under the name of Josephretain their places in the catalogue, the result must be thirteen Tribes. In order to avoid this, the vision omits the Tribe of Dan.
On violences against the text, see Dsterdieck, p. 289. As also on the play upon the name of Manasseh; the ancient conjecture, that Antichrist is to come out of Dan (with reference to the figure of the serpent, Gen 49:17!); the reference to the idolatry of the Danites; also the reference to the Jewish tradition, representing the Tribe as being extinct, with the exception of a single family. Dsterdieck himself thinks that the omission of Dan is to be explained on the ground of the Tribes having become extinct. We refer to the general view of the chapter presented above.24 The Tribe of Simeon was also in danger of being left out on account of its partial emigration and its partial fusion with Judah (see 1 Chronicles 4.; comp., with reference to Simeon, Deuteronomy 33. According to Dsterdieck, Issachar, too, is here left out).
On the promiscuous order of the sons of the different wives, and its design, as expressive of the co-ordination of all believers, see Hengst., p. 398 sqq.
For a table of the different occasions when, the Twelve Tribes are mentioned, see Ebrard, p. 266 (Gen 29:30; Genesis 49 :; Numbers 1; Numbers 2; Deuteronomy 27; Deuteronomy 33; Ezekiel 48)
On an error in the Cod. Sin. see Dsterdieck, p. 290. [Gad and Simeon are omitted; Joseph and Benjamin, transposed.E. R. C.]
Rev 7:9. As a matter of course,De Wette to the contrary, notwithstandingthe section which now follows forms, in connection with the preceding section, one general picture.25
[The vision seems to be transferred from earth to Heaven; for the multitudes which he saw appeared before the throne, i. e., before the Throne of God in Heaven. The design seems to be to carry the mind forward quite beyond the storms and tempests of earththe days of error, darkness, declension and persecutionto that period when the (entire) Church should be triumphant in Heaven. Barnes.E. R. C.]
A great multitude.The elect in this world are numbered; the blessed in the other world are innumerable. This one antithesis makes a rent both in the Calvinistic doctrine of predestination and in the system of its antagonists, which fails to recognize the element of truth in the doctrine of election. It might be supposed, that the distinction consists in the fact that the 144,000 sealed ones are significant merely of the last Christian generation, whilst the blessed are congregated out of all generations. But even the sealed denote the whole sum of steadfast Christians out of the most diverse Christian ages.
An antithesis must have been formed in the Seer’s perception by the fact, that he only heard on earth of a host whose ranks were closed, whose number was complete, whilst in Heaven he actually saw a whole train of constantly augmenting masses. The constituent element of the contrast can, however, lie only in the distinction between the chosen servants of God who have to withstand the storms of the kingdom of darkness on this earth, and the whole fullness of blessed souls, amongst whom there are also children, who have entered into bliss. In Revelation 14. this antithesis again makes its appearance; and that in stronger terms and as continuing in Heaven itself, without detriment to the blessedness of all.
According to Dsterdieck, the difference is contained in the circumstance, that the sealed are of Israel exclusively, whilst the great multitude are gathered out of all nations. According to Ebrard, the distinction consists in the fact, that the former are the Christians still on earth in the last time, being, therefore, pre-eminently Jewish Christians; whilst the latter are all the blessed in the other world, being, therefore, pre-eminently Gentile Christians. According to De Wette, the distinction consists in the fact, that the former are representative of an elect number, in antithesis to the rejected, whilst in the latter case there is no such antithesis.26
Standing before the Throne.The nominative 27 remarkable in connection with the accusative [see Text, and Gram.], seems, together with , to be dependent upon , thus supporting the reading indicated; it may be explained, however, by the irregularity of the Apocalyptic style.
Standing before the Throne, and before the Lamb.Contemplation of the two-fold and yet unitous source of their felicity, in Gods providence and Christs suffering; this contemplation is at once the continuance and the perfection of their bliss.
[Of all nations.Not only of the Jews; not only of the nations which in the time of the sealing vision had embraced the Gospel, but of all the nations of the earth. And kindreds.This word properly refers to those who are descended from a common ancestry, and here denotes a race, lineage, kindred.And peoples.This word refers properly to a people or community as a mass, without reference to its origin or any of its divisions. And tongueslanguages.This word would refer also to the inhabitants of the earth with respect to the fact, that they speak different languages not as divided into nations; not with reference to their lineage or clanship; and not as a mere mass without reference to any distinction, but as divided by speech. The meaning of the whole is, that persons from all parts of the earth, as contemplated in these points of view, would be among the redeemed. Barnes.E. R. C]
The white robes are the attire of victory. [The emblems of innocence or righteousness, uniformly represented as the raiment of the inhabitants of Heaven. Barnes. Comp. chs. 3:4; 6:11; and especially Rev 7:14, where the symbol is explained.E. R. C.] The palms are signs of peace and festivity. From these the inference has been drawn that a heavenly Feast of Tabernacles or harvest is indicated (Zllig, Hengstenberg, p. 403, with reference to Zec 14:16). The palms, as a symbol of victory, attribute an activity to the redeemed which is not pertinent here, where everything subserves to the praise of Gods transcendent redeeming grace (Hengstenberg). As if any principial contradiction were involved therein! It cannot be disputed, however, that the Israelitish Feast of Tabernacles might form the point of departure for the present figurative representation. [The palm was the symbol of victory amongst the Greeks, but not amongst the Hebrews. With the latter (in the Feast of Tabernacles) it was the memento of trials from which they had been deliveredit was the symbol of salvation (comp. Lev 23:39-44.). The remarks of Trench on Rev 2:17 (the last quoted), p. 85, are applicable here.E. R. C.]
Rev 7:10-12. With a great voice.Now follows the doxology of the Church Triumphant, rejoicing in its deliverance from the great tribulation of the Church Militant. The mighty voice is the expression of the great, common, unitous feeling of all the redeemed at their complete redemption. denotes the whole redemptive salvation, as principial and final [deliverance from sin (comp. Mat 1:21) and woe.E. R. C.]. Grotius erroneously interprets metonymically (=gratias ob acceptam salutem). The thanksgiving consists rather in the fact, that the ascribe the given them to their God as the (Dsterdieck). This, then, is, after all, equivalent to converting the into a thank-offering.28 The Apocalyptic doxologies have in all cases a similar profound meaning. They give back to God in thanks and praise that which He has first bestowed.
Rev 7:11. And all the Angels.Here personal Angels are spoken of. Whilst the symbolical Angels are restraining the storms on earth, it is said of this heavenly choir: all the Angels.
Were standing.The celebration of the fact of redemption summons them all around the Throne. They first ratify the song of praise raised by the throng of blessed human spirits, by their deep adoration and their Amen. Then they also give expression to their angelic stand-point in contemplating the redemption. We apprehend their doxology from the Christological point of view, so that three harmonious antitheses form a group of six, which, with a mighty finale, becomes a septenary. See the Synoptical View.
Rev 7:13-17. The ensuing explanation of the foregoing vision reminds us of a similar scene which occurs in Rev 17:7. The conversation here, manifestly, serves to give additional distinctness and effectiveness to the hortatory and consolatory idea of the vision.
Rev 7:13. And one of the Elders answered.An Elder speaks; what he says is an answer according to Hebrew usage. No explicit question preceded his reply; it had, however, an interrogative cause, consisting, doubtless, in the question enwrapped in the astonishment of the Seer. An Elder, as a representative of redeemed humanity, is the fittest interpreter of the scene depicted.29 The dialogistic form, with its distinctness and liveliness, serves to mark the point in question (Dsterdieck).
These who are arrayed In white robes, who are they? and whence came they?He does not mention the token of the palmsa circumstance which demonstrates more clearly his desire to give prominence to the great marvel: so many men of a sinful racecountless menin the garb of innocence. Yes, countless holy men! How is it possible? Here the question qui genus? unde domo? (see Dsterdieck) acquires quite a unique significance.
Rev 7:14. Lord, thou knowest.This mode of addresslord or siris, in its more general sense, a term of respect. Thou knowest. Ebrard: I, indeed, know; but thou knowest far better. Dsterdieck and others: I know not, but I should like thee to tell me.
Both, of course, are aware that these blessed ones are men, and that they come from earth. Even John knows great things concerning the redemption and its effect. But notwithstanding this, it continues to be a question with him, what the nature of this vision of innumerable sanctified human beings, clad in snow-white raiment, is. He is battling with sin, like Elijah of old, and though it is with a New Testament experience of salvation that he is waging this conflict, still the view of the Elder is on a higher plane than his own, just as the voice that told of the seven thousand faithful Israelites was exalted above the conception entertained by Elijah. The wealth of the heavenly fruits of the Gospel passes even the ethical conception of a John.
The train of the blessed is an endless festal line; they come and come. Hence the answer:
These are they that come [Lange:These are the ones coming].And the answer to the question, Whence come they? is at the same time a reply to the inquiry as to who they are. All who suffered, fought and conquered in the great tribulation through which every Christian, from the beginning of the ages of the Cross down to the end, has to pass. According to Dsterdieck, the great tribulation of the last days is alone intended. He also thinks that the comers are to be regarded as on earth as yet.
Out of the great tribulation.This expression has, doubtless, an eschatological bearing; not, however, in the sense which Dsterdieck attributes to it, citing Ebrard in support of his view, though the last-named commentator says: The great tribulation can be only that general one, which had begun in Johns time, and which is to continue until the at Christs return. On the other hand, Bengels interpretation of the great tribulation, as significant of all the Adamic trouble and toil of Earth, is, undoubtedly, too general, or, rather, it is altogether wrong, since the tribulation begins only with the conflicts of faith. This is the first historical fundamental feature of the blessed: they have passed happily through this great tribulation. The historical conflict, however, is based upon the inward fact:
And they washed their robes, etcQuite characteristically Johannean is this more definite apprehension of the Atonement in the innermost centre of the expiation. Equally characteristic the Catholic medival idea, held by Bede and Lyra, of the purifying power of the blood of the martyrs; Ewald himself, in his earlier publication, espoused this view (see Dst., p. 295). Hengstenbergs distinction of the washing from the making white, and his application of the former to the forgiveness of sins and of the latter to sanctification, is contrary to the nature of the figure. A washing whereby the garments have become white, is denoted (Dsterdieck).
[Note on The Great Tribulation.Daniel (11:1) prophesied of a trouble () to occur in the last days in the following language: (LXX.) , , . He also declared at that time thy people shall be delivered (). The evident implication of the Prophet is that this shall not be visited upon the people of God, but upon men of the world. Our Lord (manifestly referring to this prophecy, for He uses its very phraseology) speaks of the same , describing it as great. His language is (Mat 24:21): , , . This immediately precedes the Coming of the Son of Man (Mat 24:30); and there can be no doubt that the period thereof is that of the vengeance predicted Luk 21:22, whose special woes the disciples were exhorted to labor to escape by faithfulness (Luk 21:36). In the Epistle to the Church of Philadelphia, the same tribulation, doubtless, was alluded to as the hour of temptation (), which should try them that dwell upon the Earth (worldlings), but from which the faithful should be kept (Rev 3:10). It seems hardly possible to avoid the conclusion, that when, in connexion with the Coming of the Lord, a tribulation was spoken of to John, which, in the very words of Jesus, is emphasized as the tribulation, the great one ( ), the Seer must have understood by it the very tribulation predicted by Jesus. Two objections, possibly, may be urged against this view, viz.: that (1) the redeemed are said to come out of () the tribulation; (2) this interpretation involves that the innumerable white-robed throng consists only of those who were on earth at the beginning of the tribulation. Concerning the former of these, it may be said, that the force of not necessarily that the delivered should have been actual participators in, or sufferers from, that from which they are delivered, see chs. 2:11; 3:10; 18:4; Joh 10:39; Act 15:29; 2Co 1:10; Gal 2:13; 2Ti 4:17; 2Pe 2:9, etc. The second objection disappears on the supposition, that the winds, which are to bring on the great tribulation, have been threatening, but are withheld, throughout the entire preceding period, until the sealing and gathering of the elect; on this supposition, all the redeemed who have died throughout the preceding ages have gone up from that which is constantly threatening (see under Rev 3:10, and also Additional Note, on p. 193).
[There can be little doubt that the prophecy of our Lord, Mat 22:15-22; Luk 21:20-24, found its first or typical fulfillment in the destruction of Jerusalem; it should be remembered, however, that, previous to that destruction, the Christians, remembering the Lords admonition, forsook Jerusalem and fled to the town of Pella, where King Herod Agrippa II. opened to them a safe asylum (Schaffs Hist. Ap. Ch., p. 391). It may be asked, if the flood, the destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah, and the destruction of Jerusalem, are not types of the great tribulation, and if the deliverance of Noah, of Lot, and of the Church of Jerusalem, are not, at the same time, types of the deliverance of the Saints (comp. 2Pe 2:5-9)?E. R. C.]
Rev 7:15. On this account are they before the throne.[They are in Heaven; see the extract from Barnes, p. 185.E. R. C.] Perfectly Johannean: 1Jn 3:2. And all this Grotius soberly refers to the Christians in Pella!
And serve Him day and night.The heavenly life has itself become a priestly service of God, being, moreover, as a spiritual life, elevated above the change of day and night (Rev 4:8; Rev 5:8; Rev 22:3). [The heavenly life is not one of mere enjoyment, but of continued, active service.E. R. C.]
And He that sitteth on the throne shall spread his tabernacle over them [Lange: shall settle abidingly over them]. is difficult to translate. Hengstenbergs translation: to tabernacle, is objected to by Ebrard on philological grounds. The expression , Rev 21:3, is different from the present term . In Rev 21:22 it is declared concerning the City of God: I saw no Temple in it: God Himself is its Temple. There is, then, a development of blessedness in the other world. Whatever interpretation we may give to the passages in question, it is a thought of unique grandeur, that the glory or Shekinah of God, once veiled by the pillar of cloud and fire, and, outside of distinct prophetic manifestations, regularly revealed only in a figurative form to the High Priest in the Holy of Holies (of the Tabernacle), is now, in a permanent and apparent glory, to sink down from the Throne upon the blessed and spread itself out over them. See Mat 5:8; 1Co 13:12; comp. Lev 26:11; Isa 4:5; Eze 37:27. [It is exceedingly difficult to express the sense of these glorious words, in which the fulfillment of the O. T. promises, such as Lev 26:11; Isa 4:5-6; Eze 37:27, is announced. They give the fact of the dwelling of God among them, united with the fact of His protection being over them, and assuring to them the exemptions next to be mentioned. Alford.E. R. C.]
Rev 7:16. They shall not hunger any more.Psa 17:15.
Thirst.Isa 55:1; Psa 107:9.
Hunger and thirst, and the satisfaction of both these needs, are, throughout the Scriptures, the fixed figures of spiritual circumstances. As the body is a fixed symbol of the soul, so the conditions of bodily existence and satisfaction are a fixed symbol of the corresponding spiritual conditions. [If the vision was of the post-resurrection condition of the Saints, there was more than the figure of spiritual supply in these words. The bodies raised from the dead shall experience no want or pain.E. R. C.]
The sun.Psa 121:6; Psalms 90 and other passages. The oriental sun, in its overpowering effects; a type, also, of overpowering reality in daily life.
Any burning heat, (.)Heat of the hot wind, of the burden of the day, of fever, etc.
For the Lamb.Isa 49:10. He that hath mercy on them. [Ihr Erbarmer their Compassionator.] From Him that shows mercy, or that pities, comes the Spirit of mercy; He perfects His manifestation in the spirit of the Lamb, personal and complete meekness, and founds a congregation of infinitely deep and firm peace. On the expression: , comp. Dsterdieck, p. 297. The meaning is probably this: that Christ, by His invincible meekness, has risen to the centre of the Divine government. As the meek are to possess the kingdom of the earth, so the Meek One par excellence has attained the sovereignty over Heaven and earth at the right hand of the Father and in His Name, Mat 28:18; Philippians 2.
Shallshepherdize them.Psalms 23; John 10.
And God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.Isa 25:8; Rev 21:4.
[ADDITIONAL NOTE ON THE VISIONS OF Revelation 7.]
By the American Editor
[That chap. 7 is independent of what precedes (although, of course, related to it), is evident from the disjunctive phrase, , with which it commences (see footnote, p. 190); and that it consists of two independent visions, is also evident from the similar phrase with which the second vision is introduced, Rev 7:9. These visions are here introduced as proper to this stage of the complex narrative. They do not, properly speaking, constitute an Episode, because they enter as materially into the revelation of things future as do the events under the Seals. They are not placed under the Seals, because the matters set forth were not concealed from the heavenly hosts (the withholding of the tempest of wrath, the sealing, and the gathering of the redeemed in bliss), but had been in process of development for a long time, possibly from the days of Abraham or even those of Abel.30
The 144,000 of the first vision the writer identifies with those of Revelation 14; in his judgment the number and the almost certain reference to the Seal upon the forehead in Rev 14:1, place this beyond a peradventure. But if this identification be correct, then the Sealed constitute a peculiar portion of the redeemed, eminent for faithfulness and nearness to Christ: They are the first-fruits, the , unto God and to the Lamb (Rev 14:3-5). This fact seems also to be indicated by the number, which is one of perfection, which may well indicate, not merely completeness as to number, but the peculiar excellence, both in character and condition, of the whole body. They are selected from the tribes, the denominations, of the nominal Israel, the visible Church of God (possibly the Jewish as well as the Christianthe latter being the legitimate successor of the former, Rom 11:17-18). By the sealing the writer understands (probably) a peculiar Christ-likeness impressed upon the sealed by the sanctifying influences of the Holy Ghost (see p. 186). The period of the sealing he regards as extending throughout the whole Christian dispensation, and possibly back to the institution of the visible Church in Abraham, during the whole of which periods the winds of Divine wrath were restrained.31
The second vision contemplated, not (or not merely) the , but the whole body of the redeemed (probably exclusive of the ). This innumerable company was composed of individuals of all agesante as well as post-diluvian; of all races: it included, probably, that innumerable host of infants (more than one half of the entire human family), and those others amongst the nations, who, influenced by the Spirit by modes unknown to us, have been renewed and saved by the blood of the Atonement.
The manifest points of difference between the two companies have already been alluded to; they may, however, be arranged as follows: the one was innumerable, from all nations, the whole body of the redeemed; the other was a (comparatively) small, definite number, from Israel (the Church), the first-fruits. It may be asked, if another point of difference is not suggested by the of Rev 7:9; there the general throng are represented as standing before the Throne, but the promise to the faithful of the Church is that they themselves shall be enthroned with Jesus (comp. chs. 3:21; 20:4).E. R. C]
Footnotes:
[1]Rev 7:1. The uncertain. [Words, and Tisch. give it with . B*. P.; Lach. omits with A. C., Vulg.; Alf. and Treg. bracket.E. R. C.]
[2]Rev 7:1. The reading preponderates. [Critical Editors read with . A. B*. C.; Cod. P., Vulg., etc., give .E. R. C.]
[3]Rev 7:1. , more significant than . [Gries., Words., Lach., Treg., Tisch. (Ed. 1859) read with B*. C., Vulg.; Tisch. (8th Ed.) gives with . P.; Alford brackets .E. R. C.]
[4]Rev 7:3. [The reading is without authority. All the Critical Editors with . A. B*. C. P., etc., E. R. C.]
[5]Rev 7:5. In the best Codd. is given only at the beginning and at the close (Rev 7:5; Rev 7:8).
[6]Rev 7:9. The is doubtful. In a material aspect also, inasmuch as the whole chapter treats of one general vision. [Words., Alf., Treg., Tisch., give with . B*. P.; Lach. omits with A., Vulg.E. R. C.]
[7]Rev 7:9. [Words. and Alf. read with B*.; Cod. C. gives ; Lach., Treg., Tisch. (and Lange, see in loc.), With . A. P., etc., .E. R. C.]
[8]Rev 7:11. Different readings see in Dst. [Lach., Alf., Treg., Tisch. give with . A. B*. P. (. A. P., however, give -, . also gives -, and B*. -.E. R. C.]
[9]Rev 7:14. There is a after according to B*. C., etc. [ is given by Words., Alf., Treg., Tisch., with . B*. C. P., Vulg., etc.; it is omitted by A. 1, etc.E. R. C.]
[10]Rev 7:14. The article is significant. The reading of Lachmann omits it. [Words., Alf., Treg., Tisch., give ., with . B*. P., etc.; Lach. gives . ., with A. (Tisch. does not mention A. as presenting this reading).E. R. C.]
[11]Rev 7:14. Their robes [ ] in accordance with minuscules.
[12]Rev 7:15. [Tisch. (Ed. 1859) gave with B*.; Cod. . A. P., etc. (according to Treg. and Tisch.) give ; Words., Alf., Treg., Tisch. (8th Ed.) give , the being apparently without authority. (Alf. claims for it . and A., and cites P. as agreeing with B*. The Am. Ed. cannot but suggest that the true reading is as given by . A. P., the (with the genitive) having the force of before or near (see Robinsons Lex. under , I. a. (), and Winer, 47, g. (c)).E. R. C.]
[13]Rev 7:15. [Lange translates will settle abidingly (in His glory of manifestation) over them. See Explanations in Detail, p. 192., and also a most valuable note by Schaff in the Lange Comm. on John (Text. and Gram.) 1:14, p. 71. The idea here seems to be that God will spread His own special dwelling-place over them; this includes the idea that He will dwell among them.E. R. C.]
[14]Rev 7:16. [Alford and Tisch. (1859) read ; Tisch., Treg., with . A. P., etc., read as above.E. R. C.]
[15]Rev 7:17. The reading . [So all modern Critical Editors, with . A. B*. P., Vulg., etcE. R. C.]
[16][Additions may be found under Explanations in Detail.E. R. C.]
[17][See foot-note on p. 27.E. R. C.]
[18] [Lord regards the Angels as (Classical) Symbols of the authors and propagators of those (disorganizing) opinions; the fomentors and directors of the violences to which they excite. There is nothing in this opinion inconsistent with the fact that they are under the direction of God, since the wicked are His hand, and He restrains the remainder of wrath (comp. Psa 17:14; Psa 76:10).
[Alford remarks: This (that they are simply Angels) is all that is declared to us in the text, and it is idle to inquire beyond it. All allegorizing and all individualizing interpretations are out of the question.E. R. C.]
[19][See preceding foot-note.E. R. C.]
[20][The Apostle Paul, when he wrote of sealing, was writing, not as a prophet, but of a matter then existent. The fact that but one kind of sealing (or a sealing having but one purpose) then existed, or may exist throughout the greater portion of the Christian era, does not exclude the possibility that in the last days another kind may be employed.E. R. C.]
[21][The use of , the proper meaning of which before an accusative is to do wrong to (comp. Mat 20:13; Act 7:26-27, etc.) favors the idea of Lord, that the four Angels are symbolic of evil men, or, at least, the idea that they signify evil agencies. No valid objection can be urged against this opinion from the fact, that it was given to them to injure, since it is the prerogative of God to use even the evil as His instruments; that which is a wrong from them, is no wrong from Him Who permits, uses and restrains them (comp. Act 2:23).E. R. C.]
[22] [Therefore no less than six words in the Greek Testament which in the German Version are rendered Knecht, and in the English (with one additional) servant. The word generally and correctly so rendered is , the ordinary LXX. rendering of . It cannot with propriety be said, that it occupies a less conspicuous place in the New Testament than its equivalent in the Old. In the Gospels, in direct address to the disciples and in descriptive parables, our Lord used it more than fifty times; it is applied twenty-five times to Christians in other portions of the New Testament. It is a term generally employed by the Apostles in the introductions to their Epistles as descriptive of their own relation to Christ; see Rom 1:1; Php 1:1; Tit 1:1; Jam 1:1; 2Pe 1:1; Rev 1:1. With still less propriety can it be affirmed, that there was any relinquishment of the term because of the contrast of sonship and the slavish servitude of legalists. In the very chapter to which our Author refers as presenting that contrast (Romans 6.) is employed as a generic term applicable to both the righteous and the wicked Rom 6:16), and the verb is twice applied to Christians (Rom 6:18; Rom 6:22); and in the beginning of that very Epistle Paul styled himself a .
[In the primitive sense of the term, all creatures are the of God; as applicable to Christ and Christians, it carries with it the idea of voluntary subjection to Him as Master, Owner (comp. Eph 6:16). Ordinarily, this subjection implies ministration (in the ordinary sense of that word), because God commands His (having the opportunity) to minister. It is not implied, however, in the use of the term , nor is it always implied in fact: God sometimes calls His to serve by patient acquiescence in circumstances which forbid them to ministerthey also serve who only stand and wait. The position of Lange is based upon the altogether unauthorized (occasional) translation of by the German Knecht (=the English servant). Not only are these words radically distinct as to meaning, but in the New Testament one is never used as exegetical of the other, and, still further, never are Christians, as such, styled the of Christ. The only instance which can be, even apparently, adduced as negativing the last assertion is Joh 12:26; but even there, manifestly, the idea present to the mind of our Lord was personal ministration. For a full discussion of the terms and see Cremers Biblico-Theological Lexicon of N. T. Greek (translated from the German); Edinburgh (T. & T. Clark), 1872a most valuable work.E. R. C.]
[23][For a counter statement see Additional Note, p. 193.E. R. C.]
[24][He must have had an important special reason for leaving out the Tribe of Dan; and this could only be a theological one. We find the key in such passages as Rev 14:4, where it is said of the 144,000: These are they who have not defiled themselves with women (i e., sins [or rather idolatry=spiritual adultery]), for they are virgins, Rev 21:27; Rev 22:14. Almost the only remarkable fact which is to be found in the history of the Danites is, that after having got possession of the land, they introduced into their territory a false worship (Judges 18.), which continued through centuries. Hengstenberg.E. R. C.]
[25][Why as a matter of course, when separated from the preceding section by the strong disjunctive phrase, ? See on Rev 4:1 (and foot-note), p. 150; also Additional Note, p. 193.E. R. C.]
[26][See Additional Note, p. 193.E. R. C.]
[27][See Additional Note, p. 193.E. R. C.]
[28][The ascription, according to the view of Dsterdieck, implies thanks; but is not thereby converted into a mere thank-offering. It implies thanks, because it is an ascription of praise in view of benefits conferred.E. R. C.]
[29][See foot-note on p.152.E. R. C.]
[30][The Seals symbolize the concealment from angelic and human view of certain (not all) events in future history. Probably, at the date of the Apocalypse, both Angels and men expected the immediate return of Christ to earth. The eschatological predictions of our Lord (Matthew 24, etc.) up to the point of His promised appearing seemed to have been fulfilled (and typically they had been fulfilled) in the destruction of Jerusalem. It is probable that neither Angels nor men dreamed that centuries, or even months, of false Christs, wars, famines, pestilences, persecutions, would intervene before the earthly establishment of the promised Kingdom; and hence the importance of the unloosing of the Seals. But however these things might be hidden, the sealing of believers and the gathering of departed Saints in Heaven were not concealed from any. These were events that for years (or centuries) had been going on, and their continuance until the resurrection (whenever, or after whatsoever events, that might be) was revealed and secured by the open promise of God. In the visions of Revelation 14, the Seer had a view of what had been openly progressing under the view of Angels, and the fact of whose future progress had already been revealed.E. R. C.]
[31][If by the sealed the first-fruits are meant, they cannot be regarded as consisting merely of those who shall be on Earth just before the great tribulation. Not only is it repugnant to reason and sensibility to shut out from that glorious company the Apostles and Martyrs, but we are expressly taught, that the primitive Christians formed a portion of the (Jam 1:18), and the Apostle Paul assures us, that those who are alive at the Coming of the Lord shall not take precedence of those who sleep (1Th 4:14-17). Nor does it seem proper to exclude from the company of the faithful the Father of the faithful and that noble host described in Hebrews 11, of whom it is impliedly declared that, though without us they are not made perfect, with us they shall be perfected (Heb 11:40).E. R. C.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
SPECIAL DOCTRINO-ETHICAL AND HOMILETICAL NOTES (ADDENDUM)
Section Sixth
Ideal heavenly World-picture of the Seven Penitential Trumpets. (Ch. 7)
General.The Invisible Church here and beyond: here, the sealedmilitant conquerors; beyond, blessed conquerors. The Sealing, and its doctrinal import ( characterized by James as ; Rom 5:4; Jam 2:21). The neglect of the distinction between justification and sealing has resulted in a sad obscuration of the evangelic fundamental doctrine of justification, especially in three great theological school-circles. According to the idea of the Apostle James, Abraham was justified, Genesis 15, and sealed, Genesis 22. Since justification always takes place in a forum of justice, and since there are different sorts of forums (see the Art. by Tersteegen in Herzogs Encyklopdie), James could speak of justification as an imputation of faith as righteousness, and apply the term of to sealing. In the one case, the court of conscience was intended, in the other the forum of the Church was contemplated (and he was called the friend of God). Seethe Lange Com. on James 2. [and on Romans 5],The Sealing has reference not solely to the last time, but, through the whole succession of the New Testament time (which is, indeed, in a general sense denominated the last time), to the assurance of saints in face of the temptations of this world. That is, the Sealing in Revelation 7 relates to the Trumpets in Revelation 8. That which the four Angels are stationed on the four corners of the earth to accomplishnamely, to loose the four winds of the earth, the spirit of the world in all its ground-forms, upon the earth and the sea, to injure them: upon the theocratic Divine institution, or the Church, and upon national life, to purge them through great temptationsthis, we repeat, is fulfilled in the judgments of the Trumpets. In reference, however, to these temptations, which shake and imperil the visible Church, the invisible Church is represented as assuredassured, partly through the sealing effected here and partly through the entry of the blessed into the Church Triumphant beyond. When it is declared that the Angels may not loose the winds of temptation until the sealing is consummated, in the priority of the time of the sealing the priority of strength in the sealed is expressed. They are established through the gift of the grace of steadfastness. In chap. 14 we learn that their approval was conditioned by uprightness, purity, and the avoidance of false-hood, but we must first know that their sealing is entirely a work of grace.On the import of the four winds from the four corners of the earth, the earth itself, the sea, the trees, the rising of the sun, the injuring, the number 144,000, see the Exeg. Notes.
We have already demonstrated that the literal interpretation of the twelve Tribes of Israel as having reference to the Jewish nation in the last time, is utterly untenable. The symbolic designation of the chosen servants of God by the name of the spiritual Israel, is, however, sufficient guaranty for the fact that the Apostle has in view the general hope of a restoration of Israel at the same time that he contemplates a more extended class of elect persons. For as the symbolic name of Israel does not exclude believers from the Gentiles, neither does it shut out believing Jews, or the hope that Israel, as a people, will yet exercise faith in their long neglected Messiah. The well-known Judaistic apprehension of the Sealingdiscussed by us in the Exegetical Divisionbears upon it not only the exegetical stain of gross literalness, but also the blot of dogmatical error, in maintaining that in the end of the times Israel could again possess national prerogatives in the Kingdom of God, when it was precisely on account of its pretensions to such prerogatives in the midst of the ages that the nation incurred rejection.
Furthermore, the architectonics and symmetry of the table of the sealed plead for its symbolical character. The special duodecenary, running through the general duodecenary and multiplied invariably by the onic number 1000, is the ever recurring expression of sacred fullness, sacred completeness. Again, the free arrangement and modification of the list of the twelve Tribes (see Exeg. Notes) are in favor of this symbolical character; and it is no less supported by the perfect cordination of individual Tribes in respect of the number selected from each. We must here repeat the statement previously made elsewhere, namely, that the selection does not exclude further circles of blessed ones. The same literal exegesis which, on the one hand, so exceptionally favors Judaism, would, on the other hand, inflict most serious detriment upon it if it were proposed to apprehend the text as declaring that many Jews should, in the last times, become believers, but that their number, however, should not exceed 144,000. The sealed are the true stand-holders of the living Church throughout the ages of the Church, the pillars, against which many who are weak lean for support.
This truth is immediately expressed by the second part of the vision, the vision of the innumerable throng of blessed ones. These are characterized by the following items: 1. They form a countless throng; in antithesis to doctrinal particularism. 2. They are from all nations and tribes and peoples and tongues; in antithesis to exegetical particularism, which stamps the Apocalypse with a Judaistic tendency. 3. They are perfected: they stand before the Throne of God and the Lamb, clothed in white robesthe adornment of holinessand palmsas tokens of victory, peace and festivalin their hands; in antithesis to hierarchic particularism, which treats of an immediate entry into blessedness in conformity with medival ideas (confining the privilege to martyrs, monks, priests, ascetics who have built up a holiness of works, and calendar saints). 4. Their cry: The salvation is with our God, etc.;thoroughly evangelic; it is even a protest against all righteousness of works and doctrine. With our God and the Lamb: in antithesis both to pietistic-exclusive and deistic-exclusive forms of belief. 5. The Amen and the song of praise of the whole angel or spirit world.
The great Heaven-picture of the perfected is accompanied by heavenly instructions concerning the origin of the blessed, their endless train, their character and destiny. Even the faith of a John failed to grasp the origin of these innumerable throngs of blessed ones and the height at which they had arrived. But one of the Elders, to whom the depths of the history of the Kingdom are no secret, vouchsafes him an explanation: He explains (1) whence they have comeviz. out of great tribulation. All come from unknown depths of suffering, of conflictnot simply from visible martyr-sufferings (see Romans 6). They have all washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. With the depth of their experience of suffering, corresponds the depth of their experience of salvation: they all recognize and confess the world-reconciling Atonement. But, again, with these depths, corresponds the height of their goal. Thus we have (2) an explanation as to whither they have arrivedviz. before the Throne of God, to a blessed priestly service, after the type of life in the Temple; to the perfect satisfaction of every longing, and to freedom from all heat, after the image of a life of business, toil and wandering (Psalms 23); to the full and comfortable discovery of the joyful harvest of the seed of tears, yea, to the discovery of the heavenly pearl to which every tear has turned (see Exeg. Notes).
Special.[Rev 7:1] Various forms of the spirit of the world and its temptations.Temptations as Divine dispensations.Limited as to time, place and degree.Their design.[Rev 7:2-3] Different moments in the development of salvationespecially sealing.The awakened may fall; but it is the distinction of the sealed that they have made good their faith in the battle of life, particularly in moments of great sacrifice.Men in Christ.[Rev 7:4-8] The heroes of Israel, the heroes of David, as types of Gods heroes.Chosen stones, flowers, animals, men, Christians.The Twelve Tribes as types of the charisms.Consecration of a natural gift to a gracious gift, through the gift of the Spirit.Both gifts are gifts of grace in the broader sense of the termthe first as a gift of unmerited creative favor, the second as a gift of unmerited redemptive salvation.The Twelve Tribes types of the fullness of the charisms in the Kingdom of God.The choice of them, a type of the personally and historically chosen.The number 1,000 as a figure of the continual presence of Christ in His Church through the whole on.Comparison of particular characteristic Tribes: Judah and Joseph; Simeon and Levi; Joseph and Benjamin.[Rev 7:9.] The visible and the invisible Church.The two spheres of the invisible Church, in this world and in the Beyond.In the visible Church, the visible appearance of the Church may be greatly obscured. If the visible Church becomes invisible as the Church, the invisible Church emerges into visibility. This remark applies to every time, but is particularly true of the last time.The heavenly Festival of Palms.[Rev 7:10] The heavenly confession of the blessed.Their song.[Vers.11, 12.] The song of praise of all spirits concerning the consummation of the blessed.Doxologies of men and angels.[Rev 7:13.] The catechism of John which the Elder institutes, compared with the catechism of Peter (John 21).[Rev 7:14] Humility of the great Apostle as manifested in his answer to the question of the Elder.The great, eternal, pilgrim and festal procession of blessed souls from earth to the heavenly Home.[Rev 7:15] The Throne.Service in the Temple.The glory of God over them.Analogous passages: Isa 25:4 sqq.; Isa 49:10; Psalms 23, 91, 126; Isa 66:13.
Starke: God has numbered His elect, but their number is known to Him alone. If He has counted the hairs of the faithful, He has surely counted their persons.The same number in each Tribe, when there were some Tribes that were more numerous than others, shows that God bears the same gracious will to all believers, of whatsoever race or people they be. (The text, however, has reference to sealed persons, and the numbers are symbolical.)
Rev 7:13. The best and fittest mode of instructionespecially for those who are young and simpleis by question and answer, Gen 3:9; Luk 2:46-47 (!).
A. H. W. Brandt, Anleitung zum Lesen der Offenb. Joh. (see p. 73): The sealed. John does not see them even in spirit; much less are they to be seen with the bodily eye in their substantiality on earth. Nevertheless they are a people of God on earth, having His Spirit, and numbered by Him, in the sense of Mat 10:30. They are described, in prophetic wise, by their Old Testament type, whose names and Tribes are presented not in the single 12, but by 12×12, and multiplied by thousands. It is the true Israel, baptized with the Spirit and consisting of all (?) the servants of God who are born of the Spirit.
Rev 7:9-12. And behold! A great multitude. This excites the astonishment of the Seer, which was not the case with the preceding occurrence; he, indeed, did not see the sealed, but this multitude visibly appears in Heaven. (A highly significant contrast. Concerning the sealed on earth he learns only the tribal characters and numbers by an auricular wonder; the blessed, on the other hand, are presented to his contemplation in personal distinctness by an ocular wonder.)
[From M. Henry: Rev 7:3. God has particular care and concern for His own servants in times of temptation and corruption, and He has a way to secure them from the common infection: He first establishes them, and then He tries them; He has the timing of their trials in His own hand.
Rev 7:9. Before the throne, and before the Lamb. In acts of religious worship we come nigh to God, and are to conceive ourselves as in His special presence; and we must come to God by Christ; the throne of God would be inaccessible to sinners, were it not for a Mediator.
Rev 7:13-17. Here we have a description of the honor and happiness of those who have faithfully served the Lord Jesus Christ, and suffered for Him. Note, 1. The low and desolate state they had formerly been in. The way to heaven lies through many tribulations; but tribulation, how great soever, shall not separate us from the love of God. 2. The means by which they had been prepared for the great honor and happiness they now enjoyed; they had washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. It is not the blood of the martyrs themselves, but the blood of the Lamb, that can wash away sin, and make the soul pure and clean in the sight of God. 3. The blessedness to which they are now advanced, being thus prepared for it. They are happy, (1) In their station, for they are before the throne of God night and day, and He dwells among them; they are in that presence where there is fullness of joy. (2) In their employment, for they serve God continually, without weakness, drowsiness, or weariness; heaven is a state of service, though not of suffering; of rest, but not of sloth; it is a praising, delightful rest. (3) In their freedom from all the inconveniences of this present life; a. From all want, and sense of want; They hunger and thirst no more. b. From all sickness and pain; they shall never be scorched by the heat of the sun anymore. 4. In the love and conduct of the Lord Jesus; He shall feed them, He shall lead them to living fountains of waters. (5) In being delivered from all sorrow, or occasion of it; God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.]
Section Seventh
The Seven Penitential Trumpets. Earth-picture. (Chaps. Rev 8:1 to Rev 9:21)
General.Since there is an increase of disagreement in the different expositions of this eighth chapter, and, by consequence, an augmented insecurity attaching to any exposition of it hitherto offered, there is an increased demand for caution in the theoretic and practical application of it.
Many, for instance, consider Revelation 7 as an episode, and affirm an immediate connection of Revelation 8 with Revelation 6. We, on the contrary, regard Revelation 7 as the heavenly phase of the Earth-picture which follows it in the vision of the Trumpets. Or, in other words, the Seven Trumpets are a loosing of the four winds from the four corners of the earth, in order to the injury of the Church and national life (earth and sea). In accordance with this view, we have to do altogether with darkenings of the visible Church, with spiritual occurrences presented under cosmical forms. These darkenings are, agreeably to the conditions of the Church, judgments; for individual Christians, they are temptations [or testings]; as dispensations of the Lord, they are admonitions and arousing summonses to repentance and to combatand, hence, Trumpets.
The silence in Heaven for the space of half an hour denotes that heavenly bracing and arming for which the whole great hour of temptation [Rev 3:10] gives occasion.
Even the Seven Angels with the Trumpets must restrain themselves and wait for the right moment, like the Four Angels in the preceding chapter. Their waiting has a common purpose with that of the Four Angels. The latter waited for the accomplishment of the Divine work of sealing; the former wait for the consummation of the human prayers of the saints, which correspond with the work of sealing. Thus the spirit of prayer must constitute the Churchs defence against the coming temptations. The prayers which ascend from earth must, however, be completed in Heaven. Their purification from earthly passione. g., of confessionalism or nationalismis first represented in the form of a supplementing with incense, which an Angel with a golden censer, in which much incense is given him for the heavenly altar of incense, adds to the prayers of the saints. In accordance with Scripture, this figure can be understood solely of the heavenly intercession of the Spirit of Christ. Next the other function of the Angel is representedthe emptying of the censer, previously filled with fire from the altar, upon the earth. This is indicative, without doubt, of the missions of the high-priestly Spirit of Christ from Heaven, the effects of which missions are figuratively represented in voices, thunders, lightnings, and earthquake (see the Exeg. Notes). The two-fold continuance of Christs work, in His eternal Spirit, consists in a direction towards God in intercession, and a direction towards the Church on earth in the outpourings of His Spirit, accompanied by the glowing coals of His high-priestly temper of love and sacrifice.
The First Four Trumpets (see Exeg. Notes). [Rev 8:7] The first darkening of the Church owes its origin to fanaticism; this appears as a judgment upon the lack of inward devotion and sincerity.[Rev 8:8-9.] The second great temptation [or trial] is the spread of fanaticism, in which a great mountain, a theocratic, ecclesiastico-political institution, begins to burn and plunges into the seaChristian national life.[Rev 8:10-11] This calls forth the reactions of embittermentdeviations [or dissents], apostasies, indicated by the burning star which falls upon the rivers and fountains.[Rev 8:12] A result of these three destructive and corruptive agencies, which, with all their contrasts, work together, is the great spiritual diminution of the sunlight of revelation, the moonlight of natural revelation (which, amid all the advances of natural science, may still become obscured), and the light which proceeds from spiritual stars in the Church.
The Last Three Trumpets. These are distinguished from the first four Trumpets and raised above them, primarily in that they are heralded by an Eagle, which flies through the midst of Heaven and proclaims their approach, and secondly by the Eagles designation of them as three woes upon those who dwell on the earth. We remark here, by way of addition, that the scope of the first woe is accurately defined as the sphere of the Fifth Trumpet (Rev 9:1-11). No less definite is the determination of the sphere of the second woe as the sphere of the Sixth Trumpet (Rev 9:1-21). As chs. 10 and Rev 11:1-14 relate to the seven sealed Thunders, and in a sense form a real episode between the Trumpets, it might be as well to regard the second woe under a formal aspect, as closed with Rev 9:21, as to conceive of it as continued through Revelation 10,in accordance with the material point of view to which we adhered on p. 226, to the adoption of which we were particularly influenced by Rev 10:4. The lack of precision in the construction of this portion of the Apocalypse is owing to the fact that the Apocalyptist was in the main desirous of depicting, under the cycle of the Seven Thunders, only the activity of the Two Witnesses, but found occasion to communicate the issue of their history as well.
From the material point of view, the incipient apostasy, depicted Rev 11:1-14, certainly forms a supplement to the judgment of the Sixth Trumpet.
The Eagles cries of Woe upon the dwellers on the earth, are expressive of the fact that the Spirit of prophecy now, in lofty majesty, announces three universal temptations [trials] which are to come upon all men and which shall be so mighty as to make it manifest from the outset that the majority will fall when exposed to them, whilst the minority, constituted by the sealed, will have to undergo the sorest afflictions and persecutions.
In respect of the Fifth and Sixth Trumpets, we refer to the Exegetical Notes. Although, for our own part, we regard our view as thoroughly grounded (especially by the circumstances that the locusts of the Fifth Trumpet so torment men as to plunge them in despair, without killing them, and that the fiery horses of the Sixth Trumpet kill menwhich must, doubtless, be understood as significant of a spiritual killing), it is requisite that the security of the foundation of this exegesis should be additionally manifested before any superstructure is erected upon it. The founding of homiletical and practical applications upon the traditional Church-historical exposition, e. g., upon the hypothesis that the locusts are Mohammedans and Apollyon the caliphs, and that the horses of the Sixth Trumpet are the second deluge of Mohammedansthe appearance of the Turks (Sander; according to Von Meyer, the locusts denote the medival priesthood, the horses being Oriental barbarians in general)has, like kindred expositions, not such evidence in its favor as evangelical preaching and instruction demand.
Especially noteworthy, in our eyes, is the fundamental thought that the destructive agencies depicted in the Seven Trumpets, are set forth in plastic figures of disturbed naturein part, of the most horrible unnaturalness. A rain of hail and fire, mingled with blood; a great mountain, plunging, burning, into the sea; a star falling from Heaven, and, burning like a torch, poisoning many rivers and fountains; sun, moon, and stars, shorn of a third of their brightnessall consternating images of a disturbance of nature. Under the Fifth Trumpet, however, the most terrific contradictions of nature are exhibited: locusts that eat no green thing, but, on the contrary, sting men after the manner of scorpions; having hair like the hair of women, and teeth like lions teeth, etc.; these make their appearance as a mere prelude to the fiery horses of the Sixth Trumpet, which seem to drag their riders along with them, which bite with their snake-like tails as with mouths and vomit from their mouths fire, smoke and brimstone. But not until the Seventh Trumpet is the contradiction of nature consummated in the figures of the Dragon, the Beast, and the Woman who rides upon the Beast. With a master-touch at which we can but marvel, evil is here throughout delineated in extravagant contradictions, as unnaturalness.
Special.We note only such items as appear to us to be more or less firmly established.Darkenings of the Church, judgments of God.The Trumpets of GodDivine judgments upon the unfaithfulas summonses of the faithful to battle, and as calls to awakening and repentance for all.[Rev 8:1] The silence in Heaven a sign of the great sympathy of the heavenly Church in its foreview of the trials of the Church on earth.[Rev 8:3-4] Completion of the prayers of believers by the intercession of Christ in Heaven.[Rev 8:5] The fire of the health-bringing Spirit, falling from Heaven in order to the vitalizing of the Church, that the fire of judgment may not in the end fall upon her from Heaven.[Rev 8:6] The series of Trumpets of judgment and repentance, a continual climactic succession, in accordance with the increasing development of mankind.[Rev 8:7] Fanaticism, a mixture of frost and fire (icy coldness of heart and carnal heat of the imagination), mingled with blood.[Rev 8:8] What can be understood, in a spiritual sense, by a burning mountain, falling into the sea?[Rev 8:10-11] Since Satan has been styled a star, falling from Heaven, we may designate the falling star called Wormwood, apostasy, that has its origin in embitterment.Intellectual or spiritual rivers, currents and fountains in humanity; their destinations and manifold empoisonment.[Rev 8:12] Darkening of intellectual or spiritual lights of Christendom, and the sins which must have preceded such darkening.[Rev 8:13] The Eagle of prophecy.Warning cry of the Spirit of prophecy, concerning the whole earth.As a woecry, it has reference to the earthly-minded.The great dispensations of woe upon the earth are, incontrovertibly, great general temptations (no cry of woe was heard at the forth-going of the three sombre horsemen).
[Rev 9:1] The abyss, as the middle region between Hades and hell.[Rev 9:2-11] The soul-sufferings of humanity, accompanying its development, through the medium of Christianity, in the sphere of all spiritually unsound life.All spiritual manifestations which, by reason of great internal contradictions, assume a monstrous character, judge themselves. They are, however, the means of the spiritual ruin of the blinded individuals who yield themselves up to them. Examples of such contradiction may be given in abundance, and consist, especially, of pretensions to high spiritual life, conjoined with enslaving ordinances (Montanism); pretensions to high Christian sanctity, conjoined with pitiless severity (Novatianism); pretensions to purity from the influence of world and state, conjoined with a system of robbery (Donatism), etc.[Rev 9:13-19] Manifestations of unnaturalness in the religious and moral world are armies of corruptive and destructive agencies slaying spiritually and, indirectly, also physically.The horses of corruption and destruction run away with their riders.[Rev 9:20-21.] Impenitence under the judgments of God, considered under the antithesis of bigotry and the service of sin (see chs. 20 and 21). Bigotry and sensuality are prominent features of the most modern forms of corruption.
Starke: This author gives a singular interpretation of the silence in Heaven as a time immediately succeeding the great judgment and destruction of the Antichristian kingdom, viz. the thousand years (a half hour!). In commenting on the consecutive Trumpets, Starke cites, as usual, two adverse explanations, the one class given by those who regard the Trumpets as fulfilled, the other by those who look upon them as to come.
Christoph Paulus, Blicke in die Weissagung, etc. (see p. 73): Only the first judgment at the time of the first Trumpet, and the last at the time of the seventh Vial of Anger are accomplished by hail; they alone, therefore (because hail comes from above?), appear as a result of immediate Divine interference, as an immediate demonstration of Divine power. All the other judgments, from the second to the last, bear the stamp of historical occurrences (?).Judgment of the fourth Trumpet. No remarkable occurrence on earth, no historical event distinguishes the time of the fourth Trumpet; nothing of importance happens, but a condition is gradually brought about in which the brightness of all Divine authority on earth is obscured; Church, laws and magistrates lose a considerable portion of their reputation and influence.
Literature.Vetter, Die sieben Posannen, Breslau, 1860 (see p. 75).
[From M. Henry: Rev 8:3-5. Observe, 1. All the saints are a praying people; 2. Times of danger should be praying times, and so should times of great expectation; 3. The prayers of the saints themselves stand in need of the incense and intercession of Christ to make them acceptable and effectual, and there is provision made by Christ to that purpose; 4. The prayers of the saints come up before God in a cloud of incense; no prayer thus recommended was ever denied audience and acceptance; 5. These prayers that were thus accepted in heaven produced great changes upon earth in return to them.
Rev 9:7-12. Note, 1. When the gospel is coldly received and not permitted to have its proper effect upon heart and life, it is usually followed by dreadful judgments. 2. God gives warning to men of His judgments before He sends them; He sounds an alarm by the written word, by ministers, by mens own consciences, and by the signs of the times; so that if a people be surprised, it is their own fault. 3. The anger of God against a people makes dreadful work with them; it embitters all their comforts, and makes even life itself bitter and burdensome. 4. God does not in this world stir up all His wrath, but sets bounds to the most terrible judgments. 5. Corruptions of doctrine and worship in the Church are themselves great judgments, and the usual causes and tokens of other judgments.Rev 9:2. The Devil carries on his designs by blinding the eyes of men, by extinguishing light and knowledge, and promoting ignorance and error; he first deceives men, and then destroys them; wretched souls follow him in the dark, or they durst not follow him.
Rev 9:16. He Who is the Lord of hosts has vast armies at His command, to serve His own purposes.
[From Vaughan: Rev 9:2. If men will not have heaven open to them, if they will break off the connection between earth and heaven, they must expect to have that between earth and hell opened.]
Fuente: A Commentary on the Holy Scriptures, Critical, Doctrinal, and Homiletical by Lange
CONTENTS
This Chapter opens with an Account of the Sealing of the Servants of God. The Number sealed! John hath shown Him an innumerable Multitude, gathered out of all Nations, standing before the Throne. They are described who they are, and how they came there. The Glories of the Lamb.
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
(1) And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. (2) And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, (3) Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.
This is a most sweet and interesting Chapter. Between the close of the events of the sixth seal, and before the seventh seal is opened, the Lord was graciously pleased, to manifest his watchful care over his Church and people, by sealing them. See that blessed scripture, Isa 27:3 . A new state of things was now to arise. The heathen world, that is, the Roman Empire, and called the world, Rom 1:8 ; Col 1:6 , was now under the sixth seal become Christian, that is, professing Christianity. A belief in Christ was now openly avowed. The Emperor himself, professed his faith in Christ. But amidst this national creed, deadly heresies were now arising to afflict the Church. Arius had now sprung up with his awful doctrine in denying the Godhead of Christ, though professing his belief in Christ. And under what a variety of different shades hath his heresy, from that hour to the present appeared, in what is called the Christian world? Christian only in name. Reader! pause and adore the Lord for his grace, in causing his Church to be sealed at such a period, as if to say, when errors of a more than ordinary nature are springing up, then the Lord will appear for his people, and have his servants know how secure they are, for he hath sealed them. And take one thought more with you on the subject. God the Spirit hath graciously caused this record of the Lord’s care over his Church to be handed down through all ages of his Church, as if to say, let this comfort the Lord’s people in perilous times, they are also sealed. For as the Lord watched over them then, so doth he now. And this one record, is in the place of a thousand arguments, to teach the Church these precious truths, Let men or devils rage, at one time more than another, nevertheless, the foundation of God standeth sure, having this seal; the Lord knoweth them that are his, 2Ti 2:19 . And the sealed servants of the Lord know also whose they are, and to whom they belong. For after that ye believed, saith the Holy Ghost by the Apostle, ye were sealed with that Holy Spirit of promise, which is the earnest of our inheritance, Eph 6:24 .
By the four Angels which John saw, I am not inclined to think anything particularly is intended from their number. As there are four corners spoken of, and four winds, alluding to the several directions from whence the various winds blow, so it should seem probable, the four in number of Angels, only mean one for each department. But, by the other Angel so called, whom John saw ascending from the east, it is evident could mean none, but the Lord Jesus Christ; and though here called an Angel, or Messenger of the Covenant, as he is called, Mal 3:1 . yet the office he is both there and here said to perform, could belong to none but God. Him hath God the Father sealed, Joh 6:27 . And his office as God-Man Mediator, is to seal his people. Indeed, everything is here said of him, implies it. His command to the four Angels prove it, being the head of all principality and power, and whom the Angels worship, Col 2:10 ; Heb 1:6 . And his having the seal of the living God no less shows it, for who should have the seal or use it, but He who alone was found worthy to open the book, and to loose the seals thereof, Rev 5:5 . He who is the brightness of his Father’s glory, and the express image of his Person, and who upholds all things by the word of his power, Heb 1:2-3 . And what a volume of the richest blessings, are included in this view of Christ sealing his people? I hope the Reader will indulge me, with mentioning a few of the gracious contents.
First. The Person sealing, is the great and leading point to be regarded in this account. And this, as hath before been observed, could be no other than the Lord Jesus Christ. And there is a very blessed consideration, connected with this view of Christ sealing his people. It was not to inform him, for all the names of his people are in his book of life. Luk 10:20 ; Isa 4:3 ; Phi 4:3 ; Rev 21:27 . And his flock must again pass under his hand. Jer 33:13 . And all he hath received of his Father he hath undertaken for, Joh 6:37-38 and Joh 10:28 . But the sealing of his people seems to have been with a special eye to their comfort. It is, as if the Lord had said, behold the love I have for you, I hereby acknowledge you for mine, Isa 43:1-7 .
Secondly. Who they are that are sealed; namely, the servants of our God. Such, as the Lord by electing grace, chose from all eternity; and by sovereign grace, are called in time. They were once, when in the A dam-nature, servants of sin; but by regenerating grace, are brought into the family of God in Christ. And because from all eternity they were sons, they received in the fulness of time the call of adoption by the Holy Ghost, whereby they cry, Abba Father, Gal 4:6 ; Col 1:12-13 .
Thirdly. This sealing of God, not only confirms whose they are, but their high privileges also Given by the Father, betrothed and redeemed by the Son, and regenerated by the Holy Ghost, they carry about with them, both the outward sign of their seal, and the inward testimonies in the effect of grace in the heart. For as seals are worn in sight, and rings on the finger, are tokens to bring to remembrance the friend or giver, so, the sealed soul makes manifest, by every suitable and becoming testimony, his love and attachment to Jesus. I have set the Lord (said one of old) always before me. He, is on my right hand, I shall not be moved, Psa 26:8 . And the child of God desires, that Christ shall have the whole affections of the heart. The Lord Jesus, may be supposed to have all these things, and much more in view, when he called to his Church and said, Set me as a seal upon Mine heart, as a seal upon thine arm, for love is strong as death, jealousy is cruel as the grave, the coals thereof are coals of fire, which have a most vehement flame, Son 8:6 .
Fourthly. There is somewhat very, expressive, in what is said in the place of sealing, namely, in their foreheads, that is, it shall be open and not concealed. The world shall know whose they are. And although the marking here made, was intended as preparatory to very awful times coming on, yet, God would have his people known. Their seal shall be in their foreheads. Now, as the Arian heresy was then opening, and beginning to shed its baleful influence, and God would bring his redeemed out of great tribulation, (as verse the fourteenth showeth,) it should seem to be very plain, that this sealing took place chiefly, if not altogether, to guard against this most awful heresy, which however little thought of by some, and considered as of small moment with others, will be found a much greater apostasy, than the religion of the beast, or the false prophet. The Godhead of Christ is the whole bottom and foundation of the faith. The man that denies this, may as well relinquish all that belongs beside to Christianity, for there is nothing left worth retaining. And tremendously awful will be the state of all such at the last day. I would say to everyone, under this awful delusion, as Tertullian did to Marcion, whom he called the Murderer of Truth; Spare said he, the only hope of the whole world! But blessed be God, the hand of man might sooner snatch the sun of the natural world from its orb, than take Jesus the Sun of Righteousness from the firmament of his scripture, by denying his Godhead, neither would the darkness of the former be half so great as the latter.
I need not dwell long on that part of those verses, by way of explaining, which speaks of not hurting the earth, or the sea, or the trees. These are well known to be figurative expressions. Winds imply wars. And the earth seas, and trees mean people. And the winds or wars, are said to be held until God hath secured his people. Thus, in the days of Noah, before the Ark was ready to, receive the Church, the fountains of the great deep were not broken up. These waters were restrained, as those winds are said to be held. But as soon as Noah and his family were housed in the Ark, the deluge followed, Gen 7:1-16 . In like manner by Lot. Yea, to show the Lord’s watchful eye over his people, the Lord said to Lot, haste thee and escape thither, for I cannot do anything, till thou be come thither, Gen 19:22-25 . Reader! depend upon it, the same is now, as much carrying on, as then. God’s care over his people, cannot for a moment cease. Sweetly the Holy Ghost saith by Peter, casting all your care upon him, for he careth for you! 1Pe 5:7 . Yea, the Lord saith by Moses, he loveth the people, all his saints are in his hand, Deu 33:3 . The Church is engraven on the palms of his hands, her walls are continually before him, Isa 49:16 . And it must be so. For God the Father hath given the Church to Christ. Jesus hath taken the Church into union with himself. He hath loved her with an everlasting love. He hath given himself for her, he hath died for her, he hath washed her in his blood, and the Holy Ghost hath sealed her to the day of redemption. One of the Prophets felt the strength of these blessed truths so forcibly, that under the impression he cried out, the Lord is good, a strong hold (or strength itself) in the day of trouble, and he knoweth them that trust in him, Nah 1:7 .
Fuente: Hawker’s Poor Man’s Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
The Saints of God (for All Saints’ Day)
Rev 7:9
These are the saints of God. They have been men and women like ourselves. They were diverse in character, they had come from all nations, they were equally diverse in experience, they had had helps, but they had had trials and difficulties. Many of them had their faults, but they are the saints of God. They are one in this, that their testimony is to the triumph of the Lamb.
I. All Saints’ Festival. All of us have an interest in All Saints’ festival, for most of us have known some saints, and all of us hope to be saints. Though, of course, the festivals more directly and closely connected with the great events in the life of our Blessed Lord Christmas, Easter, Ascension must always hold the first place in our minds, and though they claim over all mankind the sovereignty and power of Jesus Christ, because He claimed mankind through them, yet do we not know that all that is good and true in us comes from Him, and we are honouring Him in the celebration of the festival of All Saints? If we see light as we look up and think of all that it means, we do not forget that He is the Light that lighteth every man that cometh into the world, He is the true King of Saints, He, glory be to His name, is the Elder Brother of every good man and woman, every good boy and girl. It is good for us sometimes is it not? to turn away from the thoughts of the sins of men, and to behold them in the white robes. It helps us, does it not, and it inspires hope among us, for all of us may have an inheritance among them. I know that to some it is almost a hindrance to think about the mediaeval saints because they cannot well enter into the meaning of their surroundings and the general character of their lives, and one could well wish that the roll of saints on our Church calendar were extended to much later times, that we might include in it those who seem in our own day to have stood up so strongly for Christ and have lived as the saints of old. We certainly cannot forget Living-stone and General Gordon, we cannot forget Lord Shaftesbury or Lord Lawrence, we cannot forget Bishop Patteson and his noble martyrdom, or Bishop Hannington in his manly march to death, or the tender ministrations of the devoted Sister Dora or the self-abnegation of Father Damien. All these fill our minds with ennobling ideals. They have stood so near to our own time that we seem to be in touch with them, and if we think of them we are reminded of the saints of God. There are two marks especially which are characteristic of the saints of God.
II. The Purity of the Saints. The first is their purity. Their victory may be over the passions of their own nature, it may involve struggle itself, but it is clear enough that purity is the mark of God’s saints. Yet we do wrong if we fail to recognise that in the Holy Scriptures that great word means something more than we generally associate with it It does mean singleness of aim, it does mean sincerity of purpose: ‘If therefore thine eye be single, thy whole body shall be full of light’. It was said of Sir Isaac Newton by one who knew him well, ‘His was the whitest soul I have ever known,’ and it was said of Dean Stanley by Dr. Vaughan in the sermon that he preached after his funeral, ‘I who have known him longest have never known him other than pure’. But, I say, that word goes further than we commonly mean, and it is plain enough that such men as these were free from all double-mindedness. They were single-hearted, and such are the pure in heart who see God. Yes, purity is one of the marks of the saints of God. We may be conscious of our need of it, but it is stated of those who are standing round the throne of God, that they have washed their robes in the Blood of the Lamb. I take that to mean that in the self-sacrifice of the Blessed Lord they have so learned to love Him, to become one with Him, and to be imbued with His spirit that their own selfish and sinful aims have lost all power over them, they have been cleansed from them, they have been washed from them, and realising the love of Christ Who loved them and gave Himself for them, they have found their home, their forgiveness, and their peace with God. And to this may we not each of us attain? We need not despair. The roll of God’s saints includes many that have washed their robes and made them white after they had been stained with sin. Our hope, our redemption, our sanctification are just the same as were the hope of all those saints of God. Christ, Who indeed said, ‘No man cometh to the Father except by Me,’ said also, ‘Whosoever cometh unto Me I will in no wise cast out’. It is in Him that the saints have found their power of purity.
III. The Purposefulness of the Saints. The second mark of these saints of God is their purposefulness. No man can ever drift into sanctity. No man can go to sleep a sinner and wake up a saint. He may forget what is past, but he needs cleansing from it. No man can serve God without an effort. No man can do his duty without really meaning to. In all respects the best work in the world is done by men of purpose. Of course it involves self-discipline, it involves the restraint of foolish imaginations, it often means the curbing of many natural impulses; but is it not the case that too often we fritter away our best ideals and we never seem in any way to realise them? Our very energies fail us because we have not sufficiently concentrated our minds on any true end. But God’s saints have felt the constraining love of Christ. This has made each one of them pull himself together and set his face steadfastly towards the goal.
The Saints in Past Time a Comfort in Present Weakness
Rev 7:9
It is a frequent trouble or trial with almost every thoughtful Christian to feel disappointed with the measure of success that the Gospel has had in the world. And the simplest, and, in a measure, the truest answer to this feeling of disappointment is, that we are to estimate its success, not by the extent, but by the degree and intensity of its influence. I. In the first place, ought not the Christian to be disappointed? Shall he complain, if the world has not realised the desires of his charity. How can he, when he knows that they have even more cruelly disappointed the love of his Lord Himself?
II. But though the Christian’s rightful lot and proper feeling is one of disappointment, he is not without comfort under it. And next to that great comfort, of knowing that the sorrows of Christian love are a share of the sorrows of Christ, the greatest comfort is faith in the Communion of Saints. Though the elect in any one age and country and society are few, the elect of all time are a great multitude; the elect in all past time are many enough to encourage us; the elect in the time to come will be many enough to be worth our while to work for. Each single soul that is saved, at death or at the final coming of the Lord, belongs thenceforth not to the crooked and perverse generation in which its lot was cast, but to the general assembly and Church of the firstborn; it is not a single isolated member of a feeble minority, but a soldier in a mighty army, a citizen of a kingdom able to conquer the world. This is one difference between a servant of God and another man, that one belongs to a society and the other does not. Think what a truly innumerable company it is! Clearly then we have no need to faint, when we are compassed with so great a cloud of witnesses.
W. H. Simcox, The Cessation of Prophecy, p. 215.
References. VII. 9. H. J. Wilmot-Buxton, Holy-Tide Teaching, p. 195. T. F. Crosse, Sermons, p. 220. Expositor (4th Series), vol. i. p. 48. A. Maclaren, Expositions of Holy Scripture Revelation, p. 331. VII. 9, 10. Christian World Pulpit, vol. xliv. p. 174. D. W. Simon, Twice Born and other Sermons, p. 194. H. P. Liddon, University Sermons (2nd Series), p. 55. E. T. J. Marriner, Sermons Preached at Lyme Regis, p. 85. F. O. Maurice, Sermons, vol. ii. p. 306. T. Arnold, Interpretation of Scripture, p. 302. H. M. Butler, Harrow School Sermons, p. 188. R. C. Trench, Sermons New and Old, p. 232. F. J. A. Hort, Village Sermons (2nd Series), p. 224. VII. 13. S. Baring-Gould, Village Preaching for Saints’ Days, p. 209. J. S. Bartlett, Sermons, p. 272. J. M. Neale, Sermons Preached in Sackville College Chapel, vol. iv. p.l.
Heaven Through Tribulation
Rev 7:13-14
Reading men and women know that this word ‘tribulation’ has a wonderful history. There is always a vision at the root of every word; and until you see the hidden picture you do not know the meaning of the word. Tribulation. We see a threshing machine, an instrument for cleansing corn and wheat, for separating straw and dust from wheat, called Tri-bulum. God borrowed the word from the husbandmen of the East, and put it into this Book.
I. Tribulation is God’s way of separating earthliness from the heaven of His people. Tribulation means trouble, but it means trouble sanctified, trouble that has done us good, that sends us to our knees, to our Bibles. It takes great tribulation to sanctify a sinner; but God will not let one item of tribulation come upon him that is not needed. He has His eye day and night upon His saints.
II. These are they which came out of great tribulation, but that is not all tribulation alone will not do it. They washed their robes. The blood of Christ alone can atone. Sin is such a tremendous evil that it will take nothing less than a tremendous lotion to wash it away nothing less than the blood of God Himself. They serve Him day and night in His Temple. The whole of heaven is one temple, for God is the Temple of it, and the Lamb is the Light thereof. Oh, if it is so good to be here, what must it be to be there?
A. Whyte, The Sunday School Chronicle, vol. XXXIV. p. 315.
Reference. VII. 13, 14. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii. No. 1040.
Saved to Serve
Rev 7:13-15
I. The gorgeous visions and somewhat clouded vistas of the Apocalypse are sometimes difficult of interpretation. The passage before us, however, is on the whole simple and clear; men with a spiritual understanding have little or no difficulty with it. It is the vision of the redeemed, victorious Church, numbered in it the men and women whom we knew, who dealt with us here and strengthened and comforted our lives, but who have now gone from our mortal sight. What blessed work they do who can say? Milton in one of his majestic moments, which was also one of his humblest moods, speaking of the heavenly host said: ‘Thousands at His bidding speed and post o’er land and ocean without rest. They also serve who only stand and wait.’ Whatever their work, it is work without weariness, it is service without labour, it is toil without tears, it is the glad service of those who are at Home, and see and know as they are known.
II. Now surely here is a great truth which the Church on earth needs to learn. This vision of the Church redeemed proclaims the great truth that God saves men to serve. Those garments of the saints mean honour, victory; yes, but also service. In the Kingdom of God all are enrolled and equipped for active service, and no man can lazily loiter in pride or selfishness or ease, and be counted worthy.
III. Crowned to serve? Yes. But that is a thought that the world has great difficulty in understanding. Is it easy for the Church? It is the kind of truth that ennobles life, and opens up visions, and shows us how worth living life is, and that following Christ even as He was as a servant and minister, giving His life a ransom for many is the one thing that makes life heroic and worthy of a man’s toil and struggle And the Church must learn it.
IV. How do we think of it personally in relation to Christ’s Church on earth? It is a great honour for us to have been called of God to see the face of Christ; it is also a great responsibility. Our cleansing in Christ clothes us with the uniform of active service. There are a great many people who have not got any joy in their religion, because they have missed this truth. There is much faith that is very feeble, and it brings little or no joy to the heart, or to the home, or to the Church, because it is not sweetened and strengthened by work.
D. L. Ritchie, Peace the Umpire and other Sermons, p. 157.
From Stress to Triumph
Rev 7:13-17
I. Two features in the past history of the victorious hosts are briefly indicated. (1) The elder who draws near to interpret the vision speaks of the discipline through which the multitude has passed a lesson not without its significance to this saint in exile. ‘These are they which came out of the great tribulation.’ The weird imagery of this book seems to suggest that the stages of the tribulation are so ordered that it achieves the ends of a great spiritual discipline. The convulsions which rend the earth are one and all determined by movements before the throne of God in heaven. The saints are sealed ere the restless forces of destruction rush forth upon their errands, and the trials which are to prove high qualities take place under the eye of a watching God and amidst the ministries of His messengers. (2) The interpreting elder sketches the past history of the redeemed multitude in its ethical inwardness. The life once lived upon earth was a life of purifying faith in the Divine sacrifice. ‘They washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.’ Admitted to the holiest sanctuary of all worlds, they minister before God as priests and kings. But it is through the blood of propitiation that they have won access to this high standing-ground.
II. This vision brings into view the higher destiny upon which God’s redeemed servants have entered. Four elements combine in the gladness of this beatific life. (1) The life of the glorified first presents itself to the mind of John as a grand victory in which uncounted hosts participate. The sense of a well-won victory, the victory of the highest of all causes, pulsates in the life of the glorified. ‘Salvation to our God which sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb.’ (2) The elder goes on to describe the redeemed as raised to a priesthood of worship and service. This is the central absorbing employment of the new state upon which they have entered. ‘Therefore are they before the throne of God, and they serve Him day and night in His temple.’ (3) These triumphant saints are still in fellowship with the Good Shepherd who laid down His life for the sheep. This thought is brought out in the Revised Version: ‘The Lamb in the midst of the throne shall be their shepherd’. Between Himself and those who have been made white by His sacrificial blood there is a bond no change can weaken or destroy. (4) The last touch in this picture sets forth the Eternal God as the Comforter of His saved people. ‘And God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.’ Not only is He the object of worship upon the throne, He comes nearer still to the redeemed multitude, healing all the smarts of earth, and dispersing the last memory of pain. When God puts His hand upon the fountain of mortal tears, the fountain is sealed up for ever.
Rev 7:14
Did you ever observe the force of double symbols? Sometimes they increase the light they cast, like twin stars. There is that fine one in the Apocalypse, ‘Who have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb’. Isn’t that wonderfully expressive? Ah yes, and they’ll be prouder of their redness than of their whiteness.
Dr. John Duncan, in Colloquia Peripatetica.
‘Think, Madam,’ wrote Samuel Rutherford to Lady Ken mure, after a great sorrow in her family, ‘it is a part of your glory to be enrolled among those whom one of the elders pointed out to John, “These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” Behold your Forerunner going out of the world all in a lake of blood, and it is not ill to die as He did.’
References. VII. 14. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxii. No. 1316. J. Laidlaw, Studies in the Parables, p. 269. A. Smellie, The Scottish Review, vol. vi. p. 443. Expositor (4th Series), vol. v. p. 125; ibid. vol. vi. p. 251; ibid. (5th Series), vol. vi. p. 218.
Rev 7:14-16
The summer of 1826 was, I believe, the hottest and driest in the nineteenth century. Almost no rain fell from May till August. I recollect the long continued sultry haze over the mountains of Lorne, Loch Etive daily a sea of glass, the smoke of kelp-burning ascending from its rocky shores, and the sunsets reflecting the hills of Mull and Morven in purple and crimson and gold. I can picture a sultry Sunday in that year in the quaint, rudely furnished, crowded parish church, then beside the manse, and the welcome given to the sublime imagery of the Apocalypse in the words which formed the text: ‘These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat’
Prof. Campbell Fraser, Biographia Philosophica, p. 17.
Compare the use of these verses also in Mrs. Gaskell’s North and South, XI. XIII. and XVII.
Reference. VII. 15. A. Smellie, The Scottish Review, vol. vi. p. 163.
The Dignity of Service
Rev 7:15
This is one of the glimpses of the better life which John gives us in this book of celestial visions. Heaven is a place of sweet activities. The redeemed are serving God day and night before His throne. The Lamb in the midst of the throne is still occupied as when on earth He said: ‘I am among you as He that saveth’. All these, from the highest to the lowest, are busy in the ministry of love. And we take it that that is the pattern in the mount after which God would have us fashion all things in the earthly life, and so in the text we get a sermon not so much about heaven as about the work and interests of the present day. We learn:
I. That the highest life is a life of perpetual service. In God’s view rank is determined by the measure of service. It is strange how the world has set aside and reversed this principle in its conceptions of rank and dignity. We speak of service with a sort of disdain, and of servants as ignoble and inferior persons. We are nearest heaven in proportion as we serve.
II. The highest life is a life of service in the temple, or rather of temple service. The highest life on earth is a life made up entirely of temple service a life in which we do all things from the least to the greatest in the same spirit in which we sing hymns and offer prayers, honestly, reverently, and purely, as in the sight of God and our Master Jesus Christ. What we need more and more to feel is that we are always in the temple; that though we do not see God’s face, we are for ever in His sight; that we serve before His throne, and that He takes careful and loving knowledge of everything. It is possible even on earth to be like those who serve Him day and night in His temple.
III. The highest life is a life of work inspired by love, by love and not by necessity. In all that we do there may be the willing, thankful, rejoicing spirit, a feeling of infinite indebtedness to God for His great gifts and His great love, which gives, as it were, wings to the feet that are engaged in common labour. According to the measure of your love will you be near to those who serve as they behold His face.
J. G. Greenhough, The Cross in Modern Life, p. 209.
Rev 7:16
‘No one who has never wanted food knows what life is,’ said Wilderspin…. ‘No one knows the real primal meaning of that pathetic word Man no one knows the true meaning of Man’s position here among the other living creatures of this world, if he has never wanted food. Hunger gives a new seeing to the eyes.’
Theodore Watts-Dunton, Aylwin.
References. VII. 16, 17. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx. No. 1800, and vol. xxxvi. No. 2128.
Paradise
Rev 7:17
When evening came, the Oriental shepherd gathered his flock around him, and, in imagery borrowed from the flocks feeding on Olivet, we are told that he puts himself at the head of his sheep and slowly mounts the hill, tenderly carrying the weakest in his arms, and leading them gently on until they reach the permanent Fold which stood on the high ground of the Mount of Olives.
It is a true picture of the way in which Jesus deals with us when the evening of life comes to us. Then the Good Shepherd comes and calls us home. Do we ask in trembling anxiety when will death come to us? Where will it be? In what shape will it present itself? There is no answer to these questions. I remember once, at the unveiling of a memorial to some colliers who had perished in an explosion, a pitman spoke with much pathos of the way a collier would say goodbye to his wife and children each morning when he started for his daily toil, not knowing if he would ever return home alive again. Surely we might each say the same thing of ourselves. However short the absence from home may be, who can tell if he will be permitted to return again? Such thoughts should not be put away as alarming; it is our wisdom to realise the possible nearness of death much more then we usually do.
But what is Death? We ask the question in trembling anxiety, and Jesus does tell us something in answer. Death is certainly not destruction, it is no cessation of being; it is not even a suspension of being; it is a changed condition of life: ‘Absent from the body, present with the Lord’; ‘Whether we live or die, we are the Lord’s’. Death is a birth into new conditions of life. We are told of our Blessed Lord, that ‘He was put to death in the flesh, but quickened in the Spirit’; that which seemed like falling into a deep unconscious sleep was, in Jesus, the passing into quickened energy of life, As with our Forerunner, so will it be with us death is our birth into the life of Paradise.
He is the Comforter, Nourisher, Guide and Teacher of the Saints at rest, for this is the best definition of life in Paradise it is a life of rest. This is its characteristic feature as it is brought before us in the Bible. ‘The souls of the righteous are in the Hand of God, and there shall no evil touch them; in the sight of the unwise they seem to die, but they are at peace.’ And again, ‘I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Write, Blessed are the dead which die in the Lord… that they may rest from their labours’.
Let us consider some of the elements of that rest.
I. The waiting souls in Paradise enjoy the rest of those who have escaped for ever from weariness. Here on earth the sun smites upon us with its burning heat, and we become very weary. How tired one gets of life sometimes! The strain of even an ordinary existence is so great, not only from its outward circumstances, but from its continual inward conditions. But the souls in Paradise are at rest. No longer does the corruptible body weigh down the incorruptible soul; no longer have they to bear the heavy burden of this mortal flesh; no longer does ‘the sun light upon them, nor any heat’; they enjoy the deep, abiding, and refreshing rest of Paradise.
II. They have the rest of freedom from life’s anxieties. There is no care there; ‘they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more’; they are freed from anxiety as to their own perseverance, from the terrible anxiety of living under conditions of known spiritual peril. Theirs is the rest of temptation escaped; the rest that comes after the battle has been fought out to its extremest limits; it is the rest of attained security.
III. They enjoy the rest of spiritual satisfaction. Here, it is our very beatitude to know unsatisfied desire: ‘Blessed are they that hunger and thirst after righteousness;’ and well we know by experience the truth of this beatitude, for our progress is marked by increasing desire, and every Eucharist adds to the intensity of the longing of the soul after God.
IV. There is also the rest of Service. We carry with us into Paradise consciousness, memory, and the power of communion with the Lord. It must therefore surely follow that if we are present with the Lord, sharing His Love, blending our will with His high purpose, the rest of Paradise must be the rest of activity; and one undoubted sphere of that activity is the Ministry of Intercession. The saints within the veil are ever bearing us upon their hearts, as they think of us as being on the perilous journey of earthly life; and their supplications blend with the Mighty Sacrifice offered by the Great High Priest at the Golden Altar, as He intercedes for His Church on earth.
V. Yet, once again, and sweetest thought of all, the waiting souls are living in the rest of Hope. There is a restlessness even in their rest, and through it they know the crowning joy of Paradise, as they cry from beneath the Altar, ‘How long, O Lord, how long?’ In this life of hope they have foretastes of the greater joys that await them in heaven; they look for the joy of Resurrection when they shall live once more an embodied life, but in a resurrection body, conformed to the glory of the risen Lord; they look for the joy of ‘His appearing,’ for that fulness of bliss which they shall know when they shall wake up after His likeness and be satisfied with it. They have the anticipation of all that awaits them in the glorious Resurrection life of the Saints, and ever, under the power of the grace of Jesus, does this joyful hope grow clearer as the entranced spirits enter deeper into the secrets of their future life in heaven.
George Body, The Good Shepherd, p. 99.
The Feeding of the Lamb
Rev 7:17
The first words which John ever heard of Jesus were words that described Him as a Lamb. When John was a disciple of the Baptist’s, drinking in inspiration from that stern teacher, he had heard these words fall from the Baptist’s lips, ‘Behold the Lamb of God which taketh away the sin of the world’. What experiences John had had and what a vast deal he had suffered when he came to write this book of Revelation! Yet in Revelation some seven and twenty times John repeats the sweet expression Lamb of God the first words he had ever heard of Christ. How blessed is a life when from its first stage to its last there runs through it one regulating thought!
I. Christ in heaven today is the very Christ who walked by the banks of Jordan. I think we all need to be assured of that, for we are very prone to disbelieve it. We know that He is no longer rejected and despised, and we know that the body of His humiliation has been glorified, until insensibly we transfer these changes from His outward nature to His heart, as though death and resurrection had altered that. So do we conceive Christ as far away from us, separated from the beating of the human heart; glorious, yet not so full of tender brotherhood as in the days of Capernaum and Bethany. That error is combated by the vision of the Lamb in heaven. Purity, gentleness, and sacrifice are there.
II. Another thought which our text suggests is this, that we shall need Christ in heaven as much as we do here. The Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them even in heaven there shall be no feeding without Christ. We all know in some measure how great and how constant is our need of Christ on earth. Are we not prone to imagine that in the world beyond the need of being nourished by Christ Jesus will be less? However such an idea may arise within us, remember that it is not the conception of the Bible. All that we owe to Him on earth is but a tithe of what we shall owe to Him when we awake. It is suggested, too, by the words of the original that this feeding shall be a perpetual process. The love of God will expand and deepen endlessly so that every fresh hour will have its sweet surprise.
III. Lastly, and most significant of all, will you note the position in which the Lamb is standing. In the very centre and seat of power He has His place: He is the Lamb in the midst of the throne. That means that the redeemed shall be fed not only gently, but by one who stands in the place of sovereign power.
G. H. Morrison, The Unlighted Lustre, p. 259.
Rev 7:17
‘How can we conceive,’ James Smetham once wrote, ‘of a complete joy, if those we love are not there with us? I dare hardly turn my eyes this way. It is like the beginning of our agony to think of eternal separation; it seems as if it would fill eternity with tears. What is that view of Truth that will wipe all tears away? What that consent to the Divine Rectitude which cannot permit a diminished joy even when the wicked are silent in darkness? I need help for such thoughts as these God bring all we love safe within that circle of glory. God grant we may have no loves on earth that will not be everlasting.’
Her sympathy for man is not the ‘child of golden hope,’ but of deep and tender pity. The grave will right many wrongs, the future will bring in a peaceful, better time what more can science or its religion promise? Not that God will wipe away the teal’s from every eye; for its heaven is only the vision of the ideal, and never can be a fact.
Dr. William Barry, on George Eliot.
In a letter to his father, written out of a fit of youth-full melancholy, Burns alludes to this passage thus: ‘I am more pleased with the 15th, 16th, and 17th verses of the seventh chapter of Revelation, than with any ten times as many verses in the whole Bible, and would not exchange the noble enthusiasm with which they inspire me for all that this world has to offer. As for this world, I despair of ever making a figure in it Indeed I am altogether unconcerned at the thoughts of this life.’
References. VII. 17. Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xi. No. 643. J. Morlais Jones, Christian World Pulpit, vol. lvi. p. 356. J. Keble, Sermons for the Sundays After Trinity, p. 229. Ibid. Miscellaneous Sermons, p. 340.
Fuente: Expositor’s Dictionary of Text by Robertson
VIII
THE OPENING OF THE SEALS
Rev 6:1-8:1
The theme of this chapter is the opening of the seals, or the gospel as preached from John’s time to the final advent of our Lord. As you observe, this study concludes with Rev 8:1 , separated from its context by artificial chapter division it should be Rev 7:17 . The study introduces the prophetic element of the book, which extends to the end. From the standpoint of the writer, it is the first revelation of “the things which shall come to pass hereafter.”
We will consider first the Revelator. In the gospel, our Lord is himself the revelation of God the Father: here he is the Revelator. He is presented in Rev 5:6 thus: “A Lamb standing as though he had been slain, having seven horns and seven eyes, which are the seven Spirits of God.” The seven horns indicate fulness of authority and power in each of the seven churches. The seven eyes, explained as the seven Spirits of God, indicate his sending of the Holy Spirit, who on earth is his vicar and bears witness to him alone, and through whom he is present with and controls the seven churches. His worthiness to be the Revelator, and to constitute his people a kingdom and priests, and to receive all power, riches, wisdom, might, honor, glory, blessings, and dominion, is expressly ascribed to his vicarious expiation of sin as the Lamb slain. This appears in Rev 5:9-10 ; Rev 5:12-13 , and his worthiness on this ground is recognized by the united voices of Cherubim, Elders, all the Holy Angels and by the whole creation. So qualified, he opens the seals and reveals in sublime imagery the future of the kingdom of God. And so this revelation is prophecy.
The seven disclosures which follow the opening of the seven seals are divided into two distinct groups: a group of four and a group of three. The four are introduced, one after another, by the four Cherubim in succession, and in response to their “Come,” “Come,” “Come,” appear horses varying in color. With the group of three the Cherubim appear to have no direct connection. The fifth seal disclosure reveals the impatient martyr cry for vengeance, uttered on earth indeed, but here presented as it reaches heaven, and the sixth seal discloses portents which herald the long delayed vengeance for which the martyrs prayed. The opening of the seventh seal is followed by these words: “There was silence in heaven for half an hour.” That is to say, temporarily there is no disclosure of what followed the opening of the seventh seal the climax for a while is suppressed. We do not get to what that seventh seal would have disclosed until we reach the climax in Rev 20 , and in every other synchronous view there is a pause, or a suppression of the climax which, when it comes, fits all four of the synchronous views. We have already seen the agency of the Cherubim in giving revelations to Isaiah and Ezekiel. Now, let us take up this study in order. The First Seal: When our glorified Lord opened the first seal, one of the Cherubim shouted like thunder: “Come” not “come and see” as the King James Version has it, as if spoken to John; not “come Lord Jesus, in thy final advent” as the premillennial interpreter would have it. The Cherub says “Come,” and he is not calling either John or Jesus they are both there with him. We know what each Cherub called for by what appeared in answer to the call. There appeared in succession, following the “Come,” “Come,” “Come,” “Come,” four horses with their riders. This imagery of different colored horses is borrowed from the book of Zechariah. In a paragraph of chapter I and in the whole of Rev 6 , we have Zechariah’s vision of the different colored horses and the chariots, which are explained as the four spirits which stand before the throne of God, and go forth unto all the earth at the bidding of God, and by whom all the earth is quieted. Here in our lesson we see these horses all going forth at the bidding of the four living creatures. In Zechariah the result of the going forth is the crowning of Joshua the high priest, followed by these words: “Behold the man whose name is the Branch, and he shall grow up out of his place; and he shall build a temple of Jehovah, and he shall be a priest upon his throne, and the counsel of peace shall be between them both” that is, between the king and the priest “and the crowns shall be distributed among his followers.”
Here in our study the result is somewhat the same the crowning of Christ the royal priest is followed by the crowning of all his followers. In Zechariah we have the type of the successful issue of the rebuilding of the Temple through Joshua and Zerubbabel, or high priest and civil government, and that in spite of all opposition. Here in Revelation, through these opened seals, we see the antitype, Christ’s successful building of his spiritual temple and the crowning of all his followers. In Zechariah all the chariots, no matter what the color of horses, contribute an appropriate part toward the glorious result, so here the work imaged by all these horses, whether apparently good or bad in individual result, conspired together to one glorious result. We cannot rightly interpret Revelation without antecedent understanding of these horses and chariots of Zechariah. But more particularly:
When one of the Cherubim said, “Come,” the record states that there appeared a white horse and a rider who had a crown on his head, and carried a bow, and he went forth conquering and to conquer. This imagery shows the saving power of the gospel preached, to those who lovingly receive it, even unto the end of time. We shall see this same white horse and his rider reappear in the last synchronous view, (Rev 19:11 ), but in a somewhat different role. The Old Testament prophecies throw much light on this royal rider and conqueror. In this connection turn to the Psa 45:1-8 : My heart overfloweth with a goodly matter; I speak the things which I have made touching the king: My tongue is the pen of a ready writer. Thou art fairer than the children of men; Grace is poured into thy lips: Therefore God hath blessed thee for ever. Gird thy sword upon thy thigh, O mighty One, Thy glory and thy majesty. And in thy majesty ride on prosperously, Because of truth and meekness and righteousness: And thy right hand shall teach thee terrible things. Thine arrows are sharp; The peoples fall under thee; They are in the heart of the king’s enemies. Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: A sceptre of equity is the sceptre of thy kingdom. Thou hast loved righteousness, and hated wickedness: Therefore God, thy God, bath anointed thee With the oil of gladness above thy fellows. All thy garments smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia; Out of palaces stringed instruments have made thee glad.
Now, that tribute to the king in Psa 45 , going forth conquering, shooting his arrows, is very similar in meaning to this rider on the white horse that goes forth conquering and to conquer. So to interpret our vision, we must conceive of the risen, ascended, and glorified Christ receiving the kingdom, as it is set forth in Dan 7:13-14 : “I saw in the night visions, and, behold, there came with the clouds of heaven one like unto Son of man, and he came even to the Ancient of days, and they brought him near before him. And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all the people, nations, and languages should serve him: his dominion is an everlasting dominion, which shall not pass away, and his kingdom that which shall not be destroy-ed.” In Dan 7:18 it says: “But the saints of the Most High shall receive the kingdom, and possess the kingdom forever, even for ever and ever.”
That passage in Dan 7 tells of Christ’s ascension, and of his reception of the kingly power, and the manner in which he enlarged the kingdom here upon earth. It is in line with this rider on the white horse, going forth conquering and to conquer.
Again we have a similar thought in Psa 2 . “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 their cords from us. He that sitteth in the heavens shall laugh: the Lord shall have them in derision, Yet have I set my king upon my holy hill of Zion,” and it concludes by saying: “Kiss the Son, lest he be angry, and ye perish from the way, when his wrath is kindled but a little,” and “all the uttermost parts of the earth are given unto him for his possession.” Psa 2 is in line with Psa 45 , arid with Dan 7 , and portrays substantially what is accomplished by the rider on the white horse going forth conquering and to conquer.
Again, in Psa 110 it is said: “The Lord said unto my Lord, sit thou at my right hand until I make thine enemies thy footstool.” That is spoken to Christ when he ascended into heaven after his resurrection. And then it goes on to show that from his throne in heaven Christ reigns here on earth, and that in the day he leads out his armies his young men shall be volunteers not conscripts. And they shall go forth in the beauty of holiness and be as multitudinous as the drops of the dew in the dawn of the morning. Christ in heaven, having received his kingdom, is dispensing his word on earth through the Spirit, the churches, and the preachers. So the going forth of the white horse with its rider, who is the King of kings and Lord of lords, signifies the gospel preached in its triumph. It brings life and peace to those who receive it and love it. It is so presented in Mat 10:13 : “When you go into a city or unto a house, say, Peace be on this house, and if there be in that house a son of peace, this peace shall rest on him.”
This is the signification of the opening of the first seal, and we see the agency of the Cherubim in bringing it about.
The Second Seal (Rev 6:4 ): “And another horse came forth, a red horse, and to him that sat thereon it was given to take peace from the earth, that they should slay one another. And there was given unto him a great sword.” That means, in plain English, this: The divisive effect of the gospel preached to the end of time, in harmony with these words in Mat 10:34-36 : “I came not to send peace, but a sword, for I came to set a man at variance against his father, and the daughter against her mother, and the daughter-in-law against her mother- in-law, and a man’s foes shall be they of his own household.”
This red horse shows the same gospel preached, but having a different effect, according to the words of our Lord, as I have just read them. Now while the gospel is intended for love and peace, as presented in the imagery of the first horse and his rider, and while that effect follows when the gospel is lovingly received, yet on account of its high demands many reject it, and so it becomes the occasion of bitterness, contention, and strife. You can easily see why this is true, because the gospel wars against all selfishness, all impiety, all social evils, all idolatry, and every wicked business. Those following these evils array themselves against the gospel as its bitterest enemies when its preaching disturbs them. Take the case presented in Act 16 . Paul in the city of Philippi finds a poor girl possessed with a demon, ‘owned by a syndicate of men, who count her money value in proportion to her subjection to the demon that possesses her, and they make their money out of the prostitution of this woman’s soul to Satan. Now the gospel comes there in the mouth of Paul and casts out that evil spirit. The result is that this syndicate, when they saw that the hope of their gain was gone, arrested Paul and Silas.
It had precisely this effect at Ephesus. It went forth conquering and to conquer, like the white horse. After a while it strikes the business of Demetrius, a silversmith, and other silver-smiths, who were making a big pile of money out of selling silver shrines representing the goddess Diana, and as Paul preached that “these be no gods that are made with hands,” Demetrius said: “This man is breaking up our business,” and he raised a row, with the result that Paul finally left the city. Now, every-where that the gospel is preached some will receive it lovingly, and some will reject its high claims and make for division, bitterness, and strife.
If any one of you go to a place and preach, and a mother of a family is converted, the unconverted father gets mad or the daughter is converted and the son gets mad. There the gospel seems to have been the occasion of strife.
The Third Seal: “The third cherub said, Come, and I saw, and behold, a black horse, and he that sat thereon had a balance [that is, a pair of scales] in his hands. And I heard, as it were, a voice in the midst of the four living creatures, saying: A measure of wheat for a shilling; and three measures of barley for a shilling.” What does that imagery represent? It represents the gospel in the hands of the hireling and apostate church, doling it out in tiny bits at high famine prices. The Bible is locked up in the Latin Version, the people are shut out from it only as it is vouchsafed in corrupt fragments, and a charge is made for every religious service from the cradle to the grave. The house of God has scales in it, and when the weary soul comes up the minister weighs out a fragment of consolation for so much. “If I baptize your baby, so much; if I marry you, so much; if I visit you in sickness, so much; if I attend your funeral, so much; if I pray for your dead, so much; for an indulgence, so much.” It was Tetzel’s sale of indulgences that provoked the Reformation. Its blessings are beyond the reach of the poor. For example, in Mexico, as a distinguished Mexican general told me some years ago when I was in Mexico: “The multitude of our people cannot marry they cannot pay the price that our priest charges; hence concubinage all over the land. They cannot read the Bible; the priest doles out to them such parts as he judges to be good for them and that must be accepted as the priests interpret it.” The famine as it is represented by this horse, is not of food for the body, but of food for the soul. As Amos says (Amo 8:11 ): “Behold the day is come, saith the Lord Jehovah, when I will send a famine on the land, not a famine for bread, nor a thirst for water, but of hearing the words of Jehovah.” Now, that is the kind of a famine that this black horse indicates. Through many centuries since Christ died some ecclesiastics have thus doled out, not only God’s word, but have put a price on every religious favor.
The Fourth Seal (Rev 6:7 ): “And when he opened the fourth seal I heard the voice of the fourth living creature saying: Come, and I saw, and behold, a pale horse, and he that sat upon him his name was Death, and Hades followed with him.” Hades is the state of being disembodied. When the body is killed the spirit goes into the spirit world. “And there was given unto him the fourth part of the earth to kill with the sword, and famine, and death, and the wild beasts of the earth.” Now, what does that mean? This imagery represents the lovers of the true gospel as persecuted unto death sword, hunger, death, and the wild beasts are all literal. Some Christians are put to death by the sword, some die of starvation, some put to death by torture or the martyr’s stake, and some cast to the wild beasts. The application is to all persecutions for conscience’ sake at any time, whether Pagan, Papal, or Protestant. Our Lord foretold that as they went forth to preach they would be persecuted, and told them to fear not them that killed the body only, but rather to fear him that was able to destroy both soul and body in hell. It refers to the persecution then going on in John’s time, and to the ten years’ tribulation that followed in Smyrna, the death of their pastor and all the other persecutions until the apostate church becomes enthroned at Rome. Then all the Roman Catholic persecutions, the Waldenses, the Albigenses, the Lollards, Huss, Jerome, Luther, the horrible persecution in Spain and in Holland and all the Low Country under the Duke of Alva and his soldiers; and it also refers to the persecution by the Protestants when they were in power, and the persecution of the Baptists by Luther, the persecution of Servants by John Calvin, the persecution of the Baptists in England and the United States.
The idea of the four horses is not necessarily successive. In any age all four results of the gospel preached may appear. That is not the thought, but these are four different views of the gospel as it is preached. You may find all of them illustrated in two persons. A sermon may be preached, two men sitting side by side. One of them receives it and he is at peace; the other, his brother, hates it, and there is a strife between the two brothers. Finally, the brother that hates gets so far away from the word of God that in his soul there is a famine of the word of God. Then his hate becomes so intense that he kills his brother.
In the parable of our Lord, called “the sower,” or the four kinds of soil, you have a thought very similar. The sower went forth so sow, and the seed fell in four different places, and what became of the seed as it fell in these four different places is explained by our Lord in his interpretation of the parable.
The Fifth Seal (Rev 6:9 ): “And when he opened the fifth seal I saw underneath the altar the souls of them who had been slain for the word of God, for this testimony which they held, and they cried with a great voice, saying, How long, O Master, holy and true, dost thou not judge and avenge our blood on them that dwell on the earth? And there was given unto each of them a white robe, and it was said unto them that they should rest yet a little while that their fellow-servants also, and their brethren, who should be killed even as they were, should have fulfilled their course.”
In all persecutions under the fourth seal, each impatient martyr, while yet suffering, was crying out for God’s vindication. In effect the complaint against God’s delay of vengeance was an impeachment of divine justice. On earth these prayers seemed vain. But the object of the disclosure of the fifth seal is to show you heaven’s reception of the martyr cry for vengeance uttered on earth. The idea is similar in Gen 4:10-11 ; God’s words to Cain: “The voice of thy brother’s blood crieth unto me from the ground, which opened its mouth to receive it.” Spurgeon, in glowing imagery, pictures Abel’s spirit, evicted from its clay tenement by murder, rushing into heaven’s court and crying: “Vengeance on my murderer,” and happily contrasts it with Christ’s blood, “which speaketh better things for us than the blood of Abel, even crying: Father, forgive them, they know what they do.” A good exposition of the fifth seal may be found in our Lord’s parable (Luk 18:1-8 ). The Lord is exhorting men to pray all the time for vindication, and not to faint, illustrating it by the widow and the unjust judge, and concluding by saying: “And shall not God avenge his own elect that cry to him day and night, and yet he is long-suffering over them.” Then he adds: “Nevertheless, when the Son of man cometh shall he find that faith on the earth?” What faith? The faith that God will untimately avenge the injuries done to his people. It does not mean, shall he find saving faith on the earth? There are hundreds of people thousands of them who have saving faith, but yet seem to have little or no faith that God will vindicate all their wrongs.
I want to present that more particularly, as it is very important. In Bulwer’s drama of “Richelieu,” the Queen of France Anne of Austria said to the skeptical cardinal, who was her enemy: “The Almighty, my Lord Cardinal, does not pay every week, but at the last he pays.” The things occurring here in which for the time, being evil triumphs, give the saints great discouragement, and they cry out because God does not speedily execute judgment on their oppressors. So the object of the fifth seal is not to show us the prayers as they are uttered here on earth, but what becomes of them when they get to heaven. He saw, under the altar, the souls of them that were beheaded for the testimony of the Lord, and they cried out “how long?” That cry was uttered on earth, but is here shown as heaven received it. His reply is: “I will clothe you in white now, but rest a while, wait until the time of vengeance comes; wait until all other martyrs fulfil their course, and then all at once God will fully avenge you.”
Motley’s Rise of the Dutch Republic and his History of the United Netherlands tell how the Spaniards capture city after city. No mercy is shown; the men are killed, the women are subjected to shameful indignities; the children are impaled on spears or their heads cut off and fastened to spikes, and every conceivable evil and horror is visited upon them, until the question rises: “Where is God?” We need to recall the words of the German poet, Von Logau, The mills of God grind slowly, But they grind exceeding small; Though with patience He stands waiting, With exactness grinds He all.
Law writers tell us that laws restrain crime only as punishment is speedy and certain. An Old Testament writer anticipated their wisdom: “Because sentence against an evil deed is not speedily executed, the hearts of evil-doers are fully set in them to do mischief.” Shakespeare, in Hamlet, makes “the law’s delay provocation for suicide. So the lesson of Paul is hard: “Avenge not yourself give place to God’s wrath; if thine enemy hunger feed him, if he thirst give him drink, and by doing so heap coals of fire on his head.”
God’s delay in avenging is explicable by the facts:
1. No criminal can escape.
2. No bribery, perjury, or technicality can avail.
3. The sufferer is trained in patience by tribulation.
4. No witness can abscond.
5. The punishment will be complete and exactly proportioned to the heinousness of the offense.
6. God delays to punish that there may be space for repenting. (See Act 3:14 ; Act 3:19 ; Rom 2:4 ; 2Pe 3:8-9 ; 2Pe 3:15 )
John Milton quotes our very passage (Rev 6:10 ), and applies it to the evils perpetrated on the Albigenses by the Roman Catholic Church. He says: “‘Avenge, O Lord, Thy slaughter’d saints, whose bones lie scatter’d on the Alpine mountains cold.”
The Sixth Seal: “And I saw when he opened the sixth seal, that there was a great earthquake of hair, and the whole moon became as blood, and the stars of heaven fell unto the earth, as a fig tree casteth her unripe figs when she is shaken by a great wind, and the heaven was removed as a scroll as it is rolled up, and every mountain and island were moved out of their places, and the kings of the earth and the princes, and the chief captains, and the rich and the strong and every bondman and freeman, hid themselves in the caves, and the rocks of the mountains, and they say to the mountians and to the rocks, Fall on us, and hide us from the face of him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb; for the great day of his wrath is come, and who is able to stand?” The opening of this seal reveals the portents that herald God’s final vengeance.
Now, you see that that sixth seal brings you to the end of time. Our Lord also says in his great prophecy in Mat 24:29 : “After the tribulation of those days the sun shall be darkened as by an eclipse, and the moon will not give her light, and the stars shall fall.” It is certain that there comes a time when God does answer the long-deferred petition of his people for vengeance upon their oppressors.
Rev 7 presents this great thought: That God’s imminent wrath, just about to fall, is suspended until all the righteous are sealed and so safeguarded. And then follows the sealing of the 144,000 of the Jews; a ‘symbolic number representing 12,000 or a complete number from each tribe, and then a great multitude that no man can number, out of every nation and tribe and tongue and country. Every one of them must be saved before those terrible convulsions that attend the advent of our Lord, when the heavens shall be rolled together as a scroll, when the whole world shall be wrapped in fire. It cannot take place as long as a righteous man is living on the earth, or a righteous man’s dead body is sleeping in a grave. These must get out of the way first. As when Abraham said to God: “You are about to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah. Shall not the Judge of all the earth do right? It may be there are fifty good men in that city; will you destroy them?” He said, “If there be fifty, no” perhaps forty perhaps thirty perhaps twenty perhaps ten. And when not ten could be found, the angel grasped hold of the only righteous man, Lot, and said to him: “We cannot visit God’s wrath upon this place until you get out,” and they dragged him out. So the vengeance that comes with this advent does not reach this earth until each child of God is secure.
The Seventh Seal: It says that when the seventh seal was opened “there was a silence in heaven for half an hour.” Which means) that there is no disclosure just yet. The silence will be broken when the climax of all the synchronous arrives. That climax is Rev 20:11-15 , which agrees with the climax of our Lord’s great prophecy Mat 25:31-46 , and with Paul’s climax, 2Th 2:6-11 . In the same way and for the same purpose, the disclosure of the seven thunders is sealed up for awhile. That is, that silence will be broken after a while, and you will be told what would have happened right there it is just a temporary suspension of the climax, which will be clearly stated when you come to it. Every one of the parallel views before you: the seals, the trumpets, the two women, the great holy war, every one of them will stop just before the climax. And then in Rev 20:11 we have the climax that fits every one of them. He means to say that there must be silence and no record of what the seventh seal would disclose for awhile; so when the seven thunders were about to sound, he says: “Do not record that; wait.”
QUESTIONS
1. In a word, what do the disclosures following the opening of the seals represent?
2. What is the symbol of the Revelator, and meaning of seven horns and seven eyes?
3. On what meritorious ground is all the worthiness of this Revelator based?
4. Name, and discriminate between, the two groups of these seven disclosures.
5. State negatively and affirmatively to whom the Cherubim say “Come”
6. From what Old Testament book is the imagery of the colored horses borrowed, and what is the meaning and result in this lesson?
7. Describe the first horse and his rider what is the meaning and where again in this book do this horse and rider appear?
SEALS
8. Cite at least four Old Testament prophecies whose forecast is similar to the meaning here.
9. In a word, what phase of the gospel preached is expressed in the imagery of the red horse and his rider, and what saying of our Lord expressed the same thing?
10. Why is this divisive effect of the gospel preached, and illustrate by two notable instances in the Acts?
11. In a few words explain the imagery of the black horse and his rider, holding a pair of scales, and illustrate historically,
12. Meaning of the imagery of Death riding the pale horse, following by Hades?
13. What parable of our Lord exhibits some likeness to these four horses?
14. Explain the disclosure under the fifth seal, citing Genesis case and Spurgeon’s use of it.
15. What parable of our Lord expounds the fifth seal, and the meaning of “that faith”?
16. Cite the passage from Bulwer’s “Richelieu.” From Von Logau.
17. What things help to explain the delay in God’s vengeance?
18. How does Milton apply the cry of the martyrs in Rev 6:10 ?
19. What does the opening of the sixth seal reveal?
20. Where in our Lord’s great prophecy are they similarly presented?
21. What is the great thought of the seventh chapter?
22. Explain the silence after the seventh seal.
Fuente: B.H. Carroll’s An Interpretation of the English Bible
1 And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
Ver. 1. And after these things ] This whole chapter is purposely interlaced between the opening of the sixth and seventh seal, for the support of the poor suffering saints, that they sink not under their many pressures.
Four angels ] Ministers of indignation, whether good or evil angels the doctors are divided.
Holding the four winds ] Those besoms of the air, as Rupertus calls them, and Scripture emblems of spiritual influence, Joh 3:8 ; Son 4:16 ; Eze 37:9 . The holding of the winds may peradventure intimate here that peace and ease in which God suffereth worldly men to live, and be overtaken, even upon the point of his great judgments, 1Th 5:3 . He made fair weather before Pharaoh till he had him in the heart of the Red Sea.
Nor on any tree ] The philosopher compares men (the Scripture good men often) to trees, which by benign winds are filled with fruits.
Fuente: John Trapp’s Complete Commentary (Old and New Testaments)
1 8 .] The sealing of the Elect . [ And ] after this (these words, , shew that the opening of the sixth seal is complete, and that what is now to follow, viz. the two visions each introduced with similar words, ( ) , comes in by way of episode. They represent two great events, the sealing of the elect on earth, and the great final assemblage of the saints in heaven. The great day of the Lord’s judgment is not described; it is all but brought before us under the sixth seal, and is actually going on in the first of these episodes (see below): but only that part of it which regards the saints appears to us, and that only by its result their gathering in to heaven) I saw four angels (not, as many interpreters, bad angels; nor does it necessarily follow that we are to adopt the analogy of ch. Rev 16:5 and to regard them as “angels of the winds:” but simply angels, to whom this office is committed. This is all that is declared to us in the text, and it is idle to enquire beyond it. All allegorizing and all individualizing interpretations are out of the question) standing upon the four corners ( with accus. at the first appearance, as indicating the coming into that position, “sensu prgnanti;” see on ch. Rev 4:2 ) of the earth (i. e. North, South, East, and West, the cardinal points from which the winds blow) holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind may not blow on the earth nor on the sea, nor against any (or a , i. e. any ) tree (the three disjunctives, , merely couple, without any climax), and I saw another angel (as before, simply an angel; not as has been fancied, our Lord, nor the Holy Spirit; cf. below) coming up from the rising of the sun ( , because the rising of the sun is low on the earth’s horizon, whereas the Apostle was in heaven, looking down on the earth: and , as naturally agreeing with the glorious and salutary nature of his employment. Cf. Eze 43:2 ; Mal 4:2 . The allegorical interpretations which have been given are entirely uncountenanced in the text), having the seal ( , though anarthrous, is defined by the possessive gen. following) of the living God ( , as giving to the seal solemnity and vital import): and he cried with a great voice to the four angels to whom it was gives (reff.) to injure (viz. by letting loose the winds, which they as yet held in) the earth and the sea, saying, Do not ye injure the earth nor the sea nor the trees, until we (not I : see Mat 24:31 , cited below) shall have sealed the servants of our God (the God alike of the speaker and of those addressed) upon their foreheads (the noblest, as well as the most conspicuous part of the human frame).
This vision stands in the closest analogy with Mat 24:31 , where immediately after the appearing of the sign of the Son of man and the mourning of the tribes of the earth, we read , , . The judgment of the great day is in fact going on in the background; but in this first and general summary of the divine judgments and dealings, in which the sighs of Creation and of the Church for Christ’s coming are set before us, only that portion of its proceedings is described which has reference to these two. When the strain is again taken up, the case and reference are different.
The questions now arise, 1) who are these that are sealed? and 2) what is the intent of their being sealed? 1) Those who have followed the preceding course of interpretation will have no difficulty in anticipating the reply. They are, primarily, those elect of God who shall be living upon earth at the time here indicated, viz. that of the coming of the Lord: those indicated in Mat 24:31 , above cited. (On the import and reason of the use of Israel and its tribes, I shall speak below.) As such, they are not identical with , but are included in , the great multitude which no man can number of Rev 7:9 ff. But they are also symbolical of the first-fruits of the Church: see notes on ch. Rev 14:1 ff.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
CH. Rev 6:1 to Rev 8:1 .] THE OPENING OF THE SEVEN SEALS. As preliminary to the exegesis of this section, I may observe that it is of the first importance to bear in mind, that the openings of these seals correspond to the various arrangements of God’s Providence by which the way is prepared for the final opening of the closed book of His purposes to His glorified Church. That opening shall not fully and freely be made, till His people will know even as they are known. And that will not be, till they are fully gathered in to His heavenly garner. This book the Lamb opens, containing as it does matters which , , , first by the acts and procedures of His establishment of His reign over the earth, and then finally by His great second coming, the necessary condition of His elect being gathered out of the four winds into His glory. When these preparations for His coming have taken place, and that coming itself has passed, and the elect are gathered into glory, then will be the time when the last hindrance to our perfect knowledge will be removed, and the book of God’s eternal purposes will lie open the theme of eternity’s praise.
I may add that for the sake of perspicuity, I shall mainly follow, in these notes, the track of that interpretation which seems to me to be required; noticing only differences in those of other Commentators where grammar and philology are concerned.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
12 7:17 .] OPENING OF THE SIXTH SEAL, AND ITS ATTENDANT VISIONS. And herein ( Rev 6:12-17 ) Immediate approach of the great day of the Lord , Mat 24:29 [98] : ( Rev 7:1-8 ) gathering of the elect out of the four winds , Mat 24:31 ; ( Rev 7:9-17 ) vision of the whole glorified church , Mat 25 .
[98] When, in the Gospels, and in the Evangelic statement, 1Co 11:23-25 , the sign () occurs in a reference, it is signified that the word occurs in the parallel place in the other Gospels, which will always be found indicated at the head of the note on the paragraph. When the sign () is qualified , thus, ‘ Mk.,’ or ‘ Mt. Mk.,’ &c., it is signified that the word occurs in the parallel place in that Gospel or Gospels, but not in the other or others .
The interpretation of this sixth seal is a crucial point in Apocalyptic exegesis. We may unhesitatingly set down all interpretations as wrong, which view as the fulfilment of this passage any period except that of the coming of the Lord. See the grounds of this below. And I saw when he opened the sixth seal, and a great earthquake took place (we have no word but “ earthquake ” for , but it does not by any means cover the meaning. For here the heavens are shaken (against Dsterd.), and the sea, and the dry land. See Hag 2:6-7 , and the comment in Heb 12:26 f. Compare also Zec 14:4-5 ), and the sun became black as sackcloth of hair (see ref. Isa. The cloth meant is the cilicium: see note on Act 18:3 . This answers to Mat 24:29 , ., and to , in Joe 2:31 ), and the whole moon (i. e. not the moon in her crescent or her incomplete form, but entire; as we say, the full moon) became as blood (so Matt. l. c., ; and Joe 2:31 , , ), and the stars of the heaven fell to the earth (so Matt. l. c., ), as a fig-tree casteth her unripe figs ( , , Hesych. De W. explains it to mean, the winter figs, which almost always fall off unripe) when shaken by a great wind (so Matt. again, l. c., . It is remarkable, that in Matt., when the description has finished, the next words are . The similitude from the fig-tree, though a different one, rises to the mind of the Apostle as he sees in vision the fulfilment of his Master’s words which were so shortly followed by a similar illustration. The imagery itself, as that in the beginning of the next verse, is from Isa 34:4 ). And the heaven parted asunder as a scroll when rolled up (the stars having fallen from it, the firmament itself was removed away, as an open scroll which is rolled up and put by. So also almost verbatim, Isa 34:4 ), and every mountain and island were moved out of their places (cf. again Mat 24:35 , : the whole earth is broken up by a change as total as any of those previous ones which have prepared it for its present inhabitants. Cf. ch. Rev 16:20 ; and Nah 1:5 , , ). And the kings of the earth and the great men (the word belongs to later Greek. It serves here to designate the great civil officers, statesmen and courtiers, as distinguished from the next following) and the chief captains (see reff., especially those in Acts, where the officer in command of the garrison at Jerusalem is so called) and the rich men and the strong men (hitherto the enumeration has comprised all those who from their circumstances would have most ground for trust in the permanence of the existing state of the earth: these last, the , being perhaps the physically strong, cf. Ps. 32:16: or perhaps all those who on account of any , physical or intellectual, are of the number of the sturdy or stout-hearted. The word is commonly used by the LXX as an epithet or even as a name ( ) of Jehovah: but also as here: see reff. Now, the catalogue becomes more general) and every man, bond and free, hid themselves in ( , pregn.; ran for shelter into ) the caves and in the rocks of the mountains (see reff. Isa., from which the imagery comes), and say to the mountains and to the rooks, Fall upon us and hide us from the countenance (see ref., and cf. Psa 33:16 , ) of Him that sitteth upon the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb (the imagery is from Hos 10:8 , further impressed by our Lord’s solemn saying on the way to Calvary, Luk 23:30 : the meaning, that all these shall seek death or annihilation in terror of the coming day, when they shall have to stand before God): because the great day (we have no way in English of expressing the without an awkward periphrasis. The art. lifts the adjective out of its mere epithetal office, and makes it almost a title the day, that great day: cf. Act 8:10 , where the people say of Simon Magus, . This name, . , if properly considered, should have kept expositors firm here to the great verity of this part of the Apocalyptic visions, and prevented them from going in omnia alia as they have done) of His wrath is come (the virtually perfect sense of the aor. here can hardly be questioned. Yet even here an account may be given of the aoristic use: see note on ch. Rev 11:15 ), and who is able to stand (reff., and Mal 3:2 )? We are thus brought to the very threshold itself of the great day of the Lord’s coming. It has not yet happened: but the tribes of the earth are troubled at its immediate approach, and those terrible signs with which all Scripture ushers it in, have taken place. We are now then arrived at the time described in Mat 24:30 ; the coming itself of the Son of man being for a while kept in the background, as hereafter to be resumed. He is seen as it were coming: but before the vengeance is fully accomplished, the elect of God then living on the earth must be gathered, as Mat 24:31 , out of the four winds of heaven, from among the inhabitants of the earth. To this ingathering the sealing in our text is the necessary preliminary. The correspondence between the series of prophecies holds even in the minutest particulars, and where they do not correspond, their very differences are full of instruction. See these pointed out as we proceed.
Fuente: Henry Alford’s Greek Testament
Rev 7:1 . As on the synoptic scheme (Mat 25:31 ), physical convulsions and human terrors are followed by a pause during which the saints are secured. It is impossible and irrelevant to determine whether the winds’ blast and the sealing were already conjoined in the fragment or oral traditions which lay before this editor, or whether their combination is due to himself. They reflect the tradition underlying the synoptic apocalypse (Mar 13:24-27 , etc., cf. Rev 6:12 to Rev 7:3 ), but here the safeguarding of the elect comes before, instead of alter, the advent, and the four winds are agents of destruction instead of mere geographical points; besides, the role of messiah is omitted altogether. It is assumed not merely that these angels are the spirits of the four winds (Zec 6:5 , and repeatedly in Enoch, e.g. , lxix. 22, “the spirits of the waters and of the winds and of all zephyrs”), but that some onset of the winds is imminent (Rev 7:2 , cf. En. xviii. 22), as part of the horrors of the last catastrophe (for punitive winds, see Sir 39:28 ). Stray hints proving the existence of such a tradition ( cf. Dan 7:2 ) have been collected ( cf S. C. 323 f.; A.C. 246, 247) e.g. , from Sibyll. viii. 203 f., etc., where a hurricane is to sweep the earth previous to the resurrection of the dead (trees being here singled out as most exposed to a storm’s ravages). If such allusions are not mere echoes of the present passage, they would appear to indicate a runlet of eschatological tradition flowing behind more important ideas. Or are the saints like trees of God (Ps. Sol. 14:2, 3) never to be uprooted by a wind or onset of foes ( ibid. viii. 6)? It is no longer possible to be sure. In En. Rev 18:1 f. by a semi-Babylonian touch, the four winds are identified with the four pillars of the heaven and the foundations of the earth; in Apoc. Bar. vi. 4, 5, four angels with lamps are restrained by another angel from lighting them ( cf. also E. Bi. 5303). There seems to be no allusion to the notion of a blast (from the sea) as a form of mortal fate ( e.g. , Oed. Col. 1659, 1660; Iliad , vi. 345 f.); on the contrary, the idea goes back to Zec 6:8 (LXX), whence the prophet had already developed Rev 6:1-8 . As Rev 14:1 f. roughly answers to Rev 7:9 f., so the appearance of wild beasts out of the agitated sea of the nations (in Dan 7:1-8 ) corresponds to the sequence of Rev 7:1-4 ; Rev 13:1 f.
The earth is a rectangular plane or disc on which John looks down from heaven’s dome resting on it, to observe (Rev 7:2 ) a fifth angel “ascending” from the sun-rising (the east as the source of light, cf. on Rev 16:20 , the site of paradise, the sphere of divine activity?). , here (as in Rev 15:7 ; cf. Heb 10:31 ) in O.T. sense ( cf Deu 32:39 f.; Eze 20:33 ; Jer 10:10 , etc.) of vitality to succour and to punish, God’s “life” being manifested in his effective preservation of the saints and chastisement of their enemies or of the world in general. He lives and keeps alive. Here, as in the parent passage, Eze 9:4-6 ( cf. Exo 12:13 f. and the “Egyptian” character of the plagues in chap, 8.), the true of God are distinguished by a mark denoting God’s ownership. Before the crisis good and evil must be discriminated (Spitta, 80 f.). Cf. Ps. Sol. 15:6 f. on the immunity of the righteous, , : where as these plagues hunt down the wicked, . This royal, sacred sign, which in Ezekiel is the cross or Tau as the symbol of life and is here probably authenticates the bearers as God’s property ( cf. Herod, ii. 113, vii. 233) and places them beyond risk of loss. It identifies them with his worship and also ( cf. on Rev 2:17 ) serves to protect them as an amulet against harm (see Deissm. 351, 352 on as protective marks and amulets). In Test. Sol. (tr. Conybeare, Jew. Quart. Rev. 1898, p. 34) an evil spirit declares he will be destroyed by the Saviour “whose number ( ), if anyone shall write it on his forehead, he will defeat me”. Mr. Doughty also describes ( Ar. Des. i. 171) a false Christ in Syria who declared he had God’s name sculptured between his eyebrows; i.e. the wrinkles resembled the Arabic hieroglyph for Allah. For the religious significance of such tattooing as a mark of divine ownership see R. S. 316; and, for the connection of Rev 6:12 f. and Rev 7:1 f., the basal passage in Dan 11:40 ; Dan 11:44 ; Dan 12:1 . The parallel device of Antichrist later on (Rev 13:16 , etc.) shows that this sealing is something special, baptism or the possession of the Spirit (as in Paul) is the guarantee of destined bliss. A contemporary expression of the idea occurs in Clem. Rom. lix., lx.: “We will ask that the Creator of all things preserve intact to the end the appointed number of his elect throughout all the world, etc”. As Rev 6:1-8 ; Rev 6:12 f. are free reproductions, with a special application, of the ideas underlying Mar 13:7-8 ; Mar 13:24-25 , so Rev 7:1 f. is an imaginative sketch on the lines of Mar 13:27 . The Apocalypse, however, has no room for the false messiahs of Mar 13:6 ; Mar 13:22 , etc. ( cf. on Rev 13:11 f.) as a peril. See further 4 Ezr 6:5 , “Ere they were sealed who laid up the treasure of faith,” and Melito (Otto ix. 432, 476) the apologist, who preserves a dual tradition of the end, including wind as well as fire = et selecti homines occisi sunt aquilone uehementi, et relicti sunt iusti ad demonstrationem ueritatis, (whilst at the deluge of fire) seruati sunt iusti in area lignea iussu dei. But the Apocalypse like Philo, stands severely apart from the current Stoic notion, adopted in Sib. iv. 172 f.; 2 Peter, etc., of a destruction of the world by means of a final conflagration.
Fuente: The Expositors Greek Testament by Robertson
Revelation Chapter 7
After this, so far is the great day of His wrath from being come that we find (in the parenthesis of chap. 7) God accomplishing mighty works of saving mercy. More signal and severe judgments impend and are to be next predicted. But in this intervening episode God tells us of a numbered complement for His seal from every tribe of Israel, and of a Gentile crowd in numbers numberless to be saved, comforted, and blessed. The first is the sealing of 144,000 out of the twelve tribes of Israel by an angel of singular authority that ascends from the sun-rising. “After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. And I saw another angel ascend from the sun-rising, having the seal of the living God; and he cried with a great voice to the four angels to whom it was given to injure the earth and the sea, saying, Injure not the earth and the sea nor the trees, till we shall have scaled the servants of our God upon their foreheads. And I heard the number of the sealed, a hundred [and] forty-four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the children of Israel: out of the tribe of Judah, twelve thousand sealed; out of the tribe of Reuben twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Gad twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Asher twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Naphthali twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Manasseh twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Simeon twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Levi twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Issachar twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Zebulun twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Joseph twelve thousand; out of the tribe of Benjamin, twelve thousand sealed.” That pious men should doubt Israel as a fact here is strange, especially with a crowd of saved Gentiles immediately following. One can understand Ephraim “joined to idols” omitted, as well as Dan for similar guilt: one of the great horrors of Christendom, as this book points out. Levi and Joseph take their place.
Next there is vouchsafed to the prophet the sight of a crowd of Gentiles. “After these things I saw, and, behold, a great crowd which no one could number, out of every nation, and tribes and peoples and tongues, standing before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; and they cry with a great voice, saying, Salvation to our God that sitteth on the throne, and to the Lamb. And all the angels were standing around the throne and the elders and the four living creatures, and fell before the throne upon their faces, and did homage to God, saying, Amen: the blessing, and the glory, and the wisdom, and the thanksgiving, and the honour, and the power, and the strength to our God, unto the ages of ages. Amen. And one out of the elders answered saying to me, These that are clothed with the white robes, who are they, and whence came they? And I said to him, My lord, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they that come out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him by day and by night in his temple, and he that sitteth on the throne shall spread his tabernacle over them. They shall hunger no more, nor shall they thirst more; neither shall the sun at all strike upon them, nor any heat. For the Lamb that [is] in the midst of the throne shall tend them, and shall lead them unto fountains of waters of life; and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.”
Here they do not sing like the elders, but they ascribe “salvation to God” in the quality of sitting on the throne (we have seen in this book, His judicial throne), and to the Lamb. In other words, the ascription could not have been made before Rev 4 . Its tenor supposes the vast change for the risen saints to have taken place. It is not the fruit of a testimony during the past or the present. All this is merely men’s imagination, without the smallest foundation in scripture So far from its being a picture of the redeemed of all times, it is expressly said to be a countless throng out of Gentiles distinguished from Israel; and this not now or of old, but in relation to God as He governs judicially at a future time It is not universal therefore. These Gentiles stand in manifest contrast with the sealed out of Israel; but they are no less distinct from the elders or glorified saints. They do not even sing a (or as a) new song, like the Jewish remnant on mount Zion (Rev 14:3 ); but like them they are quite distinct from the glorified saints represented by the elders. With joy they wave palms.
Here we read that one of the elders talked about the Gentile crowd, and explained who they were to the prophet, as he evidently without this would have been at fault. If the elders mean the glorified saints, these Gentiles cannot. Most assuredly they are not all the saints, because the hundred and forty-four thousand of Israel we have seen expressly distinguished from them; and so are the Jewish remnant in Rev 14 . Who are they and what? They are a crowd of Gentiles to be preserved by God’s gracious power in these last days. Not a word implies that here they were glorified; there is no reason to doubt that they were still in their natural bodies. If they are said to be “before the throne,” this cannot overthrow the many proofs that they are alive on the earth. Thus the woman, for instance (in Rev 12 ), is also described as seen in heaven; but this is only where the prophet saw her in the vision. Why are we necessarily to gather that these Gentiles belong to heaven? The seer saw them there, but whether “before the throne” means that they are actually in heaven is another question, to be decided by the evidence as a whole.
In this case it is plain from other statements that they are not heavenly; and to it are weighty objections. First of all they are definitely contra-distinguished from Israel, who clearly are on earth, and thus naturally this company would be on earth too, the one Jewish, and the other Gentile. Next they “come out of the great tribulation.” Far from its being a general body in respect to all time, this proves that it is a future and peculiar though countless group; for it consists only of Gentiles preserved and blessed of God as coming out of “the great tribulation.”
In the millennial time there will be a great ingathering of the Gentiles; but those before us precede that day. They are saints from among the Gentiles at the great crisis, called to the knowledge of God by the preaching of the “gospel of the kingdom,” or the “everlasting gospel,” of which we hear respectively in the Gospel of Matthew and in the Revelation. The Lord Himself tells the disciples that “this gospel of the kingdom” shall be “preached in all the world for a witness unto all the nations” (or all the Gentiles); “and then shall the end come.” Is not this the very time spoken of here? It is clearly not a general summary of what God is doing now, but a description of what is yet to be, specially just before the end, when “the great tribulation” bursts out. John saw the fruit of divine grace even then in this vast crowd from among the Gentiles. The details of the description fall in with and confirm this inference. But the unparalleled tribulation is to fall on the Jews, as we are also told. This is far wider, and not so severe.
Attention has been already drawn to the fact that they are distinguished from the elders. If these represent the glorified saints, those are not the same company. If we admit that the elders represent. those caught up, the inference seems plain and certain that this Gentile throng cannot. The same body might be represented at different times by a different symbol, but hardly by two symbols at the same time, or by a symbolic and a literal description together.
Thus we may have Christians set forth by a train of virgins at one time, and by the bride at another; but the same parable carefully avoids the confusion. Such an incongruous mixture is foreign to scripture. It is not even found amongst sensible men, leaving out the word of God. The prophet tells us that one of the elders answers his own inquiry, “What are these that are clothed in white robes? and whence came they?” “These are they who come out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” They are saints, though quite distinct from the elders. They are restricted to the time of “the great tribulation,” and therefore after the glorified were taken to heaven. “Therefore are they before the throne of God” is a description, not of their local place, but of their moral position; they stand in view of, and in connection with, God that sits on the throne. This, as already seen, restricts the crowd to the transition period; and they stand related to God governmentally acting, not in this day of grace.
Unmistakably, be it observed, there is nothing vague or general, as is often supposed. For the throne here differs from what it is now, as the millennial throne will differ from both. ‘I hat very aspect of the throne may he called its Apocalyptic character, to distinguish it from what went before or will come after. The elder describes it as a crowd entirely distinct from his own company, and, like the sealed of Israel, peculiar to that future day. They are saved Gentiles of that time. They are never said to be “around the throne,” still less to be enthroned themselves. Further, not only are they before the throne of God, but it is added, “and serve him day and night in his temple.” But this severs them from the bride or new Jerusalem wherein is no temple, and no night there. They will he highly favoured in nearness to God, but on earth, though distinct from the millennial nations, as being in relation with God and the Lamb before that day. Compare the blessed of the nations in Mat 25:34-40 .
Again it is said, “He that sitteth on the throne shall” – not exactly “dwell among them,” but – “spread his tabernacle over them.” It is the gracious shelter of God’s care and goodness that is set forth. This is of importance; because, though God now dwells by the Holy Ghost in the church as His habitation through the Spirit, it will not be so when these Gentiles will be called to the enjoyment of His favour. He will vouchsafe what is more suited to their character and state – His protection. Of old God had His pillar of cloud, a defence and a canopy over the camp of Israel (though He also dwelt in their midst). Here too He graciously promises it, not to the sealed of Israel that are to know His care, but to these hitherto besotted Gentiles. It is added that “they shall not hunger any more, nor thirst any more; neither shall the sun at all fall on them, nor any heat.” Can any one question that such a solace is much more adapted to a people about to be relieved and blessed on the earth, than to men in a glorified state above? Where would be the propriety of a promise to risen men on high, that they shall hunger or thirst no more! If to a people on earth, we can all understand the comfort of its assurance. “For the Lamb that is in the midst of the throne shall tend them, and shall lead them unto fountains of waters of life: and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes.” We must not let traditional misapplication deprive us of other truth, of God’s mercy even in that terrible day to both the sealed out of Israel and to these countless Gentiles for blessing on the earth, itself to be then reconciled.
Fuente: William Kelly Major Works (New Testament)
NASB (UPDATED) TEXT: Rev 7:1-3
1After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth, so that no wind would blow on the earth or on the sea or on any tree. 2And I saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun, having the seal of the living God; and he cried out with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea, 3saying, “Do not harm the earth or the sea or the trees until we have sealed the bond-servants of our God on their foreheads.”
Rev 7:1 “I saw four angels. . .standing at the four corners of the earth, holding back the four winds of the earth” In OT number symbolism, four referred to the whole earth (cf. Isa 11:12; Jer 49:36; Dan 7:2; Zec 1:8; Zec 6:1; Zec 6:5; Mat 24:31, see Special Topic at Rev 1:4).
There have been several interpretations of these four winds.
1. the rabbis viewed the quarterly winds as evil (cf. Act 27:14)
2. some refer it to the evil winds or possibly the judgments of God of Jer 49:36 and Dan 7:2
3. some see it as an allusion to the number four in Zec 1:8; Zec 6:5, where the four horsemen and four chariots are servants of God throughout the world (cf. Mat 24:31)
“no wind would blow on the earth or on the sea or on any tree” This, like Rev 6:6; Rev 6:8, shows a limited judgment (cf. Rev 7:3; Rev 9:4).
Rev 7:2 “saw another angel ascending from the rising of the sun” The east (sun) was a symbol of life, health, or a new day.
“having the seal of the living God” God’s seal is referred to again in Rev 9:4; Rev 14:1 and probably Rev 22:4. Satan’s seal is mentioned in Rev 13:16; Rev 14:9; and Rev 20:4. The purpose of this seal is to identify God’s people so that the wrath of God will not affect them. Satan’s seal identifies his people, who are the object of God’s wrath.
In Revelation “tribulation” (i.e., thlipsis) is always unbelievers persecuting believers, while wrath/anger (i.e., org or thumos) is always God’s judgment on unbelievers so that they might repent and turn to faith in Christ. This positive purpose of judgment can be seen in covenant curses/blessings of Deuteronomy 27-28.
The phrase “the living God” is a word play on the title YHWH (cf. Exo 3:14; Psa 42:4; Psa 84:2; Mat 16:16, see Special Topic at Rev 1:8). This same word play is often found in biblical oaths, “as the Lord lives.”
SPECIAL TOPIC: SEAL
“the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the sea” This is an aorist passive indicative. God is in control of the judgments on the earth and unbelievers. His limits on judgment have two purposes:
1. that believers will not be hurt by them
2. that unbelievers might repent, call upon His name, and give Him glory (cf. Rev 9:20-21; Rev 14:6-7; Rev 16:9; Rev 16:11; Rev 21:7; Rev 22:17)
Rev 7:3 “until we have sealed the bond-servants of our God on their foreheads” This is an allusion to Eze 9:4; Eze 9:6 (cf. Rev 9:4; Rev 14:1). The opposite of this sealing is Satan’s sealing, the mark of the beast (cf. Rev 13:16-17; Rev 14:9; Rev 14:11; Rev 16:2; Rev 19:20; Rev 20:4).
Fuente: You Can Understand the Bible: Study Guide Commentary Series by Bob Utley
And. Some texts omit.
after. App-104.
these things. The texts read “this”.
saw. App-133.
on (first and fourth occurance) Greek. epi. App-104.
earth. App-129.
holding = holding fast. Greek. krateo. Compare App-172.
four winds. See Jer 49:36. Dan 7:2; Dan 8:8; Dan 11:4. Zec 2:6; Zec 6:5.
that = in order that. Greek. hina.
on (second and third occurance) Greek. epi. App-104.
nor, nor. Greek. mete. See App-105.
any. App-123. tree. Greek. dendron. Not as in Rev 2:7.
Fuente: Companion Bible Notes, Appendices and Graphics
1-8.] The sealing of the Elect. [And] after this (these words, , shew that the opening of the sixth seal is complete, and that what is now to follow,-viz. the two visions each introduced with similar words, () ,-comes in by way of episode. They represent two great events, the sealing of the elect on earth, and the great final assemblage of the saints in heaven. The great day of the Lords judgment is not described; it is all but brought before us under the sixth seal, and is actually going on in the first of these episodes (see below): but only that part of it which regards the saints appears to us, and that only by its result-their gathering in to heaven) I saw four angels (not, as many interpreters, bad angels; nor does it necessarily follow that we are to adopt the analogy of ch. Rev 16:5 and to regard them as angels of the winds: but simply angels, to whom this office is committed. This is all that is declared to us in the text, and it is idle to enquire beyond it. All allegorizing and all individualizing interpretations are out of the question) standing upon the four corners ( with accus. at the first appearance, as indicating the coming into that position, sensu prgnanti; see on ch. Rev 4:2) of the earth (i. e. North, South, East, and West, the cardinal points from which the winds blow) holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind may not blow on the earth nor on the sea, nor against any (or a, i. e. any) tree (the three disjunctives, , merely couple, without any climax), and I saw another angel (as before, simply an angel; not as has been fancied, our Lord, nor the Holy Spirit; cf. below) coming up from the rising of the sun (, because the rising of the sun is low on the earths horizon, whereas the Apostle was in heaven, looking down on the earth: and , as naturally agreeing with the glorious and salutary nature of his employment. Cf. Eze 43:2; Mal 4:2. The allegorical interpretations which have been given are entirely uncountenanced in the text), having the seal (, though anarthrous, is defined by the possessive gen. following) of the living God (, as giving to the seal solemnity and vital import): and he cried with a great voice to the four angels to whom it was gives (reff.) to injure (viz. by letting loose the winds, which they as yet held in) the earth and the sea, saying, Do not ye injure the earth nor the sea nor the trees, until we (not I: see Mat 24:31, cited below) shall have sealed the servants of our God (the God alike of the speaker and of those addressed) upon their foreheads (the noblest, as well as the most conspicuous part of the human frame).
This vision stands in the closest analogy with Mat 24:31, where immediately after the appearing of the sign of the Son of man and the mourning of the tribes of the earth, we read , , . The judgment of the great day is in fact going on in the background; but in this first and general summary of the divine judgments and dealings, in which the sighs of Creation and of the Church for Christs coming are set before us, only that portion of its proceedings is described which has reference to these two. When the strain is again taken up, the case and reference are different.
The questions now arise, 1) who are these that are sealed? and 2) what is the intent of their being sealed? 1) Those who have followed the preceding course of interpretation will have no difficulty in anticipating the reply. They are, primarily, those elect of God who shall be living upon earth at the time here indicated, viz. that of the coming of the Lord: those indicated in Mat 24:31, above cited. (On the import and reason of the use of Israel and its tribes, I shall speak below.) As such, they are not identical with, but are included in, the great multitude which no man can number of Rev 7:9 ff. But they are also symbolical of the first-fruits of the Church: see notes on ch. Rev 14:1 ff.
Fuente: The Greek Testament
In chapter four of the book of Revelation, we were taken into the heavenly scene where John beholds the throne of God, the cherubim about the throne as they worship God and the twenty-four elders as they respond to that worship.
In chapter five, we see the scroll with seven seals within the right hand of Him who sits upon the throne, the scroll being the title deed to the earth. An angel proclaiming who was worthy to take the scroll and loose the seals. We recognize that no man is worthy, no man can redeem the earth. And John in the prospect of the earth going unredeemed begins to sob until the elder said, “Don’t weep. Behold the Lion of the tribe of Judah hath prevailed to take the scroll and to loose the seals.”
So we see Jesus as He steps forth and takes the scroll. And we hear the reaction, first of all, the redeemed, the church, who sing of their redemption through His blood and His worthiness to take the book and loose the seals. And then we hear the angels, one hundred million strong, plus millions of millions as they join in the chorus of worthiness to the Lamb and to Him who sits upon the throne.
Then in chapter six, we see as He begins to loose the seals of this scroll. And as He looses the seals of the scroll, we see the corresponding judgments that take place upon the earth. The first seal bringing forth the antichrist, the white horse and his rider. The second seal bringing forth wars, desolations. The third bringing famine, and the fourth bringing death. And we see that in the first four seals, the four horsemen of the apocalypse, as they are often called, one quarter of the earth’s population being destroyed.
The fifth seal introduces us to a multitude of people under the altar of God who are saved out of the Great Tribulation. They are asking God how long before God avenges upon those of the earth who had slain them, brings His vengeance upon them. And they are told that they are to wait a short season until their number be complete and they are given white robes, and thus, comforted.
In the sixth seal we see a cataclysmic, catastrophic kind of judgment upon the earth described in the book of Joel, described in Isaiah, described by Jesus, as they talk about the stars falling from heaven, the islands being moved, the surface of the earth being changed in a geographical sense as this great cataclysm takes place.
Now we come to chapter seven, and before the seventh seal is opened, we have now here a little parenthetical kind of a side exposition as John sees these four angels holding back the winds of the earth that they should not blow on the earth nor the sea, nor any tree.
And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea. Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads ( Rev 7:1-3 ).
Now we know that during the Great Tribulation or during the seven-year period, of which three and a half years would be designated the Great Tribulation. Now during the first three and a half years of this period, when the antichrist is setting up his power, his kingdom, that God has two witness, which we will be introduced to in the eleventh chapter, who bear witness for forty-two months or three and a half years. During the time of their witness, they shut up the heavens that it rained not during the time that they are witnessing. This lack of rain, of course, will probably be one of the instruments that will perpetrate the great famine that we have in the third seal. It could be that the holding back of the winds by these four angels is that which causes the rain to cease.
You see, we have our hydraulic cycle where the ocean waters are evaporated into the atmosphere and then carried by the winds over the lands. Whereas the clouds begin to cool, the gases condense and form into rain that fall to the earth; and thus, the earth is watered in this hydraulic cycle. It is a beautiful engineering plan of God to water the earth. But if the winds were held back, then the water that would evaporate into the atmosphere would not be carried over the earth and would probably start being sustained within the atmosphere itself, again causing some very interesting atmospheric kind of phenomena, as the water would again be suspended in a greater concentration in the atmosphere.
Here are four angels standing in the four corners of the earth. And the word “corners” is probably a poor translation. The Greek word is translated in the present time into quadrants. And we talked about the four quadrants of the earth, which is the north, east, south and west. So you have your north wind, east wind, south wind and west winds, the four quadrants of the earth.
People who are always looking to find fault with something in the Bible, and they say the Bible was reflecting the superstition or the intelligence of the day, because they say the four corners of the earth. So evidently John believed that the earth was flat, and thus you have the four corners and he was guilty of the flatter theory. Thus, you can’t rely on the Bible because it does have fallacies, such as the four corners of the earth.
Well I saw a sign that said the Marines were in the four corners of the earth, so you can’t trust the defense department, because they don’t realize that the earth is round. They think that it has corners.
No. The idea is the quadrants; north, east, south and west. But interestingly enough, the physicists and all now declare that there really are four corners on the earth. The earth isn’t actually round. The poles are flattened somewhat to make the bulge at the equator. So, the earth is more of an elliptical shape, but the bulge actually creates about four corners of the earth. And that is one of the latest declarations of those men who study such things.
But it is talking about the four quadrants, four winds; the north, east, south and west winds. And it is interesting to me that these angels, and they must be very fascinating creatures, have the power to hold back the winds that they blow not. Here they are holding back the winds, but they are told by this other angel who ascends from the east, having the seal of the living God, crying with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, “Don’t hurt them until we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.”
And I heard the number of those which were sealed: and there were one hundred and forty-four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel ( Rev 7:4 ).
Now that is very plain isn’t it? How many are sealed? One hundred and forty-four thousand. Who are they? Of all of the tribes of Israel. What could be plainer than that?
Now a lot of people have trouble with the book of Revelation, because they say, “Well, you can’t understand it.” You see the one hundred and forty-four thousand doesn’t really mean one hundred and forty-four thousand. It is a symbolic number of twelve times twelve thousand. And twelve being the number of human government. And they start getting into it further and further and further, so it means that one man is going to rule one month during the thousand years of the kingdom age, and all kinds of weird speculations.
And of course, the Jehovah Witnesses think that they are the one hundred and forty-four thousand. And Herbert W. Armstrong in his plain truth of the World Tomorrow says, “No, we are the one hundred and forty-four thousand.” And if you will double and triple tithe to the church of God, you can become one of the hundred and forty-four thousand, the inner circle. And when the precise time comes we will send you a telegram that you can flee to this wilderness where we have prepared survival for the one hundred and forty-four thousand.
So, they are trying to be the one hundred and forty-four thousand, as the Jehovah witnesses are trying to be the one hundred and forty-four thousand, and many other groups have tried to take this identity upon themselves. But obviously in doing so you have to disregard the text itself and you have to start reading into the text, and say, “Well, God didn’t mean what He said. That is all symbolic language in a spiritual sense, and we are spiritual Israel, and I’m of the spiritual tribe of Aser or Benjamin or whatever.” Just to keep this kind of speculation from taking place the Lord then lists the twelve tribes.
Now, you are familiar with the fact that there are actually thirteen tribes, are you not? You remember when Jacob came to Joseph in Egypt, having thought he was dead for many years, now discovering him to be alive and one of the leaders of Egypt, Jacob, this elderly man came down to Joseph and when Joseph came to his father Jacob he brought his two sons Ephraim and Mannaseh. And Jacob said unto Joseph, “These two sons are mine. Whatever sons you have born after these can be yours, but these two sons are mine.” And he claimed the two sons of Joseph, Ephraim and Mannaseh. So Ephraim and Manneseh both became tribes in Israel.
So, the tribe of Joseph is divided into two, the tribe of Ephraim and Mannaseh. So the Levitical tribe became the thirteenth tribe, but was usually not numbered among the tribes. For instance, in the division of the land there was no portion for Levi, because the Lord was their portion. So, the land was apportioned into twelve sections, one for each of the tribes. And Ephraim and Mannaseh both received their allotments.
Now as a rule, you don’t read of the tribe of Joseph because it was divided into two tribes. Here we find the tribe of Joseph and the tribe of Mannaseh. So when it refers to the tribe of Joseph, no doubt it is the tribe of Ephraim, because Mannaseh is also listed as being sealed, the twelve thousand here in the seventh chapter.
So the interesting thing is that the tribe of Levi is also listed here, but the tribe of Dan is thus omitted. Dan was the first of the tribes to go into idolatry. If you go into the tel of Dan in northern Israel today, they have excavated quite a large area of pagan worship, as the tribe of Dan was the leader in idolatry, the first tribe to go into idolatry. And it could be that that is the reason why God has not sealed them from some of the things that are going to transpire during the Great Tribulation period. You will find as we move along in the book that the one hundred and forty-four thousand that are sealed are protected divinely by God from many of the judgments that are going to come upon the earth.
So twelve thousand of each tribe, the tribe of Judah being listed first because Rueben lost his birthright. Because of going into his father’s concubine he lost his birthright and it was given over to Judah. And to Judah was given the scepter that Judah should be the reigning tribe. And of course we know that David came from the tribe of Judah and then Jesus later, who was that branch out of Judah the stem of Jesse that would arise, the branch of Jesse that should come out of Judah, the Lion of the tribe of Judah. So the tribe of Judah listed first and then Reuben who was the oldest son but lost his ranking, and of Gad and each of the sons the twelve thousand and after this, verse nine.
So that is the one hundred and forty-four thousand. They are sealed now. Later on we will come across them again as we see them protected from various judgments that are coming.
After this I beheld, and, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all the nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues, they were standing before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, and palms in their hands; And they cried with a loud voice, saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb ( Rev 7:9-10 ).
Now interesting they are clothed with white robes and palms in their hands and what is their cry? Salvation.
Now we remember another crowd with palms in their hands and their cry was the same. Hosanna means salvation, or “save now” literally. They were crying salvation unto the Lord. So there is a lot of similarities between this crowd and that crowd on the road from Bethany to Jerusalem on the day that Jesus made His descent from the Mount of Olives on a donkey and the disciples were waving palm branches and the multitudes there were saying, “Hosanna, Hosanna: Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.” Salvation, salvation, blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord.
So here is a crowd now in heaven, a great number of them; however, these are from all over the world, from all of the various races, ethnic groups. Their cry is the same, “salvation to our God, which sits upon the throne and unto the Lamb”.
And all of the angels stood round about the throne, and about the elders and the four living creatures, and they fell before the throne on their faces, and worshiped God, Saying, So be it: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God for ever and ever. Amen ( Rev 7:11-12 ).
Now when the church sings its song of redemption, verse nine of chapter five, they sang the new song saying, “thou art worthy.” The angels respond to that song in worship saying, “Worthy is the Lamb that was slain to receive the power and riches, and wisdom, and strength, and honour, and glory, and blessing.” Here are the same things with a couple of differences. To the churches’ song they refer to riches, for interestingly enough, the Lord considers us as His treasure. Paul prayed for the Ephesians that they might receive a Spirit of wisdom and understanding. That they might know what is His riches in the saints, or you might know how much God values you.
You remember the parable of Jesus concerning the kingdom of heaven was likened to a man going through the field and discovering a treasure and who, for the joy thereof, went out and sold everything so he could buy the field and have the treasure ( Mat 13:44 ). “Now the field”, Jesus said, “is the world”, and He was the one that gave everything. He gave His life to purchase the world in order that He might obtain the treasure. “So if you only knew”, Paul said, “how highly the Lord treasures or values you”. And Peter writing says, “We are His peculiar treasure.” Well it is peculiar to me that God would take such value in me, that God would treasure me, but we are His inheritance.
So when the church declares its song, we are His inheritance, His riches. When this group sings, thanksgiving is substituted for riches, and so that is the difference in the response to the two groups. As the angels respond to the second group, the response is not of riches, but of thanksgiving. Interesting little difference here. They are different groups.
We do not see the church here in chapter seven, but we see those who were in chapter six under the fifth seal who were martyred during the Great Tribulation for their testimony. Who were crying for vengeance on those who dwelt upon the earth, who were given white robes and told to wait for a short season until their full number be complete. They were saying, “How long, O Lord, holy and true, before we can enter into the heavenly scene.” The Lord gave them white robes and said, “Wait until your full number is complete and you can come in.”
Now we see their number is completed and we see them entering into the heavenly scene. And this is really taking us on out to the end. In chapter seven, as we have this little vignette, it is one that now takes us out and shows us the whole picture and then we will come back to the seals again as we get to chapter eight. So this is just a little side view, a side journey and a view of this little segment here on out to the end.
So the angels respond to their song of salvation, worshipping God and ascribing to God the blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power and might unto our God for ever and ever. So be it.
Now, one of the elders asked John a rhetorical question, saying,
What are these which are arrayed in white robes? and where did they come from? ( Rev 7:13 )
Who are they, John, and where did they come from? And it was a rhetorical type of a question that was designed to open the door for an answer. It wasn’t really looking to John for an answer, but it was just designed to open the door to give the answer to John.
And I said unto him, John said, Sir, [kurios, often translated lord] thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of the great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore they are before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them ( Rev 7:14-15 ).
Now we find that ultimately these are to receive all the rights and the privileges of God’s redeemed people, the church. At the present time, they were not allowed to come into the scene in chapter six, the fifth seal. Now that they come in, they come in, in a serving capacity, serving Him in His temple day and night. Where as the church is reigning with Him and the promise to the church is that they would reign with Him. “Unto Him that loved us and purchased us with His blood, we shall reign with Him.” These are serving Him there in the temple of God and He that sits upon the throne shall dwell among them.
Now they came up out of the Great Tribulation, which means that they were no doubt martyred during this tribulation period. And we will read where when the antichrist takes over, he is going to bring in a new economic system which requires everyone receiving a mark, and no one being able to buy or sell without that mark. However, anyone who takes the mark will be consigned to a hopeless eternal future, no hope for salvation for anyone who takes the mark of the beast. So they have power, though, to put to death those that refuse to take the mark. Of course not being able to buy or sell, you can probably starve to death quite easily. So, a great number of people will be saved after the church is raptured.
Now there is an indication that those that will be saved after the rapture are those who had never heard the Gospel before. That indication comes from Paul in writing to the Thessalonians, his second epistle, talking about the coming of the antichrist, he declared, “that because they did not want to believe the truth, God gave them over to deception that they would believe the lie” ( 2Th 2:11 ). So those that have consciously and willingly rejected the truth that is in Jesus Christ, when the antichrist comes, will bring a strong delusion and God will allow them to be deluded, because they did not want to keep the truth.
But there are perhaps two billion people on the earth today who have never heard the message of salvation through Jesus Christ. During this period of time, the message of salvation will be declared by the hundred and forty-four thousand that have been sealed; it will also be declared by angels flying through the midst of heaven. And among the two billion people who have never heard the saving grace of God through Jesus Christ, there will be many who will receive the witness and the message of the one hundred and forty-four thousand and of the angels and will be saved, martyred, and brought into the heavenly scene. A great number that no man could count, we are told from all over the world, from all of the nations, kindreds and people and tongues.
So, an interesting group in heaven. John did not recognize them. Had they been the church and the elders said, “Who are these? Where did they come from?” John would have said, “Well, that is the church. I know them. I am a part of that group.” But he did not recognize them, because they are a saved multitude that are not the church. Thus to John, it is a mystery, but the mystery is explained by the elder. They came up out of the Great Tribulation. They were martyred during the Great Tribulation period, and have washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.
Now,
They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more ( Rev 7:16 );
As we proceed on into the further judgments of God that are going to come upon the earth, we find that the fresh water supplies are going to be polluted, so that men will have a real scarcity of water. Not only if it doesn’t rain for three and a half years, that is going to deplete the water also. Imagine what would happen even here in Southern California if there were three years without water. It wouldn’t take long to use up our supplies. There will be a great famine with no rain, the droughts. The crops will fail, but they will hunger no more. They have gone through hunger in the time of tribulation upon the earth. They have gone through thirst.
neither shall the sun light on them ( Rev 7:16 ),
God is going to give power to the sun to scorch men who dwell upon the earth.
For the Lamb, which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto the living fountains of water: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes ( Rev 7:17 ).
Now, the little side vignette is over and we come back to the scroll with the seven seals, the title deed to the earth that Jesus is opening to prove His right to redeem.
“
Fuente: Through the Bible Commentary
Rev 7:1. And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree.
A perfect calm there must be till Gods people are saved. Not a leaf shall stir to do them damage. Not a dash of foam upon the waters no movement of wind, or sea, or tree.
Rev 7:2-3. And I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with aloud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea. Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.
Everything exists for the servant of God. Creation is but a scaffold for the Church; and when Gods Church is finished, then all may be taken down, but not till then.
Rev 7:4-5. And I heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel. Of the tribe of Juda were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Reuben were sealed twelve thousand.
The order is not that of nature, but of grace, else Reuben would have come first. And the election of God is not according to birth or blood, but according to his sovereign will. Judah: then Reuben.
Rev 7:5-8. Of the tribe of Gad were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Aser were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Nepthalim were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Manasses were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Simeon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Levi were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Issachar were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Zabulon were sealed twelve thousand. Of the tribe of Joseph were sealed twelve thousand.
And of the last and least tribe still the same.
Rev 7:8. Of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand.
Methinks many believers belong to the tribe of Benjamin doubting, fearing, little in faith, and confidence, but Benjamin still has his men.
Rev 7:9. After this I beheld,
The Gentile Church.
Rev 7:9. And, lo, a great multitude, which no man could number, of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues,
It will do some people good to see that sight, for they fancy that all the saints go to their place of worship. There are no good people anywhere except those that think exactly as they do. So they seem to fancy. Oh! that their eyes were opened a little, for I am afraid that some Christians are very like the mouse that had always lived in a box, and on some grand occasion climbed up to the edge of the box. He looked over and saw the vast area of the cupboard, and said, I had no idea the world was so big as that, and yet it had never seen outside the cupboard even then. Oh! for eyes that could see a sight like this. After this, I behold, and lo, a great multitude which no man could number (we can count pretty high too) of all nations, and kindreds, and people, and tongues.
Rev 7:9. Stood before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes.
Perfectly pure perfectly happy arrayed like priests and conquerors, for they had palms in their hands.
Rev 7:9-11. And palms in their hands; And cried with a loud voice saying, Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb. And all the angels stood round about the throne.
In the outer ring and about the elders that represent the church, who stand in the inner ring, nearest to Christ, and nearest akin to the Son of Man.
Rev 7:11-12. And about the elders and four beasts, and fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God. Saying, Amen: Blessing and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might, be unto our God forever and ever. Amen.
Grand ascriptions of praise to make the worship perfect, as all worship should be which is presented to God as all worship will be when we shall once get to heaven.
Rev 7:13. And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, What are these This vast crowd what are these?
Rev 7:13-17. Which are arrayed in white robes? and whence came they? And I said unto him, Sir, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple: and he that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.
Fuente: Spurgeon’s Verse Expositions of the Bible
Rev 7:1. , the wind) The winds in this passage denote the assuaging mitigations of threatening evils; for the holding of them back hurts, Rev 7:2. A remarkable allegory.
Fuente: Gnomon of the New Testament
Rev 7:1-3
SECTION THREE
A SYMBOLIC INTERLUDE
SHOWING GOSPEL SUCCESS
Rev 7:1-17
1. THE VISION DESCRIBED
Rev 7:1-3
1 After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth,–“After this” means that after viewing the scenes revealed by the sixth seal he saw the two visions described in this chapter. They form an interlude between the sixth and seventh seals and show what results came to the church during the period of prosperity following the sixth seal. Angels mean messengers of some kind sent to carry out a purpose. Four standing at the four corners of the earth indicates that their work was to affect the whole earth, which in this case was limited to the inhabited part.
holding the four winds of the earth, that no wind should blow on the earth, or on the sea, or upon any tree.–The language here clearly means a destructive wind, such as causes unripe fruit to fall (6:13), or breaks and scatters things (1Ki 19:11; Jer 49:36). Such winds lash the sea into billows and break limbs and uproot trees. This is the picture John saw, but it represents something else. It indicates that . four destructive powers would be restrained for some time for a certain work to be accomplished, after which they would be released and come like a fierce wind.
2 And I saw another angel ascend from the sunrising, having the seal of the living God:–While John was viewing the four angels who held the winds back he saw another angel who was a messenger sent to tell the four angels what not to do. This angel ascended from the sunrising (the east) which was the direction to Palestine from Patmos where John was. As Palestine was the homeland of the Savior, the language perhaps means that it was a divine providence which held the destructive powers in check. Seals are placed upon things for the purpose of identification or showing genuineness. Figuratively the name of God would be stamped upon them; plainly expressed they would be approved of God because of their obedience to him. Here we have an instance of words used both literally and figuratively in the one expression. “Seal” is clearly in a figurative sense; “living God” is just as clearly in a literal sense.
and he cried with a great voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea,–As the four angels represent some divine agency that could control the damaging powers, it was given to them to hurt the earth and sea by permitting these powers to come. The angels, therefore, were said to be able to hurt the earth because they could restrain these powers or turn them loose.
3 saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we shall have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.–The destructive powers represented by the four winds are to be restrained till the servants of God would be sealed–that is, till they would become servants of God by believing and obeying his word. Having the seal placed upon their foreheads indicated that the gospel truth would be received into the mind. If servants of God mean all in the future from the sixth seal, then the sealing will not be finished till the Lord comes; but, if the destructive powers to be turned loose afterthe sealing refer to the events under the seventh seal, then the sealing occurred during the time between these seals. The latter seems the probable view for two reasons
(1) It harmonizes better with the number said to be sealed.
(2) Placing the number sealed in the record between the two seals would indicate that when the destructive powers mentioned under the seventh seal had been turned loose, the sealing meant would be over. This is implied in the saved after the events of the seventh seal began, but only that the period between these seals would be one of peace for the church when great numbers would become Christians without serious opposition.
Commentary on Rev 7:1-3 by Foy E. Wallace
And I saw four angels-Rev 7:1.
The four angels were the imperial agents, not the heavenly messengers, as shown by the contrast with another angel of verse 2, which countermanded the orders of the four angels to hold back the winds. These four angels were the agents of Rome intercepting the word of God– holding the winds–hindering the messengers of the gospel –that they should not blow–that is, preventing the spread of the gospel, or Christianity. The old word hold meant hinder, as in Rom 1:18, who hold (hinder) the truth.
The four corners of the earth is a common expression to denote the four points of the compass, meaning the whole earth. It signified the universal sway of the Roman government, hence, the significance of the four angels, the Roman agents standing on the four corners of the earth, exercising dominion over the whole world. The four winds were the messengers of Christ to execute his will, signified by the wind blowing, contrasting blow and not blow, the affirmative and negative opposites. The phrase, on earth, sea nor tree, were the three things that sum up physical objects against which the wind blows, and signify that the acts of the four angels in holding back the wind proscribed the preaching of the word, and in so doing the result was universal, having effect on all peoples of the earth.
The designation on the earth referred particularly to Palestine where the Jews resided and where the gospel originated. The designation on the sea extends the restraining order to other parts of the world separated by the sea from the land of the Jews. The statement nor any tree emphasizes that the word of God was being restrained everywhere men were found.
And I saw another angel-Rev 7:2.
Here is the symbol of the heavenly messenger who suspended the restraining order of the four angels–Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God in the foreheads. This angel was seen ascending from the east, from the eastern horizon, from the direction of the rising sun, a symbol consistent with his mission of suspending, or preventing, the mandate of the four angels to put out the light of Gods word over all the world. By the authority of God the angel of the east said to the four angels hurt not the earth. It had been given to the four angels to hurt the earth, by the war on Jerusalem, and to enforce the mandate that the wind should not blow, that is, to restrain the word of God.
Hurt not the earth-Rev 7:3.
Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God intheir foreheads.
This was the counter command of the angel of the rising sun to the four angels. The purpose of this sealing, as later seen, is to preserve the holy seed, the true Israel of God, from the judgments about to come upon the earth. It was not exemption from suffering, but from the judgments about to be announced in the opening of the seventh seal. It was a suspension period before the break of fury, signifying the divine protection of the faithful seed, the assurance that no force could bring them ultimate harm.
The sealing in their foreheads was a symbol of an insignia or a mark to save them from slaughter, but not from tribulation, for Rev 2:10 said thou shalt suffer tribulation ten days. But they would survive it; they would be preserved in the midst of it, by a mark to distinguish the true Israel, the holy seed, from old Israel, the fleshly Jew. The old Israel was soon to perish, the new Israel to be preserved; the old Jerusalem was soon destroyed by impending judgments, the new Israel to be sealed for preservation, to survive and flourish as Mount Zion, the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, the church of the firstborn, sealed on earth and enrolled in heaven. A similar imagery is employed by Jeremiah in foretelling the captivity of Israel in Babylon. (Eze 9:4)
Its history repeats itself in these visions of tribulation in the final destruction of Jerusalem, and of Israels nation. It is noteworthy that in this imagery there was the mark that sealed the servants of God in their foreheads, who worshipped not the beast, in contrast with what was later called the mark of the beast, also received upon their foreheads and in their hands, by those who submitted to the beast–to the decree of the emperor against the worship of the Lamb, and for the worship of the emperor, as set forth in the second series of symbols surrounding the church the Bride of the Lamb. In a similar figure Paul carried the mark of his Lord. (Gal 6:17)
Commentary on Rev 7:1-3 by Walter Scott
JUDGMENT RESTRAINED.
Rev 7:1. – And after this I saw four angels standing upon the four corners of the earth, holding fast the four winds of the earth, that no wind might blow upon the earth, nor upon any tree. The phrase after this, repeated in Rev 7:9, marks a new commencement. It introduces the Israelitish section of our chapter, as also the vision of the Gentile palm-bearing multitude. The intentional employment of the phrase and its repetition should have preserved certain interpreters from confusing the two companies. They are separate and distinct both in nationality and in blessing. The one is from among Israel, the other from among the Gentiles. The millennial earth is the scene where both are displayed. But it is essential to the understanding of the chapter to bear in mind that the time of the vision and the time when the companies come into their appointed public blessing are very different.
Rev 7:1 – Four angels standing upon the four corners of the earth, holding fast the four winds of the earth. The banished Seer here views the earth as a vast extended plain, bounded by the four main points of the compass, north, south, east, and west. At these respective corners an angel stands so as to have full control over the destructive forces of evil. The threefold repetition of the numeral four marks the completeness and the universality of the action. We see no reason for limiting the term earth here to the Roman world. The winds are not to blow till an ideal number of Israel is sealed (vv. 3, 4). Now the two houses of Israel, Ephraim and Judah, are embraced in this work. Jehovah shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth (Isa 11:11-12). Thus both the Prophet and the Seer refer to the full extent of the inhabited earth, and not to the territorial limits of the Roman world, whether past or future. Clearly, too, Rev 7:9 refers to the result of a divine testimony amongst the Gentiles far exceeding the extent of the empire in any period of its history. The earth here must be understood in its largest sense.
The four restraining angels,(*Wordsworth, in his Lectures on the Apocalypse, p. 120, attempts to show that the four angels standing upon the four corners of the earth are the same as those bound at the great river Euphrates (Rev 9:14). But the world-wide position of the former compared with the circumscribed sphere of the latter would forbid such interpretation. Besides, the actions and time essentially differ. Wordsworth is one of the most fanciful and uncertain of interpreters.) the unseen, yet real, spiritual powers, are here seen controlling the forces and instruments of evil. the four winds of the earth.( Political and other troubles are expressed in the term winds of the earth (Dan 7:2; Job 1:19; Jer 49:36). Winds of the Heaven and winds of the earth are to be distinguished. The former expression points to the providential agencies employed by God to execute His purposes; whereas the latter denote attention to the guilty sphere of these judgments and calamities, i.e., the earth. We may also observe that the first mention of the earth in the text is unrestricted in its application. The second mention of the word limits it to the civilized portion of the globe in contrast to the sea the uncivilized part (see also Rev 10:2).)
Rev 7:1. – Holding fast with a firm grip, implying that the winds were struggling to get loose. How irresistible the grasp of Omnipotence on the powers and forces of evil. They are effectually bridled till the plans of God are ripe and ready for action.
The situation is one of intense interest. We are about to enter into yet deeper sorrows. The climax of judgment so far was under the sixth Seal when all government, political, social, supreme, and subordinate, utterly collapsed, and a scene of universal terror ensued. But deeper woes are looming. All were not slain in the martyrdom under the fifth Seal (Rev 6:9-11), nor will coming and severer judgments hinder a universal testimony for God, as the consolatory visions of this chapter conclusively prove. Hence the universal calamities and troubles, indicated by the expression winds of the earth, are for a season held in check till God takes measures for the preservation of a complete number of His people Israel and of an innumerable company of Gentiles.
Rev 7:1 – That no wind might blow upon the earth, the scene of settled government (Rev 10:2; Psa 46:2): nor upon the sea, nations and peoples in anarchy and confusion (Dan 7:2-3; Isa 57:20); nor upon any tree, the might and pride of earth (Dan 4:10; Dan 4:22; Eze 31:3-9; Eze 31:14-18). The reason of the cessation of judgment is stated in precise terms: until we shall have sealed the bondmen of our God upon their foreheads (Rev 7:3).
THE SEALING ANGEL AND HIS CRY.
Rev 7:2-3. – And I saw another angel ascending from (the*) sun-rising, having (the*) seal of (the*) living God; and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it had been given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees, until we shall have sealed the bondmen of our God upon their foreheads. (The absence of the article (bracketed by J.N.D. in his New Testament, and inserted in italics by W.K. in his valuable Lectures on the Book of Revelation) marks the respective actions before which it is omitted as characteristic.)Judgment attributed to the winds in verse one is here ascribed to the angels. By the former are symbolised the agencies of political and other evils; by the latter are to be understood the spiritual powers which direct and govern these agencies of evil, the instruments of judgment in verse one; the powers which wield them in verse two.
Another angel, not one of the four, and certainly not Christ, (The angel-priest of Rev 8:3-5, and the strong angel of Rev 10:1-6; Rev 10:8-10, seem undoubtedly to refer to Christ. The terms used and actions described in both Scriptures could not truthfully be applied to any created being, however exalted.) as some have strangely supposed. The sentence until we shall have sealed would be derogatory to the pre-eminent dignity of Christ; so also the concluding words of the angels cry, the bondmen of our God. The language and spirit of Joh 20:17, I ascend unto MY Father and your Father; and to MY God and your God, is maintained throughout the New Testament. We never meet with the terms our God and our Father as signifying Christ and believers.
The angel referred to in our text is evidently a distinguished spiritual being having an exalted mission on hand. He ascends from the east or sun-rising, having (the) Seal of (the) living God.(Sealing in the present dispensation is no outward mark as here. It is the Holy Ghost given by God to indwell the believer (2Co 1:21-22; Eph 1:13). God (not Christ) seals; the Holy Ghost Himself, a Person is the Seal.) The sealing angel ascending from the sun-rising for the preservation and blessing of Israel seems a herald of the Messiah, Who as the Sun of Righteousness shall arise with healing in His wings (Mal 4:2), and shine upon the land and people with undimmed splendour. The firstfruits of national blessing is predicated of the angel; the harvest awaits the revelation of Christ from Heaven.
The seal of the living God implies immunity from death, and the seal upon the forehead intimates public, open acknowledgment that those who are sealed belong to God. What the seal is we are not informed.
The bondmen of our God. Such is the title applied to the sealed of Israel. They had maintained the testimony of God through trial and difficulty; their course had been marked by conflict and service; hence the appropriateness of the title bondmen.
The sealing is not alone the work of the angel; others are associated in the happy service of preserving from judgment a complete number of Israel, until we shall have sealed. There is a dignity of action here neither found in the sealing recorded by the prophet of the captivity (Eze 9:4) nor in that of Judah on Mount Zion (Rev 14:1). The angel ascending from the sun-rising is in keeping with the exalted mission on hand. His is no ordinary service, and hence the surrounding circumstances bespeak the greatness of the work.
He cried with a loud voice to the angels of judgment, Hurt not the earth, nor the sea, nor the trees. The imperative summons is obeyed, and saved Israel is sealed for millennial blessing.
Commentary on Rev 7:1-3 by E.M. Zerr
Rev 7:1. After the altar scene in Rev 6:9-11, the vision opens the sixth seal to give a view of the consternation that came upon the men in high places, because of their mistreatment of Christians and because they were faced with the reverses that the emperor had forced upon them. The present chapter extends the consideration that God had for the “martyrs,” at the same time He was bringing the siege of consternation upon the persecutors of His people. The four angels are so numbered because of the four corners or four points of the earth’s compass. Holding the four winds symbolizes the blowing of the wrath of God over the realm of the persecutors, and these angels were holding this wind ready to be released whenever they were so ordered.
Rev 7:2. As the four angels were “standing at attention” ready to turn the winds loose upon the earth (referring to the domains of the Roman Empire), another angel was seen coming with a special message to the four. Front the east is figurative and means it was from the throne of God, because he is the source of all spiritual light, even as the sun which brings material light to the world, first appears in the east. Hurt the earth is referring back to the conditions of consternation and destruction described in the closing verses of chapter 6.
Rev 7:3. They were told to hold back the winds until the faithful ones had been accounted for. A seal is a stamp of ownership and is placed on the proper persons to indicate the approval of the authority behind it. (See the comments at 1Co 9:2.) This seal was to be placed in the forehead which indicates they would he visible to the public. Whatever was the exact fulfilling of this symbol, there was something that would tell the world of God’s approval of them. Hence when the wicked men of power were undergoing their terrors, they could realize how much they had failed in their wicked designs. Right while they were trembling in the terrors of their crumbling dominions, they could see the victims of their cruelty with the marks of approval from their God.
Commentary on Rev 7:1-3 by Burton Coffman
Rev 7:1
The visions of this chapter actually relate to conditions with God’s church during the entire period of the seals and leading up to the final judgment depicted at the end of Revelation 6. They are introduced here retrospectively for the encouragement of the saints. The first vision (Rev 7:1-8) shows their protection and safety during the calamities and misfortunes of their earthly pilgrimage, and during the divine visitations of God’s wrathful judgments upon the wicked. The second (Rev 7:9-17) shows their state of bliss in the presence of God himself. Of course, no Christian has yet entered such a state of bliss; but the vision of how it will be at last is a great comfort indeed to Christians suffering the outrages of a vicious persecution. In the sense of this bliss depicted here as a state of the saints in eternity, this part of the chapter is proleptic (anticipating the future); but with reference to the occurrence of this vision in John’s sequence it is retrospective, actually pertaining to the hope available to the Christians suffering under the six seals.
The biggest problems for the commentators wrestling with the meaning of this chapter are: (1) the identity of the two groups, the 144,000, and the innumerable multitude; (2) the meaning of their being “sealed”; and (3) what is meant by the great tribulation. Fortunately for those who really know their New Testament, none of these problems presents any great difficulty. We shall determine the answer to these questions before beginning the exegesis of the chapter.
(1) The 144,000 are identified as “servants of God” (Rev 7:3), and the innumerable multitude are called “followers of the Lamb” (Rev 7:14); therefore, these could not be two different classes of persons but the same group. God does not have any servants who are not also followers of the Lamb. The notion that the 144,000 are literally fleshly Jews can exist only in those who are unaware that the church of Jesus Christ is the true and only Israel of God, beside which there is no other. The New Testament witness to this truth is extensive and overwhelming. All of Romans chapters Romans 9-11; 1Pe 1:1; 1Pe 2:9-10; Rom 2:28-29; Gal 3:29; Gal 6:16; Php 3:3; Jas 1:1, etc., leave no doubt at all on this question. There is also the mountain fact that Christ himself referred to his church as “the twelve tribes of Israel” (Mat 19:18), a truth also evident in the inspired declaration that “there is no distinction between Jew and Greek” (Rom 10:12). Once it is clearly fixed in the mind that God does not recognize any distinction (or difference) between a racial, literal Jew and any other person on earth, the importing of a racial status into this chapter becomes impossible. The church itself is often perplexed quite needlessly by racial considerations, but these were destroyed in Christ. All talk of what God is going to do with the Jews is futile, misleading, and contrary to everything in the New Testament. God does not any more have a special plan for racial Jews than he does for the Italians, the Dutch, the English, or the Japanese. “The servants of God” in this dispensation are those “in Christ”; all are invited; none are excluded; and neither races, nations, states, nor languages has any bearing whatever regarding either the favor or disfavor of Almighty God.
John’s mention of the twelve tribes, even naming each one, has led some to see in the 144,000 the saved of the Mosaic dispensation, and in the innumerable multitude the saved of the Christian dispensation; but this would leave out the saved of the patriarchal period. To make any such distinction also raises problems relative to the higher status of the innumerable multitude (in heaven), and also leads to the inference that the 144,000 are exempted from the great tribulation. Neither of these views fits into the picture at all. Therefore, we confidently conclude that the 144,000 and the innumerable company are one and the same, the redeemed of the earth.
But why are the two groups presented under such radically different figures? The mention of the twelve tribes recalls the marching formation of the ancient Israel in the wilderness, therefore suggesting the embattled, struggling church during their earthly trials. This led Pieters to the deduction that we have in these two figures “The Church Militant and The Church Triumphant.”[1] Scholarly support for this understanding is extensive, as indicated by this summary from Ray Summers:[2]
The 144,000 are the church universal, the saints of both the Old Testament and the New Testament. “There is no distinction between Jew and Gentile.”[3]
These were the true Israel of God (Gal 6:16).[4]
The Israel of the first vision is coextensive with the whole church. The two visions depict the same body under widely different conditions.[5]
That they (both visions) are the whole body of the church, Jew and Gentile, in spite of some difficulty, is most conformable to the conceptions of the New Testament in general.[6]
The 144,000 are not believers descended from literal Israel, but from the spiritual Israel, that are referred to.[7]
These men (quoted here) represent the very best in the study of Revelation for the last hundred years.[8]
However, it is not the concurrence of scholarly opinion that is determinative; it is the overwhelming teaching of the rest of the New Testament.
(2) Regarding the meaning of being “sealed.” We may dispense with the notion that something literal, bodily, or external is meant. God does not brand people in the manner of cattlemen branding their herds. Nothing but fancy could envision such a thing as that pretended by a false Christ in Syria who declared, “that he had God’s name sculptured between his eyebrows; the wrinkles resembled the Arabic hieroglyph for Allah.”[9]
Paul settled this question with the word that, “Ye are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise” (Eph 1:13). It is nothing short of amazing that most scholars miss this, vainly seeking to find the answer in Eze 9:4, some other Old Testament passage, or in the myths and folklore of paganism. It is simply inconceivable that the sealing here mentioned by John is anything different from the sealing mentioned by Paul. Since the “seal” is given only to baptized believers in the Lord Jesus Christ, this also makes positive our identification of the 144,000 as Christians (See Act 2:38 ff). McGuiggan thought that, “Since the people sealed here were already Christians, something else must be meant by the sealing”;[10] but it is obvious that “sealing” here is a figure for their conversion to Christianity. It is an error to suppose that this “sealing” implies any special protection against some isolated event, like “the great tribulation,” or that this was some special preparation or protection for some special class, such as the martyrs. See under (3), below for discussion of “the great tribulation.” Caird and many others mistakenly applied this sealing “to the martyrs.”[11]
Gettys properly observed that:
We need not suppose that this sealing was one act at one particular moment in time, but that it is one fact for all ages, as all believers are redeemed in Christ once for all.[12] (And we might add, “one at a time.”)
Other commentators who discerned this exceedingly important truth that the sealing here is that of the Holy Spirit are:
The Spirit has sealed him (the Christian, Eph 1:13), for he certifies that we are sons of God (Rom 8:16).[13]
We are sealed with the Holy Spirit by the means of grace, Word, and sacrament.[14]
All Christians were sealed with the Holy Spirit, which is the guarantee of our inheritance until we acquire possession of it.[15] This identity of the seal also makes it clear that no special group within the church, such as the martyrs, is meant, and that the sealing does not anticipate any isolated or unique event, but that it is for all tribulations, hardships, and struggles of the Christian life.
(3) The meaning of “the great tribulation.” This is merely another name for the whole Christian life, any Christian life, in any and all ages of the church. The notion that Great Tribulation should be capitalized and understood as a reference to one particular period of suffering and persecutions for Christians is false, unscriptural and illogical. Jesus indeed mentioned “a great tribulation” (Mat 24:21) as being greater than any that preceded it or that would come after it, having reference to the overthrow of Jerusalem; but he did not call even that “The Great Tribulation.” Mark’s gospel refers to that event as “that tribulation” (Mar 13:24). What then is the great tribulation? It is that which includes and contains all tribulations of God’s people upon the earth. “Through many tribulations we must enter into the kingdom of God” (Act 14:22). “All that will live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” (2Ti 3:12). “Because ye are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hateth you. They will persecute you” (Joh 16:19-20).
In this context, we also note the superstition to the effect that martyrs are in some special sense greater than ordinary Christians, or that martyrdom has any special effect upon destiny. There is not a word in the whole New Testament that supports any such notion. In fact, there have been periods in church history during which faith in Christ was even more difficult than in the days of the martyrdoms. Fidelity to Christ is difficult under all conditions; and there is no more glory in heaven for martyred saints than for those who patiently endured unto death, despite the scorn and hatred of an unbelieving world. A martyr’s crown may be won by a single resolute and heroic act (and glorious indeed it is); but it is equally noble, and just as difficult, to win the crown through patient endurance of all the hatred vented against a true Christian throughout a long life that ends at last from natural causes. We reject much of the writings on the prophecy because they exalt the martyrs above other Christians and make of them a special quality of Christian. It is not likely that John himself was a martyr; and we certainly may not suppose that Paul and Peter who were martyrs outrank him in any way, or received any special favors in their Christian life.
Before proceeding with the study of the text, the position of this chapter in the whole sequence of visions should be noted. Most commentators refer to it as “a parenthesis,”[16] “an interlude,”[17] or as “an interruption of John’s portrayal of the flow of events.”[18] Despite the truth in such opinions, the chapter is very important.
Instead of being secondary, this vision is essential. The things in view are not a matter of chronology, but of importance. Revelation 7 is so important that unless it is understood, the rest of the visions will not be properly apprehended.[19]
The events of this chapter are not those which chronologically follow the events of Revelation 6, but they are a view of how it is with God’s servants during those events of both the succeeding and preceding chapters.
[1] Albertus Pieters, Studies in the Revelation of St. John (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1954), p. 125.
[2] Ray Summers, Worthy is the Lamb (Nashville: The Broadman Press, 1961), pp. 147-149.
[3] Donald W. Richardson, The Revelation of Jesus Christ (New York: Pillar Books, 1964), p. 88.
[4] David Smith, The Disciples Commentary on the New Testament, Vol. V (New York: Rav Long and Richard R. Smith, Inc., 1932), p. 632.
[5] H. B. Swete, The Apocalypse of John (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1951), p. 99.
[6] Isbon T. Beckwith, The Apocalypse of John (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1919), pp. 535,539.
[7] R. H. Charles, Revelation of St. John, Vol. II, International Critical Commentary (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1920), pp. 206,209.
[8] Ray Summers, op. cit., p. 147.
[9] James Moffatt, Expositor’s Greek New Testament, Vol. V (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1967), p. 397.
[10] Jim McGuiggan, The Book of Revelation (West Monroe, Louisiana: William C. Johnson, 1976), p. 112.
[11] G. B. Caird, The Revelation of St. John the Divine (New York: Harper and Row, 1966), p. 97.
[12] Joseph M. Gettys, How to Study the Revelation (Philadelphia: The John Knox Press, 1955), p. 55.
[13] William Hendriksen, More Than Conquerors (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Baker Book House, 1956), p. 133.
[14] R. C. H. Lenski, The Interpretation of St. John’s Revelation (Minneapolis, Minnesota: Augsburg Publishing House, 1943), p. 250.
[15] George Eldon Ladd, A Commentary on the Revelation of John Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1972), p. 112.
[16] J. W. Roberts, The Revelation of John (Austin, Texas: R.B. Sweet Company, 1974), p. 69.
[17] John T. Hinds, A Commentary on Revelation (Nashville: Gospel Advocate Company, 1962), p. 110.
[18] Charles M. Laymon, The Book of Revelation (New York and Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1960), p. 94.
[19] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 245.
After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that no wind should blow on the earth, or on the sea, or upon any tree. (Rev 7:1)
After this I saw … “It is dangerous to assume that the order in which John writes is the order in which the things he describes will happen.”[20] The exact chronology of Revelation is the great unresolved problem with the whole prophecy. In Rev 6:8, the ravaging horsemen had authority to destroy the fourth part of the earth; but in this chapter (Rev 7:1; Rev 7:3), the destructive forces are restrained from hurting the earth. “After this,” therefore means merely that John saw this vision at a later time than when he saw the ones already described.
Four angels standing at the four corners of the earth … These are God’s angels, not demons, or the devil’s angels. “The unmodified term angels is never used to indicate devils.”[21]
The four corners of the earth … There is no need to dwell upon the alleged ignorance of the sacred writers concerning the shape of the earth. Nothing that John either knew or did not know had anything to do with what he saw. We who know all about the globe still speak of the four corners of the earth and the ends of the earth; and “North, south, east and west make exactly four and will continue to do so.”[22] We have no patience with those writers who can find nothing in this except, “the cosmology of the Babylonians, the influence of the Syriac Apocalypse of Peter, or of Pseudo-John, or of the Questions of Bartholomew.”[23] The blessed apostle himself gave us his source; namely, God himself through Jesus Christ (Rev 1:1).
Holding the four winds of the earth … The function of these angels was that of restraining the destructive forces represented by the winds. The thought is parallel with that of the limitations imposed upon the horsemen of the seals, who could hurt only one fourth of the earth.
No wind shall blow … The prohibition here is not total, but the restraint of destructive forces. The thought is parallel with the Saviour’s promise that a sparrow may not fall without God’s knowledge and concern (Mat 10:29). The total restraint of all atmospheric motion would not be a blessing, but a disaster. The restriction of destructive forces in these verses primarily teaches that the present order of creation shall be providentially preserved until the complete fulfillment of God’s redemptive purpose on earth. The thought is parallel with the following from the Old Testament:
While the earth remaineth, cold and heat, and seedtime and harvest, and summer and winter, and day and night, shall not cease (Gen 8:22).
Plummer understood this whole chapter as the logical answer to the closing words of Revelation 6, “Who shall be able to stand?” thus connecting Revelation 7 with the final judgment scene there related.[24] This is correct and has the effect of applying Revelation 7, not to some specific event of history, but to the whole earthly probation of the saints. “The sealing extends throughout the whole New Testament era.”[25] Here is the prophetic equivalent of Jesus’ promise to be with his church “even unto the end of the world” (Mat 28:20), and of Paul’s, “all things work together for good to them that are called according to his purpose” (Rom 8:25). The immense comfort of persecuted saints in such glorious promises is exactly the comfort graphically pictured in these two magnificent visions of Revelation 7.
Roberts identified the four angels here with the four horsemen of Revelation 6,[26] but we refrain from doing this for two reasons: (1) they were already holding, or restraining the winds, before the great angel appeared and (2) the “we” used by the other angel seems also to include the four.
[20] Michael Wilcock, I Saw Heaven Opened (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter-Varsity Press, 1975), p. 78.
[21] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 245.
[22] Ibid., p. 246.
[23] Martin Rist, The Interpreter’s Bible, Vol. XII (New York and Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1957), p. 417.
[24] A. Plummer, The Pulpit Commentary, Vol. 22, Revelation (Grand Rapids, Michigan: Wm. B. Eerdmans Publishing Company, 1950), pp. 205,206.
[25] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 249.
[26] J. W. Roberts, op. cit., p. 70.
Rev 7:2
And I saw another angel ascend from the sunrising, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a great voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea.
Another angel … from the sunrising … The east is often mentioned in Revelation, and “from the sunrising” seems to mean “from that direction,” the source of earth’s light. Certainly, for one of God’s messengers, it is more appropriate that he should come from the sunrising, than from the sunset. Who this mighty angel was we have no certain way of knowing. Beeson thought, “This refers to Christ’s coming in the Holy Spirit to his apostles on Pentecost”;[27] and despite Beeson’s being correct in seeing the connection between the sealing and the giving of the Holy Spirit, it is not necessary to impose any specific identity upon this mighty angel. He stands in the vision as an executor of the will of God, the big thought of the passage relating not to his identity but to his great authority to control nature itself in order to prevent any frustration of God’s plans to seal his servants.
Having the seal of the living God … “Here we have an instance of words used both figuratively and literally in one passage.”[28] Seal is figurative, and living God is literal. For what the seal is, see under (2) in the chapter heading, above. Of course, the angel did not carry the Holy Spirit, but the imagery is aided by the picture of his carrying God’s seal.
Cried with a loud voice to the four angels … This mighty angel clearly had more authority than the four; nevertheless, the four were angels and were already restraining the destructive forces when the mighty angel delivered his order. There is no New Testament criteria for identifying this mighty angel, unless he is understood as Michael the archangel; but there is no certainty of this. See in my Commentary on Jude, p. 534, for more on the archangel.
[27] Ulrich R. Beeson, The Revelation (Little Rock, Arkansas: Ulrich R. Beeson, 1956), p. 69.
[28] John T. Hinds, op. cit., p. 111.
Rev 7:3
saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, until we shall have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads.
Hurt not the earth … sea … trees … The four angels who had such power are not depicted as having done any hurt at all, nor as ever having had either any intention or any desire to hurt anything. There was an extensive angelology among the Jews; but the mention in this prophecy of angels of the winds (as here), the angel of fire (Rev 14:18), and the angel of the waters (Rev 16:5), is not sufficient grounds for receiving the speculative Hebrew angelology as dependable. The New Testament purposely left us in the dark concerning any definitive teaching regarding the work of angels. Some of their functions may be inferred from various Old Testament and New Testament texts; and, for a glance at these, see in my Commentary on Hebrews, p. 31, and under Rev 10:7.
Till we shall have sealed the servants of our God … The future perfect tense, as well as the “till,” suggests that the restraining of the destructive forces shall be continued throughout the Christian dispensation until the Second Advent, until all of God’s servants are sealed.
We … our … These are not merely editorial expressions, but have the meaning that the work of all the angels in view here is one work; all are concerned with both the restraining and the sealing. Therefore, this would seem to be a reference to the work of angels who do service for them that are the heirs of salvation, as in Heb 1:14.
God’s servants … To the generation which first read Revelation, this expression could have had only one meaning, Christians. That is what it meant then, and what it still means. God has no bondservants who are not Christians. Furthermore, it is not merely some fraction of these, or some limited group, or class, such as martyrs, who are to be sealed. All are sealed; and not even any destructive natural force shall be allowed to impede or interfere with this sealing until it is totally accomplished.
In their foreheads … Such a designated place for the sealing suggests that the countenances of the sealed will bear eloquent witness of their having been sealed, a truth exemplified by the radiant countenances of Christians all over the world. When the rich young ruler went away from Jesus, it is recorded that “his countenance fell” (Mar 10:22); and God’s sealing of his servants gives the opposite of a fallen countenance. As Lenski put it, “The countenance identifies the person … what the heart is, the face and eyes reveal.”[29]
ENDNOTE:
[29] R. C. H. Lenski, op. cit., p. 250.
Commentary on Rev 7:1-3 by Manly Luscombe
1 After these things I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, on the sea, or on any tree. After the sealing of all Gods people appear four angels (the 4 living creatures around the throne) holding the four winds. The number 4 is dominant in this verse. The physical things of this earth are being discussed. This is a picture of God delaying the destruction of this earth. Certain things must take place first. NOTE: God works on Gods schedule, not on our calendar. God had other things in His plan that must be done first.
2 Then I saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God. And he cried with a loud voice to the four angels to whom it was granted to harm the earth and the seaNow another angel comes from the east with the seal of God. His duty is to seal the true servants of God. He is to seal their foreheads. Study Eph 1:13 – We are sealed with the Holy Spirit of promise. At the time of our faithful obedience to the gospel (confession and baptism) we are forgiven (robes are washed white in the blood of the Lamb) and we are sealed (identified as belonging to God) with the gift of the Holy Spirit (Act 2:38).
3 saying, Do not harm the earth, the sea, or the trees till we have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads. The angel instructs that the earth not be hurt – destroyed – until the sealing is completed. God will not destroy the earth, or allow it to be destroyed until He is ready. God is in control. As long as there are people who render obedience to the gospel, God can be patient. Man will never totally destroy the earth. God will do the final, total and complete destruction. Sealed on their foreheads – similar to Rev 22:4 – Name of God on their foreheads.
Fuente: Old and New Testaments Restoration Commentary
Under the sixth seal we have seen and heard the portents of coming divine intervention. At the sounding of the seventh seal these will be resumed. Chapter seven describes a pause, and first deals with events on earth. Restraining angels are seen holding in check the hurricane of divine judgment.
After the account of the sealing of an elect number, the seer turns to contemplate a vision in heaven. It is that of a multitude so great that no man could number it. The multitude was diverse and yet unified. The diversity was of earth. National peculiarities, tribal characteristics, popular distinctions, and lingual differences are all still apparent. This earthly variety is incorporate in heaven’s harmony. All stand before the throne, equally ready for service.
This great multitude is composed of those who had come out of the great tribulation. They are now seen in heaven. Very beautiful and tender is the description of their condition. Service has superseded suffering, and all sorrow has been banished. The salvation they celebrate has lifted them to a place of immeasurable blessedness.
Fuente: An Exposition on the Whole Bible
the Multitude before the Throne
Rev 7:1-10
Before times of unusual trial God prepares for the safety of His people. See Gen 7:1; Gen 19:16; Exo 12:13; Eze 9:3-5; Mat 24:15-16. What a majestic conception this is and how comforting the thought that the winds are controlled by angels, and that the storms which sweep earth and heaven must obey the mandate of eternal love! Gods people are not always saved from trial, but they are kept safe in it. We are sealed when the divine likeness is stamped on our characters, Eph 1:13. Those that have that likeness also enjoy the earnest of heaven in their hearts, 2Co 1:21-22.
The definiteness of the number sealed indicates the perfectness and greatness of this first fruit sheaf of souls. If the first sheaf be so full and heavy, what will not the harvest be! See Rev 14:4. Beyond human count in number; representing every country under heaven; spotless in character; victorious in their conflict with evil; ascribing all glory to the Lamb as the result of His travail of soul. The tribe of Dan is omitted but perhaps reappears in Rev 21:12. Does this mean that some will be saved as by firebrands plucked from it by the grace of God?
Fuente: F.B. Meyer’s Through the Bible Commentary
Chapter Seven The 144,000 And The Multitude Of Gentiles
In the last chapter we were occupied with the first half of the seventieth week of Daniels prophecy: the beginning of sorrows when the wrath of the Lamb will be poured out on guilty Christendom and apostate Judaism. All this is yet in the future. Now we find that before the Lord gave John the vision of the opening of the seventh seal (which introduces the great tribulation in all its intensity), He gave him this parenthetic seventh chapter in which are recorded two important visions. In the first, John sees a hundred and forty-four thousand Israelites sealed by an angel. In the second, he beholds a great multitude of Gentiles, led in triumph by the Lamb, taking possession of the millennial earth.
I am sure that many readers have often been perplexed by conflicting theories regarding the hundred and forty-four thousand. The way in which so many unscriptural sects arrogate to themselves this title would be amusing if it were not so sad. The Seventh-Day Adventists apply it to the faithful of their communion, who will be found observing the Jewish sabbath at the Lords return. They suppose that these will be raptured when the Lord descends and judgment is poured out on the rest of the church. Then we have the followers of Charles Russell (Jehovahs Witnesses) who teach that the hundred and forty-four thousand include only the overcomers of their persuasion who continue faithful to the end, following the teaching of the system commonly called Millennial Dawnism. Another cult also claims that the hundred and forty-four thousand are those who will have their blood so cleansed that they cannot die, but will have immortal life on this earth! There are many other sects whose leaders claim that their own followers will be the hundred and forty-four thousand sealed ones at the time of the end. All of these, however, overlook a very simple fact that, if observed, would save them from their error. The hundred and forty-four thousand are composed of twelve thousand from each tribe of the children of Israel. There is not a Gentile among them, nor is there confusion as to tribe. Whenever I meet people who tell me they belong to the hundred and forty-four thousand, I always ask them, Which tribe, please? They are invariably confused for lack of an answer.
The Sealed Israelites (Rev 7:1-8)
John saw four angels [four is the world number] standing on the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree (1). In Daniels vision, as recorded in the seventh chapter of his prophecy, he beholds the four winds of the heaven striving on the great sea. As a result you have the various world empires coming forth like wild beasts from beneath the restless waves. Here we have the angels holding back these four winds until a certain event takes place. It is very evident that they are restraining the last wild beast from making his appearance. In Revelation 13, the beast with seven heads and ten horns-the Roman Empire in its final form- comes forth from the sea, symbolizing the nations in unrest. This is the great federation of nations which Gods Word predicts for the very near future. It is a federation of Satanic origin, which will not be developed until after the church is gone. Even then certain events must transpire before it assumes its final diabolical form.
Verses 2-3 make clear what this event is that must first take place. John saw another angel ascending from the east, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a loud voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, Saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads (2-3). The point is that God has chosen a remnant of Israel to inherit the kingdom under the Son of man, which is so soon to be established. Before the final form of the Roman Empire is fully developed, these are sealed, marked out for Gods protecting care. So all the power of the beast and all the hatred of his ally the antichrist will not be able to destroy them and thus prevent the carrying out of Gods purpose.
Verses four to eight leave no doubt as to the identity of these sealed ones. John heard the number of them which were sealed: and there were sealed an hundred and forty and four thousand of all the tribes of the children of Israel. As you go over the list note that the tribe of Dan is absent. Instead you have two tribes from Joseph-Manasseh and Ephraim. Ephraim, however, bears Josephs name. Why is Dan omitted from the twelve and the twelfth made up in another way? I cannot positively tell you. The rabbis used to say that the false messiah (the antichrist) would arise from Dan. They based the supposition on Jacobs words in Gen 49:17: Dan shall be a serpent by the way, an adder in the path, that biteth the horse heels, so that his rider shall fall backward. We note from the historical record in the book of Judges, that Dan was the first tribe to go into idolatry. It would not be surprising if Dan would be the leader in the last great idolatry-the worship of antichrist. But we may leave this where faith leaves every other difficulty-resting in the infinite wisdom of God and knowing that He has revealed all that is necessary for us to know in the present age.
The balance of the chapter brings before us an entirely different company.
The Gentile Multitude (Rev 7:9-17)
It seems very strange that some have taught that in this great multitude we have the raptured church. They have supposed that the Lord would not come for His church until the middle of the tribulation period. But a careful study of the passage makes it very evident that we are gazing here on an earthly, not a heavenly, company. This great multitude embraces the Gentile nations who will enter into millennial blessing. It is the great ingathering of the coming dispensation. From all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues, a vast throng from all parts of the earth will be redeemed to God by the blood of the Lamb and will enter into the earthly kingdom of our Lord. During the dark days of the great tribulation they will heed the testimony which will be carried to the ends of the earth by Jewish missionaries. These wise among the people will instruct many in righteousness (see Daniel 12). They are identical with the sheep of Matthew 25, who are placed on the right hand of the Son of man when He comes in His glory and all His holy angels with Him. They will inherit the kingdom prepared for them from the foundation of the earth.
Verse 14 says these people came out of great tribulation, and have washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. But nowhere does it say they are taken away to Heaven- quite the contrary. They are in a scene where it is necessary for the Lamb to feed them, lead them, and spread His tabernacle over them. Verse 15 plainly tells us: Therefore are they before the throne of God, and serve him day and night in his temple-that is, the millennial temple, which is to be built in the land in that coming day. There will be no day and night in Heaven. The expression can only refer, in this connection, to the temple on earth. Then we read, He who sits upon the throne will shelter them with his presence (rsv). The reference is undoubtedly to the Lords covering His people when He led them through the wilderness. The pillar of cloud by day and fire by night not only guided them through the wilderness but sheltered them from the fierce rays of the desert sun. Thus will He protect and shield His redeemed ones in the age to come.
We are also told that they shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more; neither shall the sun light on them, nor any heat. For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes (16-17). It is probably because people have not realized the blessedness of the millennial day that these verses are made to refer to Heaven. But they agree with the prediction of Isaiah and other prophets, in regard to the blessing that the saved nations will enjoy when the Lamb Himself reigns. The struggle for daily bread will be over-they will hunger no more; the often vain effort to quench their thirst will be at an end-they will thirst no more. Even the unpleasant and disagreeable things with which men have been afflicted because of the way sin has jarred Gods creation will be at an end. The sun will not light on them, nor any heat.
In that day all the saved of the nations will be able to take up, in the fullest sense, the beautiful words of the Psalmist, which we only feebly enter into now: The Lord is my shepherd; I shall not want. He maketh me to lie down in green pastures: he leadeth me beside the still waters. He restoreth my soul: he leadeth me in the paths of righteousness for his names sake (Psa 23:1-3).
The church of God will be in a far better scene. While our hope is heavenly, not earthly, we can indeed rejoice to think of the blessing awaiting the earth and its inhabitants. God has promised it and will fulfill all that He has caused to be written by His holy prophets in the sacred Scriptures, for the scripture cannot be broken (Joh 10:35).
What a long, dreary night, with frightful nightmares this world has known, since sin and its attendant evils came in to wreck mans hopes of joy and gladness! But how precious to know that evil will not always have the upper hand. A time is coming when the curse will be lifted. The desert will rejoice and blossom like the rose and even the lower creation will be changed and revert to former habits before sin entered. The lion shall eat straw like the ox (Isa 11:7). The little child need not fear the most savage of beasts, for they will not hurt nor destroy in that day. Then government will be righteously regulated and abuses of every kind will be stopped. For a thousand glorious years our Lord Himself will reign in righteousness.
I wish to impress on both saved and unsaved this one thing: Whether in dispensations past, in the present age, in the period of judgment, or in that glorious millennial age, every one who is saved at all will be saved through the precious blood of Christ. God has never had any other way of reconciling man to Himself than through the blood of His Son. In Old Testament times, men were saved, if I may say, on credit. The Lord Jesus Christ had already pledged Himself to pay the fearful debt with His own most precious blood. In every dispensation, all who owned their guilt and believed the record God had given were justified by faith on the basis of the work that Christ was yet to accomplish. That work having now been completed, God has demonstrated His righteousness by passing over these sins done in the days of His forbearance. Now He shows Himself to be just and the justifier of him that believes in Jesus. Dear unsaved one, if you confess your guilt and put your hearts trust in that blessed One, who on Calvarys cross gave Himself for you, then you will be justified and accepted with God in all the value of that precious blood. In the coming hour of tribulation, the hundred and forty-four thousand of Israel and all the Gentiles who receive their message will be saved in exactly the same way; but they will be saved for earth, not for Heaven. To the very end of the millennium, that precious blood will still have the same cleansing effectiveness. The last soul who trusts in Christ will have an unimpeachable standing before the throne of God through its infinite value.
So all blessing for time and eternity rests on the cross of Christ. The reason the nations have missed their way in the past nineteen hundred years, and are struggling in vain for peace and a government in righteousness, is because they have ignored the blood of that cross. There alone, peace was made both in relation to time and eternity.
And now in closing, let me emphasize one thing that I believe needs to be emphasized in these days. I have run across the error in many books on the coming of the Lord that after the rapture of the church there will be a great revival; during this unprecedented spiritual awakening in Christendom, vast numbers of people who have been undecided during the present dispensation of grace will turn to the Lord. It is being widely taught that these will form the great multitude of which we have been speaking. Let me say that I have searched my Bible diligently for any confirmation of such teaching, but I fail to find it. On the contrary, we are distinctly told in 2Th 2:10 that God is going to give up those who, during the present age, do not receive the love of the truth that they might be saved. They will be given up to hardness of heart and perversity of spirit. We read in verses 11-12, And for this cause God shall send them strong delusion, that they should believe a lie: That they all might be damned who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness. Now, there is no intimation here that people who refuse the gospel in this dispensation will have another opportunity to be saved if they are still living when the dispensation of judgment begins. A careful reading of the entire passage will show that the time referred to is when the mystery of iniquity is fully developed and the wicked one revealed-that is, the man of sin. In that age, the Holy Spirit will have been withdrawn. He will go up with the church at the Lords return to the air.
This is not to say that the Holy Spirit will not act during the tribulation period, but His operations will be similar to His activities in Old Testament times. From Heaven He will influence the hearts of men, opening the eyes of the remnant of Israel, and through them reach an innumerable multitude of Gentiles. But there is no promise that He will operate for blessing on the hearts of those who have had the opportunity to be saved and have refused it. They will be given up to the strong delusion of the last days. They will believe the lie of the antichrist. Consequently they will go into judgment because they deliberately refused the truth when it was offered to them, choosing instead error and sin.
It is a very solemn thing to harden ones heart against God and His message of grace. Pharaoh is the standing example of what strong delusion really means. He hardened himself against the message that Moses brought, and afterwards God Himself confirmed him in his course. Light rejected brings abiding night. Darkness may be natural: in this all are born. It may be willful: in this men deliberately choose darkness in place of light. It may be and often is, judicial: in this men are given up to darkness because of their own perversity. So we read in Jer 13:16, Give glory to the Lord your God, before he cause darkness, and before your feet stumble upon the dark mountains, and, while ye look for light, he turn it into the shadow of death, and make it gross darkness.
No man need be lost for lack of light. He who will follow the slightest gleam that God gives may be sure of increasing light and light sufficient to lead him to the knowledge of sins forgiven. But, I repeat, light rejected brings night! Therefore, let me plead with anyone who has not accepted Gods offer of grace in Christ Jesus. Receive now the gift of His love and be assured of a place with Christ in that coming day. For if the Lord should descend from Heaven to call His church away, you who have heard the gospel and are rejecting it, abiding in your sins, your doom will be eternally sealed.
In the neglected parts of the world where the gospel has not yet been fully proclaimed and the grace of God is as yet unknown, a vast number will receive the message of the Israelite remnant. As they flee from antichrists persecutions they will proclaim to all the world the gospel of the kingdom. But you will not be numbered among them if the coming of the Lord finds you still unsaved. You will be in exactly the same condition of soul and position of condemnation before God as if you had died in your sins. Jesus said, When once the master of the house is risen up, and hath shut to the door (Luk 13:25)-who is there that shall open it? The five foolish virgins, left outside when the Bridegroom came, knocked in vain for admittance later. They picture those who will be on the wrong side of the door that will be closed for all eternity.
Yet, strangely enough, this very parable of the ten virgins has been used by certain teachers to support their unsound theory of a second chance for Christ-rejecters after the Savior calls His church away. These teachers say that the foolish virgins represent persons afterwards gathered in, but who miss the heavenly blessing. Others have based on this parable the equally unscriptural hypothesis that only the more spiritual saints will be caught up at the rapture; the weaker ones will be left behind to be purified during the great tribulation. This is a virtual denial of the truth of the unity of the body of Christ. The weakest member of that body is as dear to the Head as the strongest. All who are Christs will have their part in the rapture, irrespective of their more or less advanced stage in the Christian life. It is the perfection of the work of redemption that gives anyone the right to claim the promises of God. Salvation is not a reward for service or merit.
Fuente: Commentaries on the New Testament and Prophets
Rev 7:6
The Servants of God Sealed.
I. The passage from the book of Revelation selected as the Epistle for All Saints’ Day, while it carries our thought onward to the glories of the world to come, is a most striking reminiscence of old Hebrew history. The constitution of the twelve tribes, the names of the sons of Jacob, come into view once more, as it were, on the threshold of eternity, even as the memory of childhood often grows wonderfully fresh again when an old man is about to pass into the other world.
II. We must not fail to notice the great comfort contained in the word “sealed.” The expression seems clearly to imply two things: first, that those who bear this seal are recognised by God as belonging to Him; and secondly, that they are safe. As regards the safety of the saints, it is difficult for us to imagine any being endowed with free-will and subject to moral responsibility to be exempt from the possibility of failing; but if we were to follow speculation in such a matter, it would lead to no results. It seems to be clearly revealed to us that part of the blessedness of the saints will consist in their security.
III. Look at the broad, general fact that in the enumeration before us the tribe of Dan is omitted. Of what does this remind us? Surely of this: that in the great gathering of the saints at the last some who have had rich opportunities will not be there. Even in the course of Christian Church history hitherto, communities which were once full of hope have been quite or almost obliterated, just as rivers which in their earlier course flowed full and strong have been lost and become feeble in the sands. And as with communities, so with separate souls: those who have been equal in privilege will not be together in the end.
IV. Asher was an obscure and insignificant tribe, yet of Asher, as well as of Joseph, or Benjamin, or Judah, were sealed twelve thousand. Spiritual blessings do not depend on earthly fame and greatness, or on any questions of mere numerical proportion.
J. S. Howson, Our Collects, Epistles, and Gospels, p. 161.
Rev 7:9
The Festival of All Saints.
The Festival of All Saints is related in conception to, yet distinct from, the Festival of All Angels. For while the latter speaks of angelic victory, the former speaks only of human victory over evil. It was considered to be the feast of the glorification of human nature by Christ. Now what is it which glorifies human nature? It is expressed in the name of this festival: it is saintliness.
I. There are many associations into which to enter is fame: companies of warriors, societies of science, bands of poets, circles of statesmen, orders of honour; but the most ancient, the most memorable, and the most continuous, continuous even for ever and ever, is the order of all the saints. For it is not only an earthly society; it does not belong to one nation alone; it does not seek its members only out of one age of history. It began with the beginning of the race. It has drawn its members out of every nation, and kindred, and tongue. It is existent in the world beyond the grave. The constant, ceaseless work of the society is the overthrow of evil.
II. The war against evil which the Head of the Church and all the army of the saints are waging now will end, not when the victims of evil are damned or destroyed, but when the evil itself in them is consumed. In every soul of man, by the giving of joy or the giving of suffering, by a thousand means, each fitted to a thousand characters, God will do His conquering work. Those who have already won the crown of saintliness are fellow-labourers with Him in the work of redemptive warfare. The power and the life of Christ are not only powerful and living upon earth: He is redeeming all in the other world. He continues to redeem.
III. Note some of the principles of the life of this great society, and apply them to the minor society of the English nation. (1) In the Church of Christ, each true member is an enthusiast in his work. His heart glows; his tongue cannot be basely silent, though often wisely silent. He feels inspired by the Spirit of God within him. He would rather die than be false to Christ. Ought not that to be the feeling of the citizen towards the nation, enthusiasm, not untaught and rude, but cultured by thought on great questions and tempered by the experience of the past? He who feels the enthusiasm of the Church of Christ ought above all men to be freed himself, and to free others, from political apathy. (2) Both the Church of Christ and the English nation have a glorious past. The Christian and the Englishman are both the children of heroes. The freedom of both in their several spheres has been that of slow and dignified growth, and is of that firm, rooted character which creates the reverence which makes love lasting. (3) In the vast society of which I speak, each man lives for his brother, not for himself; men are united by common love to Christ. We should recognise as Englishmen the same principle. (4) There is one last lesson which the Christian Church teaches us: it condemns, not only local, but also national, selfishness. The time has come in this age to carry out the same principle in the wide politics of the world; the time has come to regulate our relation with other nations by the words, “Do unto other nations as ye would that they should do unto you.”
S. A. Brooke, Sermons, p. 290. Revelation vii., vers. 9, 10
The Blessed Saints.
I. The phrase “communion of saints,” which is so often on our lips, reminds us that not only is there in heaven a society of just ones made perfect, but also on earth a band of servants of the Lord, who are pressing forward to the high mark of saintliness, who are living a saintly life by reason of their very endeavours to submit to the guidance of a loving Lord. We cannot have sympathy for the saints in heaven unless we have sympathy for the saints on earth, for all the good and noble souls who are working for the Lord in the Church on earth. If the phrase “communion of saints” is to be to us other than a fine-sounding one, emptied of all real meaning, if it is to be to us the centre of a realm of thought which we can never weary of exploring, we must first be assured that the transformation which the Lord has perfected in the saints has been commenced within ourselves. As He perfected that transformation in the saints in glory, so He is still carrying it on in the saints who walk yet on earth in the path of humiliation and duty, and so will He commence and carry it on if we will but trust in Him.
II. Holy men and women there have been in all branches of the Christian Church. Not all their names are inscribed on an earthly roll-call. The true calendar, from which not the name of the humblest saint is absent, is in the Lord’s keeping. As we get to know more and more of those who have lived lives of holiness and usefulness, we feel that the limits of any one branch of the Church catholic are too narrow for the flow of our awakened sympathy; and we are fain to acknowledge that God’s inspiring love acts upon the hearts not only of His children in our own Church, but also of His children in other Churches and in other lands, and that all Churches in which the life of Christ is manifested in the lives of His members form but one grand Holy Catholic Church.
H. N. Grimley, Tremadoc Sermons, p. 63.
The Communion of Saints.
I. This passage suggests (1) the universal character of the communion of God’s people, and (2) the bond which cemented and still continues to cement it. All persons who are tempted to think that they and those who agree with them alone are in the right, all persons disposed to be exclusive in judging of the characters of others, may learn a lesson of wisdom and charity from the vision of St. John. If they could but look to the end, if they could see the battle of life with the eyes of God and of those whom His Spirit most inspires, they would see that as there are many mansions in our Father’s house, so there are many roads that lead to them. Does not All Saints’ Day witness for us, first, that all Christ’s people are substantially one at heart; secondly, that many are Christ’s people who are not thought so by others, and who hardly dare to think themselves so? If we can once believe that Christ, through His Spirit, is the sole Author of all good, we must believe this also. The belief in the communion of saints follows necessarily on the belief in the Holy Ghost.
II. Those whom St. John saw in this vision had all one distinguishing characteristic: suffering followed by purification-purification, not by their own unaided constancy, but by the blood of the Son of God. These are the marks which stamp Christ’s servants, the passports which conduct through the gates of the holy city to the steps of the eternal throne. It is to the struggle, the terrible struggle, with temptation, the constant fall, the timid rising again; to the confession of weakness forced upon us by the consciousness of degradation; to the belief that Christ, in our utmost need, has come to us with a free and wholly undeserved pardon; it is to the wounds and scars which the battle has left on us, and which even the Physician of souls can never wholly efface on earth; it is to suffering, to what St. John truly calls “great tribulation,” that we ascribe our admission into the kingdom of God. For the youngest, as for the oldest, life must be a process of purification; and that purification can only come from the Lord Jesus Christ.
H. M. Butler, Harrow Sermons, p. 188.
The Great Multitude.
I. The multitude. The sight of a multitude is, in its way, as attractive as a magnet; we run to see the object which has gathered it together, and this may very properly be done in the present instance. (1) The vastness of the multitude is most remarkable; (2) the variety of the multitude is no less remarkable than the vastness of it: “of all nations, and kindreds, and peoples, and tongues.”
II. Their position. Attaching to their position there is evidently (1) a transcendent honour; (2) a superlative happiness.
III. Their adornment. We notice-(1) the spotless purity of their adornment: “white robes”; (2) its triumphal character: “palms in their hands.”
IV. Their worship. (1) The song of their worship is replete with interest, the subject of it is salvation, the object God Himself. (2) The service of their worship is full of interest; it is full of both fervour and harmony.
E. A. Thomson, Memorials of a Ministry, p. 319.
All Saints’ Day.
I. Let us ask, What is the use of festivals at all? Why should we keep our saints’ days and our Christmas Day, our Good Friday and our Ascension Day? One day is not better than another, and all the bishops in the world cannot make it better, nor make it a different day from what it is. But is it not meet and right that we should celebrate our birthdays, as men and women born into the world, and celebrate our benefactors’ days, as scholars of this or that foundation, or celebrate our victories or escapes, as sharers in the nation’s weal and the nation’s glory? and is it not at least as meet and right that as Christians, bound together by a common faith in Christ our Lord, we should celebrate our festival days too, and, lest men should pass over too lightly this or that scene in the Saviour’s life, this or that act of devotion, and zeal, and heroic self-sacrifice on the part of His followers in bygone ages, that we should be called upon periodically to refresh our memories on this point or on that? The world at large is so careful and troubled about many things that we may well excuse it if here and there a Mary seems to sit with too rapt a gaze at Jesus’s feet while her more active kinsfolk are toiling at life’s daily labours.
II. Why should there be a festival for the saints unnamed and unknown? This festival was founded for the very purpose to preserve us from forgetting that men are very poor judges of who God’s saints are. It is to remind us that, however much the world may require of us intellect, or knowledge, or strength, or position before it will give us any honour or allow us to take rank among its great ones, yet there is a company before the throne of the Lamb into whose rank the meek and lowly are welcomed, a company whose example on earth we should do well to imitate, and whose song in heaven we should strive to echo, “Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb.”
A. Jessopp, Norwich School Sermons, p. 129.
References: Rev 7:9, Rev 7:10.-Homiletic Quarterly, vol. i., p. 270. Rev 7:9-11.-S. A. Brooke, Church of England Pulpit, vol. vi., p. 55; H. P. Liddon, Ibid., vol. vii., p. 31.
Rev 7:13
Heavenly Raiment.
I. Here, in the text, we are presented to a great, victorious company. These pure, victorious ones are as numerous as they are beautiful; from all nations they come; all languages have they spoken; yet have they all been beaten and bruised with the tribulations of the world, and they have come not only out of affliction, but out of great affliction. They were cleansed; their hearts were cleansed, and their garments too. Often in the world they were dressed in meanness, in shame, in sadness, in toil; but all is changed: instead of meanness there is splendour, instead of weakness strength, instead of a heavy heart garments of praise, instead of shame the robe of purity, instead of toil the dress and the palm that denote victory. But how came they to be dressed meanly in this world? Consider what dress is, and how, though it may represent you if you can attain it, you may be unable to attain the material of which to form dress corresponding to your true character. Our dress is made of that which the world around supplies to us. If it be a stupid world, we cannot be robed in such a dress of bright intelligence as we would fain put on; if it be an evil world, we cannot be robed in a joyful dress full of holy excellence. We cannot clothe ourselves as we could if the general sense of mankind were higher. The victorious ones had been clothed meanly (1) because the state of the world was evil, and (2) because their own state was imperfect.
II. He that cleanses his heart cleanses his raiment, and if your heart be refined by the fires of God, then all that is exterior to you will be washed by the waves of the world. Though all this beautiful apparel of saints in heaven is indeed the gift of God by the inward work of His Spirit, from within passing outwardly to the very body and the very raiment-I say, though it is the gift of God, in a certain true sense it is woven by ourselves. Man is but a worm, yet he spins material out of which God adorns heaven. “What are these?” said the reverend elder; “whence came they?” he cried with exulting tone. “Son of man, canst thou tell?” Let the youth of the world hear the voice of this elder. These are the choice ones of this earth, the chief in spiritual contests, the agonised, the disparaged, the killed, the flower of the Church’s chivalry, who represent in their victorious love and beautiful apparel the whole company of the saved. In the flood and the fire they heard a voice say, “Onward!”; on the steep of the mountain they heard a voice say, “Upward!” And when a sad voice called, “All flesh is grass,” the flesh of saint and of sinner, they could answer, “The grass that withereth is clothed in goodly raiment, finer its flowers than kings’ robes; and are we not kings and priests unto our God? and, much more, will He not clothe us?”
T. T. Lynch, Three Months’ Ministry, p. 70.
References: Rev 7:13, Rev 7:14.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xviii., No. 1040; A. Mackennal, Christian World Pulpit, vol. viii., p. 300.
Rev 7:13-15
Who are Saints?
I. Notice what we certainly do not mean when we speak of men being saints of God. (1) I find no warrant for believing that the asceticism which appears to have so strange a charm for some minds is pleasing to God, and I find a great deal to convince me that it is even contrary to the spirit of Christian liberty. (2) As self-imposed pain, or discomfort, or poverty does not in any way make a man a saint, so neither is it necessary that there should be any pain or discomfort required of us at all I say it is not necessary; I do not say more. Suffering, even for Christ’s sake, does not make a man a saint, but saintliness will make any man brave enough to suffer. (3) Mere blamelessness does not make a saint of Christ.
II. Who, then, is the true saint? Our text will lead us to the right answer. (1) First, the saints have passed through great tribulation. The first element of saintliness is sorrow for sin; the truest tribulation is that which remorseful grief for sin occasions. (2) The second element in this sanctity is this: that along with shame and sorrow for sin there should be also faith in the Saviour of sinners, for these saints had washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. (3) The third element in this saintliness is a spirit of devotion. They are before the throne of God, and serve Him day and night in His temple, not with a formal, ascetic devotion which trusts to times and places too exclusively. But surely there can be no true sanctity without the spirit of prayer, and that spirit of prayer cannot be kept alive without the frequent act of prayer also.
A. Jessopp, Norwich School Sermons, p. 139.
Reference: Rev 7:14.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxii., No. 1316.
Rev 7:14
We owe very little debt to those who take this out of the grand signification, and say that it belongs to the “multitudes” of Constantine, or the “Constantine age.” I would far rather keep to the simple ideas of my childhood, and see in it nothing but a beautiful description of the saints in heaven. Now of all these beautiful words perhaps the most important, certainly the most instructive, is the word “therefore.” For this is what we want to know, not, Are they happy? or, What do they? All that we may leave. There is no doubt about that. But why are they there? How did they come there? This is the question which concerns us.
I. And so I ask, Where in the sentence does “therefore” come? I observe that it comes after two things: “tribulation” and “washing,” but directly and strictly only after “washing.” We might disconnect the latter part of the sentence from the “tribulation,” but we could not separate it from the “washing.” The order might be that the “tribulation” leads to the “washing,” and the “washing” leads to the glory. But it could not be the “tribulation” without the “washing,” though it might be the “washing” without the “tribulation.” Never think that affliction takes anybody to heaven. It very often conducts further from it. Affliction may lead to the fountain, and the fountain is in the road to the throne. If you go to the fountain, you will at last find yourself before the throne. But “tribulation,” whatever it be, saves no one. Only “the washing the robes and making them white in the blood of the Lamb” ever does that.
II. It is very easy to misunderstand that word “tribulation.” It sounds like something so very severe. But what I wish to point out is this: that the text does not say that the experience of saints must be very bitter, or the pain very intense. The word used is “friction,” the rubbing which goes to make the fine polish or the exquisite edge. And it amounts to this: “These are they which came out of the refining processes of great friction.” And what Christian has not friction?-the friction of his two natures clashing; the friction of his besetting sins; the friction of some character in the world with whom he has to do; the friction of some daily duty; the friction of a constant uneasiness; the friction of some weary trial, some continual sore. If there be no more, there is that. And that at least must be. It may not be of many sorts, or it may not be of great importance; but we have it twice-in St. Paul’s exhortation to the Churches of Asia Minor and the elder’s testimony to St. John-“We must through much friction”-it is the same word-“We must through much friction enter into the kingdom of God.” It may be a comfort to some who have no overwhelming griefs, but who have abundance of wearing, harassing vexations, that even in that they may fulfil the condition.
III. But if the “tribulation” be the inevitable accompaniment, the cleansing is the essential and the primary cause of all saintship. For then has the “tribulation” done its work, when it has humbled and emptied the heart to such a sinking sense of sin as drives it to the fountain of the cross of Jesus. “They washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb.” In the great temple of nature and truth; in the holy places of His handiwork; in the holiest of holies, in His Church, by day, after our feeble power, and by night, when we glorify God by our resting; in the sunshine of the consciousness of saints and the shadows of pain and impotence, we serve God; and this service of ours goes up acceptably through the very same perfume and the same incense of Jesus which makes the service of angels acceptable. And He who is present there is present here; and they know that we have Him, and we know that they have Him. They are perfect reflectors; we are imperfect reflectors. And these, the service, and the presence, and the image, are to be for ever and for ever; and they make “the communion of the saints.”
J. Vaughan, Sermons, 14th series, p. 101.
Rev 7:16
“No More” and “More.”.
There are four things asserted here:-
I. All need is supplied: “They shall hunger no more, for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them.” (1) Look at the source of the supply. This is sixfold: (a) love which passeth knowledge; (b) power to which nothing is hard; (c) wisdom Divine and infinite; (d) providence minute and universal; (e) oneness of feeling without check; (f) closeness of relationship. (2) Mark the character of the supply. This is in harmony with the source. The source is love, and the supply is generous. It is well sustained, suitable, varied, acceptable, and grateful to the recipient.
II. All desire gratified. There are four qualities clothing this gratification of desire. (1) It is pure, unselfish; (2) it is full, nothing left to be given; (3) it is wholesome and invigorating; (4) it is Divine, of a godly sort.
III. All trouble prevented. It is impossible for trouble to befall us when God places Himself between us and grief.
IV. All sadness taken away and kept away. Then-(1) weep not for the dead who have died in the Lord; (2) shrink not from a rapid approach to immortality; (3) make not heaven your god, or going to heaven your goal and your end, but remember, nevertheless, that God has heaven prepared for you; (4) praise your Saviour, to whom you owe heaven and every good.
S. Martin, Comfort in Trouble, p. 224.
References: Rev 7:16, Rev 7:17.-Spurgeon, Sermons, vol. xxx., No. 1800. Rev 7:17.-Ibid., vol. xi., No. 643; Talmage, Christian World Pulpit, vol. xii., p. 233.
Fuente: The Sermon Bible
CHAPTER 7
Rev 7:1-8.
This is the first parenthesis. It must not be taken chronologically. The six seal judgments extend over the entire period of the ending age. The rider upon the white horse will be on the scene to the end, wars will continue to the end, and culminate in the battle of Armageddon, and so do the famines and pestilences. And the sixth seal brings the end in view. We shall see the correspondence with the seventh trumpet and seventh vial later. The trumpet and vial judgments are more intense and more terrible than the seal judgments. In a certain sense they are parallel; the effect of each is continuously felt. The parenthetical vision of the seventh chapter also covers the entire period of the last seven years and brings before us even the vision of what will be after the great tribulation.
How much confusion would have been avoided if expositors and Christians in searching for the meaning of this vision, had not lost sight of two great facts: 1. This chapter can have no application to the Church on earth, nor to the Church in glory, for the simple reason that the Church is already complete and translated to glory. 2. The vision states clearly that the sealed company is of all the tribes of the children of Israel.
The sealed company is of Israel. After the Church is removed to glory, when the fulness of the Gentiles is come in (Rom 11:26) the Lord will turn in mercy to Israel and call, before the judgments fall, a remnant which will also be sealed (See Eze 9:1-11). This remnant is frequently seen on the pages of Old Testament prophecy. This sealed company also bears a great testimony. They are the preachers of the gospel of the kingdom, as a witness to all nations before the end comes (Mat 24:14). Therefore, during the time when the judgments are executed from above there will be a world-wide preaching of the gospel of the kingdom, proclaiming the coming of the King, calling to repentance and faith in His Name, and offering mercy still.
Rev 7:9-17.
The application of this passage of Scripture to the redeemed Church in glory is wrong. This Scripture does not apply to the Church in glory, but to saved Gentiles on earth. It is a company which comes out of the great tribulation. The Church enters the glory before that great tribulation begins. The great multitude represents those Gentiles who will hear the final testimony and believe. They will have turned in repentance to Him and will be washed in His precious blood. Our Lord speaks of them in the great judgment of the nations as sheep, who stand at His right hand and inherit the kingdom (Mat 25:31, etc.). The brethren of our Lord mentioned in Matthew are the remnant of Israel. (For a complete exposition see The Gospel of Matthew, by the author of this volume.) This great company, therefore, does not stand before a heavenly throne, but before the millennial throne on earth. It is a millennial scene after the tribulation is passed.
Fuente: Gaebelein’s Annotated Bible (Commentary)
Chapter 20
Salvation to God and to the Lamb
For the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall feed them, and shall lead them unto living fountains of waters: and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes
Rev 7:1-17
The subject of this chapter is the salvation of God’s elect. Long ago, the prophet Jonah declared, Salvation is of the Lord (Jon 2:9). All God’s saints upon the earth learn the sweet words of David’s song and rejoice to sing, The salvation of the righteous is of the Lord (Psa 37:39). Salvation is of the Lord: In its planning! In its purchase! In its performance! In its preservation! And in its perfection! From beginning to end, salvation is God’s work and God’s gift; and he gives it to whom he will (Rom 9:16). When at last all the elect are gathered together around the throne of God, perfectly glorified in Christ, they shall proclaim, Salvation to our God, which sitteth upon the throne, and unto the Lamb (Rev 7:10). In these seventeen verses John teaches us four facts about the salvation of God’s elect.
God preserves this world in order to save his elect in the world (Rev 7:1-3)
No one should mistake God’s longsuffering for lack of will or ability in the Almighty to punish his enemies. The entire sixth chapter of Revelation is a warning to men of the certainty and finality of God’s judgment. The Lord’s patience and longsuffering with men and women in this world is an unquestionable fact. He causes the sunshine and the rain to fall upon both the righteous and the wicked (Mat 5:45). The Lord is good to all; and his tender mercies are over all his works (Psa 145:9). But temporal mercies are not an indication of God’s favor (Psa 92:5-7). Far from it! God has set the wicked in slippery places. Their feet shall slide down to hell in due season (Psa 73:18-20; Deu 32:35). God has already prepared the instruments by which he will ease himself of his adversaries and destroy all his enemies (Rev 7:1-2). The angels of destruction are armed with the winds of woe and are ready to execute judgment. These four angels control the instruments of destruction throughout the whole earth: north, south, east, and west. They are prepared for their work of hurting (destroying) the earth. But, suddenly, John sees another Angel ascending from the east. He cries with a loud voice to the four angels in Rev 7:1 and commands them to withhold their judgment (Rev 7:2).
This angel ascending up out of the east is the Lord Jesus Christ, the Angel of the covenant. Who but the Angel of the covenant (The Messenger of the covenant – Mal 3:1), could have the seal of the covenant? Who but Christ, who holds his people in his hands and keeps them by the power of his grace, could seal his servants? He is the Day Star and the Sun of Righteousness who arose in the east, from Judah, out of Zion. When he arose to seal his people, he brought light, life, salvation, and joy to us. There is healing beneath his wings (2Pe 1:19; Mal 4:2; Psa 14:7). Christ has the seal of the covenant, which is the Spirit of God. As circumcision was the physical sign and seal of God’s covenant with Abraham, the Holy Spirit, given to God’s elect in regeneration, is the seal of the covenant of grace (Eph 1:13-14; Eph 4:30).
It is Christ, our Mediator, the Angel of the covenant, who preserves this world from destruction in order to accomplish the salvation of God’s elect (Rev 7:3). The only thing holding back the judgment of God from this world is the mediatoral work of Christ. God’s patience, longsuffering, and forbearance with this world is to usward, and is for the salvation of his elect (2Pe 3:9; 2Pe 3:15). As God set his seal upon the houses of Israel when the destroying angel passed through Egypt (Exo 12:23), so Christ has set his seal upon all the elect. As Aaron wore a signet upon his forehead which read, Holiness To The Lord (Exo 28:38), so Christ has set his sanctifying seal upon his people.
If you are a believer, the seal of God is upon you. Judgment will surely come, but you have nothing to fear! The woes of this Book are against the wicked, persecuting world. No punishment from God will fall upon his chosen (1Th 5:9). God punished the sins of his people in Christ, their Substitute, to the full satisfaction of his justice. Since Christ has redeemed us from the curse of the law, we cannot be condemned (Gal 3:13; Rom 8:1; Rom 8:33-34). This sealing is one of the most precious things under heaven. The seal of God protects, preserves, and keeps us. It is the mark of God’s ownership upon us. It cannot be broken. Well might we pray, Set me as a seal upon thine heart (Son 8:6). God the Father sealed us with his decree of election (Jud 1:1). God the Son sealed us with his atoning blood (Heb 10:10-14). God the Holy Spirit sealed us with his regenerating grace (Eph 1:13-14).
All God’s elect will be saved to the praise of the glory of his grace (Rev 7:4-12)
The opinions and speculations of men about these 144,000 are many, imaginary, and ridiculous. This number, like all the rest of the vision, is symbolical. It is a definite number used to describe an indefinite multitude. How are we to discover who they are? Simply look to the context. The 144,000 represent all of God’s sealed ones throughout the whole earth (Rev 7:3-4), the whole Israel of God, a great multitude of elect Jews and Gentiles, which no man can number, which shall be saved (Rev 7:9). The twelve tribes of Israel which are named and the twelve thousand out of each tribe represent spiritual Israel, the church, the whole body of God’s elect (Rom 11:26). To suggest, as many do, that Jews, because they are Jews, physical descendants of Abraham, shall obtain God’s mercy and grace, is to fly in the face of Holy Scripture. Grace does not come to men as a matter of physical heritage, but by spiritual heritage (Joh 1:12-13; Rom 9:8).
John tells us five things about this 144,000, five things about God’s elect.
1. They are a great multitude (Rev 7:4; Rev 7:9).
2. God’s elect, and only God’s elect, were redeemed by the blood of Christ (Rev 14:3).
3. The elect are known in time by their conversion to Christ (Rev 14:4; Joh 10:3-4; Joh 10:27-28; 1Th 1:4-10).
4. All the elect are sealed in grace, preserved and kept by God the Holy Spirit (Rev 7:3-4). They shall never perish! And
5. All God’s elect, the entire 144,000 shall be saved (Rev 7:9-12). John saw them all, the whole, great, innumerable multitude, standing before the throne of God and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes, holding palm branches in their hands, giving praise to God. What God has purposed, he will bring to pass!
Not only will all God’s elect be saved, they will all be saved through faith in Christ (Rev 7:13-14)
Election is not salvation. It is unto salvation (2Th 2:13). Redemption guarantees salvation. But redemption is not salvation. Salvation comes to sinners only through faith in Christ. This faith is as much a work of grace and gift of God as election and redemption (Col 2:12; Eph 2:8). And it is just as necessary. No one can be saved without personal faith in Christ. We are told two things about all who enter into heaven: (1.) They all come out of great tribulation. That refers to the temptations, trials, and persecutions of God’s elect in this world (Joh 16:33; Act 14:22). And (2.) they all have Washed their robes and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. They have placed their trust in the blood of Christ and have by faith obtained perfect righteousness in him (1Jn 1:7; 1Jn 1:9).
The salvation of God’s elect shall be a perfect, complete, eternal salvation
This is seen in Rev 7:15-17. Therefore, because they have been redeemed and justified through the blood of Christ, the Lamb of God sacrificed in their place, are they before the throne. There they worship and serve him in spontaneous, glad, unceasing devotion of heart, and these redeemed ones in glory enjoy sweet, full, intimate communion and fellowship with God through Christ. That is the essence of heaven’s glory and bliss. All of these things apply to all of God’s elect. In heaven, we shall be in the immediate, eternal presence of our God and Savior (Rev 7:15). Everything we want, need, and desire shall be supplied with unlimited fulness (Rev 7:16). We shall be completely delivered from all sin, sorrow, hardship, and care (Rev 7:17). Who could desire more? (Psa 27:4; Psa 17:15). God’s salvation is perfect salvation!
Fuente: Discovering Christ In Selected Books of the Bible
angels
(See Scofield “Heb 1:4”).
Fuente: Scofield Reference Bible Notes
after: Rev 4:1 – Rev 6:17
four angels: Rev 4:6, Rev 9:14, Eze 7:2, Eze 37:9, Zec 1:18-20, Zec 6:1, Mat 24:31, Mar 13:27
holding: Isa 27:8, Jer 49:36, Dan 7:2, Dan 8:8, Jon 1:4, Mat 8:26, Mat 8:27, Mat 24:31
the wind: Rev 6:6, Rev 9:4, Isa 27:3
Reciprocal: 1Ch 21:12 – the angel Rev 10:1 – another
Fuente: The Treasury of Scripture Knowledge
THE SIXTH SEAL had now been opened, and John does not see the opening of the seventh till Rev 8:1-13 is reached. Chapter 7 therefore presents us with a parenthetical interlude in which we have recorded Divine activities and their fruits before we see even more serious judgments falling on the earth. True to the order which runs consistently through the Scriptures, we have the Jew first and after that the Gentile.
There is a brief pause in the Divine dealings. The sixth seal had produced what is likened to a mighty wind, but now the four winds of the earth are entirely restrained by angelic power. They were not to blow until the servants of God had been sealed in their foreheads-the most prominent part of their persons. These servants of God were found in the twelve tribes of Israel; but Levi coming into the reckoning and also both the tribes that represented Joseph, the number twelve is maintained by the omission of Dan. It has been thought that the way Jacob prophetically referred to Dan in Gen 49:16-18, may throw some light on this. If the serpent by the way, and the adder in the path, are an allusion to the antichrist, instigated by Satan, rising out of the tribe of Dan, it may do so.
The numbers cited might of course be literal, but more probably are to be understood symbolically, especially as twelve and the square of twelve occur elsewhere in the book in a symbolic sense. The godly remnant of Israel are to have a place of administrative importance in the coming age, and twelve is the number of administrative completeness.
It is to be noted that at this point in the book angels again come into prominence. The Lords parables in Mat 13:1-58 have told us that they have a large part in the work of selective judgment at the end of the age. They gather out of His kingdom all things that offend; they sever the wicked from among the just. What we see here is that they seal the just of Israel, so that they may be preserved and carried through. Until such are sealed the winds of judgment may not blow.
John heard the number that were sealed, and that recorded, he tells us the next vision that passed before his eyes. He saw a great multitude that came out of all nations, who appeared as standing before the throne and the Lamb. This was clearly a vision of a great host gathered from the Gentiles, as distinguished from the sealed remnant of Israel, that has just come before us. Another thing also differentiates the two companies. The elect of Israel are sealed, and thus marked for preservation, before the more direct judgments of God begin. The Gentile multitude is arrayed in the white robe of righteousness and holds the palms of victory as having come out of the great tribulation. The one case, therefore, shows that God knows how to secure those already in relation with Him, before the judgment begins: the other shows how God can overrule tribulation, even of the fiercest sort, to reach people not previously in relation with Him, bringing them into relationship with Himself, and carrying them victoriously through the tribulation.
In the vision this Gentile multitude acclaimed God and the Lamb as the Source of their salvation. They did so with a loud voice that all might hear, and it met with an immediate response from the angelic throng. The multitude was before the throne, whereas the angels encircled the throne and also the elders and living creatures, who formed an inner circle. The angels are moved to worship. They add their Amen to the ascription of salvation to God and the Lamb, though they do not themselves experience salvation, and consequently they do not name it in their own ascription of seven-fold praise, as given in verse Rev 7:12. Though they do not share the salvation, they can see the excellence and glory of God in it. They ascribe honour and power unto eternal ages to Him who has wrought it.
It is remarkable that one of the elders should have raised with John the two questions that would naturally rise in all our minds. Who are these people in their multitudes, and whence did they come? Johns response, Sir, thou knowest, was justified in the result. The elder did know, and gave the information. Consistently through the book the elders are characterized by the spirit of worship and by a very full understanding of God and His ways. As representing the glorified saints, this is what we should expect of them, in keeping with the Apostle Pauls saying, Now I know in part; but then shall I know even as also I am known (1Co 13:12).
The elders reply shows that this great company have a special place inasmuch as they have experienced special sorrows and tribulation. The whiteness of their robes was not produced by their own works, or even by their much suffering, but only by their having been washed in the blood of the Lamb; yet they have a recompense which is a suited answer to their sufferings, and for which their suffering had educated and qualified them.
Their place is before the throne, a phrase which indicates, we believe, the place they have morally and spiritually: they are put into close touch with God. They have moreover a priestly place since they serve Him day and night in His temple. All the burden and oppression which they have suffered has ceased for ever, and on the contrary the Lamb Himself becomes the Minister of their joy and satisfaction, God having removed for ever anything and everything that causes a tear.
Thus it is a beautiful picture of millennial recompense and blessedness, which will be enjoyed by multitudes called out of the Gentile peoples and carried through the tribulation period. We have not yet reached the millennium in the orderly unfolding of the book, but in this parenthetical chapter we are permitted to have a glimpse of how God will preserve His people in view of it, whether they are Jews or Gentiles.
There will of course be other multitudes, born during the progress of the age to come, also enjoying its blessedness. They will not belong to this company, however, nor share its special nearness, not having had the spiritual training involved in passing through the special tribulation. For us the principle is stated in the words, If we suffer, we shall also reign with Him (2Ti 2:12). The principle is the same for them, though the exact recompense may be different.
Fuente: F. B. Hole’s Old and New Testaments Commentary
Jewish Outcomers from the Great Tribulation
Rev 7:1-8; Rev 14:1-5
INTRODUCTORY WORDS
There are some people who see but one Rapture. For our part we see several.
1. There is the Rapture of the Body of Christ. This may take place at any time, but of course that time must be God’s time. To us it is any time, to God it is at a definite moment, which He, in His omniscience, has already set.
2. There is a Rapture of the outcomers of the Great Tribulation. This will be discussed as we proceed with the sermon.
3. We believe that there will be a Rapture of the one hundred and forty-four thousand.
The Bible speaks of two general statements. Enoch, Elijah, Christ, and the Church, were all taken out, and up. On the other hand Noah was carried through the flood.
We cannot but believe that the rapture of Enoch and of Elijah, typically, set forth the Rapture of the Church, and likewise, the Rapture of other groups, which may go up during the Tribulation period to meet the Lord. The Rapture of Christ, likewise, anticipates the Rapture of the Church.
When we say that there will doubtless be more than one Rapture, we do not mean that in the Rapture of the Church, which is His Body, all of the truly regenerate will not be taken up. We do, however, mean that after the Rapture of the Church, and under the ministry of the two witnesses and of many others, there will be other groups saved.
Neither are we dogmatic that the great multitude who are the outcomers from the Great Tribulation are raptured. We believe they are. Of this we are certain, God will take care of His own.
The Rapture of saints need not stagger our confidence in God. He is able to work all things after the counsel of His will. He who caught Enoch and Elijah up, is able to catch us up. He who went up from the mount of Olives, is able to receive us unto Himself.
I. THE OMNIPOTENT GOD CHECKING THE ELEMENTS (Rev 7:1-3)
There was a terrific judgment that befell the earth as the seals of the “book” were broken. We now are carried back by the Spirit to what we may call a parenthesis, which may be placed somewhere in the midst of the opening of the seals. It may come, and we rather think it does come between the opening of the fourth seal, and the fifth seal.
One thing is plain, the judgments of God are then upon the earth. In those judgments the winds of the earth, as well as the earthquakes and other natural forces have their part.
As the winds are about to work their havoc and fulfil their judgments, suddenly four angels make their appearance. They are standing on the four corners of the earth, and are holding the four winds, that they should not blow upon the earth.
Another angel is seen having the seal of the Living God. He cries, “Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.”
In a moment we will be observing the “sealing” of the Lord’s servants. Now we wish only to observe one salient thing.
The winds and the elements are subject to God. All things operate under the fiat of God. The God who made laws, can easily cause them, for the time, to be inoperative. The Creator is greater than His creation.
Let not the vagaries of evolution deceive the children of God. God is Creator, and He is back of every law that governs His creation, God did not create, and then desert a marvelous and most intricate, and yet helpless creation.
We come back to our first contention-the fact that the angels of God held the winds in their control-in this there is nothing beyond the power of our faith to grasp.
II. THE SEALING OF THE ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FOUR THOUSAND (Rev 7:3-4)
1. Where are the ten lost tribes? We have heard many discussions as to the present-day identity of the ten lost tribes. Much of this, to us, seems speculative. This much we know, the twelve tribes are kept under the eye of an all-powerful God. The Jews may have swallowed up many of the ten tribes. However, we believe that all of Israel is not held in the two and one-half tribes which we commonly know as “the Jews,” or the “Hebrews.”
James addressed an Epistle to “The Twelve Tribes scattered abroad.” Centuries have past since then. Now we are suddenly brought face to face, in our study, with the sealing of one hundred and forty-four thousand, from all the tribes of Israel. After this comprehensive statement, in order that no doubt may becloud us, the Spirit specifies the tribes by name, and speaks of the sealing of twelve thousand from each tribe.
This is no small matter. In it is tied up the fulfilment of more than one Old Testament prophecy pledge. Take, for example, the prophecy of Ezekiel. Under inspiration he wrote: “Behold, I will take the Children of Israel from among the heathen, whither they be gone, * * and I will make them one nation in the land upon the mountains of Israel; and one king shall be king over them all: and they shall be no more two nations, neither shall they be divided into two kingdoms any more at all.”
Here in Rev 7:1-17 we are brought face to face with the beginning of God’s fulfilment of this pledge. After centuries and centuries have past, and after the ten tribes have been lost to human eye; suddenly all twelve tribes are thrown back on the pages of Scripture in the throes of the last anguish, the Day of Jacob’s trouble.
2. Who kept the Children of Israel intact? We have all read the story of Jonah swallowed, but undigested. That was, indeed, a notable miracle; and its fact, caused Nineveh to repent at the preaching of the “vomited up” Prophet. Here, however, is a miracle that a thousand times outclasses Jonah.
God’s chosen race has been swallowed of the nations, but undigested; they have been cast into the furnace of affliction, but not destroyed. They have been cast in the den of lions, where authorities and powers have all conspired against them, and yet they have come forth unscathed. God’s election preserves him.
3. What is the destiny of Israel? The same God who has kept Israel during the centuries will not now allow them to be utterly consumed. Israel’s greatest sorrow lies just around the next shore line. The antichrist, during the Tribulation, will throw out great floods of antagonism to drown her. He will seek to annihilate her from the earth, however, beyond the Tribulation we will yet see Israel in national power and glory, restored to her land. Her sorrows and tribulations will prove no more than God’s method to bring her to repentance. God will not fail His people. He will not cast His unfulfilled promises to the wind. Israel shall yet dwell under one King, as twelve tribes, in their own land. God will surely bring back His own from every nation under Heaven, whither He hath driven them, and they shall inherit their possessions.
III. THE SEALING OF THE ONE HUNDRED AND FORTY-FOUR THOUSAND CONTINUED (Rev 7:3-4)
1. The personnel of the one hundred and forty and four thousand. They are Hebrews; of this we are certain. They are Hebrews from twelve, and not from two and one half tribes. They are covenant people, we know. They are a people chosen of God, and precious. They have, however, been a sinful and rebellious people; but are now the servants of their God.
2. The cause and purpose of the sealing. The angel with the seal of God cried with a loud voice, saying. “Hurt not the earth, * * till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads.”
There is, in the period of Tribulation, which we are now considering, other groups who are sealed-they are sealed by the antichrist. They bear his mark in their foreheads and in their hands. This mark of the antichrist is a sign of their allegiance to the antichrist. They who bear his mark, are they who worship his image, and operate under the number of his name.
Here, then, is another “marked” group. They are marked because they are “servants of God.” They are marked of God, because they have refused the mark of the beast. They are marked because they are called of God to special service.
3. The significance of the sealing. It seems to us that some mighty movements of the God of all grace will parallel the wonders and signs wrought by the antichrist during the Tribulation.
When the Church is raptured, and prophecy begins to unfold, many of Israel will awaken to the verity of Scripture. Remember, also, that God’s two witnesses will not witness in vain. Are these one hundred and forty-four thousand not traceable to their testimony? Besides, angel warnings will constantly be given from the skies.
It does not, therefore, seem to us a thing incredible that the hundred and forty-four thousand of Israel are called, “the servants of our God.”
4. The reason for their name-“The servants of God.” They are servants, because they serve. We cannot but feel that they will become the heralders of the Gospel of the Kingdom, even as Christ, in speaking of the signs of His Coming, and of the ending of the age, said, “This Gospel of the Kingdom shall be preached in all the world for a witness unto all nations; and then shall the end come” (Mat 24:14).
Remember the verse just quoted does not refer to the Church preaching the Gospel of grace, and then shall the Rapture come. This preaching leads up to the end of the Tribulation, not to the end of the Church age.
Perhaps these very one hundred and forty-four thousand will be saved Jews, who will, with the fervor of an Apostle Paul, carry the Gospel to thousands; acclaiming the Advent of the Messiah.
AN ILLUSTRATION
“The Wailing Wall is the only portion of the old Temple to which the Jews have access. They assemble there every Friday afternoon, sometimes in hundreds, and there they kiss the stones and flood them with tears, manifesting the love and zeal expressed by the Psalmist, ‘For Thy servants take pleasure in her stones, and favour the dust thereof” (Psa 102:14). While the Jews thus display their religious fervor the Arabs mock and ridicule from the wall above, which is ever calculated to provoke revolt. The Jews thrust their hands into the crevices of the sacred stones, and put in slips of paper on which are written prayers to Jehovah. They also pray with their mouths in the crevices that their prayers might rise from holy ground. At stated times the leaders read from the Prophecy of Isaiah (Isa 64:9-12): ‘Be not wroth very sore. O Lord, neither remember iniquity for ever * * Thy holy cities are a wilderness, Zion is a wilderness, Jerusalem a desolation. Our holy and our beautiful House, where our fathers praise Thee, is burned with fire: and all our pleasant things are laid waste. Wilt Thou refrain Thyself for these things, O Lord? wilt Thou hold Thy peace, and afflict us very sore?’
“Then at about four o’clock in the afternoon the Rabbins Litany is said. A Rabbi cries: ‘For the place that is destroyed,’ and the people wail the response; ‘We sit in solitude and mourn,’ and so on-
“‘For the walls that arc overthrown’
“‘We sit in solitude and mourn’;
“‘For the majesty that is departed’-
“‘We sit in solitude and mourn’:
“‘May the Kingdom soon return to Zion’-
“‘Comfort those who mourn over Jerusalem.'”
Thank God the Jews are yet under the eye of God. He will save them in due time.
Fuente: Neighbour’s Wells of Living Water
Rev 7:1. After the altar scene in chapter 6:9-11, the vision opens the sixth seal to give a view of the consternation that came upon the men in high places, because of their mistreatment of Christians and because they were faced with the reverses that the emperor had forced upon them. The present chapter extends the consideration that God had for the “martyrs,” at the same time He was bringing the siege of consternation upon the persecutors of His people. The four angels are so numbered because of the four corners or four points of the earth’s compass. Holding the four winds symbolizes the blowing of the wrath of God over the realm of the persecutors, and these angels were holding this wind ready to be released whenever they were so ordered.
Comments by Foy E. Wallace
Introduction.
The intermission scene (between sixth and seventh seals) –Rev 7:1-17.
Six seals have been opened, revealing the signs of impending events. The first four seals depict scenes of terror and tragedy never exceeded in the course of human history –the siege of Jerusalem by the Romans, the details of which fulfill these visions of the horrorifying inflictions, of its duration, and of the subsequent tribulations in its wake. It should not be even momentarily overlooked that all of these calamities were included in the narration of Mat 24:1-51, accompanied by the explicitly plain announcement by Jesus that the calamities would come upon that generation and fulfilled in it (Mat 23:36; Mat 24:34). “All these things shall come upon this generation.”
After the disclosures of war, famine, pestilence and mortality in the pageantry of the four horses and riders, the fifth seal discloses the call of the martyrs for avenging judgment, followed by the answer of the sixth seal to their cry in the symbols of the descending wrath of the One on the throne and of the Lamb upon the persecutors and their accomplices.
The immediate opening of the seventh seal would expectedly follow, but instead an interlude is projected into the vision as an enlargement of the martyr scene, expanded to include their “fellowservants and brethren,” previously mentioned as “partakers in the tribulation” yet on the earth.
This recess between the sixth and seventh seal signifies a lapse between the announcements of judgment and the execution of them, and corresponds to the period of escape promised the disciples by Jesus, in Mat 24:15-25 and Luk 21:18-19, in his descriptions of the siege of Jerusalem; and it was fulfilled in the withdrawal of the Roman armies, under the command of the Roman general, Titus, after the siege had commenced. It is described by Josephus, an eyewitness to the embattled scenes of the destruction of Jerusalem, with additional evidence from the Roman historian Pliny, to which further reference will be made in the following analysis of this interlude and its succeeding scenes.
Verse 1.
And I saw four angels–Rev 7:1.
The four angels were the imperial agents, not the heavenly messengers, as shown by the contrast with “another” angel of verse 2, which countermanded the orders of the four angels to hold back the winds. These four angels were the agents of Rome intercepting the word of God– holding the winds–hindering the messengers of the gospel –that they should not blow–that is, preventing the spread of the gospel, or Christianity. The old word “hold” meant “hinder,” as in Rom 1:18, “who hold (hinder) the truth.”
The four corners of the earth is a common expression to denote the four points of the compass, meaning the whole earth. It signified the universal sway of the Roman government, hence, the significance of “the four angels,” the Roman agents “standing on the four corners of the earth,” exercising dominion over the whole world. The four winds were the messengers of Christ to execute his will, signified by the wind blowing, contrasting “blow” and “not blow,” the affirmative and negative opposites. The phrase, on earth, sea nor tree, were the three things that sum up physical objects against which the wind blows, and signify that the acts of the four angels in holding back the wind proscribed the preaching of the word, and in so doing the result was universal, having effect on all peoples of the earth.
The designation on the earth referred particularly to Palestine where the Jews resided and where the gospel originated. The designation on the sea extends the restraining order to other parts of the world separated by the sea from the land of the Jews. The statement nor any tree emphasizes that the word of God was being restrained everywhere men were found.
Fuente: Combined Bible Commentary
Rev 7:1. The words After this denote succession of visions rather than of time.
The Seer beholds four angels standing at the four corners of the earth. The number four is that of the world; and hence the four corners,North, South, East, West,as well as four angels (comp. chap. Rev 20:8). By the winds which these angels hold fast we are no doubt in the first place to understand natural winds, although it is clear that storm-winds or tempests must be intended. Yet it is as impossible to think here of mere winds as it is to think of mere earthquakes or of mere changes in sun and moon in the preceding chapter. The idea of four storm-winds bursting forth, when they are let loose, from all the four quarters of the earth is too unnatural, almost too grotesque, to be entertained. The winds are those upon which the Almighty rides, and the symbols of His judgments (comp. 1Ki 19:11; Jer 22:22; Jer 49:36; Eze 1:4; Dan 7:2; Zec 2:1; Rev 6:13). But God stays them at His pleasure, and there is a calm. Thus Psalms 29 describes a storm coming up from the great sea, shaking the land, dashing the cedar trees, and dividing the flames of fire. The storm, however, is in the hands of One who sitteth King for ever, who gives strength unto His people, who blesses His people with peace. It is to be noticed that the winds here are not only ready but eager to be let loose: hence the four angels do not only hold them, but hold them fast.The object is that no wind should blow on the earth, nor on the sea, nor on any tree. The word tree is used in its ordinary sense, not as meaning the great ones of the earth,an interpretation that would necessarily lead us to think of the sea as the mass of the heathen nations, and of the land as the stubborn Jews. Such meanings may be possible. They are by no means out of keeping with the tone of the Apocalypse. But they are not natural at present. The word, therefore, ought to be taken literallytrees being probably selected from amongst other objects on the surface of the earth because they are the first to be prostrated before the storm-wind. The figure used in this verse is at once appropriate and natural. We may compare Hamlets account of his fathers care of his mother
So loving to my mother.
That he might not let even the winds of heaven
Visit her too roughly.
Fuente: A Popular Commentary on the New Testament
Observe here, 1. That if a temporal judgment on the Jews be here intended, then this vision represented to St. John, God’s decree and purpose for suspending the dreadful execution of the threatened and intended vengeance upon Judea for a time, namely, until God had sealed his number, that, marked them for preservation, Set a mark upon the forehead of the men, &c. Eze 9:4, that is, preserve the penitent believers from the common destruction, as the Israelites were preserved in Egypt from the destroying angel. I beheld four angels, that had power to inflict judgments, famine, sword, and pestilence, (foretold chap. 6) upon Judea; I beheld these angels making a stay and stop, before they would suffer those mischiefs to break forth upon the earth.
Where note, That the office of the holy angels in heaven is at God’s command, and by God’s direction, to execute vengeance, and to inflict all temporal judgments upon obstinate sinners here on earth; yet glad they are when it pleases God to stay and stop them from a speedy execution of his wrath and vengeance; for as judgment is God’s strange work, in which he does not delight, so neither is it pleasing to the angels as an act of punishmnent, but only in obedience to the command of God, and with an eye and respect to the glory of God.
Observe, 2. That if a spiritual judgment be here intended, as others apprehend, namely, the calamities befalling the church by reason of an apostasy under Antichrist, then by the winds they understand heresies and false doctrines of all sorts, which have an impetuous force and violence, like winds, to drive unstable souls from their steadfastness in the truths of God, into damnable errors.
Now God takes special care that these winds should not blow, these anti-Christian errors and false doctrines should not overflow the earth, until he had sealed his people, that is, secured them from that danger, preserving them from spiritual defilement, as the undoubted fruit of their sealing; where we see, that in all times of public calamity, be it temporal or spiritual, God has a special care of his own, and bears a special regard unto his own; here he commands the angels to hold the winds from smiting the earth until the number of his sealed ones was completed.
Fuente: Expository Notes with Practical Observations on the New Testament
The answer to the closing question of chapter 6 is found in this chapter. God sends four of his messengers to restrain the destructive forces.
Fuente: Gary Hampton Commentary on Selected Books
Rev 7:1. After these things After the former discoveries made to me, which represented the providence of God toward his church and the world, till the downfall of the heathen Roman empire, the state of the church and the world immediately to succeed was also represented to me in the manner following: I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth That is, the north, the south, the east, and the west; holding the four cardinal winds of the earth Keeping them in a state of restraint; that the wind might not blow upon the earth That there might be the most entire and complete calm, to represent the peaceful state of things which should succeed the tumultuous and distressing revolutions which had been last discovered to me. Winds are emblems of commotions, and very properly, as they are the natural causes of storms. Thus this figurative expression is used and explained by Jer 49:36-37; Upon Elam will I bring the four winds, from the four quarters of heaven, and will scatter them toward all those winds, &c., for I will cause Elam to be dismayed before their enemies, &c. To hold the winds, therefore, that they should not blow, is a very proper prophetic emblem of a state of peace and tranquillity. This chapter, it must be observed, is still a continuation of the sixth seal, for the seventh seal is not opened till the beginning of the next chapter. It is a description of the state of the church in Constantines time, of the peace and protection that it should enjoy under the civil powers, and of the great accession that should be made to it, both of Jews and Gentiles. Eusebius is very copious upon this subject in several parts of his writings, and hath applied that passage of the psalmist in the version of the Seventy, (Psa 46:8-9,) Come hither, and behold the works of the Lord, what wonders he hath wrought in the earth; he maketh wars to cease unto the end of the earth; he breaketh the bow, and cutteth the spear asunder; he burneth the chariot in the fire; which things, saith he, being manifestly fulfilled in our times, we rejoice over them. Lactantius also saith, in the same triumphant strain, Tranquillity being restored throughout the world, the church which was lately ruined riseth again. Now, after the violent agitations of so great a tempest, a calm air and the desired light become resplendent. Now God hath relieved the afflicted. Now he hath wiped away the tears of the sorrowful. These are testimonies of contemporary writers. Medals of Constantine are still preserved, with the head of this emperor on one side, and this inscription, CONSTANTINUS AUG., and on the reverse, BEATA TRANQUILLITAS, Blessed Tranquillity.
Fuente: Joseph Bensons Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Revelation Chapter 7
First, the perfect number of the remnant of Israel is sealed, before the providential instruments of Gods judgments are allowed to act; 144,000=12 x 12 x 1000. They are secured for blessing according to Gods purposes and set apart by Him; not yet seen in their blessings, but secured for them. Afterwards the vast multitude from among the gentiles is seen. We must remark here, there is no previous prophetic announcement of the blessing of the spared ones in the great tribulation (not the three years and-a-half of Mat 24:1-51 -this refers to Jews-but that mentioned in the epistle to the church at Philadelphia). Hence this is fully given to us here, and we are distinctly told who they are. A multitude of Gentiles is seen standing not as around the throne, but before it and before the Lamb, their righteousness owned and themselves victorious. They ascribe salvation to God thus revealed, that is, to God on the throne, and to the Lamb. They belong to these earthly scenes, not to the assembly. This is answered by the angels who are around the throne, the elders, and the living creatures -all together composing the heavenly part of the scene already connected with the throne; the angels surrounding the others, which form the centre and immediate circle of the throne, the white-robed multitude before it. The angels give their Amen, and pronounce the praise of their God too.
All this belonged to the white-robed multitude and the angels; only the former speak of the Lamb, who was also their salvation. The angels add their Amen to this; but praise their God. They had ascribed glory and blessing to the Lamb before; but, naturally, salvation to the Lamb was not their own part of the song. But the four living creatures and the elders do not worship here, because their own relationships were different, and these are not what are spoken of here. They are found, as far as the book goes, in chapters 4 and 5, where they are on thrones around, and cast their crowns before the throne, and worship Him that liveth for ever and ever. They give the motives of worship according to the relationships they are in: that of the angels is with their God; of the white robed multitude, with the God of the throne and the Lamb as having the title to the government and deliverance of the earth as a present thing. That the Lamb was the Son, yea, the God who created the angels, is not the question here, but of each speaking in his own relationship, so as to bring these relationships out.
We have thus the heavenly hosts, the glorified saints, and the white-robed multitude, each in a different relationship, but the first and the last thrown in the main together-the glorified saints forming a class apart. They do not worship here. But one of the elders, who have always the intelligence of God explains to the prophet who the white-robed multitude are. It formed no part of the prophetic revelation as yet, and it was not the assemblys own place. Sir, thou knowest, says the prophet. They had come out of the great tribulation, faithful in it, their robes white in the blood of the Lamb. They were not millennial saints, that is, born in that time, and subject by birth to the responsibility of that condition (which grace had to meet). They were cleansed and owned to be so, having the consciousness of it and victory when the others began; so that they, as already cleansed and owned, are always before the throne a special class, and serve Him day and night in His temple.
Fuente: John Darby’s Synopsis of the New Testament
This whole chapter seems to be an episode, thrown in between the opening of the sixth and the seventh seal.
Rev 7:1. And after these things I saw four angels standing on the four corners of the earth. East, west, north, and south of the whole Roman world. These angels are variously understood. Dr. Hammond confines the vision chiefly to the affairs of the jews, which does not apparently synchronize with the subsequent events on the church and the world. Storms of wind in prophetic language denote national calamities. When Jeremiah was thundering against the nations, the Lord said, Upon Elam will I bring the four winds from the four quarters of heaven, and will scatter them. Jer 49:36. This suspension does not appear to be longer than to allow the sealing of the saints with the name of God in their foreheads.
The general opinion of enlightened men is, that those four angels are ministers of the divine visitations on the whole of the old Roman world, and that the holding back of their arm was a period of the longsuffering of God, to give men time for repentance. Then the Goths, the Vans, the Huns, the whole swarm of the northern hive, overran Italy, Gaul, and Spain, marking their career with destruction in every form.
Of this tremendous irruption on Italy and Rome our Saxon chronicle, of unimpeached accuracy, speaks thus. Anno 435. Her Gotan abroecon Rome burh, ande nefre syththan Romane ne ricsodan on Brytene: Thaet waes embe xi hund wintra ande x wintra thaet the heo getimbred was: Ealles, hi rixodon on Brytene feower hund wintra ande seouanti wintra, syththan Gaius Julius that lond aerost ge-sohte. This year, 435, the Goths plundered the city of Rome, and never since have the Romans reigned in Britain. This was about eleven hundred winters, and ten winters after that she was ge-timbered: [our first towns and first churches were built of wood.] In all, they reigned in Britain four hundred winters, and seventy winters, since Julius Csar first sought this land. The dark ages then followed on the church.
Rev 7:2-3. I saw another angel ascending from the east saying, hurt not the earth till we have sealed the servants of our God in their foreheads. Proofs indubitable that they were so sealed; for when the Goths stormed Rome, the christians fled to their churches, and awaited the events in prayer. Their lives were spared, and more than spared, for the christians presently found that one part of the invading army were brothers, whose fathers, about the year 350, had been converted to the christian faith by Ulphilas, missionary among the Goths, and translator of the four gospels, and the codex argenteus of the Swedes.
Rev 7:4-8. I heard the number of them that were sealed one hundred and forty four thousand. The number of the twelve tribes is assumed here to indicate perfection, and to do honour to the church of the firstborn, who had the promises in Abraham. But most assuredly the twelve tribes are names merely assumed, for Judah has but twelve thousand, from whom the great body of the jews now claim descent. The smaller tribes had no such numbers. Besides, as Manasseh and Joseph are named here, Dan is of necessity omitted, else the tribes had been thirteen. Dan was the first in idolatry, therefore his name is here blotted from the book of remembrance. In this catalogue, Judah stands first as the regal tribe; and Joseph is substituted for Ephraim. By consequence, this vision has nothing to do with the jews, beyond that of farther honouring the first that believed, as the mother church of the gentile hosts; the children of the promise being, according to Paul, accounted for the seed.
Rev 7:9. A great multitude, as St. Paul called the converted gentiles in his day; for the willing hosts of the nations are numerous as the drops of morning dew.
Rev 7:10-12. Cried with a loud voice, in a sevenfold song of glory to God, as illustrated on Rev 5:12.
Rev 7:14. These are they which came out of great tribulation, and particularly during the ten years of sore persecution under Dioclesian, when they suffered death in every form of tortures, and exile.
Rev 7:15. He that sitteth on the throne shall dwell among them, as he once dwelt in the tabernacle, and dwelt in our flesh, Joh 1:14, for the Greek word in all those places is the same. The men expatriated and despised on earth, are gathered home to the temple of glory in heaven.
Rev 7:17. He shall lead them to living fountains of water. This figure is more expressive to those who live adjacent to sandy deserts, where fountains of water are rare.
REFLECTIONS.
Having followed the counsel of heaven in the six seals, we are now called to review the interior care of God over the church. This care is conspicuous in every age. Before he suffered the Chaldeans to take Jerusalem, he set a mark on those that sighed for the wickedness of the place. And now before he sent forth the long menaced vengeance on the nations of Europe, he gave the four ministers of his fury a divine charge to suspend their commission till he had sealed the servants of God in their forehead. The angel sent to destroy Sodom could do nothing till Lot had reached his Zoar.
The next grand scene is the gentile church, which far surpassed the converted circumcision in numbers. Of these the prophet had said, Sing, oh barren, that bearest not, for the desolate woman hath many more children than she which hath a husband. Isa 54:1. And all heaven, seeing prophecy accomplished, sing also, ascribing salvation to God and the Lamb, in coqual praise. Let us trace the characters of the gentile church during the three first centuries.
They were pure and holy: they washed their robes from pagan idolatry, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. This is the blood of atonement and propitiation, which cleanseth from all sin. It can wash away the sins of the house of David, and of Jerusalem. It can wash the heart from wickedness. When we look on him who was humble, and meek, and forgiving; our pride and anger, and revenge all die away.
They were also a very pious people. Like Anna, they were daily in the house of God; and they sighed for religious worship when the houses of devotion could not be opened. Hence it is said, they shall serve God day and night in his temple. The rewards of glory shall correspond with the wishes of the heart.
They were a persecuted people. The philosophers laughed at their hope, and the priests hated them through interest and pride. The populace, till they knew better, were furious against them, because by their holy example they condemned the world. Yes, and if we are faithful as we ought to be, we shall disturb the carnal world, and excite its hatred, or effect its conversion.
They were poor and afflicted. Hunger, thirst, and heat imply their poverty, greatly augmented by persecution; and that they had to work in the middle of the day under a vertical sun, while the wicked could enjoy their sofa and the shade. No matter; they suffered less from hunger than the wicked from intemperance. They had a pure conscience, a grateful soul, and balmy sleep refreshed their weary limbs.
The gentile church was a weeping people. They bedewed with tears a country stained with crimes. They grieved to see grace despised, demons adored, and the name of God blasphemed. They often wept to see so many precious souls, and many of them their dearest relatives, lie secure, and wanton in the miseries of crime. But oh, what treasures of blessedness had heaven in store for the faithful seed!
Those sun-burnt faces, smiling with the graces of innocence, which the wicked strive in vain to affect, were shortly to shine as the angels of God. Those well clouted coats were about to give place to the priestly stole, and to the princely costume of heaven. Those tears, already crystalized with joy, were about to be wiped away with the sunshine of eternal day, and all this oppression to be superseded by the palm of triumph and joy in the presence of God and the Lamb.
Fuente: Sutcliffe’s Commentary on the Old and New Testaments
Rev 7:1-8. The Sealing of the Hundred and Forty Four Thousand.
Rev 7:1. Four angels are here represented as holding the winds, which are to bring disaster upon the world, in leash, until the seal of protection has been placed upon the Christians.
Rev 7:2. The object of the sealing may be to protect against (a) physical dangers, or (b) apostasy, or (c) demoniac activity. Probably all are included, for all may be connected with the breaking of the last seal. Cf. Eze 9:4-6*, where the mark on the foreheads protected from death.
Rev 7:4. 144,000, i.e. 12,000 out of each tribe. The number is evidently symbolical, being based on the square of twelve, and so denoting completeness. Whether the number represents Jewish Christians or the spiritual Israel, i.e. the totality of Christians alive at the time, is uncertain.
Rev 7:5-8. The list of tribes presents some difficulties. (a) The order differs from other arrangements (G. B. Gray, Exp., 1902, pp. 225f., thinks this is due to the disarrangement of the verses; Rev 7:7-8 originally stood before the last clauses of Rev 7:5); (b) Dan is omitted, probably because of the traditional belief that Antichrist would spring from his tribe; (c) Judah is placed first because of the belief that the Messiah would arise from his tribe; (d) Manasseh is given in place of Dan, though it is included in Joseph. [This is a strong reason for the view that Manasseh was not in the original list at all; moreover Manasseh is not in his proper place, coming far too high in the list. In other lists Naphtali is combined with Dan, both being sons of Bilhah. It is accordingly very probable that this was the case here, and that Manasseh is due to a scribes blunder, Dan being misread as Man, and this being regarded as an abbreviation for Manasseh.A. S. P.]
Fuente: Peake’s Commentary on the Bible
Two Intervening Visions
This entire chapter intervenes between the sixth and seventh seals. Similarly, between the sixth and seventh trumpets, we shall see an even longer intervention (Rev 10:1 -Rev 11:14). The last seal will not be opened until it is made clear that divine sovereignty has decreed the salvation and preservation of a great number in Israel (represented by the 144,000) and a great number of Gentiles who will come out of the Tribulation with the blessing of God. The four angels of verse 1 restrain the wind (the strong influences of judgment) from harming the land (Israel), the sea (the nations) or any tree (men generally).
Another angel ascends (v. 2) from the sunrising-prophetic of the manifestation of Christ. In a loud voice he speaks similarly to the words of the four angels, and adds, “till we have sealed the servants of God in their foreheads.” God’s seal in their foreheads is in contrast to the mark of the beast received by unbelievers in Rev 13:16-18.
144,000 of Israel Sealed
The total number of those sealed is 144,000, twelve thousand from each tribe of Israel (v. 4). Their sealing is a guarantee of their being preserved through the Great Tribulation, preserved not simply as individuals, but as specifically of Israel and therefore with earthly blessing as a nation in view. The tribes are mentioned by name (vv. 5-8), which would have no place if their destination was heaven. While Joseph is spoken of in verse 8, this evidently refers to Ephraim (Joseph’s son), for Manasseh (Joseph’s other son) also is included.
The tribe of Dan is totally omitted, while Levi (the tribe given no inheritance, but distributed among the other tribes-Num 3:12-13) is added. The reason for Dan’s omission appears to be indicated in Jacob’s prophecy in Gen 49:16-18, which is a prophetic history of the nation of Israel, each tribe indicating a distinct era of time. Dan signifies the time of the Tribulation, and is said to be “a serpent by the way, a viper by the path, that bites the horse’s heels so that its rider shall fall backward.” This is spiteful satanic activity, and seems to refer to the advent of the False Prophet, the Antichrist with his Satanic doctrine. Apparently, therefore, the Antichrist will come from the tribe of Dan. Thus, the Spirit of God ignores that tribe in this chapter. Yet, Dan eventually will be restored, for Jacob says, “Dan shall judge his people as one of the tribes of Israel” (Gen 49:16).
A Multitude of Gentiles
Verse 9 introduces an innumerable multitude from all nations, kindreds, people and tongues. These are Gentiles (not Israel and not the Church). They stand before the throne and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and with palms in their hands. It is plainly an anticipated view. It will not take place at the time of the vision, but after the Tribulation. It is given beforehand to emphasize God’s sovereign counsels as being absolute, no matter how dreadful the trial of the Tribulation may be.
Because these stand “before the throne and before the Lamb,” some assume that they are in heaven, but there is no intimation either of resurrection or of translation in the passage. Martyrs will be raised and translated to heaven at the end of the Tribulation (Rev 20:4), but those are not the great multitude of Gentiles seen here in Rev 7:1-17.
These will be blessed on earth, in the millennial kingdom. They do not have to be in heaven to fully recognize the all-embracing authority of the throne of God and of the Lamb. Israel is given the promise of great blessing in the Millennium as verses 2 to 8 declare, and verses 9 to 17 show that many Gentiles also will be blessed with the true, pure knowledge of the Lord Jesus. This passage therefore appears to describe all the Gentiles who will have been saved by the grace of God during the Tribulation. They cry, “Salvation belongs to our God who sits on the throne, and to the Lamb” (v. 10), but they do not reign with Him as will the raised martyrs (Rev 20:4) and all the saints in heaven.
In verse 11 we again see all the angels, the 24 elders and the four living creatures standing “around the throne,” not simply “before the throne.” They rejoice in the salvation of this host of Gentiles who have newly awakened affection toward the Lamb. This provides a new occasion for the angels etc. to announce “Blessing and glory and wisdom, thanksgiving and honor and power and might, be to our God forever and ever” (v. 12). There will be a similar joy over the redeemed of Israel (Rev 14:3) who are also seen “before the throne,” though also on earth.
One of the elders stirs John’s interest in these white-robed people, asking him who they are and where they came from (v. 13). John refers the question back to him, for John is willing to take the place of a learner (v. 14). The answer is given him that these have come out of the Great Tribulation: they had passed safely through it. Before the Tribulation all living saints (together with those who have been raised) will have been caught up in the Rapture, so these are the many Gentiles who will be born again during the Tribulation Period. We have seen that Jews are sealed in the first part of this chapter, so only Gentiles are now included. The white robes speak of practical righteousnesses which had proven the reality of their faith during the Tribulation. The robes are washed and made white in the blood of the Lamb: they are purified from the admixture of mere self-righteousness or inconsistent practice. Such purification is possible only by virtue of the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus.
Serving God day and night in His temple (v. 15) refers to the earthly temple, for there is no temple in the heavenly city (Rev 21:22). Yet, it cannot be literally in Israel’s millennial temple, for this would be impossible for an innumerable number. It rather speaks of the vital work of the Spirit of God in their hearts that makes them continually God’s servants in His temple in a spiritual way. Then it is added, “and He who sits on the throne shall spread His tabernacle over them” (J.N.D.). This further indicates the earthly character of their blessing.
The description is not limited to their millennial blessing, but goes on to eternity since all who are born again will share eventually in what verses 16 and 17 declare-neither hungering or thirsting, nor subjected to excessive heat, and all tears wiped away from their eyes. The Lamb will feed them and lead them to living fountains of waters. All of this shows that the counsels of God stand, no matter how great may be the trial of the Tribulation.
Fuente: Grant’s Commentary on the Bible
Verse 1
Holding the four winds; holding them back; restraining them, as the symbols of retribution, until the servants of God could be made safe, as is more distinctly expressed in Revelation 7:3.
Fuente: Abbott’s Illustrated New Testament
6 The Saved Remnant (Revelation 7)
We have already seen that during the period of these judgments God will have witnesses who will reach their eternal blessing through martyrdom. Now we learn that before the severer judgments that will follow the opening of the seventh seal God will have a great host of witnesses who will be preserved through “the great tribulation” (verse 14).
(Vv. 1-8) John sees “four angels standing on the four corners of the earth “ready to execute judgments that will fall on every quarter of the world. But before these judgments commence he sees another angel ascending from the east, and thus the harbinger of a new day, who stays the judgments until the servants of God are sealed in their foreheads. These servants represented by a symbolic number of “One hundred and forty-four thousand” are drawn from the twelve tribes of Israel. This surely indicates that during this time of tribulation God will raise up His servants from amongst His ancient people Israel to be a public witness to Himself in every part of the world to which they may have been scattered.
(Vv. 9-10) Further, John sees “a great multitude, which no man could number,” gathered from the Gentile nations. They are described as standing before the throne, and before the Lamb, clothed with white robes and the palms in their hands. Standing before the throne would not necessarily imply that they are in heaven, but that they are accepted as in the favour of God. Do not all the symbols suggest that a great host of believers will be preserved through these terrible judgments for the blessings of Christ’s earthly kingdom? When the wicked will fall before the judgments of God’s throne and the Lamb that acts in judgment, there will be those who will stand in safety before the throne and the Lamb. When the nations are being judged for their wickedness there will be those whom God will accept as righteous, as witnessed by the “white robes.” When the world is led into rebellion against God by the devil, the beast, and the Antichrist, there will be those who will be victorious over all the power of the enemy, as symbolised by the “palms in their hands.” But if they are preserved through the judgments they take no credit to themselves, but ascribe all their blessing to God and the Lamb. In the very day when judgment is proceeding from “the throne” and “the Lamb” they can say, “Salvation to our God which sitteth upon the throne and unto the Lamb.”
(Vv. 11, 12) The grace that gathers this vast multitude for blessing, in the very day when judgments are falling upon the world, calls forth a burst of praise in heaven. The angels, the elders, and the four living creatures fall down and worship before the throne, and ascribe to God “Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honour, and power, and might.”
(Vv. 13-17) In the first part of the chapter we have seen that in the time of these judgments God will have a saved remnant from Israel and the Gentiles. In the closing verses the question is raised, and answered by one of the elders in heaven, as to who this company may be and whence they come. It would seem that these verses apply to both classes, for in Isa 49:10 exactly similar language is used to describe the blessing of restored Israel. There we read, “They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for he that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall he guide them.”
It is explained to John that this blessed company has come out of “the great tribulation” about to come upon all the world under the judgments symbolised by the Seven Trumpets, as set forth in the following chapter. Of this solemn time we have already heard in the address to the assembly in Philadelphia, as “the hour of trial which is about to come upon the whole habitable world to try them that dwell upon the earth” (Rev 3:10). Already we have learned in Rev 6:9-11 that there will be during this time of judgment a martyred remnant, but there is nothing to indicate that this great company will suffer martyrdom. It is said that they “came out of the great tribulation,” words that would indicate that they are preserved through the trials. They come under the cleansing of the blood of the Lamb, and for this reason they are accepted before God and have access to God, and are sheltered by God, for God “shall spread His tabernacle over them” (N. Tr.). If, however, they are preserved through the judgment this does not mean that they will not have to face trial and suffering, represented by hunger and thirst, and heat and tears. But in the end their sufferings will be for ever past, for “They shall hunger no more, neither thirst any more.” The Lamb “shall lead them unto living fountains of waters; and God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes.”
Do we not learn from this chapter that, as in this day, there are those who receive the gospel of the grace of God and come into heavenly blessing, while those who obey not the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ come under judgment (2Th 1:8; 2Th 1:9); so in the day to come there will be a vast host who have never heard the gospel of the grace of God, but will receive the everlasting gospel of the kingdom and pass on to the earthly blessing of the millennium, while those who reject this gospel will come under judgment?
Fuente: Smith’s Writings on 24 Books of the Bible
7:1 And {1} after these things I saw four angels standing on the {a} four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that the wind should not blow on the earth, nor on the sea, {2} nor on any tree.
(1) The second part of this section is a preventing of danger, as we distinguished before in Rev 6:1 that is, of the caution of God ahead of time to provide for his, after the example of the Israelites; Exo 8:23 the faithful are exempted from the plagues of this wicked world. This section is a dialogue and bringing in for this whole chapter by occasion of the prediction and argument of the sixth seal. For first harm is withheld from the elect, Rev 7:1-9 . Then thanks are given by the elect for that cause Rev 7:10-12 . Lastly, the accomplishment of it is set forth to the end of the chapter. The first verse is a transition, speaking of the angels who keep the lesser parts from harm, until God commands. For, as in Eze 10:19 , their faces and their wings reach up, continually waiting on and watching the countenance of God for their direction and every one of them goes into that part that is right before his face: wherever the Spirit goes, they go, they do not step out of the way, not so much as a foot breadth from the path commanded to them by God.
(a) On the four corners or coasts of the earth.
(2) That is, neither into the air, into which the trees grow.
Fuente: Geneva Bible Notes
1. The sealing of 144,000 Israelites 7:1-8
The scene continues to be on earth.
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
The phrase "after this" (Gr. meta touto) indicates that what follows is a new vision (cf. Rev 4:1). The general chronological progression of the visions suggests that the events John saw now will happen at the end of the first half of the Tribulation. What John saw in this vision supports that conclusion. [Note: Moffatt, 5:394.]
The angels described here were God’s agents (cf. Heb 1:14). They appear to be different from the four living creatures and the 24 elder-angels (if they are angels). Four of them received the task of keeping the wind from blowing. God stationed them at the four "corners" (i.e., compass points) of the earth for this purpose (cf. Rev 20:8; Isa 11:12; Jer 49:36; Mat 24:31). The winds represent God’s judgments coming on the world (Rev 7:3; cf. Jer 49:36-38; Dan 7:2; Hos 13:15), specifically those about to follow during the remainder of the Tribulation (cf. Eze 9:4-8). The threefold repetition of "four" probably stresses the universal control of these angels. [Note: Scott, p. 163; Smith, A Revelation . . ., p. 128.] We should probably understand the "sea" and any "tree" literally in view of what follows (cf. Rev 7:3).
Fuente: Expository Notes of Dr. Constable (Old and New Testaments)
CHAPTER V.
CONSOLATORY VISIONS.
Rev 7:1-17.
SIX of the seven Seals have been opened by the “Lamb,” who is likewise the “Lion of the tribe of Judah.” They have dealt, in brief but pregnant sentences, with the whole history of the Church and of the world throughout the Christian age. No details of history have indeed been spoken of, no particular wars, or famines, or pestilences, or slaughters, or preservations of the saints. Everything has been described in the most general terms. We have been invited to think only of the principles of the Divine government, but of these as the most sublime and, according to our own state of mind, the most alarming or the most consolatory principles that can engage the attention of men. God, has been the burden of the six Seals, is King over all the earth. Why do the heathen rage, and the people imagine a vain thing? Why do they exalt themselves against the sovereign Ruler of the universe, who said to the Son of His love, when He made Him Head over all things for His Church, “Thou art My Son; this day have I begotten Thee;” “Rule Thou in the midst of Thine enemies”?* Listening to the voice of these Seals, we know that the world, with all its might, shall prevail neither against the Head nor against the members of the Body. Even when apparently successful it shall fight a losing battle. Even when apparently defeated Christ and they who are one with Him shall march to victory. (* Psa 2:7; Psa 110:7)
We are not to imagine that the Seals of chap. 6 follow one another in chronological succession, or that each of them belongs to a definite date. The Seer does not look forward to age succeeding age or century century. To him the whole period between the first and the second coming of Christ is but “a little time,” and whatever is to happen in it “must shortly come to pass.” In truth he can hardly be said to deal with the lapse of time at all. He deals with the essential characteristics of the Divine government in time, whether it be long or short. Shall the revolving years be in our sense short, these characteristics will nevertheless come forth with a clearness that shall leave man without excuse. Shall they be in our sense long, the unfolding of Gods eternal plan will only be again and again made manifest. He with whom we have to do is without beginning of days or end of years, the I am, unchangeable both in the attributes of His own nature, and in the execution of His purposes for the worlds redemption. Let us cast our eyes along the centuries that have passed away since Jesus died and rose again. They are full of one great lesson. At every point at which we pause we see the Son of God going forth conquering and to conquer. We see the world struggling against His righteousness, refusing to submit to it, and dooming itself in consequence to every form of woe. We see the children of God following a crucified Redeemer, but preserved, sustained, animated, their cross, like His, their crown. Finally, as we realize more and more deeply what is going on around us, we feel that we are in the midst of a great earthquake, that the sun and the moon have become black, and that the stars of heaven are falling to the earth; yet by the eye of faith we pierce the darkness, and where are all our adversaries? Where are the kings and the potentates, the rich and the powerful of the earth, of an ungodly and persecuting world? They have hid themselves in the caves and in the rocks of the mountains; and we hear them say to the mountains and to the rocks, “Fall on us, and hide us from the face of Him that sitteth on the throne, and from the wrath of the Lamb: for the great day of their wrath is come; and who is able to stand?”
With the beginning of chap. 7 we might expect the seventh Seal to be opened; but it is the manner of the apocalyptic writer, before any final or particularly critical manifestation of the wrath of God, to present us with visions of consolation, so that we may enter into the thickest darkness, even into the valley of the shadow of death, without alarm. We have already met with this in chaps. 4 and 5. We shall meet with it again. Meanwhile it is here illustrated: –
“After this I saw four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, holding the four winds of the earth, that no wind should blow on the earth, or on the sea, or upon any tree. And I saw another angel ascend from the sun-rising, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a great voice to the four angels, to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea, saying, Hurt not the earth, neither the sea, nor the trees, till we shall have sealed the servants of our God on their foreheads. And I heard the number of them which were sealed, a hundred and forty and four thousand, sealed out of every tribe of the children of Israel Of the tribe of Judah were sealed twelve thousand; of the tribe of Reuben, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Gad, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Asher, twelve thou sand; of the tribe of Naphtali, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Manasseh, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Simeon, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Levi, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Issachar, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Zebulon, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Joseph, twelve thousand; of the tribe of Benjamin were sealed twelve thousand (Rev 7:1-8).”
Although various important questions, which we shall have to notice, arise in connection with this vision, there never has been, as there scarcely can be, any doubt as to its general meaning. In its main features it is taken from the language of Ezekiel, when that prophet foretold the approaching destruction of Jerusalem: “He cried also with a loud voice in mine ears, saying, Cause them that have charge over the city to draw near, even every man with his destroying weapon in his hand. And, behold, six men came from the way of the higher gate, which lieth toward the north, and every man a slaughter weapon in his hand; and one man among them was clothed with fine linen, with a writers inkhorn by his side. . . . And the Lord said unto him, Go through the midst of the city, through the midst of Jerusalem, and set a mark upon the foreheads of the men that sigh and that cry for all the abominations that be done in the midst thereof. . . . And, behold, the man clothed with linen, which had the inkhorn by his side, reported the matter, saying, I have done as Thou hast commanded me.”1 Preservation of the faithful in the midst of judgment on the wicked is the theme of the Old Testament vision, and in like manner it is the theme of this vision of St. John. The winds are the symbols of judgment; and, being in number four and held by four angels standing at the four corners of the earth, they indicate that the judgment when inflicted will be universal There is no place to which the ungodly can escape, none where they shall not be overtaken by the wrath of God. “He that fleeth of them,” says the Almighty by His prophet, “shall not flee away, and he that escapeth of them shall not be delivered. Though they dig into hell, thence shall Mine hand take them; though they climb up to heaven, thence will I bring them down: and though they hide themselves in the top of Carmel, I will search and take them out thence; and though they be hid from My sight in the bottom of the sea, thence will I command the serpent, and he shall bite them.”2 (1 Ezek. 9; 2 Amo 9:1-3)
In the midst of all this the safety of the righteous is secured, and that in a way, as compared with the way of the Old Testament, proportionate to the superior greatness of their privileges. They are marked as God s, not by a man out of the city, but by an angel ascending from the sun-rising, the quarter whence proceeds that light of day which gilds the loftiest mountain-tops and penetrates into the darkest recesses of the valleys. This angel, with his great voice, is probably the Lord Himself appearing by His angel. The mark impressed upon the righteous is more than a mere mark: it is a seal – a seal similar to that with which Christ was “sealed;”1 the seal which in the Song of Songs the bride desires as the token of the Bridegrooms love to her alone: “Set me as a seal upon Thine heart, as a seal upon Thine arm;”2 the seal which expresses the thought, “The Lord knoweth them that are His.3 Finally, this seal is impressed on the forehead, on that part of the body on which the high-priest of Israel wore the golden plate, with its inscription, “Holiness to the Lord.” Such a seal; manifest to the eyes of all, was a witness to all that they who bore it were acknowledged by the Redeemer before all, even before His Father and the holy angels.4 (1 Joh 6:27; 2 Son 8:3; 3 2Ti 2:19; 4Comp. Luk 12:8)
When we turn to the numbers sealed, every reader who reflects for a moment will allow that they must be symbolically, and not literally, understood. Twelve thousand out of each of twelve tribes, in all a hundred and forty and four thousand, bears upon its face the stamp of symbolism. It is more difficult to answer the question, Who are they? Are they Jewish Christians, or are they the whole multitude of Gods faithful people belonging to the Church universal, but indicated by a figure taken from Judaism?
The question now asked is of greater than ordinary importance, for upon the answer given to it largely depends the solution of the problem whether the author of the fourth Gospel and the author of the Apocalypse are the same. If the first vision of the chapter relating to those sealed out of the tribes of Israel speak only of Jewish Christians, and the second vision, beginning at Rev 7:9, of “the great multitude which no man could number,” speak of Gentile Christians, it will follow that the writer exhibits a particularistic tendency altogether at variance with the universalism of the author of the fourth Gospel. Gentile Christians will be, as they have been called, an “appendix” to the Jewish-Christian Church; and the followers of Jesus will fail to constitute one flock all the members of which are equal in the sight of God, occupy the same position, and enjoy the same privileges. The first impression produced by the vision of the sealed is undoubtedly that it refers to Jewish Christians, and to them alone. Many considerations, however, lead to the wider conclusion that, under a Jewish figure, they include all the followers of Christ, or the universal Church. Some of these at least ought to be noticed.
1. We have not yet found, and we shall not find in any later part of the Apocalypse, a distinction drawn between Jewish and Gentile Christians. To the eye of the Seer, the Church of the Lord Jesus Christ is one. There is in it neither Jew nor Greek, barbarian, Scythian, bond, nor free. He recognizes in it in its collective capacity the Body of Christ, all the members of which occupy the same relation to their Lord, and stand equally in grace. He knows indeed of a distinction between the Jewish Church, which waited for the coming of the Lord, and the Christian Church, which rejoiced in Him as come; but he knows also that when Jesus did come the privileges of the latter were bestowed upon those in the former who had looked onward to Christs day, and that they were arrayed in the same “white robe.” Under all the six Seals, accordingly, embracing the whole period of the Gospel dispensation, there is not a single word to suggest the thought that the Christian Church is divided into two parts. The struggle, the preservation, and the victory belong equally to all. A similar remark may be made on the epistles to the seven churches, which unquestionably contain a representation of that Church the fortunes of which are to be afterwards described. In these epistles Christ walks equally in the midst of every part of it; and promises are made, not in one form to one member and in another to another, but always in precisely the same terms to “him that overcometh.” It would be out of keeping with this were we now, when a similar topic of preservation is on hand, to be introduced to a Jewish-Christian as distinguished from a Gentile-Christian Church.
2. It is the custom of the Seer to heighten and spiritualize all Jewish names. The Temple, the Tabernacle, the Altar, Mount Zion and Jerusalem are to the embodiments of ideas deeper than those literally conveyed by them. Analogy therefore might suggest that this also would be the case with the word “Israel.” Nay, it would even be the more natural so to use that word, because it is so often used in the same spiritual sense in other parts of the New Testament; “But they are not all Israel which are of Israel;” “And as many as shall walk by this rule, peace be upon them, and mercy, and upon the Israel of God.”1 Nor need we be startled by that employment of the word tribes, which may seem to give more precision to the idea that Jewish Christians are designated by the term, for St. John in his peculiar way of looking at men, beheld “tribes” not only among the Jews, but among all nations: “and all the tribes of the earth shall mourn over Him.”2 In Rev 21:12, too, the “twelve tribes” plainly include all believers. (1 Rom 9:6; Gal 6:16; 2 Rev 1:7)
3. The enumeration of the tribes of Israel given in these verses is different from any other enumeration of the king contained in Scripture. Thus the tribe of Dan is omitted; and, contrary to the practice of at least the later books of the Old Testament, that of Levi is inserted; while Joseph also is substituted for Ephraim: and the order in which the twelve are given has elsewhere no parallel. Points such as these may appear trifling, but they are not without importance. No student of the Apocalypse will imagine that they are accidental or undersigned. He may not be able to satisfy either himself or others as to the grounds upon which St. John proceeded, but that there were grounds sufficient to the Apostle himself for what he did he will not for a moment doubt. One thing may, however, he said. If the changes can he explained at all, it must be by considerations springing out of the heart of the Christian community, and not out of any suggested by the relations of the tribes of Judaism to one another. Levi may thus be inserted, instead of standing apart as formerly, because in Christ Jesus there was no priestly tribe: all Christians were priests; Dan may he omitted because that tribe had chosen the serpent as its emblem! and St John not only felt with peculiar power the direct antagonism to Christ of ” the old serpent the devil,”1 but had been accustomed to see in the traitor Judas, who had been expelled from the apostolic band, and for whom another apostle had been substituted, the very impersonation or incarnation of Satan2; Ephraim also may have been replaced by Joseph because of its enmity to Judah, the tribe out of which Jesus sprang; while Judah, the fourth son of Jacob, may head the list because it was the tribe in which Christ was born. (1Comp. Rev 12:9; 2 Joh 8:2)
4. Some of the expressions of the passage are inconsistent with the limitation of the sealed to any special class of Christians. Why, for example, should the holding back of the winds be universal? Would it not have been enough to restrain the winds that blew on Jewish Christians, and not the winds of the whole earth? And again, why do we meet with language of so general a character as that of Rev 7:3 : “till we shall have sealed the servants of our God”? This designation “servants” seems to include the whole number, and not some only, of Gods children.
5. If Gods servants from among the Gentiles are not now sealed, the Apocalypse mentions no other occasion when they were so. It is true that, according to the ordinary interpretation of the next vision, they are admitted to the happiness of heaven; but we may well ask whether, if the sealing be the emblem of preservation amidst worldly troubles, they ought not also, at one time or another, to have been sealed on earth.
6. The sealed are marked upon their foreheads, and in Rev 22:4 all believers are marked in a similar way.
7. We shall meet again this number of a hundred and forty-four thousand in chap. 14; and, while it can hardly be doubted that the same persons are on both occasions included in it, it will be seen that there at least the whole number of the redeemed is meant.
8. It is worthy of notice that the contrasts of the Apocalypse lead directly to a similar conclusion. St. John always sees light and darkness standing over against each other, and exhibiting themselves in a correspondence which, extending even to minute details, aids the task of the interpreter. Now in many passages of this book we find Satan not only marking his followers, but, precisely as here, marking them upon the “forehead;”* and it is impossible to resist the conclusion that the one marking is the antithesis of the other. But this mark is imprinted by Satan upon all his followers, and the inference is legitimate that the seal of the living God is in like manner imprinted upon all the followers of Jesus. (* Rev 13:16-17; Rev 14:9; Rev 16:2; Rev 19:20; Rev 20:4)
9. One more reason may be assigned for this conclusion. If Rev 7:4, with its “hundred and forty and four thousand out of every tribe of the children of Israel,” is to be understood of Jewish Christians alone, the contrast between it and Rev 7:9, with its “great multitude, which no man can number, out of every nation, and of all tribes, and peoples, and tongues,” makes it necessary to understand the latter of Gentile Christians alone. It will not do to say that the comprehensive enumeration of this verse may include Jewish as well as Gentile Christians. Placed over against the very definite statement of Rev 7:4, it can only, according to the style of the Apocalypse, be referred to persons who have come out of the heathen world in the fourfold conception of its parts. Now, whatever may be the precise interpretation of the second vision of the chapter, it is undeniable that it unfolds a higher stage of privilege and glory than the first. It will thus follow on the supposition now combated that at the very instant when the Apostle is said to be placing Gentile Christians in a position of inferiority to Jewish Christians, and when he is treating the one as simply an “appendix” to the other, he speaks of them as the inheritors of a far greater “weight of glory.” St. John could not be thus in consistent with himself.
The conclusion from all that has been said, is plain. The vision of the sealing does not apply to Jewish Christians only, but to the universal Church. When the judgments of God are abroad in the world, all the Disciples of Christ are sealed for preservation against them.
Notwithstanding what has been said, the reader may still find it difficult to conceive that two pictures of the same multitude should be presented to us drawn on such entirely different lines. What is the meaning of it? he may exclaim. What is the Seer s motive in doing so? The explanation is not difficult. An attentive examination of the structural principles marking the writings of St. John will show that they are distinguished by a tendency to set forth the same object in two different lights, the latter of which is climactic to the former, as well as, for the most part at least, taken from a different sphere. The writer is not satisfied with a single utterance of what he desires to impress upon his readers. After he has uttered it for the first time, he brings it again before him, works upon it, enlarges it, deepens it, sets it forth with stronger and more vivid coloring. The fundamental idea is the same on both occasions; but on the second it is the centre of a circle of wider circumference, and it is uttered in a more impressive manner. Want of space will not permit the illustration of this by an appeal either to the nature of Hebrew thought in general, or to the other writings of the New Testament which owe their authorship to St. John. It must be enough to say that the fourth Gospel bears deep and important traces of this characteristic, and that difficult passages in it not otherwise explicable seem to be solved by its application.* The main point to be kept in view is that the principle in question may be traced on many different occasions both in the fourth Gospel and in the Apocalypse. One of these has indeed already come under our notice in the case of the “golden candle sticks” and of the “stars” in Chapter I of this book. The two figures relate to the same object, but the second is climactic to the first, and it is taken from a larger field. The same principle meets us here. The second vision of chap. 7 is climactic to the first, and the field from which it is drawn is larger. The analogy, however, not of the golden candlesticks and of the stars only, but of many other passages of a similar kind, warrants the inference that both the visions relate to the same thing, although the aspect in which it is looked at is in each case different. Any difficulty therefore at first presented by the double picture disappears; while the peculiarity of structure exhibited not only helps to lead us to a Johannine authorship, but tends powerfully to establish the correctness of the interpretation now adopted. (*The writer has treated this subject at considerable length in The Expositor {2nd series, vol. 4}).
We are thus entitled to conclude that the hundred and forty-four thousand of this first consolatory vision represent not Jewish Christians only, but the whole Church of God, and that the number used is intended to represent completeness: not one member of the true Church is lost.* Twelve, a sacred number, the number of the patriarchs, of the tribes of Israel, and of the Apostles of Jesus, is first multiplied by itself, and then by a thousand, the sign of the heavenly in contrast with the earthly. A hundred and forty and four thousand is the result. (*Comp. Joh 17:12)
It need only further be observed – and the observations will help to confirm what has been said – that St. John did not himself count the number of the sealed. He heard the number of them (Rev 7:4). Already they were “a multitude which no man could number” (Rev 7:9). But He who telleth the innumerable stars that sparkle in the midnight sky, and who “bringeth out their host by number”* could number them. He it was who communicated the number to the Seer. (* Isa 40:26)
The second vision of the chapter follows: –
“After these things I saw, and, behold, a great multitude, which no man could number, out of every nation, and of all tribes, and peoples, and tongues, standing before the throne, and before the Lamb, arrayed in white robes, and palms in their hands; and they cry with a great voice, saying, Salvation unto our God which sitteth on the throng and unto the Lamb. And all the angels were standing round about the throne, and about the elders and the four living creatures; and they fell before the throne on their faces, and worshipped God, saying, Amen: Blessing, and glory, and wisdom, and thanksgiving, and honor, and power, and might, be unto our God forever and ever. Amen. And one of the elders answered, saying unto me, These which are arrayed in the white robes, who are they, and whence came they? And I said unto him, My lord, thou knowest. And he said to me, These are they which came out of the great tribulation, and they washed their robes, and made them white in the blood of the Lamb. Therefore are they before the throne of God, and they serve Him day and night in His temple: and He that sitteth on the throne shall spread His tabernacle over them. They shall hunger no more, neither thirst anymore; neither shall the sun strike upon hem, nor any heat: for the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne shall be their Shepherd, and shall guide them unto fountains of waters of life: and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes (Rev 7:9-17).”
Upon the magnificence and beauty of this description it is not only unnecessary, it would be a mistake, to dwell. Words of man would only mar the sublimity and pathos of the spectacle. Neither is it desirable to look at each expression of the passage in itself. These expressions are better considered as a whole. One point indeed ought to be carefully kept in view: that the palms spoken of in Rev 7:9 as in the hands of the happy multitude are not the palms of victory in any earthly contest, but the palms of the Feast of Tabernacles, and that upon the thought of that feast the scene is moulded.
The Feast of Tabernacles, it will be remembered, was at once the last, the highest, and the most joyful of the festivals of the Jewish year. It fell in the month of October, when the harvest not only of grain, but of wine and oil, had been gathered in, and when, therefore, all the labors of the year were past. It was preceded, too, by the great Day of Atonement, the ceremonial of which gathered together all the sacrificial acts of the previous months, beheld the sins of the people, from their highest to their lowest, carried away into the wilderness, and brought with it the blessing of God from that innermost recess of the sanctuary which was lightened by the special glory of His presence, and into which the high-priest even was permitted to enter upon that day alone. The feelings awakened in Israel at the time were of the most triumphant kind. They returned in thought to the independent life which their fathers, delivered from the bondage of Egypt, led in the wilderness; and, the better to realize this, they left their ordinary dwellings and took up their abode for the days of the feast in booths, which they erected in the streets or on the flat roofs of their houses. These booths were made of branches of their most prized, most fruit-bearing, and most umbrageous trees; and beneath them they raised their psalms of thanks giving to Him who had delivered them as a bird out of the snare of the fowler. Even this was not all, for we know that in the later period of their history the Jews connected the Feast of Tabernacles with the brightest anticipations of the future as well as with the most joyful memories of the past. They beheld in it the promise of the Spirit, the great gift of the approaching Messianic age; and, that they might give full expression to this, they sent on the eighth, or great, day of the feast, a priest to the pool of Siloam with a golden urn, that he might fill it from the pool, and, bringing it up to the Temple, might pour it on the altar. This is the part of the ceremonial alluded to in Joh 7:37-39, and during it the joy of the people reached its highest point. They surrounded the priest in crowds as he brought up the water from the pool, waved their lulabs – small branches of palm trees, the “palms” of Rev 7:9 and made the courts of the Temple re-echo with their song, “With joy shall ye draw water out of wells of salvation.”1 At night the great illumination of the Temple followed, that to which our Lord most probably alludes when, immediately after the Feast of Tabernacles spoken of in chap. 8 of the fourth Gospel, He exclaims, “I am the Light of the world: he that followeth Me shall not walk in the darkness, but shall have the light of life.”2 (1 Isa 12:3; 2 Joh 8:12)
Such was the scene the main particulars of which are here made use of by the apocalyptic Seer to set before us the triumphant and glorious condition of the Church when, after all her members have been sealed, they are admitted to the full enjoyment of the blessings of Gods covenant, and when, washed in the blood of the Lamb and clothed with His righteousness, they keep their Feast of Tabernacles.
A most important and interesting question connected with this vision has still to be answered. It may be first asked in the words of Isaac Williams. “It is whether all this description is of the Church in heaven or on earth.” The same writer has answered his question by saying, “The fact is that, like the expression the kingdom of heaven and many others of the same kind, it applies to both, and it is doubtless intended to do so – in fullness hereafter, but even here in part.”1 The answer thus given is no doubt correct when the question is asked in the particular form to which it is a reply. Yet we have still to ask whether, granting it to be so, the primary reference of the vision is to the Church of Christ during her present pilgrimage or after that pilgrimage has been completed, and she has entered on her eternal rest. To the question so put, the reply usually given is that the Seer has the latter aspect of the Church in view. The redeemed are sealed on earth; they bear their “palms,” and rejoice with the joy afterwards spoken of, in heaven. Much in the passage may seem to justify this conclusion. But a recent writer on the subject has adduced such powerful considerations in favor of the former view, that it will be proper to examine them.2 (1The Apocalypse, p. 126; 2Professor Gibson, in The Monthly Interpreter, vol. 2, p. 9)
Appeal is first made to Mat 24:13, a passage throwing no light upon the point. It is otherwise with many prophecies of the Old Testament next referred to, which describe the coming dispensation of the Gospel: “They shall not hunger nor thirst; neither shall the heat nor sun smite them: for He that hath mercy on them shall lead them, even by the springs of water shall He guide them;” “He will swallow up death in victory; and the Lord God will wipe away tears from off all faces;” “And it shall come to pass, that every one that is left of all the nations which came against Jerusalem shall even go up from year to year to worship the King, the Lord of hosts, and to keep the Feast of Tabernacles.”l To passages such as these have to be added the promises of our Lord as to fountains of living waters even now opened to the believer, that he may drink and never thirst again: “Jesus answered and said unto her, Every one that drinketh of this water shall thirst again: but whosoever drinketh of the water that I shall give him shall never thirst; but the water that I shall give him shall become in him a springing fountain of water, unto eternal life;” “Now on the last day, the great day of the feast, Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto Me, and drink. He that believeth on Me, as the Scripture hath said, out of his belly shall flow rivers of living water.”2 St. John, too, it is urged, teaches us to look for a Tabernacle Feast on earth3; while at the same time throughout all his writings eternal life is set before us as a present possession. Nor is this the case only in the writings of St. John. In the Epistle to the Hebrews we meet the same line of thought: “Ye are come” (not Ye shall come) “unto Mount Zion, and unto the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, to the general assembly and Church of the first-born, who are enrolled in heaven.”4 Influenced by these considerations, the writer to whom we have referred is led, “though not without some hesitation,” to conclude that the vision of the palm-bearing multitude is to be understood of the Church on earth, and not of the Church in heaven. (1 Isa 49:10; Isa 25:8; Zec 14:16; 2 Joh 4:13-14; Joh 7:37-38; 3 Joh 1:14; 4 Heb 12:22-23)
The conclusion may be accepted without the “hesitation.” The colors on the canvas may indeed at first appear too bright for any condition of things on this side the grave. But they are not more bright than those employed in the description of the new Jerusalem in chap. 21; and, when we come to the exposition of that chapter, we shall find positive proof in the language of the Seer that he looks upon that city as one already come down from heaven and established among men. Not a few of its most glowing traits are even precisely the same as those that we meet in the corresponding vision of this chapter: “And I heard a great voice out of the throne saying, Behold, the tabernacle of God is with men, and He shall tabernacle with them, and they shall be His peoples, and God Himself shall be with them, and be their God; and He shall wipe away every tear from their eyes; and death shall be no more; neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain, any more: the first things are passed away.”1 If words like these may be justly applied, as we have yet to see that they may and must be, to one aspect of the Church on earth, there is certainly nothing to hinder their application to the same Church now. The truth is that in both cases the description is ideal, and that not less so than the description of the terrors of the worldly at the opening of the sixth Seal Nor indeed shall we understand any part of the Apocalypse unless we recognize the fact that everything with which it is concerned is raised to an ideal standard. Reward and punishment, righteousness and sin, the martyrdoms of the Church and the fate of her oppressors, are all set before us in an ideal light. The Seer moves in the midst of conceptions which are fundamental, ultimate, and eternal The “broken lights” which partially illuminate our progress in this world are to him absorbed in “the true Light.” The clouds and darkness which obscure our path gather themselves together to his eyes in “the darkness” with which the light has to contend. Descriptions, accordingly, applicable in their fullness to the Church only after the glory of her Lord is manifested, apply also to her now, when she is thought of as living the life that is hid with Christ in God, the life of her exalted and glorified Redeemer. For this conception the colors of the picture before us are not too bright.2 (1 Rev 21:3-4; 2Comp. on the general thought Brown, The Second Advent, chap. 6)
The relation in which the two visions of this chapter stand to one another may now be obvious. Although the persons referred to are in both the same, they do not in both occupy the same position. In the first they are only sealed, and through that sealing they are safe. Their Lord has taken them under His protection; and, whatever troubles or perils may beset them, no one shall pluck them out of His hand. In the second they are more than safe. They have peace, and joy, and triumph, their every want supplied, their every sorrow healed. Death itself is swallowed up in victory, and every tear is wiped from every eye.
Thus also may we determine the period to which both the sealing of believers and their, subsequent enjoyment of heavenly blessing belong. In neither vision are we introduced to any special era of Christian history. St. John has in view neither the Christians of his own day alone, nor those of any later time. As we found that each of the first six Seals embraced the whole Gospel age, so also is it with these consolatory visions. We are to dwell upon the thought rather than the time of preservation and of bliss. The Church of Christ never ceases to follow in the footsteps of her Lord. Like Him, when faithful to her high commission, she never ceases to bear the cross. The unredeemed world must always be her enemy; and in it she must always have tribulation. But not less continuous is her joy. We judge wrongly when we think that the Man of sorrows was never joyful He spoke of “My peace,” “My joy.”1 In one of His moments of deepest feeling we are told that He “rejoiced in spirit.”2 Outwardly the world troubled Him; and huge billows, raised by its tempestuous winds, swept across the surface of His soul. Beneath, the unfathomed depths were calm. In communion with His Father in heaven, in the thought of the great work which He was carrying to its completion, and in the prospect of the glory that awaited Him, He could rejoice in the midst of sorrow. So also with the members of His Body. They bear about with them a secret joy which, like their new name, no man knoweth saving he that receiveth it As the friend of the bridegroom who standeth and heareth him rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom s voice, so their joy is fulfilled.3 Nor does it ever cease to be theirs while their Lord is with them; and unless they grieve Him “lo, He is always with them, even unto the consummation of the age.”4 The two visions, therefore, of the sealing and of the palm-bearing multitude embrace the whole Christian dispensation within their scope, and express ideas which belong to the condition of the believer in all places and at all times. (1 Joh 14:27; Joh 17:13; 2 Luk 10:21; 3 Joh 3:29; 4 Mat 28:20)