Chapter 21 Revelation 14
CHAPTER XXI
Chapter 14: THE LAMB ON MOUNT ZION
The picture here is drawn from that in Chapter 7. That chapter came at a point when the general survey of world events throughout the Christian epoch had been completed in the first Six Seals (Chapter 6), and when the clouds were gathering ominously over the world scene as the first warnings of the second coming of Jesus to the earth (6.16-17). To prepare the saints for their own tribulations, the picture of their sealing is given, that they might know in all that follows that they are remembered before the throne of God.
14.1: / saw, and behold, the Lamb standing on mount Zion, and with Him a hundred and forty and four thousand, having His name of His Father, written on their foreheads. And I heard a voice from heaven, as the voice of many waters, and as the voice of a great thunder: and the voice which I heard was as the voice of harpers harping with their harps: and they sing as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four living creatures and the elders: and no man could learn the song save the hundred and forty and four thousand, even they that had been purchased out of the earth (-14.3)
At the point we have now reached, however, the first stages of these judgemenls have been accomplished. In the first Six Trumpets the world has received a stern warning of worse things to come if it fails to respond to the last call to repentance. We are in the period when this offer is being made, through the witness described in 10.8-11; 11.1-13. The witness is conducted under conditions of persecution; at this stage the Beast is rampant, and to all appearances hope is gone. Reassurance is needed that the last retributions are not for the saints, and that there is triumph in sight. In fact, Chapter 14 does for the saints in anticipation of the Vials what Chapter 7 did for them in anticipation of the Trumpets.
The passage provides further confirmation of our earlier identification of the 144,000 of "the twelve tribes of Israel" with the redeemed from all nations. For they are "purchased out of the earth" (14.3), which is identical with the condition of those of whom the angels sang in 5.9, where "Thou didst purchase to God with thy blood men of every tribe, and tongue, and people, and nation". This is positively not a flock of believers from natural Israel only.
The Lamb standing on mount Zion.
This is the first and only reference to Zion in the Apocalypse. Since we know that Zion is a principal part of "the city of the great King" (Psalm 2.5; 48.2; Matthew 5.35) which we await, it is natural and proper to see these words as a prophecy of the return of the Lord to reign before His saints and on their behalf. In Chapter 7 we saw the saints sealed in the perfect memory of their God. Now we see an anticipation of their reward. Yet, though Zion will literally be the place from which the Lord will reign, this present Zion, too, is "the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem" (Hebrews 12.22), to which the saints have already come through faith in Jesus Christ; it is "the Jerusalem which is above", which "is free, the mother of us all" (Galatians 4.26). As in the Letter to the Ephesians, the saints on earth live a double existence, sitting also spiritually at the right hand of God in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus (Ephesians 1.3; 1.19-21; 2.6). When the Lord Jesus returns to the earth, He will cause this spiritual city to descend from God, so that we shall later read of "the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down from God out of heaven" (21.2). Of all the saints, awake or asleep in Christ, it is written: "Ye are dead, and your life is hid with Christ in God. When Christ, Who is our life, shall appear, then shall ye also appear with Him in glory" (Colossians 3.3-4).
It is no surprise then to find that, though the scene is on mount Zion and therefore earthly, it is also before the throne, and before the four living creatures and the elders (14.3), and therefore also heavenly, taking us back to the scene to which John was introduced in 4.1-10. The fact that the redeemed appear in the same scene as the living creatures and the elders, again serves to emphasize that the latter describe qualities attaching to the eternal court of God in the heavens, and are not descriptive of the saints yet to receive their reward. The vision looks forward, beyond the time reached in this chapter, for though the saints are here pictured in their future blessedness, there is work yet to be done in preaching (14.6-7); persecutions and threats yet to be resisted (14.9-11); patience to be shown, and deaths to die (14.12-13). The day of triumph is near, but the road to it will not be easy.
14.2: A voice of many waters as of a great thunder.
The voice of many waters in Revelation is the voice of the risen Christ (1.10). The voice as the sound of thunder announces God's coming judgements. The saints are hearing the voice of hope, but the thunder is for the world. The Lord is to come "in flaming fire taking vengeance on them that know not God, and that obey not the gospel of the Lord Jesus Christ" - "when He shall come to be
glorified in His saints and admired in all them that believe"; and so the message, here as in 1 Thessalonians 1.7-10, is "You who are troubled, rest with us".
The voice which I heard was of harpers, harping with their harps. 14.3: And they sing as it were a new song before the throne, and before the four living creatures and the elders, and no-one could learn the song save the 144,000.
In 5.8 the harps were in the hands of the 24 elders: now, or at least when we reach 15.2, they are also in the hands of the saints in an anticipation of the glory shortly to come. As we observed on 5.8, the elders are not themselves the saints, for they are present separately in our picture. The instruments used at David's instance in Solomon's temple provide the pattern and the shadow for the symbols (1 Kings 10.12; 2 Chronicles 5.12; 9.11; cf. 1 Chronicles 13.8; 15.16,21,28). Everywhere in Scripture harps are turned to sounds of joy (1 Chronicles 25.1,3,5; Psalm 71.22; 92.3). When evil is triumphant they hang silent on the weeping willows until the time of deliverance comes (Psalm 137.2). (See footnote to page 257).
The elders have already been heard singing their new song (5.9), the words of which are given to us as the heavenly hosts acclaim the risen and ascended Christ and the coming blessing of those whom His death has redeemed. But no one can learn the present new song save the redeemed themselves. The psalms of the saints must of necessity be different from those of the angels: the heavenly messengers can praise God for His greatness, and His salvation brought to others, singing "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth peace among men in whom He is well-pleased" (Luke 2.14). But the saints themselves may and must thank God for His mercies to themselves. Was not Paul rehearsing such a song when, having "thanked God through Jesus Christ our Lord" for His mercies to such a wretched man, cumbered with a body of death, he composed in the Spirit the matchless doxology of Romans 8.31-39. The Song is for the redeemed alone: the angels may stand rapt and listen to it, but the unredeemed world has no part nor lot in it.
14.4: These are they which are not defiled with women, for they are virgins.
The term parthenos, virgin, is proper to chaste women before marriage, though it is used symbolically of the spiritual chastity which the body of saints as a whole owes to the Lord to Whom it is betrothed, in 2 Corinthians 11.2. It can have no bearing on whether or not the saints have been married in the ordinary sense of the term, for though abstinence from married life is sometimes and in some circumstances commended (1 Corinthians 7.1, 7-9; Matthew 19.12, in this latter case probably of those afflicted with an unfaithful partner, encouraging abstinence from then on), it is never required of disciples, and there is condemnation of those who "forbid to marry" (1 Timothy 4.3; cf. Hebrews 13.4). Even so, the words of the Lord Jesus and of Paul do have their relevance here: those who stand before the throne will, indeed, be those who have allowed no obstructive fleshly desires to stand between them and their service to God. The curious use of the term of die purity of male persons, though, is required by the symbolism, since those numbered as 144,000 would in symbol be men, like those numbered for war or worship in the camp of Israel or among the Levites (Numbers 1.20 ; 3.15, etc.). Obviously, the saints will consist of both men and women, but the symbolic picture of them is of a male army. There is, too, a pointed contrast with the kind of temple with which John's first-century readers would be familiar, where 'virgins' prostituted themselves to the impure worship of their gods. Instead of prostitutes installed for the licensing of idolatrous sin, we have those who have purified themselves in the blood of the Lamb, granted entry into God's temple for the purpose of innocent adoration.
These are they which follow the Lamb whithersoever He goeth. These were purchased from among men, to be the firstfruits to God and to the Lamb.
This is a present following of the Lord. At this stage the presence of the saints on Mount Zion is in anticipation only, and though their heads are in the spiritual clouds, they are standing and walking with their feet on the ground, following the Lamb wherever He leads them. To them all the Lord has called, "Follow Me!", and they have left all that hindered and done so. It might not be comfortable either for writer or for reader to be reminded of it, but there is no better example of the best we can do in following than the way in which Elisha accepted Elijah's rebuke in 1 Kings 19.19-21. The saints follow the Lamb now because His grace calls them, sinners, to repentance. They will follow Him then, as we learned when first their sealing as the servants of God was brought to our notice, because "the Lamb which is in the midst of the throne will be their shepherd, and shall guide them
For these touches I am indebted to H.A.W., pages 175,176. There are doubtless other traces of that book in these pages, unacknowledged because the source is unremembered. There are also coincidences of thinking which did not involve borrowing. But among a few notes revealing differences of interpretation, it is right and pleasurable to acknowledge indebtedness.
unto fountains of the waters of life: and God shall wipe away every tear from their eyes" (7.17).
Excursus VIII: THE MEANING OF REDEMPTION
Only in 5.9 and 14.4 has A.V. rendered the Greek word agorazo, by "redeem". Elsewhere, some 28 times, the translation is uniformly "buy", and the Revised Version even in the present passages renders it "purchase", consistently with this. It is normally used of ordinary transactions, the buying of food, fields, pearls, or swords, and there are three such occasions in this Book (3.18; 13.17; 18.11). Three times in the Epistles, though, the meaning is the same as in 5.9 and 14.4. Thus: "Ye are not your own, ye are bought with a price" (1 Corinthians 6.20; 7.23); and, sinners will arise "denying the Lord that bought them" (2 Peter 2.1). The word means nothing more subtle than buying as commonly understood (for an agora is a marketplace), and R.V. was right to translate consistently. There is another, more specific related word, exagor-azo, twice used of buying back the saint from bondage to the Law of Moses (Galatians 3.13; 4.5), and twice of his duty to buy back his time from unprofitable uses (Ephesians 5.16; Colossians 4.5). There is also a word of quite different origin, lutroo, which really does mean 'redeem' or 'ransom', and which, together with related words is used specifically of the liberation of men from sin and death through the sacrifice of the Lord Jesus, in Matthew 10.28; Mark 10.45 (lutron); Luke 24.21; Titus 2.14; 1 Peter 1.18(lutroo); Luke 1.68; 2.38; Hebrews 8.l2(lutrosis);;l Timothy 2.6(antilutron); Romans 3.24; 1 Corinthians 1.30; Ephesians 1.7, 14; 4.30; Colossians 1.14; Hebrews 9.15 (apolutrosis). The last of these words is also used of the ultimate redemption of the body when the Lord returns (Romans 8.23), as well as, once, of the redemption from temporal suffering which men of faith rejected (Hebrews 11.35). A related noun, lutrotes is once used of Moses as the deliverer of God's people from Egypt (Acts 7.35).
A doctrine has been based on a literal understanding of these words which used to be widespread among the churches, and is still common among conservative evangelical groups. This is what might be called a transactional, or substitutionary doctrine of the Atonement, according to which the death of the Lord Jesus was a more-than-adequate payment accepted instead of the deaths of the sinners He came to 'redeem'. Sometimes this is expressed as though the Lord endured punishment in place of the men He redeemed: a sentence must be carried out because sin has been committed, in order to satisfy the justice of God, and this justice is considered to be satisfied when Jesus voluntarily accepts death instead of sinners. Sometimes it takes the form of supposing that a malevolent Devil has mankind in his grip since the original sin put mankind in his power; so that the Devil was then bought off by agreeing to accept the infinitely precious Person of Jesus instead of the finite souls of the rest of mankind.
Not only are both these explanations of the Atonement quite untenable in themselves; they are based on understandings of the relevant passages which will not bear examination. As to the former, there is no semblance of justice in God's accepting the punishment of a righteous Person so that sinners may escape it. "Someone has to be punished regardless" has no foundation in reason, whereas "the sinner has to be punished has". It is simply immoral to suggest that it is all one as to who is punished, so long as the one being punished had not committed crimes on His own account. The matter is not made any better if the point is stressed that God did not demand the death of the righteous Son: rather that the Son volunteered that death. Even with this it would still be the fact that God cannot be regarded as "just, and the Justifier of them that believe" (Romans 3.26) if He accepts, rather than imposes, such a condition. But there is another matter too: even if such an exchange were acceptable, it would have to be a real one. The wages of man's sin is death, and however that death is inflicted or endured, it carries with it only eternal hopelessness unless the Atonement is brought about. So the punishment is death and remaining dead (or, some would say, death and torment in hell). If an exchange were permitted, would not the price of it be that the substitute, too, should endure the real punishment of death and remaining dead, or death and subsequent misery? The horrors of the Cross, grievous though they are, would not meet even this singular conception of justice unless the Saviour met the penalty to the full: and then there would have been no Resurrection.
The case is no better if we consider the thought of paying a ransom price to the Devil. For if there be such a Devil He must be paid in full, or justice has not been done (even if we waive the issue as to how the Devil came to be in control of human souls in the first place — a formidable problem in itself). And there is no payment if, in exchange for his unholy compact, the Devil is allowed to work his will on an innocent if willing Victim only to the extent of accomplishing His death, then to see Him escape his grasp because "Thou wilt not leave My soul in hell, neither wilt Thou suffer Thine holy One to see corruption" (Psalm 16.10; Acts 2.24-31 ). Well might one of the schoolmen, accepting this extraordinary view of the means of our redemption, have described the Cross as "a mousetrap for the Devil, bated with the blood of Christ": but what kind of God would He be Who would spring such a trap, and what kind of a Devil would he be who, for all his cunning, allowed himself to be taken by such a cheat?
In the variant of this view preferred by the 'Jehovah's Witnesses' the situation degenerates into the near-comical, which with such a solemn subject as this is deeply to be regretted. For the strange theology of that community tells us that Jesus Christ did not rise in a real body, because His body had been offered in a substitutionary sacrifice, to the Devil, and therefore could not be assumed again at the 'resurrection'. If one has given his body as the price of redemption one cannot take it again! The puerile mathematics of this, apparently, does not stop to contemplate what the Devil would want with a body, even that of the Son of God, which would encourage him to agree to the transaction. This is the more so since this community rightly rejects the idea of an immortal soul over whose fate the Devil could preside.
So much for the mere logic of the matter. In the passages themselves it is clear that no such purchase could be intended. "Christ hath redeemed us from the curse of the Law" (Galatians 3.13): but you cannot buy anything from a curse, or a law either, and this is the nearest the Scriptures get to naming a possible vendor. People are bought back to God, but only from the impersonal Law, or sin (Titus 2.14), or from ourselves, for "ye are not your own: ye are bought with a price" (1 Corinthians 6.20; 7.23). Evil men "deny the Lord that bought them" (2 Peter 2.1), but there is no answer to the meaningless question, "bought them from whom or what?" And though the Scripture affirms beyond doubt that the price paid for this redemption was "the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without spot and blemish" (1 Peter 1.19), it is impossible to see the actual blood of Christ as meaningful currency in a real purchase or sale.
These passages are plainly intended to tell us that our race is in helpless bondage to sin and death, a state which cannot be remedied by any action of ours. Only by the laying down of the life of the Lord Jesus could our liberatiorfbe brought about. The Lord therefore, in our modern idiom, "paid a high price" for our redemption, and the outworking of our salvation cost His Father dear: but it is a meaningless question to ask to whom the ransom was paid. We are to be "bought with the precious blood of Jesus Christ", more precious than "corruptible things such as silver and/gold" (1 Peter 1.18-19): but no one took payment of the blood. We are to be redeemed from the slavery to our sins and to death, but there is no-one to whom the ransom is paid. Sin is robbed of its prey, and, for the Lord first and then for His disciples at His coming, the outcome of the death of the Lord is to "bring to naught him that hath the power of death,; that is the devil" (Hebrews 2.14). There is a rich variety of figures under which the work of the Lord Jesus Christ in saving sinners is represented. We are washed with His blood; our garments have been made white in His blood; we have received "the blood of sprinkling"; He carried our sins in His body up to the tree. But none of these metaphors can be construed literally without making them both false and ridiculous. It is the same with our phrase here, "redeemed out of the earth, redeemed from among men".
First fruits to God and to the Lamb.
Firstfruits are the foretaste of the full harvest. In one sense the Lord Jesus Himself is the firstfruit (1 Corinthians 15.23), in relation to the harvest to be reaped when the dead are raised at His second coming. But in James 1.18 it is the saints as a whole who "are a kind of firstfruits of His creatures". In Romans 8.23 those who witnessed the miraculous gifts of the Spirit were said, as its earliest recipients, to have-"the firstfruits of the Spirit"; in Romans 11.16, since the admission of the Gentiles into the faith of Abraham through belief in Jesus is under discussion, perhaps the Lord is firstfruit again, this time of the work of salvation as a whole. In Romans 16.15 the earliest converts in Corinth are described as the "firstfruits of Achaia". Here, having regard to the wide scope of Revelation, which takes us forward to the end of all sin and death, and the resurrection at the end of the Millen-
nium also, the firstfruits here referred to must be the first group to be raised, shortly after the return of the Lord, in contrast to the great harvest at the end (Revelation 20.11-15).
That the redeemed are Firstfruits "to God and to the Lamb" couples together most beautifully the parts played by the Father as Creator, and by the Son as Redeemer. The design is from the Father, but the One through Whom the design is accomplished is the Son, whose dying is the sowing of the seed from which the harvest will follow (John 12.24). The Father is the Creator of all, but the new Creation is brought into being through the Son (Colossians 1.15,18). And so it will truly be, when the Lord returns, that "when Thou shalt make His soul an offering for sin, He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the pleasure of the Lord shall prosper in His hand" (Isaiah 53.10).
14.5: In their mouth was found no lie: they are without blemish.
The association of blameless speech with faultless life in Scripture is remarkable. It is written of Jesus Himself that "He did no sin, neither was guile found in His mouth" (1 Peter 2.22), and the same Lord who inspired both writers must have intended the close parallel to be drawn. In his counsel about taming the tongue, James assures us that "if any offend not in word, the same is a perfect man" (3.2). The Lord Jesus makes the connection quite precise when He says, "How can ye, being evil, speak good things? for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaketh" (Matthew 12.34), and goes on to warn His hearers, who at that very time were showing their true nature by slandering Him, and the Holy Spirit by which He did His mighty works, that , "every idle word that men shall speak, they shall give account thereof in the day of judgement. For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned" (12.36-37).
Of course a man does not make himself righteous by putting a guard on his lips, and the Lord is not saying this; but an evil man will be unable to restrain the corrupt speech which is impatient to emerge and betray him, when his guard is down and his heart discloses its contents. That is why the Lord speaks about the 'idle word, meaning not so much that every lighthearted utterance will be stored up against us, as that every uncensored word is a true indication of the kind of people we are, inside. It cuts both ways, of course, and the good man will find that his unguarded moments will disclose his true nature also, and therefore in the day .of judgement the uncalculated words will be better witness before God and men as to what kind of people we really are than all the fine speeches we might like to prepare. The simple mind, and the single eye, will take every disciple nearer to hearing his Lord say one day words like those which He spoke to Nicodemus: "Behold, an Israelite indeed in whom there is no guile!" (John 1.47).
14.6: / saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, having an eternal gospel to proclaim to them that dwell on the earth, and to every nation, and tribe, and tongue, and people: and he saith with a great voice, Fear God, and give Him glory; for the hour of His judgement is come: and worship Him that made the heaven, and the earth and sea, and the fountains of water (-14.7).
The fact that this preaching of the gospel occupies an intermediate position between the Trumpets and the Vials has already been set out in detail (pages 149-159). After God has inflicted His severe but partial judgements on earth, sea, rivers and fountains, and heavenly bodies (8.1-12), He causes His message of repentance to be proclaimed to all the earth (10.1; 11.3,6; 14.6-7), by heeding which men might avert, or at least escape, the final judgements about to be poured out (16.1, 3, 4, 8). Only by putting the heavens first does 14.7 differ from the order in both Trumpets and Vials, and the reason for the change is evidently to relate the titles given to God to His work of Creation, "In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth" (Genesis 1.1). A glance back at the pages cited will show convincingly that the world is being told; "God has shown that He has power to determine what shall happen in earth, seas, rivers, and skies. He has the right to do so because He is their Creator. Now repent lest He should once again visit earth, seas, rivers, and skies, with a visita-tinn which no earth-dweller will be able to escape". In the light of this it is quite unthinkable that this preaching should be deferred to the Kingdom age. For in the heart of the message is "The hour of His judgement is come" (14.7), and the sequence of events is made very clear in the messages of the three angels:
14.6: / saw another angel flying in mid-heaven, having an eternal gospel to proclaim (to all peoples).
14.8: Another, a second agnel, followed, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon the great. . .
14.9: Another angel, a third, followed them, saying with a great voice, If any man worshippeth the beast and his image . . . he also shall drink of the wine of the wrath of God,
The first angel is charged with preaching the eternal gospel; the second warns that Babylon is about to fall (which will be described in detail in chapters 17 and 18); and the third warns against receiving the sign of allegiance to the Beast. It is quite impossible to imagine this message being given when the Beast has already been overcome and cast into the Lake of Fire (19.20). There is still, at this point, the opportunity of decision for or against the gospel, and the saints who do so, or have already done so, can maintain their patience and faith (14.12) until that victory is achieved.
14.8: Fallen, fallen, is Babylon the great, which hath made all the nations to drink of the wine of the wrath of her fornications.
That the fall of this Babylon is future but imminent is made yet plainer by the terms in which this Babylon is referred to. For this "wine of the wrath of her fornication' is repeated again in 17.2,4; 18.3 in the same context; and, moreover, the hour of God's judgement of 14.7 clearly anticipates the words of 18.10, "in one hour is thy judgement come", spoken as it is again to the same Babylon. We have already learned in detail about the pending uprise of the Beast and his image which are to enslave all nations. Now, evidently before it comes about, or at least before it is consummated, this design of the Beast is disclosed to the saints, who are warned not to be deceived when that time does come. It is the events of chapter 13 concerning the Beast and his image (13.1, 4, 14), the mark in hand and forehead of its devotees (13.16), which are brought before us to help us picture the situation when the Vials are poured out.
14.9: If any man worshippeth the beast or his image, and receiveth a mark on his forehead, or on his hand, he also shall drink of of the wine of the wrath of God, which is prepared unmixed in the cup of His anger; and he shall be tormented with fire and brimstone in the presence of the holy angels, and in the presence of the Lamb: and the smoke of their torment goeth up for ever and ever; and they have no rest day and night, they that worship the beast and his image, and whoso receiveth the mark of his name. Here is the patience of the saints, they that keep the commandments of God and the faith of Jesus (-14.12).
There is a strange contrast between the way in which the words, "they have no rest day and night" are used here, and that in which they appear in 4.8, in relation to the praises sung to God by the four living creatures. Apart from a slight difference in order, the phrase is the same in Greek also: so the living creatures praise God as endlessly as those are tormented who wear the mark of the Beast. God is constantly worshipped with the praises of His heavenly host: and those who rebel against Him are as eternally excluded from His presence. While on good scriptural grounds we cannot accept the idea that any human being will have his mortality swallowed up of an endless life which will be spent in eternal conscious torment, yet it remains true that the last conscious experience of those so rejected will be of "weeping and gnashing of teeth", and that this will be the experience with which they will pass into the shame of eternal oblivion.
The reference to the patience of the saints is an unmistakeable allusion, once again, to the Olivet Prophecy, for is not this, in the context of their suffering for their faith, to be equated with the words, "Ye shall be hated of all men for My name's sake. And not an hair of your heads shall perish. In your patience ye shall win your souls" (Luke 21.17-19). Even the word 'souls' in such a setting takes us back to the fellow-servants of the souls under the altar (Revelation 6.9-11) who are to be slain for the Lord, and will stand to be blessed by Him when He returns (20.4).
14.13: / heard a voice from heaven, saying, Write: blessed are the dead which die in the Lord from henceforth. Yea, saith the spirit, that they may rest from their labours; for their works follow with them.
Is it not absolutely plain from the juxtaposition of 14.13 with 14.12 that a stark alternative is presented here? Either one will accept the mark of the Beast, and incur in consequence the irrevocable wrath of God, or one refuses this allegiance and, though assured of God's ultimate blessing, suffers the vengeance of the Beast, and "dies in the Lord", then to rest in anticipation of the blessing now assured. These will have died, "refusing to accept deliverance, that they might obtain a better resurrection" (Hebrews 11.35). There could hardly be a plainer picture of persecution to come then this. These represent the second group of martyrs considered under the Fifth Seal (6.11).
14.14:1 saw, and behold a white cloud; and on the cloud I saw one sitting like to a son of man, having on his head a
golden crown, and in his hand a sharp sickle. Another angel came from the temple, crying with a great voice to him that sat on the cloud. Send forth thy sickle and reap, for the hour to reap is come: for the harvest of the earth is over-ripe (-14.15).
This is again part of the setting of the scene for the detailed judgements to be described under the Vials in chapter 16. The theme of reaping has been met before in the New Testament, though there primarily of the harvest of the gospel, whether of good grain (Mark 4.29), or of good mingled with tares (Matthew 13.24-30, 41-43). Here, though, we are dealing with the cutting down of the wickedness of the world, to be consigned to its destruction.
This reaper with the golden Stephanas is a herald of the afflictions to be revealed under the Vials. His activities are mirrored on those described in Joel 3.12, "There (in the Valley of Jehoshaphat, which means "Jehovah will judge"), will I sit to judge all the nations round about. Put ye in the sickle for the harvest is ripe", and the passage in Joel, like our present one (14.19) goes on to speak of the treading of the world's winepress. The Lord Jesus Himself is pictured as treading "the winepress of the fierceness of the wrath of Almighty God" in Revelation 19.15, a passage which is again rooted in the Old Testament in Isaiah 63.1-5. At the present stage, though, the judgements are not the ultimate ones of the actual conquest of the Beast: the plagues to come under the Vials are the portents rather than the final event until the Sixth Vial is reached. The one "like to a son of man", or The Son of Man, and wearing the crown of victory, evidently acts for the Lord Jesus and mediates His presence in what he does.
There is a multiplicity of angels in this chapter, and it is not easy to disentangle their various functions. It might be helpful to set them all out in sequence:
1 14.6: / saw another angel flying in mid-heaven having an eternal gospel.
2 14.8: Another, a second angel, followed, saying, Fallen, fallen is Babylon.
3. l4.9:Another angel, a third, followed him, saying. . . if any man worshippeth the beast. . .
4 14.14: (The one like a son of man on a cloud.)
5 14.15: Another angel came out from the temple, crying . . . Send forth thy sickle and reap.
6 14.17: Another angel came out from the temple, he also having a sharp sickle.
14.18: And another angel came out from the altar, he that hath power over fire; and he called with a great voice to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Send forth thy sharp sickle . . . That makes six angels specifically so called. If the one like a son of man is also to be called an angel there are seven; in which event it is tempting to identify them with "the seven angels having seven plagues, which are the last" of 15.1. This is made more likely by the fact that one of the present group is "he that hath power over fire" (14.18), which seems to refer to the angel of the Fourth Vial in 16.8, "and it was given to him to scorch men with fire". Since we should always try to picture what John actually saw in his vision, it looks as though what happened was that John saw a succession of angels assembling themselves. The first flies in with the message that the gospel is to be preached for the last time; the second follows him (also flying in mid-heaven?), and announces the pending doom of Babylon; then a third arrives with the warning against becoming compromized with the activities of the Beast; then a fourth, the one like a son of man, with the promise that the wicked world is about to be reaped; then the fifth, encouraging
the fourth to start his work; then a sixth to support him, and a seventh to urge him into action. All these fly in and assemble before the throne of God, the one on the cloud with the crown in the centre, and to each of them is given by "one of the living creatures" his vial to pour out on the earth (15.7).
If the scene is actually pictured like this, then the need to assign particular tasks to each angel in chapter 14 falls away. The angels are assembling to get ready for work yet to be done, and going through motions suggestive of what will happen as they do so. The actual doing of it is quickly to follow, but this is an interlude scene.
14.16: He that sat on the cloud cast his sickle on the earth, and the earth was reaped. 14.17: And another angel came out from the temple which is in heaven, he also having a sharp sickle. 14.18: Ana another angel came out from the altar, he that hath power over the fire, and he called with a great voice to him that had the sharp sickle, saying, Send forth thy sharp sickle, and gather the clusters of the vine of the earth; for her grapes are fully ripe. 14.19: And the angel cast his sickle into the earth, and gathered the vintage of the earth, and cast it into the winepress, the great winepress of the wrath
It is very difficult to accept the view introduced by H.A.W. on pages 50-53, and elaborated on pages 177-183 that the six angels specifically so named in this chapter, and the great voice of 16.1, represent one by one the Seven Thunders of 10.4, which John was commanded at that time not to write, (i) It is very unlikely that "write them not" would mean, "because they are going to be written later in your Book"; (ii) it would be the first and only time in the Apocalypse that the voice of action did not correspond to the events themselves; (iii) a plain fact is that the angels of 14.6,7 correspond to the same event; (iv) because the attractive 4 3 structure discovered by H.A.W. in the Seven Letters (perhaps), Seven Seals, Seven Trumpets, Seven 'Dramatis Personae" of chapter 12 (perhaps), and Seven Vials, each terminating in a doxology, is not really followed with regard to the 4 3 structure, since 14.13 hardly qualifies as an 'interlude' (there is not really one with the Seven Letters either). In chapters 14 and 15 the whole scene is an interlude between the Trumpets and the Vials,-the Vials, as the Trumpets did for the Seventh Seal, fulfilling in detail the contents of their parent Seventh Trumpet. The thunders of 10.5 are embodied within the Sixth Trumpet, which represents no parallel with the other septets.
14.20: And the winepress was trodden without the city, and there came out blood from the winepress, even to the bridles of the horses, as far as a thousand and six hundred furlongs.
The only other occasion when the word drepanon, sickle, is found in the New Testament is Mark 4.9, where the harvest which is reaped is a grain-harvest, the fruits to the kingdom of God of the seed sown by the Son of man. That harvest is of joy and blessing, and concerns the gathering of the saints to meet the Lord at His return. But it is not of that kind of harvest that we read here, nor yet of that kind of fruit. What this reaping yields is dried-up grain for the burning, and grapes for ;.he treading, yielding blood as their wine. Apart from the Parable of the Husbandmen (Matthew 21.33) this word for winepress (lenas) only occurs in this chapter and in 19.15. There is something incongruous, though, about the use of a sickle for harvesting grapes. It is a reaper's tool, which might be used for pruning vines but not normally for cutting grapes, and certainly the idea of casting the sickle, rather than wielding it by hand, runs contrary to both. The use of the term 'reap' in 14.15 is appropriate to the harvesting of grain, which is what we should have supposed to be meant were we left with that passage alone. And it may be because the horizontal movement of the sickle in reaping that the first sickle is cast 'upon' the earth. When, however, we come to 14.18 the grapes are harvested by 'thrusting in' the sickle, which is cast 'into' the earth (14.19), so that from within the plantation the clusters can be cut and sent to the winepress. This combination of the functions of grain-harvesting and grape-gathering might well account for the presence of the two beings with their sickles in the chapter; it is the comprehensiveness of the judgements brought out by the two which makes this double image so appropriate.
Not only are reapers and grape-cutters blended together, but so are grape-treaders and horsemen, for "there came out blood from the winepress to the horses' bridles" (14.20). Of course the idea might only be to indicate the depth of this dreadful symbolic stream, which, for a horse of sixteen hands would be about 5'/2 feet or 1.7 metres: a stream of blood as high as a man and two hundred miles long! But the blend of reaping with the waging of war is also intended, and prepares us suitably for 19.13,15.
The furlong, or stadion, was "600 feet, or one eighth of a Roman mile" (Vine), and since the latter was near enough to the English mile, the figure of 200 miles or 320 kilometres is a close approximation. There is no obvious scriptural parallel to this distance, though it is interesting that it represents about as far as the eye can see if, on a perfectly clear day, one were to look around with the keenest eyesight from the highest spot on the
earth. But there seems to be an intended contrast, too, between this tremendous river or sea of death, and the river of the water of life to be met in 22.1, and its origins in the river from the Temple in Ezekiel 47.1-7. There, when Ezekiel had travelled 4000 cubits, the river had become too deep to wade, and would have needed a swimmer to cross it. That would have been a mere 1 Vi miles or 2 kilometres, so that the scale of the figure in Revelation dwarfs the measurements in Ezekiel. The terrifying scale of the events it depicts becomes apparent beyond evasion.
There is very little probability in the idea that, since 1600 is the square of 40, we can take this 40 as a unit of time, and so regard the events here described as predicted to occupy 40 years. One does not take square roots of distances to get any sort of recognizable concept, and a "root-furlong-for-a-year principle" would be too much!
These figures are much smaller than the dimension of the New Jerusalem given to John in Revelation 21, where length, breadth, and height are 12,000 furlongs or 1500 miles (2400 kilometres). Such a city, if literal, could not have been seen in its entirety after reaching the earth, even if the world's highest mountain were placed in the middle of it, and the prophet on the top of that mountain. A mountain 70 miles high would be needed. The obviously symbolic nature of this revelation is placed beyond doubt by this fact, and may help to throw light on the meaning of Ezekiel's own high mountain (40.2), as well as that on which the Lord was tempted (Matthew 4.7 ). A more precise estimate of the Roman furlong is considered in connection with 21.16.
R.R. refers to this possibility rather gingerly on page 124.
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