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Revelation 14

Revelation 14

Listen or read the following transcript as D. A. Carson speaks from Revelation 14 in his series called Missions as the Triumph of the Lamb.


We’ve seen that Revelation 12 and 13 together give us a kind of heaven’s-eye view of what the people of God face, and it is nothing less than the wrath of Satan himself worked out in historical manifestations of opposition and deception. Sometimes in the book of Revelation where you get this sort of sweeping panorama of something or other, then there is a kind of short hiatus where you’re driven to choice because of it. That’s what chapter 14 is like.

So in chapter 14, now you have a division that drives the reader to choice. In verses 1 to 5, the Lamb and the 144,000 (that is, the people of God who stand against the evil that has been described), are the ones who are already described in chapter 12 as those who overcome Satan “… by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony. They don’t love their lives even unto death.” They’re described in various apocalyptic ways.

Then over against that, in the rest of the chapter, from verses 6 to 20, there is a portrait of horrible judgment that comes upon the rest of humankind. The burden of the chapter as a whole is.… Which group do you belong to? Because you sure belong to one of them. So let me read the chapter, and then we’ll look at it in those two unequal parts.

“Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name written on their foreheads. And I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps.

And they sang a new song before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except the 144,000 who had been redeemed from the earth. These are those who did not defile themselves with women, for they kept themselves pure. They follow the Lamb wherever he goes. They were purchased from among men and offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb. No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless.

Then I saw another angel flying in midair, and he had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language and people. He said in a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.’ A second angel followed and said, ‘Fallen! Fallen is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.’

A third angel followed them and said in a loud voice: ‘If anyone worships the beast and his image and receives his mark on the forehead or on the hand, he, too, will drink of the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath. He will be tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name.’

This calls for patient endurance on the part of the saints who obey God’s commandments and remain faithful to Jesus. Then I heard a voice from heaven say, ‘Write: Blessed are the dead who die in the Lord from now on.’ ‘Yes,’ says the Spirit, ‘they will rest from their labor, for their deeds will follow them.’

I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one ‘like a son of man’ with a crown of gold on his head and a sharp sickle in his hand. Then another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, ‘Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.’ So he who was seated on the cloud swung his sickle over the earth, and the earth was harvested.

Another angel came out of the temple in heaven, and he too had a sharp sickle. Still another angel, who had charge of the fire, came from the altar and called in a loud voice to him who had the sharp sickle, ‘Take your sharp sickle and gather the clusters of grapes from the earth’s vine, because its grapes are ripe.’ The angel swung his sickle on the earth, gathered its grapes and threw them into the great winepress of God’s wrath. They were trampled in the winepress outside the city, and blood flowed out of the press, rising as high as the horses’ bridles for a distance of 1,600 stadia.”

This is the Word of the Lord.

This has to be the darkest chapter in the entire book of Revelation; however, I hope when we look at chapters 21 and 22 it will make you homesick for heaven. It’s the only alternative to what we’ve just read. In the first five verses, we’re introduced to these 144,000. We’ll go through this chapter fairly quickly. We can’t stop at each verse, but let me at least get the flow of things. In these five verses, there are four things we must determine about these 144,000: who they are, where they are, what they sing, and what they’re like.

1. Who they are

From the horrific vision of chapters 12 and 13, John turns to this dramatic new theme. The change is marked: “Then I looked …” That’s one of the common formulae in the book of Revelation for introducing a new vision. “Then I looked …” or “Then I looked and saw …” or “Then I saw and, behold …” Something like that. It always marks the beginning of a new scene for the seer.

What he sees is the Lamb. Now this is not the lamb who is acting like a lamb and in reality is a wolf or a beast, as in the previous chapter. This is the Lamb who has been introduced all the way back in chapter 1, the Lamb of chapter 5. This is the Lamb of God, God’s own agent, who emerges from the throne and brings all of God’s purposes to pass for both blessing and judgment. In fact, the book of Revelation could be subtitled The Triumph of the Lamb.

“Then I looked, and there before me was the Lamb, standing on Mount Zion, and with him 144,000 who had his name and his Father’s name [the name of God] written on their foreheads.” The question is.… Who are these 144,000? There are basically two views.

One view says they are a subset of all the redeemed, a subset of all Christians, a subset of the people of God. Now which subset is then disputed. Some say they are martyred Jews during the great tribulation or some specially sanctified group of believers. Super-saints, perhaps? Desert monks? There have been various views that have been suggested with time.

The reason for suggesting they are a subset of the whole is bound up with a certain interpretation of verses 4 and 5. Who are these, for example, who have not had sexual experience? Are they celibates? A monkish class, perhaps? After all, doesn’t verse 5 speak of them as the firstfruits to God and of the Lamb? So perhaps they’re the first ones through, as it were? Or the elite of the elect, maybe? That has been a common interpretation of this passage across history.

With respect, I think that view doesn’t make much sense. Therefore, many others (today probably most, myself included) think these 144,000 are the redeemed from every age. Now the meaning of verses 4 and 5, we’ll come to. After all, numbers are just typical in the book of Revelation. They are symbol-laden everywhere.

So 144,000 is 12 times 12. That is, the old covenant believers bound up with the Twelve Tribes, and the new covenant believers bound up with the twelve apostles: 12 times 12. That gets you 144, times 10 times 10 times 10; that is, 10 raised to the third power. The author is doing things with numbers all the time in apocalyptic. That’s the way apocalyptic works. That is, the perfection of the 12 times 12 with their totality to the third power. That’s the way the symbol game works.

Moreover, they sing a new song which only the redeemed can sing. That calls back to mind what has been said back in chapter 5. What is this new song? It’s the song of redemption, the song of those who have been purchased to God by the Lamb. Now if they and they alone can sing the song of the redeemed, they have to be those who are Christians who have been bought by the blood of Christ.

Indeed, I would argue that even the 144,000 who are mentioned in Revelation 7, likewise, is another way of referring to the great multitude of the redeemed. They are the full complement of the redeemed, bought by Christ, and not one of them is lost. That’s the point here. Over against those who in chapter 13 have the mark of the Beast, these as we’ve seen, have the name of the Lamb, the name of the Father, written on their foreheads. That’s another way of saying they are owned by God. They’re possessed by God. They’re his.

We’ll see just a little later down in verses 9 and following that those who do not have the name of Christ stamped on them face the full fury of God himself. You either face the fury of the Beast or the fury of God himself. That is what this chapter is providing, an absolute antithesis. Who they are? First of all, then, they’re the redeemed from every tongue and tribe and people and nation, from the old covenant and the new, all those who have been bought by Christ.

2. Where they are

We’re told they’re standing on Mount Zion with the Lamb. There are some, again, who are of more literalistic persuasion who think somehow all of the elect are going to get on Mount Zion in the last day and actually park there. I think it fails to understand how Mount Zion, another word for Jerusalem, works through Scripture. The old covenant people of God are located in the Promised Land, and the capital city is Jerusalem. It’s Mount Zion.

Zion stands for the capital of the people of God under the old covenant again and again, but because of that, then, it begins to stand in promise for the new covenant people of God. Their Mount Zion is not earthly Jerusalem. There is a Jerusalem that is above whose children we are. She is our mother already in Galatians, chapter 4. The language is transferred very quickly in the New Testament.

Thus already, according to the prophecies of Joel 2:32, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved; for on Mount Zion and in Jerusalem there will be deliverance, as the Lord has said.” Then, ultimately, the entire scene of praise is in heaven, and we belong to this heavenly Zion, this heavenly Jerusalem. “Jerusalem coming down out of heaven,” you see in Revelation 21.

That is, it’s not earthly Jerusalem that is our ultimate home. Just as the temple pointed to Christ, just as the tabernacle pointed to Christ, just as the priest pointed to Christ, just as the sacrifice pointed to Christ, just as the Davidic line pointed to Christ, just as Jerusalem pointed to Christ, so also we belong to the fulfillment of all of these kinds of things, not in a certain geographical matrix in the Middle East but in the New Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven, a new vision of what the people of God should be, now not tied to one people group, the Jews, but Jews and Gentiles alike, men and women from every tongue and tribe and people and nation.

As Hebrews puts it, we’re gathered to the heavenly Zion, to the heavenly Jerusalem. Already we gather around the throne in Jesus’ name, and one day there will not be any opposition left at all. We’ll be gathered around him in the heavenly Zion, as it were, in the new heaven and the new earth with spectacular blessings on every hand and no more death, no more decay. We will witness the triumph of the Lamb. This vision, in other words, is an anticipation of the great glory of Revelation 21 and 22, and if that can’t make you homesick for heaven, I don’t know what can.

3. What they sing

Well, according to verses 2 and 3, they sing a new song. Again, there’s mixed metaphor. There’s no way you can put these things together into one sound no matter how clever your synthesizer is. “I heard a sound from heaven like the roar of rushing waters and like a loud peal of thunder. The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps.” Well, try and put that together.

I’m a Canadian, and when I used to live in Toronto many years ago, every once in a while some of us would jump in a car and go down to Niagara Falls. Have you been to the Falls? That’s an honest-to-goodness falls. It thunders. You used to be able to get behind the Falls; there’s a tunnel that would actually bring you behind it. You could see these millions of gallons thundering down right in front of you.

You can still take a boat called the Maid of the Mist right up to the bottom of the Falls and watch this thundering cataract come down just a few yards away. It’s just absolutely spectacular. You can take a cable car across the chasm. The force of the water is so great, the actual locus of the edge of the Falls goes back by about five and a half feet a year as more rock is broken off and more rock is broken off.

As you sit there on the boat or stand on the boat in your trench coat, Wellies, hat, and so on, protected from this thundering, mass of water and all the mist that is churned up, it is so overwhelming, thunderously powerful, that you can barely hear yourself think, let alone somebody else. Unless you talk right into the next person’s ear, they can’t hear you. There’s just no way.

The feeling, therefore, is of the most amazing raw power. Inescapable. Universal. On top of that, the thundering clap of thunder, bringing to mind all the electrical storms we saw in chapter 4. Sweeping power. The trouble is, of course, if you have only that kind of vision of what the voice of God is like, then it’s only power. It’s only raw. Then to change the metaphor, it’s like a glorious harp concert. Don’t forget, the harps now are banjos or whatever the equivalent of a happy instrument is. This is a foot-stomping, good time sort of music, as well as powerful.

You’ve got it welded all together with a mixed metaphor. That’s what they’re singing. “The sound I heard was like that of harpists playing their harps. And they sang a new song [the song of redemption] before the throne and before the four living creatures and the elders. No one could learn the song except those who had been redeemed.”

They sang it before the throne, before the angels, before the elders, which shows the elders can’t here be amongst the redeemed. They’re listening in to this song, the song of the redeemed. “You have redeemed us to God by your blood.” That’s what they sing. It identifies them, and it is overwhelmingly powerful, overwhelmingly joyful.

4. What they’re like, what characterizes them

They’re now described in verses 4 and 5 under four figures. They are …

A) Those who have never defiled themselves with women, for they have kept themselves pure.

Literally, “… for they are virgins.” They are sexually celibate. What does that mean? Does it mean that all women automatically corrupt you? Some, in more ascetic times, have tried to argue that. That is so profoundly unbiblical it’s painful to think any Christian has ever thought it.

After all, already in the created order before there was a fall, Scripture insists, “It is not good for a man to live alone.” After the fall, as late as Hebrews 13, we’re carefully taught, “Marriage is honorable in all, and the bed undefiled.” Never, ever think of sex as intrinsically dirty. Like all of God’s good gifts, we can corrupt it, but it’s not intrinsically dirty at all.

Who are these, then, who have kept themselves from sex? Are they the celibate? After all, Jesus says in Matthew 19:12 that there are some people who make themselves eunuchs for the kingdom of God. That is, they make themselves celibate for the kingdom of God. Paul himself in 1 Corinthians 7 can point out that there are some advantages to being single.

I was really slow to get married, partly in my case because I was a bit slow, but partly also because I was working so hard that, in point of fact, there were some advantages in being single in ministry. I could put in ferocious hours and did, 90-hour weeks. I could visit men in their homes and catch them at night. I didn’t have to check in with anybody. I didn’t have to worry about three snotty-nosed little kids at home, give my wife a break, and change that diaper. I didn’t have to worry about any of that kind of stuff because I was in the ministry.

The trouble is, although celibacy in the ministry can give you extra time, as Paul says, and can give you a simpler focus, as Paul says, and therefore, in that frame of reference can make you more useful, as Paul says; nevertheless, it’s not the only thing Paul says. The fact of the matter is, you can be single and, therefore, just more selfish.

I’ve discovered that in a postmodern world, it’s harder and harder for men and women (especially men, I think) to make commitments. Let me tell you, there is something intrinsic to a good marriage that works on your selfishness, because in a good marriage, you really are seeking the other’s good. Thus, a good marriage trains you to be less selfish. It’s even possible to be in ministry and more selfish so that it’s your ministry, it’s your focus, it’s what you’re doing, and somehow you’re holier than other people, aren’t you?

I’ve seen some people who, in the name of being celibate for the kingdom’s sake, really become very obnoxious. Not everybody who is celibate for the kingdom’s sake, like a John Stott, becomes a venerable pillar of piety, kindliness, and generosity. Some just become obnoxious know-it-alls.

At the same time, it’s very important not to make single people second-class citizens. In some churches, unless you’re part of a family, you’re just second-class. That’s not right either. Moreover, the choice of celibacy, of being single, although it can be a benefit, can sometimes be corrupt. In many cases, it’s not a person’s choice in any case, it’s just the way things have worked out. If they had their druthers, it would’ve been some other way.

It’s important to see that in the New Testament, believe it or not, marriage is called a charisma in 1 Corinthians 7, a grace gift, and celibacy is called a charisma, a grace gift. That means we’re all charismatics because we’re all either single or married. If you’re single, it’s a charisma from God. If you’re married, it’s a charisma from God. In this case, there’s no way you can have both charismatic gifts at the same time, but both are considered by God to be gracious gifts from his hand.

So delight in your singleness; it’s a gracious gift from God. Delight in your marriage; it’s a gracious gift from God. I guarantee whichever gift you’ve got, there are going to be days when you’re going to wish it were the other one. That’s part of our brokenness and our sinfulness too. It’s just the way it is, the grass on the other side of the fence looking greener, and all the rest. It’s part of our immaturity, our selfishness.

In any case, I doubt this has anything to do with any of that. It’s important to say those things because you read these texts, and you think, “Oh boy. What is this going to say about women?” or, “What is this going to say about sex?” I doubt it has anything to do with any of that. Far more likely is that this is taking up symbol-laden language from the Old Testament. This book is very free at making Old Testament allusions.

In the Old Testament, Israel is regularly spoken of as “the virgin daughter of Zion.” That is, the people of God as a whole are spoken of as “the virgin daughter of Zion” (2 Kings 19), or “the virgin of Israel” (Jeremiah 18; Amos 5). It’s very common. When she sins, then she is said to “play the harlot,” as in Jeremiah 3 or Amos 5. “Fallen is Virgin Israel, never to rise again.” Or read Hosea; the whole point of Hosea is that almighty God is supposed to be the husband and Israel is supposed to be the bride. Now she’s become a tramp, and the Almighty has been cuckolded.

The same imagery then is transferred in the New Testament to Christ and the church. Christ now becomes the groom, and the church, taken collectively, is the bride. So Paul can write to the Corinthians and say, “I betrothed you as a pure virgin to Christ, so keep yourself pure until the marriage supper of the Lamb, the great consummation when you really are united with your groom.”

In that sense, then, every instance of sin, every instance of idolatry, can be cast as a kind of spiritual adultery. That’s what’s going on in the book of Hosea, is it not? So covenant breaking in the realm of faithfulness to God is now seen as covenant breaking in the realm of marriage. That’s the language that is used.

So these people who have kept themselves pure are covenantally faithful. It doesn’t mean they’re sinlessly perfect, but they are covenantally faithful people. They have kept themselves pure. They have not taken on the mark of the Beast. They confess Christ as Lord, and they’re waiting for what Revelation 21 and 22 say. They’re waiting for the glorious marriage supper of the Lamb. Then we’re told …

B) They follow the Lamb wherever he goes.

This does not mean they sort of follow him around heaven or something like a 3-year-old who is hungry follows Mummy around the kitchen. “I follow Jesus.” It doesn’t mean that. It’s another way of talking about discipleship. Did not Jesus himself say, “If anyone would come after me, he must disown himself, deny himself, take up his cross, and follow me”? If the first figure speaks of fidelity, then the second figure speaks of discipleship. These are faithful disciples. In the third place, they are described as …

C) Those who were purchased and offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb.

They were purchased by the blood of Christ. We’ve already been taught that. Now they’re offered as firstfruits to God and the Lamb. This word firstfruits needs explaining.

When the word firstfruits was first used, it really did mean the firstfruits of the harvest. That is, the first part of the harvest to come in. You have an orchard, and there are certain apples that ripen first. You pick them first and bring them to market; they’re the firstfruits. They’re sort of a harbinger of the rest of the harvest.

You might have some fields on a sunny south slope that ripen to wheat first, so you harvest them first; they’re the firstfruits. Or certain grapes on the sunny south side that ripen first, so they get harvested first. In that sense, firstfruits meant simply the firstfruits of everything else that came. Within that framework, then, there was a Feast of Firstfruits, where you took the firstfruits and offered it up to God in thanksgiving for the rest of the harvest.

Already by the second century before Christ, the word in Greek for firstfruits, aparchē, no longer meant firstfruits, or at least only rarely. It rather meant “that which was offered up to God,” because it was the first fruit of the harvest that was offered up to God. So eventually, that which was offered up to God was just called the firstfruits, whether it was the first fruit or not. It just meant that which was offered up to God.

Transparently that is already the use in the so-called Septuagint, the LXX (the Greek Old Testament). That’s the way aparchē was used. I think that is what is meant here then. These are the people who are offered up to God. I don’t think firstfruits is the best translation because it fails to see that.

In Romans 12, for example, Christians are those who offer themselves up to God: “I beseech you, brothers, by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice unto God.” That is, firstfruits. That is, the people who are offered up to God. That’s your sacrifice. You disown yourself, you deny yourself, and you offer yourselves up to God. You’ve been purchased! So because you’ve been purchased, you’re no longer yours; therefore, you offer yourself up to God. That’s all that is meant by it. Then we’re told in verse 5 …

D) They are those who speak the truth.

This is over against chapter 21, verse 8, where all liars are cast into the lake of fire. It doesn’t just mean they tell the truth. It’s more than that. It’s over against the deep lie of a passage like Romans 1:25, where we exchanged the truth about God for a lie.

We want a domesticated God. We want a God we can control. We want a religion we can control. We want to follow our own way. We want the created order rather than the Creator himself. That’s the big lie, and over against that are people who come to grips with the truth of who God is, with the truth of God’s self-disclosure in his Son, the Son who said, “I am the way and the truth and the life.”

Out of this we speak the truth about God, and because we care about God, we learn to speak the truth with one another. Thus, in the vision of Zephaniah, chapter 3, “The remnant of Israel will do no wrong; they will speak no lies.” There’s a transformation of men and women so we hunger for the truth: the truth about ourselves, the truth about God, the truth about redemption, the truth about his Son. We cherish the truth. That’s what the text says. “No lie was found in their mouths; they are blameless.”

It’s not that they earn heaven; it’s that the mark of the redeemed is they cherish this true God. The mark of the blood-bought, the mark of those who have been purchased by Christ, is that they love the truth. You can’t ever forget that in a postmodern world that wants to say different people have different truths. No, no, no. There is a truth. We will never know the truth exhaustively. We’re finite, we’re broken, and we’re corrupt, but there is a truth to know. We can, in some measure, know it, and we must defend it.

Let me give you an example of this, because it is very important to grasp in our postmodern world. Do you remember what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 15 when he’s talking about the resurrection of Christ? Apparently some in Corinth had a hard job with resurrection. Partly they belonged to a culture where matter was intrinsically bad and spirit was intrinsically good.

They could easily believe in immortality, but resurrection, coming back in a real body? Give me a break! That’s intrinsically bad. Why would you do that? So they were having a hard job saying there was a final resurrection for us. They believed something about the resurrection of Christ, but they couldn’t believe there was a resurrection at the end of the age. Paul begins to work it out.

First he says, “Wait a minute. If there’s no resurrection, why believe that Christ has risen? If Christ has not risen, then let me spell out the implications for you. First of all, the apostles are a bunch of liars, because they say that they saw him, that they touched him, they recognized him, Thomas put his hand in the scars. This resurrected Christ ate real food. If Christ has not risen, then the apostles are liars.” That’s the first entailment.

The second entailment is: “You’re still lost in your trespasses and sins. How do you know that Christ’s sacrifice was really accepted before God unless he rose from the dead, approved by God, vindicated by God? If he just died on the cross and that was it, how do you know his sacrifice was acceptable before God? You’re still lost in your trespasses and sins.”

Third, he says, “You’ve believed something that isn’t true.” Fourth he says, “You are of all people most to be pitied, because you’ve believed something that isn’t true.” Now notice carefully what the apostle says. He does not say, “But so long as you believe it in your heart, if it helps you, then it’s true for you.” He doesn’t say that.

“If Christ has not risen,” he says, “then, for goodness’ sake, follow the implications of that. Let us eat, drink, and be merry, for tomorrow we die. I don’t want you to believe this because it’s got certain heuristic values in your life, makes you afraid of hell, or something, or because it helps you in your life, it encourages you to think there’s a hope at the end. So if it helps you, then God bless you, believe it because it’s true for you.” He doesn’t say that!

He says either it is true or it isn’t. If it is true, then there are some entailments. If it’s not true, you shouldn’t believe it because it’s a load of rubbish, the apostles are liars, the witnesses are not true, you’re still lost in your sins, and frankly, hedonism makes more sense. Go and get drunk; it makes more sense. In other words, the only reason why Paul wants you to believe Christ rose from the dead is because it’s true. Now stick that in your postmodern pipe and smoke it.

You’ve just got to see that the issue here is something that is either true or it’s not. The ultimate reason for becoming a Christian is because Christianity is true, not because it helps you, not because it makes nice people, not because you like to belong to this community, but because Christ Jesus rose from the dead. There is a truth claim at Christianity’s heart that you simply cannot escape even in our postmodern world. You cannot escape it. Those around the Lamb on Mount Zion on the last day are those who speak the truth.

Over against this is a far more dispiriting vision. We might call verses 6 to 20 the heralds and the harvest. Have you ever thought of how much the Bible is given over to the theme of judgment? That’s an uncomfortable truth, not least in a postmodern world where it can sound intolerant, where we want to talk about the love of God but don’t want to speak very much about the judgment of God.

Look at Genesis 3: “There is judgment and death upon those who disobey.” Then Exodus and Leviticus, all of the sacrificial systems with endless dead animals to pay for sin. Death everywhere, with constant references to God’s wrath. Even the Ten Commandments: “For the Lord your God is a jealous God, visiting the iniquities of the fathers upon the children to the third and fourth generation of those who hate me and despitefully use me.”

Look at Deuteronomy with its blessings and curses. Look at the book of Judges, when the people of God spiral down in endless lust to be like the pagans all around them. God sends them another round of judgment until they cry for mercy, and then he comes and saves them again with another judge, a Huldah or a Deborah or a Barak or a Gideon. Then they spiral down again. What’s the pronouncement that is repeated again and again? “In those days, everybody did that which was right in their own eyes. There was no king in the land.”

Then look at all of the historical accounts with threats of judgment. Read Jeremiah. Read Isaiah. Read Jesus Christ in Matthew 23: “Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, you hypocrites!” Read what he says to the cities of Cana and Capernaum: “It will be better on the day of judgment for Sodom and Gomorrah than for you because you have actually seen the Christ, you have seen his deeds, you have heard the gospel.” They didn’t hear it.

So in other words, judgment on the last day will not only be severe, it will be more severe for those who have received more light. There’s a proportionality in judgment. Read Romans, this book that is so full of the cross. It begins, “For the wrath of God is manifest from heaven against all unrighteousness of human beings.”

The fact of the matter is the Bible insists on judgment, on wrath, and it is personal, not because God is bad-tempered or whimsical. Not because wrath is an intrinsic characteristic of God. Love is an intrinsic characteristic of God. All wrath is, in God, is the outworking of his holiness when he confronts rebels. That’s all wrath is. It’s not loss of control. It’s not bad temper. It’s the outworking of his just holiness when he confronts rebels.

The glory of the gospel is that even when he stands over against us in wrath, because he’s the kind of God he is, he can also love rebels and send his Son to die for them. But the wrath is no less biting for all of that. For those who are not saved, then, by the gracious sacrifice whom God himself provided in love, where is the hope? They still stand under the wrath of God. This passage speaks alarmingly of that wrath.

1. The heralds, the angels

Verses 6–13. There are three of them.

A) The first angel summons all humankind to fear God and worship him.

Verses 6 and 7. “Flying in midair,” simply means in mid-heaven; that is, so as to be seen and heard by all. It’s a vision. This herald then proclaims to those who live on the earth.… That is, to human beings, to people. Not to angels, to those who live on the earth.

This is what he says: “He had the eternal gospel to proclaim to those who live on the earth—to every nation, tribe, language, people. He said in a loud voice, ‘Fear God and give him glory, because the hour of his judgment has come.’ ” Now there are two ways of taking these verses.

The first is by far the more popular today, but in my view it’s probably mistaken. In this view, the content of what is being proclaimed in verse 6 is provided in verse 7. In other words, verse 6 says that he came with the eternal gospel and then what he preaches, the content, is given in verse 7.

So the content, in this view, of the eternal gospel is “Fear God and give him glory.” In other words, the argument is that even if people haven’t heard the gospel of Jesus Christ, at very least there’s a sort of proclamation at least to fear God and give him glory. Live according to the light that you have; that’s what the argument is, and it’s a very common view today. In my view, it’s deeply mistaken.

The reason it’s deeply mistaken is because by the time the book of Revelation was written toward the end of the first century, the word gospel only meant one thing. If he came proclaiming the eternal gospel, he was proclaiming the eternal gospel of Christ. He was proclaiming the eternal gospel of the Lamb. He was proclaiming the gospel that has already been laid out for us in chapters 4 and 5, where there is only one person who brings to pass all of God’s purposes for judgment and blessing; it’s Christ Jesus himself.

That’s the means by which men and women are saved from every tongue and tribe and people and nation. That’s what the gospel is. He proclaims “the gospel,” the gospel of Jesus Christ. So verse 7, then, does not give us the content of the gospel. The content of the gospel is already bound up in the word gospel. It’s already laid out for us.

No, verse 7 does not provide us with the content of the gospel. Rather, the point of verse 7 is that it does not give us the content but lays out the obligation of all humankind in the wake of the announcement of the gospel. Because the gospel is announced, therefore (verse 7), “Fear God and give him glory. Repent, the hour of this judgment has come. Worship him who made the heavens, the earth, the sea and the springs of water.” He is the Creator; now the gospel itself has been announced, so fear him.

B) The second angel announces the impending downfall of paganism.

Verse 8. The language is drawn from the Old Testament where Babylon becomes the figure of quintessential paganism. Isaiah 21:9: “Fallen, fallen is Babylon.” That is the great historic city of Babylon on the Euphrates River. Jeremiah 51:7: “Babylon was a gold cup in the Lord’s hand; she made the whole earth drunk. The nations drank her wine; therefore they have now gone mad.” That is, they followed the pagan empire, and they went mad with her pagan adulteries.

Now, “Fallen, fallen is Babylon the Great, which made all the nations drink the maddening wine of her adulteries.” Her adulteries are spiritual adulteries, that is of going after this pagan idolatry of greatness, the pagan religions, turning away from Yahweh, turning away from the Creator, turning away from their Maker. Of course, by the time this was written, Babylon was past. Babylon has now become a symbol again from the Old Testament.

Of course, in the time of writing, the great Babylon was Rome. That was the great danger. Today, what is our great danger? See, the Beast keeps coming back, and every paganism that raises itself over against God and de-Gods God.… That is the constant surreptitious, sometimes overt threat, but finally the angels of God announce the crushing defeat of every paganism.

That’s another way of saying what can be seen in more prosaic terms in Philippians 2: “Every knee shall bow and every tongue confess that Jesus is Lord.” Or in Revelation 11: “The kingdoms of this world have become the kingdoms of our God and his Christ, and he will reign forever.” Or what the Old Testament says. “All the nations of the earth are nothing more than the dust in a fine balance.”

You know how you go to these chemistry classes? Nowadays, of course, they’re all done electronically, but even when I took chemistry and mathematics in university you used these very, very fine delicate balances that were shielded with glass and so on. They were kept absolutely clean. Then you’d put things in them, and you could weigh things to the fourth, fifth, sixth decimal place of a gram, they were such delicate balances. You kept even the fine dust off them.

The mighty empires of the world, the prophets say in the Old Testament, are not more than the fine dust on the balance to God. He ends them all. All the paganisms of this world end. Society set free from God is always its own worst enemy. Not to see that means we become drunk on the maddening wine of idolatry itself.

C) The third angel vividly portrays the torments awaiting those who worship the Beast.

Verses 9–11. The language is picked up, of course, from chapter 13 again. Much worse judgment, much worse pressure comes on those who do worship the Beast than those who receive the mark of the Lamb on their forehead and face the wrath of the Beast. You either face the wrath of the Beast or you face the wrath of the Lamb. That’s what the announcement is: “Fear God.”

This picture is not an easy one. “He will drink of the wine of God’s fury, which has been poured full strength into the cup of his wrath.” When you make wine, the alcohol content comes out at about 15 percent, give or take, 30 proof, depending on the soil, the quality of the grapes, the heat, and so on. Give or take, from about 12 to 17 percent is how wine comes out.

In the first century, most people didn’t drink wine as it came out; they cut it with water, between 3 and 10 percent. So if you cut a 15 percent (that is, 30 proof) wine 10 parts to 1, you’re down to 1.5 percent alcohol, which is a very weak American beer, not like a decent Canadian beer or a proper Guinness. On the other hand, it’s a very weak American beer. That’s really what it is. Most people, then, drank quite a lot of this wine. In the Middle East it was a dinner drink and so on, but it was pretty weak.

To drink it full strength was to drink “strong drink,” and that was usually looked on with far more suspicion as not a good thing to do, and it was a lot easier, obviously, to get drunk. Now God’s wrath is not dilute. It’s full strength. It’s a way of saying, “You think you’ve seen the wrath of God in the Old Testament work out in various judgments? You think you’ve seen the wrath of God on Nazism? You think you’ve seen the wrath of God on Communism? You think you’ve seen the wrath of God in the historical working out of the exile? You haven’t seen anything yet.”

The time is coming when the wrath of God will be poured out full strength. That’s what the image is. Those who do not have God’s name upon them will be “tormented with burning sulfur in the presence of the holy angels and of the Lamb. And the smoke of their torment rises for ever and ever. There is no rest day or night for those who worship the beast and his image, or for anyone who receives the mark of his name.”

I’m sure you’re aware there is a rising number of Christians, of evangelicals, who believe in some sort of conditional annihilationism. That is, you might suffer for a while according to God’s estimate of your sins, but then eventually you are obliterated. You actually die. You fall out of existence. You are no longer there. Hell exists to punish people only for a time, and then eventually hell is emptied itself because there is no one left to suffer.

So eternal punishment is not eternal self-conscious punishment on this view; rather, eternal punishment is eternal just by virtue of the fact that you’re annihilated and you no longer have any existence. That goes on forever. It’s eternal. Although that view is increasingly popular, not least in the UK, with all respect, I find it very difficult to square with this passage. “The smoke of their torment goes up before the presence of God forever.”

Let me say just a few things about final judgment here.

First, in the New Testament, the person who introduces most of the biblical descriptions of hell is Jesus. “The worm that does not die.” “Cast out into outer darkness.” “There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.” It’s Jesus again and again who introduces most of the, admittedly metaphorical, descriptions of hell.

Second, if this passage isn’t strong enough for ongoing self-conscious suffering, read Revelation 20:10. “The devil, who deceived them, was thrown into the lake of burning sulfur, where the beast and the false prophet had been thrown. They will be tormented day and night for ever and ever.” Now I know that’s describing the Devil and the two beasts. On the other hand, if some think it is immoral for God to send human beings to hell forever and ever, why is it not equally immoral to send fallen angelic beings to hell forever and ever? Revelation 20:10, it seems to me, is utterly unambiguous.

Third, there are equivalent terms in passages like Matthew 25:46, the sheep and the goats. One set go off to eternal life forever and ever and one set go off to judgment forever and ever.

Fourth, I think there’s very good evidence in the Bible to suggest that people, when they get to hell, do not stop sinning. I don’t think hell is made up of people who, having arrived, immediately repent. They might wish they weren’t there, but it seems to me that hell is made up of people who, for all eternity, keep on defying God, keep on lashing out, keep on hating, keep on lusting, keep on serving themselves, so that even their forced acknowledgment that God is God and God is just does not bring repentance, just resentment and more hate.

I think there’s very good evidence, if I had time to show you, that hell is full of people who don’t ever repent. It becomes an endless cycle of sin and judgment. It’s ghastly. Then you have to ask, “Could such people ever be happy in heaven amongst the redeemed who praise the Lord for the forgiveness of sin?”

2. The harvest

Verse 14–20. Here the arrival of God’s judgment is depicted in two agricultural portraits. I won’t go through the details; let me give you the big picture.

A) The grain harvest

It portrays the inevitability of judgment at the right time; that is, at harvest time. Verses 14–16: “I looked, and there before me was a white cloud, and seated on the cloud was one ‘like a son of man.’ ” This language is drawn from Daniel 7. That is, he receives an eternal kingdom from his Father.

In one sense, he receives the eternal kingdom from his Father even as he enters into his ministry on earth and as he dies on the cross, rises, and sits at the right hand of the Majesty on high. In one sense, he receives the kingdom at the time of this appointed judgment when all enemies are finally and absolutely destroyed.

“Another angel came out of the temple and called in a loud voice to him who was sitting on the cloud, ‘Take your sickle and reap, because the time to reap has come, for the harvest of the earth is ripe.’ ” So harvest time comes. This is language also drawn from a lot of Jesus’ parables. Eventually, harvest time comes. The point of the grain harvest imagery is that it portrays the inevitability of judgment. Eventually, harvest time comes.

B) The treading of the wine press

Verses 17–20. Finally, the treading of the wine press in the last verses emphasizes the violent thoroughness of God’s wrath when it is finally poured out. The language is drawn, if you want to look it up in the Old Testament, from Lamentations 1:15; Isaiah 63; Joel 3. There are many, many of them.

The imagery is simple enough for a big vineyard in the first century. A big vineyard in the first century would have some large vat into which the grapes that had been plucked were put. Then the servant girls would kick off their sandals and go in and stomp on the grapes. At the bottom of these vats there were little holes the juice would squeeze out of but not the skins. So the juice would then squeeze out into troughs that would go off into large pots, and thus the grape juice was collected and eventually would be turned into wine or whatever.

So the girls would go in and squash down these grapes. It would be a big vat. On a big farm, this would be a big vat. The juice of tens of thousands of grapes would just be pouring in here while the grapes were being squashed. Now, in this imagery, people are being thrown in and being tramped down in the fury of God’s wrath, we’re told, until their blood rises to the level of a horses bridle and for a distance of 300 kilometers. That’s the imagery.

In other words, the treading of the wine press emphasizes the violent thoroughness of God’s wrath when it is finally poured out. It’s only an image, but it’s an image meant to convey the reality that is beyond our imaginations, like all of apocalyptic literature.

There are some people who say that in the Old Testament God is presented as severe and wrathful but when you come to the New Testament, God is a kind of gentler, kinder God. Doesn’t Jesus say, “Turn the other cheek,” and all of that? I don’t think that’s true at all. I think, rather, as you move from the old covenant to the new, both the picture of God’s wrath is ratcheted up and the picture of God’s love and mercy is ratcheted up. Both are ratcheted up.

As you move from the old covenant to the new, you see more clearly the mercy of God. The God who went after sinners in the Old Testament, rescued his people Israel, brought them back from exile, and promised, ultimately through a sacrificial system, an ultimate sacrifice in the person of his Son that has now been fulfilled in the person of that Son who then dies on the cross. So the picture of God’s mercy is ratcheted up as you read through Scripture, but the picture of God’s wrath is ratcheted up too.

Instead of the temporal judgments of the old covenant, ultimately now you have hell itself. Do you know why most people do not see that the picture of God’s wrath is ratcheted up when you go from the old covenant to the new? It’s because today we don’t believe in hell. What we fear the most in our narrow focus on this existence is merely temporal judgment.

We’re afraid of cancer, war, poverty, abuse, or a bad marriage, but not hell. If you read the Bible for what it is, that is stupid past belief. The same Bible that ratchets up the picture of God’s mercy and love also ratchets up the picture of God’s judgment so that we can see what the fundamental issues ultimately are. Let me conclude by listing two or three practical applications.

First, it is utterly essential not to read into this text an Elmer Gantry superciliousness: condescension, a cheap glee at wrath, conjuring up images of media-type hellfire preachers. How can anybody preach hell with glee or with anger and not with tears? Robert Murray M’Cheyne was a Scottish preacher in the 1830s. His best friend was Andrew Bonar. For a period in their lives, they had parallel parishes. They used to meet on Monday and talk about what they had preached on the Lord’s Day, on the Sabbath, as they called it.

One day, Bonar tells M’Cheyne (it’s Bonar who later writes this after M’Cheyne has died) that on the Lord’s Day he preached on hell. M’Cheyne’s instant response was a quiet, “And were you enabled by God’s grace to preach it with tears?” Just so. This is not angry; this is desperate.

Second, this vision establishes for us what is of utmost importance; nothing is more important than heaven and hell. It is important to keep saying that Christianity bears on what we do in this life. That’s true, but we’ve just come through several generations who have been telling us again and again that we are not to be so heavenly-minded that we’re no earthly good, with the result that we’re not good for either heaven or hell.

There’s a small segment in every society who have been in churches that have not fallen into that trap; I know that, but by and large in the Western world, we’ve been so warned against an other-worldly godliness that, as a result, we don’t really hunger for heaven and don’t really fear hell. Yet as important as it is to keep saying that Christianity works out in how you live now, how you raise your children now, what your priorities are now, what your pocketbook is now, how you treat creation now …

Although that’s all true, at the end of the day, beyond all of that is still a heaven to be gained and a hell to be feared, and (this is the most important thing) all of this turns on our relationship to God, for if anything is clear from Scripture, the judgment that could come to us comes to us because of God. In that sense, you must understand that our biggest problem is God, because the very nature of sin means that we stand justly under his wrath.

It is only his mercy, only his grace, only his forgiveness, only the sacrifice that he provides that enables us to be reconciled to this God. God is our biggest problem because of our sin, and he’s our only solution to our sin, this God of love who loves us when he could, with perfect justice, consign all of us to hell. Unless you see that is what the gospel is about, your vision is just too small. Finally, this means we join the church in every generation who cries, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus.”

 

Is there enough evidence for us to believe the Gospels?

In an age of faith deconstruction and skepticism about the Bible’s authority, it’s common to hear claims that the Gospels are unreliable propaganda. And if the Gospels are shown to be historically unreliable, the whole foundation of Christianity begins to crumble.
But the Gospels are historically reliable. And the evidence for this is vast.
To learn about the evidence for the historical reliability of the four Gospels, click below to access a FREE eBook of Can We Trust the Gospels? written by New Testament scholar Peter J. Williams.