Life Project Blog

In our last Revelation post, we saw that John ate and swallowed a “little scroll” that was as sweet as honey to taste, and that went “sour” in his stomach. After this, John was told “You must prophesy again about many peoples, nations, languages and kings” (10:11). He ate that scroll so he could prophesy, and the chapter ends. In chapter 11 we have his prophecy concerning “many peoples, nations, languages and kings.” (cf. Rev. 11:9)

Before we continue, I must ask you to keep two things in mind: First, that these passages are not literal, they are apocalyptic and use imagery to convey a message. Second, we are still in the interlude between the sounding of the sixth trumpet and the sounding of the seventh and final trumpet. OK, got it? Here we go…

There is both a “sweet” element to this passage, and one that isn’t so sweet; a positive and a negative message. John will frame this present evil age and the Christian’s experience in it, in the light of all that God has in store for us at the culmination of the church.

I was given a reed like a measuring rod and was told, “Go and measure the temple of God and the altar, with its worshipers. But exclude the outer court; do not measure it, because it has been given to the Gentiles. (11:1-2a)

Upon reading this, we might recall that in Ezekiel 40-43, the prophet is shown a vision of the temple and told to measure it with a measuring rod. In a similar way, John adapts this image to his subject here. The temple that John had known was divided up into several courts that were clearly marked. There was the Court of Praise, located just outside of the main building into which only Levite priests could enter. Here was located the Altar. Just outside the Court of Praise was the Court of Israel where only Jewish men could go. Outside that was the Court of Women, where Jewish women could gather to pray. These three courts were reserved for Jews only, which is to say only for people who were in a covenant relationship with God.  Farther away from the inner courts was the Court of the Gentiles, where even Gentiles could come; this was the court John was not supposed to measure.

While all of this is interesting history, we must remember that this is a prophetic vision, not a history lesson; John is not concerned with the literal temple and its various courts, he is giving us an image that makes an important distinction by comparing the temple with a present day reality. Just as there was a separation between God’s covenant people and everyone else in the temple, in our existing world there is a separation between God’s covenant people and everyone else. God’s covenant people in this age has nothing to do with literal Jews and literal Gentiles, for God’s covenant people are both Jew and Gentile, for they become His covenant people by entry into the New Covenant that was established by the blood shed by God’s Son on the cross. There is a very big distinction between those who have accepted God’s grace, and those who have refused God’s grace, certainly there is a big distinction from God’s point of view.

John is taking the measure of who is and who is not sealed with the seal of God, parallel to the 144,000 of Revelation 7. The fate of those included in John’s count will be quite different than those on the “outside’ and we will see this unfold shortly when we look at the two witnesses…

Before we can do that, however, we have a little more to consider here:

They will trample on the holy city for 42 months. (11:2b)

Clearly, “they” are the “Gentiles” the ones outside of covenant relationship with God… non-Christians. They will “trample” the “holy city”. The “holy city” Jerusalem in apocalyptic writing is much more than a dot on a map. Jerusalem came to be identified with Israel, almost the embodiment of the Nation of God. It was “holy” in that it was “set apart” for God’s service, the home of the temple, which was the very dwelling place of the presence of God on the earth in the midst of God’s people. In Revelation 11, it isn’t a literal place at all, it is representative of the place where God dwells on earth now, which is in the midst of His Church, and therefore, the “holy city” is the people of God. “Gentiles” trampling the “holy city” means non-Christians mistreating Christians.

Finally, we come to “42 months”. This is a very important symbol in Revelation, one we will see many times. It has a parallel with Daniel 12 that we have seen already (Dan. 12:6-7). In Daniel, we found “time, times and half a time”. What is 42 months? Three and a half years. Expressed as Daniel expressed it, this becomes 12 + 24 + 6 = 42. Generically, time, times and half a time looks like this: 1 + 2 + ½ = 31/2. The unit of measure determines the outcome, and since John mentions months, we have 3 ½ years, but John doesn’t always use this formula with months, sometimes it is years, other times it is days, as we will see.  In John’s day, time was reckoned with a lunar calendar that had 12, 30 day months thus 1,260 days become 3 ½ years as in 11:3.

This symbol in Revelations appears as follows: “Time, times and half a time” (Rev. 12:14. “Three and a half days” is in Rev. 11:9 and 11:11. “42 months” appears in Rev. 11:2 and 13:5. “1,260 days” appears in Rev. 11:3 and 12:6.

It is vital that we understand that all of these symbolize the same thing: In every case, they represent the period of time between John receiving the revelation of this book, and the final consummation of the Church; this entire age in which we live.

Therefore the message of 11:1-2 is that Christians will be persecuted from the first century AD until Jesus returns to the earth. That was the case for John, who received this revelation while in exile (being persecuted) on Patmos, and continues today, and will continue until Jesus returns.  In verses 3-6, John will elaborate on this, but we’ll have to wait until next time for that discussion; see you then!

One last subordinate image remains before we continue into chapter 10; the trumpets themselves. In this vision, John describes the future from his day until the final judgment and consummation of the ages within the context of seven trumpets, imagery that runs deep in Jewish tradition. There are several possible meanings that can be cited, each of which may make sense in understanding John’s intentions. Among them are these:

First, trumpets were used as a call to celebration, as in Num. 10:10. If this is John’s intent, then the sounding of trumpets could be a call to celebrate God’s kingdom rule.

Second. Trumpets were used as a signal of danger (Ez. 33:3; Amos 3:6; cf. Joel 2:15). If this was his intent, John might be using the trumpets as a warning of the present troubles and calling on us to take shelter in Christ.

Third, trumpets were part of the theophany of Mount Sinai (EX 19:6). If so, then John would be using the trumpets as a means of letting us know that God is present in all that is going on in this age.

Fourth, trumpets were used to mark the crowning of a new king (2 Sam. 15:10; 1 KI 1:39; 2 KI 9:13).  If this is so, then perhaps

John intends to show us of the impending crowning of our King at His consummation.

It is quite reasonable to assert any of these… or even all of these as John’s intention in chapters 8-9. Even so, I think that a fifth possibility makes even more sense. As I see it, the seven trumpets together are announcing the coming of the Day of the Lord. In Old Testament prophecy, the “day of the Lord” is used to describe any time when God is judging His enemies. One example of this is found in Joel 2:1-2, 10-11:

Blow the trumpet in Zion;
sound the alarm on my holy hill.

Let all who live in the land tremble,
for the day of the Lord is coming.
It is close at hand—
a day of darkness and gloom,
a day of clouds and blackness.
Like dawn spreading across the mountains
a large and mighty army comes,
such as never was in ancient times
nor ever will be in ages to come.

Before them the earth shakes,
the heavens tremble,
the sun and moon are darkened,
and the stars no longer shine.
The Lord thunders
at the head of his army;
his forces are beyond number,
and mighty is the army that obeys his command.
The day of the Lord is great;
it is dreadful.
Who can endure it?

New Testament writers identify the Day of the Lord with the Second Coming of Christ and the final judgment. Passages such as 1 Cor. 15:50-57, 1 Thess. 4:13-18, and possibly Matt. 24: 29-31 help to illustrate this.  We know that the number “seven” is the number of completion, so it may well be that John, by describing the entire time from his day to the final consummation of the church as “seven” trumpet blasts, may be telling us that this entire messy age is one long announcement of the coming of the Great Day of the Lord.

In the vision of the seven seals, John gave us a picture of the church in this age and violence perpetrated by men, governments, powers and human society. Here, in the first six trumpets, John shows us another aspect of the age and how the natural world will be affected. There are several images that are involved in this discussion:

Earth, trees grass, springs, rivers, sea and sea creatures

Trees and green grass are destroyed (8:7), sea creatures die (8:9), water supplies become “bitter” (8:11): Are these only images based upon the plagues of Egypt, or are these also wrongs inflicted upon natural creation by sinful humanity? Consider:

The time has come for judging the dead… and for destroying those who destroy the earth

From Rev. 11:18

Sobering thought, don’t you think?

It is not only God’s people who are afflicted in this present evil age, for the very creation has been warped by sin; it is not only humanity that needs redemption, but the entire Creation. Human beings in their sin have polluted and exploited the creation for their evil purposes; human beings in their sin twist and pervert God’s good creation for their evil desires. Human beings turn the present age into the present evil age. There are various Old Testament texts that seem to take this view, among them are the following:

To Adam he said, “Because you listened to your wife and ate fruit from the tree about which I commanded you, ‘You must not eat from it,’

“Cursed is the ground because of you;
through painful toil you will eat food from it
all the days of your life.

It will produce thorns and thistles for you,
and you will eat the plants of the field.

Genesis 3:17-18 (emphasis added)

The earth is defiled by its people;
they have disobeyed the laws,
violated the statutes
and broken the everlasting covenant.
Therefore a curse consumes the earth;
its people must bear their guilt.
Therefore earth’s inhabitants are burned up,
and very few are left.

Isaiah 24:5-6 (emphasis added)

Many of us yearn for Christ’s return and an end to this present evil age; so does the entirety of Creation.

For the creation waits in eager expectation for the children of God to be revealed. For the creation was subjected to frustration, not by its own choice, but by the will of the one who subjected it, in hope that the creation itself will be liberated from its bondage to decay and brought into the freedom and glory of the children of God.

We know that the whole creation has been groaning as in the pains of childbirth right up to the present time.

Romans 8:19-22

This is the first group of subordinate images; next time, we’ll have a look at some more.

I remember once when I was in the first grade, the teacher showed us a picture and then turned it so we couldn’t see it anymore, and asked us what it was. She picked me first, asking what that was a picture of, and I told her it was a picture of a train. I knew there were other things in the picture, but the train was the only thing I had paid any attention to…

I was a little surprised when other kids said it was something different, in fact nobody else mentioned the train at all! When she turned the picture around again, all of us were surprised, because nobody seemed to have identified what it really was; a cityscape. Oh yes, there was train, and roads and cars and people and a grocery store and a bay with ships and an airplane overhead… oh and city buildings too… and a policeman. None of us saw much beyond the one or two things that we were particularly interested in; none of us saw the picture, because we got hooked by one detail of the picture.

The same thing can happen with apocalyptic literature. To avoid this, I thought I’d try an experiment with you. I’m first going to write a brief synopsis of each of the first 6 trumpets, not discussing the specific images. Then, I’ll discuss the subordinate images in groups, by category of images and hopefully we won’t lose sight of the picture itself. It’s worth a shot, anyway…

The first trumpet sounds, and there is “hail and fire mixed with blood”. This storm burns up “a third of the earth, a third of the trees, and all of the green grass”. (Rev. 8:7) That might sound a bit like the seventh plague, which consisted of thunder, hail and lightning that destroyed the crops in the fields (EX 9:13-25).

The second trumpet sounds and “something like a huge mountain, all ablaze, was thrown into the sea. A third of the sea turned into blood, a third of the living creatures in the sea died, and a third of the ships were destroyed.” (Rev. 8:8-9) That sounds a little like the first plague, when the water in the Nile was turned to blood, killing all the fish. (EX 7:14-24)

The third trumpet sounds and “a great star, blazing like a torch, fell from the sky on a third of the rivers and on the springs of water— the name of the star is Wormwood. A third of the waters turned bitter, and many people died from the waters that had become bitter.” (Rev. 8:10-11) This also might remind us of the first plague, and of the 10^th plague in which so many Egyptians died. (EX 11-12).

In the next post, we’ll have a look at the fourth through sixth trumpets, and then begin our examination of the subordinate images. See you then!

I mentioned earlier that there is a parallel structure between the story of the Exodus and John’s vision in Revelation 8-11 that might help us to understand this section better or more easily. To show you what I mean I have set out the parallel below. Take a look, and let’s see what you think…

It may be helpful if I mention here that in apocalyptic passages, “Egypt” represents “the world” and “Pharaoh” represents “the king of this world”.

I am quite confident that many of you dear readers, who read through this post, this section of Revelation… and this whole study of Revelation, are reading some things that you haven’t come across before. Here, let’s just go ahead and name names: If you are more familiar with a Premillennial view of Revelation, then what I am saying here is not what you are used to. It should have been obvious to any fan of Premillennialism from the very beginning of this study that I wasn’t approaching Revelation from that point of view, for early on I pointed out that Revelation is neither literal nor chronological in nature. Literalism is the very fundamental premise of Premillennialism.

If you are a fan of the premillennial approach, that’s perfectly fine by me; my purpose is not to say I’m right and you’re wrong; far from it!  I hope very sincerely that everyone will be willing to consider the possibility that Revelation contains a great deal of insight about the world around us through the entire history of the church age from John’s time to ours, in the present day, and on to the future until Jesus returns… by whatever process that entails.

Can we do that?

By the way, if you are a premillennial fan and you wonder how I could have missed the mark as I have, you might be interested in a very old post of mine: True Confessions of a Former Premillennialist. Enjoy! 🙂