Revelation 19:1-16

SPECIAL DOCTRINO-ETHICAL AND HOMILETICAL NOTES (ADDENDUM)

Section Sixteenth

Second Special End-Judgment, or the Judgment upon the Beast (Antichrist) and his Prophet. a. Heavenly World-picture of the Victory. (Revelation 19:1-16.)

General.—The heavenly post-celebration of the judgment upon the Harlot issues in a pre-celebration of the marriage of the Bride. For the Harlot and the Bride bear toward each other the indissoluble relation of a contradictory antithesis. Heaven, or the Church Triumphant, and not God’s Church on earth, celebrates, pre-eminently, the judgment of the Harlot; for an exalted stand-point is requisite for this celebration, and with lesser spirits, vulgar minds, it might easily degenerate into fanaticism. Even in the Heaven of consummate spiritual life, the positive result of that judgment is the thing which is first rejoiced over. The salvation and the glory and the power are our God’s. Not until after this, is the satisfaction of justice touched upon (Revelation 19:2). The perfect fixedness of the judgment is next set forth (Revelation 19:3). The whole heavenly post-celebration of the judgment is completed in an antiphony, in which the natural relations seem to be inverted, in that the twenty-four Elders and four Life-forms utter the Amen, which is supplemented by the third Hallelujah. Thus a three-fold heavenly Hallelujah is devoted to the rejoicings over the judgment. The Church of God on earth is now commanded to join in the celebration, and her rejoicing assumes the form of a pre-celebration of the marriage of the Bride. The delineation of the simple, yet august, adornment of the Bride, and the glorification of the imminent marriage, are followed by the appearance of the Bridegroom, coming from Heaven, on His warlike and victorious march against the Beast.

Special.—[Revelation 19:1-4.] Three-fold Hallelujah of the Church Triumphant over the fall of Babylon. This feature is the more significant, since it is here only that the Hallelujah appears in the Apocalypse. The Hallelujah is also philologically significant; Jehovah, the Covenant-God, is glorified, because Babylon obscured His glory and power to the uttermost through her idolatry; in that she, on the one hand, corrupted the earth with her idolatry, and, on the other, killed the servants of God, who sought His glory. The rising of the smoke of her torment becomes a Hallelujah as an eternal visible assurance that the salvation and the glory and the power of God, in redeemed souls, are established forever.—[Revelation 19:5.] The heavenly order for a general song of praise.—[Revelation 19:6-7.] The song of praise: 1. The sound of it; 2. The contents of it.—The marriage of the Lamb. It will essentially consist in the fame of God’s glory.—The beholding of the glory of God constitutes the bliss of the beatified. The bliss of the beatified is the highest glorification of God.—Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.—[Revelation 19:8.] The Bride in her adornment.—In antithesis to the Harlot in her gorgeous, but blood-colored, attire.—[Revelation 19:9.] Blessedness of those who are called to the marriage of the Lamb.—Every previous beatitude has this for its end and aim. This is true, above all, of the beatitudes in Matthew 5:0.; and also of that in Revelation 14:13.—God’s words, pure essential facts: They will be manifested to be the most real realities.—[Revelation 19:10.] Repeated repudiation of the worship offered by John to angelic beings—comp. Revelation 22:9.—The measure of inward devotion is the measure of the purity of the worship which we offer to God. This inward devotion, however, is not to be defined simply in accordance with our feeling; least of all, as a mere ecstatic sentiment; but also intellectually, and as an ethical readiness.—The witness of (concerning) Jesus, the real prophecy of this world’s history.—[Revelation 19:11-16.] The Bridegroom, in His going forth for the final redemption and emancipation of the Bride: 1. His forth-going from Heaven; 2. His character; 3. His appearance; 4. His title; 5. His army; 6. His power (Revelation 19:15); 7. His right.

Starke (Revelation 19:1): Hallelujah. There is here, probably, an allusion to the six Psalms, from the 113 to the 118, which were called the great Hallelujah, and were sung at high festivals, especially at the Feast of Tabernacles (Psalms 104:35).

Revelation 19:2, from Deut. 22:43. Splendor, power, subtlety, adherents—all cannot save when God wills to punish. He fears none of them.

Revelation 19:3, from Isaiah 34:10.

Revelation 19:4. The praise of God that issues from a heart that is full of God, fills and kindles other hearts to His praise.

Revelation 19:6. (This verse Starke interprets as holding forth the prospect of the conversion of the Jews.) Although there are diverse voices and powers, there is yet one Spirit, one faith, one consonance of the whole Church.

Revelation 19:7. The preparation of the Bride consists in her constantly becoming more qualified for the reception of all the treasures of salvation acquired by her Bridegroom.

Revelation 19:9. [Write.] The Divine authority of the matter to be recorded and of this entire Book is the more strongly indicated, the more frequent the occurrence of this expression (Revelation 1:11; Revelation 1:19; Revelation 2:1; Revelation 2:8; Revelation 2:12; Revelation 2:18; Revelation 3:1; Revelation 3:7; Revelation 3:14; Revelation 14:13).—[Revelation 19:10.] John was not mistaken in the person of the Angel, for he well knew that he was no Divine person. (Starke here wrongfully assumes that not worship, but only an humble expression of reverence, is here denoted.)

Revelation 19:11. Heaven opens before Christ, both in the condition of His humiliation and in that of His exaltation.

Revelation 19:12. Christ has, not one, but many crowns, because He has gained many victories, and is the King of kings.

Revelation 19:14. [In heaven] the faithful are resplendent in white linen, though here they may bear the cross.

Revelation 19:16. Kings cannot be happier than in yielding themselves subjects of Christ.

Spurgeon, Stimmen aus der Offenb. Joh., p. 132. [Revelation 19:12. And on His head many crowns.] The Saviour’s many crowns. Oh, ye well know what a Head that is; its wondrous history ye have not forgotten. A Head that once reclined, lovely and infantine, on the bosom of a woman. A Head that bowed meekly and willingly in obedience to a carpenter. A Head that in later years became a well of weeping and a fountain of tears (Jeremiah 9:1; Hebrews 5:7). A Head whose sweat was as it were great drops of blood, falling upon the earth (Luke 22:44). A Head that was spit upon, whose hairs were plucked out. A Head which at last, in the fearful death-struggle, wounded by the crown of thorns, gave utterance to the terrific death-cry (Psalms 22:1): Lama Sabachthani! (The death-cry was: Father, into Thy hands, etc.) A Head that afterwards slept in the grave; and—to Him Who liveth and was dead, and behold, He is living now forever-more (Revelation 1:18), be glory—a Head that rose again from the grave, and looked down, with beaming eyes of love, upon the woman who stood mourning by the sepulchre.

[From M. Henry: Revelation 19:10. This fully condemns the practice of the papists in worshipping the elements of bread and wine, and saints, and angels.—From The Comprehensive Commentary: Revelation 19:1-4. All heaven resounds with the high praises of God, whenever He executes His “true and righteous judgments” on those who corrupt the earth with pernicious principles and ungodly practices, and when He avenges the blood of His servants on their persecutors. Who then are they that throw out insinuations, or openly speak of cruelty and tyranny, on hearing of these righteous judgments, but rebels who blasphemously take part with the enemies of God and plead against His dealings towards them? (Scott.)

Revelation 19:10. If the highest of holy creatures greatly fear and decidedly refuse undue honor, how humbly should we sinful worms of the earth behave ourselves! (Scott.)—From Barnes: Revelation 19:1. All that there is of honor, glory, power, in the redemption of the world, belongs to God, and should be ascribed to Him.—From Bonar: Revelation 19:10. The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy. The theme or burden of the Bible is Jesus. Not philosophy, nor science, nor theology, nor metaphysics, nor morality, but Jesus. Not mere history, but history as containing Jesus. Not mere poetry, but poetry embodying Jesus. Not certain future events, dark or bright, presented to the view of the curious or speculative, but Jesus; earthly events and hopes and fears only as linked with Him.]

Section Seventeenth

Second Special End-Judgment. b. Earth-picture of the Victory over the Beast. The Parousia of Christ for Judgment. The Millennial Kingdom. (Revelation 19:17 to Revelation 20:5.)

General.—We must distinguish here: 1. The premise of the last time, the features of which are to be gathered from other passages; 2. Christ’s war, in His Parousia, with the Beast and the False Prophet, and the judgment upon them and their Antichristian kingdom; 3. The chaining of Satan, and the Millennial Kingdom thus introduced.

The features of the last time, corresponding to its character as here pre-supposed, are visible throughout the eschatology of the Scriptures. See Matthew 24:22 sqq.; Mark 13:21 sqq.; Luke 17:26 sqq.; Revelation 21:26 sqq.; Romans 11:0; 2 Thessalonians 2:7 sqq.; 2 Timothy 3:1 sqq.; 2 Peter 3:0.; 1 John 2:18; Judges 14:15. Compare especially the terminal points in the cycles of the Apocalypse itself: Revelation 3:20; Revelation 6:12 sqq.; Revelation 10:7; Revelation 11:7; Revelation 13:0,—beginning, particularly, with Revelation 19:11; Revelation 17:16. These traits are incipiently set forth in the Old Testament; comp. Isaiah 63:0. sqq.; Ezekiel 36:33; Ezekiel 37:21; Daniel 9:2; Hosea 14:6; Joel 3:1; Zephaniah; Haggai 2:6; Zechariah 12:0. It should be noted, that in Zechariah as well as in Ezekiel two judgments upon the nations are distinguished: viz. a more special one, followed by the restoration of Israel, and a general one, with which the end-time closes. Comp. Zechariah 12:14, and also Ezekiel 36:0 with 38 and 39.

The spiritual situation which superinduces the symptoms of the last time consists in the complete secularization of the Church—the carnal security of Christians, the spiritual luke-warmness of congregations, an extinction of the old foci of Christendom, and a corresponding extension of the Kingdom of God amongst heathen and Jews.The actual date at which the last time begins corresponds with the fall of Babylon. The consummate Antichristianity of the world has executed judgment upon the wavering Antichristianity in the Church; the former has, however, drawn an apostate of the Church—the False Prophet—into its service, and with his help it obtains a social victory, in that τὸ κατέχον is taken away (2 Thessalonians 2:6), or in that the two Sons of Oil (Revelation 11:0) are killed.

Antichristian pseudo-Christianity, expressing itself not only in hierarchical, but also in sectarian announcements of Here is Christ and There is Christ, has turned into pseudo-Christian Antichristianity; practical atheism, or the negation of all faith, has begotten a lying positivism which prosecutes human deification even to the production of the deified man, the culmination point of the Antichristian tendency. For human deification is at this Juncture no longer a “worship of genius,” but the deification of the masses—nay, more, of the Beast, of the brutal power and carnal self-seeking of the masses, and this fundamentally depraved generalization must necessarily, through the worship of agitators, turn into the worship of the agitator κατ’ ἐξοχήν.

The actual mark of the last short, but grievous time, is a social terrorism which develops in company with the principles of Antichristianity. The perverted congregation of the Beast seeks to give itself a dogmatical and symbolical shape by its sign of recognition, the mark of the Beast: the faithful fall under the subtile social excommunication of the last time. The characteristics of this grievous time are: a great testing, a great temptation, a great trial of endurance, a great purging, all of which, however, result in a great development of the sealed. The traits of the oppressed Widow thus develop into the traits of the Bride, and the cry of the oppressed forces its way to Heaven (Luke 18:1-7).

The Parousia of Christ for war and victory is here, as in the Gospels, heralded by signs in Heaven and earth. With the cosmical sign of the Angel standing in the sun and proclaiming the approaching judgment, the cosmical signs in the Eschatological Discourse of the Lord correspond. The ethical sign on earth is the consummate conspiracy of the kings, i. e., the supporters of Antichristianity, and their preparation for battle against Christ. Comp. Psalms 2:0. In respect of the day of rebellion, the following declaration holds good for ever: To-day have I begotten Thee—i. e., set Thee in royal dominion.

As to the battle itself, the Seer intimates that the same turn of affairs takes place here as in the building of the tower of Babel and in the Crucifixion of Christ, and, it might also be said, in the great persecution of the Christians under Diocletian. The point of an external combat is not reached; the Antichristian army seems to be smitten with absolute confusion (Revelation 16:10). For the Beast is taken, like an individual malefactor; with him the False Prophet is seized, and both are cast into the lake of fire. That the slaying of the Antichristian army is expressive of a spiritual annihilation, is evident from the fact that they are slain with the sword which proceeds from the mouth of Christ.

In respect to the chaining of Satan and to the Angel who accomplishes it, we refer to the Exeg. Notes. We make the same reference in regard to the Millennial Kingdom. The idea of the coming of this pervades the whole of Sacred Writ (see Psalms 72:0; Isaiah 65:0, etc.).

The First Resurrection, as the blossom of the resurrection time, as the result of the resurrection of Christ (1 Corinthians 15:0.), as the foretoken of the general resurrection, is also a time of great spiritual awakening and resurrection; to this period, doubtless, belongs the prospect of a more general restoration of Israel, for it occurs between the penultimate judgment upon the heathen ([nations] (the οἰκουμένη) and the last judgment (upon Gog and Magog).

With the first resurrection, the first new heavenly order of things is connected: the rule of Christ, in the midst of His people, over the world—a spiritual and social governing and judging as a foretoken of the last judgment.The abyss of the curse shut, the Heaven of blessing wide open: these are the characteristics of the great crisis which makes the σωτηρία visibly manifest throughout an entire æon.

Special.—The appearing of Christ in its two aspects: 1. The war (Revelation 19:17-21); 2. The victory (Revelation 20:1-5).—[Revelation 19:17-18.] The Angel in the sun, and the meaning of his outcry.—[Revelation 19:19.] The Antichristian revolt against the Lord and His army.—The spiritual combat in its form and results. [Revelation 20:1-3.] The Angel who chains Satan (see Exeget. Notes).—Satan shall receive his full dues when he shall be let loose again at the end of the thousand years. In other words, evil must live itself out, or completely accomplish its self-annihilation.—[Revelation 20:4-6.] Import of the first resurrection.—Traits from the picture of the Millennial Kingdom.

Starke (Revelation 19:18): Those who apprehend this mystically, interpret thus: That ye may spoil the goods, etc.

Revelation 19:20. Those who apprehend this mystically, explain thus: The others, who were seduced [by the False Prophet], were more gently dealt with; they were either conquered and overcome by the sword of Christ’s mouth, His word, and willingly subjected their life and possessions to Christ, or they lay prostrate, proscribed and despised, as dead bodies. Those who, like birds of prey, have impoverished and devoured others, shall themselves be devoured (2 Samuel 12:9-11).—Revelation 20:3. Marginal note by Luther: The thousand years must have begun at the time when this Book was written. Starke, on the other hand: The thousand years are not past, but to come.—Satan has his certain time to be bound and to be loosed.

Revelation 20:4. Those who regard the thousand years as having already expired, apprehend the resurrection spoken of here as a spiritual resurrection. (Starke adduces another explanation, according to which the resurrection is a physical one, but the life of the risen is in Heaven [2 Timothy 2:11-12]. The difficulty here originates, probably, in a fear of the ill-understood Seventeenth Article of the Augsburg Confession. The Seventeenth Article, however, negatives the assumption of a millennium (a) before the Parousia of Christ and the resurrection of the dead; (b) as a secular kingdom of the righteous, based on the oppression and subjection of the wicked.)

Riemann, Die Lehre der Heiligen Schrift vom tausendjährigen Reiche oder vom zukünftigen Reiche Israel (in opposition to J. Diedrich, Schönebeck, 1858). It is only by caprice that the Millennial Kingdom can here be styled the future kingdom of Israel.—Flörke, Die Lehre vom tausendjährigen Reiche (Marburg, 1859). “Our view (of the Millennium) has its point of departure in a difference with the Augsburg Confession.” (On this misunderstanding, see the remark in the preceding paragraph.) Steffann, in his work entitled: Das Ende der Zeiten, Vorträge über Offenb. des heil. Joh. (Berlin, 1870), also controverts this misunderstanding and Hengstenberg’s interpretation: “Ebrard is right in saying that, in drawing up this Article, the Reformers rejected their own view of the Millennial Kingdom and thereby opened the way for a future correct view, etc. The rôles are changed, therefore; not those who reject the Millennial Kingdom on the basis of this Article, but we, who teach it in accordance with the permission given us in this Article, stand on the platform of the Augsburg Confession” (p. 336). Muenchmeyer, on the other hand, intimates with sufficient plainness, in his Bibelstunden über Offb. Joh. (Hanover, 1870, p. 186), that orthodoxistic exegetical tradition and the ill-understood Seventeenth Article have induced him to place the Millennial Kingdom in the past. He, however, does not reckon the thousand years from the time of John to Gregory VII, with Luther, nor, with others, from the time of Constantine, but from the conversion of Germany—“according to which interpretation the thousand years are now approaching their end, if we have not already entered upon the little lime” (in which view he resembles Hengstenberg).

Hebart, Für den Chiliasmus (Nuremberg, 1859), points to the profitableness of the doctrine of the Millennial Kingdom (p. 24).—Die chiliastische Doktrin und ihr Verhältniss zur christlichen Glaulenslehre, by Dr. Johann Nepomuk Schneider (see p. 73).—Das tausendjährige Reich (in opposition to Hengstenberg), Gütersloh, 1860, p. 98. In Ezekiel 37:1-14 the house of Israel is spoken of in precisely the same manner (as in chap. 36.), and there is nothing in the chapter which could indicate that in this section the house of Israel is not to be apprehended as the natural Israel, but that the prophecy relates to the Church. (See the further remarks on the subject, p. 99. Emphasis is judiciously laid upon the fact that the part which treats of Gog and Magog follows this promise.)

Christiani, Bemerkungen zur Auslegung der Apokalypse (Riga, Bacmeister, p. 28). “Empirical ecclesiasticity must be highly overrated by those who ascribe to such a Church-historical event as the constituting of Christianity the state-religion of the Roman world-kingdom, so high an import in the history of salvation [as to date the Millennial Kingdom therefrom], not. withstanding that the benefits of this event were accompanied by many evils attendant upon the externalization of the Church” (in opposition to Keil).

Rinck, Die Schriftmässigkeit der Lehre vom tausendjährigen Reich (in opposition to Hengstenberg, Elberfeld, 1866, p. 35). This expositor places the transformation of the faithful in this time. He also assigns the fulfillment of the following prophecies to the same period: Micah 4:1-4; Isaiah 65:17-25; Acts 3:19-21; Romans 11:0; Amos 9:9-15. Rinck likewise places the people of Israel at the head of the nations in the Millennial Kingdom, and makes them the leading missionary people of the earth. The Judaizing anticipations of Baumgarten, et al., do not, however, appear with any greater distinctness than attaches to them in the view just stated. It is in any case as one-sided to drop the symbolic element in favor of the historic, as to surrender the historic in favor of the symbolic element. Can the following words be understood of the Jewish people in the historical sense: “When the multitude of the sea is converted unto him?” Israel has already, in the person of the historic Christ, taken the leading place amongst the nations, and in the persons of the Apostles it has become the principal missionary people on earth—this might suffice. According to Romans 11:0, all Israel is to be saved, after the fullness [full number] of the Gentiles has come in. In the end, only dynamical distinctions can be of weight, and when Christ comes to earth with all the elect Gentile Christians of all ages, an external preponderance of the newly converted Jewish people is out of the question. The prospect of the more general conversion of Israel is, doubtless, rightly assigned to the Millennial Kingdom. A Christ in glory will remove the last hindrance of faith for all who have failed to accommodate themselves to the offense of the cross, not out of malice, but through weakness and an obedience to Jewish traditions. For the Israelitish view, moreover, the expectation of a time of the glorification of the Theocracy on earth lay at the door, although this did not involve an approximation to the Christian modification of this doctrine. Yet even Isaiah, viewing the power of evil in the light of the Spirit, perceived that a chasm would intervene between the time of the Messiah’s humiliation and sufferings and the time of His glorification. Again, Ezekiel, in distinguishing between the corruption of the central civilized world and that of the remote barbarian world, arrived at the foreview that the victory over anti-Messianism and Israel’s restoration should be followed by a late conflict with Gog and Magog.

Volck, Der Chiliasmus, seiner neuesten Bekämpfung (Keil, Kommentar über Ezechiel) gegenüber Dorpat, 1869). “It may now be seen what importance should be attached to the position of Lünemann, who affirms (commenting on 1 Thessalonians 4:14) that the idea of an intervening space between the resurrection of believers and that of other men (Revelation 20:0.) is entirely foreign to the mind of the Apostle Paul. Precisely the contrary is true. That idea is perfectly familiar to him—a fact which is admitted by Meyer, who remarks on 1 Corinthians 15:24, that Paul, following the example of Christ Himself, has bound up the doctrine of a two fold resurrection with the Christian faith. Meyer here alludes to the ἀνάστασις τῶν δικαίων, mentioned by the Lord in Luke 14:14.”

Lavater, Aussichten in die Ewigkeit. Our Lord replies to the question of the Sadducees (Luke 20:0.) in the following terms: “Those who shall be accounted worthy to obtain that world and the resurrection of [E. V.: from] the dead, can die no more,” etc. From this it is evident that our Lord, in this passage, speaks of the resurrection of the righteous as a felicity which pertains exclusively to them.

[From M. Henry: Revelation 20:1. Christ never wants proper powers and instruments to break the power of Satan, for He has the powers of heaven, and the keys of hell.]