1Then I saw in heaven another marvellous event of great significance, seven angels holding the seven last plagues, which would bring God’s wrath to completion.
2I saw what seemed like a glass sea mixed with fire and on it stood all the people who had been victorious over the beast and his statue and the number representing his name, they were all holding harps that God had given them.
3They sang the song of Moses, the servant of God, and the song of the Lamb: “Great and marvellous are your works, O Lord God, the Almighty, just and true are your ways, O King of the nations 4for who will not fear you, Lord, and glorify your name, for you alone are holy, because all the nations will come and worship before you, because your righteous deeds have been revealed”; 5after which I looked and beheld the Temple in heaven, God’s Tabernacle, was wide open, 6seven angels clothed in spotless white linen with gold sashes across their chests, who were holding the seven plagues brought forth from the Temple.
7One of the four living beings handed each of the seven angels a gold bowl filled with the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever. 8The Temple was filled with the smoke of God’s glory and power so that no one could enter the Temple until the seven angels had completed pouring out the seven plagues.
Revelation 15:1-8
The power and the stark contrast of this chapter of Revelation is remarkable. I am awed by John’s presentation of the contrasting realities and his skill in pulling the pieces together. I have given you most of the pieces but there are more to come. I don’t know how to ensure all the details are included in the summary. There are just too many parts of this passage, let alone the long Greek sentence (Rev 15:3-6) to consider as one combined statement and there are more aspects yet to draw your attention to. But I am also aware that what I gave you in the previous Gem was probably overwhelming. I have had some people say that the last Gem, in the way I presented it, was depressing. I agree the four quotes I used at the end were hard to take. But isn’t that the grim reality of what John has laid before us all? In fact when I came to add those quotes to social media at the time of posting, I only posted two of the four. It just felt overwhelming; for I guess that is exactly what it is. John is showing us the stark difference between two inevitable outcomes.
You either sing with the saints or suffer the fate of the faithless; it is that clear! The way John has placed these two options side by side is nothing short of brilliant. But I think that is the way the Spirit of God inspired this short chapter to be constructed. It is all so stark and challenging in its simplicity. The end comes quickly after a long series of pauses and delays. Suddenly it is time for judgement and there is now no more opportunity for any reprieves or second chances. The door into heaven is closed, the window is open so to speak, we can see the Ark and the Mercy Seat, but the way is barred; the time for repentance is over. How can God be so harsh? How can judgement come so suddenly, from such a loving God? As one person has asked me, “How can God judge so harshly?” My answer to that question is ‘How can He not judge?’
Allow me to add some more detail for you to this astounding passage. We have this perfectly appropriate song in the midst of pending chaos. John has plucked this song from his own Old Testament – The TANAKH (John’s Septuagint) – [the Law, the Prophets and the Writings]. It’s the perfect song, created from all three sections of the Word of God from a Hebrew perspective which John uses to sum it all up. [Look at Gem 2332 again, where I laid out the Song of the Lamb (Rev 15:3-4) with the sources in red.
I have told you there are two questions which have been hanging over our heads since chapter 6.
They shouted to the Lord and said, “O Sovereign Lord, holy and true, how long before you judge the people who belong to this world and avenge our blood for what they have done to us?”
Revelation 6:10
And they cried to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb. For the great day of their wrath has come, and who is able to survive?”
Revelation 6:16-17
Did you pick up the hint to those two questions from the line in the Song of the Lamb:
Who will not fear You LORD and glorify Your Name?
Revelation 15:4a
Do you see the source of that line? A combination of Jeremiah and a psalm – [The Prophets and the Writings]. The perfect foil or pointer back to the questions left hanging from Revelation 6. “How long O LORD before You judge the people who belong to this world and avenge our blood for what they have done to us?” [Rev 6:10] “Who is able to survive the wrath of the One Who sits on the Throne and the Lamb?” [Rev 6:17] Those questions hang over the head of every person who has ever lived on the face of the earth. “For it is appointed to mankind once to die and after that comes judgement.” [Hebrews 9:27] This is so brilliant and so subtle all at the same time. All nations will come and worship before You, for Your righteous deeds have been revealed. Or it could read “your righteousness has been revealed in Jesus Christ” as a parallel to Romans 3:21. [Ah, there’s the mention of the Law, the Prophets and the Writings again.] Hence John seeing and hearing the reference to the Tribes, Languages, People and Nations and referring to them multiple times (7) in the context of Revelation. (See the Table in Gem 2245)
That is not the only thing that has been mentioned multiple times.
Multiple Pauses and Delays (8)
“Wait! Don’t harm the land or the sea or the trees until we have placed the seal of God on the foreheads of his servants.”
Revelation 7:3
When the Lamb broke the seventh seal on the scroll, there was silence throughout heaven for about half an hour.
Revelation 8:1
4When the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write. But I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Keep secret what the seven thunders said, and do not write it down.”
5Then the angel I saw standing on the sea and on the land raised his right hand toward heaven. 6He swore an oath in the name of the one who lives forever and ever, who created the heavens and everything in them, the earth and everything in it, and the sea and everything in it. He said, “There will be no more delay. 7When the seventh angel blows his trumpet, God’s mysterious plan will be fulfilled. It will happen just as he announced it to his servants the prophets.”
Revelation 10:4-7
10So I took the small scroll from the hand of the angel, and I ate it! It was sweet in my mouth, but when I swallowed it, it turned sour in my stomach. 11Then I was told, “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages, and kings.”
Revelation 10:10-11
The second terror is past, but look, the third terror is coming quickly.
Revelation 11:14
Then the beast was allowed to speak great blasphemies against God. And he was given authority to do whatever he wanted for forty-two months.
Revelation 13:5
8And all the people who belong to this world worshiped the beast. They are the ones whose names were not written in the Book of Life that belongs to the Lamb who was slaughtered before the world was made. 9Anyone with ears to hear should listen and understand. 10Anyone who is destined for prison will be taken to prison. Anyone destined to die by the sword will die by the sword. This means that God’s holy people must endure persecution patiently and remain faithful.
Revelation 13:8-10
12This means that God’s holy people must endure persecution patiently, obeying his commands and maintaining their faith in Jesus. 13And I heard a voice from heaven saying, “Write this down: Blessed are those who die in the Lord from now on. Yes, says the Spirit, they are blessed indeed, for they will rest from their hard work; for their good deeds follow them!”
Revelation 14:12-13
There are also pauses and delays of another kind each time the 7th form of God’s judgements in the Seals, Trumpets and Bowls morph into the next judgement form. In other words, the 7th seal transformed into 7 Trumpets, the 7th trumpet transformed into 7 Bowls. With each following reduplication there was yet another pause as we have to wait patiently as the last of each set became seven of the next set. Then of course we become used to the pattern and learned to expect it. But with the bowls, there is no further reduplication, and so the end comes quickly. Once the seventh bowl is poured out we soon realise there is not to be a series of seven of some other form of judgement. That’s it! There are no more, which only heightens the sense of finality at the end of the bowls of judgement.
Multiple References to Repentance (9)
Look how far you have fallen! Turn back to me and do the works you did at first. If you don’t repent, I will come and remove your lampstand from its place among the churches.
Revelation 2:5
Repent of your sin, or I will come to you suddenly and fight against them with the sword of my mouth.
Revelation 2:16
21I gave her time to repent, but she does not want to turn away from her immorality. 22“Therefore, I will throw her on a bed of suffering, and those who commit adultery with her will suffer greatly unless they repent and turn away from her evil deeds.
Revelation 2:21-22
Go back to what you heard and believed at first; hold to it firmly. Repent and turn to me again. If you don’t wake up, I will come to you suddenly, as unexpected as a thief.
Revelation 3:3
20But the people who did not die in these plagues still refused to repent of their evil deeds and turn to God. They continued to worship demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood—idols that can neither see nor hear nor walk! 21And they did not repent of their murders or their witchcraft or their sexual immorality or their thefts.
Revelation 9:20-21
9Everyone was burned by this blast of heat, and they cursed the name of God, who had control over all these plagues. They did not repent of their sins and turn to God and give him glory. . . 11and they cursed the God of heaven for their pains and sores. But they did not repent of their evil deeds and turn to God.
Revelation 16:9, 11
Is it significant that repentance is mentioned 9 times in the letter of Revelation? I believe it is, nine (9) is the number symbolizing ‘finality’. There are nine uses of ‘repent’ in John’s letter. Then after the end of Revelation 16, ‘repent’ is not mentioned again. Is it significant that there are eight pauses and delays waiting for people to accept God’s right to judge and call them to respond to Him? Am I reading too much symbolism into these numbers? Perhaps I am. But it is worth noting that eight is symbolic of ‘resurrection’ or ‘new beginnings‘. I believe that is relevant too. After all, Revelation is an apocalyptic work and is therefore highly symbolic, and so the numbers fit with the symbolism.
There are a couple more elements in the text I wish to draw your attention to. Take note of the logical connection between the two harvests found in Revelation 14:14-20 and the division of Chapter 15 into two camps – those who are victorious over satan and his beast (the wheat) and those who remain unrepentant and therefore subject to judgement (the grapes). How many times must God give an opportunity to repent? Nine times it seems and then judgement comes. My second point is to make clear to you that we humans don’t determine when we will repent. Repentance is actually a gift from God. Many people think they can wait until the end and then repent. We are not the ones who determine the timing or the acceptance of our repentance. That is in the hands of God. Let Esau be a lesson to you.
Make sure that no one is immoral or godless like Esau, who traded his birthright as the firstborn son for a single meal. You know that afterward, when he wanted his father’s blessing, he was rejected. It was too late for repentance, even though he begged with bitter tears.
Hebrews 12:16-17
Stubborn Refusals (7)
Then everyone—the kings of the earth, the rulers, the generals, the wealthy, the powerful, and every slave and free person—all hid themselves in the caves and among the rocks of the mountains. And they cried to the mountains and the rocks, “Fall on us and hide us from the face of the one who sits on the throne and from the wrath of the Lamb.
Revelation 6:15-16
But the people who did not die in these plagues still refused to repent of their evil deeds and turn to God. They continued to worship demons and idols made of gold, silver, bronze, stone, and wood—idols that can neither see nor hear nor walk! And they did not repent of their murders or their witchcraft or their sexual immorality or their thefts.
Revelation 9:20-21
All the people who belong to this world will gloat over them and give presents to each other to celebrate the death of the two prophets who had tormented them.
Revelation 11:10
“Anyone who worships the beast and his statue or who accepts his mark on the forehead or on the hand must drink the wine of God’s anger. It has been poured full strength into God’s cup of wrath. And they will be tormented with fire and burning sulphur in the presence of the holy angels and the Lamb. The smoke of their torment will rise forever and ever, and they will have no relief day or night, for they have worshiped the beast and his statue and have accepted the mark of his name.”
Revelation 14:9-11
Everyone who was burned by this blast of heat cursed the name of God, who had control over all these plagues. They did not repent of their sins and turn to God and give him glory . . . and they cursed the God of heaven for their pains and sores. But they did not repent of their evil deeds and turn to God. . . They cursed God because of the terrible plague of the hailstorm.
Revelation 16:9, 11, 21
Have I given you enough evidence now to the details behind the scenarios? The question is not, “How can God judge so harshly?” As I wrote above, surely, the question we must ask is: How can God not judge? As John recorded in the Song of the Lamb, “God’s judgements are just and true. Who will not fear You and glorify Your Name?” The word “fear” is interesting. God doesn’t want us quaking in our boots in fear of Him. He wants us to come to know His loving kindness, His ‘chesed‘. He desires us to know Him and His ways so that we don’t tremble at the sound of Him coming close, rather that we might reverence Him for who He is and how faithfully He loves us. I guess that is the difference between these two diverse groups depicted in Revelation 15. The one flees from His presence because they imagine Him to be a God to be afraid of and One from Whom you need to keep your distance. The other group come close because they know Him. In the words of Paul, they know they are rooted and grounded in the love of God for God loved them first. They have come to know the dimensions of His love and now they KNOW that love through an up-close and personal relationship. [Ephesians 3]
In the next Gem I will answer both Kevins’ questions about the Rapture and respond as to whether I still hold with the comment I quoted from the sticker on our 1969 Mint Green Corolla. Is it true there will be earthquakes worse than anything ever experienced before on earth and hailstones heavier than your overweight airline baggage? Surely that’s hyperbole for poetic effect Ian? Please give us your Geography Teacher’s take on this one.
Are you afraid of God and therefore hide from Him? Or do you honour and respect Him because by coming close, you have come to know His love on a personal level?
Ian
The choice between these two scenarios is a no-brainer. Wouldn’t you rather sing with the saints than cower frightened in the shadows because you haven’t taken the time or made the effort to know God?
Ian
I Would Rather Have You Hate Me For Telling You The Truth Than For You To Love Me For Telling You Lies.
Robb Thompson
John has told us the truth about these two contrastive realities; make sure you are on the correct side of the ledger on that final day. Imagine your feelings on That Day if you have believed Christ’s resurrection and Second Coming was a myth and suddenly find He has come back.
Ian