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Grace & Peace

Grace & Peace: Revelation 80
Douglas Wilson on January 4, 2018
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Grace & Peace: Revelation 77

Douglas Wilson on

“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11)

“And there appeared a great wonder in heaven; a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and upon her head a crown of twelve stars: And she being with child cried, travailing in birth, and pained to be delivered. And there appeared another wonder in heaven; and behold a great red dragon, having seven heads and ten horns, and seven crowns upon his heads. And his tail drew the third part of the stars of heaven, and did cast them to the earth: and the dragon stood before the woman which was ready to be delivered, for to devour her child as soon as it was born. And she brought forth a man child, who was to rule all nations with a rod of iron: and her child was caught up unto God, and to his throne. And the woman fled into the wilderness, where she hath a place prepared of God, that they should feed her there a thousand two hundred and threescore days.”
Revelation 12:1-6

So a great sign or portent appears in the heavens. She represents the faithful remnant of Israel, she who was to give birth to the Christ, but who did so in travail and pain (Is. 26:17-21). We know she is Israel because of the dream given to Joseph—“And he dreamed yet another dream, and told it his brethren, and said, Behold, I have dreamed a dream more; and, behold, the sun and the moon and the eleven stars made obeisance to me” (Gen. 37:9)—Joseph himself would have been the twelfth star. And there is clearly some sort of astrological significance to the fact that the woman (Virgo?) has the moon under her feet, the sun in her midriff, and a crown of stars on her head.

A second wonder appeared in the heavens. This was a great red dragon, identified as the devil or Satan a few verses down (v. 9). This dragon had the combined characteristics of all the beasts in Daniel’s vision, showing how each pagan empire was simply Satan in a new guise. This was no less true of Satan’s Roman period, during which he sought to devour the Child Christ through the agency of Herod the Great. The seven heads here also identifies him with the beast of Rome that appears in the next chapter.

Apparently Satan had drawn a third of the angels into his rebellion against God, dragging them down to earth with him. His intent was to devour the Christ as soon as he was born, but the attempt was unsuccessful. In this passage, the narrative jumps from Christ’s birth to His ascension. The fact that this child is Christ is confirmed by the fact that the child was destined to rule all the nations with a rod of iron. This was prophesied of the Messiah in the Old Testament (Ps. 2: 9), and is applied to Christ later in Revelation (Rev. 19:15), and to His shared rule with His saints earlier (Rev. 2:27). There is no reason to change the identification here.

Having given birth to the Messiah, faithful Israel fled to the wilderness where she was nourished and provided for by God for three and a half years.

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Grace & Peace: Revelation 76

Douglas Wilson on

“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11)

“And the seventh angel sounded; and there were great voices in heaven, saying, The kingdoms of this world are become the kingdoms of our Lord, and of his Christ; and he shall reign for ever and ever. And the four and twenty elders, which sat before God on their seats, fell upon their faces, and worshipped God, Saying, We give thee thanks, O Lord God Almighty, which art, and wast, and art to come; because thou hast taken to thee thy great power, and hast reigned. And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth. And the temple of God was opened in heaven, and there was seen in his temple the ark of his testament: and there were lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail”
Revelation 11:15-19

And the seventh angel blew the seventh trumpet, and the signification of this trumpet blast is declared in heaven by “great voices.” It is fitting that the declaration that follows instantly evokes that great musical theme that Handel assigned to it in The Messiah—music indeed worthy of great voices. The seventh trumpet indicates the formal establishment of Daniel’s fifth kingdom, the rock that struck Nebuchadnezzar’s great statue on the feet, and which then grew to become a mountain that filled the entire earth.

The seventh trumpet indicates the formal inauguration of Christ’s reign on earth. Christ had ascended into the heavenly places forty years before, and had approached the Ancient of Days on the clouds of heaven (Dan. 7:13), where He was granted universal dominion. “And there was given him dominion, and glory, and a kingdom, that all 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 destroyed” (Dan. 7:14).

In order to function as Christ’s body on earth, we needed the Spirit to empower us.But in order for this heavenly kingdom to have its earthly reality made manifest, two great things had to happen. The first is that the Spirit had to be poured out on the church, so that we could do the work of the kingdom in the power and authority of Christ. In order to function as Christ’s body on earth, we needed the Spirit to empower us. The second thing that had to happen was the removal of the old Judaic Temple. Before the Christian faith could become the holy Temple of God on the earth, the old shadow had to be removed. Had it remained, it would have been too great a distraction. “In that he saith, A new covenant, he hath made the first old. Now that which decayeth and waxeth old is ready to vanish away” (Heb. 8:13).

We saw back in chapter 4 that the twenty-four elders are representative of all God’s elect throughout history. They are the ones who fall on their faces and give glory to God. They worshiped the Almighty, the one who gathered great power to Himself in order to reign. The lament of the saints under the altar in chapter 6 is now heard. The nations were angry, but God’s wrath came upon them. This passage says that it was the “time of the dead,” which I do not take as the last judgment at the end of history. Rather, the lament of the saints had earlier asked how long God would delay His judgment, how long before He avenged their blood. The same word for judgment is used here—and this is the point where God gives His reward to His servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to those who feared His name, whether small or great. God would destroy those who destroyed the earth, and a new aeon, the Christian aeon, opened up.

The shadow Temple on earth was flattened so that the Temple in the heavens could be opened up to all mankind.The shadow Temple on earth was flattened so that the Temple in the heavens could be opened up to all mankind. “The temple of God was opened in heaven.” And just as the veil hiding the Ark of the Covenant was torn in two when Jesus died, so also the veil of the heavenly curtain was rent. The “ark of his testament” in the celestial realms was now seen. It is no longer hidden away. The mercy seat, the heavenly mercy seat, is no longer hidden in darkness for most of the year. The gospel of the new creation can be preached anytime, anywhere.

And to underscore and emphasize all of this, God italicized this great declaration, and He did it with lightnings, and voices, and thunderings, and an earthquake, and great hail.

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Grace & Peace: Revelation 69

Douglas Wilson on

“At thy right hand there are pleasures for evermore” (Ps. 16:11)

“And I saw another mighty angel come down from heaven, clothed with a cloud: and a rainbow was upon his head, and his face was as it were the sun, and his feet as pillars of fire: And he had in his hand a little book open: and he set his right foot upon the sea, and his left foot on the earth, And cried with a loud voice, as when a lion roareth: and when he had cried, seven thunders uttered their voices. And when the seven thunders had uttered their voices, I was about to write: and I heard a voice from heaven saying unto me, Seal up those things which the seven thunders uttered, and write them not” (Rev. 10:1–4).

Between the sounding of the sixth and seventh trumpet, we have an interlude—in the same way that we had an interlude between the opening of the sixth and seventh seals in chapter 7.

It appears that the “mighty angel” that descends at this point should be identified as the Lord Jesus Himself. Here are some of the reasons. His appearance is consistent with how the Lord is described earlier in Revelation—face shining like the sun (Rev. 1:16), feet like brass burning as in a furnace (Rev. 1:15), and the rainbow that is now around His head was earlier around His throne (Rev. 4:3). He is clothed with a cloud, and that is new, but the Lord does appear on a cloud later (Rev. 14:14). The one sound argument that this is not the Lord comes from the fact that it is not mentioned here that John worships him as he did earlier (Rev. 1:17).

He has one foot on the sea and the other on the earth, indicating His authority over the entire globe.The Lord was the only one who could open the sealed book earlier, and here the mighty angel holds a little book, one that is already open. He has one foot on the sea and the other on the earth, indicating His authority over the entire globe. It also may indicate that He is speaking to Jew and Gentile both—the Jews being the land and the Gentiles represented by the sea.

Another indication that this is the Lord can be found in the allusions to Psalm 29. The thunders are the result of the angel’s loud voice, indicating that this is the voice of the Lord. “The voice of the Lord is upon the waters: The God of glory thundereth: The Lord is upon many waters” (Psalm 29:3).

The opened book is little, small enough for John to eat. The contents of the book have largely been unsealed, with the events contained in it accomplished for the most part. But at the same time, John is told not to write down what the seven thunders said. This is an indication that some things revealed to John were not to be fulfilled until later—a time outside the scope of the book. While the bulk of what John saw was fulfilled in the first century, there was some reserved for later.

For example, John is told later not to seal up the book of his Revelation, because the time was upon them (Rev. 22:10). Centuries before, Daniel had been told to seal up the words because the fulfillment was a long way out (Dan. 12:4). It would be odd for Daniel to be told this, when the fulfillment was four centuries away, and John to be told the opposite when the fulfillment of his words were to be over 20 centuries away. But here, what the thunders said has been withheld from us.

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