Revelation 18:21-19:10
This section is divided into two parts: 17:20-24 spells out the finality of God’s judgment of Babylon, and 18:1-10 shows us the reaction in heaven.
These four verses contain images with which we are already familiar, and need no further clarification by me. They do show us a presentation that we haven’t seen before however, as the angel combines action with the spoken word to illustrate what is happening (17:21). He picks up a stone and throws it into the sea (representing this world) and then pronounces the finality of judgment. The action of throwing the stone is the illustration of Babylon’s destruction. While we haven’t seen this scenario yet in Revelation, it is fairly common in the Old testament, see 1 Kings 11:29-32; Jer. 19:11; 32:6-15; 51:60-64; Hos. 1:2-9; 3:1-5, and for a New Testament example, see Acts 21:11.
The scene shifts back to the throne room of heaven where God is seated on his throne surrounded by the 24 elders representing His people, and the four living creatures symbolizing the whole of creation as they should “Praise the Lord”. As their song continues, they once again emphasize the justice of God’s judgment (18:1-14). Notice in particular verses 1-2 and the linkage between salvation and judgment. This is not our typical Sunday School teaching which links God’s mercy and love with salvation, omitting His righteous judgment, but here we see a more complete picture. Salvation is awesome because it enables those who will accept it to avoid His judgment entirely; they are delivered from His judgment, we might say. Thus, to be delivered from evil, sin and death is to be delivered from judgment, an important theological truth many of us miss.
In verses 6b-7a we see the praises for God because of the consummation of His Kingdom and the extension of His reign over the whole of the universe, for evil has been eliminated entirely. Then beginning with 7b, we see the announcement of the wedding feast of the Lamb, a parallelism which tells us that the two are one in the same thing. Obviously, the “Lamb” is Jesus Christ. His wedding feast is the combination of two apocalyptic images, the first being the Messianic banquet we discussed previously in this study, and the second is Israel (God’s people, the church) as His Bride; God and His people are now coming together in fullness of relationship. Jesus used this banquet idea fairly often in his teaching, an example of this is found in Luke 14:12-24 where He taught that all would be “invited” but only some would accept the invitation, a scenario that represents our Revelation passage quite nicely. See also Matt. 22:1-14; 25:1-13; Luke 12:35-38.
The idea of Israel being the Lord’s “bride” in the Old Testament is found in such passages as Hosea 2:13-23; 11:8-11; Isa. 6:25; Jer. 2:1-3. The New Testament carries this theme forward in passages like Mark 2:19-20; John 3:29; 2 Cor. 11:2-5; Eph. 5:22-33, and John continues to develop this idea in Rev. 21-22.
This section wraps up with 19:10 in which John falls at the angel’s feet to worship, much to the shock of the angel who rebukes him. Notice that the angel points out that he, John and all of us are merely servants of God together, and that the testimony of Jesus comes from the “Spirit of prophecy” and not himself. I hope that we will all take careful notice of this; it is very important. I have been present when a preacher will ask someone what verses they recite to tell people about Jesus, and then conclude the person isn’t “qualified” for leadership because they don’t have something to cite directly from Scripture, as though we give testimony about Jesus on our own brainpower: We don’t. It is the Spirit within us who testifies concerning Jesus, and Scripture tells us that the Spirit will supply us with the words when we need them. Surely the Spirit within us is “qualified” to do that, and He will if we let Him!
Next time, we will finish chapter 19, and see what happens with the rest of the dragon’s crew.
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