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.

Revelation 14:14-16

The time for God’s final judgment is at hand; John turns and sees Jesus, sitting on a cloud, wearing a crown of victory, and ready for the harvest, sickle in hand. An angel comes forth from the Temple, God’s symbolic dwelling place with the command to the Mediator to harvest His own. The scene reminds us of John the Baptist when he spoke of Jesus in Matthew 3:12: “His winnowing fork is in his hand, and he will clear his threshing floor, gathering his wheat into the barn and burning up the chaff with unquenchable fire.” Next comes the judgment of the wicked:

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

Revelation 14:17-20

Another angel comes out to announce the final judgment of the wicked, those who have refused to follow Christ and accept grace, but who instead chose to follow the beast (dragon). Then John mentions a second angel who comes from the altar. Remember that the altar and its incense has already been used by John to represent the prayers of the redeemed. Thus, we can see here that God’s final judgment is also His final answer to the prayers of His people for relief from the evil of this present evil age; interesting, don’t you think?

They go forth to harvest the “grapes” of the earth, and they are put into the winepress of God’s wrath and crushed. Instead of grape juice, blood flows from the winepress and covers an area of 180 miles (1600 stadia)… 1,600 is the product of 4 X 4 X 10 X 10. Do you recall what the number four represents? It is the number of the earth. 10 X 10 is a hundred, representing the complete and total number of the wicked, thus we can see that the earth has been entirely cleansed by the judgment of God on all of the evil that has dwelt here.

It always strikes me as interesting, when I read these verses, that we often hear people talking about going to “hell”, the lake of fire, brimstone and burning Sulphur and all of that, but when was the last time you heard a sermon about the wicked being crushed in the winepress of God’s wrath? All of these images come from non-literal passages. None of them are intended to be taken literally in Revelation, even though they are very vivid images describing the horror of opposing God. Yet we want to take one literally, and ignore the other… Maybe that is just the work of culture and tradition more than anything else.

In the next post, let’s pause and reflect on what we’ve seen in this vision, for there has certainly been a lot on display here!