205 - The Completion of God's Wrath [B]

The Completion of God's Wrath. Revelation 15:1 – 8

In chapter fifteen we begin our forward movement again. Revelation 15:1 ^NASB "Then I saw another sign in heaven, great and marvelous, seven angels who had seven plagues, {which are} the last, because in them the wrath of God is finished [complete]." The scene in chapter fifteen continues to be in heaven, just as it did in chapter fourteen. This "Then I saw" is markedly different from the same phrase in chapter fourteen because of the context. It is not a continuation of what is seen in the previous chapter and there is a shift because of the context to a specific heavenly vantage point where there is now forward movement as John sees the seven angels coming with the seven bowl judgments. This first verse serves as a summary of what will be covered in the next chapter. This chapter gives us a heavenly prelude to the implementation of these bowl judgments which actually occurs in the next chapter. It serves as a prelude and a very sober warning of what is about to transpire on the earth as these judgments are implemented.

There are two scenes in chapter fifteen. The first is covered in vv. 1-4 and focuses on the victorious martyrs who had come out of the Tribulation and are now before the throne of God. The second scene covers the last four verses, 5-8, which focus on the seven angels that are coming out of the heavenly temple carrying their bowls for judgment which will be poured out upon the earth. They are clad in their judicial uniforms like officers in a court. The white robes and the golden sash were typical in the first century in a Jewish context of that which was worn by someone who was a judge or was instigating judgment, thw white representing purity.

As we get into the first verse we see that it begins with the phrase "I saw another sign in heaven." This is the third sign that we have seen since Revelation 12:1 where we saw ^NASB "A great sign appeared in heaven: a woman clothed with the sun, and the moon under her feet, and on her head a crown of twelve stars; [2] and she was with child; and she cried out, being in labor and in pain to give birth." As we saw, the woman represents Israel and God's plan for the descendants of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. The second sign was given in verse 3: "Then another sign appeared in heaven: and behold, a great red dragon having seven heads and ten horns, and on his heads {were} seven diadems." So the battle scene is set up in chapter twelve between these two signs. The woman is described as "a great sign." The second sign is not called great or marvelous, it is the opposite and it basically describes the fundamental war that occurs throughout history between Satan and God's chosen people Israel. The third sign now is in heaven. These signs are important for understanding the orientation of these judgments.

Notice 15:3 ^says they sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb. That indicates a definite Jewish flavor here and there are definite allusions here in these verses to the exodus event. So there is a tone in these verses that relates to Israel and we see that God's deliverance here of these martyrs is tied back to His promise to Israel and the fact that He is bringing about another deliverance, an other redemption of the nation. Just as He brought them out of Egypt, out of a time of great danger, and redeemed them and brought them into their own land and established them as a nation, so now at the end of the Tribulation period there judgments will have to do with bringing Israel as a nation to that final point where they accept Jesus as the Messiah, and then God is going to rescue them and establish them as a nation in the Messianic kingdom.

The sign in 15:1 is described as "great and marvelous." The sign itself is the seven angels that are carrying the seven past plagues. The word "marvelous" is a Greek word that has not so much the idea of marvelous—a better word would be awe, but when we then combine that with the English word awesome it communicates the idea of being overwhelmed and overpowered by the majesty, the righteousness and the justice of God, and His power as it is being displayed in these final judgments upon evil. The seven angels that come out appear seven times. It is interesting how the word "seven" keeps coming up again and again. The numerical implication is of completion. These seven angels appear as a group seven times in the remainder of the book. Four times they are mentioned in this chapter and outside of the chapter they are mentioned again in 16:1; 17:1 and then finally in 21:9. Individuals within that group appear several other times as well in the remainder of Revelation. This emphasizes their role as the intermediate agents of God carrying out His final decrees of judgment.

Then the "seven angels who had seven plagues." In Revelation 9:20 the first six seal judgment and the trumpet judgments were also called plagues. The term "plagues" is one that is used as a synonym in Scripture for the judgments of God and it is one that takes us back to the ten plagues of Egypt. So the use of that word here is definitely a word that is intended to bring to our mind those ten plagues that God used to redeem the Jews out of slavery in Egypt. Two of the bowl judgments, the first bowl judgment and the third are very similar to judgments that occurred in the ten Egyptian plagues. The earlier judgments, the seal judgments and the trumpet judgments, emphasized the coming severity of the wrath of God but no one has seen anything yet compared to what is going to be displayed in this final series of bowl judgments. These are the last ones. The Greek word for "last" is eschatos [e)sxatoj]. So these are the last plagues and will bring all of God's judgments to a conclusion, and that is what is emphasized in the last statement: "…because in them the wrath of God is finished [complete: teleioo/teleiow]." Even though this is an aorist tense an aorist tense is often used in prophecy to refer to a future event as if it is already completed because it is so certain, so definite. In those cases it should be translated as a future perfect in English. So we translate it "for in them the wrath of God will have been completed." When these seven bowl judgments are brought to pass that finishes or completes the judgment of God.

What is the wrath of God? It is actually an English phrase that translates two different Greek words: orge [o)rgh] which is used up until chapter twelve; but starting in chapter twelve the word thumos [qumoj] is used. These words overlap, they are almost identical in many contexts, but it seems that orge is used to express the objective severity of God's justice. Wrath is not a term that means God is just suddenly angry with man. Anger is an emotion that is the result of something that know. God in His omniscience has always known about all of the evil that would transpire in human history. He doesn't suddenly see the all of the rebellion of mankind in the Tribulation and become angry and just get angrier and angrier at mankind. Nobody wants to have a judge who is angry; emotion blots out objective thought. These phrases like the wrath of God and the anger of God are designed to communicate the severity of God's justice. The wrath and the anger of God expresses the seriousness and the severity of God's justice and the harshness of the penalty. orge represents that judgment or penalty from an objective perspective as one might look at it as if it hasn't been applied yet; looking at the penalty thinking "that is really harsh." thumos contemplates it from the perspective of it being applied. When you see it you just want to close your eyes and not watch because it is so horrible. There are various places in Revelation where both words are used independently and some where they overlap. In Revelation 12:12 there is the use of thumos: "For this reason, rejoice, O heavens and you who dwell in them. Woe to the earth and the sea, because the devil has come down to you, having great wrath…" This pictures the wrath of Satan which is not the same as the wrath of God. In 14:10, "he also will drink of the wine of the wrath of God, which is mixed in full strength in the cup of His anger…" The word translated "anger" is orge. Drinking the wine of the wrath of God which is poured out full strength into the cup of His anger represents the justice of God as contemplated in terms of the objective sentencing; it is not applied, it is held, as it were, ready to be applied. In 14:19 we see the statement, "the great wine press of the wrath of God."

It is interesting that the phrase "wrath [thumos] of God" isn't used until the second half of the Tribulation when the fullest application of God's judgment upon the earth is seen. We see the word orge used earlier in the book. For example, in the sixth seal judgment when there is an asteroid shower or something like that is pummeling everyone of the earth and the kings and the great men of the earth say, "Fall on us and hide us from the presence of Him who sits on the throne, and from the wrath [orge] of the Lamb," this is the objective penalty that has been assessed for their rejection of Christ. This contemplates the judgment of God from the vantage point of the sentence itself. Also 11:18, "your wrath has come," the harsh sentence has come.

This all relates to basic understanding of the essence of God. God is sovereign, which means He rules over creation and is the final authority in creation. He is righteousness, and this represents the standard of His character. He Himself is the absolute standard by which everything is evaluated. Justice is the application of that standard. Both of these words that we have in the English, righteousness and justice, have little relationship to each other; but in both Greek and Hebrew the same word group is translated into both of these terms. These two concepts always go together and they are foundational for understanding what is happening in chapter fifteen. What is so interesting as we go through Revelation is that we have three series of judgments. The whole book hangs on these three series of judgments. What happens just before the execution of each one of these series of judgments? There is a scene in heaven where the angels, the four living creatures and the elders are singing praise to God, and each one of those hymns that they sing focus on God's holiness, His righteousness and His justice. We have to ask why the writer is doing this. Why does he reveal it this way? It is because these judgments are so harsh that man in human viewpoint says, Well how can this be fair, how can this be just? This is so harsh, so horrible. Yet what the writer is showing here and what the Holy Spirit is teaching us is that this judgment flows out of God's absolute purity, His righteousness and His justice; and because He is righteous and just He has to deal with rebellion and sin in this manner. He has dealt with it in another manner and that was at the cross. That was His grace, when He poured out this same kind of judgment. And that is a demonstration of the love of God, which is the next characteristic in the essence of God and it doesn't work apart from His righteousness and justice. In fact, if God was not righteous and just then His love would be nothing more than just sentimentality. It would have no substance to it, no depth, no value. Love without righteousness, without an ethical standard, an ethical absolute, is not worth anything at all. So God's righteousness and justice work together with His love. These three really come together to form the foundation of the entire essence of God, along with truth. Just as the sending of His Son to take upon Himself the sin penalty for us is as much a product of His righteousness and justice and love—and it shows His grace in providing that solution—so at the end time it is because His grace has been rejected that His righteousness, His justice and love must now pour out this kind of judgment on those who have rejected Him and upon the cosmic system and fallen angels. Because He is absolutely true (His veracity) that works with His righteousness, justice and love to form the very foundation of His character, and this never changes—His immutability.

The focal point in the first verse sets us up for understanding the justice and righteousness of God in terms of His wrath. In verse 2 this is going to be exemplified again in the heavenly vision. Revelation 15:2 ^NASB "And I saw something like a sea of glass mixed with fire, and those who had been victorious over the beast and his image and the number of his name, standing on the sea of glass, holding harps of God." The last time we saw this glassy sea it was like crystal, in Revelation chapter four, and it was before the throne of God. It is this glassy sea that separates God from His creatures. There is this distance between God on His throne and the angels, the four living creatures and the elders. There is something that separates them from Him and that is His character: His righteousness and justice. His holiness is not shared with His creatures; His is absolute. In the previous image it is a crystal sea but here it is mingled with fire. Why? That imagery of the fire is of the judgment which is about to occur. As this judgment is about to be poured out it is His righteousness and His justice that is about to be enacted and so there is the mingling of fire in this sea of glass.

Who are the ones who have victory over the beast? This is the same Greek word that is used in Revelation 2 and 3 to describe those mature believers who overcome, who are victorious in the Christian life. The word comes from the noun nike [nikh] meaning to have victory or to overcome, and grammatically it is the same format. It is a present active participle, here in 15:2 it is a plural whereas in those passages it is a singular but it is the same idea—"those who overcome the beast." This has an ironic twist because it appears that the beast overcame them because it was the beast who took their life. The next phrase, "holding harps of God," really sets up the transition for the next verse which is where they begin to sing. So there is going to be this heavenly choir of these martyred saints. This is different from what we saw in the last chapter where we saw the 144,000 with the Lamb on Mount Zion and they were singing a song that only they could sing because only they had gone through the experiences they had gone through in the Tribulation period. But these are the other martyrs and in Revelation 12:11 we have a similar phraseology, it talks about those who overcame the beast by the blood of the Lamb and by the word of their testimony, and they did not love their lives to death. So in the act of when the Antichrist thinks that he is destroying and overcoming them they are in fact overcoming the beast. It is the same sort of ironic twist seen at the cross where Satan thought he was having his greatest victory over God but it sealed his defeat.

Revelation 15:3 ^NASB "And they sang the song of Moses, the bond-servant of God, and the song of the Lamb, saying, 'Great and marvelous are Your works, O Lord God, the Almighty; Righteous and true are Your ways, King of the nations!'" Where is the orientation to worship here? It is God the Father. There is worship to the Lamb but here the focus is on God the Father, and this is indicated by the phrase, "Lord God, the Almighty," which is never used of the Son. What are these songs that are being described here? There is not a lot of clarity on this. There are two options for the song of Moses. One is the song to the Jews in Exodus 15 after Israel was triumphant over the Egyptians, their rescue through the Red Sea and their victory as God has destroyed the army of Pharaoh. Then there is another passage in Deuteronomy chapter thirty-two which also has some similar themes to it. The theme of what they are singing here is the justice and the veracity of God. The song of Moses in Exodus 15:1 is a song that focuses on God's victory over Israel's enemies. Deuteronomy 32:3, 4 has some value because it focuses on the same theme of justice and truth. Probably the phrase "song of Moses" is simply a reference to what God did in and through the life of Moses in delivering the Jews from slavery in Egypt and the way in which He fulfilled His promises to Israel and to Moses down through the ages and is about to bring those to a conclusion. Deuteronomy 32 also focuses on the fact that God is going to eventually deliver Israel again and bring them back to the land. The song of the Lamb takes us back to Revelation 5:9 after the Lamb has come forward to take the scroll out of the right hand of the Father. "And they sang a new song, saying, "Worthy are You to take the book and to break its seals; for You were slain, and purchased for God with Your blood {men} from every tribe and tongue and people and nation." The focus there is on the redemptive work of Christ which fulfilled and satisfied the justice of God. 

Revelation 15:4 ^NASB "Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify Your name? For You alone are holy; For ALL THE NATIONS WILL COME AND WORSHIP BEFORE YOU, FOR YOUR RIGHTEOUS ACTS HAVE BEEN REVEALED." The word "fear" means serious respect engendered in the creature here as we focus on His holiness, His righteousness, His separateness. His absolute righteousness is not shared with any of His creatures. When the human race looks upon the outworking of those judgments when they are all over with the conclusion will be that this was the right thing to do; yet the horror is unbelievable. 

The second part of the chapter comes in Revelation 15:5 ^NASB "After these things I looked, and the temple of the tabernacle of testimony in heaven was opened." This pulls together two Greek words: naos [naoj], the temple, and skene [skhnh] for tabernacle. naos was the word that focused on the holy place in the temple. It indicates that inner sanctum. skene is the word for dwelling, a dwelling place. The temple is the dwelling of God in heaven, and inside of it is the dwelling of the testimony. The testimony has to do with the heavenly record of God's covenant with Israel that was kept in the ark of the covenant, so this tabernacle of the testimony in heaven has to do with the heavenly record of God's covenant with man. That is the basis for His judgment of mankind. [6] "and the seven angels who had the seven plagues came out of the temple, clothed in linen, clean {and} bright, and girded around their chests with golden sashes." This is coming out of the place where was the judicial record emphasizing the fact that they are executing the decisions that are laid down in the covenants that God has made with man, and that means there is a legal basis for these judgments. Notice the description. The seven angels are clothed in clean, bright linen. Remember that in the Old Testament the priests wore garments of linen; there wasn't a mixing of threads. It indicates holiness; it is pure and bright, indicating a lack of unrighteousness, absolute purity. They have their chests girded with golden bands. Cf. Revelation 1:13. The white robe is like a priest and the golden band was a sign of judicial authority. These angels coming out are implementing the judicial decrees that are consistent with the judgment that has been delegated to the Son of Man from God the Father.

Revelation 15:7 ^NASB "Then one of the four living creatures gave to the seven angels seven golden bowls full of the wrath of God, who lives forever and ever." The word "bowl" is the Greek word phiale [fialh]. There is something dramatic that happens here at the close of this chapter. The severity of this judgment is of such a nature that it is a picture of God shrouding Himself in smoke. So He is not seen. It is like when He was on Mount Sinai. The imagery here with the sea before the throne, the reminder of Israel coming out of Egypt through the red Sea, God appearing on Mount Sinai surrounding the mountain in smoke and fire at the top, etc., all goes back to the Exodus event. But what happens here is that God is going to pour out the last final stages and it is as if God stays within the temple alone and no one is allowed back in until the judgments are complete. It is showing His holiness, His separateness, His distinctiveness, and also the harshness and severity of this final judgment, and the intensity of this judgment is so severe and extreme that God isolates Himself within His temple until it is completed. 

Revelation 15:8 ^NASB "And the temple was filled with smoke from the glory of God and from His power; and no one was able to enter the temple until the seven plagues of the seven angels were finished." This verse mirrors the statement that was made in verse one, that in these seven plagues the wrath of God will have been brought to completion. That sets us up for the instigation of these seven bowl judgments that are then going to be described in the next chapter. 

Illustrations