Revelation 11:18

And the nations were wroth, and thy wrath came, and the time of the dead to be judged, and the time to give their reward to thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and to them that fear thy name, the small and the great; and to destroy them that destroy the earth.

These terse references are to what has already taken place, as clearly indicated by the consistent use of the past tense, the great fact of the execution of those events being here the theme of perpetual thanksgiving and praise in the presence of God. Angry nations, sin, Satan, and death no longer exist.

And the nations were wroth ... The universal anger of the unrepentant and rebellious world as their vaunted civilization, rotten to its foundations with the corruption of sin, disintegrates and falls to pieces, is here extolled in the song of the redeemed. The answer to man's wrath was the coming of God's wrath upon the world.

And thy wrath came ... Is this a fitting subject for the rejoicing of the saved in glory? Indeed it is. The great error of unregenerated people is that they cannot be angry with evil. Why? Because the natural, unregenerated man, is himself evil. We may therefore set aside the opinions of those who reject this song as not being in any sense a Christian conception.

Let there be no false pity for the unrepentant. The fond hope that God might give them one more chance after death is contrary both to Scripture and to reason .... How much do we really care that right should triumph and evil be defeated? Much of the sanctimonious reaction of our age to just retribution is only blindness, a lack of hatred for Satan and his works, and a lack of concern for the glory of God.[92]

"There is an appropriateness in God's tailoring the punishment to fit the crime."[93] Judgment and recompense are not contradictory to love, but a necessary aspect of it."[94] The current misunderstanding and misrepresentation of God's love make it to be an attitude that is not even worthy of a good citizen, much less, of the God of all creation.

And the time of the dead to be judged ... This is a reference to the judgment which concluded the sixth trumpet; and this statement particularly makes it mandatory to view the end of the sixth trumpet as the final Advent of Christ and the eternal judgment of the last day.

And the time to give their reward ... All of these clauses are in the past tense, due to "thy wrath came" at the head of the verse. Some have tried to establish this as the prophetic tense, in order to construe these events as future; but there is no evidence at all that such is the case. The necessity of seeing this as a reference to the final judgment is derived from passages like 2 Timothy 4:8ff.

To thy servants the prophets ... the saints ... them that fear thy name ... small ... great ... Notice that all of God's people are included in this. The supposition of Vitringa and others "who understand this as a reference to the dead martyrs who at this time are vindicated,"[95] is refuted by this comprehensive enumeration of all classes of people, the small, the great, etc., who all receive their reward simultaneously at the "last day."

And to destroy them that destroy the earth ... The wicked also shall receive their reward simultaneously with the reward of the righteous, but apparently, somewhat afterwards. Their reward, however, is destruction. "On the same day, all those who fear the Lord receive their reward, while the destroyers are destroyed."[96] This corresponds exactly with our Saviour's own descriptive revelation of the final judgment in Matthew 25:31ff.

[92] Michael Wilcock, I Saw Heaven Opened (Downers Grove, Illinois: Inter-Varsity Press, 1975), pp. 107,108.

[93] Robert H. Mounce, op. cit., p. 231.

[94] Vernard Eller, op. cit.. p. 122.

[95] A. Plummer, op. cit., p. 294.

[96] William Hendriksen, op. cit., p. 160.