The Unutterable Revelation

10:1-4 I saw another angel, a mighty one, coming down out of heaven, clad in a cloud, and with a rainbow on his head. His face was as the sun and his feet were like pillars of fire. He had in his hand a little roll which was opened. He put his right foot on the sea and his left foot on the land, and he cried with a loud voice as a lion roars, and, when he cried, the seven thunders uttered their voices. When the seven thunders spoke, I was about to write and I heard a voice from heaven saying: "Set a seal on what the seven thunders said, and do not write it."

Revelation 10:1-11 and Revelation 11:1-14 is a kind of interlude between the sounding of the sixth and the seventh trumpets. The sixth trumpet has already sounded, but the seventh does not sound until Revelation 11:15 , and in between there are terrible things.

The mighty angel in this passage is described in terms which show that he came straight from the presence of God and the Risen Christ. He is clad in a cloud and the clouds are the chariots of God, for "God maketh the clouds his chariot" ( Psalms 104:3 ). He has a rainbow on his head and the rainbow is part of the glory of the throne of God ( Ezekiel 1:28 ). The rainbow is caused by the light of the angel's face shining through the cloud. His face is as the sun which is the description of the face of Jesus on the Mount of Transfiguration ( Matthew 17:2 ). His voice was as the roar of a lion which is often used as a simile of the voice of God, "the Lord roars from Zion and utters his voice from Jerusalem" ( Joel 3:16 ; Hosea 11:10 ; Amos 3:8 ). Clearly this angel has come from the very presence of God; some think that he is none other than the glorified Christ himself.

The angel has one foot on the sea and one on the land. This shows his size and power, for sea and land stand for the sum total of the universe. It also shows that the power of God stands as firm on the sea as it does on the land. In his hand the angel has a little roll, unrolled and opened. That is to say, he is giving John a limited revelation about a quite small period of time. When the angel speaks, the seven thunders sound. They are most likely a reference to the seven voices of God in Psalms 29:1-11 .

Naturally, when the seer sees the open roll and hears the angel's voice, he prepares to make a record of it; but he is ordered not to do so. That is to say, he is being given a revelation which at the moment he is not to pass on. We get exactly the same idea when Paul tells us that he was caught up to the third heaven and "heard things that cannot be told, which man may not utter" ( 2 Corinthians 12:4 ). We need not even begin to speculate about what the secret revelation was. We simply know that John had experiences which he could not communicate to others. God sometimes tells a man more than that man can say or than his generation can understand.