What will we gain from feeding on these chapters? A lot!
First, we’ll be reminded imaginatively, at the start of this section (14:1), that even when satanic powers might seem to have achieved control over the entire world (13:7), in fact it is Christ who is ultimately sovereign, triumphant over the most monstrous evil. Yes, in reversal of the probabilities! Praise Christ, Lamb always defeats Dragon!
Then secondly they will help us get our heads around God’s judgments. Seeing the Lamb victorious inevitably means we are brought face to face with God’s judgments; and, however we understand what we read here, we must take them extremely seriously. (For example when we read about hell; it was Jesus more than anyone else who spoke of the fires of hell, eg Mark 9:43, Luke 16:9-31.) (Having said that, this doesn’t decide whether hell is eternal and conscious; more about that in a PS.) In these chapters we’re brought face to face with tough realities: human cruelty (eg 16:6 – yet people can’t see that murdering God’s people is a problem (16:9); unfortunately so believable), and rebellion, and destruction of the earth (11:18), and refusal to repent (even despite the most dramatic judgments, 16:9,21), will ultimately result in horrendous consequences.
But there’s more. Back in 6:10 the martyred believers pleaded with God to intervene: now He does. And one aspect emphasised for us is that God’s utter justice and holiness not only characterise His judgments on evil, they necessitate His judgments. As with the other sequences of God’s judgment in chapters 6 and 8, we see into heaven before the judgments begin, to help us grasp the spiritual reasons why they come. They are not meaningless, nor irrational; nor, vitally, are they mere brute force. ‘You are just in these judgments’ (16:5, NIV as usual); ‘True and just are your judgments’ (16:7, repeated in 19:2); ‘Just and true are your ways, King of the ages’ (15:3, see also 19:11). The world is indeed called here to ‘Fear God and give him glory’ (14:7), but this is not merely because of His power; it is because ‘You alone are holy. All nations will come and worship before You, for Your righteous acts have been revealed’ (15:4, emphasis mine). As John Lennox says, God’s wrath comes because (unlike ourselves so often today) He genuinely feels about real good and evil; may we too!
The Lamb, in short, is worthy to receive power (cf 5:12). (All this is yet another example of how our whole book is rightly called the Revelation of Jesus (1:1).) So it’s in keeping with this that we’re shown the angel who enacts the judgment of 14:17 coming ‘out of the temple’, as do the angels with the seven last judgments, ‘dressed in clean, shining linen’ (15:6). (Quoting Lennox again: the wrath of God is associated with beauty, not with horror. If we were painting wrath we would paint it black, not golden; but instead, let’s absorb 15:5-7.) And it’s one of the ‘living creatures’, those forces of life so preoccupied with God’s holiness back in 4:8, who gives the angels the bowls of judgment; God’s life and God’s holiness point towards His judgment of evil, not away from it. (I’m reminded of my need to grasp that what much of the old testament teaches, just like so much of this climactic last book of the Bible, is that God is a God of holiness….)
(So I worship You, Lord; You are Judge, and Your judgments are righteous! And, I thank You for Jesus who `redeemed us from wrath’…)
Then 15:8 is very striking: ‘No-one could enter the temple until the seven plagues … were completed.’ ‘The time for intercession is passed’, says Mounce in his commentary in the New International Commentary on the New Testament series. ‘God in His unapproachable majesty and power has declared that the end has come.’ No one can approach the temple until the wrath of God has been fulfilled. And perhaps we remember that at Calvary it was (is ‘It is done!’ (16:17) meant to remind us of Christ’s triumphant ‘It is finished!’ on the cross?) But right to the end (16:21), and decisively and fatally, that unbelievably generous redemption has been rejected, in a refusal to repent. (Even today, let’s not forget, God’s offer of salvation can have a time limit for individuals, see 2 Cor 6:1-2.) And so now there can be no neutrals (14:9-13)…
Lots for us to reflect on here, and to turn into worship and prayer…
PS There are many more highly thought-provoking things in this section:
First, these chapters seem to show that Revelation has a recapitulatory structure, rather than being (as some writers suggest) a narrative continuous in time. The final end of Babylon in Revelation 14:8 (which clearly is after the events of chapter 17), and the horrific bloodshed of 14:20 (which is presumably God allowing the final terrible battle of history) both suggest we are close to the very End in this chapter; and then we see the narrative doubling back to start a new section, and 15:1 starts again. Likewise, as 15:1 predicts, the wrath of God is `completed` in the literally earth-shaking events of 16:17ff; and yet the events of chapters 17 and 18 are still to come, so there is recapitulation there too. Remembering that Revelation works this way can also help us with, say, 12:1-5, the most obvious understanding of which is that the narrative turns majestically back (after 11:15-18 about the End) to the prehistoric fall of Satan, and then to the time of the Incarnation. It also fits the way that Revelation’s three sequences of seven judgements – seven seals, seven trumpets, seven bowls – don’t overlap entirely, but all apparently culminate in a climax of ‘earthquake, thunder and hail’ (6:12-17; 11:15-19; 16:17-21) that seems to mark the End; and then after each one the narrative recommences. I hope that helps us grasp the overall shape of the book!
But now a second thing: the fact that 14:8 and 14:20 suggest we are close to the very End in this chapter raises an interesting question about the puzzling double harvest in 14:16ff. Are these double pictures of the same event of judgment, or are they two very different harvests? On first reading these verses might seem to be entirely about judgment. Earlier in the chapter, however, we’ve heard of people who are the ‘firstfruits to God’ (v4); and since ‘firstfruits’ is positive there, the first full harvest in v16 could well be positive too; with Christ’s bridal Church being the ‘positive’ harvest of the earth, the Bride for which its entire history was created (cf John 12:24). So in that case Revelation 14:14-16 and 14:19-20 give us the two sides of God’s final reaping, to blessing (in the rapture) and to judgment – just like in Matthew 13:28-30 and 37-43. (Compare also Matthew 24:30-31.)
And something else to consider if that’s so, that may encourage those who believe that the rapture of 1 Thess 4:16-18 happens as a dramatic deliverance snatching God’s people out almost at the very end of the `tribulation`: is that what we’re given in Revelation 14:14-16, coming as it does right at the End? In 14:15 the angel cries out loudly – a prayer, surely, not a command to the `Son of Man` – to bring an end to all this: just as in 6:10 (and 10:6-7 and 11:17). However, as we said two posts ago, there is more than one side to this whole question (see https://petelowmanresources.com/our-future2-whats-this-about-the-rapture/ .)
Still, if the vv14-16 are about the righteous, and then the terrible verses vv17-20 are about the lost, this would forcefully underline – as the same chapter does in vv9-13 – just how much is at stake in anyone’s response to the gospel; it’s one unbelievably important destiny or the other…
Indeed 14:11 is an immensely powerful verse about hell. John Wenham (author of a number of really superb apologetics books, particularly Christ and the Bible on the 150% respect Jesus exemplified for Scripture and Easter Enigma on fitting together the resurrection narratives) admits that this is a difficult verse for people like himself who don’t see hell as eternal and eternally conscious. However, he notes that there are similar references to burning sulphur in Genesis 19, Isaiah 34 (see 34:9-10 especially) and Ezekiel 38 without these being either eternal or conscious; and so, suggests Wenham, here in Revelation the `rising smoke` coming eternally from the judgment of those who have worshipped the Animal is `a trace [or, we might say, an eternal sign] of the destruction which that fire has wrought.` Similarly, the smoke from Babylon three chapters later in Rev 19:3 is part of a world that will pass away (ie, not eternal), and Babylon whose smoke it is is in the first instance a system (ie, not something conscious). Alongside this, John Stott sees the torment described here as being from the moment of judgment, not forever; Guillebaud likewise, who played a key role in the early days of UCCF, points out that `day and night` does not necessarily imply everlasting. Maybe, maybe.
But now another question: Why is the gospel the angel proclaims in 14:6, focused on God as Creator and Judge, called the `eternal gospel`? It’s reminiscent of Acts 14:15,17 and Romans 1:19-21. `Eternal`: has this possibly even been the `gospel` to which the unevangelized are held responsible to respond in repentance? The call to `fear God and give Him glory` is reminiscent of the end of Ecclesiastes, and Proverbs 1:7, and could be said to be the message of Job back in prehistoric times, at least of Job 38:1-42:6. It emphasises judgment as against `the great lie of the devil`, says Kelly, `the easy-going God of indifference to man, if indeed there be a God`; so it proclaims that sin matters enormously! Then again `gospel` means `good news`, so salvation seems to be being offered even now in 14:6 – but, tragically, it’s rejected in 16:9,11.
Lastly, one of the main interpretative debates about Revelation has to do with the extent to which what it describes is to be taken literally. 14:20 may help us here; what is this verse about if not a literal endtime conflict in Palestine? However, let me record here (though I don’t agree with it!) Stanley Munday’s suggestion that these verses about the `great winepress of God’s wrath… outside the city` borrow the images and vocabulary of Joel, but in fact are describing the wrath of God, the `appalling spiritual agony`, when endured for us by Christ on the cross; Christ the true vine (John 15:1), Christ who suffered for us `outside the gate` (Heb 13:12). Isaiah 63:3ff, where Christ, God’s Servant, declares `I have trodden the winepress alone`, might support that; it is very clearly about God’s judgment, and yet the references to `redemption` (v4), `I looked, but there was no one to help` (v5), and `In all their distress He too was distressed` (v9), might possibly hint that Calvary is somehow the primary fulfilment of that judgment. So as we read this terrible verse in Revelation, are we to see our Saviour and our salvation revealed here too, learning that His blood washes the whole land, His suffering is enough even for that? Personally I doubt that that is its meaning, but it’s worth considering…
