15Then the seventh angel blew his trumpet, and there were loud voices shouting in heaven: “The world has now become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.”
16The twenty-four elders sitting on their thrones before God fell with their faces to the ground and worshiped him. 17And they said, “We give thanks to you, Lord God, the Almighty, the one who is and who always was, for now you have assumed your great power and have begun to reign. 18The nations were filled with anger, but now the time of your wrath has come. It is time to judge the dead and reward your servants the prophets, as well as your holy people, and all who fear your name, from the least to the greatest. It is time to destroy all who have caused destruction on the earth.”
19Then, in heaven, the Temple of God was opened and the Ark of his covenant could be seen inside the Temple. Lightning flashed, thunder crashed and roared, and there was an earthquake and a terrible hailstorm.
Revelation 11:15-19
A bridge to nowhere, really? Did you take some time to investigate this passage? Do you have questions of your own? No one yet has come back to me with questions or queries or even opinions. Perhaps this is just too hard for you to comment on off the top of your head. If Revelation is a book you have hardly ever opened, then you are unlikely to have opinions about it. One friend from my Wycliffe past wrote:
“I love it – don’t stop gemming. It tells me that God does not lie. The future is sorted and glorious. And mine/ours is to be faithful through thick and thin (Just as we are in fact reading from John). This morning’s reading included 2 Chronicles 15:1-7. Does it sound familiar? God always has a voice and sometimes the voice has to repeat the same things a lot because we keep forgetting. I love the wee gems like the use of tenses to underline that when God says it, it is as good as done. How coooool.”
Chris
Notice the verse, before this section in our sights at the moment.
The second terror is past, but look, the third terror is coming quickly.
Revelation 11:14
That one concluding verse takes us back to what preceded the interlude, namely Revelation 10:1-11:13. Revelation 9:21 is the concluding verse of the Blowing of the Sixth Trumpet, where we left a totally unrepentant humanity surviving by the skin of their teeth. Now we pick up the narrative again with the blowing of the Seventh Trumpet. So we are back on track again with the extended narrative after the long pause.
But do you notice what’s missing?
Were you left wondering where is the third terror? John has us expecting it. The way he has drawn out the narrative has had us on tenterhooks. Have you wondered in response to my question in the last Gem – where would you edit this Bridge? Does it include Revelation 11:14? No, I don’t think so. That verse is rightly the summary closing statement of what went before it.
Does this ‘Bridge’ include Revelation 11:19 as the closing verse of the ‘Bridge’ or does that belong with the following vision of The Woman and the Dragon and Satan Thrown Down to Earth? I don’t think so. I believe it provides a fitting conclusion for this Bridge, but I will leave you to come up with you own conclusion. There are a number of Bible experts and commentators who believe it should open Chapter 12. I disagree.
What do you think about the description – It is a bridge to nowhere? In other words, this section is purposeless and leads nowhere. Why did John even write it? Some experts conclude as I have just described. I have taken the words right out of their mouths, or off the tip of their pens. Oh there’s more believe me. David E. Aune who wrote three volumes in the Word Biblical Commentary series on Revelation 11:15-19
- 52A – Revelation 1-5 Published 1997
- 52B – Revelation 6-16 Published 1998
- 52C – Revelation 17-22 Published 1998
wrote the following related to this passage before us.
- Revelation 11:15-18 forms a short isolated, anticlimactic continuation of 8:1-9:21
- Not very carefully integrated into the overarching compositional plan.
- By separating 11:3-14 from 11:19-12:17 the author has partially obscured the lack of connection that exists between the two units. [Aune: Page 635)
I strongly disagree and furthermore, Aune lists his problems with the order of the hymn of praise [11:17-18], claiming it is out of chronological order, an order which follows straight from the text of Revelation 11:17-18:
- God has begun to reign.
- Hostile nations of the world are angry.
- The time of judgement has come.
- The righteous are rewarded.
- The destroyers of the earth are destroyed. (Aune: 363 after Jorns]
Yet Aune defines the order entirely differently after another critic, Jorns. I won’t go into a complex analysis of what Aune or Jorns are proposing but rather suggest that any clumsiness is not due to John! Often I find commentators get hung up on some little feature they end up over-analysing rather than accepting the Word of God. My point is, don’t conclude that John’s account is anticlimactic, not carefully integrated or obscuring connections because John has an order which the commentators find in error. I think this bridge is more exact than what Aune suggests. Don’t forget that John is using the prophetic perfect again.
Not only that, John has likely written “He has begun to reign” as what I would call an inceptive aorist; what Aune calls an ingressive aorist. Suffice to say the use of the verbal tenses in this passage are complicated. But I think there is a more logical sequence to the events. Aune has a problem with God beginning to reign, after which hostile nations are angry, followed by judgement coming, righteous rewarded and the destroyers of earth destroyed. That sequence appears to offend Aune’s sense of order here. How can God’s kingdom begin to reign and then hostile nations enraged and judgement come?
Stop and pause to consider what Romans 1:18 tells us in conjunction with 1:24, 1:26 and 1:28.
The wrath of God is being revealed from heaven against all the godlessness and wickedness of people, who suppress the truth by their wickedness,
Romans 1:18
Therefore God gave them over in the sinful desires of their hearts to sexual impurity for the degrading of their bodies with one another.
Romans 1:24
Because of this, God gave them over to shameful lusts. Even their women exchanged natural sexual relations for unnatural ones.
Romans 1:26
Furthermore, just as they did not think it worthwhile to retain the knowledge of God, so God gave them over to a depraved mind, so that they do what ought not to be done.
Romans 1:28
Paul wrote in his time that God’s wrath was being revealed from heaven. [Present continuous passive tense] How is that possible? Simple, God gave them over, repeated three times. God reigning and mankind expressing anger / enraged, God demonstrating His wrath before judgement comes, prior to final judgement is the natural order of it happening. I would claim John has got it right; it does not need to be rejigged in some tricky way by commentators to fit a natural chronological order. It fits a natural order anyway. Paul makes that clear in Romans Chapter one. God’s wrath is shown when He takes His hands off mankind or an individual and allows them to go their own rebellious way. God lets them descend the slippery slope until they themselves realise they have reached rock bottom and there is no other way but up. I am seeing that at the moment in two cases of rebellious children I am aware of. Many times parents have to say, “Fine, you do what you want to do. You’re on your own until you learn the error of your ways. God does the same thing!
My suggestion is not to sit in judgement over the Word of God before we really understand what is being said first. I don’t believe John is making this up on his own. Surely the things he has seen and the things he has heard have come through the revelation of Christ. After all, John heard firstly the loud voices in heaven shouting the enigmatic statement,
“The world has now become the Kingdom of our Lord and of his Christ, and he will reign forever and ever.”
This statement came from heaven. Following which we have the sequence set by the 24 elders in heaven singing the hymn:
- You have begun to reign.
- The nations were filled with anger
- the time of your wrath has come.
- It is time to judge the dead
- reward your servants the prophets and your holy people,
- (and all who fear your name, from the least to the greatest.)
- It is time to destroy all who have caused destruction on the earth.
That order was not set by John. It was heard and reported by John. I don’t think we have to find an artificial way to change the order. It is perfectly natural as it is, even though it may include some anomalies. We have to be wise enough to interpret what deep truths are being stated here. But also we have to understand once more the nature of the Greek verbal tenses. How on earth can God have begun to reign at this point? Has there ever been a time when God has not been reigning or in control? You have to answer that question with an emphatic “No!” God has always been reigning or in control, but yes there have been times when He has stepped back and taken His hands off and let the nations do their worst. Witnessed in the times of the despotic Roman emperors and in the centuries of conquest subsequent to that. [Already explained in these Gems’] But God’s people have always had a remnant standing firm and persevering. Now in these times which likely lie ahead of us, and certainly lay ahead of the churches in John’s day, God’s wrath would be manifest and judgement would come.
What about this inceptive aorist verb found in 11:17b :-
“now you have assumed your great power and have begun to reign“
The inceptive aorist is used when at a point in time in the past something began to operate which extends to a future point in time. I.e. that was the moment of its inception, thus an inceptive aorist. Why would John use that verbal feature? Because that is the moment when God’s kingdom truly began to be made clear. But still it had not come in its fullness because every knee has not yet bowed in submission to Christ’s rule. Neither has every tongue confessed that He is LORD. That will only come at the moment of His appearing – at His Parousia.
When does a king’s rule come into effect? When all of his subjects are in submission to him. Witness what is happening in England with King Charles, where you have a sector of the populace who shout, “Not my King!” That is why Jesus can say the Kingdom of God is coming, near, at hand, here already. The Kingdom truly comes when all subjects are bowed. But clearly not all subjects are bowed and won’t be until every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is LORD. Are you getting it? Are you bowed in submission to Christ? Is He your LORD?
I only have a couple more pieces of detailed analysis to spring on you. One relates to the reference to small and great // great and small. The other has to do with why verse 11:19 should be the capstone on chapter 11 and not held over to begin chapter 12. But I will deal with those elements in the next Gem when you are fresh and ready to understand them. I am picking there will be questions or challenges coming from this Gem as well. So go ahead and throw your questions or requests for clarification at me.
Be wise, don’t sit in judgement over the Word of God; let the Word of God judge you.
Ian
Realise that we may not fully understand what is written in the Word of God yet. We don’t yet know as we are fully known.
Ian
My 701 Deeper Biblers now know but not yet in fullness that the Word of God is made up of layer upon layer of subtlety and awe and wonder.
Ian
If you study the Word of God and it doesn’t lead you to awe and wonder then you haven’t studied the Word of God.
Rob Bell
I pray you may have a God-inspired glimpse of the grandeur of His Word that leads you to awe and wonder and worship, not lead you off the rails as it did to Rob Bell!
Ian