AN EXPOSITION OF REVELATION IV.-XXII.
PART II.-THE TRUMPETS. (Chap. 8:2-11:18.)
The First Four Trumpets. (Chap. 8:2-13.)
The last seal is loosed, and the book of Revelation lies open before us ; yet just here it is undoubtedly true that we have reached the most difficult part of the whole. As we go on, we shall find ourselves in the midst of scenes with which the Old-Testament prophets have made us in measure familiar-a part which can be compared in this very prophecy to "a little open book." In the seals, we have found also what was more simple by its very breadth and generality. We have here evidently predictions more definite, and yet the application of which may never be made known to us, as they do not seem to come into that "open book,"-do not seem to find their place where the Old Testament can shed its light in the same way upon them. Yet we are not left to that mere "private interpretation" which is forbidden us; and it is well to inquire at the beginning, what helps we have to interpretation from other parts of Scripture. The series of trumpets is septenary, as we know-just as those of the seals and vials are. Not only so, but, as already said, the 7 here becomes, by the interposed vision between the sixth and seventh, in structure, an 8. And in this, the seals are plainly similar; the vials really, though more obscurely.
This naturally invites further comparison; and then at once we perceive that the vials are certainly in other respects also a parallel to the trumpets. In the first of each, the earth is affected ; in the second, the sea; in the third, the rivers and fountains of waters; in the fourth, the sun ; in the fifth, there is darkness ; in the sixth, the river Euphrates is the scene:the general resemblance cannot be doubted.
No such resemblance can be traced if we compare the seals, however ; though the similarity of structure should yield us something. The structure itself, so definite and plainly numerical, may speak to those who have ears to hear it, and we shall seek to gain from it what we can. But there is a third witness, whose help we shall do well to avail ourselves of, and that is, the historical interpretation, which just here-strangely as it may seem-is at its plainest. There is a very striking and satisfactory agreement among those of the historical school with regard to . the fifth and sixth trumpets at least; and the harmony pleads for some substantial truth in what they agree about. We must at all events inquire as to this.
Strictly, according to the stricture, the first five verses of this chapter belong to the seventh seal; but for our purpose it is more convenient to connect them with the trumpet-series, which they introduce. The judgments following they show us to be the answer of God to the cry of His people, though in His heart for them before they cry. This is what the order plainly teaches:" And I saw the seven angels which stand before God, and seven trumpets were given unto them." Thus all is pre- . pared of God beforehand ; yet He must be inquired of, to do it for them, and therefore we have next the prayers of all the saints ascending up to God. There is now a union of all hearts together:the common distress leads to united prayer; and He who has given special assurance that He will answer the prayer of two or three that unitedly ask of Him, how can He withdraw Himself from such supplication ?
But we see another thing,-the action of the angel at the altar of incense:"And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer; and there was given unto him much incense, that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints upon the golden altar which was before the throne. And the smoke of the incense which came with the prayers of the saints ascended up before God out of the angel's hand." Thus the fragrance of Christ's acceptability gives efficacy to His people's prayers; a thing perfectly familiar to us as Christians, and which scarcely needs interpretation, but which, as pictured for us here, has this element of strangeness in it-the figure of an angel-priest. Why, if it be Christ who of necessity must take this place, why is He shown us as an angel ? " For He taketh not hold of angels, but of the seed of Abraham He taketh hold. Wherefore in all things it behoved him to be made like unto His brethren, that He might be a merciful and faithful High-Priest in things pertaining to God." (Heb. 2:16, 17.) If, then, to be the priest men need, He must be made like to men, why does He appear here as an angel, and not as a man ? There is no need for doubt that what has been answered by many is the true explanation, and that the angel-figure here speaks of personal distance still from those for whom yet He intercedes. We have many like examples in Scripture, and one which is of special interest in this connection. Those who appear in the eighteenth of Genesis as "men" to Abraham, go on to Sodom as " angels " in the nineteenth. They go there to deliver Lot, but are not able to show him the intimacy which they show to Abraham. " Just man "as he is, and " vexed with the filthy conversation of the wicked," he is yet one "saved so as through the fire." Found, not in his tent-door at Mamre, but in the "gate of Sodom," he is one of those righteous men but in an evil place, for whom Abraham intercedes with God, and when delivered, it is said of him that "God remembered Abraham, and sent Lot out of the midst of the overthrow, when He overthrew the cities in the midst of which Lot dwelt." (Gen. 19:29.)
Lot may thus fitly represent this very remnant of Israel at the last, whose prayers are here coming up before God ; who have had opportunity to have known the Church's pilgrim path, but have refused it, and to whom Christ is even yet a stranger, though interceding for them. If we remember the priestly character of the heavenly elders in the fifth chapter here, and " their vials full of odors, which are the prayers of saints " (5:8) we may see further resemblance between these pictures so far apart. And how touching is it to see how in the troubles which encompass Lot in Sodom, these angels begin to appear as "men" again ! (Gen. 19:10, 12, 16.) Sweet grace of God, shining out in the very midst of the trial from which it could not, because of our need of it, exempt us !
Thus the angel-priest, in its very incongruity of thought, exactly suits the place in which we find it. It is "the time of Jacob's trouble,"-needed, because he is yet Jacob, but out of which he shall be delivered when its work is once accomplished. (Jer. 30:7.) Thus their prayers offered are heard; and, as inheriting on the earth, the answer to them involves the purging of the earth. " And the angel took the censer, and filled it with fire of the altar, and cast it unto the earth; and there were voices and thunderings and lightnings, and an earthquake. And the seven angels which had the seven trumpets prepared themselves to sound."
This fire, because from the altar, some have difficulty in believing to be judgment. They remember how a live coal from the altar purged Isaiah's lips, and cannot see that which has fed upon the sacrifice can be any longer wrath against men. But this is easily answered ; for while, where the heart turns to God, this is certainly true, it is in no wise true for those who do not turn. For them, there is no sacrifice that avails ; rather it pleads against its rejecters :the wrath of God against sin has not been set aside, but demonstrated an awful reality by the cross; and where the precious blood has not cleansed from sin, the wrath of God rests only the more heavily on those who slight it. The signs of judgment following are therefore in perfect keeping with the fact that it is the fire of the altar that evokes them, as they are with their being the answer to the prayers of a people who cry (with the saints under the fifth seal, or with the widow to whom the Lord compares them,), "Avenge me of mine adversary." (Luke 18:3.)
Every thing finds its place when once we are in the track of the divine thoughts ; and in all this there is no difficulty when we have learnt the period to which it applies. It is a suited introduction to the trumpets which follow, and in which, according to the old institution (Num. 10:9), God Himself now declares Himself in behalf of His people, and against their enemies.
There is much more difficulty when we come to consider separately the trumpets themselves.
" And the first sounded, and there followed hail and fire, mingled with blood, and they were cast upon the earth:and the third part of the earth was burnt up, and the third part of the trees was burnt up, and all green grass was burnt up."
Hail with fire we find in other parts of Scripture, as in nature also. It is one of the most solemn figures of the divine judgment which nature furnishes. It was one of the plagues of Egypt. In the eighteenth psalm it is found connected with similar judgment. "The Lord also thundered in the heavens, and the Highest gave His voice,-hailstones and coals of fire." Electricity and hail are products of the same cause, a mass of heated air saturated with vapor, rising to a higher level, and meeting the check of a cold current. It is a product of cold, the withdrawal of heat, as darkness is the absence of light; and light and heat, cold and darkness, are akin to one another. Cold stands (with darkness) for the withdrawal of God, as fire (which is both heat and light) for the glow of His presence, which, as against sin, is wrath. And both these things can consist together, however they may seem contradictory-"hailstones and coals of fire" be poured out together. God's forsaking is in anger necessarily, and thus what would be a ministry of refreshment is turned into a storm of judgment. There is a concord of contraries against those that cast off God; as for those who love Him, all things work together for good.
The blood mingled is of course a sign of death-a violent death,-and shows the deadly character of this visitation, by which a third part of the prophetic earth is desolated, a third part of the trees burnt up, and prosperity (if the green grass implies that,) every-where destroyed.
This judgment seems to affect, therefore, especially the lower ranks of the people, though, as necessarily would be the case, many of the higher also ; but it does not affect especially those in authority. They have not escaped, as we have seen, in the general convulsion under the sixth seal; nay, the heavens fleeing away might seem to intimate that the very possibility of true government was departed. Yet this might be while in fact governments go on, and we find in what follows here that they do go on, although never really recovering themselves. Under this trumpet now begins, as it would seem, what shall really cause them to collapse. A people impoverished by that which spares the governing classes, who does not realize the danger to these of such a state of things ? And the second trumpet seems to show us in reality what we might anticipate to grow out of this.
"And the second angel sounded, and as it were a great mountain, burning with fire, was cast into the sea; and the third part of the sea became blood; and 'the third part of the creatures which were in the sea and had life died ; and the third part of the ships were destroyed."
The comparison of Babylon to such a mountain (Jer. 51:25) may put us in the track of the meaning here. It is a power mighty, firmly seated and exalted, yet full of volcanic forces in conflict, by which not only her own bowels shall be torn out, but ruin spread around. This cast into the sea of the nations,-already in commotion, as the " sea " implies-produces death and disaster beyond that of the preceding trumpet. Human life is more directly attacked by it. Such a state of eruption was in France at the end of the last century, and may well illustrate (as others have suggested) what seems intended. The fierce outburst of revolt against all forms of monarchy, the fruit of centuries of insolent tyranny under which men had been crushed, set Europe in convulsion. History is full of such portents of that which shall be, and we do well to take heed to them. Especially as the end approaches may we expect to find it so:there is growth on to and preparation for that which at last takes those who have not received the warning by surprise.
The third part of the ships being destroyed would seem naturally to imply the destruction of commerce to this extent, the intercourse between the nations necessarily affected by the reign of terror around.
(To be continued.)