Revelation 7:2

And I saw another angel ascend from the sunrising, having the seal of the living God: and he cried with a great voice to the four angels to whom it was given to hurt the earth and the sea.

Another angel ... from the sunrising ... The east is often mentioned in Revelation, and "from the sunrising" seems to mean "from that direction," the source of earth's light. Certainly, for one of God's messengers, it is more appropriate that he should come from the sunrising, than from the sunset. Who this mighty angel was we have no certain way of knowing. Beeson thought, "This refers to Christ's coming in the Holy Spirit to his apostles on Pentecost";[27] and despite Beeson's being correct in seeing the connection between the sealing and the giving of the Holy Spirit, it is not necessary to impose any specific identity upon this mighty angel. He stands in the vision as an executor of the will of God, the big thought of the passage relating not to his identity but to his great authority to control nature itself in order to prevent any frustration of God's plans to seal his servants.

Having the seal of the living God ... "Here we have an instance of words used both figuratively and literally in one passage."[28] Seal is figurative, and living God is literal. For what the seal is, see under (2) in the chapter heading, above. Of course, the angel did not carry the Holy Spirit, but the imagery is aided by the picture of his carrying God's seal.

Cried with a loud voice to the four angels ... This mighty angel clearly had more authority than the four; nevertheless, the four were angels and were already restraining the destructive forces when the mighty angel delivered his order. There is no New Testament criteria for identifying this mighty angel, unless he is understood as Michael the archangel; but there is no certainty of this. See in my Commentary on Jude, p. 534, for more on the archangel.

[27] Ulrich R. Beeson, The Revelation (Little Rock, Arkansas: Ulrich R. Beeson, 1956), p. 69.

[28] John T. Hinds, op. cit., p. 111.