The abomination that causes desolation: The six seal and fifth seal of Revelation
Gabriel, (Dan. 9:21; Lk. 1:19,26) explain the vision to this man.
So he approached where I was standing; when he came near, I was terrified and fell facedown. (Ez. 1:28; 44:4; Dan. 2:46; Rev. 1:17) “Son of man,” he said to me, “understand that the vision refers to the time of the end.” (Dan. 11:35, 40) While he was speaking to me, I fell into a deep sleep, (Dan. 10:9; Lk. 9:32) with my face to the ground. Then he touched me, made me stand up, (Ez. 2:2; Dan. 10:10, 16, 18) and said, “I am here to tell you what will happen at the conclusion of the time of wrath, because it refers to the appointed time of the end.(Mt. 13:7) Dan. 8:16–19 CSV
Seventy weeks have been decreed concerning your people and your holy city: to restrain transgression, to put an end to sin, to make atonement for lawlessness, to establish everlasting righteousness, to conclude vision and prophecy, and to anoint the Most Holy Place. Dan. 9:24 ISV
“Upon thy people and upon thy holy city.” Daniel has been praying long and earnestly for his people; so there would be no inability to see what was meant by “his city and his people.” “To finish transgression” is equivalent to “to restrain transgression.”
Transgression is apt to become bold and imperious; it is a great deal when it is even somewhat “restrained.” It is to be noted that, as Daniel’s prayer was greatly confession of the sins of the people and prayer for forgiveness, the promises here are largely moral; but still the Messianic period even was not to be expected to be one in which there will be no sin—it is to be restrained.
Professor Bevan is right in maintaining that, despite the accents, this clause is to be connected with the next. To bring in everlasting righteousness. This is more than merely the termination of the suit of God against his people (Isa. 27:9). The phrase occurs in Ps. 119:142, and is applied to the righteousness of God.
These two, “atonement for sin” and “the everlasting righteousness,” are found in Christ—his atoning death and the righteousness which he brings into the world. The words of Gabriel thus point forward to a time when all iniquity shall be restrained, sin atoned for, and a priest anointed.(H. D. M. Spence, Daniel, The Pulpit Commentary (London; New York: Funk & Wagnalls Company, 1909), 267,268.)
Now Gabriel says [Dan. 9:24], “Seventy weeks (that is, four hundred and ninety years) are determined concerning your people and your holy city.” This is as if he were to say: Your nation of the Jews and the holy city of Jerusalem have yet four hundred and ninety years to go; then they will both come to an end.
As to what shall actually transpire, he says that transgression will be finished and forgiveness sealed and iniquity atoned for and everlasting righteousness brought in, and vision and prophecy fulfilled,
that is, that satisfaction will be made for all sins, forgiveness of sins proclaimed, and the righteousness of faith preached, that righteousness which is eternally valid before God.
“And in the middle of the week the sacrifice and offering shall cease” [Dan. 9:27] (that is, the law of Moses will no longer prevail), because Christ, after preaching for three and one-half years, will fulfill all things through his suffering, and thereafter provide for the preaching of a new sacrifice, etc. Kirsi I. Stjerna, “That Jesus Christ Was Born a Jew,” in Christian Life in the World, ed. Hans J. Hillerbrand, Kirsi I. Stjerna, and Timothy J. Wengert, vol. 5, The Annotated Luther (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1523), 434,436.
Now the enigmatic prophecy in Daniel 9:24–27 also spoke of a period of 490 years, but described it as seventy weeks of years, 70 × 7, and the period was reckoned from the rebuilding of Jerusalem, by those whom Enoch called the impure apostates. Daniel’s prophecy predicted that after 490 years there would be a great atonement to put an end to transgression and iniquity; vision and prophecy would be fulfilled, and the Most Holy One would be anointed. If we assume that Daniel’s 490 years were the same as those of the Melchizedek text, we find that the ministry of Jesus fell within the early years of the tenth Jubilee.
Melchizedek would inaugurate the judgement described in Psalm 82: ‘God has taken his place in the heavenly council; in the midst of the elohim he sits in Judgement’—which is the setting for the Book of Revelation, where the Lamb takes his place on the heavenly throne and then the seals are opened. The Melchizedek text then quotes Isaiah 52:7, the feet of the herald who proclaims peace and brings the good news—our word gospel—who says to Zion, ‘Your God reigns’.
The passage in Isaiah goes on to refer to ‘the day of vengeance of our God’ Isa.61:2, a reference to the liberty and judgement of the Day of Atonement. Jesus then said: (Luke 4:21).
‘Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing’
He claimed to be Melchizedek. And so Mark begins his account of the ministry: ‘The time is fulfilled [a reference to the tenth Jubilee], and the kingdom of God is at hand; repent [because the day of judgement is also at hand], and believe in the gospel [the good news of the Jubilee]’ (Mark 1:15). Margaret Barker, Temple Theology: An Introduction (London: Society for Promoting Christian Knowledge, 2004), 70–73.
Christ died ‘when the week was coming to an end’: His death abolished the Old Law, and a new temple (the Messianic kingdom—the Church) was beginning to be built ‘in splendor’ (cf. Acts 2). It was built ‘in the name of the Lord’ (a reference to Christian baptism; see Acts 2:38). It is likely, however, that ‘the week’ is a condensed expression for Daniel’s ‘seventy weeks of years’ (Dan. 9:2, 24–27). See Jer. 25:12, 29:10.
Then he shall confirm a covenant Isa.42:6 with many Matt. 26:28 for one week; But in the middle of the week He shall bring an end to sacrifice and offering. And on the wing of abominations shall be one who makes desolate, Even until the consummation, which is determined, Is poured out on the desolate.” Dan.9:27
for a covenant of the people—the medium of the covenant, originally made between God and Abraham. “Messiah is given by the Father to be the mediator of a better covenant” (Heb. 8:6) than the Law (see Isa.49:8; Jer. 31:33; 1:5). So the abstract, “peace,” for peace-maker (Mic. 5:5; Eph. 2:14). the people—Israel: as Isa. 49:8, compared with Isa.42:6, proves (Luke 2:32). To open the blind eyes—spiritually (Isa.42:16, 18, 19; Isa. 35:5; John 9:39). to bring out the prisoners from the prison—(Isa. 61:1, 2.) and them that sit in darkness—opposed to “light” (Isa.42:6; Eph. 5:8; 1 Pet. 2:9).
A. R. Fausset, A Commentary, Critical, Experimental, and Practical, on the Old and New Testaments: Job–Isaiah, vol. III (London; Glasgow: William Collins, Sons, & Company, Limited, n.d.), 695.
Decretive terminology appears throughout the vision of the seventy weeks (including the opening and closing clauses—Dan.9:24, 27) identifying the various events as the consequences of sovereign divine determination. The dominant picture is that of the Lord as “the great and fearful God who keeps covenant” (Dan 9:4). He executes the curse sanctions of the Torah covenant of works; hence unfaithful Jerusalem is devastated, once and again (cf. Dan 9:12, 27). But he also unfailingly proves himself to be the covenant-keeping God in bringing to pass the promised blessing sanctions of the Covenant of Grace.
And so before the old Jerusalem suffers its final devastation, the promised Messiah-Ruler inaugurates the New Covenant.
Then in the course of the seventieth week, carrying out the divine decree, he brings his redeemed people into the fullness of their Jubilee inheritance. Both his terminating of the old order and his consummating of the new order proclaim the sovereignty of King Jesus, Māšîaḥ Nāgîd-anointed prince. Meredith G. Kline, God, Heaven and Har Magedon: A Covenantal Tale of Cosmos and Telos (Eugene, OR: Wipf & Stock Publishers, 2006), 154.
“So when you see standing in the holy place ‘the abomination that causes desolation,’ spoken of through the prophet Daniel—let the reader understand— Matthew 24:15 TNIV
The abomination of desolation.
These words relate to that passage of Daniel 9:27, which I would render thus; “In the middle of that week,” namely, the last of the seventy, “he shall cause the sacrifice and oblation to cease, even until the wing or army of abomination shall make desolate,”; or, even by the wing of abominations making desolate. wing is an army, Isa. 8:8: and in that sense Luke 21:20 rendered these words, “when you shall see Jerusalem compassed about with an army,” Let him that reads understand.
This is not spoken so much for the obscurity as for the certainty of the prophecy: as if he should say, “He that reads those words in Daniel, let him mind well that when the army of the prince which is to come, that army of abominations, shall compass round Jerusalem with a siege, then most certain destruction hangs over it; for, saith Daniel, ‘the people of the prince that shall come shall destroy the city, and the sanctuary,’ And the army of abominations shall make desolate even until the consummation, and that which is determined shall be poured out upon the desolate. Daniel 9:26.’
Flatter not yourselves, therefore, with vain hopes, either of future victory, or of the retreating of that army, but provide for yourselves; and he that is in Judea, let him fly to the hills and places of most difficult access, not into the city.” See how Luke clearly speaks out this sense in the twentieth verse of the one-and-twentieth chapter. John Lightfoot, A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica, Matthew-1 Corinthians, Matthew-Mark, vol. 2 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 313–314.
Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted Mat. 24:9. To this relate those words of Peter, 1 Pet. 4:17, “The time is come that judgment must begin at the house of God;” that is, the time foretold by our Savior is now at hand, in which we are to be delivered up to persecution. These words denote that persecution which the Jews, now near their ruin, stirred up almost everywhere against the professors of the gospel. They had indeed oppressed them hitherto on all sides, as far as they could, with slanders, rapines, whippings, stripes,. which these and such like places testify; (1 Thess. 2:14, 15; Heb. 10:33),
But there was something that put a rub in their way, that, as yet, they could not proceed to the utmost cruelty; “And now you know what withhold-restraining; 2 Thess. 2:6” which, I suppose, is to be understood of Claudius enraged at and curbing in the Jews Acts 18:2. Who being taken out of the way, and Nero, after his first five years, suffering all things to be turned topsy turvy, the Jews now breathing their last (and Satan therefore breathing his last effects in them, because their time was short), they broke out into slaughter beyond measure, and into a most bloody persecution: which I wonder is not set in the front of the ten persecutions by ecclesiastical writers.
This is called by Peter (who himself also at last suffered in it) a fiery trial 1 Pet. 4:12; by Christ, dictating the epistles to the seven churches, tribulation for ten days Rev. 2:10; and the hour of temptation, which shall come upon all the world of Christians Rev. 3:10. And this is “the revelation of that wicked one” St. Paul speaks of, now in lively, that is, in bloody colors, openly declaring himself Antichrist 2 Thess. 2:8, the enemy of Christ.
In that persecution James suffered at Jerusalem, Peter in Babylon, and Antipas at Pergamos, and others, as it is probable, in not a few other places. Hence, (where the state of the Jewish nation is delivered under the type of six seals Rev. 6:11,12), they are slain, who were to be slain for the testimony of the gospel under the fifth seal; and immediately under the sixth followed the ruin of the nation. John Lightfoot, A Commentary on the New Testament from the Talmud and Hebraica, Matthew-1 Corinthians, Matthew-Mark, vol. 2 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 312–313.
Andreas, bishop of Caesarea in Cappadocia, (of an uncertain age, but probably near the commencement of the sixth century), in his Greek Commentary on the Apocalypse which is still extant, says, in his remarks on Rev. 6:12,
that there are not wanting those who apply this passage to the siege and destruction of Jerusalem by Titus;
but at the same time he gives his own opinion, that it is rather to be applied to the coming of Antichrist, etc. Again on Rev. 7:1 he says: “These things are referred by some to those sufferings which were inflicted by the Romans upon the Jews;” but he gives his opinion again, that they may with more propriety be referred to the coming of Antichrist.
And so (on Rev. 7:2) he also says: “Although these things happened in part to Jewish Christians, who escaped the evils inflicted on Jerusalem by the Romans, yet they more probably refer to Antichrist,’ etc. in which there appears to be somewhat of inconsistency, or at least of adopting a double meaning.
It is plain, then, from what Andreas says in these passages, that in his time there was one class of interpreters, who referred a part of the Apocalypse to the destruction of Jerusalem, and of course believed that this book was composed before that event took place.
Arethas, the successor of Andreas in office, who lived near the middle of the sixth century, has also left behind him a Greek commentary on the Apocalypse, which consists of little more than extracts from Andreas and other expositors. In his remarks on Rev. 1:9 he says: “That John was banished to the isle of Patmos under Domitian, Eusebius alleges in his Chronicon.” He does not appear to give his own opinion here.
On Rev. 6:12 he says: ‘Some refer this to the siege of Jerusalem by Vespasian, interpreting all tropically.’ He then cites from Andreas, in order to show that many referred it to the time of Antichrist. But on Rev. 7:1, he appears to speak out his own opinion:
“Here then were manifestly shown to the Evangelist what things were to befall the Jews, in their war against the Romans, in the way of avenging the sufferings inflicted upon Christ.”
After averring that Josephus’ history accords with the fulfilment of these predictions, he further remarks, that “these things will still more evidently happen, near the coming of Antichrist.” Nothing is plainer, here, than that Arethas admitted a double sense of prophecy; and in accordance with this he might consistently find two fulfilments of a prediction, as he seems to have done.
Still, in order to do this, he must have supposed the Apocalypse to have been composed before the destruction of Jerusalem. But he is even more explicit still on Rev. 7:4, where he says: “When the Evangelist received these oracles, the destruction in which the Jews were involved, was not yet inflicted by the Romans.” There can be no doubt, therefore, what his own view was, of the time in which the Apocalypse must have been written. Moses Stuart, A Commentary on the Apocalypse, vol. 1 (Andover; New York: Allen, Morrill and Wardwell; M. H. Newman, 1845)
Taking the millennium as a future time period does massive violence to the narrative arc of Revelation. When the martyrs first cried out from beneath the altar, they were told that they had a little wait until their blood was avenged. During that little time, more martyrs died, 144,000 of them. Those martyrs have been harvested (Rev.14:17–20) and elevated above the firmament (Rev.15:1–4), and we will soon see them seated on thrones (Rev.20:4–6).
That completes the elevation that God promised to accomplish in a “short time.” If the millennium has not yet begun, then the martyrs of the fifth seal are not yet on thrones and have been waiting for nearly two millennia for their vindication. Check with your six-year-old, but I think it is reasonable to say: That hardly qualifies as a “little while.”
One might, of course, parry this objection by saying that the “little time” is symbolic: To the Lord a thousand years is as a day. That implies that time periods in Revelation need not be taken literally; if that is the case, then the millennium need not be taken literally either. More importantly, as noted above,
Revelation’s symbols work because the figures conform in some way to the realities they figure.
A sea beast is an appropriate symbol of Rome because Rome is bestial; a harlot is a fitting sign of Jerusalem because daughter Jerusalem lusted after other husbands and gods. A “little while” is not even a symbol, but if it is were, it would describe a short time period, as a thousand years figures a long time period.
One might also parry my objection by saying that the martyrs under the altar in the fifth seal are not early martyrs but the accumulated martyrs of the whole history of the church. That projects the entire book in a futurist direction, and effectively removes it from the concerns of the first century and the immediate theological, pastoral, and historical interests of the NT.
If Revelation is a book of the NT, it cannot be so unconcerned with first-century issues. Besides, that futurist reading only works if we fudge the literal time statements that begin and end the book: Things shortly to take place; I am coming quickly. Peter J. Leithart, Revelation, ed. Michael Allen and Scott R. Swain, vol. 2, The International Theological Commentary on the Holy Scripture of the Old and New Testaments (London; Oxford; New York; New Delhi; Sydney: Bloomsbury; Bloomsbury T&T Clark: An Imprint of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc, 2018), 309.
Fifth Trumpet: The Locusts from the Abyss
When he opened the fifth seal, I saw under the altar Rev 14:18; 16:7 the souls of those who had been slain because of the word of God and the testimony they had maintained. They called out in a loud voice, “How long, Sovereign Lord, 2 Pet. 2:1 holy and true, until you judge the inhabitants of the earth Rev 3:10 and avenge our blood?” (Rev 16:6; 18:20; 19:2) Then each of them was given a white robe, Rev 3:4 and they were told to wait a little longer, until the full number of their fellow servants and brothers and sisters were killed just as they had been. Heb 11:40
why would Peter urge people to suffer in this life for the sake of the gospel if he believed that mercy would be extended to all the dead in the hereafter
Here he is asked to resume the solemn prayers of his petition for the fallen lapsed when in heaven.
I watched as he opened the sixth seal. There was a great earthquake. Isa 29:6; Eze 38:19; Rev 8:5 The sun turned black Mt 24:29 like sackcloth made of goat hair, the whole moon turned blood red, and the stars in the sky fell to earth, as figs drop from a fig tree when shaken by a strong wind. The sky receded like a scroll, rolling up, and every mountain and island was removed from its place.
But it is much more likely that John is writing figuratively here, as in the earlier part of Chapter 6, where the opening of the first five seals leads in each case to a spiritual vision of the need for human justice, to be established by the divine. Moreover, the eschatological texts Mark 13:24–25 = Matt. 24:29 and Acts 2:20, which may have influenced the composition of this passage, like the Old Testament passages on which they depend are similarly figurative.
The cosmic happenings portrayed in verses Rev. 6:12-14, therefore, are metaphors of God’s judgement on the powers of evil which oppose his justice and goodness, and on the individuals who support those systems. According to Luke 23:30, Jesus applied this text to the impending fall of Jerusalem. ‘Hiding’ in guilt from the presence of the Lord is a biblical motif from the beginning of time (Gen. 3:8). Being buried by an earthquake, and under falling rocks, is better than facing divine judgement (cf. Nahum 1:5–6). Stephen S. Smalley, The Revelation to John: A Commentary on the Greek Text of the Apocalypse (London: SPCK, 2005), 168,169–170.
In reply to God’s judicial inquiry, I don’t know Gen.4:9. Cain, like Adam and Eve, was evasive and mendacious, so displaying further his likeness to the devil, father of lies (John 8:44). Your brother’s blood Gen.4:10. Cain could not hide his blood sacrifice to the devil in the ground any more than Adam and Eve could hide from God in the shadows. The cry of martyr Abel’s blood was heard in heaven (cf. Matt 23:35; Rev 6:10; Isa 26:21), as would be that of Christ, which called for pardon rather than vengeance (cf. Heb 12:24), though it too required vindication.
Cursed are you Gen.4:11. God identified Cain with Satan in cursedness Gen.3:14, though this curse was not yet the doom of hell but an aggravation of the common curse on fallen mankind previously announced to Adam and Eve Gen.3:16–19). On that earlier occasion, after the fall, the family was reinstituted; here the common grace institution of the state is promulgated. Meredith G. Kline, Genesis: A New Commentary, ed. Jonathan G. Kline (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, 2016), 25–26.
Then the kings of the earth, the princes, the generals, the rich, the mighty, and everyone else, both slave and free, Rev. 19:18 hid in caves and among the rocks of the mountains. Isa 2:10,19,21 They called to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us Hos 10:8; Lk 23:30 and hide us from the face of him who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb! For the great day ( Joel 1:15, Jl. 2:1,2,11,31; Zep 1:14,15; Rev 16:14 of their (Some manuscripts his) wrath has come, and who can withstand it?” Rev. 6:9–17 TNIV
With regard to the phrase, ‘which reigned over the kings of the earth,’—the fallacy which has misled many is the mistranslation ‘kings of the earth’. A very fruitful source of confusion and error in the interpretation of the New Testament is the capricious and uncertain way in which γῆ is rendered in our Authorized Version. Sometimes, though rarely, it has its proper meaning, the land; but more frequently it is translated the earth, and our translators never seem to have given themselves any trouble to inquire whether the word should be taken in its widest or in a more restricted sense.
With incredible carelessness they render,‘ all the kindreds of the earth,’ instead of ‘all the tribes of the land;’ and, ‘the vine of the earth,’ instead of ‘the vine of the land.’ So in the passage before us (Rev. 17:18), the ‘kings of the earth’ should be ‘kings of the land,’ i.e. Judea or Palestine.
This very phrase is used in the New Testament in the restricted sense of ‘the rulers of the land,’ by St. Peter in Acts 4:26, 27, ‘Of a truth against thy holy child Jesus, whom thou hast anointed, both Herod and Pontius Pilate, with the Gentiles, and the people of Israel were gathered together in this city,’ etc. and he recognizes this fact as the fulfilment of the prediction in the second Psalm, ‘Why did the heathen rage, and the people imagine vain things?
The kings of the land stood up, and the rulers were gathered together against the Lord, and against his anointed.’ The ‘kings of the land,’ therefore, are identified by the apostle Peter as the confederate rulers who put the Son of God to death in the city of Jerusalem.
So also in Rev. 6:15, where ‘the kings of the land’ are represented as hiding themselves from the face of Him that sits on the throne, in the great day of His wrath. The phrase, therefore, is equivalent to ‘the ruling authorities in the land of Judea,’ or of Palestine. James Stuart Russell, The Parousia: A Critical Inquiry into the New Testament Doctrine of Our Lord’s Second Coming (London: Daldy, Isbister & Co., 1878), 493–494.
The subject of ‘"the day of their wrath’ in Rev. 6:17 (q.v.) is uncertain, but seems to include both the Father and the Son. The expression ‘the wrath of the Lamb’, appears only here (verse 16) in Revelation. A parallel Greek word for ‘wrath’, with virtually the same meaning in the LXX and the New Testament, is θυμός (thymos-anger; wrath; indignation), which is used in Revelation in association with God (Rev.14:10, 19, 15:1.), but can also characterize the devil (Rev.12:12) and even Babylon (Rev.14:8,18:3). Stephen S. Smalley, The Revelation to John: A Commentary on the Greek Text of the Apocalypse (London: SPCK, 2005), 170.
Rosenstiehl, L’Apocalypse d’Élie, p. 80, sees the devil as the executive of God’s wrath against Sodom (fire) and against the sinners of Noah’s time (water). He also notes the imagery in Ex 15:4–7; Rev. 12:15; and Hos. 5:10, which is quoted in CD-B XIX 15-16.
They shall be visited for destruction by the hand of Satan. That shall be the day when God will visit Lk 19:44, 1:68. (MS. B: As He said,) The princes of Judah have become (MS. B: like those who remove the bound-boundary); wrath shall be poured upon them like water (Hos. 5:10). For they shall hope for healing but He will crush them. Geza Vermes, The Dead Sea Scrolls in English, Revised and extended 4th ed. (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1995), 103.
James H. Charlesworth, The Old Testament Pseudepigrapha, vol. 1 (New York; London: Yale University Press, 1983).
Because of Satan’s deception, the faithful are marginalized, subjugated, victimized, and many face martyrdom for failure to worship the beast.
separating the wheat from the chaff
Watch ye. A short exhortation, but of great weight. He exhorts them to watch, in order that Satan may not oppress them, finding them off their guard. For as the warfare is incessant, the watching requires to be incessant too.
Now watchfulness of spirit is this—when, free and disentangled from earthly cares, we meditate on the things of God.
For as the body is weighed down by surfeiting and drunkenness, (Luke 21:34,) so as to be fit for nothing, so the cares and lusts of the world, idleness or carelessness, are like a spiritual surfeiting that overpowers the mind. John Calvin and John Pringle, Commentaries on the Epistles of Paul the Apostle to the Corinthians, vol. 2 (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 2010), 76.
The confinement of Satan to the Abyss is not so much a punitive as a precautionary measure; so long as he is in the Abyss, he cannot deceive the nations, as he had been used to do. To mislead on a great scale is his business and raison d’être-reason for being; see Rev.12:9 the deceiver of the whole world, and cf. Jn. 8:44 You belong to your father, the Devil, and you want to do your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning and did not remain standing in the truth, because there is no truth in him. Whenever he lies, he speaks from what is his, because he is a liar and the father of lying.
Now his activity is checked for a season; the great malefactor is in custody, and there is no fear that he will break his prison while it lasts. Afterwards he must be released for a little while: μικρόν-little is relative, as in (John. 7:33, 12:35), Rev. 6:11—the release will be brief in comparison with the captivity. But short or long, it must come; there is a necessity for it (δεῖ-must), founded on some mystery of the Divine Will.
The Greek phrase ha dei genesthai (‘what must happen’) is used in John’s opening sentence
‘The revelation of Jesus Christ, which God gave him to show his servants what must soon take place’
and is repeated in (Rev.1:19, 4:1, 22:6). Beale argues that this divides the book into four sections and that John’s replacement of ‘end of days’ with ‘soon’ means that ‘what Daniel expected to occur in the distant future, the defeat of cosmic evil and ushering in of the kingdom, John expects to begin in his own generation, and perhaps has already been inaugurated (1999, p. 115). Steve Moyise, The Old Testament in the New: An Introduction, T&T Clark Approaches to Biblical Studies (London: T&T Clark International, 2001), 122.
This use of δεῖ-must, frequent in the N.T. (Mt. 24:6, 26:54, Mk. 8:31, 9:11, 13:7, Lk. 24:26, 24:44, Jn. 12:34, 20:9, Acts 17:3, 23:11); in this book, (Rev. 1:1, 4:1, 11:5, 13:10, 17:11) occurs first in the versions of (Daniel 2:28, 2:45) But there exists a God in the heavens who reveals mysteries, who has made known to King Nebuchadnezzar things that must take place at the end of days, and he who reveals mysteries showed to you things that are bound to take place. Dan. 2:28–29 LXX where "what must come to pass" = "that which is to be."
It is in vain to speculate on the grounds of this necessity, but it may be that the Christian nations which have long acquiesced in the faith without conviction will need to be sifted before the end; cf. Lk. 22:31 Satan has asked to sift all of you as wheat. A short exposure to the stress of Satan’s ἐνέργεια πλάνης-powerful delusion (2 Th. 2:11) may suffice to separate the wheat from the chaff. Henry Barclay Swete, ed., The Apocalypse of St. John, 2d. ed., Classic Commentaries on the Greek New Testament (New York: The Macmillan Company, 1906), 257–258.
[Iranian eschatology tells of the serpent Azki Dahaka that is chained but is set free at the end of days. Jewish apocalyptic tells similarly of the chaining and imprisonment of demonic powers (e.g., Isa. 24:21–23. 1 Enoch 18:13–16; 21:6–10; (T. Levi. 18:12 ) Apoc. Bar. 40...Here the underworld is seen not as a place of punishment but rather as a place of banishment.
Corresponding to the three-tiered view of the universe that is standard for Revelation, it is the realm beneath the solid surface of the earth that because of its darkness and dismal nature was offered forever as the home of demonic powers (cf. Rev. 9:1; 17:8). Jürgen Roloff, A Continental Commentary: The Revelation of John (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 1993), 226.]
It is wrong to picture the devil being “cast out of the earth” in some spatial sense, so that he is no longer present on earth. This would be to take “abyss” in an overly literalistic manner. Rather, like “heaven” throughout the Apocalypse, it represents a spiritual dimension existing alongside and in the midst of the earthly, not above it or below (as with, e.g., the heavenly sphere in 2 Kgs. 6:15–17 and the Satanic sphere in Eph. 6:10–17; cf. 2 Cor. 10:3–5).
Rev. 6:8 can even picture the region of “death and Hades” (= the abyss) riding throughout the earth to cause destruction. The abyss is one of the various metaphors representing the spiritual sphere in which the devil and his accomplices operate. G. K. Beale, The Book of Revelation: A Commentary on the Greek Text, New International Greek Testament Commentary (Grand Rapids, MI; Carlisle, Cumbria: W.B. Eerdmans; Paternoster Press, 1999), 987.
An angel seals the of servants of God The Church on Earth
And after these things I saw four messengers, standing upon the four corners of the land, holding the four winds of the land, that the wind may not blow upon the land, nor upon the sea, nor upon any tree; and I saw another messenger going up from the rising of the sun, having a seal of the living God, and he did cry with a great voice to the four messengers, to whom it was given to injure the land and the sea, saying, ‘Do not injure the land, nor the sea, nor the trees, till we may seal the servants of our God upon their foreheads.’ (Cp. Matt. 24:31; Luke 21:19; Jer. 49:36; Da 7:2; Ezek. 9:4–6; Eze. 7:2; Eze. 37:9; Zech. 6:5.) Robert Young, Young’s Literal Translation (Bellingham, WA: Logos Bible Software, 1997), Rev 7:1–3 YLT
In Rev. 16:19 it is stated that ‘the great city’ was divided into three parts by the unprecedented earthquake mentioned in Rev. 16:18. What great city? Evidently great Babylon, which is said to come in remembrance before God. Possibly the division of the city may have no special significance beyond the illustration of the disastrous effect of the earthquake; but more probably it is an allusion to the figure employed by the prophet Ezekiel in describing the siege of Jerusalem. (Ezek. 5:1–5.)
The prophet is commanded to take the hairs of his head and beard, and, dividing them into three parts, to burn one part with fire, to cut another with a knife, and to scatter the third to the four winds, drawing out a sword after them; while only a few hairs were to be preserved, and bound in the skirt of his garment. Then follows the emphatic declaration,—‘Thus saith the Lord God, This is Jerusalem.’ James Stuart Russell, The Parousia: A Critical Inquiry into the New Testament Doctrine of Our Lord’s Second Coming (London: Daldy, Isbister & Co., 1878), 487–488.
That is, after the sixth seal was broken open. Judgment is temporarily held back by these four angels of mercy. This mighty angel has more authority than the four (the number for worldwide or universality) who would damage the earth, sea, and trees. It is the angel carrying the seal of God that speaks of God’s grace and mercy, which will always triumph over judgment (James 2:13). The seal on their foreheads is the mind of Christ, the mark of the Christ. The winds of judgment are being held back until the sons of God have the thoughts and mind of Christ.
To be “sealed” means to be protected from judgment (Ezek. 9:4–6). The seal of lamb’s blood on the doors of the Israelites protected them from the death angel. The new covenant seal is the Holy Spirit (the mind of Christ) that opens our hearts to the restoration of heaven. We are the seven-sealed scroll that is broken open so that the all-conquering life of Christ will subdue all things (Phil. 3:21). We are living letters, written not with ink but by the Spirit of God writing truth upon our hearts. In the volume of the book (scroll) it is written about Christ (Psa. 40:7). Brian Simmons, trans., The Passion Translation (BroadStreet Publishing, 2017).
And from there I proceeded to the north, at the ends of the earth, and there I saw great and glorious wonders at the ends of the whole earth. 2/ There I saw three gates of heaven open in heaven. From them the winds in the north emerge. When they blow, (there is) cold and hail and hoarfrost and snow and dew and rain. 3/ Through one gate they blow for good, and when they blow through two of the gates, they blow with violence, and there is affliction on the earth. (Dan 7:2; 8:8; 11:4; Zech. 2:6; 6:5 cp. Matt.24:31) George W. E. Nickelsburg and James C. VanderKam, 1 Enoch: The Hermeneia Translation (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2012), 49.
1 Enoch 76:1–14 describes the twelve gates through which come the winds from the four directions; through four of those gates come good winds, and through eight come winds of punishment. 4 Ezra 8:22 indicates that angels are changed to wind and fire at the command of God (probably based on Ps 104:4, quoted in Heb 1:7), and 1QH 1:10–11 speaks of the winds as “angels of holiness.” David E. Aune, Revelation 6–16, vol. 52B, Word Biblical Commentary (Dallas: Word, Incorporated, 1998), 450–451.
The Dead Sea sect expected that the End of Days would soon dawn. Their apocalyptic, messianic tendencies led them to develop a body of literature outlining the eschatological battle that would usher in the final age. The War Scroll presents a very schematized view of these battles: The sectarians are the Sons of Light, destined to emerge victorious in the End of Days.
The place of their exile before this battle is called “the desert of the peoples. cp. Rev. 12:6,14”
The nations, on the other hand, are grouped with the Sons of Darkness, including also those Jews whose behavior has revealed that they are not predestined to be among the Sons of Light but are to be assigned to the lot of Belial.
No remnant of these evil nations is to survive in the End of Days. Lawrence H. Schiffman and Chaim Potok, Reclaiming the Dead Sea Scrolls: The History of Judaism, the Background of Christianity, the Lost Library of Qumran (New Haven; London: Yale University Press, 1994), 380–381.
“This is,” it says, “the first resurrection,” clearly that of faith.
“Do not fear those who kill the body; rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.”
His reign is shared by his people who, in their uncompromised faithfulness to him, have laid down their lives
Let it be understood that it is not by techniques, but by the redemptive death of Jesus and the ongoing preaching of the cross, that the devil is defeated and bound.
Kline had little patience for those outside the recapitulationist camp who maintained that the visions from Rev. 4:1 forward are to be understood as chronologically successive. He clamored, “Futurists who claim that Rev. 4:1 on deals with the final segments of this age only, usually torture the seven letters into the form of an historical succession leading up to the end, but to no avail.”
Rather, the textual fact is that the climaxes to the seals, trumpets, and bowls series all picture the end of the gospel age.
Consequently, the visions are not chronologically successive, but parallel in their temporal scope.
Kline proceeded to show exegetically how each of the major divisions from Revelation 4:1 onward pictures the end of history.
The Seven Seals, Revelation 4:1–8:1
In the “Seven Seals” division, Revelation 4:1-8:1, Kline maintained that the seals reach the end of the age already in the sixth seal, Revelation 6:12-17. The biblical understanding of “great day” in Revelation 6:17 confirms this deduction. When the Old Testament prophets Joel and Malachi, and in the New Testament the Apostle Paul, refer to “the great day,” the consummation of all things is in view.[ See, Joel 2:10–11, Mal. 4:1, and 1 Thess. 5:2–3.]
Against those who argue that Revelation 6:17 points to national-societal decay toward the end, but does not reference the end of history itself, Kline said, “Fatal to this is the obvious fact that Rev. 6:17 is no longer in the first person as Rev. 6:16’s ‘Fall on us, and hide us.’ It is the inspired comment of the Seer on what has preceded, and cannot possibly be construed as the mistaken notion of the terror or conscience-stricken.”
As there was no exegetical escape from interpreting “great day” in a non-climactic fashion, Kline declared emphatically that “the case for the non-recapitulationist absolutely breaks on Revelation 6:17.”[Ibid. Kline at this point added an observation that would mark both his understanding of Revelation and his theological writings as a whole. He stated that the characteristic of wrath seen in Rev. 6:12–17 is not appropriate during the time when the sincere offer of salvation in the Lamb slain is being made to sinners. It is appropriate at the end of history when the day of salvation is past and those who have rejected the Lamb receive their due.]
Since the sixth seal introduces the great day of God’s wrath, Kline then asked, “what are we to expect in the seventh seal?” According to Kline, how one answers this question is “probably the most crucial single point of the book for an understanding of the structure.”
Silence, The great preparatory dispensation of Judaism had now reached its end. “It was not heathen Babylon, idolatrous Tyre and Sidon, that had fallen with a fall so fearful. It was Jerusalem and there was silence; the silence of awe and amazement at the sight” (Dr. J. Brown). The sounding of the seven trumpets recalls the story of God’s judgement of ancient Jericho (Josh. 6). Richard Francis Weymouth, The New Testament in Modern Speech: An Idiomatic Translation into Everyday English from the Text of “The Resultant Greek Testament”: Commentary, ed. Ernest Hampden-Cook (London: James Clarke and Co., 1903), 646.
In answering the question, Kline turned to Frederick Düsterdieck as a foil. Düsterdieck, a nineteenth-century Tubingen scholar who had written an influential commentary on Revelation, advocated a telescopic structure of Revelation where the seals, trumpets, and bowls series evolved out of the preceding series.
He reasoned that if the seventh seal was limited to Revelation 8:1 (“there followed a silence in heaven about the space of half an hour”) as the recapitulation reading maintained, then the expectation of a final catastrophe following the events of the sixth seal is not met. This expectation is met, however, if the trumpet series and the rest of Revelation flow out of the seventh seal.
Against Frederick Düsterdieck's proposal, Kline responded that the sixth seal does not lead to the expectation of a final catastrophe. Rather, it is the final catastrophe. “Beyond the cosmical cataclysm and the unspeakable terror of eternally lost souls in the presence of the wrathful Lamb and the throne of God revealed in the sixth seal, what final catastrophe is there that needs to be considered with any fulness of contents?”
Moreover, Kline believed objections from Düsterdieck and others that the “silence” of Revelation 8:1 cannot be the content of the seventh seal were misguided. Thundering noise is symbolic in Scripture for God’s judgments going forth; silence in Scripture stands for God’s judgments completed.[Kline noted that the wicked in Isa. 47:5 and 1 Sam. 2:9 are assigned to the silence of darkness, consequent to the vengeance of God. Ibid.]
Kline said, “Surely if we put ourselves in the Seer’s place in the midst of these tremendous visions and especially at this point when the air has just been filled with the shrieks of the lost and praises of the saints, we must acknowledge that a period that seemed like an half-hour of purest silence would make and leave an indelible impression.” The proper interpretation of the cycle of the seals is that it brings the reader to the judgment at the sixth seal and into the eternal state in the silence of the seventh seal.
Kline allowed the Scottish theologian Patrick Fairborn, principle of Free Church College, Glasgow, to have the last word on the meaning of the silence in Revelation 8:1. Quoting Fairborn, Kline wrote,
“The struggle of conflict is over, the noise and tumult of war have ceased, and the whole field lies prostrate before the one sovereign and undisputed Lord.”
For the Jews after the ascension of our Savior, in addition to their crime against him, had been devising as many plots as they could against his apostles. First Stephen was stoned to death by them, Acts 7:8 and after him James, the son of Zebedee and the brother of John, was beheaded, Acts 12:2 and finally James, the first that had obtained the episcopal seat in Jerusalem after the ascension of our Savior, died in the manner already described.
But the rest of the apostles, who had been incessantly plotted against with a view to their destruction, and had been driven out of the land of Judea, went unto all nations to preach the Gospel, relying upon the power of Christ, who had said to them, “Go ye and make disciples of all the nations in my name.” Matt. 28:19
But the people of the church in Jerusalem had been commanded by a revelation, vouchsafed to approved men there before the war, to leave the city and to dwell in a certain town of Perea called Pella. (Pella was a town situated beyond the Jordan, in the north of Perea, within the dominions of Herod Agrippa II. The surrounding population was chiefly Gentile. Epiphanius also records this flight of the Christians to Pella.)
And when those that believed in Christ had come thither from Jerusalem, then, as if the royal city of the Jews and the whole land of Judea were entirely destitute of holy men, the judgment of God at length overtook those who had committed such outrages against Christ and his apostles, and totally destroyed that generation of impious men.
But the number of calamities which everywhere fell upon the nation at that time, the extreme misfortunes to which the inhabitants of Judea were especially subjected, the thousands of men, as well as women and children, that perished by the sword, by famine, and by other forms of death innumerable,—all these things, as well as the many great sieges which were carried on against the cities of Judea, and the excessive sufferings endured by those that fled to Jerusalem itself, as to a city of perfect safety, and finally the general course of the whole war, as well as its particular occurrences in detail, and how at last the abomination of desolation, proclaimed by the prophets, Dan. 9:27 stood in the very temple of God, so celebrated of old, the temple which was now awaiting its total and final destruction by fire,—all these things any one that wishes may find accurately described in the history written by Josephus.
Eusebius of Caesaria, “The Church History of Eusebius,” in Eusebius: Church History, Life of Constantine the Great, and Oration in Praise of Constantine, ed. Philip Schaff and Henry Wace, trans. Arthur Cushman McGiffert, vol. 1, A Select Library of the Nicene and Post-Nicene Fathers of the Christian Church, Second Series (New York: Christian Literature Company, 1890), 138.
Be silent, all flesh, before the LORD, for he has roused himself from his holy dwelling.
The messianic Angel announces imminent divine action (Zech. 2:13 ), a decisive intervention ending the delay that had prompted his earlier plea of “How long?” (cf. Zech. 1:12). He heralds the advent of the Lord, appearing from his heavenly throne (cf. Deut. 26:15; Hab. 2:20a; Psa. 11:4), his zeal stirred up like a man of war to do battle against his enemies (cf. Isa. 42:13; 51:9; Judg. 5:12).
So, hush! Silence, all flesh (Zech. 2:13a ). The summons sounds and the kings of the earth shut their mouths, speechless, awe-struck before the exalted Servant (Isa. 52:15b). His mission is authenticated as divine, for they, Gentiles deceived by the devil, now hear and understand what had been unheard of, what the prince of darkness had kept from them, the gospel tidings of peace with God through the sacrifice and intercession of this amazing Servant. He has come and overcome Beelzebub. He has rescued the prey from many nations.
He has been exalted and his claim to be Christ, sent forth by the Lord of hosts, has been validated (Isa 52:13–53:12).
Hush! Silence, all flesh before Yahweh. The day of the Lord is at hand (cf. Hab. 2:20b; Zeph. 1:7; Rev 8:1). “This is the day in which the Lord is up and doing; let us be glad and rejoice in him” (Ps 118:24; cf. Mal. 3:17; 4:3 ). Meredith G. Kline, Glory in Our Midst: A Biblical-Theological Reading of Zechariah’s Night Visions (Eugene, OR: Wipf and Stock Publishers, 2001), 91–92.
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